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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
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Chapter Thirty-Nine--Half-Together

            "What have you done?"

            That voice made Draco smile even as he struggled to open his eyes and wondered why they felt as if they had been glued shut. His mother was speaking in her level, cut-glass tone, the one that could make Wizengamot members shut up and tread carefully around her.

            Of course, it might not work with someone who had had the lack of sense to hurt her son and son-in-law in the first place, such as decay wizards.

            Or Lucius, who answered a moment later in the same haughty, cool tones. "I have separated them. This marriage was not good for him, Narcissa, and you know it. It was corrupting him, making him think of ideals detrimental to the strength and well-being of the family."

            A pause, so long that Draco thought his mother might finally have encountered a pronouncement that could take her aback. Then she said in flowing tones that barely covered the steel core beneath, "If you think that, it is only because you have no idea of what true strength consists in."

            The glue seemed to be peeling away. Draco moved his head to the side and opened his eyes.

            They were on a large pair of couches in one of the downstairs sitting rooms that wasn't often used because, Lucius had said, there were so many couches that one really needed a full party, or a full family tree, to make it worthwhile. It had the most comfortable furniture in the house outside the dining room and their private bedrooms, however, and Draco wasn't surprised to find himself lying on a couch that felt like clouds under his spine. Beside him, as he could see when he turned his head a bit further, was Harry. Their joined, ringed hands dangled between them.

            Draco swallowed as he stared at those rings. The neat braids that had made them up before were gone, the silver and copper and gold simply melted off. But the braids of four other metals, the ones he and Harry had put there, still clung stubbornly, although Draco's finger was black to the nail and Harry's hand was covered with blisters from the sundering of the rings.

            The sundering of their marriage bond.

            Lucius tried to separate us.

            Draco's humor and half-gentle recollections of what had happened stopped as his drifting memories caught up with him. He twisted around, snarling, barely aware that his mother had stood up and taken a step towards him, or that Lucius was backing away to the far wall of the room, his eyes watchful. Harry moaned as his arm was dragged by Draco's attempt to sit up, and that made Draco stop and remain still, breathing, although his eyes still darted between his parents.

            "Well?" His voice cracked. He wished it hadn't when Lucius gave a superior smile and directed it at his mother.

            "You see, Cissa?" he asked. "This marriage is weakening him, encouraging him to falter in his convictions and in the skills we taught him. He would never have sounded like that if he hadn't married a Gryffindor."

            "If you had not forced him, you mean." Narcissa took a step towards them and knelt between the couches, her hand hovering above their half-joined rings. Her eyes never left Draco's face, even when Lucius cleared his throat loudly. "Draco. I need you to listen to me carefully. Nothing like this has ever happened before."

            Strangely, that pronouncement calmed Draco down. After all, no one had ever added four bands of other metals to a forced marriage ring, either. He nodded and leaned forwards so that the pressure and pull on Harry's arm was eased.

            "The part of the bond that Lucius willed is indeed gone," Narcissa said quietly. "The bands that symbolized it tore apart. That, too, is something that never happened before. The rings would ordinarily have halved themselves, dropped from your hands, and then come back together again, ready to be used for the next forced marriage. But the bands you had created remained. We think you are--half-married. It is the only term I can come up with for it."

            "That is not a term," Lucius said. "It does not exist. This state of affairs is not natural."

            "It is not natural because no one else was ever stupid enough to do something like you, you are right," Narcissa said, still without turning around, and in the tone of voice that Draco knew she would have used to order a house-elf to bring in the next course. "Draco. Do you have any pain?"

            "Just in my hand." Draco moved it experimentally. The finger that bore his ring ached, and when he moved further away from Harry, unlocking one of the half-melted bands that clung together, it made his breath come short and him feel as if he was going to bolt. He mastered that with an effort and smiled at his mother. "I understand if you need to take off the rings--"

            "Lucius did try," Narcissa said, and no more than that, though with a sweet tone in the back of her voice that let Draco know that the effort had hurt. "No, Draco, I do not think this bond can be broken. But we don't yet know what the effects will be. For now, stay close to Harry and rest. When he wakes then we can learn more."

            "I'm awake now."

            Draco had to close his eyes against the utter flood of relief that tried to pour over him when he heard Harry's voice. He hadn't been worried about something bad happening to him when he had seen the twisted rings, because Harry was still breathing. But there was a tight knot in him that would always ease when he had Harry awake and talking to him, because that meant he wouldn't face his problems alone.

            "What happened?" Harry lay quietly, letting his eyes flit from Draco's face to Narcissa's. Like them, he utterly ignored Lucius, although he was lying in the right position to face towards him. Draco smiled, and the slow, smug coil of rightness in his belly made him want to gloat. Lucius could take, or try to take, all he wanted from them. His attempts to manipulate them and force them simply ended up propelling them closer together.

            Narcissa explained about the half-marriage. When she said the bond was too strong to be broken, Harry's face became drawn, but he nodded. Draco suspected that he had faced worse things in his time, and was used to getting past that initial rush of fear or disbelief so that he could think.

            What happens if the bond is permanent? At what point will his tolerance run out?

            Draco didn't know, actually, and didn't think that he or anyone else could answer the question yet. Harry had already promised to wait a little while before they tried to break the bond, so the matter was less urgent than it might have been.

            "I fear to give you pain, but we must test the limits of the bond," Narcissa said. "The complete bond only dictated that you must live in the same house. Can you move apart now?"

            Harry glanced at Draco, and Draco nodded. They broke the hold of their half-ring rings with a little twist, and then Harry stood and made his way experimentally towards the far door. Draco gritted his teeth, feeling a dragging pull in his belly that hadn't been there before.

            "How painful?" His mother was watching his face.

            "Getting more painful the further away he gets," Draco said. He tried to think about it, to quantify it more than that. It had started out as a physical pain, but when Harry stepped out of the entrance hall, around a corner of the door that meant Draco could no longer see him, panic abruptly hazed his vision and started eating at the corners of his concentration. "Mental now. Bring him back, bring him back, please." He heard Lucius sneer with disdain, but he couldn't help it; the fear didn't start to abate, no matter how he fought it, until Harry skittered back inside and came up to put a hand on his shoulder, staring at him in distress.

            "This bond should have been ended long since," Lucius told someone or something that wasn't immediately apparent, perhaps the ceiling. "It does make him weak, and nothing you can say will convince me otherwise, Narcissa."

            "Think of who established the bond in the first place, and who is therefore responsible for the form it takes," his mother said, still refusing to turn a hair, and looked at Harry. "What did you feel?"

            Harry hesitated, then shrugged and said, "As if I was leaving a part of my soul behind. Or my wand, when I was heading into a battle situation."

            Draco nodded. As far as he could tell, that was an accurate description of it. And he didn't think he would be able to stand it unless they had a chance to make constant trials of it. He grimaced to think of what he would feel if Harry tried to go to work without him.

            "What do we do now?" Harry asked Narcissa. His hand hadn't ceased rubbing Draco's shoulder. Draco reached up and clasped it, hard.

            "For now, go and sleep," his mother said softly. "I shall look in some of the books I have that speak about spells that are half-complete when interrupted, and rituals that do not succeed. I think those the closest equivalents."

            "They're the ones who created the bands that still tie them together," Lucius said loudly. Draco thought he understood the loudness better now. Lucius was trying, desperately, to show that he wasn't responsible for this, in some way that would actually convince other people. "If they both decided that they didn't want the marriage anymore, wouldn't the ring fall apart?"

            Draco opened his mouth to say that was impossible, and unlikely, anyway, with the iron band encouraging both him and Harry to be more protective of each other. But his mother stood up and turned around before he could say anything.

            He didn't know what expression was on her face. He didn't need to see it, though. The important thing was the effect it had on Lucius. He shut up and moved a step back, his face flushing as though someone had scolded him.

            "You are the one who set up the marriage," Narcissa said, barely breathing the words. "Who refused to welcome our son-in-law to our family, and rejoiced in his discomfort. Who blamed our son for his response to the bond, and blamed him for not doing what you wanted, and would not simply dissolve the bond when it might have let both of them go, because he couldn't bear the lack of importance that would give to himself. If anyone is weak here, Lucius, if anyone here is at fault, it is you. And you will not convince others of your innocence and non-complicity by the way that you babble."

            Draco saw Lucius clutch at the back of a couch for strength, and thought he might try to answer for a moment. But then he shook his head and stood tall, and Draco saw a fine tremor making its way through his body, one he thought Lucius would probably have gone to great lengths to hide, if he had known that anyone saw it.

            "When you feel ready to ask for my forgiveness, Narcissa, I shall receive you," he said, with a haughty hollowness that made Draco want to turn his head away in embarrassment, and swept out of the room.

            "Do we need him?" Harry asked, in the twanging silence left by his departure. "I mean, to figure out how to undo this half-bond?"

            Draco turned on him, snarling before he thought about it. "You agreed that you wouldn't seek a way out of the bond right now!"

            Harry raised a hand as if he thought that would calm Draco down, as if he needed to be calmed down. His eyes were wary, but clear. "Listen to me, Draco. I did agree to that, but at the time, the marriage bond poised no clear dangers to us. I wonder now if this one might, the way it's been altered. It could certainly be dangerous to us if we can't separate." He turned to Narcissa. "What do you think?"

            "I think it is past time that I began my research, and past time that you two had a private conversation." His mother stood and clapped her hands, and a house-elf appeared with a tray laden with so much food that Draco blinked. He hadn't thought an elf could lift that much. "I will make sure that Lucius does not disturb you, and once I have exited the room, the elves will not enter, either."

            Actually, as head of the Malfoy family, Draco knew that he could call the elves at any time he wanted, but he appreciated the lengths his mother was going to to make it seem as if they would have real privacy, completely undiminished. He caught her eyes, and Narcissa inclined her head and left the room, back straight. She hadn't been smiling, he realized. Well. The situation was serious.

            Harry shoved the two couches they'd been sleeping on closer together, and poked gingerly at the tray. The house-elf had set it up on a long, slender stem that locked to the middle of the floor. Draco knew from past experience that it was as sturdy as a table, but it must not have looked so to Harry. "Er. Are there plates?"

            Draco shook his head. "The dishes we need cutlery for have it beside the plates on the tray. Otherwise, we eat with our fingers." He picked up a raspberry tart and held it out to Harry. "Open."

            Harry blinked at him in confusion for a moment before his eyes darkened and he opened his mouth. Draco gently pushed the tart in, and tried not to get too caught up in either the delicate scrape of Harry's teeth against his finger or the warm curl of his tongue as he accepted the food.

            Harry closed his eyes and bowed his head. Draco picked up another tart and waited. At the moment, he wasn't in the mood to take food except from Harry's fingers or mouth, and judging from the way that Harry's eyelashes fluttered madly along, he felt much the same way.

            Although of course he would think that he shouldn't. Typical Gryffindor.

*

            Harry could feel the marriage bond as if it was an animal, wounded but still alive, running back and forth from him to Draco. Perhaps a snake was the best metaphor for it, because it would stretch and grow longer and thinner when they moved apart, then relaxed and loose again when they were close.

            How in the world am I going to protect him if he needs to come on Auror cases with me?

            Harry shook his head and opened his eyes to reach for a--well, he assumed it had been bread or a scone at some point, but it was decorated with so much cream and so many sliced berries he really wasn't sure what one would call it now. Draco's eyes shone as he watched Harry hold it out, and he opened his mouth in leisurely fashion, only moving his head forwards when Harry didn't reach out fast enough to suit him. His tongue curled lazily around Harry's fingers, wiping back and forth. Harry shuddered and had to concentrate on not dropping the dessert-thing.

            "I think your mother left us alone so that we could talk," he gasped, pulling his fingers free at last when it became clear Draco had no intention of letting them go, "not so that we could feed each other."

            "There's no reason we can't do both." Draco leaned forwards, bracing his hands on Harry's knees. That simple contact made Harry shiver. Draco smiled at him. "Or use our mouths in other ways," he added, and leaned forwards to kiss Harry.

            Harry kissed him back, feeling the bond coil and loop them ever closer, while a small voice seemed to sing in the back of his head. The marriage bond wasn't compelling them to have sex now, he thought dimly, or at least he didn't believe so. But it did mean that they were being pulled closer in some odd ways, and he could almost feel the bond flailing for stability, seeking some way to bind them that would substitute for the simple requirement of the forced bond that they live in the same house.

            If they could tie themselves together this way, why not do it?

            But Harry didn't want the first time he slept with Draco to be at the bond's behest, or because Draco was afraid of being left behind or Harry slipping out of his sight. When the kiss ended, he caught Draco's wrists, ignored Draco's attempt to shove them sprawling and backwards on the couches, and said quietly, "How much of this is you, and how much is the bond?"

            Draco paused, the flame in his eyes flickering uncertainly. Then he shook his head and murmured, "You promised that you wouldn't try to break it."

            "I won't." Harry had to kiss him again then, not to reassure Draco but to reassure himself. Draco shifted, groaning, and Harry groaned back. It was horribly hard to translate that into articulate speech, but he managed. "But there's a difference between staying in it and trying to figure out w-what's real, and just breaking it."

            Draco shut his eyes and pulled back from nibbling on Harry's throat, which had made Harry stutter, with an obvious effort. "I know that," he whispered. "I do know that." He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. "But, Harry, I want you so much."

            "I want you, too," Harry said, and tried to ignore the fantasy image that blazed in his mind, of the two of them tangled together and writhing on the couches. "But we need to make up our minds as to what our next course of strategy is going to be."

            Draco leaned back and looked wryly at him. "You have an instinctive gift for killing the mood, don't you?"

            Harry laughed. "I would have thought that strategy was as sexual for you as anything else, given the strategies that you must have used to get ahead in your business and when you were fighting with other families." He picked up an ordinary piece of orange and offered it to Draco, who took it from his hand and ate it with a small smile. Harry nodded. We really don't need to be offering each other food from hand to mouth right now, as tempting as it is.

            "It's not all that sexual for me when I'm struggling to cope with how close I should be to a man I want," Draco said, and his eyes were still bright with that devouring flame. Harry took a deep breath and felt it leaping up and down the bond, dancing in coils around his chest.

            "Understood," Harry said. "Now. We have to decide what's best. Do I stay in the house and work on cases from here, or do you come with me on the cases? I think the first part is probably best." Much as I hate to miss work on things like capturing the decay wizards whose names Abernathy gave us. "That way, we don't get exposed to danger, and no one realizes what's happened yet."

            "Someone will find out eventually," Draco said. "The reporters who want access to us, for instance."

            Harry smiled, and he knew, from the amount of admiration that Draco looked at him with, that the smile wasn't a pleasant one. "Do they have to know about this? Do we have to go out to them? Or can we just give out the word that we're behind wards for the moment because we're worried about our personal safety after the attack on me? The attack made by a member of the press, even. I don't think anyone has reason to know that Abernathy is anything else."

            Draco nodded slowly. "As long as we actually do remain behind the wards. They'll be watching us so closely that attempts to sneak out would probably be noted."

            Harry snorted. "I have no intention of doing that unless the Ministry summons me, and then they can bloody well provide the escort and the secrecy. Otherwise, we stay behind the wards, and figure out how to work the bond apart, and do paperwork--well, that's me, anyway--"

            "I have paperwork I can do, as well," Draco interrupted, looking indignant that Harry would ever doubt that.

            Or not wanting to be left out of anything I do. Harry caught Draco's hand and squeezed it. "Good," he said. "Then we can continue some of the activities of our normal lives, and in the meantime try to figure out how to make the bond part of normal life." He didn't say "get rid of it," because the suggestion seemed to panic Draco, but he did think that that might end up being the only way they could free themselves from what Lucius had done to them.

            He glanced again at the half-melted rings on their fingers. Platinum, steel, bronze, iron. Life, destiny, sanity, blood.

            It hit him then, so suddenly that he gasped aloud and attracted Draco's worried attention, how tied they had really become. Lucius couldn't part them when he tried to revoke the marriage bond, although everything Draco had told Harry about the forced marriages should have meant that their bond ended right there. They had shared and sealed themselves, and all that was a result of choices that Harry knew he would make again, and Draco would make again, if they had to.

            I hated the bond because I felt it left me with no choice. But now the forced part is gone, and all that's left are our choices.

            Draco was staring at him when he looked up again. "There was an expression on your face," he breathed, when Harry cocked an eyebrow at him in silent question. "As though you'd realized something big, something important." He hesitated, then reached out and put one hand on Harry's thigh. "As though you wanted someone else," he said, voice choked.

            Harry caught Draco's hands and deliberately kissed the half-melted ring, though he flinched away from it instinctively, expecting heat. But there was none left, and even the blisters and the blackening that the sundering of the bond had caused for them didn't hurt. Draco blinked at him.

            "I'm going to write to Ian," Harry whispered. "I'd prefer to speak to him face-to-face, but I'll send an owl first, to explain why we're staying behind the wards."

            Draco frowned at him, but waited. His gesture would seem to say one thing, Harry realized, but his words another.

            "Then I need to have a face-to-face meeting with him," Harry said. "To explain that as much as I like him, it's not going to work out and he'll be better off picking someone else, because I can't imagine choosing anyone but you."

            Draco being Draco, there was a flash and flush of triumph in his eyes before anything else, and then he leaned forwards and locked his lips on Harry's. Harry kissed him back, fingers tangled in the hair at the nape of Draco's neck, and they nearly knocked the tray of food to the floor as they writhed together.

            Draco pulled back, smiled at him, and reached out to finger the edge of his shirt. "I think," he said casually, "that we're making our own choices at the minute, and not being pushed by the bond. Don't you?"

            Harry blinked and nodded. He felt like that, especially since the bond seemed quiescent as long as they stayed close to each other.

            Draco's smile turned slightly manic. "Then I think we've waited long enough," he said, and leaned close enough to kiss Harry again as he began to strip his shirt off.

            Harry was suddenly breathless, hard, wanting, and so much in agreement that he could only kiss back, and grunt, and moan.

            Well, and join Draco in stripping their clothes off.

            It had been a long time coming.

*

            The Crystal Quill: Thank you!

            Zip: Yeah, if he hadn't had to choose just the right moment when everyone was paying attention to him, he could have ended the bond long before it got to this point.

            mrequecky: Not what Lucius wanted it to mean.

            river girl: I think that Harry and Draco are at least closer to figuring things out now.

            shulan33: Thanks! Ian and Laura are going to appear again in the story, I promise, just not right now.

            And Harry is having his own revelation about the bands, as you saw in this chapter.

            SP777: I don't really know if Harry would have discovered how he feels without a catalyst like this, actually.

            Althyida: I think Harry is making the smartest choices he can right now, except maybe about Ian. Then again, Draco hasn't yet sat down with Laura and explained things to her, either.

            As for the consequences of what Lucius did, no one knows yet!

            Erin_49: You're right, which is one reason (other than that they're so strong) for the bands of metal staying there.

            polka dot: Hopefully he'll feel that way, too.

            Night the Storyteller: I think I answered most of your questions in this chapter, except the one about whether it will bring Lucius closer or not.

            kit: Harry and Draco do realize they've come too far to back out now.

            unneeded: I think Draco would agree with you about the decay mages.
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The Marriage of True Minds