Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

A Determined Frame of Mind	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16811 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 12
- 13
- 14
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirteen—Human Again

            Moments after he had asked his question, though, Harry knew the answer.

His mind flitted to the way that Batty had hummed around their breakfast—not something she should have done after seeing Harry with her master—and then to the letters to Ron and Hermione that he had left on the table near his bed. He grimaced, his eyes sliding shut. He was almost certain that Batty had taken those letters after she had seen them kissing last night, and posted them to his friends. They would have had time to travel a fair distance if she sent them yesterday evening.

And of course Ron and Hermione would show up, not believing the letters but determined to discover what Draco might know. Harry was also sure that Batty had left information attached to the letters so that they could be tracked back to Malfoy Manor. Or maybe he’d put references like that in the letters himself; he could no longer remember.

“Harry?”

Draco’s voice brought him back, Draco’s voice and Draco’s hands gently straying up and down his wrists, rubbing on the scars. Harry let his eyes fall open again, and his smile return, so that Draco wouldn’t panic, then said, “I think it might be my fault that they’re here.”

He explained, as concisely as he could. Draco’s lips tightened, and Harry thought he wanted to ask several questions, such as, “Why did you write letters to your friends when you could have come to me?” or “Why didn’t you tell me at once that Batty was making unpleasant remarks about me?”

But perhaps he sensed that it would be stupid to ask Harry questions like that now. He just inclined his head and murmured, “We have two choices, then, since I doubt they’ll leave us alone any time soon, and I don’t want them to get fed up and go to the Ministry. I can go out and face them alone. Or you can come with me.” His thumbs rubbed over the scars on Harry’s wrists again, which seemed to be his favorite gesture. Harry wondered idly if he believed the wounds would break open again and drain him of life.

            They wouldn’t. Harry had promised, though it was still a fragile, wondrous thing to him that Draco cared about him enough to secure a promise against killing himself. After all, Harry’s death would have solved some of Draco’s problems as well as his own.

            “I’m coming with you,” he said.

            Draco cocked his head. “Are you sure? You can trust me not to hurt your friends, Harry. I might find them irritating, but they’re important to you. I don’t want to cause them pain.”

            Harry nodded. “I know. But even if you can persuade them to leave, they might still be suspicious and ask the Ministry to investigate. There are—several courses that I can take, even though they’ll still believe that I’m under the Cassandra Curse.” He steeled himself for what he knew would be an unpleasant exercise any way he looked at it, and slid off Draco’s lap.

            Draco caught his wrist again. “You are not to hurt yourself unnecessarily,” he whispered harshly.

            Harry couldn’t help himself; he laughed. “Believe me, Draco,” he said, “I know enough about pain by now to not want to suffer any of it unnecessarily. But I also know that it isn’t the worst thing in the world. I’ll survive, especially with you at my side.” He tugged at Draco’s hands in turn. “Come on, now. Can you Apparate us to the gates of the Manor the way you did with Lila?”

            “Yes,” Draco said. He stood with an odd expression on his face. Harry shrugged it off. He would have time later to find out what it meant, just as he would conduct investigations into Draco’s many other peculiarities. What bound them and hovered between them still half-terrified him, but he knew he had very little choice except to adapt to it. What hovered between them was also too powerful not to last years.

            Years with Draco. So strange to think about.

            But he put that aside, all but the firm nugget of trust that said Draco would come with him to the front gates, and not harm Ron or Hermione, and not abandon him. If they were to have years, he couldn’t learn all the truths he’d need in a day.

*

            Draco kept a close eye on Harry as he wrapped his arms around him and dropped the wards so they could Apparate. Sometimes he forgot just what Harry had managed to survive—Harry seemed so emotionally fragile in the wake of the Cassandra Curse, and he had gone so sweetly helpless under his hands when Draco touched him in just the right way—and then Harry would make some casual remark that reminded him. Suffering had become so much a part of Harry’s life that Draco doubted he noticed it any more.

            Someday, he vowed to himself as they vanished, I’ll make joy the normal condition, and he’ll never think about suicide again.

            They appeared at the front of the Manor, but behind the gates, which separated them from Harry’s friends. Granger had just drawn back her wand as if she was about to try her spells against the wards, but she dropped it and stared openly when she saw them. Beside her, Ron Weasley’s face was grim and shadowed, and he nodded. He seemed to have expected what he saw more than Granger had.

            “Good morning,” Draco said, keeping his manner as cool and effortless as possible. Harry tugged in his arms, and reluctantly, Draco let him go. He would have preferred to keep his body turned and stand between Harry and any danger. Harry moved up beside him, resting one hand lightly on Draco’s shoulder. Draco didn’t let his face show it, but that pleased him immensely. He echoed the gesture in his own way, letting his hand lest rest on the small of Harry’s back.

            “Harry,” said Granger, and her eyes filled with tears. Her hand reached out, hovering tentatively, then dropped when Harry made no movement to come to the gate and take it. She sucked in her breath, swallowed the sobs, and wheeled on Draco. “How could you take him away from St. Mungo’s?” she hissed. “You know he’s sick, that he needs care—“

            “I am not sick,” Harry said, only a fine tremble under Draco’s palm telling him the extent of Harry’s frustration. “I’m under a curse. Draco was the only one who managed to see through it, because he gave me a piece of his soul.”

            Draco wondered for a moment if that was the wisest piece of information to spread around, and then decided it would work, since it solidified his claim to Harry.

            Besides, from the look on Granger’s face—half-sorrowful and half-weary, as if she were dealing with a problem that had lasted years and was simply too much for her—she didn’t believe him anyway.

            “I know that you think that, Harry,” she said, the sound of patience lost and dragged back and kidnapped once more behind her voice. “But that’s not true. You need the help of the Healers. And if they say that you need to spend some time on the Janus Thickey ward, that’s what you need to do.”

            “I was the Psyche-Diver assigned to his case,” said Draco, not bothering to raise his voice. A quiet but piercing tone could make all the difference in the world. “I certainly didn’t give permission for him to be moved.”

            “Oh, shut it, Malfoy,” Weasley said. His own wand was out now, and it didn’t waver like Granger’s had done. “I know all the excuses. You failed to treat Harry, and then you kidnapped him so that you could continue working on him in private. Do you even realize how sick that is? Couldn’t you accept his madness and pass him on to a Mind-Healer who would be able to give him the gentleness he needs?”

            “Stop insulting him.”

            Draco looked down at Harry, pleased, but wary as well. There was no crack in his voice, but something dangerous: the same smoothness that had been there when he discovered Kingsley Shacklebolt in Draco’s study. He’d drawn his wand and had it pointing at Weasley. He’d also stepped forwards to cover Draco with his body.

            Draco would once have rejoiced in the sight of Harry Potter choosing him over his best friend. And the disbelieving, miserable look that passed over Weasley’s face was even better. But all he could think of now was the pain that it would cause Harry when he shook off his anger and realized exactly what it meant, that he’d put Weasley on the wrong end of his wand.

            He caught Harry’s wrist and rubbed his scar again, shaking his head slightly when Harry looked at him. “They can’t believe you, remember?” he whispered. “And it’s through no fault of their own. We know who to blame.”

            Harry took several deep breaths, evidently blowing out his fury. His trembling shoulders eased down, and he lowered his wand. But then he shook his head and said the last thing Draco had expected. “I want to say the words that built up under the Cassandra Curse. I know they can’t retain their truth, but if I don’t say them, it feels like they’ll tear open my chest and lay waste to my lungs.”

            Draco rubbed the hand on the small of Harry’s back in circles. He would have nuzzled Harry’s face to convey his happiness and pride, but he thought it was too intimate a gesture to perform in front of relative strangers. “Then say the words,” he murmured. “It’s about time that you felt comfortable talking to someone besides me.”

            Harry nodded and turned to face Granger and Weasley.

He was just in time to catch a spell from Granger, who had worked it nonverbally and with such slight movements of her wand that Draco hadn’t detected it. It crackled towards Harry like an inverted blue lightning bolt, but spent itself uselessly against the wards. Draco felt cold brush across his cheek. If the spell had struck, it would have rendered Harry more helpless than any Body-Bind and less aware of his surroundings, just an inanimate object to be transported wherever Granger chose.

From the shaking of Harry’s body, he’d recognized it, too. But Draco, craning his neck to catch the expression on his lover’s face, knew the shaking came not from fear or pain, but rage.

Granger asked for this. Draco kept silent, other than moving his hands in circles of support, while Harry launched all the built-up anger and torment directly at his friends.

“It is a curse,” he said, his voice building from a snarl into a roar. “The Cassandra Curse. I tried to tell you. Not that you could listen, with the curse blocking your ears to the truth of my words and making you dislike me. The only time it yields is when I’m so badly injured that I would die otherwise.”

“Harry—“ Granger began, in a tear-choked voice that Draco didn’t pity one bit. She’d had her chance to listen.

“Shut up, Hermione,” said Harry. He was standing taller now, and Draco wondered if he realized that he was confessing the imprisoned truth not only to his friends but to Draco as well. Maybe he did, or maybe he didn’t care any more who was listening as long as he got to speak. “Don’t you remember the day someone cursed me in Knockturn Alley, so badly that I would have died if you hadn’t happened along? What did you remember as you were struggling to heal me? I saw your face. You were free of the curse for those few moments, weren’t you? You could tell that something changed, couldn’t you?”

Granger shook her head, but she seemed to have lost the ability to speak. Harry whirled on Weasley. Draco noted with vicious satisfaction that the other man’s blue eyes were no longer steady; shadows darted across his face like clouds swept by a strong wind.

“And you, Ron,” Harry continued relentlessly. “You were the one who found me after I tried to kill myself. I was so badly wounded that you would have lost me if you hesitated and thought it was a prank. How did you feel when you were healing me? How did you feel when I was being wrapped up and transported to St. Mungo’s?”

“That was just—I mean, my best friend tried to commit suicide, no matter how mad he seemed!” Weasley said loudly. “I can’t—you have to understand—“

“But you could have thought it was just a plea for attention,” Harry said, and his voice was laced with acid and fire. “That’s the way that you think of it now. I’d got bored flirting with the front page of the Daily Prophet, so I came up with a new tactic to earn sympathy. That’s what you think, isn’t it? Be honest, Ron.”

*

            Harry knew he shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as he was. Apart from anything else, there was a battle going on behind Ron’s eyes, just as there was behind Hermione’s, the struggle to remember. And they weren’t to blame. He should remember that it was the curse, always and only the curse, that had changed things between him and his friends.

            But he’d spent a year telling himself that—not letting himself strike out at the world even when he was on the edge of screaming with frustration, because no one around him knew what they were doing or realized how much they were hurting him. Indeed, in their eyes, he was the one hurting them. He had to be calm, had to be patient, had to repair the relationships as much as possible so that he could have his friends by his side if he ever discovered who cast the curse and forced them to take it back. Or, at the very least, if he had to vanish into the Muggle world as he’d finally planned, he wouldn’t leave his friends with such horrible memories of him as he might have, as long as he kept the arguments to a minimum.

            And now he was tired of that. So tired. And his relationships with Ron and Hermione wouldn’t be the same anyway; he could admit that to himself when he thought about it. If they were true friends, they would understand his outburst and excuse it when the curse was gone. He deserved the chance to shriek if he wanted to.

            From the way Draco leaned against his back, he understood and approved.

            “Harry, I—“ Ron said.

            Harry almost gave in then, seeing the honest confusion in his friend’s eyes. But he remembered the spell Hermione had tried to cast against him, and his resolve hardened. That was a spell the Aurors used to bring in the most hardened, dangerous criminals, the ones who couldn’t be trusted not to destroy themselves and a handful of other people just for fun. Either the effect of the curse had strengthened or she had progressed to thinking he was more than just a liar and an attention-seeker. Either way, he couldn’t trust them right now.

            “Think about it,” he said, and stepped as close as he could to the gate without leaving his position against Draco. “Think about it, Ron, not shove it to the back of your mind the way the curse wants you to.” He cocked his head, wondering if he could use this conversation as a tool to open their minds after all, and not just relieve his. “If I hurt myself again,” he said, lifting his wand, “what would you think, I wonder?”

            Draco’s hands tightened, on his hip and his arm, holding him firmly but undeniably still. Harry tilted his head back to look at him, and Draco ducked his head so that his lips were less than an inch away from Harry’s ear.

            “Remember your promise,” was all he said.

            Harry thought about protesting for a moment. He wouldn’t have tried to kill himself, just cause himself a great deal of pain so that the curse would be fooled and ease its clutch on his dearest friends for a moment—

            Well. Maybe there’s not such a great deal of difference, after all.

            He turned to face Ron again, intent on expressing himself about some of the more stinging insults Ron had given him in the past year, and found Ron with his hackles almost bristling, his eyes darkened with hatred. He was looking at Draco, though, not Harry.

            “It’s worse than I thought,” he breathed. “You didn’t kidnap him from St. Mungo’s just because you were infuriated that you couldn’t cure his madness, you took him so that you could fuck him.”

            And Harry lost his half-recovered hold on his temper.

            The wards protected Ron from his magic—at least for the moment, until Draco lowered them—but not from his words.

            “You wouldn’t know a thing about it, would you, Ron?” he asked, and the level of sharpness in his voice startled even him. “You have no clue what it’s been like for me. To have everyone turn away from me. To lose my fiancée. To know that I couldn’t come to you with problems the way I could in school, because you’d turn me away as a liar and someone unfaithful to your baby sister. To work the hardest cases the Department had to offer, and then to catch a few hours’ sleep, and heal myself of any wounds I’d taken—because no one else would touch me unless they were almost fatal—and stagger out to do it all over again.” He laughed. It hurt. “You should at least have objected to the insane schedule they assigned me in the name of Departmental efficiency. No one else could have stood the kind of stress they put me through. And they all thought I was lying whenever I asked for a holiday.”

            “You can’t—Harry, listen—“

            And Hermione tried to say something, too, but Harry wasn’t having it. He was going to get this out if it killed him.

            “There was no one to touch me. Do you know how often I just wanted a touch from someone that wasn’t a blow? Do you know how often I talked to the dead? Sirius and Dumbledore were more real to me in the last year than you and Hermione were, because at least they would listen instead of judging. And do you think it was easy, being abandoned, no matter what the reason? If I’d stayed on the Janus Thickey ward, I doubt that you and Hermione would have bothered to visit often. A few quick and guilty, furtive trips, and then you’d try to forget. And you’d be relieved, deep down.”

            “Harry, that’s not true!” Hermione’s eyes were shiny with tears in a way that he’d never been able to ignore when he was in his right mind. But none of them were, none of them were, Harry thought, taking comfort from the way Draco’s hands held and anchored him, because there was nothing else.

            “Do you know what it’s like to hope that you do die when you try to kill yourself, even if the suicide attempt was a desperate last-minute plan, because not waking up has a lot to recommend it? I remember now. There were moments after I cut my wrists when I hoped that I’d die, Ron, that you wouldn’t be in time. It would just be so much easier.

            “I know it’s not your fault. I know. But telling that to myself just killed me faster. There was no one to blame, except the caster of the curse, whom I didn’t know. There was no one to communicate with. I didn’t talk to anyone.

            “And then Draco came along, and he was the only one strong enough, the only one who cared enough, to fight his way through the curse and rescue me. I owe him more than I can say, and you dare take that tone with him?” Harry could feel his head coming up, his eyes flaring, his magic ruffling his hair out like a lion’s mane. “He didn’t bring me here to fuck me. It doesn’t matter to you whether we’re sleeping together. Even if you were sane and my friend still and wanted me with you instead of back in St. Mungo’s, it wouldn’t be your business. I’m not sure if I’m straight or bent or curved or anything else, and I’m terrified out of my mind half the time about it, but I’m still going to go right ahead with Draco.

            “And no matter whose fault it was, things between us are never going to be the same again. Take that away with you and chew on it.”

*

            Draco understood his part in the unfolding drama very well, though he doubted anyone else had the same level of comprehension. Granger looked destroyed by what Harry was saying; though she wouldn’t take it as the literal truth, the tone behind the words would come through, and the Cassandra Curse might even exaggerate it. Weasley had shut his eyes and was shaking his head slowly back and forth, as if that would suffice to shut out Harry’s words.

            And Harry had needed to say those things, and he sagged back against Draco now with a little sigh, as though his words had been a hot gas floating him upright and he needed to rest now.

            Draco thought it wise to end the encounter. Harry had spoken more fully than he realized, and told Draco more than he might have after a morning of coaxing. They needed to retire and consider the way they’d deal with those revelations.

            First, of course, Draco would need to remove the memory of what had happened from Granger and Weasley. They couldn’t be allowed to leave the Manor reporting that Harry was there. Even if they warned everyone they met not to bother Harry, word would reach Scrimgeour, and both Draco and Harry would be in more danger than before.

            Besides, Draco had a plan in mind to let Harry’s friends help Harry, even if they didn’t realize they were doing so.

            He drew his wand, aimed it past Harry’s head, and murmured, “Obliviate.” Thanks to his control of the wards, his spell pressed through them where Granger’s hadn’t managed, and blanketed their minds in silence. Granger’s eyes glazed. Weasel’s jaw went slack. Draco sneered, not at all surprised that Ron had had the stronger reaction.

            Harry twisted around to look up at him. Draco expected accusation in his face, but after a moment of staring, he simply nodded, as if to say that he accepted they had to do this, and better Draco wield the Memory Charm than him.

            “All right,” he said. “What will you tell them?” His hand settled on the side of Draco’s neck, as though he wanted to renew his touching of the morning.

            “This,” said Draco, and spoke in the stern and reassuring voice he knew from experience worked best with victims of Memory Charms. “You saw convincing proof that Harry wasn’t here, but that I believed him to be in Scotland. Concentrate your search there. It’s the only way you’ll ever find him before he goes too wild and does himself, or the Ministry, irreparable harm. Be sure to tell everyone you meet, so that someone can reach him and help him.” He was particularly proud of how earnest he managed to sound on those last words.

            Granger and Weasley nodded mechanically, and then turned away and marched to the outer limit of the wards preventing Apparition. They were gone in moments. Draco watched, narrow-eyed, until he was sure they wouldn’t turn back, and then put his wand away.

            “They’ll draw attention,” Harry murmured. “Scrimgeour’s attention. What are you planning, Draco?”

            “To make myself seem even more like an ally of the Ministry than I did previously,” Draco murmured, close to his ear. “And to focus the Minister’s attention on Scotland. Meanwhile, I have our next move planned. Lila’s good as a start, but she’s not enough. There’s someone else I plan to target in order to change her mind.”

            “I don’t think you’ll ever get Umbridge to like me,” Harry complained, making a face.

            Draco laughed. “Not her. I was thinking of a certain Department Head who’s flirted with me in the past, and who I’m more than happy to return the favor to—since it’ll get me into her office. Of course, there’s the complication that I wouldn’t be so much flirting with her as altering her mind…”

            “Good,” Harry murmured. “I wouldn’t want to have to be jealous.”

            Draco stroked his shoulder for a moment, and asked, even though he knew it should wait until after he’d confronted Batty and punished her, “Did you mean what you said? About not knowing if you were straight or bent or curved?”

            Harry turned to face him, his head lifted and his eyes forthright.

            “I don’t know what I am,” he said. “A straight man acting bent, for right now, if I had to choose. But I want to stay with you, Draco. And not just because the sex is fantastic, or because you’re the first person to touch me since this curse forced me into exile. I’ve been happy yesterday and today, and I know that I couldn’t be as happy with anyone else.”

            Draco caught the back of his neck and pulled him into another kiss. Harry gave as good as he got, even striving forwards to press his mouth more and more deeply against Draco’s, making satisfied little moans.

            Harry accepted Draco’s plan to use his friends. They’d caught Batty’s disaster in time to turn it into an advantage. And Harry was happy.

            Life was so sweet at the moment, Draco mused, that he didn’t know how he’d stand it.

            But he would find some way, because Merlin knew he deserved every bit of this.

*

            Mangacat: I promise that some Harry/Draco scenes are coming up which won’t be interrupted. ;)

            McAbacus: Believe me, Harry knows how much he owes Draco, and is striving to repay him.

            Not sure if you found this chapter heartwrenching or not; I do hope you enjoyed it.

            Thrnbrooke, LadyKatie, riddlestar: Thank you for reviewing!
- 12
- 13
- 14
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

A Determined Frame of Mind