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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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Thank you again for all the reviews!

I intend to update this story until I finish it, at Chapter 24, which should be on Halloween.

Chapter Twenty—Having Words

            Draco drew the book slowly from its place at the back of the shelf. Then he cast a small cutting spell on his finger, and squeezed a drop of blood out, careful to drip it precisely on the lock of the book. Certain—things—would happen if the blood landed anywhere else.

            But on the lock, the spells that guarded the thing could tell he was a Malfoy, rightful heir of the wizards who had first locked it. There was a small groan, and the lock uncurled into a dark head that vaguely resembled a dragon’s. For a moment, piercing green eyes burned in that head, staring into Draco’s so sternly that they reminded him of Harry’s, though a Harry with more strength than he had ever seen.

            The eyes closed, the head bowed, and the smoke faded away, leaving Draco alone with a book that might have seemed ordinary to someone who had just entered the room.

            Draco sat down with the book, and flipped slowly through the pages. Lucius had taught him to read his great-grandfather Septimus’s handwriting while he was still a child. Even then, of course, his father had warned Draco solemnly of the dangers inherent in a book like this, but he had deemed it necessary knowledge for his son.

            The pages felt slightly oily as he flicked past them. He was glad he had never had the habit of licking his fingers to turn pages when reading. It would be a bad habit to have with any Dark Arts books, not simply this one.

            Great-grandfather Septimus Malfoy had been perhaps the most brilliant wizard of the line, and one of the strongest; Lucius had said once that he had come close to rivaling the Dark Lord himself. He had also had a keen interest in Muggles. To him, they were still an inferior life form, but some of their philosophers and scientists had come up with theories that might become useful spells with a little adaptation. He was aware, Lucius had told Draco, that Muggles used logic more often than wizards, not having the wild creativity magic needed, and he looked on it as one of the few services they could provide directly to their betters (Muggle-hunting and the taking of Muggle slaves having been outlawed by Septimus’s time).

            Draco finally lighted on the page he was looking for, and leaned back against the couch with a slow smile.

            Sepitmus’s handwriting explained that his research had uncovered the existence of a Muggle philosopher named Descartes. Among other, less interesting ideas, he had proposed the idea that the mind was the seat of all consciousness, the surest way of knowing that one existed. Septimus had created a spell that drew on the idea.

            Draco’s fingers ghosted over the name, in larger letters, beneath the introductory note. A Spell to Sever the Mind from the Body.

*

            “I know that you don’t believe me,” Harry said flatly. “Still. That’s not of much concern to me when I can force you to tell me the truth.”

            His hand clenched on the stolen wand, and for a moment he was horribly tempted to simply curse Scrimgeour, in hopes that that might force him to take back the Cassandra Curse. But he shook his head and restrained himself. The wards on the door might react in alarm to that sort of magic, and with Harry’s luck, that would alert the Aurors.

            Besides, he didn’t think he could be frightening enough to force Scrimgeour to take back the curse. The books he had read on it had emphasized how, most of the time, the caster simply could not be persuaded. Every good reason out of the mouth of the victim would sound like a lie, after all.

            Harry negated the Silencing Spell on Scrimgeour with a wave of his wand and crouched down to look him in the eye. The stare he received in return was very nearly mad. Locked in a room with the man he hated and feared more than any other…yes, Harry thought he could see why Scrimgeour was teetering on the brink of insanity.

            “Why did you do it?” he asked quietly. “Why that form of magic and no other? And why did you use Dark Arts?”

            Scrimgeour’s body stiffened. Harry could only imagine what nefarious purpose he thought was behind the questions. But after a moment, perhaps reminded by Harry’s lazy twirling of the wand that he was at his foe’s mercy and had no way to move right now, his jaw relaxed and he answered.

            “It was the only way I could protect the wizarding world from you,” he said. “You should have seen the adoring glances you received. Anyone would have followed you anywhere. You could have become Minister without effort. And I wouldn’t have it. You would have made a worse than evil Minister. You would have made an incompetent one. But if you were always lying, you could never make the speeches that you would need to get ahead in wizarding politics, and you would be too busy fighting your own battles to worry about taking over my position.”

            Harry closed his eyes. The idea that his life had been sacrificed for nothing more than one man’s paranoid delusions was—

            The truth, he thought. You knew it all along. You just wanted him to say it, so that any disbelief could die.

            The fury that rushed through him had no equivalent in his experience. By the time he put Voldemort down, it was akin to putting down a mad dog. Voldemort had every reason to hate him, every reason to act like the incarnation of evil.

            Scrimgeour had nowhere near the justification.

            But Harry restrained himself sharply when he thought of cursing Scrimgeour. That was not him. His time under the Cassandra Curse could not make him act so desperately; nothing could.

            Draco undoubtedly would have tried for some Dark Arts spell that would cripple Scrimgeour with pain for life. But as matters had fallen out, Draco no longer had the right to punish the Minister. Harry did. And he would do it in his own way.

            He aimed his wand directly at Scrimgeour again, who blinked warily at him.

            “You will lean out this door,” Harry said quietly. “You will not shout for help, because if you do I will destroy your spine.” The pallor of Scrimgeour’s face said he thought Harry would do something even worse than that. “You will summon Lila Ambernight, and we will wait here for her.”

            “What do you mean to do?” Scrimgeour whispered.

            Harry smiled. “You’re going to swear an Unbreakable Vow, Minister,” he chirped. “Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

*

            Draco leaned back against the couch and read carefully through the description of Septimus’s spell. Though he had remained impressed with its cruelty and cleverness for years, he had not read the description in more than a decade, and he wanted to be sure that it really was the ideal tool for his revenge.

            This spell leaves the body alive and able to follow simple commands, but severs the mind from it. The victim will obey whatever orders are given to him by the spellcaster in the first few minutes after the incantation is spoken. His mind is trapped in unfeeling flesh and utterly unable to communicate with anyone, even by means of Pensieves or Legilimency.

            The spell is progressive, unless the spellcaster remains by the victim’s side and arrests its progress. It slowly takes away the area of the brain that belongs to the victim still, confining him in a smaller and smaller space. In the end, he will be left in a cell of his own memories and impulses, while alien thoughts—provided and suggested by the spellcaster himself, or by the repetitive actions that the spellcaster sets him to—stream through his brain. Madness is certain, but death cannot come about unless the spellcaster suggests it do so.

            The victim will have time to learn every one of his own thoughts and whether Descartes was right to call the mind the seat of existence, as the spell gradually removes all physical senses but sight and pain. The victim can still experience any hurt inflicted on him, and observe what happens about him, but feel no sexual pleasures, nor taste any food, nor make out voices.

            It is important to note that the spell can be arrested once cast, but not reversed.

            Draco nodded slowly. Yes. This was the spell he wanted. It mimicked the confinement that Scrimgeour had tried to force on Harry, while removing the consolation of suicide that would have been Scrimgeour’s preferred method for ending Harry’s life. And it gave Draco absolute control over the Minister’s future movements. He was the one who would say how long he had to live trapped like that, and how soon his mind would cease to be his own but for one small corner.

            It was elegant, Draco thought, the perfect payback not only for the Cassandra Curse but for the fact that the Minister had tried to take Draco’s memories of Harry away.

            Draco’s fingers tightened on the edge of the book, and he winced and held the bleeding one away just in time. He could not let his rage make him careless.

            He glanced at the page. He would take ten minutes or so to make sure that his pronunciation of the incantation was perfect.

            Then he would stand on the edge of the property and call to Batty.

            Batty had been a perfectly devoted house-elf, having adopted the Malfoy pride as her own pride, and the family as her children. It was the reason Draco had not hesitated to exile her. She loved him too much to attempt any retaliation.

            She would welcome the chance to come back to his service. And Draco would accept her, at the price of several carefully worded orders—

            And her Apparating him into the Ministry.

*

            Scrimgeour spoke carefully out the door. Harry held the wand to his back all the while, and whispered what to say into his ear. He was grateful for the thickness of the wards now; their colors, still active as the door was barely cracked, prevented anyone from seeing how the Minister was bound or that Harry stood behind him.

            “Yes. Lila Ambernight. Summon her at once. I need to consult with her on a matter regarding the prisoner.”

            The Auror who had answered Scrimgeour’s call, the same one who had brought Harry his meal earlier, sounded bewildered. He was a young man with brown hair and honey-colored eyes and a terribly earnest expression that reminded Harry of Percy Weasley. Briefly, Harry felt sorry for him. “But—sir, really? I thought that only a few of us had permission to approach the prisoner until he returned to St. Mungo’s—“

            Harry nudged Scrimgeour.

            “That’s an order, Hollis!” Scrimgeour’s voice skirled up the scale a few notes. Harry could hardly blame him. Visions of what Harry would do next, based more on his own predilections than Harry’s, had to be cascading through his head. “You know that Ambernight was working the Potter case when he vanished from St. Mungo’s. I want to see her right now!”

            “Yes, sir,” said Hollis hastily, and retreated down the corridor. Harry didn’t relax. He nudged at Scrimgeour until he stepped away from the door and sat down in the middle of the floor. Then Harry Body-Bound him again and stood warily watching.

            Lila was currently the only person in the Ministry who knew the truth about him—or who knew the truth and would help him, Harry amended, remembering that Eugenie knew but almost certainly didn’t care. She would serve as the Bonder for their Unbreakable Vow. And then Harry had hopes that she could fetch him his wand and escort him out of the Ministry.

            I’ll ask her to tell them that she’s taking me to St. Mungo’s, Harry thought, pacing back and forth as his brain whirled furiously. If this was the way that Draco felt all the time, Harry wondered how he lived with it. I don’t think anyone but Scrimgeour knows the state of negotiations with them. And a private owl could always have come in the meantime, agreeing that they’d let me back in.

            Quick footsteps sounded just beyond the door. Harry cracked it again, and caught Lila’s eye. She stopped Hollis, who was following her closely, with one hand on his arm, and murmured something. Hollis looked disappointed, but Harry knew full well how commanding Lila could be when she wanted to. In the end, the other Auror turned around and trailed back up the corridor in a dispirited manner, while Lila came on alone.

            Harry pushed open the door and stepped back to let her in. Lila brushed past him—and then paused, staring at the Minister sitting in the middle of the floor.

            Harry could see her eyes flash and narrow as she slammed the pieces of the puzzle together. Her jaw tightened, and then she knelt down before Scrimgeour in one graceful movement.

            “Never,” she said, voice raw with passion, “did I think you would descend to this.”

            Harry grinned and stepped back, folding his arms. It was almost worth knowing that he couldn’t punish Scrimgeour worse than this, to watch the expression of stunned disbelief cover the Minister’s face.

            “You cast the Cassandra Curse on Potter,” said Lila. Her fingers hooked around the edges of her knees. “You used Dark Arts, just like the wizards who took my sister from me.” She shook her head, and her eyes glowed with the kind of ferocity that Harry was accustomed to seeing in the eyes of a hawk before it dived. “How could you think that I would remain loyal to you if I found out?”

            Scrimgeour made a little sighing sound in his throat. It was the most he was capable of, since Harry had Body-Bound him. Nor did he see the need to unbind him, at least not until they were ready to take the Unbreakable Vow. Scrimgeour had had his chances at justification and excusing himself. Harry would take no chances with him, up until the moment when he escaped from Scrimgeour’s control forever.

            “Lila,” he said, and drew her attention. “I don’t think I can call up enough of a threat to make him reverse the spell, not with what I can threaten—“

            “Then let me do it,” Lila said softly, and slipped her wand free from her sleeve. Harry took a moment to make sure he had locked the door and, with it, the wards. It wouldn’t do for anyone to intrude at the moment and see one of the Aurors holding her wand on a helpless superior. Luckily, the door was indeed shut. “I do not mind using stern spells on those who practice the Dark Arts.”

            Harry reached out and gently took her wrist. “I wouldn’t let you corrupt your soul that way,” he said, when she met his eyes. “And I’m sure that your sister wouldn’t want you to pay that price, either, simply in pursuit of vengeance.”

            Lila nodded. “Then I promise to dedicate myself to telling people the truth,” she said in a resonant voice, “and working on it until the Minister admits that he wronged you.”

            “You’ll have an enemy if you do that,” Harry said. “Eugenie Figg-Warwick, the Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, also knows the truth, but she sold us to Scrimgeour.” He jerked his head at the Minister. “And he Obliviated Draco. I know nothing about reversing Memory Charms.”

            “It cannot be done, from what I know.” Lila’s eyes flashed. “At least that explains why he answered none of my letters.” She glanced at Scrimgeour. “And what will you do to prevent him from chasing after you?”

            “An Unbreakable Vow,” said Harry.

            Lila smiled, a pitiless expression. “That suits me.”

            “You will be careful?” Harry asked her, even as he stepped in front of Scrimgeour and freed his right hand and his jaw from the Body-Bind. Harry knelt then and took Scrimgeour’s right hand in his. The man glared. Harry ignored him. He had no choice now. It was the only taste Harry could ever give him of what he had experienced under the Cassandra Curse. “About Eugenie pursuing you?”

            “What makes you think that I have ever been afraid of danger?”

            Harry had to admit that was the thing most resembling a promise he was likely to get from her. He shook his head, but asked formally, “Will you be our Bonder?”

            Lila gripped her wand in answer and marched over to stand beside them.

            Harry met Scrimgeour’s eyes. They shone with trapped fury now. Harry shrugged. He had once thought he would always be moved by the sight of someone else’s suffering, but the past year had taught him to put up with it in his friends. Perhaps it had changed him more than he had realized in other ways, too.

            “Rufus Scrimgeour,” he said, “swear not to hurt Draco Malfoy in any way, direct or indirect, or encourage others to hurt him in any way, direct or indirect.”

            Scrimgeour’s jaw worked for a moment. Harry watched his eyes darting, and knew he was figuring options. With no wand, however, and the rest of his body frozen, he had no chance, and he seemed to know it. He was a clever political thinker, but it took him time to come up with brilliant plans. Harry only had to think on the nine years it had taken him to find the Cassandra Curse, and how many holes were in place with his leaving the knife with Harry, to know that.

            “I so swear,” he grumbled at last. A tendril of fire shot out of Lila’s wand to encircle both their hands.

            Harry nodded. “You will swear not to hurt anyone with the name of Weasley, or Hermione Granger, or anyone married into or associated with the family, directly or indirectly, or encourage anyone else to hurt them, directly or indirectly, and swear the same for Lila Ambernight.”

            Scrimgeour audibly ground his teeth this time. Harry felt a moment’s surge of contempt for the man. Hating and fearing Harry was one thing, but had he really wanted to hurt the Weasleys simply because they were Harry’s friends? Even though they were as much victims of the Cassandra Curse as anyone else?

            Harry decided that he would think Scrimgeour had wanted them as potential hostages for his good behavior, and let it go at that.

            “I so swear,” the Minister said at last. A second tendril of fire joined the first.

            Harry nodded one more time. “And you will swear not to pursue me, directly or indirectly, or encourage anyone else to pursue me, directly or indirectly, or to interfere in my life again by any means.”

            Scrimgeour squeezed his eyes shut. “If it happens and I do not know it—“

            “Then you will die,” Harry said, and heard Lila laugh low in her throat. “So you had better make sure ahead of time that nothing you do will hurt me.”

            Scrimgeour bowed his head like a stag striving to protect his throat from wolves, and spat, “I do so swear.”

            The third strand of fire, and Harry felt the magic of the vow settle into place around them like a coat of armor. He stood and nodded to Lila. “I’ll need your escort out of the Ministry,” he said, “to find my wand and to get me beyond the wards. We can pretend that St. Mungo’s asked for me back, and that Scrimgeour summoned you to serve as Bonder for my Unbreakable Vow that I wouldn’t try to commit suicide anymore.”

            “And what about me?” Scrimgeour demanded nastily.

            Harry smiled at him. “Why, Minister, you’ll escort us, of course. And let us depart with your blessings.”

*

            “Batty will do anything for Master Draco. Batty loves Master Draco. Batty will never hurt Master Harry Potter again, not when Batty knows now that Master Draco needs him.”

            Draco waited, impatiently. He knew that interrupting Batty’s declarations of eternal devotion would only cause her to apologize for misinterpreting his wishes and start them all over again. He clenched his hands together behind his back and waited for the moment when she stopped banging her head against the ground outside the Manor and stared up at him expectantly, awaiting his orders.

            “You will have a final test,” he said. “You’re still on probation, Batty. I don’t trust you completely. Do this task flawlessly, and then I will, and accept you into my binding again, and take back the gift of the cloak. Do you understand?”

            Batty nodded frantically, ears flopping around her. “Batty understands. Batty loves Master Draco. Master Draco is such a kind master—“

            Her voice was less frantic than before, so Draco had no qualms about interrupting her. He bent down in front of her and took her hands. “I know that house-elves can Apparate to many places that normal wizards can’t,” he said. “You can pass through wards, can’t you? Even wards on the most guarded places?”

            Batty nodded proudly, her ears bouncing and her eyes rolling wildly.

            “Then you will Apparate me to the Ministry, for your test,” said Draco. “And you will take me directly to Harry Potter’s side. Through any protections in the way, through any spells. You will make sure that it is the real Harry Potter, and not an impostor under an illusion or someone using Polyjuice Potion. Do you understand? That is my task for you, Batty, a task most difficult.”

            Batty gave a quiet little whimper, but said nothing about the impossibility of the task, though Draco knew it would be hard even for a house-elf as old and experienced as she was. Her hands reached out and clasped his firmly, the fingers tightening like rings. Draco closed his eyes, because he wasn’t sure that he wanted to see the way the world around them would change during house-elf Apparition. Normal wizarding technique was bad enough.

            The world warped.

            His mother had told him once that house-elves made use of out-of-the-way places, rubbish, discarded bits of rooms and stairwells and corridors that ordinary wizards never saw. Draco had not realized that that included even their magic. It felt as if they were skipping wildly, like stones bouncing off water, through all the places that Apparition normally never touched. A sound struck his ears, a baby crying, and then the sound was ripped away to be replaced with that of water falling, and then that was gone and there was the quiet, motionless hush Draco was familiar with from hospital corridors crowded with dying patients.

            And then a tugging sensation blossomed in his chest, and purring filled his ears. Draco opened his eyes, recognizing the pull of the soul-bond.

            Harry, Lila Ambernight, and the Minister stood in front of him, all crowded into the back of a lift to make room for his unexpected arrival. They were also all staring in shock.

            Draco smiled.

            “You did well,” he told Batty, and stroked her head with one hand, a touch that would mean more to her than extended praise. He Body-Bound Scrimgeour, just in case. His hatred and fury roared up at the sight of the man, but right now there was someone, and something, much more important.

            “Love,” he said to Harry, and held out his arms.

            Harry was trembling, his left hand spasming open, his right barely maintaining a grip on a wand that didn’t look like his own. Then, perhaps reassured that this was the real Draco by the contentment of the soul-bond, he let out a shrieking cry, half-triumphant and half-painful, and flung himself into Draco’s arms.

            Draco embraced him hard enough that Harry winced; he seemed to have something wrong with his lower back. Draco bowed his head and inhaled the scent of Harry’s hair. The memories had prepared him for it, he thought, but there was nothing like this, nothing like holding the real thing.

            “Stop the lift, Batty,” he murmured to his devoted house-elf.

            “Yes, Master Draco!”

            They jerked to a halt a moment later. Draco held Harry tighter to him, and ran one finger along the nape of his neck, locating the bite mark.

            “I told you that I would come for you,” he murmured. “Didn’t I?”

            “I kept my promise,” Harry said back, in a voice so small Draco almost lost it behind the Minister’s panicked breathing.

            “So you did.” Draco’s mouth watered with the urge to mark Harry again, but he settled for kissing him on the forehead and then turning him so that he stood safely in the crook of his arm. He didn’t intend to let go of Harry until they were back in the Manor, and then only for as long as it took to get him into bed.

            He drew his wand, and smiled slightly when he watched the panicked widening of Scrimgeour’s eyes.

            “You,” he said. It was all that he really needed to say.

            Almost as powerful as the scent of his Harry was the scent of his enemy’s fear.

            Draco opened his mouth to speak the incantation that would sever the Minister’s mind from his body.

            And then Lila Ambernight was between him and Scrimgeour, her wand out, her eyes utterly fearless. “I will not let you use Dark Arts,” she said.

*

            Dezra: As you can see, he didn’t. ;)

            Scotty: That depends on exactly how the truth comes out.

            Silks: I will let you know if I decide to write a prequel (gen though it may be).

            Darthkripple: Thank you! Scrimgeour’sparanoia works as much against as for him.

            McAbacus: Thanks! If all goes as planned, I’ll update with two chapters a day until I reach the end.

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