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The Name I'll Give to Thee	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 42129 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 6
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Thirty-Four—Decisions

            Harry leaned against the wall of his bedroom and frowned at the ceiling. He supposed he could have thought about what to do while lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling, too, but this way meant he had to use more energy, and that was a good thing right now. Use the energy, or explode in magic that wasn’t fair to Draco, either.

            Someone knocked.

            And I really need to stop thinking “someone” when I know perfectly well who it is, Harry thought as he opened the door and moved out of the way so Draco could step in. Draco turned around the minute he was inside, studying Harry with narrowed eyes.

            “You don’t have to do it,” he said.

            Harry moved in, taking the initiative this time, until he could see Draco opening his eyes wide and getting ready to step away from him. Then he stopped. “And what do you want?” he asked gently. “Your mother asked for this, but do you want your father free, too?” He thought Draco might have some conflict on that score. He would want his father not to suffer, the way he wanted for any member of the family, but it was entirely possible that he also liked being the head of the Malfoy family, the way he had been before Harry wrecked his life.

            Draco reached out to take his arms. Harry permitted it. He knew, from a glance into his face, that Draco needed the support.

            “I want him free if it could be managed,” Draco said, bowing his head. “But I don’t think it can, and in the meantime, it puts you in danger. I wish my mother had thought of that, that you can’t pay your debts to us if you’re dead.”

            “Let’s put her aside for the moment,” Harry said quietly, although he knew it was hard for both of them to do. “What do you want? Would your father cause you less trouble in Azkaban than out of it? Do you want him out and able to interfere?” He had no idea, he realized, whether Draco ever went to visit him or not. They hadn’t discussed Lucius, and he hadn’t been in the memory that Harry had glimpsed during the demi-marriage ritual.

            Draco sighed. “You would ask the hard question.”



            “If you need a little while to answer it, that’s all right.” Harry massaged Draco’s shoulders, then decided he could do it better from the back and moved around him. Draco seemed to droop and melt and flow when Harry touched him, but didn’t actually sit down. So Harry stood there, rubbing his shoulders.

            Draco breathed as though he was going to sleep. Harry doubted that, and he waited. Meanwhile, his fingers were growing familiar with the curves of Draco’s flesh and the solidity of his bones, and that wasn’t a bad thing to know.

            “I—don’t know,” Draco said at last. “My mother wants it, I think. It’s not just a test. Now that she’s—old, she would feel safer with my father back at her side. But I have to think of the whole family, and she’s one of the people I’m thinking of, not the only one.”

            Harry leaned in. “I can help you share the burdens,” he whispered into Draco’s ear. “I’m not Malfoy by blood, but I can help.”

            Draco reached back and caught his left hand in a grip so strong that Harry winced. “You’re the one in the heart of the dilemma,” Draco said, in a return whisper. “One of the people I should be protecting, but instead you’re forced into the role of protector. Can you sit back and let someone else make the decision for once in your life?”

            Harry thought about that, his head half-cocked. Draco snorted now and then, as though to show that he wasn’t impressed by Harry’s dithering about, but Harry refused to let himself be hurried. This was too important, that was all.

            Finally, he said, “No.”

            Draco squeezed hard enough this time to leave bruises on his wrist. Harry opened his mouth to ask how he was supposed to explain that one to his friends, but Draco was charging on, as irresistible as a stream in full flow. “I think you should,” he whispered fiercely. “You would be happier if you could. If sometimes you trusted other people to make the choice, and went along with it.”

            “And that’s something we can talk about some time in the future when I’m being pressured to do that,” Harry said, in a normal voice. “But this time, I have to make the choice, and you can’t spare me from it.”

            Draco twisted around to stare up at him from beneath his fringe. Harry’s heat ached, and he licked his lips. Draco didn’t seem to notice. “But were you asking how I felt about it so you would know whether you should make the decision?” he asked. “Or so I could take it away from you?”

            Harry kissed his forehead. “Those aren’t at all the same thing. Yes, I do want to know how all the Malfoys feel about it. But that’s to help me decide what to do, not shove you into my place.”

            “I would do it, if I could,” Draco said, his hands tightening now in a way that didn’t hurt, that simply held Harry close and captive. “I would take your place.”

            Harry smiled at him. “I know.” He hesitated for a second, then shrugged. They were already in pretty deep with each other. Why not go further? “I think it’s a pretty good definition of love, that you’re willing to do that.”

            Draco stared at him with his lips parted a little. Harry wondered if he had mis-stepped after all, and Draco wouldn’t react to that kind of speech because it was too intimate.

            Then Draco leaned forwards and whispered directly into Harry’s mouth, “I was wondering which one of us would be the first to say the obvious. I didn’t know that it would be you. I thought you’d need to build up your courage first.” His hands stroked Harry’s face, around the mouth, down from the ears, and he looked as if he would simply give up and kiss him in a second.

            Wanting to encourage that, Harry tilted his head and smiled. “Who was actually Sorted into the House that has a reputation for courage, now?”

            Draco kissed him hard enough to make Harry’s teeth cut his lips, but it was hard to be angry about that when he had pleasure cutting and curling all around him at the same time—not least, the pleasure that he had successfully distracted Draco from worrying about him. He wanted to be a source of strength and support and happiness to Draco, not fear. Not guilt.

            He walked them back towards his bed with his hands on Draco’s shoulders, wondering if they would end up in the same position as before. But Draco seemed to have other ideas, if the way he lifted his head and gasping like a drowning fish was any indication.

            “I love you,” he told Harry, so directly that Harry felt a sharp, suspicious sting at the corners of his eyes. “I don’t know why the demi-marriage turned into this, but I’m glad it did.” He hesitated, watching Harry for some kind of sign, although Harry didn’t know what it was, and then curled his hand around the nape of Harry’s neck. “If you don’t mind, I want—I want to keep you close. And that’s one reason I’m glad you quit the Aurors. So that we can spend more time together, as well as getting you out of danger.”

            Harry blinked, but while he hadn’t expected that from Draco and didn’t know how to respond to it, he had no trouble finding words of his own. “And I’m glad that you suggested it. Even if,” he added, beating Draco to it as Draco opened his mouth, “Ron was the one who managed to persuade me. He wouldn’t have, if you hadn’t already told me that it was what you wanted. You worked together.”

            Draco’s eyebrows drew together and he puckered his lips as though Harry had just given him sour tea. Harry couldn’t help it, and loosened his hold on Draco’s shoulders to bend over at the waist and laugh. Draco shoved him. Harry kept laughing. Draco shoved him again. This time Harry fell on the bed and laughed up at the ceiling.

            “So glad I could amuse you,” Draco muttered, trailing after him and standing by the bed to frown down at him.

            “It’s more than that,” Harry said, levering himself up on one elbow and smiling at Draco. “It was the face you made. The horror that you might work together with Ron on anything. I promise you, he’d feel the same way.”

            Draco sat down beside him and trailed a casual finger up his arm. Harry turned his head towards him and kissed the back of his hand. Draco smiled, but his expression was distant, and Harry ended up leaning his chin on Draco’s hand and raising his eyebrows at him.

            “We still don’t know who stabbed me at the Ministry,” Draco whispered. “And now what my mother wants with my father…” His voice trailed off, and he looked at Harry with a peculiar, piercing expression. “When are you going to get time to relax and enjoy the benefits of being a Malfoy that you married me for?”

            “No reporters have intruded on us yet,” Harry pointed out. “Or Aurors insisting that I need to come back to the Ministry or I’m a traitor. And Ossy has been feeding me more than enough sweets. I like that.”

            Draco nodded, but he didn’t look convinced. “What are you going to do?”

            Harry hesitated. Then he sat up and said, “I can’t do—exactly what she wants. I can do what I think someone who has a connection to the family should do, and something that might reassure her. I can check into the way they’re treating him in Azkaban, and make sure that it’s good treatment.”

            Draco blinked at him. “Why would they tell you?”

            Harry smiled and brushed back his fringe to touch the dragon scar. “Some people still remember what this was shaped like,” he said quietly. “And while I’ve changed my name—and I do take pride in that,” he added as he saw the way Draco’s chin started to come up, “to some people, that won’t matter. They’re people I don’t really like associating with. I avoided them when I still worked for the Ministry. But now, that doesn’t matter.”

            “Why doesn’t it matter?”

            “Because I’m doing it for my family,” Harry said, turning his head around fully to take in Draco’s expression.

            Draco had bigger eyes than Harry would have suspected, from the way he was letting them bug out like that. “You have to keep doing things you don’t want,” he muttered. “I wish I could give you some way to get around that.”

            Harry laughed a little. “We’ve hardly had a quiet moment since I married you,” he said. “I don’t blame you for that. I could have been more careful about drawing on everyone’s life-force when I was battling the Dementor ghosts. And there’s always the chance that it’ll calm down soon, and I’ll be able to relax.”

            “Why can’t you do exactly what my mother wants?” Draco leaned towards him and lowered his voice.

            Harry half-closed his eyes. He didn’t know if the words he said would make any sense to Draco, especially since he had admitted that part of him did want his father free. But he was done keeping secrets from Draco or hoping that they would understand each other by some kind of mental sharing when they’d done no talking. He took a deep breath and began to speak.

            “Because he did try to commit murder. If he had stayed in Azkaban and served his first sentence out, after he was caught in the Department of Mysteries, maybe I would feel this was enough time spent there. But I don’t. And he hasn’t—he was a willing Death Eater, Draco. That’s the difference between him and you.”

*

            There were a lot of things Draco could have said to that, such as that he had taken the Mark willingly and only resented it later when he realized exactly what service to the Dark Lord entailed, but he didn’t say it. Instead, he said, “You hold him responsible for trying to murder Ginny Weasley?”

            Harry opened his eyes and nodded. “He did try. Or at least he didn’t care what the diary did to her.”

            “You don’t think he should stay in prison for practicing Dark Arts.” Draco studied Harry intently, although he didn’t know what he was looking for.

            Harry snorted at him. “I’m not that much of a hypocrite. If I was going to arrest everyone who’d done that, I’d have to be in prison, too, and so would my best friends.”

            “I didn’t know you felt that way about Dark magic,” Draco murmured, his mind racing, but no coherent words emerging out of the thoughts as yet. “I would have been a little less stiff and formal with you, if I did.”

            Harry shrugged, and his mouth twisted. “I was feeling that way for a long time before I quit the Aurors, but as long as I was one, I had to arrest people who practiced it. This is up to me, though.”

            Draco rolled back on the bed to look at him. “You’re more of a hypocrite than I thought you were. Less of the perfect hero.”

            Harry nodded in a way that seemed to say he didn’t put much stress on Draco’s words. “And you’re less of the cackling evil monster, or the hapless coward. Maybe if we meet somewhere in the middle, we can make one whole, human person.”

            Draco smiled, and let his hand rest on Harry’s shoulder. Harry leaned towards him, but said nothing, and didn’t kiss him, only watching him. Draco took a long breath and reminded himself that he really did feel more content than he had in a long time, despite the crises that pressed all around them.

            Then he said, “What happens if checking up on my father in Azkaban won’t satisfy my mother?”

            Harry’s eyes went distant. Then he said, “We tell her that when we find it out. And I do the same thing I did to one of my Auror superiors once, when he ordered me to arrest someone he thought might cause harm to another Auror. She hadn’t actually used any Dark Arts yet, or even threatened him. But they’d dated for a long time before he ended it, and my boss thought it was best if she was shut up before it crossed her mind to hurt him.”

            Draco cocked his head. “What did you do?”

            Harry faced him. “Told my supervisor that I couldn’t arrest a witch who hadn’t actually done anything yet, and accepted the punishment that he gave me. Which, in this case, was a week off work without pay.”

            Draco hesitated. Then he said, “Well, my mother can’t hurt you in the same way, of course. Or punish you in the same way, I should say.”

            Harry smiled sadly at him. “I know. I’m not afraid of what she might do to me. I’ve lived with guilt long enough.”

            “She wouldn’t curse me, either,” Draco tried to reassure him.

            Harry snorted without sound. “If it was only physical harm that I had to worry about, then I wouldn’t be worried at all. I can trust you to take care of yourself in battle, especially with your new wand. But I am worried about the things she might say to you, the guilts she might drag out of you. That does worry me, Draco.”

            Draco caught his hand in a hard grip, and held it there without knowing what to say. At last he muttered, “But you’re still going to go ahead and make a trip to Azkaban to check on the way they’re treating my father, and no more.”

            Harry nodded, his eyes shadowed. “Because of what you said about your father, and your lack of undying desire for him to be released. I can do nothing to change what your mother thinks of me, right now, or what she wants. This is the only thing that makes sense.” He hesitated. “Do you think he would take over the family again, if he was free?”

            “That would depend on what he wanted, what I wanted, and what family precedence had to say about it,” Draco admitted. “I don’t think that most of my ancestors have spent any time in Azkaban. We used to be better about avoiding prison than that.”

            Harry smiled without humor. “So he might feel that he was entitled to lead the family again if he got out, and you might feel that he had had a break in continuity and you were Lord Malfoy now.”

            “Exactly,” Draco said. “And I don’t want to oppose him, and I can’t even say for sure that he would be wrong. But I don’t want to give this up.”

            Harry’s hand tightened on his. “I don’t think you would be wrong,” he said, rolling over and studying Draco’s face. “I mean, I know he’s your dad, but you’re the right head for the Malfoy family right now, and maybe forever.”

            Draco swallowed. He had once overheard a conversation between his parents, where his father had been talking about a tough decision he would make, although Draco didn’t know what that decision would have been. His mother had touched his father’s hand and looked at him with much the same expression Harry was using on him now.

            It’s nice to have a husband who will support me.

            And he might not have got that even if he’d married a pure-blood, given that many of them would have their own ambitions and want to live their own lives, regardless of whether it was what Draco wanted.

            “Thank you,” Draco said, when he had cleared his dry throat. “But what are you going to do next? Speak to my mother?”

            Harry smiled, the shadow back in his eyes again. “I’m not brave enough for that now, Gryffindor or not. No, I’m going to rest for the night. And so are you. In the morning, we’ll decide how we should question Shepherd and what we should do about the wizards who came with him. Then I’ll go to the Ministry. I’m tired of this feeling that we’re running from crisis to crisis. I want to control what happens, and that means we’re going to come up with a plan for confronting our enemies.”

            Draco laughed in delight and leaned over to kiss him. “The great Harry Potter, planning? His enemies would quake in fear.”

            “I’m not so sure that they shouldn’t, when I have you at my side,” Harry said thoughtfully. “I wonder how much I could have accomplished if I’d sat down and planned what I should do next when I was still an Auror, instead of dashing into dangerous situations.”

            Draco shook his head. He didn’t want Harry thinking about and resenting his lost Auror career, for a number of reasons. “I don’t think it matters. But you’re right that we need a plan, and a night to sleep on it and a day to think it over would help.” He stood up, stretching his arms and yawning, aware that Harry was watching the way his chest flexed from the corner of his eye. “So. Do you have any ideas yet on how we should make that plan?”

            “Not yet,” Harry said. “I want a meal and a shower and a nap first.”

            “I’ll send Ossy to you with some food, then.” Draco put a hand gently on Harry’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about the decision you made. Yes, my feelings on having my father free are mixed.” He thought about the way Narcissa had looked when she was speaking to Harry, and shivered a little. “But I’m here to support you as much as you are to support me.”

            Harry looked up at him, and his eyes were so bright that Draco wanted to preen a little, and even more wanted to shout out to anyone who would listen about how “the great Harry Potter” had become his. But Harry brushed a hand against his side instead, a more intimate gesture than taking Draco’s hand in some ways, and nodded.

            “Thank you,” he said. “It might be—maybe I can work out some other answer to your mother’s demand. But not right now.”

            Draco kissed him one more time, and left. He had things he could work on: making a list of potential enemies who might have stabbed him at the party, and struggling with the basilisk wand to make sure it would cooperate in all situations, and devising the questions that they might use to get the most truth out of Aurelius.

            And when he got bored or needed a holiday from his work, he would let his mind linger on the image of Harry as a reward.

*

            I have a husband for real.

            Harry sat in front of his fire, eating the meal Ossy had brought him. It was heavy on meat and fruits and vegetables, and low on sweets until Harry had finished eating the rest and stopped giving Ossy appealing looks. Then Ossy staggered in carrying a plate with one of the biggest cherry pies Harry had ever seen. He ate it, and watched the flames, and listened to the scrapes of his fork against the plate and his own thoughts.

            He had a husband. He had a family.

            He knew that he could have had that in other places, from other people. Perhaps even a happier one, if he had waited and then married someone purely of his choice, instead of undertaking a demi-marriage because Draco had demanded it of him.

            But this was what he had, and he was more than satisfied with it. He was free of the Ministry, which might not have happened if he had married Ginny or anyone else. He was happy. He had someone to fight for.

            He understood the sense of family duty, and pride in family that Draco and other Slytherins had talked about during school, for the first time. His hands were steady, and he could look at the future with a wide, bright eye.

            He had made sacrifices, but he deserved some peace and some freedom, too. And he would have that, once some of their immediate problems were settled, and he could relax behind the Malfoy wards.

            So he ate, and leaned back on his bed, and read a book that Ossy brought him—a wizarding novel with no connection to the pure-blood customs Draco had been having him learn—and felt as if his bones were going to turn to butter and melt into the bed.

            Yes, he deserved evenings like this sometimes.

*

            Kain: That was the main reason Harry decided that he couldn’t free Lucius. No matter how much he might have regretted his actions at the end, he had done a lot more than Draco had.

            Bickymonster: Thank you! I appreciate it. This story is much more leisurely than most of mine. But I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

            SP777: Well, I think Harry gets it now.

            Glad that you liked the scene.

            Diana: Thank you!

            Seiren: Narcissa has run straight into Harry’s principles when she asked that. If Draco had asked for it, Harry would probably have had a much harder time refusing him.

            delia cerrano: That’s one reason they decided to talk to each other (yay). This is too important to mess up now.
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The Name I'll Give to Thee