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A Black Stone in a Glass Box	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10351 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Three—A Brown Study

            “There’s something wrong with you.”

            Draco had sat Potter down on a chair in front of the fireplace to explain this fact of life to him. So far, Potter hadn’t disputed it. He simply held still, staring at the flames as though he could see the future in them. Draco had seen less concentrated attention by Seers who could.

            “There’s something wrong with you,” he repeated, when he realized that his first words hadn’t caught Potter’s attention the way they should have.

            Potter glanced at him, and turned away again, back to the flames. “Why do you care?” he asked, and his voice held something that might have been indignation, draining steadily as Draco listened, so that the last word didn’t have the emphasis it should have, and sounded all wrong for it.

            Draco shook his head. “Because your curse probably has something to do with the way someone’s trying to suppress rumors of Dark Lords, and the last one we had nearly stole my youth and beauty from me. I don’t want another one to rise, thanks. Or at least they can only do it after I’m dead,” he added, in fairness to any Dark Lords who might deserve to conquer the world.

            “No one cursed me,” Potter said, and stood up, although it looked like he practically had to pull himself out of the chair by its back in order to do it. “That’s all. Thank you for being concerned. You can let me go home now.” He turned towards the door of the study.

            Draco stepped in front of him. “You’re acting unnaturally. Has anyone said anything about it to you?”

            Potter stared at him. “Who would? I’m fine.”

            Draco hated the dissonance between the way those words sounded and the way they should have sounded in his head, strong and confident and spitting fire. “I can’t believe none of your friends have noticed. What would they say if I went and questioned them?”

            “I don’t know what they would say, except to get out.” Potter looked at him in that infuriating way he had, as if he stood on top of a mountain and Draco was just some small and squeaking rodent at the bottom of it. “Ron still hates you. Hermione might give you a chance, but she wouldn’t listen to anything you said against me.”

            All said like facts. Draco clenched his fists, and discovered he was biting his tongue. He tried to stop. Potter had never mattered this much to him, even if Draco had liked tormenting him and had reason to be grateful to him.

            But then, Potter had never acted like this, either. Facts and Potter didn’t get along. Passion and Potter did.

            “They must have noticed,” Draco said, and wondered if he could get Potter to cooperate if he asked about facts. “Tell me what they’ve said to you in the last fortnight about this.” A fortnight was about the period of time that the rumors had started dying in, so it made sense that Potter had been cursed around then.

            Potter blinked, but replied in the same still tone that Draco thought he would use in a report to an Auror superior. “They haven’t said much, lately. Ron has been busy with the new partner he was assigned to, and Hermione has been busy fighting for new rights for werewolves. I haven’t seen Andromeda and Teddy. I’m too busy.”

            “With what? Languishing?” Draco snapped, although he found it hard to imagine Potter doing that, either.

            “I don’t understand what you mean,” Potter said, and gave him a distant frown.

            “What the fuck are you busy with?” Draco said, lowering his voice. “Because I can’t imagine they’d let you out on cases, seeing the way you behave.”

            “They’re very happy about the way I behave,” Potter said, his eyes straying past Draco to the fireplace. He didn’t make the dash for it that Draco would once have expected, though. “I’m less volatile than before, and I obey the rules now. I’ve finally grown up.”

            “I bet that’s what someone wants them to think, and it does make a convenient excuse,” Draco said, and moved back, aiming his wand at Potter’s face.

            For a moment, Potter tensed, and then the stiffness melted out of him, as though he didn’t know how to control his own reactions anymore. “I feel nervous with you pointing a wand at me,” he said, in defiance of all apparent truth.

            Draco ignored him. Potter wasn’t under the Imperius Curse, but Draco wouldn’t be surprised if this spell was a close cousin of it. Someone wanted Potter utterly insensible to the danger happening to him, and that made this a good choice.

            “Revelo medicamenta,” he murmured.

            Potter only stood there as the spell hit him, blinking a little. The magic coiled around his body as a scarlet snake, moving from his shoulders up to his face. Draco watched closely. If it was a curse affecting the brain, the snake should glow around Potter’s shoulders and neck.

            But it didn’t. It moved down, further, and circled around Potter’s chest, and still didn’t flare—until it got to the level of his heart. Then it began to dance madly, and circled several times before Draco banished it and stepped closer.

            A curse affecting the heart? But spells like that didn’t literally affect the beating of the heart, and Draco didn’t think a spell that did would have produced all the results the last fortnight had, with the rumors of the Dark Lord dying and Potter retreating into this shell. A spell that affected the emotions and had a ritual component might, though.

            “Let me see your chest,” he said, and reached out, using his wand to create a neat slit in Potter’s shirt above his heart.

            Potter raised a hand, too late, as if he would stop him, but Draco had already shoved the shirt aside and was staring at what it revealed. There was a wound above Potter’s heart, a recent one. It had healed neatly, which made Draco wonder about the people who had cast the curse. Did they care that much about Potter, or were they just worried about getting caught?

            (For a moment, Draco entertained a hopeful vision of Weasley or one of Potter’s other friends doing something like this, taking care to heal the wound, and imagined exposing them and getting them the punishment they deserved. He had to admit it wasn’t very likely, though).

            “Can you tell me about who did this to you?” Draco asked, leaning in closer to see the cut. Yes, it was a small, thin line now, to the point Draco might not have noticed it if Potter was standing naked in front of him. Potter was tugging the sides of his shirt together to cover the cut, but almost absently, as though he couldn’t remember why he was supposed to be concerned about wearing clothing.

            “No one did it to me,” he said. “I did it to myself.”

            Draco’s eyes snapped up to Potter’s face. He could be joking. Or whoever cast the curse could have ordered him to say that.

            Then he remembered the way the spell he’d cast had glowed around Potter, and his mouth tightened. A ritual component, yes. He could think of any number of rituals that might rely on blood taken from the heart, but it was true that the most powerful rituals used the willing sacrifice of such blood. And the magic of the rituals didn’t count “willing” compliance like that obtained with the Imperius Curse as powerful enough. Wasn’t Potter supposed to be immune to the Imperius Curse, anyway? Draco remembered hearing about something like that.

            “What did you do?” Draco asked. “Why?”

            Potter frowned and seemed to consider, but apparently the ritual had dulled his emotions to the point that he didn’t think it was dangerous to confess what he had done to Draco, either. “I found a ritual in an old book, one that said someone who had defeated a Dark Lord could keep them from ever coming back to the wizarding world if did a few things. Enchanted an object into his heart, and then used the same magic and the blood to make other objects into guardians for his heart.”

            Draco licked his lips. That particular ritual sounded familiar, though he’d never heard anything about it being used to defeat Dark Lords. But it would account for Potter’s dulled emotions, his slowed reactions.

            “You don’t understand why someone might object to you making a sacrifice like that?” Draco asked. “Because I can think of lots of people who would object to it, your friends most of all.”

            “They wouldn’t,” Potter said, with a little shake of his head that seemed weary, as if he thought that shaking his head over something like this was too much effort. “They know I defeated the last Dark Lord, but that wasn’t enough, because of all those rumors swirling around. No one was getting any peace, because those rumors wouldn’t let them have peace. I made the necessary sacrifice.”

            Draco leaned his forehead into his palms and contemplated his feet for a few seconds. He didn’t want to take Potter somewhere—if there was even any place he could take him with him suffering the way he was—with a bloody nose.

            He looked up again when Potter moved towards the door, though. “Where do you think you’re going?” Draco snapped, stepping into the way.

            He got that vague, distant look from Potter again, as though he couldn’t imagine why Draco would object. “Back to work.”

            “This ritual has made you less fun,” Draco said firmly. “Fun for me as well as your friends, I would imagine, although I’m the only one who really matters.” He saw the way Potter’s eyes started to flash, but this time, the spark seemed to die even faster. Maybe he got used to people who tried to anger him and they could only go so far into his dim emotions. That horrified Draco, and he decided to push further. “How do you reverse the ritual?”

            Potter blinked. “You can’t.”

            “Oh, bollocks,” Draco said. “I know you didn’t pursue Dark wizards for as long as you have without finding out all rituals can be reversed. You might not be willing to pay the price for it, but I could find a way to make the price matter less.”

            Potter stood there stolidly thinking about it. Draco finally tapped him on the back of the head. “Where did you put your heart? Or the object that represents it?”

            “In a secret place,” Potter said.

            Draco sighed. He had thought that the ritual probably wouldn’t make Potter more prone to babble his secrets, but he had to check, didn’t he? “Tell me how we can get it back and smash it.” That was the only way to render someone who was immortal mortal, in old stories, and in this case, probably the only way to return Potter to life.

            But Potter shook his head and gazed at Draco with an emotion that might have been pity before it died stillborn. “I did this to protect the world. I won’t let you destroy that protection. That would just bring all the rumors and the attempts to become Dark Lords flooding back.”

            “You’re ridiculous,” Draco said. “What do you think will happen when you die?”

            Potter blinked and apparently gave the question serious thought. “I’m not sure. The book didn’t emphasize that. But I think the protection for the world would at least endure a bit longer. That makes it worthwhile to keep up.”

            “No one would ever have asked this of you,” Draco said, and his voice sounded rough enough that he paused and started over. He wouldn’t want Potter thinking Draco was upset for any reason but his stupidity. “You did your duty, as much as they can ask of anyone. And your friends are going to be upset when they notice.”

            “People would have asked it,” Potter said simply. “They were asking it. All the ones who thought it was a good idea for me to go to the site of any ritual or any Death Eater meeting.”

            Draco’s scowl got worse as he thought about that. Yes, Potter was right. A wizarding world that lived in fear would look for a hero to save them from it.

            He wished Potter wasn’t right.

            But it still didn’t mean he was right about anything other than the fact that some people would ask him. And the wishes of those who would sincerely want Potter to do something like this, as opposed to those who wanted him to be safe and would be horrified when they found out, were too stupid to be worth heeding.

            “I’m going to find the object and break it,” he told Potter.

            Potter stared at him, then shook his head. “You wouldn’t have the first clue as to where to start looking.”

            “Oh, I don’t know.” Feeling immensely better now that Potter had challenged him about something, Draco took a step towards the door, watching Potter intently. “What about in one of the places that you found the Dark Lord’s Horcruxes in?”

            Potter’s wand ripped out. Draco licked his lips and opened his mouth, ready to protest his innocence, ready to raise his hands in the air and accuse Potter of being a horrible bigoted Auror…

            And then Potter lowered his wand again and looked at it as though he didn’t know where it had come from, shaking his head. “I’m getting old,” he muttered.

            Draco took a stiff step towards the idiot, then made himself stop and close his eyes. If he took Potter’s wand at this point, he’d probably snap it, and there were certain levels of trouble that he didn’t need to get into.

            Instead, he spent a long few moments contemplating the wall, and then turned around and looked evenly at Potter, who hadn’t moved but continued to gaze at his wand as though it held all the secrets he’d ever need. “I know about the Horcruxes because I met a few people that he contacted for research materials while I was abroad,” Draco said quietly. “It isn’t something I would have wanted to talk about, but you get the right people drunk, and they’ll confess all the sins you never wanted to know.”

            Potter looked up. “As long as you didn’t make any of your own, I suppose it’s okay.”

            Draco’s fingers itched. They often did that when he wanted a drink, or when he wanted to strangle someone. It was remarkable how similar the sensations could be.

            He shook his head, managed to pull himself back into the present, and said, “What if I were to tell you there’s an even more effective ritual for blocking the return of Dark Lords, one that you can use multiple times, and which won’t end with your life the way this one might?”

            Potter took a long, hungry step forwards, then stopped as if he thought that might frighten Draco off. It would in certain circumstances, which this one was, Draco thought sourly. Potter’s gaze remained nailed to Draco’s face, though. “Tell me.”

            Draco gave a slight, sarcastic bow. “Well, it will take a bit of explaining.” Translation: Draco would need some time to make up the details of the ritual he had just invented. “But I know that it can’t work if another ritual is in effect. That means you would have to get rid of this one first.”

            Potter hesitated. His eyes still didn’t look right, but Draco was willing to accept a lot of shit at this point just to get past Potter’s initial emotionlessness.

            “I thought you said that you’d never heard of anything like this,” Potter mumbled. “That book was old, and the ritual was only available to someone who’d defeated a Dark Lord. What about this ritual? What if it’s the same way?”

            Draco looked at him evenly, and ignored the savage pounding of his heart in his chest. “The only way you can be sure of that is to come with me, and try this other ritual. But we need to break yours first.”

            Potter hesitated again, long enough that Draco thought he might see through the lie. But Potter’s stupidity as well as his lack of emotions seemed increased by what he’d done to himself. He nodded and held out his hand.

            “The first obstacle to get through is a long way from here,” he said. “I made all the objects I enchanted into different magical creatures, and each one guards the clue or the key that you need to get past the next one.”

            Draco shook his head as he accepted Potter’s hand. He was starting to wonder if he had gone a little far in his longing to wake Potter up. “How do you defeat the first one, then?”

            “You just have to fight,” Potter replied, and began to lead Draco towards the door, towards the outside of the Manor, where they could Apparate.

            Draco went along, watching his back. It sounded like this journey would be uncomfortable and tiring. And he had avoided discomfort for so long.

            But if I walk away from this, I have to endure the discomfort of seeing Potter like this for the rest of his life. Because his stupid friends might find out the truth, but they would never be able to do anything about it. They’re too stupid.

            Draco sighed and straightened his back. Okay, he could do this.

            And it would at least put paid to his boredom.

            Suddenly more cheerful, he followed Potter out of the Manor.

*

            Demonadine: Yes, I think writing is always fun, although there are all sorts of ways to screw it up.

            delia cerrano: Draco is at least unimpressed by Harry’s attempts to do that.

            SP777: Harry effectively chose not to feel. But since the spell doesn’t give him the ability to lie about it, because he doesn’t care enough about it, that at least indicates that he’s also freely choosing to tell Draco the secret to defeating it.

            Seiren: Oh, to the Manor, of course. It’s the only place you can get a decent fire; ;)

            polka dot: I suppose it might.
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A Black Stone in a Glass Box