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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-Seven--Split Three Ways

�� Draco stood
at the window of his house and idly watched the enchanted image he had chosen
for it cycle through its manifestations. First a full moon shone over a pine
forest; then the moon waned and set; then the sun rose over the same forest,
only now it had turned into a tossing sea that had the same deep greens in the
waves that the trees had carried in their needles. The waves faded, fell, and
died, and the same cycle repeated, only this time the sun set in splendor so
that the full moon could sail out of the rippling red and gold.

�� Draco
tapped his fingers on the sill. He had chosen that image because he liked the
way it represented the same beauties coming around again and again. When people
mourned and babbled about how quickly beautiful things died, Draco could turn
to the image and realize that not everything
died. He reckoned it was his version of his father's own obsession with
permanence and immortality, the obsession that Draco believed he had really
begun following the Dark Lord for, far more than for the promise of a world
free of Mudbloods.

�� And I would never have been this
introspective before the curse.

�� Draco let a
faint smile curl his mouth, come, and go. No, he might never have been this
introspective, but he also didn't think that the curse had brought him anything
new, beyond confusion and desire for Harry. It had merely awakened what had
always been there, the way that the sunset revealed the stars that had always
been in the sky.

�� Even the
feelings for Harry might have developed in time. He would never know because
the Seekers of Justice had cursed him instead of leaving him alone to see if
the feelings would grow. But he refused to spend as much time worrying about
their origins as he sensed Harry would have liked him to.

�� I'm not him. He's not me. That's one of the
reasons that we'll make such a strong and permanent match.

�� Then Draco
lifted one shoulder in a shrug, irritated at the direction his own thoughts
were taking. Even if it wasn't permanent, he still thought it would result in
some pretty bloody intense fucking and satisfaction, and that was the important
thing right now.

�� But there
were other, less important things that still had to be settled first. Draco
turned away from the window and crossed the room to open the door on the far
side, the one that pointed most in the direction of Malfoy Manor.

�� He had
certain misconceptions, and preconceptions, to speak to his father about. That
conversation might actually be less successful than the one with Harry. Draco
had complained about Harry's masochism, but it had helped in the sense that
Harry had mostly stood there and taken Draco's words before he started to argue
back, because he believed, deep down, that he deserved the blame and the pain
Draco was laboring to lay on him.

�� Lucius
would not believe that, and would not be so silent.

�� Draco felt
a thin, confident smile lift the corners of his lips nonetheless as he stepped
out of the house. He had been through a hell that most people would never
experience. He had fought, and won. (With help, it was true, but Harry could
never have succeeded in the first place if Draco hadn't fought the feelings
produced by the curse, and then fought for Harry to reconsider instead of
slinking quietly away. Do that, and the curse would simply have grown back
without anyone to notice it). He was wiser than he had been a month ago, more
adult, more wary.

�� And less
inclined to accept a load of bollocks from anyone, even his father.

�� Draco spun
in place and Apparated.

*

�� "I
think you're well off without him, mate." Ron spoke through a mouthful of
potatoes, gesturing wildly with the hand that held his wand. Harry winced and
prepared to duck if he had to. Ron had been holding onto his wand ever since
dinner began, as if he thought Draco would leap out of the dessert at him.
"Why would you want him back,
anyway? After the kinds of things that Hermione told me he said to you?"

�� Harry ate
his own potatoes and didn't answer. The fact was that, while his friends could
listen and sympathize, he wasn't sure that either of them could help him.

�� Not
everything Draco said could be true, surely. Not all the time. How had Harry
ever kept a friend or lover for longer than a month if it was?

�� But he did
have to admit that he was a lot more comfortable thinking of Draco as someone
unattainable than someone he might be able to fancy and have fancy him back.
There was something to be said for keeping him at a safe distance. And yet, Harry
didn't know why. Why should having
him come closer be so terrifying?

�� I still fear hurting him.

�� Into his
mind, then, came Draco's retort about how Harry had never learned that hurting
someone wasn't unforgivable. Or at least it didn't have to be, which Draco
hadn't said but which Harry could extrapolate from his words well enough.

�� If I hurt him, he might still want me. He
might accept an apology rather than some enormous sacrifice to put things right
again. He might want to get along with me like someone normal rather than
holding me up to another standard just because I once saved the world.

�� Harry's
face burned, and he had to take a hasty drink of water, because the thought was
ridiculous. When had Draco ever treated
him like someone special because of his fame? That trait, at least, was
consistent between his old and new selves, or his personality when Harry had
first known him and his personality under the curse. Harry could even look on
it as a sign that the curse was really gone, the things that Draco had said to
him once he was free of it.

�� Harry
shoveled more food into his mouth and stared at the candle in the center of the
table. He thought Hermione had lit it to make the room more cheerful, to fill
it with light and flame and the soft smoke that had the smell of cinnamon. At
the moment, Harry thought of it as a fire that was burning in his mind and
destroying the thoughts that had come before, the stupid and unbelievable ones
about Draco wanting to walk away from him and never look back.

�� Because he
saw now that they were stupid and
unbelievable, whatever he thought of the source of Draco's feelings.

�� I couldn't let him go when I did believe
that I'd got rid of the curse forever by halving it. Experiences like those do
bond people. Maybe not permanently, but I was stupid to think that we would be
able to part as if nothing had ever happened.

�� Harry
frowned and dug his fork viciously into his plate. Yes, that part might be
right, but that didn't mean he had to accept Draco's words at absolute face
value. He was still worried about the curse, especially since Draco didn't seem
to be.

�� Why couldn't we have a friendship, an
intense one maybe, instead of fucking? It's not inevitable that we should have
to, when the curse gave Draco that idea in the first place. He can claim
otherwise all he likes, but I know that
he would never have looked at me like that if not for the curse.

�� Harry
sighed, then, as another thought drifted across his mind, hazy as the smoke but
as real.

�� Yeah, he could accept that, maybe, with the
passage of time. But I couldn't.

�� He'd
thought too much of Draco's hands on his skin, felt too much of it, to accept a friendship at face value. He
couldn't do it honestly, and Draco seemed to want honesty from him. And
courage. And real compassion, rather than the kind that would let Harry wallow
in the thought of what a nice person he was and what kind of service he was
offering to Draco.

�� He ate
another mouthful of potatoes, half-aware that his friends were exchanging
exasperated glances over his head. Well, he knew that he wasn't providing good
dinner conversation, but they had to know why he was like this, and for once,
Harry decided that he would think as long as he needed to, without beating
himself up about it and deciding that he couldn't because other people needed
his attention.

�� This is so fucked-up. Any relationship that
we'll get out of this is bound to be fucked-up. We'll argue all the time.

�� That, too,
was true. Harry sighed into his food.

�� And then he
paused, blinking. A new thought had come to him, one that he hadn't had before.
It sounded almost as if it had been spoken in Draco's voice. Did that mean that
he was beginning to see things as Draco saw them?

�� Does that matter? I could always end the
relationship if it was too much.

�� Harry was
shaken enough that he had to push back his plate, stand up from the table with
a muttered apology to his friends, and rush into another room where he could
pace back and forth, thinking about what he had just decided.

�� He had
literally never thought that he could end a relationship first, at least not
without making it the other person's decision as much as it was his own. He had
always been so afraid of hurting someone that he had flinched, despite all the
growing up he had done or thought he'd done about the war and his profession,
away from watching the devastation on someone else's face.

�� At the same
time, he had never questioned the right of anyone else to walk away from him if
that was what they wanted or needed.

�� Harry
touched a shaky hand to his forehead and his hair. If he had suddenly awakened
with a different face, he wouldn't have been surprised, because surely only
that could have sparked this blazing feeling of newness inside him. But no, same old worn scar, same old drooping
eyelids. He frowned and shook his head.

�� Why did I treat myself so differently from
anyone else? When did I start thinking my perspective and feelings didn't
matter?

�� He didn't
know, but he did know that it would have to stop, and that it was the first
solid step he had made towards agreeing with Draco.

�� Maybe, in
time, he would even stop feeling so tentative and ridiculous about it.

*

�� "You
say that the curse is gone this time. Why should I trust your words any more
than I did at first?"

�� Lucius sat
facing the fire with his back to Draco. Draco studied the dove-grey material of
the chair for a long moment before he answered. He could not afford to lose his temper with his father. It would be
too easy for Lucius to then dismiss Draco as a spoiled little boy who threw
temper tantrums until he got something he wanted.

�� "You
need not trust me, any more than you trust gravity," Draco said at last.
"When you see that a certain thing is real, then you must live with it. I
live with the unchangeability of the past and the
sudden closeness I gained with Harry because I must. You'll learn to live with
them the same way."

�� As he had
hoped might happen, those casual words brought Lucius out of his seat and made
him wheel around, eyes flaring and hands clenched at his sides. "You will not speak to me in such a
manner," he hissed.

�� Draco
smiled blandly back at him, heart hammering with excitement. He had made Lucius
lose his temper instead, and he was unlikely to regain it, with the turn that
the conversation would take now.

�� "Why
not? It's not as though you can do anything to me now." Draco began to
move slowly to the right, not taking his eyes off his father. He wanted to be
sure that he wasn't near anything especially flammable if Lucius lashed out
with a spell, and his father sometimes favored fire spells when he was angry.
"I've grown beyond you. I have my own independent fortune, even though
I've never spent it. I don't have to marry to gain your approval, when that
approval is less important to me than my relationship with another. And I have
a source of income available to me that I did not have before."

�� His father
squinted at him. "What is that?"

�� Draco kept
his eye on Lucius's fingers, which played over the head of his cane. He knew
certain dangerous movements they could make, and wanted to make sure that he
didn't miss any of them. "Why, letting the Healers from St. Mungo's study me to see how to get rid of the curse
completely. Particularly with Harry's help to see the spell signatures, they
might be able to analyze how to Heal Nova
Cupiditas in others." He arched his brows.
"I would charge them each Galleons for the privilege, of course."

�� His father
looked as if he might have apoplexy at the mere mention of this. His fingers
clenched on the cane hard enough to make it dig a furrow in the carpet this
time, and he gurgled. When he loosened the clutch of the fury on his throat, he
spluttered, "Are you--Draco, you must
be mad. I shall look into having you declared dangerous and subject to confinement."

�� Draco
laughed softly at him. This was an even better reaction than he had hoped for.
"Why is that?"

�� "No
Malfoy in his right mind would agree to serve as an experimental animal for Healers," Lucius said,
his lip curling. "You would rather die than do such a thing if you were
sane. Perhaps Potter has cursed you to feel that a relationship with him and the
lingering effects of the spell are a good thing, and that is why you are acting
so against your character." The mere notion seemed to comfort him, since
he was standing up and his face was losing its dangerous color. "Yes, that
is what must have happened," he added, sounding as if he was talking to
himself.

�� Draco
waited for a moment, curious to feel the effects of his father's declaration on
his emotions. If the curse was not completely gone, then he thought he would
feel the urge to lunge at him and defend Harry's honor.

�� Nothing
happened, though, except an increase in his weary contempt that felt entirely
natural. Draco lifted his head and eyed Lucius back until his coming smile
faded.

�� "You
want me to do the same thing," Draco said softly, "except as a
breeding and not an experimental animal. What am I to you at the moment but
someone who can breed you grandchildren? And you would see them, in turn, only as a continuation of the Malfoy line, not as
individuals in themselves."

�� Lucius
shook his head. He looked perplexed now. "You are more important than
that, Draco. Of course you are. You are my son."

�� "But
you still value me as the continuation of the line," Draco repeated.
"Because I wish to make a different decision, you see that as a
betrayal."

�� Lucius
extended one finger to point at him. Draco eyed it warily, but Lucius didn't
hold his wand in that hand, so he decided that he didn't have to worry about
flames flying towards him in the next few seconds. "That I am willing to
see you as my son at all after the way you cursed me argues for a large and
healthy tolerance on my part."

�� Draco
controlled his impulse to laugh and nodded earnestly instead. "Yes,"
he said. "And I am sorry for that."

�� His father
stared at him in astonishment that just increased Draco's hilarity. The best part about apologizing, he
thought, is how much it startles people.

�� "You--mean
that," his father said, after a pause in which he seemed to have rolled
the apology around in his mouth to see how it would taste.

�� Draco
nodded. "But that doesn't mean that I'll give in and do as you want,"
he said. "Perhaps I'll marry someday. If the curse has taught me anything,
it's that I can't predict the future. But I don't want to marry right now, and
I won't do it merely to have children. I will be with Harry instead."

�� Lucius
closed his eyes, but his face was expressive enough to show Draco the
complicated mixture of distaste and confusion he was feeling. "Why should
that be what you want?" he murmured. "I hardly think that he has
treated you the way a Malfoy should be treated."

�� "It's
what I want," Draco said, thinking about the intensity with which the
curse had bound him to Harry for a time, and the way he had tortured and
killed--willingly--for him. That was still something he wouldn't have done if
he had a choice, but the fact that it had happened bound them close. It would
take something equally strong to sever the bond. Harry not appreciating him
once the curse was gone would do the trick, but Draco didn't yet know if that
was going to happen. Deciding to live
with uncertainty has all sorts of benefits. "Perhaps someday it won't
be. Right now, it is."

�� "Surely
that should be enough."

�� For a
moment, Draco thought he had spoken those words himself. Then he realized that
his mother had come into the room behind him and was standing still there, her
eyes bright but her face composed.

�� Lucius gave
her a more betrayed look than he had given Draco. "You agree with
this--this madness, then?"

�� "Not
all of it," Narcissa said, moving forwards to stand slightly behind Draco.
Draco turned so that he could keep both his parents under observation at once.
So far, his mother didn't seem threatening,
but her support was so unexpected that he didn't know whether it was a mask for
something else. "I will undoubtedly think that Draco should give Mr.
Potter fewer chances than he will. But this is something that our son wants,
and it is hard to see how it could work out to his disadvantage politically.
That means he should have it."

�� Draco
contented himself with showing his gratitude by a single bright smile in his
mother's direction. Narcissa nodded back, and then glanced at Lucius, who stood
staring between them as if both his hands had suddenly refused to do something
he wanted them to.

�� Remember that he lives through you, Draco
told himself. It's understandable that he
would be upset that his dreams for you aren't working out.

�� Understandable,
but not worrying enough for Draco to let it control the whole of his life. He
merely waited, and after some time, his father shifted and glanced away, a
sneer working across the corners of his mouth.

�� "I
will postpone the notion of marriage for now," he said. "Believe that
I will be awaiting the collapse of your relationship
with Potter eagerly."

�� Draco
smiled. He didn't care that his father's concession probably had more to do
with his mother's support than Draco's own arguments. Now that he had said
something like that, it would be doubly hard for him to take it back.

�� "Thank
you, Father," Draco said, with a very elegant and correct bow, and then
turned away and walked towards the dining room. He could use a meal, he
thought, to refresh him and prepare him for the battle with Harry he fully
expected to have either later today or tomorrow.

�� "Draco."

�� Draco
paused and glanced back. Lucius had decided, this time, that he should lock one
hand into place on his cane and one on the back of his chair. His glare had
intensified as a result.

�� "I
will not tolerate him hurting you forever," he said coldly. "If you
wish to protect your lover, warn him
that he should learn to treat you better soon."

�� Draco knew
that his smile matched his father's glare for coldness and intensity. "I
intend to teach him that lesson myself, Father. Don't worry."

*

�� "But
with Malfoy, mate."

�� Ron just
left the sentence there. He didn't need to say more, Harry thought wryly,
especially when Hermione's emphatic nodding was doing the talking for both of
them. Harry had told them that he intended to try and be with Draco, and both
of his friends had been disappointed, although Hermione seemed less surprised
than Ron.

�� "He
cursed me," Ron said logically. "He tortured and killed other people.
He tried to rape you. And you still want
to be with him?"

�� "Yes,"
Harry said, although he found himself instinctively avoiding Ron's eyes. It did
sound awful, when it was put like that.

�� But Harry
didn't see any way that he could think only
about those facts without turning into the martyr that Draco had accused him of
being again. How to make up for the murders and the torture? How to make up to
Ron for the fact that Draco had hurt him? A few days ago, those questions would
have obsessed Harry the moment he took his mind away from the pressing matter
of what he was going to do about the curse.

�� But...

�� Draco had
apologized to Ron. The Seekers of Justice had been people who had cursed Draco
and would probably have killed Harry, if they hadn't simply laid Nova Cupiditas on
him in turn. And surely it was up to Harry if he wanted to forgive Draco for
his actions under the curse, which, yes, had included attempted rape.

�� Harry
shifted in his seat. It was still strange, this idea of a limit to guilt--strange both because it was so alien to the way
that he would normally think and act, and because he couldn't believe that he
hadn't thought that way before.

�� Why had he drowned himself in guilt and
decided that he was so different from other people? Why had he thought that he
couldn't be happy if it meant that one other person might be miserable?

�� The only
answer he could come up with was that he had been so worried he would do
something wrong otherwise. And that
wasn't good enough. Among other things, it meant that he didn't trust other
people to say when they thought something he did was wrong, or to defend
themselves.

�� His ethics
and some of his fundamental ideas didn't always work. He would have to adapt
them if he wanted Draco.

�� And he did.

�� "I
just don't understand," Ron said
plaintively, rescuing the conversation from silence.

�� "I
do," Hermione said, breaking silence at last. Harry thought it had
probably only lasted so long because she couldn't choose which of the thoughts
that crowded through her head to voice. "I know that intense emotions can
bond people. It can feel as though they can't live without each other after
they've been through a war, or a cave-in, or a sojourn in a prison cell. But
Harry...it's one thing to read about that in fiction, and another to base your
life on it."

�� Harry took
a deep breath. "I know. But if it doesn't work out, then it doesn't work
out. I want to try at least."

�� Hermione
blinked. "We don't want to see you get hurt," she said, but she was
looking thoughtful.

�� "I'm
going to be anyway," Harry said, smiling at her. "Whether I try to
let Draco go or to be with him. This is painful. It started with Nova Cupiditas. There's
no other way for it to be. I want to try the route that at least promises some
happiness."

�� "Yes,"
Hermione said. "Yes, I can understand now."

�� Ron sighed
explosively. "I reckon I can, too," he said. "But Malfoy?"

�� "That's
the way it is," Harry said firmly, "so that's the way it has to
be."

�� I just hope that I can remember that, later.��

*

�� Review
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