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For Their Unconquerable Souls	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 29229 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- 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
- 14
- 15
- 16
Thank you again for all the reviews! This chapter is a bit
shorter than normal, because it consists of scenes that weren�t in the original
story, and I didn�t want to trim one of the original scenes at an unnatural
stopping point.

Chapter Fifteen�Narcissa�s
Certainty

�� Narcissa
was opening her mouth to compliment Eleanor Greenbriar on the d�cor of her
drawing room and ask whether she might be permitted to look at the rooms
upstairs when Lucius�s voice struck her like a spear to the side of the head.

�� Come home at once. We have something to
discuss concerning Harry.

�� The words
were gone in moments, but Narcissa�s sharp gasp had been enough to alert
Eleanor. A strong-featured woman with blue eyes that Narcissa envied for their
piercing color�though of course Eleanor would never know of that envy�she leaned
forwards and stared hard. �What is the matter?� she asked. �Is the tea not to
your liking?� The tea was exquisite, of course, and she knew it. In the back of
her voice was a soft, delighted purr that came from catching Narcissa
off-guard.

�� The tea is
wonderful,� said Narcissa, and lowered the cup to the table. She had spilled a
few drops, she saw to her disgust, spattering the side of her hand. Lucius would
pay. She remained a moment longer
with her eyes on her hand, as if contemplating the nonexistent burns the liquid
had inflicted on her skin, and then looked up. �I have�I have received news
that I did not wish to tell you.�

�� Received
news?� Eleanor�s eyebrows crept further up her face. �Strange. I saw no owl fly
to you.� The purr grew stronger. No doubt she imagined that Narcissa would be
compelled to confess some Malfoy family secret now. The existence of the
telepathy between the Malfoy spouses was surely suspected outside the family,
for all that the Malfoy ancestors of the past had been careful with it.

�� But never careful enough, Narcissa
thought, and wished she could have aimed the thought like an arrow at her
husband. She sighed, barely letting the sound escape through parted lips,
keeping her face like a mask. �It is the absence
of an owl that alerted me to the news,� she said. �My son should have sent
me a letter by now, proclaiming that my husband had abandoned an unsuitable�liaison�he
had formed for himself. I wanted to read that letter, and receive it, in front
of witnesses. That it has not come tells me Lucius still errs.� She lowered her
eyelashes again, watching the motion of Eleanor�s hands intently. Few people
realized that one could tell as much by the hands as by the face, assuming one
was reading the right kind of person. �I had lost track of the time, and then I
remembered it, and it was�as you see.� Once again, she gestured to the drops of
tea on the back of her hand, only now picking up a napkin to blot at the
liquid.

�� Eleanor was
full of compassion mingled with glee; it twisted white lines across the back of
her knuckles. Narcissa could have given her lessons in composure, but the Greenbriars
had been connected to the Dark Lord by means of financial support, even if none
of them had been Death Eaters, and Narcissa did not consider her enough of an
ally to merit the lessons. �He is supposed to keep to his bed, and still he
chases another woman?� Eleanor gestured at the line of Narcissa�s throat and
hair. �When he has you?�

�� Yes,� said
Narcissa, rising to her feet. �And now I must deal with my straying husband.
There are truths he has too long forgotten.� It was no effort at all to let her
voice chill on those last words, considering how angry she was at Lucius at the
moment.

�� Eleanor
licked her lips, a habit of hers when she was swallowing a delicious tidbit of
gossip she meant to spread around as soon as possible. It was another fault
that Narcissa�s lessons might have cured her of, and which Narcissa would never
alert her to the existence of.

�� Narcissa
turned away with a snap of her skirts. She had created the impression that Lucius
was stronger than had been reported, strong enough to chase a lover, which
would hinder some of their enemies in case they plotted to attack Malfoy Manor
now, and confound those who had cast the curse in the first place�

�� And she had
created a problem for Lucius to deal with and clear up, shifting the blame for
her weakness from herself to him.

�� It is the least you deserve, she
addressed her husband, and walked outside the Greenbriar wards, and Apparated.

*

�� His mother
had arrived home by the time Draco returned to his father�s room. She was straightening
from a kiss she had placed on Lucius�s cheek. Her face was so pale that Draco
was certain she had spoken sharp words.

�� Lucius didn�t
look less confident than usual, but then, he had just survived a near-fatal
bout with the curse. Draco didn�t think he would lose composure over a few
harsh words from Narcissa.

�� He closed
the door and cast a locking ward, causing Lucius�s brows to rise. �I have
Rogers watching Harry,� Draco answered the look. �But still, Harry has been
known to do unexpected things. In case he does
manage to wake up and get here unnoticed to check on his patient, I wanted
to ensure he couldn�t hear us.� He looked at Narcissa. �Father told you what
happened?�

�� He did.�
Narcissa said no more than that, but Lucius flinched back into his pillow.
Draco blinked. He wondered for a moment if the relationship he would have with
Harry someday would be like that, and if he wanted it to be.

�� Draco
nodded. �He has the capacity for the blood magic,� he said. �He was the reason
Lucius survived, so he has saved my father�s life not once but twice. He is deserving
of honor, but he doesn�t feel he is.
What are we going to do to ensure that he doesn�t kill himself trying to save Lucius,
or someone else, once Father is well?�

�� Do you
truly feel that�s a danger?� Lucius folded his hands under his chin and tried
to look wise.

�� Draco
caught his mother�s eye, and barely kept from rolling his own. His father was a
strong, proud man, the symbol of the line of Malfoy right now as their current
patriarch, and Draco cared for him more than he could ever acknowledge openly,
especially now that his life was in danger. But since the curse had caught him,
Draco found himself seeing his father�s faults more often. Lucius was less
clever than he thought, less subtle than he thought, and more inclined to doubt
the word of those he should trust above all others. Draco didn�t want to change
him, but it would have been pleasant if he could have forced him to shut up for
a time.

�� I do,�
Draco said. �It�s a wonder he hasn�t died already.� He hesitated, groping for
words to explain what Harry was in such a way that Lucius would respect it, instead
of merely thinking it silly. �Father�Harry wants to pour all of himself down an
enormous well for as many people as need it. He doesn�t think about the future,
about the people who love him as separate entities. They�re just more people he
can serve. And I don�t think he acknowledges the Malfoy claim at all. He thinks
of making sacrifices for us, but we�re not special.�

�� Can anyone
be special to him, with that kind of mindset?� Lucius slumped back against the
pillows. His face had aged whilst Draco was speaking. Draco blew a low breath
through parted lips. Maybe there was something to be said for a near-death
experience in convincing his father to still his wagging tongue.

�� We can,� Narcissa
said, her blue gown shifting and shining in the lights from the lamps and the
enchanted windows, �if we offer him something that no one else has, not even
the Weasleys.� She paused, glorying, Draco knew, in the curious eyes of her
husband and son fastened on her. �A sense of home, of permanent belonging. With
people who understand him.� Her glare
took in Draco and Lucius impartially.

�� I�m
starting to!� Draco said, and a snap of anger worked its way across his voice
like ice breaking before he could stop it. �Who just explained his psychology
to you in convincing terms?�

�� More than
that,� said Narcissa. �We must learn to ensure that he understands us. The man you
have described, and the man I truly believe Harry Potter to be, will not regard
us as anything special if he is merely ordered to open his heart to us. He will
give us his service and reserve his personal regard. We would be no more than
the newspaper reporters, importuning him for some personal fact whilst not
making themselves vulnerable in turn.�

�� Draco
blinked at her. �I do plan to show
him emotion,� he said. �I plan to show him all the intimacy he desires. More than
he could desire.�

�� I will do
the same.� Lucius�s voice had a catch in it for only a moment. Then it firmed. �It
will be a pleasure to teach the boy, Narcissa. He is so lacking in subtlety as
to make almost a divine student.�

�� More suited to you than you will ever know,
Father, Draco thought, and his mother�s glance and his crossed like paired
swords.

�� Narcissa
slowly shook her head. �You flirted with him at first, Draco, remember?� she
asked him. �He is likely to distrust merely an offer of sex. As he will distrust
lessons in actions he considers evil.�

�� Lucius
folded a hand a touch too heavily on the blankets in front of him. �Then what can we give him?� he asked. �If not our
presence and our kindness and our secrets? There is no other way to show vulnerability
in return for his vulnerability that I know of.�

�� We will
give him our anger,� said Narcissa. �Our irritation. Our impatience. Our
explanations. Our fears. All the emotions that he is accustomed to soothing.�
She lifted her head and fastened her eyes on Draco. �But with that come our strengths. We cannot simply show him those, or
he will consider us invulnerable behind a polished and gleaming surface, in no
need of his sacrifices, and nothing to do with him. And we cannot only show him
need; he will serve us then, but he will not come to love us. The combination
of strengths and weaknesses, of truths,
is what will win him.�

�� Draco
shifted uncomfortably. He had never done as much with any of his lovers,
because he understood the power dynamics of relationships too well. Someone
needed to be the caretaker and defender, someone the yielding one. Draco had
played both roles in his time, though he enjoyed the more protective role more,
and played them both supremely well. One could maintain control of a lover in
either position.

�� Narcissa
was asking him to give up playing the role, to act as Harry did, and pretend
the dynamics didn�t exist.

�� We�ll seem
unnatural,� he muttered, voicing the rebellion that he could see in the back of
his father�s eyes. �Isn�t he likely to distrust that more than anything else we
can do, and think we�re hatching some evil plot?�

�� We�ll seem
natural for the first time in our lives, because we won�t be perfectly in
control,� Narcissa corrected him. Her face was shining with serenity. Draco
wished for a moment that he had her confidence, and then reconsidered. He was
not at all sure he wished to live in the world his mother�s insight regularly
led her to. �He�ll notice the contradictions and the cracks. He�ll realize,
eventually, that we�re letting him into our hearts. And that, I think, is all
he has ever asked.�

�� But that�s
what the Weasleys gave him,� said Lucius. �Our gifts will not be unique. How
are we to win him if they aren�t?�

�� The
Weasleys had too many children to give Harry the amount of attention he deserved.�
Narcissa managed to speak the words without condemnation, which was more than
Draco could have done. �And he was not bound to them by blood. He is to us.�
Abruptly, she smiled, and Draco couldn�t remember seeing her put so much warmth
in the expression before. �I assure you, give Harry Potter the merest idea that
he could belong to us by blood, really belong, and he will snap it up.�

�� Draco
tapped one hand against the inside of his other arm, frowning. He wanted to
doubt his mother, but she seemed so sure, and in any case, he wasn�t really in
the habit of doubting her. Maybe it would work, if she was sure it would. Her
will had changed the world before, more often than the world knew it had; the
incident in the Forbidden Forest where she had saved Harry�s life by lying to
the Dark Lord was only the most visible.

�� Narcissa.�
Lucius was the one who spoke with the stubbornness dripping from his tones that
Draco had wanted to voice, but not to his mother. �You must give me your word
that this will work. I will not expose myself otherwise.�

�� Draco bit
his lip. Merlin, he was getting as bad as Harry. When his father said �expose
himself,� it was an undignified image that entered his head, rather than the solemn
one that should have plagued him, that of the head of the Malfoy family giving up
all his secrets and receiving nothing in return.

�� I am
certain,� said Narcissa. �Would that you were as sure of the necessity before
you undertook one of your impulsive actions.�

�� From the
way Lucius flushed, Draco was sure something unspoken and unknown to him lay
between his parents�perhaps whatever they had been talking about before he
returned to the room. But the next moment, Lucius dropped his chin, and Draco
thought it was beautiful, and a gesture of love, how completely his father
committed himself to this plan on Narcissa�s say-so.

�� I will
give Harry a place in the secrets of my heart and allow him to see my
weaknesses, then,� he said.

�� Draco
nodded when Narcissa looked at him. His throat felt tight and full with an
emotion that crowded the line between fear and desire.

*

�� So he lay
in the bed with Harry and watched him sleep, something he wouldn�t have dared
do only yesterday. It would reveal too much of himself, how deeply and
desperately he craved for Harry to lie beside him of his own free will. Now,
thanks to the plan that said he had to reveal himself whether or not he wished
to, he could actually do it.

�� And it had
been�

�� Stunning was so slight a word.

�� Harry had
arranged himself, as if by instinct, so that he was crowded into one corner of
the massive bed. Even asleep, he had to leave room for other people, Draco
thought, exasperated. Then he wondered if that was less the result of
self-sacrifice and more the result of Harry�s habit of sleeping with other men,
and for a time jealousy stalked up and down his body, playing the keys of his
spine.

�� That had
lasted until Harry turned and cuddled himself into Draco with a little sigh,
slinging one arm halfway around his shoulders and draping a leg over his hip.

�� Draco held
himself still, eyes half-shutting. Harry shifted, and his leg fell and trailed
down so that it rested almost between Draco�s thighs�would have rested, if
Draco had shifted a bit himself�instead of over his hip. His face was softened
and flushed with sleep when Draco gazed at it, his lips so slightly parted that
they begged a kiss, his free hand sprawled up beside his head with the palm
open and the fingers curled as trustingly as a baby�s.

�� Draco had
never known sexual desire as fierce as the wish, in that moment, to stoop down
and kiss Harry on his mouth.

�� But doing
so might wake him, and Draco didn�t want to do that. He simply wanted to lie
still and listen to the pace of his breathing, to feel his warmth, to let his
mind drift through lazy imaginings of what would happen when they regularly
shared a bed this way.

�� To think
about what would happen should Harry plunge his leg between Draco�s thighs with
intent.

�� His cock
hardened, but as gently as Harry breathed. Draco lay with it an inch or so away
from Harry�s skin, and continued to listen to his gasps and mumbles, to watch
the way his lips twitched, to study the curls of his hair and try in vain to find
the same wildness in the way his lashes lay along his skin.

�� This was
more about love than arousal.

�� The moment
he understood that, Draco shuddered hard enough to make Harry�s knee slip to
the bed again. Even that didn�t wake Harry, or disturb his cuddling with Draco.
He ducked his head instead and pressed it into Draco�s chest, uttering a
wordless, contented sound, a Crup puppy finding a dark corner under its blanket
to hide.

�� His chest
aching with his held breath, Draco reached up and trailed a hand through Harry�s
hair, not touching the scalp itself. He concentrated on the feel of the curls
instead, and the way they rustled and rasped against his skin.

�� His
imagination had not been equal, after all, to the way it would feel.

�� Draco felt
a great wash of helplessness. He wanted to curl himself around Harry and hold
him there, safe from all harm, and he knew
he couldn�t. He would have to let him get out of the bed and go into danger�fighting
Lucius�s enemies, spending himself to heal, injuring himself in the pursuit of
self-sacrifice.

�� This was
the hard part about showing the truth to Harry, he thought. It made him feel
weak instead of strong, where emphasizing his strengths at least might impress
Harry and comfort himself.

�� But there
were a few things he could do to mitigate the harm and help to protect Harry.
Rogers would play a part in that.

�� So he lay
there and meditated, happy in his plans, confident that he could keep Harry
safe after all, if not perfectly safe.

�� And then
Harry woke and ruined it all.

*

�� celestialuna:
Thanks for reviewing!

�� gentlenightrain:
Draco�s feelings at this point are even stronger than he anticipated�and far
stronger than Harry knew about in the original story.

�� linagabriev:
I think it�s actually a good thing that Harry didn�t know how deadly serious
the Malfoys were about some of the things they said to him. He could ignore
them and go on his way without worrying about what they thought about him.

�� I wanted to
express in the title that the Malfoys were learning to accept Harry into their
souls, and, in a way, Harry was fighting for their souls. Plus, it�s a line
from the same poem as Bloody But Unbowed.

�� Draco has
not yet started thinking of the relationship as one of mutual support, because he
distrusts the way Harry would try to take care of him. That�s part of the
reason for the problems in the next chapters.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Thanks for reviewing!

�� hieisdragoness18:
I think this one does show more of the spell, because Draco knows more about
what it means.

�� aestheticsofhate:
At some point, I will write a
Lucius/Harry. I have no idea when, but the pairing does intrigue me.
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- 16
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For Their Unconquerable Souls