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Bonded Consort	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 33015 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Seven—Replies and No Replies
Harry rolled his eyes and tossed the letter that had just arrived from Lily into the fire. They’d exchanged a few notes, where she apologized and talked about her desire to fit in with the pure-bloods and how that had taken her too far, and he talked about his life in New York. But in this one, she’d written about how Dahlia was crying in her bedroom all day, and Harry didn’t want to hear it.
Draco smiled at him as the letter burst into flames, and didn’t bother asking what it was about. “You want to meet with my mother today?”
“If you think it’ll be productive,” Harry said. Draco wanted Harry involved in planning the bonding, but Narcissa kept mentioning things Harry knew nothing about. And he couldn’t make decisions if he didn’t know what half her words referred to. “Wouldn’t your parents be happier planning it themselves?”
Draco leaned lightly across the table to touch his hand. “Yes, they would, but they’re not the ones getting bonded. We are.”
Harry nodded. “I just don’t know enough about the formal ceremonies to know what all the colors symbolize, or why your mum wants me to care about the blankets that are going to go on the bed on the bonding night.”
Draco watched him thoughtfully. “After so long being exiled from your rightful word, I thought you would want to know all those things.”
Harry coughed, knowing how badly he was blushing from how his skin prickled. “I mean—I do. But some of those things are never going to matter. They wouldn’t matter if we were talking about our children’s bondings, either.”
Draco’s eyes glazed over a little, the way they always did when Harry talked about children. Then he nodded. “All right. Why don’t you pick out the things that matter to you and just tell her that she can take care of everything else? She’ll like being in charge of part of it, and we can discuss the others.”
“I’d be happy to do that, except I don’t know what those decisions are until they come up, and then she looks at me like I’m an idiot.”
“That’s easily solved,” Sirius said, popping his head through the door of the kitchen. They were at Grimmauld Place, which was the easiest place to receive visits and owls from Draco’s parents. “Here you go, kiddo.” He heaved a book at Harry’s head.
Harry caught it before it hit him, and turned it around to look at the cover in complete bewilderment. It had the Black family coat of arms on it, and it said in silver lettering underneath that, Marriages and Bondings. Harry opened it wondering if the Black traditions were any less dense than the Malfoy traditions.
But it wasn’t just chapters about traditions. Instead, the first four pages were occupied with a list of topics. The decisions to be made that Narcissa keeps asking me about, Harry realized with a sense of relief. It would be easy from this to decide what he wanted to have a say in and what he could leave up to her.
“Thanks, Sirius!” he called, but only received a grunt from the other room.
“That will work—surprisingly well, actually,” Draco said, his eyebrows rising. “After all, Mother is also a Black who married a Malfoy. She’ll be happy to follow any suggestions the book has that you want to use, and she’s not going to mind that you’re using it.”
“Good.” Harry sighed and looked up at him. “But don’t you want to be part of these discussions? What if we make a decision you don’t like?”
Draco snorted. “I share most of my mother’s opinions, and they had me sit down years ago and decide on the few that are essential for the spouse taking a consort to make.”
“Oh.”
Draco rolled his eyes. “You’re not upset about that, are you?”
“Just—surprised. I mean, Dahlia would have been your wife, not your consort.”
Draco laughed at that. “You don’t know my parents. The betrothal contract wasn’t that specific, which is why they were able to change it so easily to say it would be her instead of you. In case there was any change at all in Dahlia’s status, they wanted to be ready.”
Harry smiled. That did sound like the Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy he was coming to know. “Good. I just—don’t want you to be less invested in this than I am.”
Draco stood up and moved around the table, then bent down to kiss him. He didn’t even touch Harry on the shoulders or anything else. But Harry could feel the restrained heat trembling behind Draco’s lips.
“I can’t wait to show you how invested I am,” Draco whispered.
Harry went to his next meeting with Narcissa clutching the book Sirius had given him and with his head spinning, in a good way.
*
The letter took Draco utterly by surprise. M.H. was next to him and started stalking the owl, and Draco had to go rescue the bird, but by then he recognized the Potter owls, and he thought it would surely be for Harry or Black. James Potter seemed to think he could reconcile with Black, and Black sometimes seemed to want that and sometimes seemed to let Potter send letters for his own sadistic amusement.
But no, this one was addressed to him. And from the way the owl settled on a high bookshelf and alternated glaring at him and M.H., a reply was expected.
Draco frowned as he opened the letter. Did they think that he would persuade Harry around to the reconciliation with all of them that Lily wanted? They understood him less than they did Harry, if so.
But the letter wasn’t from Lily or James. It was from Dahlia.
Dear Draco, I’m so sorry about what I did with my magic. I know that doesn’t make up for it, but I’m sorry. And I know that you probably never wanted to hear from me again, but I wanted to say that. So this is my apology. I hope that you’ll write back. Dahlia Potter.
Draco blinked and read it over, shaking his head. It read a lot like a child’s letter, he thought. And he supposed it was a good thing that Dahlia had realized what she did wrong, but…
It was too late. And he couldn’t even be sure if she had written this letter on her own, or because one of her parents had urged her. And her desire for communication with him when he had nearly become another victim of her magic was…
No. It wouldn’t work.
Draco tossed the letter at M.H., who regarded it suspiciously so that it landed on the floor. Then he looked up at the Potter owl. “No response,” he said coolly.
The owl hooted at him in agitation. Draco just stood and watched it. The owl took a flight around the room and landed on the back of the nearest chair as if it planned to sit there until it could convince him to write back, but when M.H. slid a few centimeters forwards, it soared out the window.
Draco gathered up the letter and tucked it away. He would keep it and let Harry see it later. Although he would hate it if Harry wanted to talk to Dahlia, it was his decision, not Draco’s, and he deserved to know what she had said.
But there was nothing in the world that could convince Draco that he ought to.
*
“This will do very well, Mr. Black, very well,” said Narcissa absently as she flicked through the pages of the Black book. “Yes, I remember that tradition.” She smiled at something on one page and turned it around so that he could see it. “What do you think? Not appropriate for weddings, of course, but for a bonding where you’ll take the Malfoy name and yet have one of your children as the Black heir.”
Harry blinked at the illustration. He had seen moving wizarding pictures by now, but not usually in books, and not in such rich color. There was a blue banner depicted with the Black family crest on it, and then it swung aside to reveal another one, paler, with different family heraldry on it. The banners draped lightly across each other, with the other one on top but the words Toujours pur peeking out from beneath. Harry had to restrain himself from making a face at it. He enjoyed being a member of the Black family, but that motto was a mockery of what he’d been born.
“I don’t understand the context. Are the banners decorations?”
“Yes, they are,” Narcissa said. “To be placed above the entrance to the bonding grove. Wind charms will mimic the behavior of the banners in the picture.” She smiled. “What do you think? Of course the banner with the Malfoy family crest will replace the generic one here.”
“Yes, Mrs. Malfoy, it’s fine.”
Narcissa laid the book aside with a soft snap. They were sitting in a room in Malfoy Manor that Harry thought was probably just meant for receiving visitors. Everything in it was black, accented with white: the chairs, the low table in between them scattered with books and fabric samples and carvings and fresh flowers, the bookshelves, the mantel and the fireplace. The sunlight beaming through the room looked like an intruder by contrast.
“You sound as if you aren’t interested in your own bonding, Mr. Black.”
“I’m not equally interested in all aspects of it,” Harry said, and made his gaze cool and his voice challenging, the way Draco said would work best with his mother. “I don’t mind letting you plan anything you want to really plan.”
Narcissa folded her hands. “But so far, the only strong opinion you have given is the hope that your bonding robes will be ‘non-itchy.’ Hardly an expression of interest.”
“It is very important that my bonding robes not itch! Do you want me scratching my arse in the middle of the ceremony?”
“Mr. Black. I want you to do honor to your adopted family name, which is incidentally my birth family, and to the family you are marrying into, which is also mine.”
Harry held her gaze and said quietly, “Look. I’m not a pure-blood and I won’t ever be. Even if my blood status didn’t bother you, I was raised outside the wizarding world, for the most part. I can’t be the perfect son-in-law you want me to be in time for the bonding.”
“If you showed interest in learning—”
“I can learn after the bonding. But not everything I need to know in time for it. I’ll only look stupid if I try. Stupider,” Harry added, after some consideration about the way he looked now.
Narcissa paused. Then she said, “You need not worry that Draco will refuse to bond with you. I know how my son looks when he’s in love.”
“Who was he in love with before me?” Harry asked. Then he clamped his mouth shut, because now he sounded not only stupid, but also jealous.
“That is not what I meant,” Narcissa murmured, examining him intently. “I know how he looks when he’s in love because this is how he’s looked in the last few weeks, being with you.”
Harry felt a sharp smile break out on his face. “All right,” he said. “Then why don’t we do what we discussed? I’ll look through that book’s table of contents and only pick out the most important things, the things I absolutely want to have some input on. The other things, you can do what you want with.”
Narcissa twitched a little at the word “input,” probably because it was too Muggle for her, but then she inclined her head. “Very well. I will let you have the book then.” She handed it back across the table.
Harry studied the first four pages carefully. Decorations, seating arrangements, dances, most of the food…no, he didn’t care about that. In the end, only the robes—and really, just the cloth they were made out of—the magic they would use for the actual bonding, and how many formal words he would be required to speak were the things that mattered to him.
“These,” he said, and wrote them down on one of the pieces of parchment Narcissa had waiting. When he looked up, though, he found her eyes were fastened on him, and not on the list.
“What?” Harry added, a little defensive.
“I wondered why you were agreeing to undergo the process of preparing for a formal bonding when you seem to care so little about it,” Narcissa murmured. “Now I understand. You love my son.”
Harry smiled. This should have been the hardest thing to talk about, harder than his ignorance of wizarding customs, but it wasn’t. “Yes. I would do anything for him.”
“Even though you have only known him for a few weeks.”
Harry took a deep breath. This wasn’t hard to talk about, really, but he wouldn’t have revealed such secrets to just anyone. “I spent most of my life exiled, Mrs. Malfoy, even before I left England. I just kept seeing all these things I could never have. Magic, and the love of a family, and, I thought, any kind of marriage or bonding. They told me that my evil magic would kill anyone if I lost control.” He decided against saying that meant sex was out. Narcissa was smart enough to figure that out on her own. “And then I was really alone for the last few years, after my mentor, who was a Squib, died. Then Draco came and told me that I was special, and he was interested in me, and wanted to see—what could happen. Can you imagine how I feel about him?”
“Relationships based on gratitude alone are not strong.”
Harry snorted. “It’s not gratitude. It’s wonder. And affection. Because he taught me to see myself. And to see that some of the things I believed were lies. It was painful. Not the same thing as just being glad he was there. Draco was the one who had the strength to tell me I was wrong, and then make me face up to that. Sure, I’m happy for the way things worked out. But I admire Draco’s strength, too. That he didn’t run when it got hard. He stayed. If it was just that he wanted to fulfill a betrothal contract, he would have given up when he realized how hard it was going to be.”
Narcissa blinked. “Admiration is not—”
“The glue that holds bonds together, either, I get it,” Harry said impatiently. “But I’m trying to explain, okay? But I like the way he laughs. I like his sense of humor. I like the way he tried to make me laugh. And he was attracted to me, and yeah, that was—” Full of things I don’t want to discuss with Draco’s mother. “That was attractive to me. He was challenging and brave and focused on me. He was different from anyone I’ve ever met. He’s still different from anyone I’ve ever met.”
“Even though my cousin has adopted you. And Lucius and I have consented to support your bonding.”
“Yes, of course he is. I know you care for Draco. I know Sirius feels guilty. Draco is—unique in all that.”
“His father and I love him,” Narcissa said, with an odd emphasis in his voice. “But I think you love him in a different way.”
“I do.”
Harry faced Narcissa almost expecting her to challenge him over it. The last thing in the world he had expected was to see her smile at him. He blinked.
“I think silk would make for the least itchy formal robe,” Narcissa said calmly, and turned his list around so she could read it.
“And—that’s it? Now you’re convinced that I love Draco and really want to bond with him when you weren’t before?”
“Now I’ve had a chance to see it in your eyes and hear it in your voice.” Narcissa was making a note on another piece of parchment and frowning. “Did we have your measurements taken? I thought we had, but now I realize that was foolish. Draco was taking you to the shops when you wanted new robes, not having them made up by a tailor at home.”
Harry opened his mouth to continue the argument, and then paused. Did he want to? This was going to be a formal bonding, everyone had already decided on that, including him, and he had already said that Narcissa could handle all the things that didn’t really matter to him.
He shook his head and said, “No, I haven’t had anything made up. But Sirius had his house-elves shrink some of his robes to fit me, so maybe we can get the measurements from them.”
Narcissa sniffed. “Having met Sirius’s house-elves, I would not trust them to have measured a human by eye. I will have a tailor come to the house.” She smiled at him as she wrote down another note. “I am glad we had this talk, Harry.”
And there we are, Harry thought, a little dazed. I’m accepted, just like that.
But finally, he had to shake his head. Why not? They all loved Draco, after all.
“I think we will have a cake decorated with berries—a good omen for the fruitful bonding we hope you will have…”
Some of just express it in different ways, Harry decided wryly, and sat back to listen with what patience he could.
*
Phoenix-Rob: Thank you!
Sirius is planning revenge on the Potters, but he's spinning it out a bit right now.
Jan: Dumbledore doesn't feel exactly good, let's say.
SP777: Thank you!
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Bonded Consort