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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
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Thirty-Three--Side by Side

            Harry trusted that he was keeping himself from staring too obviously at the dark-haired woman beside Draco, because so far Draco hadn't scolded him for not knowing pure-blood ways and the woman hadn't set him on fire. Besides, everyone had plenty of other things to pay to, what with the statements that the Head Auror had demanded from the various witnesses to Grayson's manifestation and the secure conditions they were setting up to interrogate her again.

            But it was hard not to stare.

            The woman was exactly the sort of person Harry would have expected Draco to choose, other than perhaps the darkness of her hair instead of the blonde Harry had thought he preferred. She walked with a light spring in her step, and watched everything as if trying to figure out how it could matter to her. Or how she could use it, Harry reckoned. She sat at a table behind Draco, while the rest of them stood. Harry had heard her thanking the Auror trainees who brought the table and the chair and the cup of tea she was drinking in, but he had no idea how she had commandeered them in the first place.

            Unbidden, Draco's sneering voice spoke in his head. She's willing to use her power, and you're not.

            Harry tried to turn his head, but his attention was dragged back soon enough as an older Auror, Anderson, questioned d'Alveda. She answered all the questions with a patient air that suggested she had better things to do without being offensive. Soon enough, Anderson backed off, and she went back to sipping her tea and watching the circus pivot around her.

            Harry really wished that he knew how she did that.

            Soon enough, the statements had been given and taken, and Ian drifted towards Harry. Draco started doing so at the same time, so they both ended up in front of Harry within seconds of each other. Harry settled back on his heels and did his best to smile blandly at both of them.

            Ian gave Draco a single curious glance, and then seemed to have decided to ignore him in favor of smiling at Harry. "I could teach you that lightning spell I mentioned, if you like," he offered.

            "I want to talk to you about what happened." Draco's voice was lower, nowhere near as cheerful, and far more charged. "Please, Harry." He reached out, hesitated, then ran his fingers over the back of Harry's wrist. His eyes darted to the wedding ring on Harry's left hand, but he didn't touch it.

            Harry shook his head to clear it. If someone had asked him a few minutes before, he would have said that he'd enjoy being the target of two people who both wanted his attention, as long as one of them was Draco. After all, he was doing his best not to dart jealous little glances at the woman Draco was paying attention to and had arrived with.

            But in reality, it made him tired and uneasy. He would have to make a choice that would slight someone, and he hated that.

            This is why I can't use my power the way d'Alveda uses hers, and it has nothing to do with being pure-blood or not.

            A glance at d'Alveda revealed that she was watching with interest and fascination. She caught Harry's eye and winked at him. The expression on her face, as she toasted him with her cuppa, was sympathetic.

            That shouldn't have given him strength, but it did. Harry turned and smiled at Ian. "In a little while," he said. "I think that I'll learn more as an unbiased observer if I watch how they handle Grayson before she wakes up and try to learn the aftereffects that way."

            Ian hesitated. "All right," he said at last, and drifted off to the side, with a single suspicious glance for Draco that Draco didn't deign to return.

            Draco immediately leaned forwards and pitched his voice for Harry's ears alone. "Can I cast a privacy bubble so that no one else can hear us?"

            Harry blinked, but nodded. He didn't think it would matter much as long as no one else in the room--except perhaps d'Alveda--noticed it, and right now, there was a long, serious discussion going on about how to interrogate someone who could literally change a person's mind. Even Ron had been drawn into it.

            The moment he gave his permission, Draco had his wand up and waving, and the privacy bubble settled around them with an almost tangible weight. Harry hunched his shoulders. The weight of the magic, as well as the sudden, quiet buzz in the ring on his finger, told him that Draco was probably upset about something. Putting himself in danger had to be at the head of the list.

            "Listen," Draco said, staring hard at him. "I realized after I saw Shelborn that I don't want someone saving you ever again."

            Harry blinked. "Thanks," he said. "I think. The blessings of an early death are pretty underestimated, then?"

            Draco's stare turned into a scowl. "Not what I meant," he said. "I meant that I want to be the only one who saves you, the only one who guards you. I don't care if you date Shelborn, but I wanted to tear him apart with my bare hands for saving you."

            Harry blinked again, but this time, it was to hold back something more uncomfortable than his shock. "Draco," he whispered, and reached out to put his hands on his shoulders.

            "Date him if you have to," Draco said, moving a step forwards, although his muffled voice said that he still wasn't happy about the fact. "But don't--don't rely on him the way you do on me. Come with me. Be with me." He hesitated minutely, then said, with reluctance dragging his heels, "And I'll give up the courtship with Laura if I have to."

            Harry closed his eyes and savored that for a long minute. He had been honestly unsure if Draco wanted to sacrifice anything for him. But he had chosen, and he had shown that he could value Harry, rather than sticking by that heartless model of marriage that he had told Harry he followed at first.

            That was enough, that Draco would give up those things for him if asked, so Harry didn't need to demand the actual sacrifice. He smiled up at Draco and shook his head. "No, court her if I'm dating Ian. But I don't think--Draco, I don't want him the same way I want you. He does things for me physically, but he doesn't know about the scars on my back, or the way that my magic reacts when I'm threatened by the beast. The scars nearly sent out tendrils again when Grayson attacked," he added, shuddering as he remembered the writhing sensation between his shoulder blades. "I don't know how I would have explained that to Ian."

*

            Draco straightened. The jealousy brewing in him liquefied again, but although it still burned, it hurt far less than it had an hour ago.

            I don't want him the same way I want you.

            This was Draco's day to learn new things about himself, it seemed. That he could get jealous of Harry, and the physical intimacies that Harry would permit a lover to take. That being the only person Harry had ever looked at with desire didn't matter nearly as much as being the only person Harry had looked at with that particular desire.

            He knew marriage was more to Harry than the bed he shared. And Harry had as good as told him that when it came to passion and trust, he valued Draco more than this Shelborn.

            As far as the bed, Draco could show Shelborn competition there, too. But it need not be direct or instant.

            He reached out and cupped Harry's jaw. "Will you tell me what you've done with him so far?" he asked quietly, nuzzling along Harry's ear. Harry started and flushed, and Draco smiled. He would have to remember that Harry enjoyed stubble like that on bare skin. "I would like to hear."

            "I've kissed him," Harry said. "And he tried to touch my back, but I warned him away." He shrugged and acted as though he was trying to think of something else, but Draco distracted him with his nose against Harry's ear again and long, slow touches to his shoulders. Harry watched him as he did it, but without the suspicion he'd used the last time Draco tried that. "Nothing else."

            "Good," Draco said. "Would you mind if I kissed you now?"

            Harry swallowed, and he looked as if he was trying to recover his bravery. Well, good. Draco had never thought of himself as brave, not in the sense that Harry was, but he could get used to being so. "If you don't mind other people looking at us and seeing it happen," he said.

            Right, yes. The privacy bubble only blocked sound. Draco growled slightly as he bent down and let his breath ghost out into Harry's mouth. "I can kiss my legally married husband," he said. "And I'm going to."

            He did, hard enough to make Harry sway on his feet. Harry stiffened his legs an instant later and pushed back, though. Draco laughed in delight as he felt Harry's tongue pushing against his lips, urging entrance, and he opened his mouth to tangle with it. Harry grunted as though someone had punched him in the stomach, although Draco was sure this particular sensation was more pleasant than that one.

            "Auror Potter."

            The freezing words came from the older Auror who had interviewed Laura and seemed to be in charge of much of the activity in the room. Harry broke away from Draco's kiss, but kept his hands in place. "Sorry, Auror Anderson," he said. He tried to sound contrite, but that was sort of ruined, Draco thought contentedly, since his face was bright red and his voice was muffled by his swollen lips.

            "You should be," the older Auror said, but he turned away after another glare, so Draco didn't get the chance to challenge him as he would have liked to. As Draco stepped back and let Harry go with a stroke across one shoulder blade, though, he did cross gazes with one person.

            Shelborn, who was watching them with bafflement. Draco gave him a thin smile and an elaborate bow. Yes, Shelborn had probably picked up an exaggerated idea of how estranged they were, based on what Harry had told him.

            Draco wouldn't move against him--for now. If Harry grew tired of him or he grew tired of Harry, then Draco would waste no time. He had Harry's blessing for his courtship right now, which meant he would look less gracious than Harry if he refused to allow Shelborn to stay around. And his mother had emphasized time and time again that pure-bloods, and especially Malfoys, should inevitably look the more gracious in any particular situation. It increased their enemies' hatred while taking away a pretext for attacking them. Draco liked that.

            Harry smiled back at him, once, and then went to assist with Grayson's interrogation. Draco made his way back over to Laura and offered her his hand. "Are you ready to depart, my lady?" he asked.

            "I think I've seen most of what I needed to." Laura rose to her feet, hand balanced on his arm, her eyes thoughtful. "Yes, I do like him, Draco. And I can see the reason that he might well glare at me."

            Draco blinked. "He did?" He would have to have a word with Harry about that. It sounded like he was making himself jealous of Laura, whether or not he really should be.

            "You never noticed because you were glaring too hard at Shelborn," Laura said, and the amusement sparked to life in her eyes like light dancing on waves. "I thought you were going to draw your wand and challenge him to a duel at one point. Which would have been interesting, if messy."

            "You don't think I could take him?" Draco's eyes went back to Shelborn. The man stood as tall and straight as a soldier, elaborately ignoring Draco for the present. Or it might have been genuine ignoring, but Draco didn't think anyone could be in the room with him and not notice him that thoroughly. He was watching as Harry spoke with the Head Auror. The Head Auror asked a question, and Harry shook his head vehemently and retorted. Shelborn smiled.

            As if he has a right to think that Harry is doing what he needs to do, or that he's insolent...

            Laura coughed. Draco looked down and realized that he had clamped his hand tight around hers. He smoothed her fingers out and gave her a brittle smile. "I think we should go."

            "I agree," Laura said.

            They turned towards the door, and Harry's head oriented on them at once. He wouldn't have looked that way if Shelborn had moved across the room, in front of him or behind him, Draco thought smugly. He inclined his head to Harry, and Harry smiled back.

            Laura waved at him. Harry hesitated, as if unsure what the right response ought to be, and "compromised" by turning his back and addressing the Head Auror with more enthusiasm than ever. Draco frowned. Among the pure-blood things he should learn are the polite forms of saying good-bye.

            "I like him," Laura murmured again, as Draco escorted her towards the entrance to the Ministry they'd used in the first place, past the trainee who Laura had charmed into allowing them entrance. The trainee ducked her head and flushed. Laura didn't appear to notice, but Draco was sure she did. "And if you can smooth out the debts that you owe each other and how the way we compromise should go, then I should think we might do very well."

            Draco gave her a large, fake smile, and decided that he would think about the taunting tone in her voice later. Harry had spoken to him with affection and trust, and that was the most important thing right now.

            Besides, he was beginning to think that Laura was more complicated than he'd decided she was, and might take some more work to figure out.

*

            "You're sure this will work?" Auror Anderson's voice was a low rasp, and Harry didn't have to look back at him to know that his hand was tight on his wand.

            "Not entirely sure until we test it," Harry said, not deigning to look back. "But mostly certain, sir, yes."

            "Not good enough," Anderson said, but Harry turned his head back this time and gave him an even look, and he shut up after that. It might have been because of Harry's name and scar--the visible one--or just because he'd remembered that Harry was the most in danger from a repeat performance, but Harry didn't care which.

            He faced Grayson. Still unconscious, she was chained to a chair in the middle of a rune layered on the floor in blood, blood Harry had willingly donated from his own veins and then thinned with a number of spells, so that he could create it without bleeding to death. This rune was the one for binding. Harry highly doubted they needed the one for summoning, not when the beast was already present and in Grayson.

            In two people in this room.

            A guard of Aurors stood at each major point of the circle, and the chairs and table that marked this as a seldom-used meeting room had been stacked along the walls. Harry had wanted them out of the room altogether--there was no telling what the monster in Grayson might be able to use as weapons--but Anderson had refused, saying that he didn't want anyone not already in the know to realize something unusual was going on here. Harry had ceded control as gracefully as he could.

            Harry drew his wand. Ian had practiced the incantation that would bring down someone by burning out their consciousness with lightning several times, and Harry knew that he had more than enough power to manage it. He shouldn't be so nervous.

            But that sensation of scars writhing on his back, the remembrance of the way the tendrils had flooded out of Grayson's eyes and eaten Moulson's arm...

            I wish Draco was here. He's the only one who really understands what I went through in the darkness.

            Yeah, well, Draco wasn't here. And putting it off further was something Harry didn't think wise, not when Grayson was already jerking against her bonds in a way that suggested she was returning slowly to full wakefulness.

            He tightened his hold on his wand and nodded to Ian, who stood at the point of circle directly behind Grayson's chair.

            Ian smiled at him, a deep, calming expression, and chanted a short reviving spell under his breath. Grayson's eyes snapped open, and her gaze fixed on Harry. Harry didn't see tendrils reaching out of her eyes, but he did see darkness thrashing and shifting beneath the surface, rising towards it as he continued to watch.

            Harry raised his wand high and said, in a barely breathed word that nonetheless had most of his magic behind it, "Legilimens."

            His consciousness leaped out of his head and straight into Grayson's. She arched her back against the chair and shrieked, and Harry heard Anderson, who was always concerned with proper handling of prisoners, shouting something. He had no chance to pay attention. He'd dived beneath the liquid surface of Grayson's eyes and was swimming in the darkness with the beast.

            But this time, it was not the one who had fed on him. It was a different manifestation, confused and hungry, and not as powerful. And he could move. He could snap out of her head and back into his own if he had to, and he could put Grayson to sleep, and he had power and control.

            That made all the difference.

            Harry circled and darted, forcing his way beneath the beast's presence to Grayson's immediate memories before the arrest. Going about her day, opening her shop, weighing out orders, going home at night...

            And there it was. A blast of decay magic, vines coiling around Grayson's ankles, hanging blossoms over her head, thorns reaching for her eyes as she screamed. Harry took a deep breath and threw out his will, pinning the memory to the "ground" of her mind, as it were, so he could study it in more detail. They would have tried this with a Pensieve, but there was no way they could count on Grayson's cooperation to fetch out the right one. They might have pulled the beast free instead.

            Two wizards stepped out from beneath a Disillusionment Charm and strode towards Grayson. Her memory was occupied with the terror of being held captive by those plants, but she had seen those two out of the corner of her eye, and so her memory, in some ways, retained them. Harry leaned back, squinting, and concentrated.

            Yes, there they were. The man was heavyset with black eyes and blond hair that hung loose and scraggly around his face. The woman was delicate, fine-boned, with black eyes as well and red hair that looked dyed.

            And Harry recognized her. One of the women who had been working on Auror Wilkinson's team when they approached the Ness runes. She had seemed as horrified as anyone else, standing back from the ring of blood, but there she was, cruel and focused, intent on Grayson. Even if she was only another beast-controlled victim, that was a better lead than any they'd had so far.

            Harry leaped back in excitement and started to aim for the surface of Grayson's mind, clutching his new knowledge to himself.

            The beast attacked.

            It came down on him like a great bat, the wings beating in the sound that he remembered, the claws reaching out with a noise like great sails tearing. Harry rolled over to meet it, and cast a spell.

            Not on the beast. From what he understood now, having felt it in close contact, it wouldn't actually be hurt by any magic that he could bring to bear. Not physically, at any rate. It was only a mental reflection at the moment, struggling to get out of Grayson's body, rather than coming from the outside, like the one that had fed on him.

            Grayson had an inherent advantage, or rather the beast did, because this was her mind. But all Harry had to do was use the lightning spell, and he could shut down the very battleground the beast was counting on to give it its victory.

            The darkness around him whistled and shrieked. Harry flung an arm across his eyes and ducked his head forwards. The lightning spell blazed out from his wand, his strength cloaking him like wings of his own, stopping the utter retreat that facing the beast might easily have turned into.

            The world pivoted around him. Harry discovered that he was hanging on a chain in the middle of nothingness. The beast had stopped shrieking, as if it had been blinded by the radiance that came with the lightning spell. Or as if it had suddenly ceased to exist, although Harry knew they couldn't be that lucky.

            He rose out of Grayson's mind, and opened his eyes in his own body.

            His back was quivering, taut, as if about to erupt wings at any moment--or tentacles from the scars. Harry grimaced, but shook his head. So far, it hadn't happened, and he didn't think that it was going to. He breathed, carefully, and saw Ron, the only one here who had any idea of what he might be facing, take a cautious step forwards. Harry smiled at him and nodded his head. Ron relaxed.

            "I saw an identifiable face," Harry said hoarsely. Anderson took a concerned step nearer, and Harry nodded at him, convinced that the man wanted to be the first to hear this. That was fine with Harry. He had no investment in keeping the secret, not really. "Auror Niamh Porter. We need to bring her in for questioning as soon as possible. She was one of the pair who attacked Grayson. She might not be immediately guilty but another victim," he added, seeing resistance appear in a few of the faces in front of him. They would know and like Porter. "But we have to investigate, and find out which it is, and what she knows."

            Grayson was once more unconscious. The Mind-Healer who'd been waiting in a corner of the room hastened forwards, dismissing the blood runes with a grimace and a shake of her head. Harry gladly left her to it, turning to Anderson. He was swaying on his feet, and Anderson surveyed him narrowly.

            "Good work, Potter," he said abruptly. "But you shouldn't have risked yourself to find it."

            Harry shrugged. They hadn't had any other choice. He wouldn't send someone else in unprepared for the beast's darkness. "I should put my memory of the other wizard into a Pensieve, sir. That might aid us in identifying him."

            Anderson nodded at once, seeming glad to have something to do. He motioned Harry from the room, and Ron followed. They passed Ian on the way, who gave Harry a relieved smile.

            Harry smiled back, and mouthed, Thank you. If Ian hadn't taught him that spell, he might not have survived the beast's assault in Grayson's mind.

            But...

            Even though, it struck him abruptly, Ian had taught him the spell, he was the one who had used it.

            He had saved himself. Rescued himself.

            He still had at least that much power and control.

            His blood thrummed with excitement, and if Draco had been near him just then, Harry would have kissed him.

*

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The Marriage of True Minds