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The Marriage of True Minds	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 55083 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Twenty-Five--Clasped Closer

            Harry woke as he slid out of the bed onto the floor. He was gasping, he realized, and when he reached up to grab hold of the blankets, his hand simply slid off again. The sheets were so soaked with sweat that he'd slipped out on the wetness. He buried his face against them and closed his eyes.

            No, this wasn't comfortable; his tailbone and back ached from his sudden collision with the floor, and his heart was thrumming so hard in his ears that it made him feel like he was going to faint. But the scent of honest sweat was what he needed right now, to replace the scent of decaying vegetables that had haunted his nose in his dream.

            The nightmares were coming back again, even with the fire lit to desert brightness and the torches in the corners of the rooms blazing.

            Harry reared back and stared blankly at his hands. He swallowed. Then he swallowed again and forced himself to his feet.

            The nightmare had been simple. He was in darkness, and the beast was eating him again, quiet gulps of liquefied flesh from his back. But this time, he had known that his escape had failed and no one else would ever come for him, because no one knew where he was. He was going to stay there in darkness for the rest of his days and suffocate on terror.

            Just remembering it made his legs shake when he tried to pace back and forth. Harry leaned his forehead against the fireplace mantle and let the solidity of it press home until the skin above his lightning bolt scar broke and shed a faint trickle of blood. At least that was normal, unlike the liquids that tended to flow from his back scars when they were wounded.

            God, he just wanted this to stop. He had been resting comfortably a few days ago, with the nightmares breaking apart as soon as they started--

            Because he was next to Draco. Because he was with someone who made him feel safe.

            Harry lifted his head, blinking, and chuckled darkly. Of course. There was no reason for the nightmares to grow worse now, several days after the wizards had captured him again, rather than immediately after. But the marriage bond had interfered. It had deepened his sense of safety with Draco, until he had nearly panicked when Draco moved away from him. That would still be in effect. The bond would want them curled up in the same bed together, half-naked and perhaps more than that, pressed together until no one could have slid a card between them--

            Harry froze. For long moments, he didn't dare move or glance down, hoping that the stir of movement he thought he had felt was only his imagination.

            Then he lowered his eyes, and saw that it was not. He was half-hard, the bulge in his groin a foreign sensation since the beast had captured him.

            This can't--it's the marriage bond again. This isn't normal. It isn't normal for me to be attracted to men when I've always been attracted to women. It isn't normal for me to want Draco when I never did before. Just because someone comforts me and saves my life doesn't mean I have to like them that way.

            Harry cast a Numbing Charm on himself, the way he'd sometimes had to when he had inappropriate thoughts during an Auror raid, and turned back to his bed. A Drying Charm made the blankets safe to sleep on again, and he climbed onto them and closed his eyes firmly.

            They weren't as warm as Draco's skin would have been. They didn't wind around him as tightly, as comfortingly, as Draco's arms would have.

            That didn't matter. Harry shut his eyes and lay there, and, when he couldn't get to sleep, called Juli, told her to wake him at six if he wasn't up by then, and cast a Slumber Charm on himself.

            He wouldn't allow things that didn't matter to matter, even to himself.

*

            "It's strange that you keep sneaking out before breakfast, when you must know that it's better than any of the sandwiches that you might bring to the office with you."

            Harry leaped and whirled around like a dog caught sneaking food, his hands clutched close to his chest for some reason. Draco took a step forwards out of sheer concern. He could understand Harry reaching for his wand or seeking to protect the scars on his back, but not acting as if he needed to shield his heart from Draco.

            The next moment, of course, the revealing gesture was gone and Harry stood there insolently, his eyes narrowed as though he considered Draco some lower species. "I've told you before. There's this thing I have called work. It takes up some of my time, which means that I have less to spare for Your Majesty."

            Draco felt the immediate heated response that stirred up in his gut, the desire to argue with Harry, the impulse to get close and crowd him back into the wall, to shake him by the shoulders, to grip his arms, to touch him. He resisted it and frowned at Harry.

            Harry frowned back. "What?" he snapped, when the silence had stretched between them longer than Draco knew was comfortable for him.

            "Why are we arguing like this?" Draco asked. "I had the impression that we understood each other better than we ever have after our time in the darkness. Are you really that unwilling to let someone close to you, to know them?"

            "It's only natural that we would recoil to a distance after being that close, doesn't it?" Harry countered. His arms were folded now, and although the gesture didn't alarm Draco as much as Harry's hands clutched in front of his heart had, it still shut him out. "We weren't meant to be friends any more than we were meant to be spouses."

            "We are both now, in truth," Draco said. "Why do you feel the need to retreat? Do you think I would think less of you because of what I saw?"

            "No, you made it amply clear how much you liked that," Harry said, and his teeth were parted in a snarl around the words, and his eyes were furiously bright. "It's the marriage bond, Draco. Twisting us, distorting us. It makes me feel as if I should stay close to you, and it makes you want to touch me, doesn't it? I saw the way you were looking at me a minute ago."

            Draco held back the first furious impulse and considered it. Yes, perhaps his overwhelming desire to hold Harry still and watch his face go through complex changes of emotion was a bit strange, at that. He hadn't felt that as a looming, crushing need before their experience with the decay wizards.

            But at the same time, he didn't think it was a bad thing, and he didn't think it was the marriage bond controlling him. He shook his head. "You think that we wouldn't notice such drastic changes. But we do. If we can notice them, then we can choose to fight the impulses or ignore them."

            "Exactly," Harry said, with a softening in his fierce brightness that made Draco's mouth water. "And I choose to fight them. That's all."

            "You think it's more than that," Draco said. "Or so you implied to me. That you think the marriage bond is twisting you into liking me more than you should, into being attracted to me." He eased a step closer.

            Harry backed a step towards the door in response. "I don't know that," he said in a low, unhappy voice. "Not for certain. But I do think--Draco, the time we spent around each other in the last few days is unnatural."

            "I didn't think so," Draco said, holding back his first furious response to that. "Not for friends."

            "You think I've told anyone else what I've told you?" Harry stared at him. "Even my friends? You're insane."

            "I'm honored," Draco said carefully. This was a delicate situation, and he knew that, but he was feeling his way only step by step, with no definitive idea of how to handle it. "But why not, Harry? This is something you need to talk about--"

            "Because I don't want to!" Harry jerked his head back, and clamped his hands down at his sides. Draco thought he understood why a moment later. Harry had been leaning towards him almost imperceptibly, reaching for him. "Why is that so hard to understand?"

            "Why don't you want to?" Draco asked calmly.

            "Why do you insist on asking questions like that?" Harry said, and his magic gathered around him in an abrupt, whirling cloud of thorns. Even knowing that the bond would prevent them from hurting each other, Draco couldn't help but wince. He remembered the melting wizards, too. Harry noticed his reaction, and his lips pulled back from his teeth. "Yeah, the marriage bond is pulling us together. And I don't like it, and I don't want it, or if I want it, it's only because of the bond. Go away."

            He slammed out of the house. Draco stood blinking, letting his own tensely beating heart slow, the humming alertness drain out of him.

            Well.

            I want answers, but I don't think I'm going to get them by pushing for them.

*

            "Mate, are you all right?"

            Harry gritted his teeth, held back the immediate way he wanted to shout at Ron, and looked up with a nod. "Yeah. Why do you ask?"

            Ron snorted and leaned against his desk, swinging a leg. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe the way you were clutching your head and acting as if you had a splitting headache a minute ago?" His voice softened. "Hermione doesn't think you ought to be working the Ness case anyway, you're too close to it. Why don't you go home?"

            That would ease the headache, Harry knew, with a flesh-deep certainty that hit him like a blinding flash. That would ease the restlessness, the urge to continually test the wards and the protection spells on the windows and doors in the Ministry. He could rest behind blood-wards at the Manor, he could rest in Draco's arms--

            No, damn it! This really is the marriage bond, this is unnatural, I don't want to feel this way, I hate it--

            "Mate!"

            Ron practically barked the word, and Harry understood why when he opened his eyes and saw that the desk in front of him was shredding apart. Harry clasped his hands, and his magic pulled back into them, trapped between his linked fingers. It writhed and squirmed, fought like a slimy fish to get away, but Harry held it captive and gradually forced it back down and quiet inside his body. The desk settled into two pieces, which was fewer than it could have been if his magic had gone mad at it any longer.

            "Sorry," Harry whispered, aware of Ron's eyes fastened on him like chains, like tentacles, like suckers--

            No. No, I'm not thinking of that.

            "Mate," Ron said quietly, and his voice held that undertone of iron that Harry had heard only a few times, when he had worn himself down working the really bad cases. "Go home. You need to rest. You never give yourself enough time to recover, but this time, you could be a danger to other people. And you need to be behind wards, or they might snatch you again."

            The thought made Harry want to scream. He would have gone for a walk through Diagon Alley under a glamour most of the time, if he felt like this, and looked at the people he'd sworn to protect, reacquainting himself with what their faces and lives looked like. But his enemies could follow him and catch him. They had to assume that they were capable of anything, at this point, until they learned more about the decay magic.

            And he couldn't go back to his flat, because that wasn't home anymore, and the wards weren't strong enough, and the crawling sensation in him that said he needed Draco wouldn't permit it.

            "Right," he told Ron, because there was really nothing else he could say, not without giving away more than he meant to, and stood up and reached for his cloak in distraction. His hand went right past it. Ron handed it to him, his gaze heavy with significance. Harry looked away.

            "You know we're here for you," Ron said.

            Even when I don't want you to be. Harry nodded, with a curiously empty feeling, and then turned away and walked blindly down the corridor outside the office. A few people called to him, but stopped when they saw his face. Harry didn't know whether he should be grateful for that or not.

            He held himself under a tight rein until he had taken the lifts down to the Atrium and had to choose a destination for the Floo powder. When he checked the time, he found that it was eleven in the morning. There was at least a chance that Draco might not be home, either dealing with Muggle business or out visiting a friend. He would go back to the Manor and hope that he could lock himself in his rooms and wait for this fit to pass.

            When he thought about Draco not being home, his chest grew tight and his vision spotted with black, the way it had when he'd had a panic attack after he got out of the beast's captivity. He wanted to weep, to curse, to throw something. He hated this. He hated being so dependent on anyone, but especially on Draco, who was going to go on and find a different future. That future would probably include him, since they were friends, but not as his husband.

            Harry didn't want to feel more than Draco did. He didn't want to fall in love with someone who didn't love him.

            Because he had no choice, he cast Floo powder into the fire and called out, "Malfoy Manor." He knew that more than one person heard him and stared after him. He knew that gossip would be springing up behind him like fire. That would probably displease Draco, too.

            At the moment, Harry wondered if he could find it in him to care.

            And his plan to lock himself in his rooms and brood probably would have succeeded, too, if the first person he'd met when he stepped out of the fireplace hadn't been Narcissa Malfoy.

*

            "Thank you for meeting me, Ms. d'Alveda."

            Laura's smile was thin as she rose to regard him. "Ah, Muggle courtesies," she said. "Where would we be without them?" She held out her hand.

            Draco shook it, giving her a bland smile in return. "I'm sorry to say that you don't merit the title of Lady." He paused, then added, "As yet."

            "We'll see," she said, and sat down again, without waiting for him. She picked up a glass of what looked like milk and might have been, and added, "I ordered already, since I had no notion whether you were coming today."

            Draco accepted the implied rebuke with grace and took a seat across from her. Laura d'Alveda was as he had remembered her, dark and fair at the same time, with a shimmering kind of beauty that was most visible when she fixed her eyes on one and smiled. She wore a simple, plain business suit, with a short cloak hanging from her shoulders. Draco noted that she hadn't taken it off, and wondered if she was cold--as she might be, since she was slender--or had another reason.

            "I'd like a plate of cheese," he told the waiter who came up to take his order. The man bowed and left. Laura propped her chin on her hand as she regarded him, unselfconsciously resting her elbow on the table.

            "You don't worry about eating refined food in front of me," she said. "I think I like that."

            "Is there any refined food here?" Draco leaned back in his seat and cast his glance around the café. It was a pleasant enough place, neat and with quick service, but not fancy. Even the windows had Muggle blinds instead of shutters or glamours to cut the glare from the street. "I ordered what I felt like at the time."

            "A good point." Laura picked up what looked like a crumb of bread from the plate and held it in front of her eyes as the waiter brought Draco his cheese. "I weighed your offer like this," she said, and tossed the crumb down her throat. "Unless you can come up with something more substantial, there is no reason not to continue doing so."

            "Why so light?" Draco took his first bite of a blue cheese and closed his eyes in delight. "I can offer you money and a respected name."

            "Not so respected as it once was," Laura said. "And you have a husband."

            "That situation may not be permanent," Draco said. "We cannot give each other everything I thought we could." That was true, no matter how the marriage bond worked out and whether he stayed in it with Harry or not. "Thus the reason for this courting. I reach out to you, and ask you to reach back."

            Laura shook her head. "Looking at it from the perspective of my family, I see little to gain. You are a traditional pure-blood family, yes, but you tarnished your reputation in the war."

            "I am working to regain that." Draco ate a delicate cheese that he couldn't look down to identify, never taking his eyes from her.

            "You despise the Muggles, where most of my business connections are."

            "I don't. My father did, but he is no longer the head of the family."

            "That is more intriguing than I expected," Laura said. "But I believe that your mother also remains at home, as a gracious social hostess, and nothing else. If you expected me to do such a thing, to neglect my own business to attend exclusively to yours, then we would not suit." She spoke the words as calmly as if she had not just insulted Draco's family in several ways. She sipped the last of her milk and leaned back in her chair, watching him.

            This was a test, of course, and Draco passed it by doing no more than smile at her. "My mother chose to do that because those were her talents," he said mildly. "Yours lie elsewhere. Of course I would want you to do what you do best, and as long as you had our children behind wards and spent an appropriate amount of time with them, I would not require you to do more."

            "You would need to spend more time with them than I would," Laura said. "Your business concerns are less extensive and pressing than mine are. That would be part of the bargain we made."

            "Agreed," Draco said.

            They spent the rest of the conversation threshing out what they should do, and Draco left the café with a small smirk that he didn't think he could get rid of, and didn't want to. Laura would never be an easy spouse to live with, but then, after the practice he'd had with Harry, Draco didn't think he would want an easy spouse to live with.

            Of course, if Harry came to his senses, then Draco would have no need to seek a wife in the first place. But he had no idea if Harry would ever see sense as far as being with him went, and Laura was not at all a bad choice.

*

            "Harry. It is unusual for you to be home in the middle of the day."

            Even though he knew the Manor was his home now because of the bloody bond and he'd thought of the house in the same way, Harry's shoulders stiffened at Narcissa's words. "Yeah," he said shortly. "I wasn't fit for work. Excuse me." He started to brush past her towards the stairs.

            Without doing something so ill-bred as to step into his path, Narcissa was still in his way. She took his arm with a gentle hand. "I think we should talk some more, Harry. We've hardly seen each other so far except when you were wounded or on the rare occasions that you take dinner with us. I am your mother-in-law."

            "Only in a pretend marriage," Harry snarled, and jerked his arm free. Narcissa raised an eyebrow. Harry ignored the shame that flooded him. He had a lot of practice doing that, after his friends' reactions when he wouldn't tell the full truth about his captivity. "It might be real to you, but it's not to me. And I hate the way it makes me feel."

            "If I had known that attempting to introduce you to a higher style of both cuisine and dress would inspire what seems akin to an allergic reaction," Narcissa murmured, "I would not have done it."

            "It's not that," Harry said. "But that's another thing. Why do you keep reducing everything to these base things, as if the kind of sheets I sleep on is more important than whether I'm happy here?" He jabbed a finger at Narcissa, who only watched it as if she could will it to fall off with her eyes. "I don't care about those things. And that isn't something wrong, or stupid, or unrefined. It's just me."

            "If you say so," Narcissa said, voice milder and cooler than ever. "But you have not yet explained what your deeper problem with the marriage bond is."

            "That it keeps tugging me back to Draco's side," Harry said. God, it felt good to complain to someone about this. He already knew what Ron and Hermione would say, and he no longer had Ginny to complain to, and he already knew what Draco would say, too, and how bad it would make him feel. "That it's manipulating this panic and paranoia I have after the attack so that I don't feel safe when I'm separated from him. It's stupid."

            "If you need him," Narcissa said, "then you should have him. I assure you, my son will not object."

            Harry shook his head. "Would you say that to everyone? What if I thought I needed to cut Draco's head off and use his skull as a drinking bowl?"

            "I would say what I did last night," Narcissa said, "that you and I have more similarities than are immediately apparent."

            Harry smiled. He didn't want to. He wanted to storm away and start reading Hermione's letter over again, looking for details on the ritual that would cleanse him of the marriage bond. But he hadn't been expecting humor at all, and it slipped through his defenses.

            Narcissa, who must have been a general in a previous life, smiled back at him and said, "To answer your question, no. But the marriage bond is real to me, and I would like my son-in-law to have what he wants, within reason. Speak to Draco about this desire for safety. He can help you to figure out how to have it and still have your independence as well."

            "And that'll drag me further into the emotional life of your family," Harry said flatly. "No, thanks."

            "Is it that awful to be connected to us, Harry?"

            "When it makes me feel this way, it is."

            Narcissa watched him thoughtfully a moment longer, then stepped back and let him go. Harry beat a retreat before she could change her mind, although he felt her eyes on his back all the way up the stairs. She was probably contemplating some new way to make him change his mind.

            It wouldn't work. He couldn't let it work.

            Feeling as though he wanted to find Draco and just stay by his side for the rest of his life was a disease that he had to cure.

            Once he got his protective spells raised behind him, he pulled out Hermione's letter and began feverishly rereading it. There had to be something in here that could help him.

*

            unneeded: Harry unfortunately the takes the Malfoys' attempts to improve his health as just another sign that they don't think he's good enough to leave alone.

            Night the Storyteller: If Harry really wanted Draco to invite Lucius into the family, then he might do it. But at the moment, Harry has expressed no such desires, just worry that Draco will feel bad about exiling his father eventually.

            undisclosedtoyou: Thanks! As it was, Harry and Ginny's relationship went on longer than I planned, but that's the way it happens sometimes. And the story is going to be longer than I expected in the first place.

            Yes, Draco admires his mother a lot. His comparisons of other women to her aren't always flattering to women in general, unfortunately.

            SP777: Thanks for asking! I'm doing rather well.

            I'm afraid both the conversation about what the Sorting Hat said to Harry and their kiss will have to wait for a while...

            blueeyedbaby: Thank you! I'm glad that I inspired you enough to review.
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The Marriage of True Minds