Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Marriage of True Minds	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 55082 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Three--The Width of a Decision

            "Draco."

            His mother's voice was so soft, so gentle, that Draco might have imagined he hadn't heard it, if he didn't know better. After all, he had felt the shift and tightening in the wards when she had come through the front door. The Manor's wards, if they could be said to have emotions, were most contented when all of the family was safely contained within them once more.

            Of course, now some of them remained on alert, tingling in the back of Draco's consciousness like teeth stung with cold. They were on the alert because Potter was outside them, instead of where he belonged.

            Draco smoothly calculated the time as he rose to his feet and bowed to his mother. He estimated that they had perhaps another hour before the marriage bond began to punish them for not living in the same house. Surely Potter should be back with his personal effects before then. How large could his home be in any case, compared to the Manor?

            "What changed?"

            Draco took a moment to drink in the sight of his mother, advancing to meet him with quick, smooth steps, her hand lifted as if she was resting it on the mane of a horse that walked beside her. This was the spouse for a Malfoy, glassy and beautiful and tranquil. Not to mention female. Draco had begun the marriage negotiations with the Greengrass family because he had seen something of his mother in their younger daughter. He only hoped that he would be as lucky as his father.

            "What right did the Wizengamot forget to take away from Father when they made me head of the family?" he asked her, taking one of her hands between both of his and lifting it to his mouth as she came to a halt beside his bed.

            "Oh," his mother said on an exhaled breath, turning her head as if she could see Lucius through the marble walls that separated them. "He would not?"

            "He would," Draco said, with a sigh. "Because I would not give back the rights that the Wizengamot gave to me."

            He watched his mother's face closely as he said that, but she only nodded, and a weight he hadn't known he bore fell away from him. "I did not think he would use it," Narcissa said, sliding her fingers up and down Draco's palm. "On the other hand, if he bound you in marriage to the Greengrass girl, it would be as well to pretend yielding and console her in private."

            Draco shook his head. "That would have been giving me too much of what I wanted. He chose the most humiliating option possible, the one that he thought would have me groveling within two minutes."

            His mother turned to him then, her eyebrows lifting in the perfect arch that Draco loved and had often tried to imitate.

            Draco wanted a beat more of silence, then, surprised she wouldn't try to guess, replied, "Harry Potter."

            For one moment, his mother pressed down on his hand as if she needed his support, and then she sighed and stepped away. "Of course he would think that the most humiliating option," she said. "It is not--there are far worse he could have chosen--but it is typical of the way your father thinks. Sometimes I think that the man I married is dead, and at other times, I know that he is simply hidden behind the mask of idiocy that he thinks serves his purposes best."

            Draco stared at her, then said, "Potter, he is the worst choice. He has no respect for pure-blood traditions. He barely agreed to leave the facade of a convenient marriage intact, although this will affect his reputation as much as it will mine--more. He tried to attack Father, and me."

            "He is not the worst for the same reason that I did not guess your father's choice immediately," his mother said, turning towards the door. "The Manor is still standing."

            Draco rolled his eyes, since her back was turned and she wouldn't--

            "Do not use such juvenile gestures, Draco. It is your years that number twenty-six, not your months."

            Draco's face burned, and he cleared his throat. He didn't know how she did that, but then again, he had given up trying to understand the spell she undoubtedly employed long ago. "Your pardon, Mother. But Potter doesn't have the power to destroy the Manor. And he could at least try to cooperate with me, instead of acting as though the proprieties don't matter to him."

            Narcissa paused near the doorway and turned back to him. Her smile was very faint, but Draco recognized it. He squirmed and let go of the handful of bedcovers that he had unaccountably picked up.

            "I felt his power when my hand rested above his heart in the Forbidden Forest," his mother said gently. "Yes, he could have brought the house ringing down about our ears if he wanted. And you cannot have it both ways, son. Either he is some barely-civilized Muggle who has no reason to respect our traditions, or he is someone who can and should, which means acknowledging his worth."

            She left. Draco listened to the direction of her footsteps and discovered she was traveling towards the study. He winced and turned to the fireplace in his room, not one that he often traveled through because he didn't like getting soot on his rugs.

            But he owed Astoria an explanation, and he would rather not be around when his mother smiled at his father.

*

            "What was it this time?"

            Harry kept his head bowed as he stamped the ashes off his boots and tried to decide whether he loved or hated the resignation in Ginny's tone. The only conclusion he could come to was that he didn't blame her for it. After all, their last six dates had been either shortened or delayed by magical London acquiring a bad case of magical creatures or Dark wizards.

            "It was something different this time, actually," he said, bending down to kiss her cheek as he took his seat at the table nearest the fireplace. Ginny had waited in the Leaky Cauldron for him, their usual meeting place. Arriving too early at the restaurants or parties they wanted to attend was just asking for trouble from the press, and though they sometimes left from one or the other of their flats, there had been too many times that Harry nearly led some criminal through their wards. "Something to do with this." He held up his left hand so that Ginny could see the damn Malfoy ring.

            She gasped and gripped the edge of the table. "Harry," she whispered.

            Harry relaxed a fraction. She wasn't storming off without giving him a chance to explain--which he was definitely going to do, damn Malfoy anyway. He didn't need to know. Their worst rows had started with one of them leaving. "Lucius Malfoy was angry that his son wasn't doing what he told him to like an obedient little puppet," he said dryly. "So he bound him in marriage to the person who would most annoy Draco. Me."

            Ginny stared at him and shook her head, but Harry didn't think it was in denial. "What happens now?" she said a moment later, which proved it.

            "We have to live together and pool our vaults, and I can't hurt any of them," Harry said. "My name has already changed on the official Ministry records." He swallowed to get some of the bile to go away. That change irritated him the most when he thought about the future. I want children, and I want them to have my last name. "But since neither of us wants this, and there's no sexual component to the bond, we can still date whoever we want." He held her eyes. "All I can ask is that you put up with it if you can. And with--well, lies used for cover. You have to act in public as if you believe that this is really a marriage of convenience. Malfoy--Draco, that is--wants to go with discretion for now so that there's a chance his father will free us sooner, and so the press won't make fun of him, I reckon."

            Ginny licked her lips and sat up straight. "Then I have to ask," she said. "Do you love me?"

            Harry leaned back with a small smile and watched her. She had worn a black gown for their date tonight, and it left her shoulders and the skin around her collarbone bare. Her ears shone with frozen teardrops, strung on slender silver chains, that Harry had created from his own tears as soon as he learned the spell. An ivory band held back her sleek red hair. She looked like a vision in darkness and flame. "Of course," he said steadily. "I was coming here tonight to talk about marriage, but not the one that I just mentioned to you." He held his hand across the table.

            Ginny's face went through several color changes, and then she ducked her head and shook it back and forth. The earrings rang softly. "Oh, Harry," she whispered. "I love you, too." She was smiling when she turned back to him. "I'll wait. I don't think this marriage can last long enough for me to forget about you. And the day, the minute, you're free, I'll happily say yes."

            Harry took her hands. "Are you all right with the lies?"

            Ginny made a face. "Not all right, but I accept that they have to be there. I want you free, and Malfoy really think this is the fastest way to make it happen?" She looked at him inquiringly.

            Harry nodded. "He seemed to think that going on as if nothing had irritated him was the best bet. I agree. I did try to make an offer to Lucius, but he wants something from Draco, not from me."

            Ginny sighed hard enough to make the candleflames on the table waver. "All right." She paused. "Would you like me to tell Ron and Hermione?"

            Harry closed his eyes in relief. "If you don't mind. I have the feeling that I should move my possessions in Malfoy Manor as soon as possible, before the bond hurts me, and somebody has to impress the need for discretion on Ron, because I pretended to promise Malfoy that I wouldn't tell you. I don't think I can do that." He waved his left hand again. "Ron'll blow up every time he looks at this fucking thing."

            "Language," Ginny said, a habit she'd picked up from Hermione in the last few months, and cocked her head to smile at him. "I'll do that. There's something else I might be able to do, too."

            "What's that?" Harry tried not to sound eager. If he did, then he would wonder what in the world he could do to fight free of this marriage, and then he would become obsessed with it, and he had learned in the past year that that wasn't a good idea. For something he had to endure, at least, rather than something he could blast his way through.

            "The forced marriage isn't commonly used by pure-bloods anymore." Ginny entwined her fingers with his, though she kept away from the ring.

            Harry nodded. "Malfoy said that."

            "There's a reason," Ginny said. "Even when it happened, it depended on who they took in marriage, the relative statuses of the families, and so on." She made a face in time to meet Harry's grimace, and they grinned at each other. "I didn't listen when Mum was going on about it," Ginny said, blowing a strand of hair from her eyes. "So I don't know all the legal technicalities. But it's worth looking into. If the Malfoys have a higher status than the Potters according to these pure-blood laws, then Lucius can seize you and there's nothing anyone can do about it. But if you're equal, then he doesn't have the right. You can at least challenge the bond and make life uncomfortable for him."

            Harry gripped her hands hard. "You're a wonder."

            "I listen," Ginny said. "I look. I observe. That's all there is to it."

            "So says you," Harry muttered, and leaned nearer to snatch a kiss. Ginny squeezed his wrist hard enough to stop him.

            "Not that," she said, and her eyes burned suddenly. Harry leaned back, feeling the heat of the fire that he had missed in her so far. "Kissing my hands you can excuse, because that's the kind of gesture that a lot of wizards still expect men to show women. But a kiss on the lips...no, Harry, you're going to do that on the day that we can get married for real."

            Harry took a short breath and nodded. Of course, he had kissed Ginny before, but this way of closing a door on him, he could respect. "All right."

            Ginny smiled at him, murmured, "You say I'm a wonder, but you're the one who can keep going through all of the weird shit that is your life," and then slipped away. Harry followed her with his eyes until she vanished out the door of the Leaky Cauldron. He thought he saw her touch one of the earrings before she did.

            Harry would have liked to sit at the table with his eyes closed, replaying the conversation in his brain, looking at the expression on her face when she said she loved him. But the weight of the ring on his finger dragged like a chain, and he forced himself to stand.

            He didn't want to suffer overwhelming pain, either. And he was beyond-words-grateful that Ginny would tell Ron and Hermione the truth and talk them into pretending they didn't know. He could deal with the aftermath better than he could with the first explosive moments when he would have to see their pity, anger, horror, and outrage.

            He'd had enough of that with...

            Harry clenched his left hand into a fist, remembering the squeeze that Ginny had planted on his wrist. He could put up with this, since she was putting up with so much worse. And one of the ways that he put up with things lately was not thinking about the large, dark slice taken out of the past year.

            That didn't prevent his spine from hurting as he tossed the Floo powder into the fire and called out the name of his flat, but that was okay. It wasn't as though he needed to touch his spine in public.

            Or ever, really.

*

            "It does seem inconsiderate of your father."

            Draco smiled. Astoria had taken it as he had known she would, like a lady, seated on the other side of the table in a glorious white dress that made her look as if she were surrounded by drifting fairy wings. Her hands curled gently around a cup of tea. Her peerless green eyes never moved from his face, but Draco could only see serenity behind them.

            "It should only be a short time," he said. "He would bind me in a forced marriage for spite, but he wouldn't sacrifice the future of our family for it. And you are part of that future." He reached across the table and let his fingers brush her knuckles.

            Astoria let his hand linger for exactly the right amount of time before she pulled hers back and turned away to sip the tea. Draco watched the long line of her neck, the touches of flesh-color only visible at the lobes of her ears and the bottom of her throat where it vanished into brilliant white. Of course the gown wasn't cut low enough to show a hint of breasts, but the shadows and the curves beneath it made Draco's body thrum an acceptable amount.

            He would enter his marriage with pleasure and anticipation. It was more than he had been able to hope for a year ago.

            "If you are sure," Astoria told the air in the large, empty, polished room where they had met. Draco looked around the curving walls of white marble and then towards the fireplace at the end, surrounded by ice-green stone. He felt still more coiled muscles in his legs relax. A woman reared in surroundings like this would do so well in the Manor that he wasn't sure if he had the words for it.

            "That my father will break the marriage bond? Yes, he will in the end," Draco said. "Either that, or he will die soon, which will leave me with all the powers of the family head in my hands that the Wizengamot did not already grant me. And then there is no question what I will do."

            Astoria turned back to him. Her blonde hair, bound back on her head in a severe net of silver mesh that glittered with pearls, resembled a polished helmet. It made the blood pulse in Draco's fingertips, too. "If you are sure," she repeated. "In the meantime, you will expect me to play the calm observer in public, of course."

            "Of course," Draco said. He had told Potter that they would pretend it was a marriage of convenience to everyone outside the family, but he had had to tell Astoria the truth. More, she was discreet, which none of Potter's friends counted as. He stood, because he had already stayed longer than the clipped half-hour a negotiation session should require. "Feel free to owl me at any time."

            "What will that say for my discretion and your marriage?" Astoria smiled up at him, rising to her feet to give her farewell an extra courtesy. She was nearly as tall as Draco without the benefit of any artificial aids, her bearing as graceful as a swan's. She had more color than his mother, Draco thought critically, but no one could fault her in anything else. And it wasn't often that Malfoy spouses matched in color as his parents had, in any case. "Firecalls, I think. And an owl once a week, when the occasion warrants it."

            Draco nodded, unable to find a flaw in the plan. They had been conducting the marriage negotiations that way, with infrequent owls that wouldn't alert anyone in the wizarding world before they wished to make the announcement. "Farewell, Astoria. The next time you see me, I hope to be shed of this." He held up the hand that bore his ring.

            She leaned forwards and peered down at it from an inch or so away. Draco could feel the buzz that went through the ring when she did that. His ancestors hadn't cared about Malfoy hairs and their spouses giving their bodies to other people; it was assumed that even a forced marriage would never be between a Malfoy heir and someone who was not pure-blood and did not know the proper rules. But the ring was a symbol, and someone who did not fit into the marriage bond touching the ring another matter.

            Sometimes, Draco thought he didn't understand his ancestors any better than a Mudblood like Potter did.

            "Interesting," Astoria said quietly. "Why the braided rings of metal? I would have assumed that gold alone would suit the Malfoys."

            Draco nodded, acknowledging the compliment to his bloodline's purity. "The gold does stand for purity," he said. "The silver stands for protection from Dark magic that the unwilling spouse might fling, or that someone outside the family might use in outrage." Astoria gave him a nondescript smile. "The copper has healing properties, and was supposed to guarantee a strong marriage."

            "Forgive me for touching on so distasteful a subject," Astoria murmured, "but these are the rings used only in cases of a forced marriage, correct? One of them will never grace my hand."

            Draco bowed to her, taking the chance to let his lips pass within a hairsbreadth of her fingers. "No, my lady. You will have a ring of pure gold when you become Lady Malfoy, crowned with a suitable gemstone." He let his eyes linger on the brilliance of her hair, the pure glory of her eyes. In truth, he hadn't yet decided whether a topaz or an emerald would suit her better. That was a decision that he could make later in the marriage negotiations.

            "I look forward to the day that I come to you as a bride," Astoria said quietly, the most forward she had been, and wheeled around to walk out of the room. Draco watched her legs move, strong as the legs of a striding doe, before he sighed and turned to face the fireplace again.

            It was time to leave. And probably to confront his forced husband again, considering that more than an hour had passed and Draco's body hadn't yet exploded in pain.

*

            "Hello, Harry."

            Harry hoped he didn't yelp when he heard the voice and spun around, but he was fairly sure that he did, if only because he had dropped one of his bookshelves on his foot coming through the fireplace.

            Narcissa Malfoy stood in the entrance of the sitting room he'd entered by, her hands folded in front of her, smiling at him. Smiling at him. That was what made her different from all the other times Harry had seen her before and made him have to blink hard, trying to make sure that he actually recognized her. She had on a sheer, forest-green gown, which made the room suddenly take on a lot of color; Harry thought he could see her reflection in the white walls as she moved forwards.

            "Let me call elves to carry that for you," she murmured, studying his bookshelves--Harry hadn't wanted to take the time to remove their contents, so he'd just used Sticking Charms--and then the trunk he carried under one arm and the Auror robes slung over his shoulders. "If you had warned me, I would have sent them for these things already. Be so good as to give me your Floo address, and I will send them back for what remains, at least."

            Harry shook his head sharply and tried not to think of what he'd felt when he watched the owl fly away with the key he'd sent to Ron and Hermione. "There's nothing else, madam. Just--this is it."

            Narcissa turned her head and fixed him with a glance of cutting astonishment. Harry squirmed and turned away from her. He disliked this, he thought. He hated so much about it. He would never fit in with the Malfoys, and living with them would prove actively unpleasant, because he was different. He'd have to ask Malfoy how much time he needed to spend at the Manor, whether he needed to sleep there for the bond to count it or something. He had a feeling that for the next few months or however long it took to resolve this, he would spend his time at work and with his friends as much as possible.

            "Don't be silly, Harry." Her voice was warm silk. "Please call me Narcissa."

            Harry blinked and turned back to her. She was being--kind, letting him pretend that her stare came from what he'd called her rather than from what must seem like pathetically few belongings to her. "I--thank you, ma--I mean, Narcissa."

            She gave a gentle laugh and clapped her hands. House-elves, including one Harry thought had guided them to Lucius before, appeared and began to take his things. "I assume my son did not tell you which rooms were to be yours before he left? That is like him. He attends to the smaller matters of courtesy and forgets the larger ones."

            "Rooms?" Harry frowned and ignored the way his back hurt. "I don't need that much. All of these will fit in one room."

            Narcissa studied him for a moment, smile fading. Then it returned, gentler and softer than before, starlight rather than sunlight.

            "My son explained that you are part of the family now, yes?" she asked.

            "By fraud and Lucius being a bastard, yes," Harry muttered.

            She didn't scold him for the namecalling, as he had assumed she would. "It is not fraud to me," she said simply. "It is against my will, but my husband has suffered for it, be assured." Harry stared at her again, but her face was devoid of any tell he could see, and she simply continued. "While you are here, bound in marriage to Draco, you are family. You will be treated as such, and I shall shame my son and husband into it if I must. You are ours now."

            Harry swallowed, and thought for the first time in years of how he'd felt when Hagrid first gave the photo album to him and he saw his parents' faces, beaming down at him as they cradled him, an infant, in their arms.

            "Then lead on," he said. "Please."

            Narcissa gave him another sunlight smile as she turned, skirts swishing behind her, and led the way out of the room.

*

            Review responses can be found at http://lomonaaerenrr.livejournal.com/26601.html
- 2
- 3
- 4
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Marriage of True Minds