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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-Five—Running In the Light

            “She didn’t have any right to ask that of you.”

            Harry blinked and looked with a faint sense of bemusement at George’s bowed head. George’s hands were working on the Wheeze in front of him, which sometimes resembled a bugle and sometimes was a packet of black powder; Harry had no idea what it would become when it was finished. George didn’t look up. He hadn’t turned red in the face or pounded his fist on the table the way Ron had when Harry told him what Narcissa wanted. He simply worked, but his words were still enough to make Harry wince.

            “She had the right of a woman who’d been hurt by her son-in-law,” Harry said. “Who didn’t even get a say in her son-in-law, because she was still in a coma when Draco married me.”

            George leaned back on the table, and then winced. He limped towards the wall, where Harry had helped him build a bar that he could hold onto when he got faint like this. He sat down on the chair after a minute or so of standing with the help of the bar, and shook his head at Harry. “When will you realize that no one has the right to mistreat you? I thought your husband might have taught you that, at least.”

            “That’s not mistreatment,” Harry said. “She just asked me something.”

            “The way the Ministry used to.”

            Harry blinked. He hadn’t made that connection. “Narcissa isn’t asking me to risk my life—” But then he paused and thought about the way she might have expected him to break into Azkaban and bring Lucius out, or the consequences if he did. Yes, all right, he could see a little bit of what George was talking about.

            “Yes, she is,” George said, quietly but forcefully. “And you have every right to tell her to go fuck herself.” He paused, still staring at Harry. “What did you say that you would do instead? Because you aren’t going to free the bastard, I can already tell that.”

            Harry shook his head with a faint smile. Ron hadn’t thought what he had chosen a good compromise, which increased the chances that George might not, either, but it was still what Harry had decided on, and no one was going to sway him from it. “To check on his condition and make sure he was being treated well.”

            “You shouldn’t even have to do that much.”

            Harry scratched the back of his neck. Draco had said something similar to him at dinner the other night—although he thought both Draco and George would probably be horrified to be compared to each other. But he wondered how he could explain it now, when he hadn’t found the right words for Draco.

            “It’s not that I want to do it,” he said at last. “Even that I really feel I have to do it, and dragged down by chains. Draco said the same thing about my Ministry duties. He thinks I should be free to do whatever I want. I just—I was never able to be that way when I was a child, and I’m not that way now. I want to work within limits. I feel a lot less constrained than Draco thinks I do, or then you do.” He looked at George. “Can you understand that?”

            George blinked once, twice. Already his face was regaining color and he looked like he was getting some of his strength back. “Not well,” he admitted finally. “It sounds like you think you need the limits or something bad will happen.”

            Harry shrugged. “Dumbledore was worried that I would get spoiled if he had someone in the wizarding world raise me. And maybe he could have found someone who wouldn’t, but it would still have been a possibility. I could have lots of fame and power if I wanted it. I could have it even now, if I renounced the Malfoy name. But I don’t want it.”

            “And you want the limits.” George said that slowly, as though the words were in a language he’d just learned.

            Harry nodded. “Because normal people have limits. And to be normal is all I ever really wanted.”

            George smiled, with an edge of bitterness to it that left Harry in no doubt of who he was thinking about. “The one thing you won’t ever be. Especially now that you have the Malfoy name attached to you and a bloody dragon on your forehead.”

            Harry shrugged again. “Magic isn’t normal, according to the people I grew up with. That doesn’t mean it’s bad. It means that I have to readjust my thinking. And I think I can still be normal as a Malfoy. But not if I do whatever the fuck I want, and tell my mother-in-law to fuck off.”

            “Because it wouldn’t make for a normal life afterwards,” George said, and snapped his fingers. “Because you want to live in the Manor with her and—Malfoy, and you can’t do that if she’s angry at you all the time.”

            Harry nodded. “The one thing the Dementor ghosts should have taught me is to think about consequences. No matter how good it may feel at the time to just yell and scream and complain and break the rules, you still have to live with it when you’re done. That’s why I didn’t tell the Ministry off a lot earlier.”

            George looked at him with a different expression on his face now, although Harry didn’t understand it until he said, “And Malfoy treats you right? Really? Doesn’t make fun of you for your blood, doesn’t object to you seeing your friends?”

            Harry snorted. “I know he would still prefer it if I was pure-blood and came without any Weasleys attached. But then, I would prefer if it he hadn’t been on the opposite side of the war and didn’t have a Dark Mark on his arm. We can’t always get what we want.”

            “Which doesn’t answer my question.”

            Harry crossed the room specifically to cuff George on the side of the head, since he probably wouldn’t shut up about it otherwise. “It’s fine, George. I promise. No, it’s not ideal. There are a lot of things about the situation that aren’t fucking ideal! But we’re learning to be around each other.” He thought of telling George he was in love with Draco, but didn’t. It didn’t seem right, not now.

            George raised his hands defensively in front of him. “All right, mate, I believe you.” He eyed Harry until Harry shifted and stared pointedly at him, and then nodded. “But you would let me know if there was anything I could do for you?”

            “The next time I need Narcissa Malfoy pranked into good behavior,” Harry said solemnly, “I’ll call on you.”

            George smiled, and they were able to talk about other things for the rest of his visit, which Harry appreciated. He had come here, just as he’d gone to Ron and Hermione, partially to warn them about what he was going to do in case it had consequences for them, but normal people talked about things other than themselves, too.

*

            “Mistress Narcissa is wanting Master Draco in her rooms.”

            Affy was the one who gave Draco the message, the less bold of the house-elves, bowing his head and avoiding eye contact. Draco put down the vial he’d been using to brew the Veritaserum, and thought about it for a minute. Then he nodded. “I’ll come.”

            Affy gave a weak-sounding whimper that might have been of relief, and vanished, presumably to carry the message back to Narcissa. Draco spent some time adjusting the hang of his shirt cuffs, and also simply delaying. His mother would lose some respect for him if he scuttled into her room the moment he was summoned.

            And Draco needed to send her a number of messages.

            When he finally knocked at her door, she called for him to enter in a strong voice. Draco opened the door to see her sitting up without the support of a pillow, carefully sipping soup from a mug. Healer Bowman had been cautiously optimistic about reversing the magical aging now that she’d woken up, but still warned her not to eat hard things or even much solid food, so as not to stress her teeth.

            Narcissa looked up at him, and smiled briefly. Draco bowed back. He could still respect her even when their gazes crossed like swords, the way they did now.

            “You did come,” Narcissa said, setting aside the mug. “I wondered if you would, or if your husband would keep you busy.”

            “Harry is out of the house this morning,” Draco said, and took the chair next to her bed. “How are you?” he added.

            His mother watched him a moment more, as though testing the sincerity of the question, and then nodded. Draco must have passed some sort of test, then, he thought. “I’m much better,” she said. “The Healer thinks the magical effects of this aging might yet pass off. My spirit can fight it, and my magical core, now that I’m awake.”

            Draco smiled, and felt one line of tension across his shoulders slide away. That only left sixteen or so, he thought wryly. “That’s wonderful news.”

            Narcissa nodded. Draco knew she was gathering herself for an effort. He waited, keeping his hand from playing with the cover on the arm of the chair, as it wanted to do.

            “Why him?” Narcissa asked quietly. “I know that you wanted to make him pay for the debt, but there are other payments you could have claimed. A large payment of Galleons would have hired experts to repair the wards, bought me Healers, and let you get a new wand. Why did you choose a demi-marriage?”

            “Our family had lost magical strength,” Draco said. “Because my wand was broken and the wards, and because you had lost so much of your life. That was what I wanted, more than the money. To be strong.”

            “Enough money, and we would have gained strength,” his mother said steadily. “Because we would have taken his, we would have drained his vaults. Or he could have helped you repair the wards, but stopped after that.”

            Draco shook his head. “You know as well as I that the wards are powerful because they’re blood wards,” he said, meeting her gaze. “Either someone needs to make them who’s part of the family, or they need to be sealed to the family. The demi-marriage was the way to do that.”

            “You could have chosen something else,” Narcissa said, in the peaceful tones of someone who knew she was right and would continue to think that way. “Someone else. You didn’t need to marry him.” She paused, giving Draco a chance to refute her, but Draco only waited. There was something else to come, something that was worse than what she had said so far. That was the way she argued. “You didn’t need to fall in love with him.”

            I should have known better than to think I could hide that, Draco said, and met her eyes, and waited, and said nothing.

            His mother gave a quick breath of pain, and Draco realized she hadn’t known until then that he really was in love with Harry.

            “You need a witch,” Narcissa whispered. “Someone who can love you, or where it doesn’t matter if she does or not, but someone who can bear you children. Your line won’t continue like this.”

            “It wouldn’t have continued at all if I hadn’t married Harry,” Draco countered. “The way I was immediately attacked when the wards fell proved that.”

            His mother only shook her head, and looked, absurdly, for a moment as if she would clasp her hands over her ears. “You could have chosen something else,” she whispered. “I want to know why you chose this. You certainly didn’t fall in love with him the day you married him, or at Hogwarts.”

            Draco should have remembered how quick and keen his mother was to sense the truth in affairs like this, really, but he hadn’t wanted to, and he hadn’t suspected she knew until she said it. Now he paused, and a faint smile touched his lips. His mother could take that in many ways; he wondered how she would choose to take it.

            “What told you that I was in love with him?” he asked. Useless to deny it when they both knew she was right.

            His mother shut her eyes and took a deep breath, as if she would have been happy to have him deny it, after all. “You are taking more dangerous risks than you would take for someone who meant nothing to you,” she said.

            “There is a difference between meaning something and being beloved.”

            “True,” his mother whispered, focused entirely now on her clasped hands. Draco looked at the age spots on them and looked away again. “Oh, very true. And what told me was the fact that you followed him when he left me, and you haven’t told me what he intends to do yet. When your first loyalty was to me, as the only other part of the Malfoy family free, you would have told me at once.”

            “There’s no reason for you to oppose each other,” Draco said, choosing the tactic that made the most sense to him. “We’re all Malfoys together. I could have chosen considerably worse, and you know it.”

            “He will not do what I want, will he?”

            Draco sat up on the edge of his chair, because his mother’s voice had gone not only cold but soft, and he knew he had to walk carefully. “He has a plan,” he said, and slipped a coldness of his own into his voice. “He doesn’t want to hurt you. He doesn’t regard you with the same level of hostility that you use on him.”

            “He is not the one who had his life stolen from him.”

            Draco winced and leaned back. “True enough,” he said, when he could speak. “I think he would be the first one to acknowledge that.”

            “But he doesn’t love you enough to back off and let you go free, to marry someone who would be of more use to you,” Narcissa said, turning and staring at him.

            “More useful in what way?” Draco had to ask, because he really had no idea where his mother was going with this. “Someone who could give us as much money and power? No, we couldn’t find someone who’s Harry’s match. And if I divorce him before the five-year term of the demi-marriage is over, then his money doesn’t have to stay in the vaults and he doesn’t have to keep the Malfoy name. The sacrifices I did make will lose their value. No, Mother. I’m sorry that this happened, and that I couldn’t consult you about who I should marry. Maybe you would have chosen me someone even better.” Unlikely, said the back of his mind, but since that part of him wouldn’t have existed if he hadn’t married Harry, Draco saw no need to pay attention to it. “But what’s done is done.”

            “You say that as if Malfoys haven’t always manipulated consequences and secured their futures in a different direction when it suited them,” his mother snapped.

            “Then you should expect the same traits to show up in Harry,” Draco said, meeting her eyes. “And what have you sensed about him?”

            Narcissa leaned back on the pillows. Draco didn’t think it was because the conversation had exhausted her. “That he is in love with you, too?”

            But she made it a question, and Draco smiled without humor. “Of course he is. You should have remembered what kind of person he is. He couldn’t sense that someone loved him without at least wanting to return it, and we’ve protected each other and fought beside each other and showed that we didn’t despise each other for what the battles did to us. Or made us do,” he added, thinking of the way Harry had questioned Robbs. “And we slept in the same bed.”

            Narcissa took a few deep, rattling breaths. When she began to cough, Affy appeared beside the bed and looked anxiously at Draco.

            “Yes,” Draco said, nodding to the house-elf and standing up. “I think this conversation has rather tired my mother.”

            Narcissa’s arm moved in a vicious gesture. Draco bowed and moved away without kissing her. With the way she felt at the moment, it would have been grotesque.

            But not with the way he felt, and Draco paused, facing the door, to try to make her understand one more time.

            “The demi-marriage made Harry a Malfoy,” he told the door quietly. His mother’s coughing had stopped, but he could hear Affy fussing and humming under his breath, and he knew she wouldn’t be perfectly back to normal yet. “He’s proven himself in his loyalty to us, and the way he tries to make sure that we’re both pleased. I wish you could see that he could give more to us than just any pure-blooded witch could.”

            “You sound as though your heart has been given.”

            And not to me. Draco could translate the unspoken sentence as well as anyone else.

            He only shook his head, though, and moved on without looking back. He could try to explain to his mother that his own heart was pulled in two, that he wanted to do whatever he could to make his mother comfortable—except if the “whatever” included sacrificing or betraying Harry.

            I should be more loyal to her. I’m related to her by blood, and I’ve known her longer.

            But it wasn’t that simple anymore, and Draco wondered if that was another reason he feared having his father free so much. His father wouldn’t see it as complicated, he would go straight ahead with the “simple” interpretation, and that would be the end of anything permanent Draco might have with Harry.

            If Harry could come up with some way to free him and not have him immediately take over the family again…

            But not even Harry can work miracles.

*

            Harry had considered what he should do about the Ministry and Lucius Malfoy and Azkaban, and in the end, he had decided that he had nothing to gain by lying. He was too recognizable anyway, changed scar or not, and there was too much of a chance that something would go wrong if he tried subtlety. Draco had told him he was better at subtlety than he thought he was, but Harry didn’t want to risk it.

            So he entered the Ministry through a Floo from George’s joke shop and walked calmly into the Atrium, heading for the lifts as though he was still an Auror.

            He heard footsteps stop behind him, and the sudden silence where people had been talking, but no one called his name. That didn’t really surprise him. After the way he had left, fear would be even stronger than curiosity.

            The lift arrived almost as soon as he called for it, and Harry settled into it, humming a little. No one raced to join him in it, although he’d seen a few Aurors and other Ministry officials waiting to go up.

            When he got to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, he stepped out and walked through the familiar corridors. He kept his eyes aimed straight ahead. Once again people fell silent when they saw him, but this time, it made his skin itch and his head want to turn, because someone was probably aiming a wand at his back.

            These were people he had worked with. Raids, and the bigger cases that involved Dark magic and murder, always required more Aurors than just a partner team. Harry had defended some of the Aurors watching him, and he owed his life to others. He’d ducked curses and set up ambushes with them, written reports and tried to get people to calm down and stop shouting when one of the ambushes went wrong.

            He’d seen some of their partners die.

            This is what I should be doing. I should be here, protecting them and helping them and making sure that I can protect and help other people—

            But. Harry shook his head. In the end, Aurors like Eliot had cared more about Harry’s reputation as a rising Dark Lord than about the ways he could help them.

            No one stopped him all the way to the Head’s office, but when Harry looked over his shoulder as he knocked on the door, they were standing there, in a quiet, breathing crowd. Harry turned and faced them fully. They swayed back from him a little, but didn’t clear the corridor. Well, most Aurors were made of harder material than the average visitors to the Ministry that Harry had mostly passed in the Atrium.

            Harry cocked his head and waited for someone to say something. But they didn’t, at least not before the Head’s door opened.

            “Come in, Harry.”

            Gustavus Halloway, the Head of the Department, spoke in a gentle voice that made Harry smile. He knew the dangers of that voice, but so did everyone else in the corridor. By the time Harry turned around and entered the office, most of his audience had melted away, and the rest did it before Halloway could see them.

            Halloway sat behind his desk, watching Harry as he approached him. Unlike most of the other Aurors, he didn’t have lot of a photographs clustered around his office—no grinning and waving family members, no people he had saved, or not saved, on cases, or put in Azkaban. He had bookshelves instead. Harry caught sight of a treatise on rare poisons standing out from among the rest, and wondered what Halloway was researching. He still did an awful lot of field work that other Aurors brought him when they confronted a really strange case. Halloway’s specialty was esoteric magic.

            Halloway himself had grey hair, a grey beard, and tended to wear grey robes. The cane he had leaning next to the desk was green, too, but he didn’t try to pick it up as Harry approached. Harry saluted him and stood there, waiting. There was a good chance that Halloway already guessed what he had come for, because there was a reason certain wizards and not others became the Heads of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

            “You want to free Lucius Malfoy.”

            Well, so even Halloway can be wrong. Harry raised his eyebrows a little and corrected him, “I want to visit Lucius Malfoy. To find out if he’s being well-treated. You know how bad the prejudice against former Death Eaters can be.”

            Halloway nodded a little. “Against former Death Eaters, and their families.”

            Harry smiled a little. “That, too.”

            Halloway considered him in silence. Harry waited. He had seen no reason not to try the direct route, but if this didn’t work, he would try something else.

            Then Halloway sighed, reached out and grasped the cane, and climbed to his feet. His left leg was shorter than the right, and twisted backwards as a result of the curse that had taken him out of the field. “All right,” he said, standing and looking at Harry for an even moment before he made for the door. “But I’m coming with you.”

            “I can’t ask for anything better.”

            “In my day, young Aurors didn’t say things like that to their Heads,” Halloway muttered.

            “Well, technically, sir, I’m not an Auror anymore.”

            “You could still teach some of them how to salute,” Halloway snapped, and he was out in the corridor, leading the way, before Harry could respond. Harry followed, smiling, and this time, he found it easier to ignore the watchers.

*

            Bickymonster: Yes. Now if they can just relax around others…

            delia cerrano: I don’t know if they could have been like this without went before.

            Diana: Here you are.

            moodysavage: Thanks. So did I.

            allen_nyan: Thank you! I deeply fond of Ossy, which is a good thing, since he appears in so many scenes. ;)

            I think the end of this story isn’t that far away, compared to the entire thing, so I hope you enjoy the rest of the ride.

            polka dot: No. An appeal to his conscience would have been far better.

            Makoto_Sagara: Well, they both wanted to be alone there, so that was for the best. But Harry wouldn’t even have considered checking on Lucius if it hadn’t been for Draco’s feelings. And if Draco had wanted Lucius free, he would have tried much harder to come up with a compromise.
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The Name I'll Give to Thee