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Nova Cupiditas	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 37321 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

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Chapter
Twenty-Four�All Too Divisible

�� Draco woke
with a curse. For a moment, he had been dozing so
heavily that he had started to slide into a dream, and then the jealousy had
stuck spikes into his brain and pulled him back. He had to remember that
Weasley might sneak into Harry�s room if he didn�t pay enough attention.

�� Weasley had
gone home for the evening, supposedly. But Draco didn�t trust his words,
especially because Harry did. Draco
had learned, with some grim amusement at the fact, that it was all too easy to
fool Harry if he trusted you. Draco had to be the one to look out for Harry in
this particular context, since he wouldn�t do it for himself.

�� Then the
jealousy blew away again like the tattered rag that it so often resembled, and
Draco buried his head in his hands and breathed until he could feel the calm
settling into the pit of his stomach.

�� Weasley has a wife whom he seems to love.
Why would he do something like that? And I know that Harry wants me. I�ve seen
how his eyes shine when he looks at me.

�� More than
that, he knew where the jealousy and the paranoid fantasies that accompanied it
came from. But Draco couldn�t help rising to his feet, wrapping a robe around
himself, and walking down the corridor towards Harry�s bedroom.

�� The shimmer
of wards would have identified it for him even if he hadn�t known the way.
Draco leaned gingerly against the wall outside the limit of what should be the
largest ward and peered in.

�� Harry had
tossed off most of his blankets and lay under a single light sheet,
his nightshirt also rucked up so that his chest was
bare. Draco tried to swallow, but the saliva crowding his mouth made it
difficult. He looked at the darker spots that Harry�s nipples made, and then
had to look away.

�� The sight of him shouldn�t be able to affect
me so strongly. Father would say that I�m weak.

�� The opinion
of someone who knew nothing about the situation could be of little value to
Draco, though. Instead, he stood there watching Harry sleep, and then he turned
away, having seen for himself that Weasley wasn�t in bed with Harry.

�� Of course
he wasn�t, because he was behind Draco, aiming his wand at him. Draco stopped,
but did nothing so foolish as put his hands out to
catch himself on the walls. That would make him look weak and scared, and that
was what Weasley wanted. Draco watched him with a calm, remote gaze instead,
and had the satisfaction of hearing Weasley�s teeth grind.

�� Look,
Malfoy,� Weasley said, his expression saying that he was reluctant to dirty his
mouth with the name. He ought to
understand why I call him Weasel, in that case, Draco thought, and shifted
his weight so that he would be in a good position to dodge curses. �Harry seems
to want you here, for some weird reason. I
don�t understand it. But you have to know that, if you cross the line and hurt
Harry, then it doesn�t matter, I�ll hurt you.
Harry only sacrificed himself so that you wouldn�t be charged for the crimes
you�ve already committed. Do something new, and I�ll arrest you.�

�� Draco
opened his mouth. He expected similarly defiant words to come out; it wasn�t as
though he would just stand there and permit Weasley to insult him.

�� Instead, he
found himself laughing. He let that play out to the end, and in the end closed
his eyes and shook his head. The weight of Weasley�s incredulous stare was
almost worth it.

�� You don�t
believe me?� Weasley could be shrill when he thought that someone doubted his
big manly Auror prowess, evidently.

�� No,� Draco
said. �I do. But you�re as stupid as I always thought you were if you think
arresting me would change anything. Harry sacrificed himself once and did
something I know was hard for him. What makes you think that he wouldn�t do it
again?�

�� Because�because
he has no favors left to trade,� Weasley said, and Draco thought he�d been
shocked into honesty, just from the tone of his voice. �He can�t ask Kingsley
for anything else. Kingsley won�t give it to him.�

�� You
believe that,� Draco said, opening his eyes and pushing himself
off the wall to move towards Weasley. Weasley tensed, and Draco reminded
himself that the man did have Auror
training, as ineffective as it probably was against someone who knew what they
were doing and didn�t react like a brain-dead rabbit.

�� On the other
hand, Draco didn�t have his wand. Perhaps it would be best to preserve the
peace after all. He stopped and shook his head. �Harry can call on all the
favors that he wants. He might not think of it this way, but the wizarding
world owes him a debt that it can never repay, and Shacklebolt knows that. He
would do whatever Harry wanted�within reason. And if Harry asked for a
continuation of a promise that was already made, especially if you arrested me
without Harry�s approval, then I would go free again.�

�� Weasley�s
jaw worked. Then he glanced away. �You�re a danger, even if you�re not a Dark
wizard,� he whispered. �You�re not in control of your actions.�

�� Perhaps
better not to provoke me, then?� Draco asked. �Don�t touch Harry. Don�t make
comments about him that indicate you might like to sleep with him.�

�� Weasley
threw him a disgusted glare. �That�s only in the depths of your paranoid and
twisted mind.�

�� Exactly,�
Draco said. �Which is why it oughtn�t to be so hard, assuming
that you�re telling the truth. Don�t say you love him. Don�t say you can�t
wait to hug him again. Don�t hug him.� His voice grew sharper as he spoke. It
wasn�t so hard to imagine Weasley with his arms around Harry. Draco had seen
that happen several times in Hogwarts.

�� Where you would have thought nothing of it,
because what were Harry�s lovers to you then?

�� It occurred
to Draco that he hadn�t seen Harry with the Weasley girl yet. He would have to
make sure she was no competition.

�� You�re the
one who needs to adapt, not me.� Weasley�s voice was cruel, digging like a
knife into Draco�s brain. �You�re the one who�s cursed, and who has unnatural
reactions. I don�t need to stop touching Harry. You should control your
emotions, or sooner or later he�s going to leave you. Do you really think that
he�ll put up with you cursing his best friends and holding us away from him
forever?�

�� Draco winced, stung by the jealousy and by the conviction that
Weasley was right at one and the same time. Yes, Harry would grow tired of
having his every movement controlled and watched over. Draco had seen that
during Hogwarts, when even the professors, who had the right to authority over
Harry, couldn�t hold him still.

�� I don�t have authority, but I do have a
claim. I could ask him if he would stay away from Weasley and Granger for the
love of me.

�� Yet he
didn�t know for certain if Harry loved him, either, or if those feelings were
more born of pity and the desire to help. Sometimes Draco thought he saw one
thing in Harry�s eyes, sometimes the other, but he had never had the full and
sincere reaction from Harry that would have quieted his doubts.

�� Is this
reaching you?� Weasley was moving towards him, shaking his head. �You don�t
understand, Malfoy. Harry might feel sorry for you, but you�re the one who was cursed. He�s
not the one who should change his whole life around because of you, for you. Why should he? He�ll get tired
of you eventually, and push you away.�

�� Draco shut
his eyes and swayed. Those words went straight to the center of his deepest
fears, and no matter how many times he repeated to himself that Weasley was
only trying to get a rise out of him, only trying to make Draco distrust
himself and react with fury or run away from Harry in confusion, it didn�t
help.

�� Because there are things that
won�t change. Harry won�t stop
seeing his friends for me, no matter how much I ask him to. He�ll accommodate
me, but he won�t change everything.

�� That gave
Draco an idea about what he had to do. He took a deep breath and opened his
eyes. �I�m sorry,� he said.

�� Weasley
stood there, staring at him, his wand dangling in his fingers as if he had
forgotten its existence. Draco reckoned he could understand that. It wasn�t
every day that someone got an apology from a Malfoy. He would let Weasley
treasure the moment, and hopefully realize that it would never come again.

�� After
everything you�ve said?� Weasley finally asked, getting his voice back from
wherever he�d put it. �After everything you�ve done? What is this apology
supposed to be for?�

�� For
cursing you,� Draco said. He felt at peace with himself, and wondered if Harry
had been right and offering someone an apology really could cleanse and help
the soul. It felt good, at least. �That first night in the lab, when you were
touching Harry�� his voice turned savage, and he paused and waited until he
thought he could go on in a dignified manner��and I lost control of myself.�

�� Oh, yes,�
Weasley said, and his eyes had narrowed. �The incident I�m not allowed to
arrest you for, even though anyone using Dark magic should go to Azkaban.�

�� Draco just
met his eyes and didn�t say anything. Weasley was the one who had chosen to
bring up Harry�s sacrifice for Draco. He ought to be the one to realize that
undoing it wouldn�t be the best move to keep himself in Harry�s good graces.

�� Fuck,
Malfoy, what do you expect me to
say?� Weasley was suddenly aggressive, sweeping a hand through his hair and
then leaning closer as if he thought Draco had his wand. �You think that your
words are enough to make up for everything?�

�� Considering
that I was under a curse at the time and that I still have no desire to apologize?� Draco asked. �Yes, I do think
that.�

�� Weasley
rolled his eyes. �So you�re doing this because Harry told you to and you want
to stay close to him. Excuse me for not taking your words promptly at face
value.�

�� Draco
sighed. He was trying to hold onto his patience, and it shouldn�t have been so
hard, but he had to remember that he was without his wand and that Weasley was
in control of the situation, no matter how much he hated that. �Yes, fine. You
don�t have to accept it. But Harry suggested that I find some means to atone
for what I�d done, to help myself come to terms with it. I�m doing this for
myself and Harry, not you. I�d thought you would have been smart enough to
realize that, at least.�

�� He started
to move past Weasley, disgusted by the complete lack of understanding between
them. Weasley had to know that no
apology would ever emerge from Draco�s lips of his own free will, so why did he
act as though apologizing because of Harry was some horrible revelation that
Draco should apologize for in turn?

�� Wait.�

�� Draco
glanced back over his shoulder. Weasley had his fists clenched, no surprise.
Draco moved to the side so that he could be sure his back was to the wall. If
it came to a physical fight, then he would first try to take Weasley�s wand
from him. He thought he could see a way to do that, even, if Weasley kept his
hands in the same position they were.

�� You�re not
leaving,� Weasley said. �And you�re haunted by the remnants of this curse even
now, because Harry couldn�t get rid of it fully.�

�� Draco held
back the sharp words that wanted to rise to his lips, even though Weasley made
it sound as though Harry had simply failed because he wasn�t good enough. He knew
Weasley hadn�t meant it that way. He waited.

�� And you�re
jealous when I touch him, but that�s not your fault,� Weasley muttered. �And
you apologized. Even if it�s worthless because you never would have done it
without Harry to prod you along.�

�� Draco
couldn�t help himself. �Does it always take you this long to reach a simple
conclusion, Weasley?�

�� Shut up,
wanker,� Weasley said, frowning so intensely that Draco was sure it had become
more about his own internal thought process than anything anyone outside him
said. �I�m getting somewhere, and maybe that�s
closer to an acceptance of you.�

�� Draco
rolled his eyes, but again, managed to keep silent. He was never really going
to like Harry�s friends, he knew that. He was never really going to like their
closeness to Harry. But getting them to tolerate him was, frankly, more
important. They weren�t the ones who threatened people when a random bout of
jealousy took them, either.

�� He could
feel his face flush, thinking about that�with embarrassment this time�and it
helped to distract him from the mental disaster that was Weasley fumbling his
way along.

�� I reckon
you�re not going away,� was the next thing Weasley said that he bothered to pay
attention to, voice so reluctant that it made the words sound like a threat at
first. �Though Merlin alone knows what Harry�s going to do with you, when
you�re a danger to him and everyone around him.�

�� I�m not a
danger to anyone as long as I�m without my wand,� Draco said, and he thought
the bitterness behind that must have been too visible, because Weasley snorted
and pointed a finger at him.

�� But you�d like to be, I know,� he said. �Anything to prevent us from taking our rightful places at Harry�s
side.�

�� If things
were completely normal, I wouldn�t be here at all,� Draco said. �As it is, I�ll
live with you being here because I have to.�

�� Then go
back to being completely normal!� Weasley leaned forwards again, and his voice
shifted into the most intelligent tone Draco had ever heard it take. �Seize the
chance! Get someone besides Harry to take off the last of the curse, and then
walk away and don�t look back! Merlin�s balls, don�t you want to do that? It would make the most sense for you, and it would
get you away from us and Harry.�

�� I don�t
know if anyone can remove this curse,� Draco said, rolling his eyes at
Weasley�s naivet�. �Harry is the only one who�s managed to take off even half
of it. Why wouldn�t I remain close to him instead?�

�� You could
look,� Weasley said stubbornly. �You ought to be able to think a little �more rationally now that the curse
isn�t as strong as it was. Go and look. Leave us alone.�

�� Draco shook
his head. �No. You said it yourself: I�m here, and I�m staying. You�ll have to
put up with it. It can�t be the hardest thing you�ve ever done in your life,�
he added, wondering why Weasley was acting like this when Draco knew that he
had been a hero in the war. �Hunting for a way to defeat the Dark Lord was
harder.�

�� Ha!� said
Weasley morosely. He straightened, stared at Draco for a moment, and then said,
�No sneaking in and trying to rape Harry.�

�� That�s why
he has those wards,� Draco said. He would have liked to protest that he could
never rape Harry now, but he found it easier to tell the truth than a lie.

�� Ha,�
Weasley said again, eyed Draco as though he might sneak past him and try it anyway,
and then walked away.

�� Draco
watched him go. He thought of asking if Weasley had accepted his apology, but
he didn�t want to think about the answer.

�� It did have
one effect on him, though. He went
back to his bedroom, and for the first time all night, dreamed peacefully.

*

�� Sit still,
please, Draco.�

�� Draco
looked as if he would like to protest the order, but in the end, he sat down on
the chair Harry had conjured for him�as promised�in the center of the warded
circle and waited. His hands were folded in his lap, and the world�s best bored
expression was on his face. Harry found that he had to keep more of his
attention on the curse than on Draco, or he would have burst out laughing.

�� Not that
that was hard, not when he really focused
on the curse. It was fluctuating back and forth right now, between the
black cloud with sparks of red that meant jealousy and the red cloud with
sparks of black that meant lust. Draco hadn�t expressed either towards him this
morning, unless snatched glances counted, so Harry thought this was what the
stable state looked like. The relatively stable state, at least. The clouds
never remained the same color for the same length of time, and the sparks of the
contrary color came and went. The only things he thought were constant were the
interlinked nature of those emotions, as shown by the flecks of one present in
the other, and the way they �moved,� pulsing in and out like the breathing of a
great beast.

�� I don�t
understand why it changes like this,� Harry muttered to himself, and cast
another revealing charm. As he had thought it would do, it failed. Most of the
time, trying to add a second revealing charm on top of a successful one did
that.

�� Like
what?� Draco leaned forwards, looking interested for the first time all
morning. �Those star-clouds you mentioned before? It looks like that now?�

�� Harry
nodded, deciding that it wouldn�t be a problem if he involved Draco that much.
�Yes. But why? Is this a natural stage in the evolution
of the curse, once someone manages to hurt it, or has halving it done something
entirely new?�

�� Just
remember that this counts as one of your four tries.�

�� Harry
looked up sharply. Draco�s voice was deep, his eyes were glittering,
but the cloud around his shoulders still only held flecks of red. It wasn�t the
lust, Harry judged. It was Draco feeling ordinary desire for him.

�� He wouldn�t be feeling that, either, in the
first place, if not for the Seekers of Justice and their curses.

�� Harry winced.
He had to keep the guilt out of his work, though, or he would do nothing but
think about that all day long.

�� I know,�
he said, in answer to Draco, and then stepped around behind him, on the other
side of the circle, to see if the curse looked different from that direction.
No. Draco craned his head to watch Harry go, but made no objection to him
standing there, which Harry had half-thought he would do. An experience like Nova Cupiditas would
make anyone paranoid.

�� I
apologized to Weasley this morning,� Draco announced.

�� Harry
blinked and turned his head to look at him. Perhaps he should have stayed
focused on curing the curse even now, but it wasn�t every day that Draco could
make an announcement like that.
�What? When?�

�� While you
were still asleep,� Draco said. �He found me standing outside the wards of your
room, and threatened me a bit. I remembered that I didn�t have a wand, and he
did say a few things about eventually accepting my presence in your life. So I
apologized. I thought he was about to have a heart attack.� From Draco�s
satisfied expression, that wouldn�t have been the worst possible result.

�� I�m�glad,�
Harry said, though the simple words didn�t begin to express the depths of his
astonishment. �I�m glad that you can get along,� he added, since Draco cocked
his head and seemed to expect more from him. �Do you feel better now?�

�� Draco
shrugged. �I slept peacefully after that, so maybe apologizing to Weasleys has
some hitherto-unknown tranquilizing property.�

�� Not like
you would have known it before this,� Harry muttered at him, and won a quick
grin before he cast another revealing charm.

�� The
star-clouds flickered wildly around Draco�s shoulders, and Harry took a step
closer to the wards despite the fact that that brought his nose right up to
them and he�d been trying to remain at a decent distance for Draco�s sake. If
this revealing charm caused the curse to vanish after he�d spent so much time
trying to see it�

�� But no. Instead, the charm combined with the first one in
the way that Harry had been trying to do for hours and had begun to believe he
wouldn�t get, linking with it and opening another �field� of vision around
Draco�s shoulders.

�� Harry
caught his breath. Yes, he could see
it now. The clouds twined out reaching tendrils that locked into place behind
Draco�s neck. Harry could see how they joined, and the way the tendrils were
lazily climbing Draco�s face towards his ears, the place where the lust-crown
had been locked into his brain in the original curse.

�� They�re not there yet. Harry swallowed. We�ll have to move quickly to make sure that
they don�t put Draco back under the original curse, or at least regrow the lust to the point where he can�t think
coherently.

�� This time,
though, he would cast every spell he could think of at the connection, so that
it wouldn�t split the way it had last time and leave Draco in devastating pain.
Harry took a step away from the circle, intending to fetch his notebooks.

�� And saw
something else, something previously invisible from the angle he�d been
standing at.

�� The black
and red tendrils of the clouds were twined around Draco�s throat, too, looking
like some sort of bizarre necklace resting above the pulse point. They didn�t
sink into the skin and thus show that they had latched on and Draco was once
more under Nova Cupiditas,
thank God, but they formed a big, ugly knot that Harry knew he would have to
cut.

�� He thought
he understood what he was seeing, now. When he had sliced the curse in half, he
had sliced the shapes that haunted Draco�s head and shoulders in half, too, and
this was the pattern that lay underneath them. Doubled, restored to full
strength, the curse would resume the shapes he had learned so painstakingly.

�� That was
worthwhile knowledge, at least. Harry wasn�t entirely certain how he was going
to use it, yet, but at least he had it.

�� Then,
because he remembered the disaster that had happened last time when he acted
too quickly, he took a closer look, and ended up shutting his eyes.

�� Harry?�
Draco�s voice was sharp. �You can�t stand there looking as if you�re going to
faint without telling me what you saw.�

�� Harry
managed to swallow, and poured his attention forcibly back to the knot. �Some
of the strands around you are red, and some are black,� he said dully. �For lust and jealousy. And some of the strands are both red
and black. The two emotions run into
each other. I don�t know�I thought I could pull them apart, but I don�t know
how I can. Not like this. I�d probably cause you the same kind of pain I did
last time.�

�� No, thank
you,� Draco said quickly. He paused, and then added, �I have faith that you�ll
succeed, if that�s what you need.�

�� Harry
winced again. It was hard to look at Draco�s face right now, knowing that he
had so much more belief in Harry than Harry did in himself�

�� And knowing that the faith came from the curse, at least partially.
What would happen if Harry did free him from it?

�� That still has to be your priority, Harry
reminded himself. His freedom is worth
more than his compelled bond to you.

�� And if you lose him because you dissipate
the curse, then you never had him in the first place.

*

�� Review
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