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The Name I'll Give to Thee	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 42130 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Chapter Twenty—Friends and Enemies

            “They would not dare do this.”

            Harry began to move immediately when he heard that whisper. This morning, he had come to Draco’s room instead of going to the library first; yesterday had passed in a peaceful haze of watching Narcissa and studying, and Harry supposed today would, too. But there was no reason to offend Draco by not checking in with him.

            Draco was sitting up in bed, his face redder than it had been yesterday. From the way he stared at the letter in his hand, though, some of the red came from anger. He thrust the letter towards Harry, and then turned away, glaring out the window.

            Harry took the letter, subtly eying Draco’s back as he did. The bandages looked fresh. Ossy had been here, then. But the area they covered was smaller than before, and Harry turned back to the letter in some peace of mind.

            He blinked when he realized it was on official parchment, even heavier and crisper and less likely to bend than the parchment the Ministry would use for similar letters. He turned it over, and saw the seal clinging to the broken wax. He whistled softly. A hand clutching a raised wand and rays of light around that wand. He knew it, because he’d studied it, but it wasn’t one the Healers used anymore.

            Mr. Malfoy,

            That you think you can threaten us speaks volumes of your great self-conceit and very little of your common sense. You blackmailed us into treatment. I cannot be sorry when it saved lives. But this clears every debt between us. We will be suing.

            Sincerely, Gilbert Ready, Head Healer.

            Harry looked up. Draco had turned back to him, and there was a dull fire in his eyes that Harry didn’t understand at first, until Draco said, “You came up with the plan. It was a good one. I was the one who couldn’t make it work.” He turned back to the window.

            Harry said nothing for a moment. Then he said, “You weren’t the problem. This Healer is.” He rapped the letter thoughtfully against his hand. “But something about it bothers me.”

            Draco turned around again, and Harry suppressed the impulse to say something about how much all the turning would affect his back. Draco probably knew all about what would and wouldn’t affect his back. “Something? One thing? I can’t believe that.” He gave a bitter little snort that went to Harry’s heart.

            “I don’t mean that,” Harry said. “I mean that I haven’t heard of Gilbert Ready before. I didn’t even know St. Mungo’s had a Head Healer. I thought it had Heads of the various wards, and those Healers worked together to train mediwizards and coordinate, oh, treatments of epidemics, all the things they can’t handle by themselves. But I know enough about the Ministry to know that I would have heard of him before now, because he would have been invited to all those bloody parties the Ministry wanted me to go to.”

            Draco’s smile came and went, quick as a mouse fleeing from an owl. “And now I’m going to make you go to a different set of bloody parties.”

            Harry half-flipped his hand. “I signed up for it. The Ministry used to tell me that they would never make me do publicity, and then they changed their minds.” He frowned at the letter. “Have you heard of him?”

            Draco drew his legs up, his eyes half-closed. Harry was coming to recognize that as a sign he was thinking deeply. “No,” he said at last. “But I haven’t paid much attention to St. Mungo’s since the war. They were never a cause that my father had given much time or attention or money to.”

            And I followed what my father did. Harry knew that without Draco saying it. It only made sense, because Draco had suddenly found himself head of the family and struggling to maintain the Malfoys’ position in society. Harry nodded. “Well, then he might exist, but that we haven’t heard of him, with our fairly wide knowledge of wizarding society, makes me suspicious.” He smiled. “So we’ll see what he says to a direct challenge.”

            Draco stared at him. “You’ll duel him?”

            Harry laughed, and watched the way Draco’s eyes changed in interest. Maybe this was what he had meant, when he wanted Harry to respond to him with more of what he was. In that case, Harry could do it. He had only thought about keeping so quiet before because it seemed the best way to avoid arguments. “Not what I meant, but I can see why you thought I would,” he added teasingly. “I am one for the reckless plans, aren’t I?”

            “Perhaps not as much as I thought, if this isn’t one of them.”

            Harry gave him a little bow, and left him to think about that as he wanted. “What I’m going to do is take this straight to the papers. It’s true that Ready—if there is such a person—might have anticipated that, but they can’t blackmail us the way we could have blackmailed them. Everything happened in public, and there’s lots of people to be witnesses, from the Healers who tended us to the mediwitch who told us the Healers weren’t allowed to treat Malfoys. We have no reason to be afraid of a scandal. They do.”

            Draco raised a half-protesting hand. “If something happens to my mother because of this…”

            Harry nodded gently. He understood why that would be the first fear on Draco’s mind, and he couldn’t say it was an unreasonable one. “We’ll do what we can to make sure she isn’t disturbed. At the very least, we can trot out Healer Bowman as an example that some Healers don’t mind treating us.”

            Draco’s face had gone shuttered again, which meant Harry had done something wrong again, only he didn’t know what it was. He waited a second in case Draco wanted to tell him, but Draco only folded his hands on the bed and said, “Well, since you’ve got it all figured out, you could go and begin it.”

            Harry hesitated when he would have stridden away. “Draco, do you want—”

            “Go.”

            Wrong, then. Somehow.

            But Harry reminded himself that Draco was probably reacting this way partially because of pain and because he felt helpless right now with the threats coming from everywhere. He bowed quietly and left, shutting the door behind him so gently that he didn’t think it would disturb Draco.

*

            Draco shut his eyes and shook his head. He wanted to lash out at something, but the taste in his mouth was cool, fresh, small, as though he had brushed his teeth with the paste that Ossy was always wanting him to try, less astringent than the paste Draco had used for years.

            Harry had come up with a plan. Harry had talked about himself as though he was a Malfoy. He had looked at Draco with direct, clear eyes, seemed to blink at what he saw there, and looked away again. He had said he would protect Draco, and then he had gone away again.

            How could Draco deal with that?

            He’d always had someone to guard him as a child, but it was almost ten years since he had been a child. He became a Death Eater to protect his parents. He had to be the head of his family when his father went to prison. Even though his mother hadn’t been someone he needed to stand against the world for, she had accepted that position because he was the head of the family and her birth family was all dead or estranged from her.

            Now here came along someone and scooped up the position of a protector from him, and told Draco to stay in bed, and patted him, and smoothed his hair, and then marched out the door as though he had no idea what it had cost Draco to say yes.

            Draco didn’t know how to handle that.

            For now, though, the wound would keep him down and in bed even if he tried to stop Harry. And what Harry proposed wasn’t a bad plan. It had the same virtues as the first one, recognizing what he could do and what Draco couldn’t, right now. Draco’s strength was subtlety, so he would handle the plan when they needed it. Harry’s strength was his directness, so he would march firmly into the face of danger when they needed someone to do that.

            Draco opened his eyes with a gasp. He knew why this bothered him, now that he thought about it, knew in a way that he never would have if he hadn’t been forced to lie still and let his furious brain work on it.

            Harry was acting as though they were the team Draco had thought they would take years to become. Yes, he was doing it in an exasperating way, and Draco wanted the flash of laughter and temper he had seen today, not the mindless obedience Harry had tried to give him yesterday, because that wasn’t real and it would crack apart the first time they faced a harsh challenge. Harry had to give the real him to the Malfoys or they would never have a stable future.

            Draco made plans. He thought he would have a reluctant spouse, and made plans for that. He thought he had someone who could only take reckless actions in an emergency, and accepted it. He thought he had someone of great magical power, and gratefully built on the notion. Then he found out Harry could plan, and he accepted that, too.

            But Harry kept introducing new factors, and shifting the ground under his feet, and making Draco scramble to keep up. At the same time as he was building their demi-marriage into something like the partnership Draco had envisioned. They could work together, and hand power over to each other, and strive side-by-side towards the family’s goals, because as wearying as it might seem, they were still working for the family.

            It was wonderful, but unpredictable, and Draco had always needed certainty of some kind in his life. He didn’t know what he would do without it.

            And I might never have it again.

*

            Harry grinned as Hermione’s face appeared in the fire. She sat up when she saw his grin, and nodded. “Something happened with the Healers, didn’t it?” she demanded. “I knew it would. They can never let things go, the idiots. Give it here.”

            Harry shook his head. “I’ll come to you. I think you should see the letter, not just hear about it, and I don’t know if Malfoy wants you in the house yet.” At the very least, he thought, Ossy might chase her out with a flapping apron. He hadn’t been happy about Hermione even being on the grounds to help with the wards.

            Hermione snorted, rolled her eyes, and moved aside. “Come through, then.”

            The fire flared bright around him as Harry tossed in the Floo powder, and stumbled out into Ron and Hermione’s kitchen. He always stumbled, it was a fact of life. Just the way that Draco had glided out of the Ministry’s Floos the other night looking perfect and as if he’d never even heard of soot.

            Harry shrugged. We make a good complement to each other, sort of. I can accept that, sort of.

            He handed the letter to Hermione and nodded to Ron, who was sitting at the table and eating. Ron raised an eyebrow back at him and waved a hand at the letter. Harry shrugged. He didn’t know yet how serious it was, or how far he would have to go to counter it. Perhaps the Healers weren’t expecting opposition at all, and would crumple at the first sight of it.

            He found himself hoping they didn’t. He would like to fight a proper enemy again, rather than someone who hid in shadows, or sent dragons, or was married to him and sometimes seemed like a friend.

            Ron crunched into an orange, and Harry leaned back a little as it sprayed him with juice. Ron grinned with the pulp between his teeth, said, “Sorry,” while not sounding very sorry at all, and swallowed. “What is it?”

            Harry gave him the letter, since Hermione had finished with it and looked on the verge of boiling over. Ron kicked his chair back as he read it, his eyes growing wider and wider all the while. Then he handed the letter to Harry and said, “Holy shit.”

            “You could use more dignified language, Ron,” Hermione murmured, but her hands were on her hips, and her eyes were bright and remote. “They’re going to regret doing this, Harry,” she added out of the side of her mouth.

            Harry nodded, and stole an orange from the bowl of them on the table. When he used his nails to slice the skin open, juice spilled out of it, sweet and tart on his fingers when he licked them off. Like Draco, he was thinking. “I thought they would. But I think maybe the best course would just be to go to the press now.” He paused, because Hermione was shaking her head. “Why not?”

            “I haven’t heard of Gilbert Ready,” Hermione said. “That part is suspicious. But the Healers had to know that they wouldn’t make you back away so easily.”

            “Why?” Ron pointed out sensibly. “They seem pretty stupid.” He took another bite of orange, and Hermione cast a spell that sent the spraying juice fluttering back across the table. Ron spluttered as it stung him in the eyes and nostrils.

            “Because he’s Harry Potter,” Hermione said, and then caught Harry’s eye and blushed. “Sorry, Harry.”

            “It makes sense that you would make the mistake,” Harry said, and cut loose another section of orange to finish. “I still think of myself the same way most of the time.”

            Hermione frowned, but didn’t pursue that, to Harry’s secret relief. “They have to know you won’t back down, especially after that scene in hospital. They probably have an article being prepared, or maybe it’ll be published soon, that tries to explain that side of the story. They’re trying to steal a march on you, and frighten you. They’ll also try to paint themselves more sympathetically. It’s only common sense.”

            Harry shrugged. “Fine. But does that mean cutting out going to the papers altogether? I’ll go as a heartstricken victim then, still worried about my husband, and my new marriage, and how fragile our family could be if we have to deal with a lawsuit at the same time. I’ll plead with the Healers not to do this.” He finished the last section of orange and grinned at Hermione. “That ought to get them. You know how they swoon when I cry.”

            Hermione tried not to grin, but she was bad at hiding her emotions. She nodded. “Yes, Harry, they do. But are they still going to love it when you’re Harry Malfoy?”

            Harry pressed the back of his wrist against his forehead. “That only makes my position all the more pathetic. I’m the man who gave everything up for honor or love, depending on the way we want to present it. My family name and my freedom and the choice of a marriage for love.” He saw how Hermione flinched, and hurried on. He didn’t want Hermione becoming a victim of the delusion that he was trying to encourage in other people. “Make it saccharine and sobby enough, and there’s no reason they won’t love it.”

            Hermione tilted her head to the side and nibbled her lip a little. “It’s true that that should work,” she said. “Are you going to discuss it with Malfoy first?”



            Harry started a little. “Yes, I reckon I should,” he muttered, and reached out for the letter. “And there are other things I need to do, too.” He turned away, squaring his shoulders for the trip back through the Floo.

            “That’s all you do now,” Ron said.

            Harry turned and looked at him, since he certainly wasn’t in the habit of leaving his friends’ house to Floo back to Malfoy Manor. Ron was standing up, and his grin was gone, and he leaned his hands on the top of the table as if the hold was all that kept him from dashing it to the ground. “You devote yourself to the things you have to do,” he said. “The things you need to do. You’re all duty.”

            Harry flinched, this time. It was the same thing Draco had accused him of, or it sounded like the same thing, but what was he supposed to do? He had to study, and he had to watch Narcissa, and he had to become part of the Malfoy family, and he had to defend Draco against their enemies. It was telling, maybe, that that last part was the only thing he liked doing, but he had been an Auror for years and fighting against Voldemort before that. It wasn’t as though this was new.

            Because he had no real answer for Ron, he smiled weakly at him and reached for the Floo powder. Hermione touched his arm and looked into his eyes at the same time as Ron said, “We’re here for you, mate, whenever you’re ready to admit that you need help.”

            Harry tightened his shoulders, and said nothing. Instead, he cast the powder and disappeared into the fire, and came out in the small room he had disappeared from. He made sure the Floo was closed and went towards the stairs, still clutching the letter.

            Strange that I ran down here feeling so happy and now I’m almost afraid to face Draco.

            Harry sighed. Yes, strange, and stupid. He cast a charm that would Vanish the soot he was probably tracking in, and went upstairs.

*

            “Nice of you to come see me.”

            Harry didn’t respond to that, just drawing up the chair next to Draco’s bed and saying, “Hermione says the Healers wouldn’t do something like this without some sort of backup plan. So they probably plan to publish an article that gives their side of the story. She hasn’t heard of Gilbert Ready either, though, so that’s likely a lie.”

            Draco stared at him. That hadn’t been the kind of thing he’d expected to hear Harry come back with, and so he had to muster his words to get past his astonishment. In the few seconds that took him, Harry leaned towards him, eyes intense and concerned. “What is it? Has the pain in your back got worse again?”

            Draco wanted to close his eyes or scream in exasperation, one of the two, and managed to content himself with a loud sigh. “Listen, Harry. There’s other things we can talk about than my wound.”

            Harry blinked and gestured at the letter on Draco’s legs. “I thought we were.”

            “Just don’t assume that everything I see and feel right now is traceable back to the wound,” Draco snapped. “That’s all I’m asking.”

            Harry nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said, face blank and eyes bright and withdrawn and obedient and bloody fuck, Draco could not take this for one more moment. He shot his hand out and grasped Harry’s wrist, pressing the bones down.

            Harry yanked his hand back at once, with a motion that showed he had been trained how to react. He cradled the wrist, too, and glared at Draco. “What did you do that for?”

            “To get a response,” Draco said grimly. “Stop acting mindless with me. Stop acting like a bloody house-elf. I don’t just want apologies. I don’t want perfection.”

            “Oh, yes?” Harry’s voice was low, but his eyes were savage enough to challenge the dragon’s that had attacked them. “You could have fooled me, from all the lectures you’ve been giving me on proper Malfoy behavior.”

            Draco smiled in spite of himself, because this was what he was talking about, the sharpness and the way that Harry leaned towards him as if he couldn’t help himself, instead of staying apart and aloof and discrete in a way he was never meant to. “There’s a difference between behaving properly and acting as though you can barely stand me.”

            Harry wrinkled his nose, some of the glint leaving his eyes, but he didn’t pretend that he had no idea what Draco was talking about, to Draco’s intense relief. “What do you mean? You know that this isn’t a marriage of love. And I thought it was the other way around, that you hated being obliged to marry me. That you hated me for what I did to your wand.” He looked at Draco’s basilisk wand, resting on the table.

            Draco shook his head impatiently. “You made up for it by marrying me. And I haven’t taunted you about that lately, have I? It’s my mother I’m worried about, but you’ve been doing more to guard her than I have, lately.” It was striking him as a bit strange, suddenly, that he had asked Harry and the elves to watch her, but never gone himself.

            “Well,” Harry said, and scratched at his hair. “But you dislike my manners, and you wanted me to read all those books, and I still hurt Narcissa. How can you forgive me for that? How can you forgive me for everything I lack, and if you don’t care, why do you want me to study so hard?”

            Draco sighed. “I can want you to act more like a pure-blood without hating you.”

            “But what I am is what you claim to want,” Harry said, fixing his gaze on him. “What I am is also uncouth and rude and loud and crude and Muggleborn. How can I give you what you want without also giving you what you don’t want?”

            Draco grimaced. Put like that, it did sound like a paradox, yes, when he honestly hadn’t meant it to. He sighed and leaned back, turning over gingerly. His back felt well enough for such a thing to be possible.

            “I want you to study, yes,” Draco said. He was picking his words as carefully as though they were roses gone to thorns, and from the way Harry watched him, he knew it and could barely breathe through anticipation of what would come next. “That doesn’t mean I want you to control your emotions in private. That’s the difference. Show me your emotions in private. Try to control them in public.”

            Harry relaxed in such a rush that Draco wondered why he didn’t fall over. He nodded. “I can do that,” he said. “I can try to do that, at least.” He smiled at Draco, bright and winsome. “I thought I should do it all the time, and then I was getting upset that you didn’t like it when I was showing you controlled emotions. But I never thought you wanted me to display everything I felt. I just thought I wasn’t hiding it well enough.”

            Draco hesitated, then reached out and took Harry’s hand. “I don’t deal well with uncertainty,” he said, as close to an apology as he could come. He hadn’t told Harry to control his emotions in private; that had been Harry’s misunderstanding. “When I never know whether you’ll come up with a brilliant plan, or what you’ll do next, it unnerves me.”

            Harry nodded thoughtfully, stroking Draco’s fingers in a pleasant way. “I think we’ll always argue,” he said. “That was another thing I thought I was doing wrong, making you angry. But if I try to explain what I’m doing, will you explain what you want?”

            “A fair bargain,” Draco said, relaxing still more. They could do this, this improved version of the demi-marriage he had thought he would have.

            Why not be content with what he was doing? Obedience was what you thought you’d be lucky to get at first.

            And that question, more than any other that had arisen so far, Draco couldn’t answer.

            Except to say that he had seen Harry was capable of more, and so he wanted that more. Perhaps he had always been greedy over Harry Potter, and the change of name mattered less than he had thought.

*

            Delia cerrano: Yes, and it puzzled Draco, because that was what he wanted—he thought. Perhaps now he’ll understand himself better, too.

            unneeded: As you can see, Harry was totally puzzled, because Draco had told him he didn’t want the person Harry thinks of himself as: non-pure-blood, loud, direct. So he was trying to do what he thought would make a good Malfoy spouse, and make Draco happy as a Malfoy, and was startled when it blew up in his face.

            SP777: But it’s not a real marriage, Harry would argue, and Draco knows that. So why does he want it to be?

            Why?

            alexkdp: Ossy is affected by what Draco feels, so he tends to be more sensitive to what Harry’s doing when Draco is.
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The Name I'll Give to Thee