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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.

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Chapter Fifteen—Calling Up the Strength

            “We can talk in private here, Mr. Malfoy.”

            I would say that we can. Draco managed to keep from glancing around as he settled into the padded chair in front of the Minister’s desk, but it was difficult. The privacy wards were so thick around the room that they actually appeared as glittering traces in the air if he concentrated hard enough. Scrimgeour had several kinds of modified wards that Draco had never seen before, and that put him right on edge. He had no idea what would happen if Scrimgeour cast a spell at him behind them.

            Maybe this is the way he trapped Harry, Draco thought, even as he forced himself to arch his back, clasp his hands behind his neck, and show nothing of his raging headache. Just asked him in here for a report, and then cast the Cassandra Curse. No one else would feel Dark magic from behind these spells, either.

            That, obscurely, comforted Draco. For one thing, he knew he could use certain curses if he needed to, curses that might make the difference between life and death. And it also reassured him that his opponent wasn’t actually as confident as he pretended. If he were, he wouldn’t have needed all these wards around his office in the first place.

            “Minister,” he said, as Scrimgeour sat down behind his desk. He had locked the door, and that completed many of the wards that had hung open until now. They began to hum at once, and Draco could see bits of light racing along them when he squinted from the corner of his eye. “What is this about?”

            “Relax, Mr. Malfoy,” said Scrimgeour, with a negligent wave of his hand. Draco had always thought that he looked like a lion, and that was even truer up close, where his mane of hair flared impressively around his head. He had a severe stare, but not as severe as Draco knew his own to be, or as he imagined that Scrimgeour would look when confronting Harry. Of course, he was also extremely unlikely to let anyone else see that stare he would use when confronting Harry. “It’s nothing bad. Given your recent troubles with our renegade Mr. Potter, I thought you might like to know that we’re close to capturing him.”

            Draco made himself sit forwards and lower his voice hopefully, instead of reacting the way he wanted to and drawing his wand. “Really?” he asked.

            “Oh, yes.” Scrimgeour lifted his head, and the smugness in the motion made Draco long to erase the smile from his face, simply and permanently. There were so many ways that he could do that: mention what he knew about the Cassandra Curse, name Harry in a friendly tone, cast a curse that would force Scrimgeour into a public confession of all he had done and all he knew concerning his treatment of Harry…

            But, no. I considered that punishment before, and decided that it’s not painful enough, remember?

            With regret, Draco forced himself to pay attention to the pompous idiot’s words and not his own fantasies. Scrimgeour was talking about the tale that he had assigned Harry’s idiot friends to carry, he realized slowly. The Ministry believed that Harry was hiding somewhere in Scotland or the Hebrides, and they were close to locating a man whom they believed matched his description and had run from their Aurors.

            “And of course no one would run from the Aurors unless they had done something illegal,” Scrimgeour concluded triumphantly.

            Or unless they had good sense. Draco forced himself to fold his hands and use a patient expression. “Then you aren’t aware of the latest news that I was about to tell Eugenie?” he asked. He might as well let Scrimgeour know about the close connection between them by using Eugenie’s first name. He would have to have been blind not to have sensed it by now, given the close terms he’d found them on in Eugenie’s office.

            Scrimgeour sat up at once. “I have not,” he said. “Why did you not come and tell me at once?”

            Draco gave him a cool look, which he knew completely concealed the fact that he had just decided on a new tactic and was running with it—a tactic that might or might not be a result of the headache battering behind his brows. “We have hardly been friends,” he said. “And I was under the impression that you still regarded me with suspicion from the unfinished business that my family has with the Ministry.” That was the polite way of saying that his mother had fled to France just ahead of the Aurors.

            “None of that matters.” Scrimgeour waved his hand again. “I must know this news, Malfoy. It is imperative that we catch Potter.”

            Draco let his eyes widen innocently, simply because he knew that would madden Scrimgeour. “But why is that? I was under the impression that the Ministry hardly cared about what happened to him anymore. I mean, he’s mad, isn’t he? So why isn’t St. Mungo’s looking for him, so that they can put him back in the Janus Thickey ward?”

            Scrimgeour curled his lip. “As much as it pains me to admit it when I don’t personally like Potter,” he said, “the Ministry is responsible for his medical care, since he went mad on the job. We should be the ones to find him. St. Mungo’s doesn’t have the resources, and frankly, since you resigned from Psyche-Diving, it’s probably lost the one person whose mind is devious enough to track Potter. It’s a compliment, Mr. Malfoy, I assure you,” he added, when Draco opened his mouth.

            Draco took a deep breath and ended up inclining his head. Nice save. If this were a Quidditch match, he would have applauded Scrimgeour’s acting like a professional Keeper. Of course that was a plausible reason for the Ministry to look for Harry. And St. Mungo’s, which Draco knew from experience was perennially low on both funding and competent staff, would have been happy to accept the Auror Department’s help.

            “Tell me the news,” said Scrimgeour, acting the part of the man who had done some distasteful duty for the good of his country, and not wanted a countryman to help him. Not, his posture said, because he wanted to hunt Potter down and lock him away forever. But it had to be done, whether he personally thought it was fair or not, and that meant that he would do his duty.

            Strange that someone like this can so persistently misjudge Potter, Draco thought, as he stared into Scrimgeour’s eyes and prepared to risk it all, since of course he had no actual news of Harry being elsewhere. But maybe it’s the actor’s disease. Someone who lies all the time starts thinking that all other people are liars.

            “It’s just a rumor, mind,” said Draco, and let his voice drop into the realms of caution. “And it’s so incredible, I probably wouldn’t have believed it myself, but it came from sources I trust.”

            Scrimgeour made a shoving motion, and then leaned forwards as Draco glanced around once, pretending to reassure himself that the privacy wards really were as thick as they’d looked.

            “I heard a rumor of something called the Cassandra Curse,” said Draco. “That Potter has been under it the entire time, and that’s the reason he’s gone mad. That he hasn’t actually gone mad at all, but that he’s been damaged by the curse, and he’s conducting a long-range plan to get back at the Ministry the only way he can, since of course no one will actually believe him.”

            Scrimgeour’s face turned the color of cheese curds. But that was the only visible sign he showed. The next moment, he closed his eyes and gave a sigh of sorrow that was just slightly too exaggerated. Someone with less experience than Draco had with lying might even have believed him.

            That’s right, Draco thought, watching him. You think your secret’s out now. And with any luck, you’ll react the way I want you to, and panic, and step up your efforts to catch Harry.

            At least, he thought that would be the effect. His brains were more than slightly scrambled, still, by the headache and the successful Legilimency on Eugenie.

            “Ah, yes,” said Scrimgeour. “That was the nonsense that Potter was babbling on about the morning that he tried to commit suicide, apparently, or so Auror Weasley told me. I’m afraid that it can’t be trusted, just like anything else he says.” He shook his head ruefully. “How very far the Hero of the Wizarding World has fallen. And I never would have seen him end up like this, if there were something I could have done to prevent it.”

            Yes, Draco thought, staring at the man and extremely glad that he wasn’t a Legilimens. You would have seen him end up mad or dead, or locked up permanently in a ward where everyone knows they never take anyone except people who are incurable.

            If there were any more doubt in Draco’s mind that Scrimgeour had cast the Cassandra Curse, or that he remembered doing so, it was gone now. The man’s reaction when he heard the name of the curse had been too extreme. He would have frowned slightly, perhaps, if he had remembered hearing of the curse in the way he said he had.

            Unless he’s anticipating my reactions and fooling me, because he wants me to think that he knows about the curse for some reason of his own…

            Draco shook his head sharply, dismissing the suspicions. Unless he wanted to distrust his own instincts now, which wasn’t on, then he had to accept that they were telling him the truth. And it had been the truth that Scrimgeour didn’t want anyone to think that rumors of the Cassandra Curse were anything but madness.

            He forced himself to shrug. “You’re probably right, sir. It was certainly the case that Auror Potter couldn’t tell the truth to save his life when he was under my care, if you’ll excuse the pun.”

            “I reckon that you’re right glad to be rid of him.”

            A testing thrust, that one. Scrimgeour wanted to see his true attitude towards the man he would believe had frustrated Draco and tricked him.

            Draco lifted his head and let just a bit of balked pride through. “Well, sir, a curse would have explained why I failed to treat him—the first patient I have ever failed to cure—if he were under one.”

            “But he wasn’t,” said Scrimgeour softly. “Surely you would have found evidence of that if anyone could, Psyche-Diver Malfoy?”

            Flattery. Someone probably told him that I drove myself half-mad trying to get any respect from the soft-hearts at St. Mungo’s.

            “I like to think so,” said Draco, and stared at his hands.

            “I would not have you doubt yourself,” said Scrimgeour, and his voice warmed. “You are the one who created the profession of Psyche-Diving from nothing, after all. You should be proud of your accomplishments, not disappointed that one man managed to defy your codes—the same man who defies all codes ever laid down.”

            He is a better manipulator than I gave him credit for, Draco thought. But not quite as good as I am. Of course, no one is that good.

            He let himself seem to brood a moment longer, then stood. “If that’s all, Minister, then I should return home and continue to contact what clients for Psyche-Diving that I can. My decision to leave St. Mungo’s may have been…precipitous. I am having trouble finding sane people who are quite as eager to have their souls examined.”

            Scrimgeour smiled. “I am sure that you will find many more in the future, Mr. Malfoy.” He hesitated, then leaned forwards, a fatherly kind of worry written all over his face. “Might I suggest, if you return to St. Mungo’s in the future after Potter is again incarcerated there—“

            Draco laughed. Scrimgeour paused, then laughed himself at his own slip. “I am clearly too accustomed to thinking in Auror terminology,” he said.

            Tell yourself that, Draco thought, eyes half-lidded as he let his chuckles subside. Just tell yourself that.

            “That you stay away from him, if Mr. Potter does return to the corridors of the Janus Thickey ward?” Scrimgeour nodded to him. “It would be best. Best to avoid temptation. Best to avoid continued harassment of yourself by Potter. Once a mad patient fixates on one idea, as I’m sure that you have had opportunity to notice, he does not tend to let it go, and I’m afraid that Mr. Potter may attempt to make sure that you are on his side, or whatever he was truly trying to do to you.”

            Draco bowed his head a little. He thought this was probably Scrimgeour’s version of a subtle warning. Scrimgeour was saying that he had talked to someone in St. Mungo’s about Draco’s behavior around Harry. It might have been the mediwitch who had tried to kill Harry and whom Draco had terrorized in return; it might have been a Healer who had looked in through the observation window one day and seen them lying locked in a partial embrace. Draco didn’t know for certain, and it didn’t really matter. He already knew that Scrimgeour was his enemy, so to him the tactics were just part of the game and not at all worrying.

            Scrimgeour’s greatest victories were accidental. For example, it was out of the question for Draco to go back to Eugenie right now and explain why he had wanted to convince her that the Cassandra Curse was real, since Scrimgeour would watch him on the way out of the Ministry. And that meant Eugenie would have time to think about the charge, and turn it over in her head, and perhaps react in a very different manner than the one she would have used if Draco had been there to guide and shape her first impressions.

            Ah, well. It could not be helped. Draco thought he might have a way to convince her later, though it would require contact by owl instead of personally.

            And then there were his ideas for ways to use Lila when Scrimgeour began hunting—as he surely would—in panic for the source of the rumors about the curse.

            All in all, Draco thought as he bowed and then departed the room lightly rubbing his temples, I did not do too badly. I do not know why I doubted myself.

*

            Harry was waiting when Draco came home. He knew that he needed to make his request right away, or he would lose his nerve altogether. So he steeled himself, and said, when Draco lifted his head to see him standing in the entrance hall not far from the doors, “I’d like to borrow a Pensieve if you have one. Please.”

            Draco closed his mouth, raised his eyebrows, and then said, “Don’t you want to hear what happened at the Ministry? I saw the Minister himself, and he’s cleverer than I thought he was, but still not as clever as he thinks he is.”

            Harry considered it, but then he felt his courage slipping away. He had never known himself to be so weak. He wondered for a moment if the curse had left actual scars on his soul, but he thought Draco would have told him if they were there. “In a little while,” he said. “The Pensieve first.”

            Draco surveyed him closely for a moment more, then nodded and drew his wand. “Accio Pensieve,” he called, and Harry heard a distant whizzing sound. Draco studied him again while it came nearer, and added, “I’ll be going with you into whatever memories you pull out, of course.”

            Harry straightened and glared. He thought it was enough that Draco knew what had happened to him, without seeing the damage so close and at first hand. Besides, he had to show that he could stand by himself, without Draco accompanying and coddling him all the damn time. “No.”

            “Harry,” Draco said. “Be reasonable.”

            “I am,” said Harry, and forced his voice to calm so that he wasn’t shouting quite so much. “But you’ve done enough, Draco. I want to do this on my own. And I don’t—“ He shook his head, because he couldn’t say that he didn’t trust Draco with the memories. If there was anyone in this room whom he didn’t trust, it was himself. “I don’t want you to see my weakness and think worse of me than you already do,” he said. His voice didn’t shake. That was reason enough to be proud.

            Draco crossed the room in two strides and hooked his arms together around Harry’s waist. Harry closed his eyes as he heard the Pensieve settle on a table nearby. He was going to collapse or melt into the embrace in a moment, and he couldn’t have that. He shook himself and stepped out of it, Draco letting him go only reluctantly. Those warm hands sliding down his hips nearly undid Harry again.

            “You—you can’t,” Harry managed to say, though it was a little breathless. “Or else I’ll never know if it was my own strength that let me face them, or yours.”

            “You’re very strong,” Draco said quietly, a caressing tone in his voice that Harry had never heard before. He reached out and stroked the skin under Harry’s ear, as if he thought that was a place Harry might not mind him touching. “You don’t need to worry about that. I’ve never thought you were weak, Harry.”

            “Yes, but I do,” Harry said plainly. “And to be worthy of someone like you, to match you, to hold your interest—“

            “You already hold my interest—“

            “To be an equal to you,” Harry finished, with no small amount of determination, “I have to enter these memories on my own. Swear that you’ll stay here.”

            Draco closed his eyes, as if he were wondering why he should agree to this mad idea. But then he nodded, still keeping his eyes shut, and stepped away from the Pensieve.

            Harry gave him a shaky smile, which of course he couldn’t see. “Thank you,” he murmured, and then faced the Pensieve with a long, slow release of breath. After all, he’d hardly ever had a good experience with the things.

            But he put his wand to his temple anyway, and drew out a long, thin, silvery strand of memory which seemed to keep on coiling, like a stubborn hair, long after he was ready for it to be over. He dropped it in the Pensieve at last, and watched in nervous anticipation lest it overflow the bowl. But it didn’t, and he relaxed and bent over the surface, sticking his head beneath it before he could change his mind.

            He found himself again in the flat he had shared with Ginny, seeing her swing around to face him with accusation in her eyes, and misery behind the accusation, the day he had first begun to lie—at least, to her ears. He looked past Ginny’s face, painful as it was and as much as it commanded his attention, and watched his own eyes instead.

            He saw the stunned shock in them, and the desperate scramble for an explanation. He watched himself try to contact Ron and Hermione, and have a version of the same scenario repeated with them.

            The Pensieve showed the truth. Harry would find it much harder to fool himself when he was watching memories here. He knew that. So he scanned every line of his face, every blink of his own eyes, every motion from the way he turned his shoulders to the way he lifted his head to how he scrambled back from the hearth, the Floo powder falling through his numb fingers, as he realized that all his best friends seemed to be against him.

            He saw many things.

            He did not see the weakness he had feared, the ignoring of an obvious option which someone intelligent, like Draco, would have spotted at once. He had done the best he could under this instance of the operation of the Cassandra Curse. He could criticize himself, yes, but he could not condemn his behavior.

            He shuddered limply with relief, and then the memories continued, and Harry tensed up again, searching for the moment when he could have done something differently and had not—

            It did not come.

            Confronted with his past, the march of his failures and his increasing desperation once more, made Harry ache, but he knew it was also giving him the strength to move forwards and stop brooding on what he had already done. The future was more important than the past, wasn’t it? So he should focus on that—how he would punish Scrimgeour, how he would get his friends back, how he would live with Draco and the strange demands that odd relationship would place on him. He had done what he could. Now it was time to live.

            He watched in silence after that, wincing now and then but always nodding, accepting that he had exhausted his choices and finally made the only decision he could. And that had been a good decision, hadn’t it? It had led him to St. Mungo’s, and the only ally he had that he really trusted; Lila and the woman Draco had gone to convince today didn’t count.

            It had led him to Draco.

            Harry forced himself to watch the memories of Draco touching him in St. Mungo’s, though they made his face burn, and sighed. Yes, even then he’d been reacting to that touch, and more than was warranted. He could say that he was lonely, but no one else, save perhaps Ginny, could have got that reaction from him, of helpless wonder and hunger for more. He was trembling when Draco cupped his cheek, for God’s sake.

            So he had to make plans that Draco was a part of. Harry still wasn’t entirely sure why Draco wanted to be a part of them, but this wasn’t about Draco; it was about him. He needed Draco, so he would accept him.

            His own reactions to Draco were still embarrassing. Well, as time passed, maybe he could get used to that, too.

            He pulled free of the Pensieve at last, and faced Draco in silence. Draco said nothing at all until Harry had scooped up the memories from the Pensieve again and pressed them gently back into place in his mind.

            “Well?” he asked.

            “I’ve decided I could have done nothing differently,” Harry said, and kept his voice calm and simple. Strained lines of worry gathered around Draco’s eyes. Really, he worries that much about me? But I’m going to be all right now. “Suicide was a desperate plan, but the only one that would have worked. I was watching the memories of my past under the Cassandra Curse. I wanted to know where my weakness set in. And—it wasn’t weakness. Or I think it was only perceived.”

            He shook his head. “It’s still going to take me some to time to accept that. But I think I’ve made a good start.”

            Draco again crossed the distance between them swiftly, but this time Harry knew he was coming and didn’t mind so much. He was slightly surprised when Draco took his mouth in a kiss, but maybe this was Draco’s way of dealing with his worry.

            Feeling very much as if he would laugh and cry both at once, Harry leaned in and returned the kiss with interest. He’d be all right. He’d get there.

            In the meantime, he was very interested in getting somewhere else, and started to tug Draco in the direction of his bedroom.

            Draco drew back, smiling slightly, almost self-deprecatingly. Harry tilted his head, wondering what he’d say.

            “My turn to take a risk,” Draco muttered, and then raised his voice. “I suppose it’s too soon to ask if you’d let me make love to you?”

            “How many times do I need to say yes?” Harry retorted, wondering if Draco thought the times they’d made love already didn’t count.

            “I mean—differently,” Draco said, and his voice cracked. “All the way. Fucking, except I’d prefer not to call it that.”

            And Harry blinked, and couldn’t think of a thing to say—caught between courage and the promise of pleasure on one side, and doubt and the mental murmur of But I’m straight on the other.

*

            McAbacus: It is sort of strange that Draco prefers Harry’s mind to anyone else’s, isn’t it? Of course, he’ll have to get over that if he wants to continue Psyche-Diving.

            Darthkripple: You might be on the money there. Harry’s always had trust issues, and I think the time under the curse probably came close to damaging him irreparably.

            Mangacat: Draco felt that Batty is too loyal to her family to really blame him, and she can’t back inside the wards.

            Thrnbrooke, Myra: Thanks for reviewing!
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A Determined Frame of Mind