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The Shards Of His Beloved	By : EvilConcubine Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 18387 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 8
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I don't make money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
helewisetran, blackcurrent, Piracy, thanks so much! :) It's a pleasure to read your reviews.

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2. The Price of Your Body

     More days had passed; the days became weeks. Everything was the same day after day. Several times Prospero Atrax visited him again, sometimes accompanied by the other lawyer, but no matter what they told Draco about doing their best, by their very appearances, their demeanour, he could clearly see that nothing they did would save him during his trial. They'd already lost and Draco was already considered guilty, because he was merely an instrument for the Ministry to keep the votes of the electors by giving them what they wanted and making them want it in case some of them didn't care enough about punishing 'the enemy of the entire wizarding society'. He was the son of Lucius Malfoy; he was deprived of any justice beforehand. He could only imagine what the papers were doing to his name, but, fortunately, he didn't have an access to them.

     The last several nights he couldn't stop feeling that someone was sometimes watching him through the little window of his door while he was sleeping, simply because a couple of times he woke up with a start for some unknown reason and immediately heard the retreating footsteps in the corridor. It could be just a guard, making a round, of course, and Draco was probably being paranoid, since his nerves were overstrained, so he fought the uneasiness, finding no explanation for it...

     Until one night... Until one night when he was sleeping soundly and didn't hear as someone entered the cell after putting the silencing spell on the door to prevent it from making any noise while being unlocked and opened, and then closed again when some individual was already inside. Draco only woke up when through his sleep he suddenly felt something very heavy on his back, pressing him hard down to the bed, and the air was literally squeezed out of his lungs. The weight was warm, it slightly shifted, and it only took a couple of seconds for Draco to realise that it was a man lying on top of him, leaning all his weight upon Draco's definitely smaller body. The panic kicked in and any remains of his sleep were gone. As he tried to turn his face and see the person behind him, a hand grabbed the hair on the back of his head and his face was forcefully pressed into the pillow. He cried out into it and started to squirm.

"You sleep too well for a criminal," he heard the quiet and slightly hoarse voice against his ear. Draco became rigid, feeling something sharp and cold against his thigh even through his trousers. Was it the tip of a knife? He was going to be killed...

"If you try to turn your pretty face to me, I'll stab you," the stranger threatened. Draco would have started to hyperventilate in panic, but he couldn't inhale, because his face was still pressed into the pillow firmly. He started to feel dizzy from the lack of air. The suffocation and fear made him squirm again, despite the knife, but the man wasn't going to let go until Draco listened to what he wanted to say. "Be a good boy and keep your beautiful eyes away from me. Not that I think anyone's going to investigate it, but I wouldn't want you to see my face and I won't use any magic on you. I'm just going to have a bit of fun and leave. Don't bother to scream; no one's going to hear you, anyway; even the guard. A couple of Galleons has deafened him, you see... I hope you're worth it," he finished. Only then he pulled the blonde's head back by his hair. Draco inhaled sharply and coughed, trying to get his breathing back to normal, to think and to control the damned panic that made him helpless. He failed to swallow down the lump in his throat. What 'to have a bit of fun' meant he knew very well from his personal, very deplorable experience. 'Oh, gods, no. Please, don't let it happen again. Please, let it be just another bad dream. I won't survive it again...' But what could he possibly do? Lying on his stomach, pinned down and wandless, he didn't have many options. The bribed guard wouldn't react if Draco screamed, but there was a possibility that someone else would hear. There were other prisoners somewhere around. What if someone would call the other guard or anyone else? Fuck... Someone just had to hear and help. When the man's hands started to feel him up under his shirt, Draco's scream wasn't even intentional; it just tore out of his throat and didn't stop until his face was shoved into the pillow again. The persistent hand brusquely pulled his shirt up to his shoulder blades and kept touching, squeezing and rubbing his back, sides and even snaked under his body to touch his chest and stomach. Several times the bastard pulled his head back, letting Draco breath for several seconds before pushing his face down into the pillow again. It didn't leave the blond any opportunity to produce something as loud as a scream; instead something pathetic was coming out of his mouth, such as whimpering and wheezing. He tried to shy away from all the unwanted touching, refusing to believe that he was powerless to stop it all. He tried to figure out where the knife was, but he knew that even if he had it, his position wouldn't let him perform a successful attack. The man sounded very pleased with himself, his breathing sounded aroused and through the clothes Draco felt the erection rubbing against his buttocks; he was unable to recoil from it. Too panicked to comprehend everything that was going on, he missed the moment when the hand found its way under him again and unbuttoned his trousers. He became still for a moment, as he realised that the man was about to take his trousers off, and then doubled his efforts to tear himself away, writhing violently. He screamed. Somehow, it was one of the most frightening details of the entire matter, because being naked down there made it all even more real, made it closer to what was about to happen. So Draco did his best to prevent the man from peeling his pants down, trying to pull them up at the same time, writhing and whimpering loudly, despite himself.

"So shy," the rapist chuckled and pushed the desperate hands away. But Draco immediately grasped the waistband again.

"No... P-please, don't..." he whimpered, and hated himself for it. He knew very well that begging only turned on such people more, and he only humiliated himself. He also knew that his fighting was useless, but he stubbornly held the waistband, clutching it in his hands. The man pushed his hands away more roughly this time, and Draco cried out and thrashed, as he felt that his pants were quickly dragged down to his knees together with his short boxers. He felt the cool air touching the bare skin of his exposed buttocks that clenched together instinctively. The waves of cold terror travelled down his spine where he was now naked. The rapist was straddling his thighs and firmly held the blonde's shoulders with his hands, bruising the pale flesh, to make his victim leave the useless attempts to resist. They both knew that the man was going to get what he wanted, and no one was going to stop him.

"Nice. Worth two Galleons, definitely," the man purred, scrutinising the trembling body beneath him, in spite of the poor illumination. One hand let go of Draco's shoulder, the other pinned him down again, pressing against his naked back. Draco flinched violently, as his backside was touched.

"No!" He was shaking and sobbing without tears at the squeezing, caressing and light slaps. He didn't want it, he hated it.

"Shh... Hush, my sweet poppet," the bastard murmured. Draco gasped, as he felt his buttocks being parted. "Oh... You make me so hard... So fucking hard," the man chanted. The blond whimpered again at the feeling of something warm and wet between his buttocks. Saliva... His heart clenched when he heard the rustle of the fabric, knowing what it meant. The hot, hard flesh, now freed from the clothes, touched the pale skin of his thigh. Not only his heart, but his entire body clenched in anticipation of the rape. 'It's impossible... Just can not be...' He wanted to turn his face and see what the bastard was doing, but remembered the threat and remembered the knife. All he knew was that the assailant had been dressed in dark grey-blue robes before taking them off, that he was rather big, having some fat on strong muscles, and, most likely, he was middle-aged. Not that Draco thought that this knowledge would help him in any way. Meanwhile, the man spat on his palm and spread the saliva on his hard erection. Without looking Draco knew that he was doing exactly that.

"I'll make it easier for you, sweetness," the stranger panted and applied more saliva, and then he spat in the crack of his victim's quivering rear once again, once he'd opened it wide with his hands. Impatient and turned on by the sight, he lowered himself on Draco's back. The blond tensed even more, feeling the tip of the stranger's prick pressing into him, carefully at first. The tension was so strong that it seemed all the muscles of Draco's body had stiffened permanently. Any terrified attempts to struggle were subdued. 'No, no, no, no... Please, no...' His clenching muscles resisted the intrusion, so it became more persistent. He jolted when the head of the invading erection was fully pushed inside. It was then that the sharp pain made him scream and writhe, as much as the weight on top of him allowed him to. His stomach churned. Trying to stop the rapist from moving any deeper, Draco in panic reached his hands back behind him and set them against the man's thighs, doing his best to push him back. That did nothing to stop the man from shoving himself almost to the hilt; the tightness didn't let him move any further, yet. Several, a bit more persistent, thrusts solved this little problem, eventually, and the rapist was groaning with pleasure, hardly paying attention to the desperate attempts of his victim to arch his back, squirm and do just anything to make the pain stop. Annoyed by the screams, however, the man once again shoved the distorted from pain face into the pillow and held it down, punishing the thrashing with violent thrusts. Very soon shock, pain and lack of oxygen made Draco see the flashing lights and floating spots within his vision, even when his eyes were shut tight. The pain didn't let him relax and stop shaking even for a brief moment, and most of his cries were muffled by the pillow.

     Maybe he should resist with all his strength, even if he was much weaker and didn't stand a chance? Maybe he should turn and try to see the rapist's face, so he'd just kill Draco for knowing how he looked like? It's not like Draco had any future, anyway. His future was the lonely, cold death in prison without any hope to see his little boy just one last time... Maybe he should just try to turn his face, spit in the face of his tormentor and say that he'd had worse? But he did none of it, hoping that all of it would just end soon. He tried to imagine that it was just a nightmare. He tried to imagine that he wasn't here. He tried to imagine that it wasn't even a rape. He tried to convince himself that it wasn't really different from just... an injury; just some damage to his body, like a cut. It was very painful, but injuries weren't supposed to be pleasant. No, it wasn't like that... He was being cruelly humiliated, used, stripped of every piece of dignity he had possessed, and his rapist was satisfying his lust and his ego by being in control and knowing that he'd get no punishment for it. No fucking way it was just some injury.

     It was the second time he was being raped in his life. It was the second time he couldn't see the rapist's face, so the rape was going to go unpunished again. It was the other man, he smelled different, he was bigger, quite rough, but less brutal (for now, at least) and Draco was now older; in everything else it was like déjà vu. He screamed from pain, but there was no point in screaming for help. Back then he'd screamed, and screamed, and screamed, but no one had come to save him, no one had even heard how he'd been brutally violated, surrounded by the walls of his own home, his own bedroom, that had no longer given any feeling of safety. The entire night, in the darkness of his room, he'd been tormented by someone's cruel lust several times, too shocked to even count how many exactly. Not that it mattered. That person had revelled in Draco's tears, had made fun of his pathetic cries of pain and fear. And that someone could have done anything and everything he desired (which he'd done), because Draco wouldn't have managed to even identify him later.

     Just like now... The other person, but he had the same urges to assert himself, to subdue the other; the same assurance of having impunity, the same disgusting lust.

     Draco couldn't hold back tears any longer and started to weep, not sure if the memories had caused it or what was happening right now; most likely, both. And it hurt so much...

"Please, stop!.." he begged with strained, almost broken and, to his disgust, high-pitched voice, when his face wasn't pressed into the pillow, now wet with his tears and snot. He was shaking all over and sobbing without trying to restrain himself any longer.

"Almost there, sweetness, hold on..." the rapist murmured effusively against his ear, softly, as if talking to a willing lover, not a rape victim; it disgusted Draco even more. The man was fucking him a little faster now, pressing himself harder against the pale smooth backside as if trying to penetrate deeper than possible into the extremely strained and pained body. And finally he came, pressing hard into it and moaning. Draco cried out in repulsion, knowing and almost feeling through the pain that he was being filled up with the rapist's filthy come.

"Oh, fuck... Fuck... You're so hot," the bastard purred. And then he chuckled and placed the sloppy kiss on Draco's tear-drenched cheek. The heavy body finally lifted itself from the blond, exposing him to the cool air. While the stranger was putting his clothes on, standing beside the bed, Draco was trying to recover from shock or, on the contrary, run away from reality; he wasn't sure. He couldn't stop emitting quiet, but endless sobs of defeat, pain, shame, humiliation and... relief that it was over. In several minutes he raised himself a little, looking and feeling very subdued, his shaking hands reached back automatically and slowly pulled up his short boxers, despite the feeling that the rapist's semen was dripping out of him, probably mixed up with Draco's own blood; he didn't know. He just had the mindless urge to cover it, cover the disgrace. And then he just slowly lay down again and turned away, facing the stone wall absently. He was still shaking slightly, breathing spasmodically, still emitted hiccups and quiet wails. He knew that the tormentor was still here, looking at him, already fully dressed; possibly admiring his handiwork, which the broken, ravished young man was.

"Don't bother complaining about it to anybody," the man said calmly when he was satisfied with his observation. "People would believe me, not you; and I could easily make them see what a whore you are. It's not me who they consider a reprobate, it's you, so let it be our little secret for your own good. You know, people say you're good for nothing; now I know they are wrong. I'd send you flowers, but I think I'll better put some on your grave when you die in Azkaban. I don't suppose such sweet little pureblood boys live long there." And then he left.

     It took Draco more than an hour to calm down. He managed to cover his aching body with blanket and turn on his other side, but could do nothing more than that. He was in prostration, hardly here in his cell, but couldn't sleep. Part of him, a small part that could still think and feel, was afraid that the rapist would return and take him unawares again. Eventually, in the morning, he didn't fall asleep, he just sunk into the darkness...

     This morning Hermione was still working hard after the sleepless night. The stress was her common attendant nowadays, since she was fighting for human lives and human rights; though it wasn't the only reason of her often depressed mood. The guilt was still eating her alive...

After the war she'd started to work for the Ministry. Among her many ideas still had been the noble intention to free the little creatures. Why, oh why, had she been that obsessed with the idea of freeing the house elves? She'd been destined to find out the real meaning of the expression: 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. The new Ministry, that had only been forming at that period, had agreed with her in many things, including this one, they'd said that the house elves were the vestige of the past. And the new Ministry enthusiastically did away with what they considered as the vestiges of the past. Many had supported her, because she was Harry Potter's friend, because she was clever and because she'd helped to convince everyone that the world needed changes. She had realised her mistake later, when it was too late. For the unknown reason, many freed elves, including Kreacher, had died to her terror. No one knew what had really happened to them. They'd just faded away, not unlike the aging humans, only more swiftly, and quietly perished one after another within a year and a half. It had happened to more than two thirds of their population.

     But it wasn't the end of the story. Some influent politician had suggested that, since they'd let the house elves free, they could make some convicted people serve the 'good people' as an atonement for their crimes. It all had started with making some prisoners take part in rebuilding of what had been damaged during the war. But later some convicted people had ended up serving some families. The idea hadn't been working very well: two of them had escaped, though both had been found, because they'd had tracking spells on them, and the other one had killed the man he'd been serving to. People needed guarantees that nothing like this would ever happen again, so... slowly but surely the world had come to slavery. It still wasn't very common, but terrifyingly quickly it had started to be considered as something normal. It seemed especially justified, because all the money, paid for the slaves to the Ministry, went to those, whose families had suffered during the war. Some money was also being given to the organisations that spread muggle-born propaganda, making all the muggle-borns look like martyrs of the war; at the same time, they were busy with pureblood anti-propaganda. They had supported the rally with the idea to give the sack to all the pureblood politicians, just in case, because no one wanted purebloods to have any influence, since, of course, there still could be some sympathisers of the Death Eaters (Merlin forbid if anyone in the Ministry had a Death Eater among their remote kinsmen). At least, the new government used such kind of explanations as a cover for many of their deeds. But, returning to slavery: the money paid for slaves was used for such noble purposes! Who cared if some part of that money (gained for the legal human trafficking) stayed in the Ministry in someone's pocket? Who cared if some human beings were treated as property if they surely 'deserved' it? How comfortable it was to calm consciences with such words as: 'deserved punishment', 'atonement' and 'debt to the society'. And the slavery itself was called 'penal labour', 'correctional work'; or anything that made people feel better and sleep well. The embittered war victims, especially those who'd lost their loved-ones to the Death Eaters, had accepted such things frighteningly easily.

     Hermione was in dismay. What had started as her attempt to make the world better, had turned into a complete farce. She was responsible for so many deaths of the magical creatures, had made other mistakes, and now... this. It was a very cruel lesson. Even if she was a witch, a very smart witch, it hadn't really been her world from the start; the ideas that could have worked in the muggle world weren't all that good for this one. She'd meddled in the natural order of things, and paid a price that was too high. And she had supported the incumbent minister and other people that had later appeared to be opportunistic hypocrites, which she hadn't seen in the beginning. Now she knew their true faces. It was only the power they cared about. They'd even used her name in some of their decisions, even though she'd had nothing to do with them.

     Now she worked for the opposition and tried to set things right. The painful experience had taught her to see things differently and choose her allies more carefully. It had taught her to question herself and her every decision, as well as to question the other people and their decisions. Her main priority was fighting for the abolition of the slavery. Some slaves were abused on regular basis and treated awfully. And again, their owners calmed their consciences with the conviction that slaves were nothing but criminals and deserved to be punished. It was such a frequent excuse.

     The morning was, indeed, busy. As she took the pain-relieving potion, massaged her temples and gave herself several minutes of rest, she got up from the bench and continued her way down the corridor. Her heels were clicking against the stone floor and she barely heard any other sounds, because the place itself was very calm most of the time. She was walking past the heavy iron doors with small barred windows, heading to one particular holding cell almost in the end of the corridor, on the left side of it. As she reached it, she tentatively looked inside through the small window. Her ex-classmate was lying motionless, curled up into a tight ball, almost entirely wrapped up in the blanket as if searching for a shelter in it. He flinched slightly in his sleep, but didn't wake up. Even in his sleep he somehow kept looking unhappy. Hermione sighed. Malfoy's parents were dead, his child had been taken away from him. As for him, his trial had been cancelled yesterday, after he'd been waiting for it for a month and a half, because the members of the Wizengamot by a majority vote had decided to sentence him in absentia to fifteen years of the 'community service' (which was the official term for today's slavery), instead of Azkaban. Malfoy's lawyers had been scandalised, but they were powerless to change anything. Draco wasn't a killer; those who'd committed murders were rarely made into slaves. And even though he'd committed crimes, he'd been forced into it, threatened. In normal circumstances, he would have been discharged or got away with the conditional sentence, but the mere presence of the Dark Mark on his forearm and his surname were enough to be considered a criminal, despised by the entire society, especially given that he'd been hiding with his parents for several years. The Wizengamot had chosen the punishment for him, probably deciding that for the pureblood aristocrat slavery was worse than the proximity of the dementors.

     Hermione couldn't help but sigh in relief that Malfoy was sleeping. She really doubted that he already knew what fate was waiting for him, and she didn't really want him to find it out from her. He would find out today from his lawyers. In spite of their history in Hogwarts, it was against her principles to leave him alone in this, even though she knew what a deathblow all of it was going be to his self-esteem. He hardly had any idea she was in any way involved in it, and she decided that it was for the best for now.

     Harry flooed home from work a bit tired, but, as usual, the patter of little feet was comforting and he smiled before the small body collided with his legs and two small arms wrapped around them.

"Hello, Al," Harry greeted cheerfully, patting the hark-haired head of his almost four years old son.

"Hi, Daddy," the boy murmured. His children were probably the only reason for Harry not to stay at work longer than necessary. The almond-shaped green eyes looked up at him and Harry smiled again.

"How are you today? How's Jamie?"

"M'fine. Jamie making mess again," the boy replied. It meant that Ginny was trying to feed their younger son, but it wasn't easy, because the boy had a temper and was hard to please with any food at all, so the feeding often took a lot of time and patience.

Harry changed from his auror robes into the clothes he usually wore at home, and found James and Ginny in the kitchen. He approached his wife and kissed her cheek.

"Hi, Gin."

"Hi," she replied with small smile, but otherwise was unresponsive to his attention. But he was long used to it. He didn't even know why he was still trying. His younger son, however, smiled when his Daddy kissed the top of his head.

"Da-dada!" the one-year-old greeted.

     Harry's children were practically the happiest accidents he'd ever had in his life. Albus Severus had been born only several days after defeat of Voldemort. Ginny's pregnancy had been kept secret, and her belly had been disguised by the charms, so only several closest people knew about her condition back then, for her and baby's protection. She'd conceived when Harry had been staying in the Burrow, before Bill's and Fleur's wedding. It had been his seventeenth birthday and he'd been tipsy, unaccustomed to alcohol and its capability of melting some barriers. Before he could stop himself he'd found himself in Ginny's bed. He'd had no idea about the pregnancy during his hunt for the horcruxes, and had only found out about it after the final battle when Ginny had undone the charms. Harry had been shocked, of course, because he hadn't been ready for anything like this! He hadn't even been sure he wanted to renew his relationship with Ginny, he'd wanted to have some rest after the war, he'd wanted to leave Britain and travel for a year or so. But it had been ruled out, once he'd found out about his fatherhood especially given that only five days after that revelation, Ginny had gone into labour.

     It had all been too soon, but he'd resigned after some time; he'd resigned for the role of a husband in such a young age, because, like a real man he was, he'd proposed to the mother of his child, knowing that it had been the right thing to do. Once married, they'd settled down in the house of Blacks that they'd managed to turn into something much cleaner, warmer and more welcoming in their opinion. At least, the rooms that they used, which was less than a half.

     Harry loved his son very much, and it had made him accept the entire situation. For some time he and Ginny had even been happy, but later they'd started to grow colder towards each other. The second pregnancy had also been accidental, and Ginny had become unbearable, because it had ruined her starting Quidditch career. She'd had a depression and at first had kept her condition secret from Harry. She'd even thought about terminating the pregnancy, but she'd delayed and kept attending her Quidditch practice. But when she couldn't hide it any longer, being pregnant for about four and a half months, she'd told Harry. He had secretly been angry, because, even being her husband, he'd found out about her condition later than he would've preferred to find out about something this important. Again. He'd hoped that the second child would make them close again, but it had only become worse. They loved their children, but they didn't love each other. Harry honestly tried. He still tried, just for the children, for whom he was ready to sacrifice his own personal happiness. Children shouldn't suffer only because their parents had been too young when they'd got married, and then they'd just changed and weren't very happy with each other. Thankfully, Ginny never let their boys see the look full of accusation she sometimes gave Harry, partially blaming him for her ruined dream of becoming a Quidditch star, even though he assured her that she could come back to it in several years when their children would grow up a little. Sad but true, James' birth had estranged Harry and Ginny even more and they only kept up the facade of a normal family for the other people. But all in all Harry felt secure, having a family, and spent as much time as he could with his little boys.

     Someone firecalled and Harry wiped James' mouth, as he'd finally managed to feed him, finishing it for Ginny. He kissed and put the cooing child into the playpen, giving him the dummy, and hurried to the fireplace. It was Hermione, and Harry immediately let her in, remembering that they'd agreed to meet today, because she wanted to talk about something and had owled him earlier this day to notify him about her visit.

     He prepared some tea for two of them and sat down in the armchair, placing the tray on the coffee table. Hermione was sitting on the sofa, massaging her temples.

"You look tired," Harry said softly, knowing how hard her friend was working.

"I'm fine, Harry. I'll take a couple of days to make up for the lost sleep in the end of this week," she said, taking a cup of tea from the tray.

"You wanted to talk about something. Should I call Ginny?"

"No. I actually wanted to talk to you first."

"Is something wrong?"

"I need your help."

"Anything," Harry smiled.

"Oh, don't be in hurry to agree, or you'll make me put you in an awkward position," she smiled back.

"So... What is it all about?"

"Draco Malfoy. He's been found and arrested. I know you hardly read any papers."

"I heard about his arrest at work," Harry said pensively.

"He's not going to have any trial; they've already sentenced him yesterday," Hermione said, looking at her friend carefully.

"Sentenced?" he frowned a little. He had always thought that of all Malfoys Draco would've been discharged, because Harry knew the true story behind his joining to Voldemort's ranks. But he also knew how much people hated the ex-Death Eaters.

     Hermione told him everything she knew about Draco's arrest. Harry had had no idea that both Narcissa and Lucius had been killed for resisting arrest and that Draco had been found and arrested later, and Draco's son (no one had even known that he had one) had been taken away from him, because Draco was deprived of his parental rights and, well.., because of his imprisonment. Harry couldn't help but feel very uneasy about it all, especially when Hermione told him about the decision of the Wizengamot.

"It's bizarre," he sighed. Draco was going to become a slave for fifteen years! It was insane!

     They were silent for several minutes. Harry was deep in his thoughts that were full of Malfoy and memories about him. After all, and behind everything, he'd been just a scared boy that had had no freedom to refuse to take the Mark without letting his family be killed. Tears, falling into the sink in the lavatory... The pool of blood on the floor... The incapability to kill; Draco just didn't have it in him. Draco in the Manor, never telling anything about recognising Harry. Draco, trying to escape from the fire that had threatened to consume him... But, most of all, Draco during their sixth year that Harry had practically spent following him. And Hermione hadn't been far from truth, saying that Harry had been obsessed, no matter how desperately he'd tried to convince everyone, including himself, otherwise. Draco's example had taught Harry, that life was much more than black and white. Yes, life was much more complicated. In part it was Draco who had taught him that, in part it was late Severus Snape. But Harry had never looked at the things the same way after their sixth year. Back then he'd been planning to talk to Draco for hundreds of times; he'd wanted to talk to him, to try to understand him, to make him listen. He didn't really know what he'd wanted! But all the planned conversations had remained in Harry's head, never becoming his actions.

     He suddenly felt the lump in his throat and wasn't sure he wanted to know why.

     Hermione was watching him carefully. Harry hadn't changed much for the last three or four years, but still he'd definitely matured; he'd become taller and his auror training kept him in good shape. There were a few small wrinkles on his face here and there, but nothing prominent. Undoubtedly, he was a handsome young man. His eyes were something that had hardly changed. And Hermione knew this particular look of these brilliant green eyes; she'd often seen it during their sixth year.

"Buy him," she said so suddenly that he flinched and looked back at her with shocked and disbelieving eyes.

"What?" he hissed. "Mione, you can't possibly..."

"Listen to me. I know you disapprove all of it just as much as I do, but you have to save him. I would have done it myself, but you know I already have Babette and I can't have another slave. You know we do what we can to stop this madness, and we'll win, eventually. But until then Malfoy needs a normal home."

"He's not some homeless animal to just... God..."

"It's not my whim or something, Harry. Don't let him get to Barton, that minister's puppet... Do you know what happened to his previous slave?"

"No. What?" Harry shook his head, still unable to believe that Hermione was suggesting him something like that.

"She was repeatedly beaten up by him and his wife, and finally died several weeks ago, because they'd starved her to death. They've hushed up the business, of course. Don't let it happen to Draco. People hate him, and he just won't be safe in anyone else's hands. If it's about money, I'll pay for him."

"It's not about money," Harry frowned. "It's about complicating the life that I'm trying to put on a normal footing," he sighed. Hermione kept looking at him expectantly, and he knew he couldn't just refuse, and he knew that he was going to complicate his life by his own free will after what she'd told him about Draco's potential buyers. He already knew he wasn't going to let Malfoy get to anyone who could hurt him. Slaves were too vulnerable, practically helpless, had no rights, and their masters held too much power that they abused so frequently. He just couldn't trust anyone with Draco. Damned hero complex... "Fine... God, I just know I'm going to regret it." He buried his head in his hands.

"I'll talk to Ginny," Hermione promised.

"Thanks..."

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N/A: Okay, don't be mad at me and don't be confused about the situation with Harry's children. In this story he became a father in much earlier age than in DH epilogue. And I decided to make Albus Severus Harry's firstborn. James is almost three years younger. I just found it more comfortable for my storyline, so don't throw tomatoes at me, all right?

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The Shards Of His Beloved