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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
- 19
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty�Strongly
Shining

�� Narcissa
sighed and pushed another book of Dark Arts curses away from her, shaking her
head. It should have been easy to find a curse that would repay Emptyweed for
the agony he had caused her son. She had seen him close, and knew there was
nothing redeeming about him except perhaps his Healing talent, which she had
never seen in action. Any revenge that took that away would be justified.

�� And there
were spells that would accomplish that. Spells for the draining of power.
Spells that would make the headaches he had inflicted on Harry look like a
love-bite.

�� But whenever
she let her eyes fall on the printed words, it wasn�t them Narcissa saw.
Instead, she pictured how Harry�s face would look if he ever learned that it
was Narcissa who had caused that pain
to Emptyweed.

�� Her son�

�� Her other son, Narcissa amended in her mind,
laying her head against the back of her chair and half-lidding her eyes so that
she saw the gleaming colors of her room as a dizzying kaleidoscopic swirl,
lived by a different code of morals than the one Narcissa was used to
acknowledging. She found him an intriguing puzzle, and not an easily-guessed one.
It was entirely possible that he would not want someone to take vengeance for
him, even if he had suffered heavily at the hands of someone else.

�� And would
he agree that he had suffered? He had put up with the headaches�not gracefully,
but he had put up with them. And after seeing the hospital and the ways of
those who worked there, Narcissa thought that Harry would think endurance a
prime value. What mattered was bearing pain, not being free of it.

�� Perhaps he
would even say that no one was ever free
of pain, so only endurance could exist.

�� Narcissa
twitched her head and sat up in irritation. It was one thing to slip into the
mold of Harry�s mind so that he might figure out his thoughts, but she would
not start thinking that way herself. It was all too seductive a pattern. It
convinced the thinker that he was doing the right thing at all times. It was no
wonder Harry had fallen victim to it. Narcissa had learned one thing for
certain from her observations of Harry so far, and that was his passionate,
burning need to do the right thing.

�� Later,
perhaps, he could be brought to acknowledge that unthinking compliance with one
set of rules was not the way to do that.

�� For now,
Narcissa, Draco, and Lucius would have to wreathe the good they intended to do
him in coils of �evil� behavior, and make Harry think that they were acting
just as he had always expected the Malfoys to act. He�d look away, content that
they behaved as they did out of self-interest, and not see how they conspired
to heal him.

�� Narcissa
almost smiled.

�� A conspiracy to heal someone. Not something
I believe I have ever been involved in.

�� So she put
the Dark Arts books aside, and set herself instead to thinking of how she could
help Harry fit in, be comfortable, and become a part of the family almost
without realizing it. If Harry was so inclined to endure and put up with things
as he found them, then he would eventually learn to put up with comfort.

*

�� Draco bent
over the sheet of parchment that Lucius had handed him, his breath coming fast.
Not even his father�s news that they owed this copy of Harry�s student records
to Edward Leeds, who would demand payment in Jason�s Draught, a fiendishly complicated
potion, stopped his excitement.

�� He had
found what he hoped he would find�and more.

�� The record
did indeed contain the names of Harry�s Muggle relatives and their address, or
at least the address they�d been living at when Harry was in school. Along with
that came more than he�d dared to dream of: an assessment of Harry�s physical
condition when he arrived at the beginning of each year, or a few weeks afterwards.
He knew that Madam Pomfrey had performed those assessments when high-risk
students found their way to the infirmary, but he hadn�t been sure they would
be kept in the same place.

�� Evidence of long-term malnutrition. Shyness
around others. Distrust of adults. Low self-esteem. Difficulty understanding his
own place in the world or how other wizards regard him. A grasping after magic.

�� The last
two sentences were underlined. Draco half-closed his eyes and envisioned the
mediwitch writing them with a concerned frown on her face, as she wondered
about the spectacle of a Savior of the Wizarding World who didn�t understand his
fame and who took to magic like a child to sweets, rather than a child to a
birthright.

�� They did do something to him. I know that no
more than occasional wizards can have had contact with him before he came to
Hogwarts. He as good as told the papers, multiple times, that that was
Dumbledore�s plan: for him to grow up at a distance from our world, so that knowledge
of his own fame wouldn�t become arrogance. And I think it�s likely to be true, because
he was saying that to defend Dumbledore, and not to give more details about his
Muggle relatives.

�� Draco
shivered and opened his eyes. He could hear breaking bones and screams if he
concentrated.

�� Except that
he couldn�t go that far, because Harry would hate him if he discovered it.

�� Draco
sighed longingly. All right, then. He would take some other form of vengeance.
Besides, it would help if he could be sure about what Harry had suffered.
Evidence of psychological abuse was annoyingly non-specific.

�� Of course,
it would be enough for vengeance that the Dursleys�Draco sneered at the common
Muggle name on the report, and liked to think that even Madam Pomfrey�s hand,
recording the name, had slanted with disapproval�had starved him. It at least
explained why he regarded food as a matter of indifference, as fuel rather than
a feast of tastes. Draco would help him to overcome that.

�� And the
formal dinner his mother had planned for tomorrow would be a good place to
start.

*

�� Lucius did
have to admire the bloody clever set-up his wife had chosen for this dinner.

�� First, she
was using the most formal dining room in the house, the one wearing a medley of
pale colors that emphasized the darkness of the oak table in the middle. Lucius
didn�t think Harry would appreciate the contrast on an aesthetic level, but
then, it wasn�t his sense of beauty they were courting. It was his comfort in
this environment. Narcissa believed he had made some advancements, after the
way he had acted in Lucius�s bedroom a few days ago, because he had been
receiving lessons on Malfoy conduct from Rogers. They would use the formality
to test him, to learn what lessons he had absorbed and which ones he had
imperfectly learned as yet.

�� Second,
Narcissa sat at the head of the table, with Lucius on her left hand and Draco
on her right. Harry seemed to trust his wife the most of anyone in the house,
and it would reassure him to see her in a position of power.

�� Third,
there was no place set for Harry. Another test, to see if he was comfortable
enough to ask after one, or demand it.

�� And fourth,
Narcissa had made sure the house-elves selected Harry�s robes for the evening.
He would have no excuse not to come because he didn�t have clothes fine enough.

�� And, Lucius
understood when Harry appeared in the doorway of the dining room and stood
staring down the table at them in the muted glow from the walls, there was yet
another reason for the house-elves commanding the robe choice. Draco�s eyes
flashed with ill-concealed interest and intent. Narcissa was not above helping
her first son seduce the second, but she also, obviously, wanted to make sure
that Draco would not back away in the middle of the seduction and undo their careful
work to make Harry part of the family.

�� Plots
within plots. Plans within plans. Lucius smiled and touched the outside of
Narcissa�s palm under the table, in appreciation. She half-turned her head, and
he saw her smile dart across her face and vanish underneath it again like a
lizard burrowing in sand.

�� It was why
he had married her.

*

�� If Draco
had been left in charge of dressing Harry, he would have selected dark green
robes, to match his eyes and bring out their unusual brilliancy. Or perhaps
simple black. That would have emphasized his pale skin, complemented his dark
hair, and made the eyes stunning in another way.

�� But the
house-elves had chosen gray robes that made Harry look as if he were wrapped in
shadows as he stood on the threshold of the dining room, head back and eyes
bright and wary. The color harmonized with the ones around them and wrapped
Harry in velvet and a not-unpleasing cobweb fragility, belied by the strength
Draco knew he possessed. He looked as if he had melted out of moonlight to
grace their dinner party.

�� Draco had
to control himself sharply, because otherwise he would have plunged forwards to
touch and take and possess, and he knew that would be too impulsive for these
delicate circumstances. He settled for rising to his feet, smiling at Harry,
and drawing out the chair next to him.

�� He thought
he saw his father frown as he did so. He serenely ignored that. Indeed, for the
next few minutes, he intended to behave as if he and Harry were alone in the
room, because that was what he wanted to do and what the situation called for. His
parents could turn away if they didn�t want to watch.

�� Draco
half-expected Harry to run; he had tensed when he entered the dining room,
maybe because he didn�t have a place already set. He expected, at best, a
squint before Harry came forwards and accepted his offer.

�� Instead,
Harry strode in as if he and Draco had met for the first time and wrung his
hand hard enough to make the bones creak.

�� Thank
you,� he said, in a voice that sounded as if he thought he would be judged on resonance.
�I�m not used to treatment like this, but in trying not to take it for granted,
I think I went too far in the opposite direction.�

He didn�t even have enough time to
let Draco get over that shock before
he bowed his head, staring at Draco with burning eyes, and flicked his tongue
lightly against Draco�s skin

�� Draco felt
his eyes shine and deepen, and his free hand, locked on the back of Harry�s
chair, shook as if he had a palsy. It was an effort not to reach out with the
one Harry had just licked�he had licked it,
he had willingly touched Draco in a sexual
manner�and grab the back of Harry�s head, hauling him into a kiss.

But that would indeed be too much,
as ecstatic as Draco was at the moment, as half-sure as he was that Harry would
welcome the gesture.

�� You�re
welcome,� he whispered, and let his voice shake, too, so that Harry could see
how much he had affected Draco. He deserved that honesty.

�� Harry
smiled at him again and sat down in the chair, and Draco pushed it in,
resisting the urge to tangle his fingers with Harry�s hair. Not time yet. When he sat down, however,
it was in a position that would easily allow him to see Harry. He wouldn�t deny
himself that. �

Nor did he make his movements to
pick up the forks and knives as fast as usual. Harry had cast the table one
bewildered glance; Draco didn�t want to confuse him now, when they were getting
on so well. He would give Harry some clues as to table manners.

�� The courses
came and went. Draco couldn�t have said what the first one was, because he
still couldn�t take his eyes off Harry�s face. But he noticed when they had
bread with butter and a string of butter dripped on Harry�s robes. Harry
grimaced in a way that said he should have expected that and tried to swab it
up.

�� Draco
could, perhaps, have stopped himself from moving when he noticed that butter
coated Harry�s wrist as well as the cloth. But it would have been akin to
stopping an earthquake. Nor could he keep from whispering, �May I?�

�� Harry
flushed and darted a glance at Draco�s parents. Draco grinned, not needing to
look. Lucius and Narcissa would be studiously ignoring everything that happened
across the table from them, as long as Draco kept within certain limits.
Boldness was its own answer to awkward questions, and Harry had been bold from
the beginning. Of course Draco needed to do the same, or risk having Harry
think he was weak.

�� Not that
Harry would think that, anyway.

�� Draco was
exhilarated with more than the chance to touch Harry. He was thinking in two
modes at once, the Malfoy one and the clear-sighed, simple way Harry saw the
world, and they braided and danced in his head, spiraling paths of light.

�� Of course,
by now Harry�s eyes were so wide that he looked like he might faint. So Draco
whispered to reassure him, �Oh, I can�t do what I�d really like to, not in
company. But that doesn�t matter.� He drew his wand and trailed it softly up
the sleeve of Harry�s robe, Vanishing the butter.

�� Harry
lowered his head and fixed his eyes on the robe and wrist where the butter had
been, giving one slow, enormous blink and then another. It was evident from the
fierce flush of his face that he�d been thinking Draco might lick it up.

�� There,�
Draco said, and angled his head to brush Harry�s wrist with his cheek before he
slipped back into his chair. �All better.� He added a purring tone to his voice
that Harry had better damn well appreciate.

�� You
approve of the robes, then?� Harry murmured.

�� Merlin and the Seven Dead Wonders, Draco
thought, staring into Harry�s eyes and seeing the darting uncertainty there. He�s so uneasy about his looks that he
imagines house-elves would dress him so as to make him ugly.

�� You have
no idea how you look, either,� he said. He had
to say something; the words would cut his throat if he kept them inside. �I�ll
help cure that, don�t worry.�

�� It would
have to go further than that, he understood a moment later. He had a need to reassure Harry, but Harry might
let himself be embarrassed. So he looked across the table, where his mother was
feeding his father from a fork. Harry coughed and promptly stared at his plate.
�

�� Draco bent
down until he could touch his tongue to Harry�s lips. Harry stared at him in
silent fascination, his blush so red now that Draco thought he could have found
him by it under a full moon.

Let
him know how appealing I find him. �I�m learning how you taste,� Draco
whispered. �I hope you don�t mind my going slowly. I prefer to appreciate the
favors individually.�

�� Harry
swallowed, his blush grew fiercer, and he had to stare at his food to recover
for minutes after that. Draco knew he was doing it to keep from thinking about
his embarrassment, or looking at Lucius and Narcissa, but gradually his
movements slowed and he actually savored the
tastes of the fruit and fish and soup he swallowed. He uttered a tiny sigh when
he finished the candied apples that made Draco thrust his hips involuntarily
towards Harry. He had long since hardened, simply from watching Harry�s tongue
dart across his lips to pick up the crumbs of bread and butter and sugar.

�� Draco could
have watched Harry eating, and enjoying what he ate, for months.

�� Of course,
that was the moment his father had to ruin it all.

�� Harry.�

�� Harry
looked up at Lucius, and his unselfconscious pleasure fell away. �Sir,� he
said. Lucius gave him an annoyed glance, and Draco wanted to fall out of his
chair because Lucius was showing his
annoyance, but Harry only smiled. �Lucius,� he said. �You have the information you
owled about?�

�� Yes.�
Lucius�s mouth grew tight as he clapped. Draco marveled in silence as a
house-elf appeared next to Harry and handed some letters over. His father was
following Narcissa�s advice better than Draco had at first, showing his emotions
so Harry could learn to know and trust him, when he construed most emotion as
vulnerability. It might take Lucius a moment to grasp the necessity of a new
action, but when he did, he moved to undertake that action with a purity and
grace that humbled Draco. �And I must admit, what I learned disturbed me.�

�� Harry bent
his head over the paper, and Draco found another pleasure. Harry was a
responsive reader, too, and he didn�t believe in hiding his emotions for any
reason whatsoever. He swore steadily under his breath as he read, and his face
turned red and pale and sharp with annoyance by turns. He once even clenched a
fist and drummed it on the table next to his plate. Draco wondered for a moment
what his face would look like when they were making love, utterly transparent with
the feelings flitting over it, and his hips thrust again.

�� Harry swept
a hand through his hair, finally, and sat back as if he would like to set the
letters on fire with just his gaze. �I see the Ministry�s tradition of
corruption marches on unchecked,� he muttered.

�� Then all
the better that we�ll bring justice where they�ve failed to,� said Draco. Let Harry take warning from that. We protect
our own, and that means him, too.

�� Harry
glanced at him. Draco had arranged himself so that he had his hands folded
behind his head, a vulnerable posture�but not when contrasted with his eyes,
which he knew were burning ice. Harry quivered a bit, and tilted his head to
the side, his expression bright and curious and intrigued. Draco wanted to
preen.

�� What
specifically do you find disturbing?� Harry asked, glancing at Lucius. �Do you
have any idea who the woman might have been?�

�� Woman. Draco concealed a sigh. Of
course, his father had not told him the content of the letters yet. He had
insisted that it be shared with Harry first. But from the steady way Narcissa
looked at her husband, she knew.

�� No,� said
Lucius. �And that is the first worrisome thing.� He leaned heavily back in his
own chair, his brow bearing a faint sheen of sweat. Draco watched the
expression on his mother�s face, and wavered on the edge of reassurance. �The
second is that I never once thought about someone visiting Lestrange in prison,
or about his having knowledge dangerous to me. Someone has outthought me. I do
not like that.�

�� Do you have
the information about the Death Eater refuges?� Harry asked.

�� Draco took
a deep breath to control his jealousy as he watched another elf appear with
another stack of parchment. This was the information that his father had never
given him, insisting that it was almost valueless after the war, and that in
any case Draco would not understand half the code it was written in. I would wager he translated it for Harry,
though. �

�� Harry ran
quickly down the lists. Draco let himself forget his irritation in the darting
of those brilliant eyes and the wrinkle of the frown lines that spread over his
head. Now and then Harry murmured a name to himself, memorizing it. He was so
engaged and so alert that Draco wondered for a moment what would happen if he
put a hand over the papers Harry looked at; he would probably slap Draco�s hand
away without even thinking about it.

�� Then Harry
sat straight up in his chair and stopped breathing. Draco hated the immediate
fixed, wild stare of his eyes. Harry shouldn�t look at anyone or anything
except him like that.

�� What is
it, Harry?� Lucius asked, once, and then again. Harry didn�t react. Draco
reached out and put a hand on his back. Then he leaned towards him. He would support
Harry, no matter what he had discovered in the parchments, what terrible news
he had to impart. He doubted he could do anything else, especially when Harry
dropped his head onto Draco�s shoulder briefly. This kind of trust and need was
too precious.

�� Draco had
long thought that people who needed others were weak. Now he was learning the
difference, he thought. The need of the strong was inherently different from
the need of the feeble.

And now Harry was taking too long
to return to the real world after he had made his gesture of need, so Draco
tugged on his hair and pulled him in so that their faces were touching,
forehead to forehead. Draco�s brow rested against the scar that had saved the
wizarding world. �Tell us,� he murmured. �No burden is so terrible that the
effect does not lessen when it is shared.�

�� Harry�s
eyes closed in one steady blink, as though to refute that, and then he looked
at Lucius and said, �How much dreambane was at this refuge?�

�� Which
one?� Lucius frowned for a moment.

�� Draco�s
mind was springing like a rabbit. Dreambane.
Dreambane was a potions ingredient. But he wouldn�t have expected Harry to
recognize the name, or the effects. He was terrible at Potions�

�� Venom�s
Reach,� said Harry.

�� The Dark
Lord came up with that name,� Lucius murmured. �And there were several bales of
it. Perhaps also vats. They reached the ceiling in one case. Why?�

�� Harry
closed his eyes and let his head droop down as if he were exhausted, as if the
yoke on his neck had pressed too deep, as if he were finished.

�� Once, Draco
had thought that sight was all he wanted. Now it made him sick to his stomach
to see it.

�� Harry.� Draco
snapped; he couldn�t help it. He wanted Harry to stop having that reaction and
be strong again. �I know dreambane. It�s used as one of the ingredients in a
powerful version of the Dreamless Sleep potion, one that banishes thoughts that
might become dreams. How could it have hurt my father? He�s been dreaming.�

�� It has
another, little-known use,� Harry whispered. His voice shook; so did his body,
as if he had chills. �When combined with a Cutting Curse, it strengthens the
wounds and makes the body remember them. I don�t know how else to explain it.
Even if the wounds seem to be cured, they burst forth again sooner or later. And
they become the worse for the delay. It can also strengthen other spells,
though I�m not sure of all of them, because they�re Dark magic and there was a
limit to what St. Mungo�s wanted me to study.� He stared at Lucius. His eyes were
crazed and dark with fear and pity. �I�m afraid some of them might be spells
that are part of the Mirror Maze, and so the dreambane would render it more
subtle. When we think it�s gone, or even if we actually remove it, the wounds
will come forth again and kill you.�

�� Draco
wanted to scream. He settled for tightening his hold slightly on Harry,
instead, and holding him until the storm of horror blew over and past, and he
could hear his father�s reply.

�� And what
can be done about this dreambane? How can we be sure it has been introduced
into my body? I am sure Smythe gave me no potion.�

�� It could
have happened before the curse was cast,� Harry said, �if he had an accomplice.
Or�did he spit on you?�

�� Yes, he
did,� Lucius said quietly.

�� Harry
nodded. His hair rustled against Draco�s cheek; his head bumped Draco�s and
made it sidle and slip. �That�s probably how he intended to do it. Dreambane
can ride within human body fluids and be absorbed by the skin.�

�� And what
are we to do?� Narcissa asked. Draco wanted to close his eyes again at the
sound of her voice. Perhaps Harry would think it perfectly smooth, like a
frozen lake, but Harry did not know his mother yet.

�� Harry drew
a breath like a dragon getting ready to belch fire. �There�s a potion that can
purge dreambane from the body,� he said. �But I don�t know how to brew it, and
I don�t think I would trust myself if I did. My potions skills have never been
the best��

�� Draco found
he could breathe again.

�� He gripped
Harry more tightly still. �And here I am, nearly a Potions master,� he said,
�and devoted to helping the family. Isn�t that convenient?�

�� Harry
sagged back against Draco again, obviously boneless with relief. He seemed to
have thought he would be left to deal with Lucius�s poisoning, with inadequate Potions
skills, on his own.

�� Draco
lifted Harry�s hair and kissed the skin beneath his right ear, gentle and
delicate and slow, giving and receiving reassurance with the gesture, making it
a promise of hope and mutual aid.

�� And so this is love.

*

�� rafiq: I
think Lucius plots as he breathes.

�� hieisdragon18:
Thank you!

�� Sara: I
hope you had a good day at work.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Thanks for reviewing!

�� linagabriev:
The mirror is just positioned so that Narcissa can see herself from all angles.

�� I think
Rogers is a very traditional house-elf, but that doesn�t mean he�s right about everything.

�� Emptyweed
has done some good things, but yes, he�s a bastard. Just because he wanted to
avoid Harry�s death doesn�t really make him a good person.
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For Their Unconquerable Souls