Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Let Me Be Your Voice	By : Queenie_Mab Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 8661 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations from Harry Potter, created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers: Bloomsbury, Scholastic, and Warner Bros. No money is being made and no copyright infringement is intended

Chapter List
- 17
- 18
They washed quickly, exchanging shy glances. When they stepped out, the Room had provided a pair of fluffy white towels hanging from hooks on the wall.

Harry couldn’t help but notice Malfoy had seemed to close up since he’d mentioned topping and was dying to know why, but he felt like he was still walking on eggshells and didn’t want to blow his chances by asking uncomfortable questions.

When they had dressed, Malfoy looked up at Harry.

“Spit it out,” Malfoy said with a sigh. “I can see your mind working. What are you thinking about?”

Harry Summoned the ruined Slytherin tie from where it had fallen on the mattress and handed it over. He chewed over his words thoughtfully.

“Where do we go from here?” he asked. “You said before you were tired of fighting yourself, but does that mean … Are you interested …” He felt like an idiot, and Malfoy wasn’t helping by the nonplussed expression he wore on his face. “I want to —” Harry said, his words coming out in a rush. “Will you … date me? Give us a chance to see if, you know, if we can work together?”

His heart hammered in his chest as he waited for Malfoy to answer. He felt like his future hung in the balance, and if Malfoy discarded him again, Harry thought he’d lose faith in the whole idea that he could find something worth saving the world for, something worth living for.

Malfoy’s face looked troubled as he heard Harry out. Harry held his breath, wondering when Malfoy would answer.

Finally, after staring Harry down for several moments, Malfoy spoke.

“It has to be all or nothing with you,” he said, his voice soft and slow. “I’m not good enough for you, Potter. Surely you have to realise that. What would the wizarding world say when they see their saviour on the arm of a Death Eater?”

Harry felt his determination rise. Malfoy hadn’t said no, but he hadn’t said yes either. This meant Harry had to convince him he was worth the risk.

“I think,” Harry said, snaking his arm around Malfoy’s waist and pulling him close, his hand settling on squeezing an arse cheek. “I think they would see that I believe in second chances and that they should be open to them as well. I think the only thing that will heal the rift Voldemort made is love.”

Malfoy tried to keep his smirk from growing. His lips pursed together as he looked into Harry’s eyes.

“Are you saying you’re in love with me, Potter?” he asked, a blond eyebrow arching high on his forehead.

Harry licked his lips, feeling a sense of panic overtake him. He was really pants at the whole “take it slow” advice Molly Weasley had given him.

“Umm,” Harry stammered, feeling his face colour. “Can we just give it a go and see what happens?”

“Well, perhaps,” Malfoy said, his eyes looking down to Harry’s lips. “I don’t bottom,” he added flatly.

Harry wondered why that was such a big deal, but he didn’t want to blow his chance. “I can work with that.”

Malfoy met his eyes again. “What will your friends have to say? I also don’t want to be your dirty little secret.”

“I wouldn’t dream of keeping you a secret,” Harry said. “Shall we go and tell them now?”

Malfoy held up his wand and Summoned the Snitch from the bed.

Harry looked at it, and then into Malfoy’s cool grey eyes. “Keep it,” he said, raising an eyebrow suggestively. “You might like it.”

Malfoy’s face flushed, but he didn’t give the Snitch back; he put it in his pocket. “I sincerely doubt that, but I will hold onto it. It could be fun the next time we get a chance to play a Seeker’s game.”

Harry shut Malfoy’s mouth by closing his own over the top of it.

~x~

When they reached the door to the eighth-years’ tower, Harry noticed Malfoy had slowed his steps and was trailing behind.

“Go on ahead,” Malfoy said. “I’ll be right in; I just need a minute.”

Harry pulled the door open and stepped into the common room. It was packed with students from all houses and years. He spotted Ron playing Neville at a game of wizard’s chess at a table in the corner. Hermione was curled up in an armchair by the fire nearby reading a book, while her fluffy ginger-haired cat, Crookshanks, sat on the chair’s back and flicked her face with his tail. Ginny and Blaise were snuggled together in a loveseat on the opposite side of the fire while Seamus, Dean and Lavender laughed about a comic Dean was drawing.

The rest of the chairs and pouffes in the room were filled with students at tables studying or else chatting and playing games. Nobody seemed to notice that Harry had entered.

He walked over to the chess game, smiling at Ginny and Blaise as he passed, flushing a bit when she winked at him.

Ron was studying the board in earnest while Neville grinned on the other side, leaning back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest.

“Harry!” Neville said, when he saw Harry approach.

“Hey Nev,” Harry answered, and turned to Ron. “How’s it going, mate?”

Ron scowled, not looking up from the board. “How did you get to be this good at chess, Neville?” he muttered, then knocked his king over with a finger, finally looking up at Harry.

“Where the bloody hell have you been?” he demanded, taking out his anger at losing on Harry. He looked at Harry’s neck and his eyes grew wide. “Have you been fighting?”

Harry rubbed his neck, feeling the chafing marks that his tie had left on it, and shook his head quickly. “Not exactly,” he said. Suddenly he didn’t feel like here and now was the time or place he wanted to have this talk with Ron. “I’m tired,” Harry said feebly, though it wasn’t a lie. He had been running on fumes all day.

Hermione looked up from her book. “I think I saw Malfoy head upstairs, Harry.”

“Oh?” Harry answered, hoping he wasn’t being as transparent about his eagerness to talk to Malfoy as he felt. “Thanks. I’m going to turn in.”

Ron gave him a worried look. “Is Malfoy up to something again?” he asked, brow furrowed. “You’re spending an awful lot of time around the ferret.”

Hermione stood up and came to Harry’s rescue. She put her hands on Ron’s shoulders and started to massage them. “You know they have to stick together as long as Malfoy is cursed, Ron. McGonagall said so. We’ll see you in the morning. Sleep well, Harry.”

He ran up the stairs two at a time after saying his goodnights.

“Malfoy?” he said, pushing the door to the dormitory open.

Malfoy was lying on his back on his bed, staring at the ring on his hand when Harry approached.

Harry stopped, and looked at it, confused. “I thought you left that in the Room. Did you go back and get it by yourself?”

Malfoy shook his head wearily and dropped his hand.

“I’m cursed,” he said flatly. “No matter how hard I try to throw the bloody thing away, it always comes back to me.”

Harry picked up Malfoy’s hand and looked at the ring. He pulled it off Malfoy’s finger.

“Budge up,” he said.

Malfoy scooted over to make room for Harry to climb up beside him.

Harry pointed his wand to his own bed and closed the curtains around it with a spell, then closed Malfoy’s curtains and cast a Muffliato Charm on them so they could talk without being disturbed.

“The curse is in the ring?” Harry asked, looking down at Malfoy where he lay with his eyes closed.

“In the ring, in my blood, I’m not sure,” Malfoy answered with a shrug. “I’m exhausted.”

“Can I wear it tonight?” Harry asked, watching Malfoy’s eyes open and blink up at him.

“Why?” Malfoy asked, then smirked. “You don’t think that’s moving too soon, exchanging rings?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “No, you git. I want to see if it will end up back on your finger if somebody other than you wears it. May I?”

Draco shrugged again and tugged at his robes. “Suit yourself.” He sat up and looked at Harry. “Are you planning on sleeping in my bed?”

Harry slipped the ring onto his ring finger on his right hand. It felt heavy and evil, though he didn’t say anything about it to Malfoy.

“Huh?” he asked, noticing Malfoy was looking at him as if waiting for an answer.

Malfoy rolled his eyes and pulled his robes off, tossing them to the foot of his bed. “If you’re going to sleep with me, you’d better take off your clothes. I don’t want to wake up being scratched by inferior fibres.”

Harry smiled despite himself, happy to be able to stay. He stripped off and put his clothes and glasses in a pile beside Malfoy’s, then climbed under the sheets, wrapping himself around Malfoy’s slender body. He pressed his lips to Malfoy’s shoulder, the heaviness of sleep drawing him under within minutes.

His bare feet burned as he felt his way through the darkness, groping at the cold earthen walls of the passage he found himself in. A light glinted at the far end which he could only see when he forced his eyes to open against the pain of the swelling on his face. The scent of blood and mould attacked his nostrils, filling his lungs with their putrid stench. He stumbled, stepping on something hard, feeling his ankle twist as pain shot up his leg. Nearly there.

Harry came to the end of the passage blocked by a wooden door. The light streamed through the cracks around it where it was held up by its rotting frame.

He knocked, feeling his bruised and bleeding knuckles scream at the rough splinters in the wood.

It opened, sending him sprawling face first onto the filthy dirt floor.

When he forced his eyes to open as much as he could, he found himself looking at the skull of a long-dead human body, lying in exactly the same position he was now in. He felt the acid in his stomach rise into his chest, burning his throat. And then the pain came, a horrible twisting pain that snaked through his entire nervous system, setting it on fire while his limbs contorted trying to fight it off.

Forever later, the curse lifted and he heard a cold high-pitched voice split his head from somewhere above him.

“Lucius,” Voldemort’s voice hissed on, drawing out the S in his name. “I have made all of the preparations. Come now and get to your feet. It does not do to keep Lord Voldemort waiting.”

Harry pulled himself up, forcing himself to stand on his twisted ankle, to fight the pain in his face in order to look his master in the eye.

“My Lord,” he said, his voice hoarse and parched. “My son …”

“Enough!” Voldemort spat angrily. “Your son has earned his punishment and suffered through it as you have. He has now learned his position amongst my Death Eaters.” Harry flinched at the realisation of what Voldemort had put Draco through. “Now you will bind him to yourself and yourself to me so there will be no more secrets among us.”

Harry felt his eyes burn with tears that had no room to fall. He saw the ring, his father’s ring, held in Voldemort’s ghostly white palm as a wand was pushed into his bleeding hand.

“Where is it?” Harry asked, gulping, knowing he had to do what he could to survive. He had to do what he could to keep his family alive.

“There,” Voldemort hissed, pointing to the corner of the room.

He turned towards the sound and his eyes fell on a small Muggle boy, chosen specifically because he resembled Draco, chained to the wall by his neck, his blond hair gleaming in the light from the torches. He turned his large grey eyes upon Harry, face frozen with fear, and Harry could only think of how innocent Draco had been at that age as he lifted the wand.

His hand trembled as he took aim. “My son,” he whispered under his breath. “I’m sorry.”

The room filled with green light, though Harry closed his eyes as the spell hit.

Harry sat bolt upright in bed, heart thudding hard and fast. He was Harry, not Lucius Malfoy, and he was here, now.

He looked around. Malfoy slept peacefully, curled on his side, his lips parted in a half-smile.

Harry wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked down at his hand. He still wore the ring and he knew now what this ring was.

Slowly he reached for his clothes, moving with caution, trying not to rouse Malfoy. He struggled into his trousers as the ring began to grow hot on his finger.

He hissed in pain and Malfoy sat up in bed and turned to look at him.

“Potter? What are you doing?”

Harry winced and pointed at Malfoy’s robes. “Get dressed, quick. It’s a Horcrux. I need to get to Gryffindor’s sword.”

“I can’t understand what you’re saying, Potter, speak English.”

Harry found his glasses and pushed them on his nose. He shook his head, trying to tell Malfoy that he was trying to speak English, but it wasn’t working. The ring began to constrict around his finger, cutting off the blood flow, and Harry panicked.

He threw back the curtains of the bed and bolted out the door. His finger was numb, though the burning sensation continued to bore down into his very bones.

As he made his way across the common room, he tripped over a bump and went sprawling.

“Mr. Harry Potter, sir,” Dipsy the house-elf, said bowing low. “Dipsy is sorry to be tripping you with his feet.”

Harry clutched his hand in pain as he heard Malfoy enter.

“You, elf,” Malfoy shouted. “Get us to McGonagall, immediately!”

He ran to Harry’s side and tried to prise the ring off his finger. “Please!” he said, and Harry saw the look of pure fear on his face as he begged the elf.

Harry gritted his teeth against the pain, expecting his finger to pop clean off, and then the sensation of being squeezed through a long tube overtook him, and he felt his hand in Malfoy’s and the elf’s hand holding on tightly to his wrist.

When Harry opened his eyes again, he shouted for Dumbledore, and Snape and McGonagall, but all he could hear in his ears was hissing.

“Help us!” Malfoy shrieked.

Harry heard the sound of Dumbledore and Snape’s hurried voices, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying through the pain.

“Potter, give it back to me,” Malfoy’s voice finally made itself heard through Harry’s pain.

Harry ground his teeth together. “It’s no use, I can’t get it off!” The pain was excruciating and he thought he wouldn’t be able to withstand another second as Malfoy yanked the ring off his finger.

“The Sword, Harry,” Dumbledore’s portrait said, swinging forwards.

Harry spotted the ruby-encrusted hilt just inside and leapt to reach it, as he heard Malfoy’s voice scream and dissolve into cries and curses.

The Horcrux had awakened.

Harry grabbed the sword and swung back around to see Malfoy staring into the cold grey eye of his father on his finger. The voice that came from the ring gave Harry the sensation of déja vu as it spoke: “My son. I’m sorry.”

“Take it off!” Harry said, holding the sword ready to strike. He wouldn’t do it while Malfoy had the ring on his finger.

Malfoy looked up at Harry, no longer screaming in pain. His eyes were full of tears.

“I can’t, Potter. He’s my father.”

“You can!” Harry said forcefully. “I was there; I saw it happen. He did it to save your life. He loves you and knows you need to do this to be free!”

Malfoy shut his eyes, sending a volley of tears flooding down his cheeks. He pulled the ring off with his eyes still closed.

“I’m sorry too,” he cried, and set the ring on the desk.

Harry raised the sword and struck, and the grey eye that had appeared in place of the Malfoy crest was gone. The ring rolled in two pieces on its band and fell broken upon the desk.

Harry forced himself to breathe as the pain returned to his hand.

He dropped the sword and fell into Malfoy’s arms, McGonagall’s shrill voice the last sound he heard.

~x~

“Where am I?” Harry mumbled, struggling to lift his eyelids. They were heavy, but he managed it, only to have to shut them immediately against the blinding light streaming towards him from a window.

“Harry?” Draco’s voice said earnestly.

Hearing his first name from Draco made him try again, this time squinting as he lifted his eyelids.

“That’s my name,” he said.

Draco’s face came into focus, though it was still blurry. He tried to lift his hand to feel if his glasses were on his face, but met resistance.

His eyes looked down his body, spotting his right arm bound to his side in a sort of glowing bubble.

He lifted his left arm, relieved to find that it still worked and was free.

“What the bloody hell happened?” Harry asked, blinking himself fully awake. “Where are we?”

“St. Mungo’s,” Draco answered. “Your finger … well, they saved it, but it’s scarred.”

“I don’t care,” Harry said, he moved his free hand to touch Draco’s face. “How are you? I’m sorry. Before, when I said I wanted to top, I didn’t realise what he’d done to you.”

Draco’s eyes fluttered shut as a blush spread over his cheeks.

“Potter,” he murmured. “We are not the only people in the room.”

Harry blinked again, squinting down to see the outlines of three more blurred figures standing at the foot of his bed.

Draco put Harry’s glasses on Harry’s face and Ron, Hermione and George came into focus.

Harry felt himself go red.

“Um … Hi?” he said, feeling foolish.

Hermione and George wore wide smiles at the sight of him awake, but Ron just looked perplexed.

Ginny stepped forwards then and stood beside Harry’s bed on his right side.

“Skull like a troll’s,” she said to Harry, rolling her eyes.

“Tell it to me straight,” Ron said, addressing Harry. “They’ve all been trying to tell me you’re in love with the ferret. It’s not true, right? You said you were drunk.”

Harry grinned despite himself at the the look of pure denial on Ron’s face.

“Ron, I want you to meet my boyfriend, Draco. He’s not so bad once you get to know him.”

Ron’s eyes closed as a look of pure shock came over him. “I’m just going to sit down for a minute,” he said, and stumbled to a chair.

Harry listened as his friends filled him in on what had happened during the hours he’d been put in an enchanted sleep to allow his finger to mend.

Apparently Lucius Malfoy would be called to stand for trial again, now that Draco could speak English again, though Draco wasn’t as angry with his father as he had been before. Harry insisted that he would be happy to testify to the extent they would allow what he’d witnessed while wearing the ring.

The trial for the three boys that had attacked Draco would be happening that week as well, and while Harry was all for seeing they were tried and punished to the full extent as adults, Draco convinced him that they too might deserve a second chance.

Mrs. Weasley and Professor McGonagall visited him next, while Professor Slughorn escorted the students back to Hogwarts.

~x~

Harry heard his name announced and took a deep steadying breath. Draco squeezed his hand under the table, giving him a bit of reassurance.

He rose and walked to the podium set up where the professors’ table normally stood in the Great Hall.

Professor McGonagall shook his hand, clasping it in both of hers, and then pulled him down into a hug before stepping aside so he could speak.

The sound of cheers and laughter permeated the room, as it was filled to bursting despite the Expansion Charm Flitwick had placed on it, doubling its usual size.

Harry held up his hands for silence, pausing a moment to linger on the disfigured reddened digit that had been his ring finger, further marred by a solid black band of magic holding it in place.

The Hall fell silent as Harry gave a sweeping look at those in attendance.

“Thank you,” he said, and cleared his throat, not used to using a Sonorus Charm nor hearing his voice magnified ten-fold. “Thank you all for coming to this dedication ceremony. Today we remember those who gave their lives for all of our freedom, as well as those who offered their numbers selflessly in defence of Hogwarts and to put an end to the evil plaguing our world.”

His eyes fell on the group of house-elves sitting in the front row before the house tables, looking up at him with huge round eyes full of rapt attention and obvious discomfort at being asked to sit side-by-side with wizards. Next he saw the rows upon rows of students and parents, Ministry employees, Diagon Alley shop owners, Hogsmeade residents, ghosts, and even a few Centaurs standing towards the back of the room.

“The past few months have brought many changes to our world, changes that I hope will be for the betterment of all of our lives. I stand before you not as the hero of you all, but as a survivor, just like all of you. I have lost … a lot … over the course of my life. My parents, my innocence, even my identity as a wizard, but I’ve gained so much at the same time: friends I could never replace, and a sense of purpose that I never realised I needed. All of us need something to live for, something to strive towards. That will never change. The wizard known as Voldemort did his best to spread hatred and despair. He tried to strangle our growth and our lives by putting some above others and encouraging suspicion. He tried to bring us down by pitting us against each other. But the real reason he failed in all that was because Voldemort was unable to love, and it was love that defeated him.”

Harry paused. He swallowed hard, feeling himself choking up a bit. “We, all of us, defeated him. The compassion we hold as people, and elves, and centaurs, and goblins.” He turned and nodded to Hagrid and Grawp who were sitting cramped in the corner of the room. “And giants, even. It’s love, as Albus Dumbledore always said, that will heal the rift that has been made. The love we have for our friends and family, for our lovers and our neighbours, and then compassion. Even for those we consider our rivals, or nemeses, or enemies. I am ready to stand up before you all and proclaim that I will put my past behind me and embrace my future with a clean slate. I encourage you all to look deep within yourselves and realise that we all deserve another chance.”

He turned back to focus on the table where his friends sat. Draco, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, the rest of the Weasley family, and his new friends Blaise and Pansy mingling easily with his old friends Neville and Luna, Dean and Seamus.

He held out his hand to them. “Draco Malfoy,” he said, feeling his knees shaking behind the podium, glad that it was there to hide and to steady him.

He saw Draco’s face blanch, but he coolly put on his familiar mask of indifference, which Harry recognised as Draco’s defence mechanism to hide his fear. It was strange — Harry realised then that he couldn’t tell what Draco was thinking as well as he had been able to when he had worn the ring; probably the old connection with Voldemort had worked through the Horcrux, allowing him to just know what the wearer was thinking. He swallowed his fear, and took the chance on whatever Draco’s reaction to being called out would be.

Draco looked back at him, his eyes clear and chin lifted haughtily.

“I forgive you,” Harry said. “I’m telling you now in front of everybody I can, that I forgive you. I believe you have earned your second chance and I’m happy to be able to walk alongside you as you take it.”

Draco got to his feet as murmurs and whispers broke out among the assembly. He stalked to the stage and looked Harry squarely in the eye.

Harry could feel Narcissa Malfoy’s eyes on them. She was seated at a nearby table in the front row with her Ministry escorts.

Harry swallowed hard again, not sure what Draco was planning to do, but trusting him to make a wise decision.

Draco held out his hand.

Harry smiled, looking at it, transported back to the days when the younger Draco had been eager to befriend the famous Harry Potter, but had earned a snub.

Harry put his own hand in Draco’s and shook. And the room burst into cascades of applause and stomping feet.

“Well done, Potter,” Draco said, smiling smugly, his lips tantalising in their familiar smirk.

McGonagall returned to the podium to relieve Harry of his speech duties and dabbed at her eyes with her lace handkerchief, smiling at the pair of them.

“Dumbledore would have been very proud to have seen the young men you have become,” she said.

Harry and Draco returned to their table, hand in hand, while McGonagall gestured for silence and welcomed Kingsley to speak next.

All in all, Harry thought, the future looked bright.

~END~
- 17
- 18
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

Let Me Be Your Voice