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The Marriage of True Minds	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 55082 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
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Chapter Twenty-Six--Farther and Nearer

            Draco stepped into the sitting room where his mother sometimes went to brood, and then paused. He had not wanted to be right about where she was. There should be no reason for her to brood. Draco had had a successful meeting that was important to the family, Lucius hadn't dared approach her since her quiet stripping of his defenses, and Harry was at work.

            Then Draco cocked his head as he realized that the wards didn't whine and tug at him like spoiled children. That meant Harry was home, within the walls of the defenses.

            Back where he was supposed to be.

            Draco frowned and checked the clock to make sure it wasn't later than the one-thirty it felt like. Then he followed the stone path set into the floor around the rim of the small garden in the middle. In the garden, it was always spring, one set of flowers coming alive due to warming and preservation spells as another set faded. His mother had said that she came here to look at beauty that she could always count on to exist. And she sat there now, on a large couch that curved as if protectively around two sides of the garden. Her hands were set on her lap, her face calm.

            That was not a good sign, Draco knew. He took a seat at the further end of the couch and waited.

            "I had not realized that he felt so trapped here," Narcissa said at last, after Draco had watched the sunflowers in the garden turn softly in the direction of the light cast down on them from above.

            "Harry?" Draco asked, although there was no other candidate for the interpretation.

            Narcissa nodded. "He returned home today to blurt out things I had not heard him say before. One of them was that he did not feel safe away from you. He blames the marriage bond for this." She paused. "And us. I believe that he believes the marriage bond would let him go if we did not treat it as a real union."

            Draco sought for a few adjectives to describe that viewpoint, and had to settle on one. "That's ridiculous."

            "Of course it is," Narcissa said. "But Harry is more volatile than I realized. When he was young, I think, he subsumed his volatility into saving the world. Now that he is older, it has turned--inward. And sometimes it falls on the people around him. Like acid." She sighed and glanced at Draco. "Perhaps your words will prevail with him where mine would not."

            Draco leaned back on the couch and thought about that, stretching his legs out in front of him towards the roses as he did. Yes, perhaps he should consider speaking to Harry. He was not as confident as his mother that he would convince him, if only because Harry seemed to consider the notion of speaking reasonably with him an unreasonable one at the moment. But he could start at a distance, appeal to the women they both shared in common. Both Ginevra Weasley and Laura d'Alveda were pure-bloods. Harry might not find marriage and the notion of closeness so repulsive if Draco began speaking of it in those terms first.

            "He went to his rooms?" he asked Narcissa.

            His mother's eyes shone with clear gratitude for a moment before she lowered them and nodded. "Yes, he did. Go to him, Draco. Ask if he will lower his protective spells. It is not good for him to be so isolated."

            Draco recognized the tremor in the back of her tone then. A member of the family stood in danger, and danger from which she might not be able to protect him. She disliked having to rely on someone she had not manipulated into fighting for her.

            Draco dropped a kiss on her forehead. "Harry does like me, Mother. He trusted me with secrets he's shown to no other of his friends. I can persuade him if he'll only listen to me a short time."

            Narcissa inclined her head and said nothing. Her breathing was gentle and comfortable, now. When Draco left the room, she had leaned forwards to coax the tendrils of a climbing plant back inside the rim of the garden.

*

            Harry sat back and closed his eyes. Hermione's precise instructions for the ritual promptly sketched themselves across the back of his eyelids in glowing lines. Harry looked down again at the letter and smiled grimly.

            Good. He could perform the ritual on his own. Yes, it would take a lot of magic, but Harry had cast almost no spells today, if one didn't count the charms he had performed during the night after waking from his bloody dream. His skin hummed with it, and as he stood and backed away from the letter, his vision narrowed and seemed to take on jewel tints.

            Yes. He would use his letter as the focus for the ritual, which required an object that mattered a great deal to the caster. Harry thought that he might have been more eager to part with his wand at the moment than with the instructions. Memorized or not, he would check them more than once. It was important that this go exactly right, that nothing falter or fail.

            Then, he would be free.

            The first incantation curled over his tongue in a mess of Latin, but Hermione had written out the stress and the pronunciation for him, and Harry was sure he had it right. Sure enough, when he finished the last word, the letter began to glow, and then a spoked wheel of green light spread out from it, sprawling across the floor, surrounding it with brilliance. The wheel radiated up to the edge of Harry's tossed cloak and then stopped, glowing fiercely.

            Harry licked his lips and told himself not to be uneasy that the light was the color of the Killing Curse. Hermione's notes said it was supposed to be, and there were only so many shades of green in the world, after all.

            He started to stretch out a hand for the next part of the spell, but jumped when he felt the pressure of someone against his wards. It wasn't a physical knock. That didn't matter, though. The spells functioned to give him that sensation in the back of his head, if the person who stood there had come closer to the door than a few feet. Harry turned his head, feeling his shoulders twitch and hunch, his hands rise to defend him without consciousness of his wand.

            "Harry." Draco's voice was soft and serene, as though he was merely issuing an invitation to dinner. "I want to talk to you for a while, if you're amenable."

            Harry cursed under his breath and looked at the letter on the floor. The green lines around it were already beginning to flicker and fade; it took an effort of will to sustain them, and Harry's will was elsewhere, focused on trying to get Draco to go away. Harry growled under his breath and brought them back with another flick of his wrist. He would get rid of Draco and go on with the ritual. This was too important.

            "Not right now." He thought he managed to make his voice remarkably normal for someone feeling what he was right now, but Draco still hissed softly back at him, the noise channeled into Harry's ear by the wards. "I--you need to leave me alone for right now, Draco. We can talk later."

            "Why later and not now?"

            Harry closed his eyes and shoved a little more magic into the circle. It flared radiantly. He wondered if his eyes would look like that after the marriage bond was broken and he could be free and himself again. "Because later isn't now," he called, his voice grinding the way he wished his teeth could. "I'm sorry, Draco, but you're distracting me from something important."

            There. It sounded like he was talking about Auror work, and even if Narcissa had told Draco why he was home early, Draco didn't have any reason to think that Harry wasn't holed up in here with notes on a case. Harry thought he had made it clear that his work was important to him. Besides, he had a personal stake in the case that he and Ron were working to solve right now.

            "What is it?" Draco must know the tones of his voice better than Harry had realized, or could have wished to. His words were lower now, more intense. "Harry, let me in."

            "Are you crazy?" Harry laughed. The laughter stuck in his throat. The circle was fading again. He slashed his hand down, and the green lines shone like marshlight. That was good, right? That was the color they were supposed to be? He didn't remember anymore. He felt the way he did when someone touched his scars. "I'm the paranoid person who doesn't even trust you near me right now. Why would I lower the wards?"

            "Because I'm worried about you," Draco said. "I know you're in danger."

            "That's ridiculous." Forcing his voice back under control was the hardest thing Harry had ever done, but he managed it. "Yes, I want to concentrate on solving the case, but that's so I won't be in danger anymore--"

            "The ring is buzzing the way it did when were in the darkness, Harry. I'm worried about you." Draco's voice dropped into such softness that it was hard for Harry to think it was a command, even though he knew it was one. "Harry. Please. Let me in. Just for one second. Just to see if you're all right."

            Harry licked his lips and closed his eyes. "And you'll go away if I'm fine?" he asked. He could show that he was. He could stand in such a way that he blocked Draco's view of the circle on the floor, or even let it fade until it was less noticeable. The letter, if Draco saw it, would lend credence to his lie of working on case notes.

            Why do I have to lie to him?

            Because you'll never have the freedom to love and be loved for yourself if you don't.

            "I will."

            Slowly, feeling his scars burn and itch the way that the one on his forehead used to do around Voldemort, Harry reached out and flicked his wand in the pattern that would dismiss the protective spells on the door.

*

            Draco tried not to fall against the door in limp relief as it opened. The ring on his finger had begun to leap about like a cricket the instant he got close enough to the door to feel the tension of the wards Harry had strung, and a bolt of pain had traveled up the center of his ring finger. Draco had restrained himself from knocking on the door because he knew what was likely to happen to his hand and he didn't want to deal with the burns, but it had taken a greater level of control than it should have.

            I want him. I like him. I trust him.

            I wish that was enough for him to be going on with.

            The door swung open. Draco stepped inside immediately, although he held his hands low in front of his body and let Harry see that he wasn't holding his wand. He wasn't going to be pushed back out the instant Harry decided that he didn't want Draco there. He was going to look around and make sure Harry really was all right first.

            "I'm fine," Harry said.

            His voice surged out, abrupt and sharp, and he turned sideways to Draco as if that would make him a smaller target. Draco swallowed. He had half-thought about putting his arms around Harry, but that didn't seem like the best idea.

            An acrid smell of magic hung in the air; it had to be magic, when Draco could see no food or Potions components that would cause it. Harry edged towards him, using his body to block a clear view of the floor. Draco sighed. Harry was putting himself into danger again, for what he undoubtedly thought was a good reason, and Draco would have to step carefully to handle it.

            "Physically, yes," Draco said. He made sure not to move. "But what about mentally? Spiritually?"

            "Spiritually?" Harry stared at him as if Draco had turned into a house-elf.

            "Why not?" Draco gestured with his chin at the scars on Harry's back. "Those are spiritual injuries as much as anything else, I think. They certainly injured your relationship with your friends."

            Harry frowned and glanced behind him. Something on the floor, Draco thought, and he wouldn't have been so worried that Draco saw case notes or a folder. What immediately came to mind for Draco was a ritual circle, and although that would be a stupid thing to do, he of all people knew that Harry was not immune to stupid impulses.

            "I'm feeling tense," Harry said. "Tired. Tired of being tied to you by the marriage bond, too."

            "Can I not convince you to trust me?" Draco asked.

            "Why?" Harry's weariness was abruptly more visible than it had been before, almost hanging from him in strings, slackening his muscles and his face as he stared at Draco. "You're seeking a new wife. I wish you luck in finding her. Which, congratulations, but I don't have anyone like that, and I don't want to be the one dangling after you when you're just fine without me. Not--I can't put up with anything like that again. The beast made me powerless. I don't want to be, ever again."

            Draco swallowed. This truth was what he'd come seeking to find, but he didn't know that he could reason through it as fast as Harry needed him to.

            "You'll have someone," he said. "Ginny Weasley. I know you're in love with her. If you fall in love with me, too," and he had to pause so that he didn't speak the words with the hope that wanted to follow them, "then that's hard, but it's not the end of the world. You'll have someone to marry."

            Someone who can never make you as happy as I can. But I don't know that that matters to you.

            Harry froze, then jerked his head up and down. Draco had seen more convincing nods from trained Crups. "Right. Of course. Sorry. And it's not your fault if I fall in love with you. Tired, like I said."

            "Harry," Draco whispered. "Now you're just lying."

            Harry turned fully to face him, his emotions all on display for a long, crazed, vivid moment like a lightning flash. He tried to shut it down again, but the despair behind everything was still there, cracked across his face. Draco wanted to reach out, kept his hands down at his sides with an effort, and made a private vow that when this was over and Harry was back at his side, he was going to spend a long time just holding him.

            "Ginny broke up with me yesterday," Harry said. His voice tore, and he swiped a hand through the air, coming nowhere his face. "I don't have anyone now. Except you, and it's not fair, not when you want to marry someone who can do what you want them to."

            "I told you before," Draco said, "this marriage with you can give me everything I want."

            Harry seemed to cling to that statement like a rock in a flood. "But not everything I want."

            Draco winced. He was in the flood, too, but edging out on a branch above it and reaching down desperately, hoping that his hand would catch Harry's. "I didn't mean that I would hate to fall in love with you. Just that I could remain in the marriage without it, and that if we weren't lovers I could still enjoy being with you. I was trying to leave room for you to have a female lover, a mother of your children. Did I not say that right?"

            Harry closed his eyes. Then he shook his head. The motion looked odd, and Draco realized why a moment later. His head was trembling, and looked as if it would fall off his neck.

            "Harry," Draco murmured, and not all the consideration in the world could keep him from reaching out this time.

            "That's not what you said," Harry whispered. "That's not what you meant." He danced back from Draco's hands. His voice was creeping up the register.

            "Not at the time," Draco said. "Some things have changed." He was contradicting what he'd said a minute before, but he thought it more important at the moment to give Harry what he needed, even if it meant admitting a mistake. "Now I want more from you, but I thought you wouldn't ever give it to me. Not just wait a while to give it to me, but never. I didn't want to wait around for something that wouldn't work out."

            "Neither did Ginny," Harry whispered. His lips looked cracked, dry, and when he opened his eyes and smiled, Draco saw the sheen in them. "So you have that much in common."

            Draco lunged forwards and wound Harry in his arms. Harry arched against him, and Draco didn't know whether it was to fight Draco or himself.

            Then he said, "I hate this," and bowed his head until his chin rested on Draco's shoulder. Draco closed his eyes in return. He didn't particularly like watching Harry break down, either. This was something he'd put off and needed, but it hurt him so much, Draco would rather that almost anything else had happened.

            But he would hold Harry through it, now that he understood there was a chance, now that he understood that Harry had successfully hid certain emotions when Draco thought he was displaying everything.

*

            You can't do this. You can't just break down in front of someone who hasn't even been your friend for a week!

            Maybe he couldn't do it, but it seemed that it was going to happen anyway.

            Harry focused on long, deep breaths, because he had heard often enough from Hermione that that was supposed to calm someone down who was panicking. And he was. This wasn't what he had planned when he opened the door. He'd planned to shove Draco out as soon as possible, in fact as soon as Draco had seen that he wasn't bleeding to death, and resume the ritual. He hadn't kept any of his promises to himself except keeping the ritual secret from Draco, and even his secrecy over Ginny choosing her own life was useless now.

            But he recognized the scraping feeling behind his eyes, in his throat, in the scars on his back, in his soul.

            He was tired. He had run and fought and struggled until he couldn't accomplish it anymore. He might have been able to fight the wizards who had so recently captured him if it wasn't for the darkness. He'd had plenty of energy then, panic-strength to fight his way out of the trap.

            This was something else, the moment when he let his defenses down because he had no way of raising them.

            "It's all right," Draco murmured, soothing a hand up and down his back so hard that Harry's robes pulled up. "I've got you. There's no reason to fear."

            Harry wanted to laugh at that last, but he knew it would break out in a sob, and there were still a few humiliations he thought he could avoid. More to the point, he just didn't want to listen to Draco's words as anything but soothing nonsense right now. He let his head droop more, his eyes close, his weight rest against Draco until Draco swayed, and then he stood upright enough so that Draco could move them over to the bed and no more. He sank down onto the pillows, then, and dug his head into them as if that would help somehow.

            Maybe it didn't matter that it couldn't help permanently. Maybe helping for a little while was enough.

            "We have to do something about this," Draco whispered. "Catch the wizards who did this to you. Heal you of the scars." He hesitated, then added, "Work out what to do about our marriage."

            "The Ministry's working on the first part," Harry said, closing his eyes and letting the words come. "They're embarrassed that the decay magic wore their wards through and they didn't even notice."

            "Not good enough."

            No, for Draco it probably wasn't. Harry sighed and tried to dig a little more strength out of the stretched, scraped soul he thought he had right now. "I don't know what can heal the scars."

            "We'll find out."

            "You make it sound so simple." Harry dragged his eyes open so that he could look at Draco. "And...Draco, I do think that I'm going to love you, but I'm not some project that you can fix. I won't always need you like this."

            The smile that had sprung into being on Draco's face with his first words didn't waver. "I know that," he said. "So we figure out something else. Keep growing, keep spreading, keep changing. It's what I had to do after I suddenly found myself head of the family without knowledge of the Muggle side of the business. I did it through sheer refusal to give up." His hand found Harry's, and though he held Harry's wrist in what looked like a delicate grip, he squeezed down hard enough to force a grunt out of Harry's mouth. "We'll do it this time."

            "Even though you don't love me," Harry said dully.

            "I could, just as you can love me." Draco's voice shook on the first words, steadied on the last. "No, I'm not there yet. But neither are you. We'll be partners in this, just like you wanted. You could argue that you've changed my life more than I've changed yours already."

            "Ha bloody ha ha," Harry muttered. "I would have gone on being the same and without collapsing if you hadn't pressed me. This is a big change."

            "I think you would have fallen apart eventually." Draco's eyes dulled a bit. "I'm just glad that I was here to catch the pieces."

            "Sorry to make you participate in cleaning work," Harry muttered. His eyes closed in spite of himself, and he shook his head and tried to sit up. Draco pressed him back down. Harry glared, but he didn't think he had the strength to resist, even if he had spent more of this week in bed than he ever should have. "I know that house-elves usually did that for you."

            "There is no one else I would trust with this," Draco said.

            Harry had to turn away and press his face into the pillow. He tried to be strong, to look back, but it just didn't work. Fine, he would go to sleep and rest and relax like a good little boy, and when he woke up, maybe things would have gone back to normal for a while.

            "Good," Draco said, and his voice took on a teasing tone Harry didn't think he would have dared a few seconds earlier. "I always thought you should come home at noon, you know."

            "I didn't oblige you," Harry muttered. "It was eleven."

            "Close enough."

            Harry sighed. This was--he didn't know what this was. It was weird, and he felt as if he'd failed in some way, not standing up strongly to Draco and completing the ritual the way he'd fully intended to an hour ago.

            But at the same time, he felt so much better to have told Draco the truth. Not a nameless someone who could help him, not a Mind-Healer, but Draco.

            Maybe he was right. Maybe I did need help. His help.

            Maybe that's all right.

*

            polka dot: Ron is hearing more about what Harry needs and doesn't from Ginny.

            Althyida: Harry is convinced the bond will change him and the cleansing ritual will work on the bond because Hermione says so, and he trusts her. He's mentally incapable of thinking a lot beyond that at the moment.

            And Harry probably would prefer the adoption option. But it's not one Draco thought he would go for, since Harry talked so much about wanting his own children.

            Glad you liked Laura. Draco respects her more than Astoria, too.

            Eve: The vulnerability you asked for is here, although Harry is going to regret it.

            unneeded: Depends on what you think the dawn is.

            SP777: Harry is trying, even here, to recover more than he's capable of. He really hates being weak.

            Night the Storyteller: Harry is starting to find Draco attractive. He doesn't know if Draco returns the emotion.
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The Marriage of True Minds