Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Shards Of His Beloved	By : EvilConcubine Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 18387 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 8
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. I don't make money from this story.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
To blackcurrent: We'll see :). Thanks for reviewing!

To paradise: Here's the new one and thank you!

To Makoslits: Thanks a lot for reviewing, it's very nice of you :).

To moodysavage: Great review! Thanks :). Somehow I always imagined Draco as a good father.

To LeaniaSTL: Thank you! It's quite a usual thing for people to take advantage of situations or other people, and Harry knows it, so he finds it hard to trust himself. I hope you're going to keep enjoying the story! :)

To she-who-waits-in-darkness: Here! Thanks so much :).

To thrnbrooke: Thanks for reviewing!

To Nubia: Thank you! :)

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4. Harry, the Peacekeeper

     Harry didn't know why on earth he would need a slave, in the first place. Most work was faster to do with a swish of a wand. They were in the wizarding world, for Merlin's sake, so why would they need to do such things by hand? But, of course, slaves weren't allowed to have wands.

     It was only one day left before Draco was going to be moved into this house, and Harry dedicated this day to preparing the room for him. The fact that Draco was a slave now didn't mean that he was going to live in bad conditions. On the contrary, Harry was going to take care of some things to make Draco's situation more or less bearable. Ginny had insisted that Malfoy's room had to be down on the basement floor. They'd even argued about it. In the end, Harry had given it up. They had already had enough quarrels about the whole idea of having Draco in their house. The room in the basement wasn't bad, in fact. It was large, warm, dry (now clean, thanks to Harry) and allowed privacy, since it was quite far away from the other rooms. Somehow he thought that Draco would feel better, considering this fact. Unfortunately, there were no windows, but was it really a problem for a Slytherin, who'd spent so much time in the dungeon? Well, okay, there were windows in the dungeons of Hogwarts, but they only offered a view of the depths of the lake.

     He provided Draco with what he thought the blond required, including the expensive toiletries (nothing muggle, though), deciding that Draco would feel just a little better if he had the expensive things to which he was used to, or similar ones; not to mention that in school Harry had been absolutely positive that Draco enjoyed taking care of his appearance. He didn't know if it had changed, but had purchased all these things, just in case. He chuckled, thinking that even Ginny had the cheaper hand cream. Draco had had beautiful, always groomed hands in school (yes, Harry had paid enough attention to them) and now that he was going to do many things about the house, his skin would need more care. Harry hoped that the blond wouldn't just throw it all in his face.

     He also brought several sets of bedcovers, towels, candles and other necessary things to the newly furnished room. There was the bathroom not far away from the room, but on the first floor, and Harry also cleaned it and made it look decent. No one used it, since his family preferred the upper floors, so he thought Draco would be more than glad (okay, the word 'glad' wasn't quite right for this entire situation, but still...) to have rooms he alone used.

     Harry was sitting in some kind of a waiting room and soon the guard escorted Draco to him. The blond was unshackled and the guard left. In his hand Draco was holding the pouch that had the extension charm on it, and, as far as Harry knew, contained the blonde's belongings.

"Hello, Draco..." Harry greeted him quietly and uncertainly. There was no reply and the blond kept looking down. "Well... Let's go," the dark-haired young man said. As he left the room, Draco followed him. Harry intended to use the Floo Network and headed to the nearest fireplaces in the large hall that situated in the end of the corridor. He wished he could just talk to Draco while they were walking, because the silence felt utterly uncomfortable right now. But he could think of nothing he could tell the blond.

     There were a lot of people in the hall: aurors, visitors, lawyers and so on. Harry approached one of the large fireplaces, but suddenly saw the colleague he knew from his department, and wanted to say hello.

"Just a moment, I'll be right back," he told Draco, leaving him standing there alone. Draco hated being among the other people. He'd spend so much time in hiding with his parents and son, seeing no one else at all, that crowds made him feel utterly uncomfortable. He suddenly felt the familiar smell and became rigid.

"What a surprise. Nice to see you again," the familiar voice murmured behind his back. 'If you try to turn your pretty face to me, I'll stab you,' Draco's mind reminded, so he didn't try to turn his face and his tense body didn't move, couldn't move, still remembering the rape far too well. It had only happened several days ago. "How sad they're taking you away. I wanted to pay you a visit in a couple of days again. Well, good luck with your new, happy and bright life, sweetness," the man mocked. And then he was gone, but Draco still couldn't make himself turn around or move at all.

"Well, are you ready to..." Potter said, suddenly very close to him. Draco flinched. Harry actually wanted to take his arm to bring him closer to the fireplace, but stopped, because the blond backed away from the hand, as if from a plague, before it had a chance to touch him. He looked as taut as a rope that could break under the strain any moment.

     The mere thought about being touched right now seemed unthinkable to Draco. But if it happened, he felt that he would hardly be able to fight or even scream; it seemed he would rather stand there rigid and unable to move, slowly dying inside. It felt like his body was only familiar with violation now. He hated anyone's closeness, it unnerved him, and he didn't like to see when other people were touching each other. He knew this feeling from the past, he knew it would get better later, but right now there was nothing he could do about it.

     Harry was puzzled, looking at the impossibly pale, slightly shivering blond. Only several minutes ago he'd seen the shade of hatred and accusations in these otherwise cold and calm grey eyes, but now Draco suddenly looked so subdued that Harry wouldn't even risk coming closer to him again. The blond looked very uncomfortable, being close to the other people.

"Draco... Are you all right?" Harry asked quietly.

"I'm perfectly fine, Master! Can we go now?" Draco hissed, finding his voice only partially, still too shocked by the encounter with the rapist. The sharp, sudden pain made him gasp. It pierced throughout him like hundreds of white-hot needles, especially hurting his spine and making his back arch slightly. Only the swiftness of it allowed Draco to hold back a scream, because it ended just as quickly as it had begun.

"Draco..." Harry wanted to help Draco not to lose his balance, but remembered that the blond hated to be touched. Harry thought that either he disgusted Draco so much, or there were too much people here, which was too overwhelming for the blond.

     It was the first time the curse had punished Draco and he didn't know if it reacted to the fact that he'd lied, saying that he was fine when, of course, he wasn't, or it disliked the disrespectful way of him talking to his owner. Harry sighed. And they weren't even home yet. This was going to be a nightmare...

     Avoiding to provoke the curse again in any way, Harry told Draco the address and they flooed to number twelve, Grimmauld Place.

     Draco knew this place. When he was very young he'd been here with his mother, because it was the house where she'd lived before her marriage. Now it looked brighter; it was just different, and yet, some things remained the same.

     He followed Potter to the basement. It made him feel just a bit uneasy. He'd never been there, so he wondered if it was something like the dungeon under the Malfoy Manor. But then he saw that it was nothing like that. There were several large rooms; mostly they were storerooms for old things that were no longer in use. There also were two cellars; one of them was the wine cellar, the other one stored food. Kreacher's old room wasn't in use, and Harry never changed anything in it, since the elf had died.

     The old kitchen was also there, but when Potters had settled down in the house, they'd made the other kitchen on the first floor, finding it more comfortable. Harry showed it all to Draco, who didn't say a word, and the vacant expression didn't leave his face.

     Finally, Harry opened the room that was intended for Draco. All the furniture looked antique, in medieval style, normal for the wizarding world; it had belonged to Blacks. Draco was a bit thankful that he wasn't going to deal with the atrocious, muggle modern, incredibly cheap-looking, in Draco's opinion, furniture. The room had the queen size bed in the corner. The bed had the canopy and curtains. The magnolia coloured bedcovers looked fresh and new. The room itself was tidy. There were some wizarding framed pictures with the sights of nature on the walls to compensate, just a little, for absence of windows. There were books in the bookcase, mostly novels, written by wizarding writers. There were several candelabra all over the room and the wall sconces. Harry showed where he'd put the matchboxes, so Draco could use matches to light all these candles.

     He also showed Draco his bathroom on the first floor.

"Look, I... I have the right to give you several first days here to get used to the house, and to have some rest. You look tired, so I thought you could just... well, rest," Harry said a bit nervously. At first Draco wanted to shout that he didn't need Potter's pity, but then decided that he didn't care, so he just shrugged. "Good. If you need something, anything, please, just tell me. We'll talk later." With this Harry left Draco alone.

     First thing to do for Draco was unpacking his belongings. He didn't have much, but it was all that had left of his freedom. He placed everything where he wanted it to be.

     The second thing was taking a bath. The last month and a half he'd only had showers, but it wasn't the same... In the drawers he found some old jars with scented bath salt and the lavender bath foam. He used it together with lavender salt. When the bathtub was filled almost to the brim with hot water, he undressed and got into it slowly, adjusting to the temperature. His body was still a bit achy; he still had quite pronounced bruises on his hipbone, elbow and shoulders, where he'd been grabbed by the rapist.

     Getting into the hot water, he was especially careful with his left forearm where the tender, grey-pink and ugly scar was marring the soft, alabaster skin on the inner part of it, like a shapeless patch. It always reminded him how in a fit of helpless anger and pain he'd cut the Dark Mark out in his bathroom, and lost a lot of blood. Mother had found him like that and treated his wound carefully. It had been a desperate period of his life when he'd had a tendency to self-mutilation, which had only ended after Scorpius' birth. Most other cuts on his forearm had faded due to Narcissa's care, and had become hardly visible; but not the one where the Dark Mark had previously been. The scar still hurt a bit and Draco knew it would hurt forever if disturbed in any way. He'd only got used to feel the clothes against it. Technically, the not completely faded Dark Mark was still there (even though it was inactive due to Voldemort's death); Draco had merely cut out the piece of his skin just to stop seeing the ugly thing every time he undressed. But the price was high: the wound had been healing for almost a year. It had often bled a little and had become contaminated several times, exuding the dark, foul smelling pus.

     No, he wasn't going to think about it now, whilst relaxing in the water, in the silence of the large bathroom, slightly illuminated only by the small horizontal window with diamond-shaped panes of glass, that let some daylight in. The warmth, semidarkness and the smell of lavender were, indeed, relaxing, so Draco closed his eyes and leaned back, letting his head rest on the folded towel, which he'd placed on the edge of the tub. At least, the conditions of his life for the next fifteen years appeared to be better than he'd expected, but he knew that there was always a catch. There had always been a catch in everything. He knew that he shouldn't get used to any good things, because they were always taken away later... No, he wasn't going to think about it now, too. Not now. Now there were only warmth, semidarkness, silence and lavender.

     Harry used the time when Draco was in the bathroom to bring him the tray with dinner and tea. He placed it on the desk and looked around. Draco had obviously unpacked all he had. Harry's attention was quickly riveted to the bedside table, which now looked almost like some kind of altar. There, on the Irish lace doily (that had previously been in this room under the vase on the desk) was the framed picture, and there were two candlesticks on both sides of it with already half-melted candles. It made the photograph look like a sacred object. It was enclosed within the beautiful, cut-glass ornate frame. But Harry wanted to have a better look at the picture itself; the picture of Draco's son. It looked like the blond boy on the photograph had been about two years old when the picture had been taken. He was lying on the white silk, probably, bedcovers. The hand of the one who was taking the picture with the signet ring on the thumb, undoubtedly Draco's hand, was gently holding the child's small one. Yes, it was obvious that Draco was the one who was taking the picture. His little son was smiling up at him happily and adoringly. Only this smile and the look of his eyes (grey, like Draco's) spoke volumes about how much the boy was attached to his daddy. Actually, the child looked very much like Draco's tiny copy. His mother, whoever she was, had probably been a bit confused that her son had hardly taken anything from her appearance (if he'd taken anything at all). Harry had no idea who she was. He knew that Draco wasn't and had never been married, and there'd been no woman around when Draco had been arrested and his boy taken away. There were no pictures of her in Draco's room. There was only one small picture of Lucius and Narcissa on one of the shelves. Harry wondered if Draco had loved or still loved that mysterious woman. He couldn't help but feel a little pang of jealousy, which he decided to leave without explanation. But he was an auror and he had the access to a lot of different information, so he could always find out the truth.

     It was very, very sad that Draco and this loving and, obviously, loved little boy had been separated. Harry shuddered, thinking how much it would have hurt him if his sons were separated from him. It was wrong...

     The next three days Draco was resting and sleeping a lot, making up for the sleepless nights in the holding cell. It felt safer to sleep in his new room; it somehow resembled him the dungeons of Hogwarts. He only left the room to use the bathroom. Potter usually tried to bring him food when he was away, probably reluctant to see him (well, it was more than mutual), but there just had to be some charm on the door of Draco's room, which alerted Potter when he was out of the room to quickly bring him the tray of food and go away, just as quickly.

     Truth to be told, Harry, indeed, avoided Draco as much as he could, because there was nothing he could do about the shame he felt. And yet, he took a four-week holiday to be at home, just in case.

   But he couldn't delay the inevitable forever. When on the fourth morning he visited the blond, he saw him restlessly pacing the room and looking as if his heart was beating faster than normal.

"The curse?" Harry asked quietly. The answer was obvious, so Draco didn't reply. "Follow me," the dark-haired man said. And Draco did.

     Harry took him to library.

"Umm... The books are dusty and in disorder. I never have time to take care of it. So... This is your task. Clean them and put them where they belong. You may take a break whenever you want, and... you don't need to hurry." Harry tried to be more specific, not to let the curse find any opportunity to punish Draco for anything. He brought him the feather duster, the potion for cleaning purposes and several cleaning cloths.

     As Draco started to tidy up the library, his heart rate quickly normalised and the restlessness was gone.

"Any requests?" Harry asked, trying to get just something out of the taciturn blond.

"I want to have a list of my duties. And... I don't think you intend to, but... Just in case: I want to keep having my meals separately from you and your family." He suddenly felt something unpleasant inside; the warning. It was the curse reminding him that slaves didn't make any demands, and he'd just made something close to it.

"All right... But I can't give you any list now. Let's start with tidying up some rooms we don't use. It'll take days if not weeks before it's done. And then... We'll see," Harry replied. This time there was no response or any reaction at all, so he left.

     Draco opened only one of three windows in this large room, because it was still quite cold, despite the very end of April, and returned to his work. It was calm, monotonous, physical work, so he let his mind wander. It was good that the library was so large and there were so many dusty books in the dusty bookcases here, where no one bothered him. He removed all the books from one shelf, cleaned the shelf, then cleaned all the books separately (which took time) before putting them back. And then he moved to a next shelf to do the same. It was definitely good not to be bothered.

     A couple of hours later he felt that someone was watching him, and tuned his face just to see... the sphinx. Well that was unexpected, because he'd had no idea that Potter had one. It was quite a rarity, after all. Even though sphinxes nowadays weren't as big as in the past, they were bigger than kneazles. Their size was somewhere between lions and domestic cats, actually. But their heads were human (even though, smaller than human heads, proportionally to their lion-like bodies) and they were very intelligent magical creatures. Potter's was a female with pale face and proud features of a woman of thirty five years old or so. She had the short light-sandy fur on her body, wrapped up in blue silk cloth with golden lace edging. The hair on her head was sandy blond (not unlike the colour of the fur that covered her body), wavy and gathered in a loose, short ponytail on the back of her neck with the silk ribbon. She had heavy golden earrings with intricate design and tiny dark-blue gemstones. There was the matching pendant on her neck and several thin golden chains. The magical creature was looking at Draco curiously with her dark-amber eyes.

"So you're Draco," she suddenly said with the voice that could belong to an ordinary middle-aged woman. "They were talking a lot about you, argued, so I decided to see for myself."

"The rare magical creature couldn't wait to see me? I'm flattered," Draco murmured, chuckling slightly, and returned to work. She ignored his sarcasm.

"They say you're from some very rich and old family, proud and aristocratic, so I'm curious how you ended up in slavery. Of course, I've heard some details..." she said and slightly bit the inside of her lower lip thoughtfully.

"Well, your ancestors were bigger, lived longer, were worshipped by humans and had wings, so I can't imagine how your kind ended up as pets," he parried.

"Touché!" she exclaimed, chuckling softly, and sat down. Her tufted tail was sweeping the floor in a slow, lazy manner. "A human with some brains, I see. Well, you're right, things change. As for me, I was gifted to the head of this house for his heroic deeds; not that he's been very happy about it, and not that I've been any happier. My homeland is Kenya, but I haven't been there for many years. I've been living in this house for three years now. My name's Semiramis, by the way; the daughter of Epiphania," she introduced, speaking slowly. But then she sniffed and winced a little. "It's too dusty and my curiosity is satisfied, for now; so I'd better go. See you later, slave," the sphinx said and left unhurriedly, with her head high. She'd hardly tried to offend him; there was no disdain in the way she'd called him a slave. It had sounded like calling someone by their profession; she just found it normal. Draco hadn't quite paid attention to it, anyway.

     Soon Potter visited and said that Draco's lunch was in his room. The blond wasn't very hungry, but he didn't mind to have a break. Potter cast a cleaning spell on Draco, especially his clothes, and left. The blond went to his bathroom anyway, to wash his hands and face before the meal.

     As he'd returned to work, he was soon distracted by the faint noise, the source of which was somewhere near the door. He frowned, thinking that it was that curious sphinx again.

"Who's there?" he scowled, looking in the direction of the noise. The green eye, framed with the dark hair was the only thing he saw. It shyly looked at him from behind one of the bookcases.

"It's me," the child's voice replied quietly. Draco sighed. Now Potter's spawn was here to annoy him. He knew that Potter had two sons. It had been in the papers he'd read whilst in hiding. "Daddy said not to bover you yesterwday and... that you sleeping. But today you not..." the boy said timidly.

"Right..." Draco mumbled quietly, doubting that the boy heard him. He kept cleaning the books.

"My name is Al," the child introduced himself. Shyly he moved a bit closer, so Draco could really see him. The boy looked a bit older than his Scorpius... Probably several months older or almost a year older; Draco couldn't tell for sure. He looked a lot like Potter, at least, his eyes and dark, messy hair.

"Why don't you go play with your toys?" Draco sighed again.

"I played."

"Then go play some more."

"Oh, Al, I told you not to go here!" Ginevra Weasley (no, she was Potter now) exclaimed, as she'd opened the door.

"Just want to look," Al pouted and went to his mother. "Bye..." he said, turning to Draco once more. Potter's wife looked at the blond with unreadable expression on her face and left together with her son, holding his hand.

     Potter brought him some food again, and then, almost at seven in the evening asked Draco if he felt the curse satisfied with today's amount of work. There wasn't much work done, because there were too many books to clean and too much dust on them, but the thoroughness compensated for it, so the curse was, indeed, satisfied, and the minimum had been done.

     When he'd taken a bath and returned to his room, Semiramis was there. It looked like she'd just entered, though.

"What do you want?" he asked, taking the comb and approaching the mirror to do his hair.

"I merely wanted to see your room. Cats are curious, don't you know?" she replied, looking around.

"Yes, and, according to the famous proverb, it kills them," he frowned a little. He sighed in frustration when the arrogant creature jumped onto his bed just to have a better look at his bedside table. She scrutinised the photograph of the little boy for several moments.

"Is this some young god that you worship?" she asked, seeing that the picture was taking some special place. Draco turned to her and saw her looking at Scorpius' photograph. "No..." she answered her own question quietly. "It's your cub, isn't it? Where is it now?" she asked, turning her face to the blond human.

"Please, go. Just go..." he replied. She jumped down on the floor and slowly moved to the door, but kept looking at him carefully and curiously. The hurt was so evident on his face, even if he tried to control his expression. When she left, Draco started to take deep, calm breaths, in order to keep control over himself and not to start hyperventilating. His hands were shaking. He couldn't even talk about Scorpius to anyone, because the pain was unimaginable. He didn't know where his boy was and every single day and night he was going insane from pain and worry...

     It took a couple of weeks to clean the library, including windows, all the furniture, several magical globes, both terrestrial and celestial (some of them were very old and two of them were quite big), telescopes, three huge cut-glass chandeliers, pictures on the walls and all the grumbling busts of the wizarding writers that weren't pleased to be cleaned in muggle way. Harry magically cleaned the ceiling and the walls that were too high; and even if Draco found a way to get there, it would've been dangerous for him. In the end, the library looked magnificent, and Draco started to clean the other abandoned rooms. He even restored the old collection of daggers. Most of them were beautiful; some had pommels or scabbards decorated with gemstones; several had engravings in Latin or just engraved patterns right on their blades. Draco found the recipe of the potion to clear the rust from the blades and restore the steel as much as possible, so he brewed it, and then cleaned and polished the silver scabbards and handles with toothpaste, because he hadn't found anything else to take care of silver and there were no required ingredients to brew the potion for it. Toothpaste was suitable for that task, though. In the same way he cleaned the silver frames of some pictures and other silver items, including figurines, literally giving them a new life. The work wasn't that bad, considering that he was taking care of the house of his ancestors, even though it was now the house of people that did not belong here at all, but, thanks to Sirius Black, owned it. But Draco liked this part of the house, still unchanged by the new inhabitants. After all, his mother had spent her childhood and youth here. Some things reminded him of her.

     Harry always tried to be polite and respectful to Draco; always thanked him for all the work, saying that he would have never found time. He made sure that the blond was doing no more than a minimum of work to satisfy the curse. He magically cleaned Draco's expensive clothes that during his work usually were the white, silk button down shirt, with normally rolled up sleeves, and the black trousers, knowing that the blond didn't have many clothes. He cleaned it every day when Draco finished his work. And just before he set to work, Harry always protected his airway by casting the appropriate spell. Its effect lasted for enough hours and prevented the blond from inhaling the dust.

     Harry brought him his food himself and had even learned Draco's preferences. For example, he knew that Draco liked soups, cold milk, apples, grapes, most salads, toasts with jam or honey, and some other things. At the same time, Draco didn't eat much and often left some food, sometimes even a good half of it, untouched. His lack of appetite was, most likely, because of his emotional state, but there was nothing Harry could do about it. It was probably the curse that urged him to eat, or he wouldn't have had any energy to do his work. Harry wasn't sure the blond would have eaten at all, otherwise; though he couldn't be sure about it. All he really knew was that Draco was severely depressed. He was doing all the work automatically; it was obvious.

     Sometimes Semiramis made him company, a silent one; but mostly she was enjoying the opportunity to explore the rooms she hadn't seen before, because they'd been locked. She wasn't very talkative. Most of the time she behaved like a simple feline, a lazy one, who often thought that speaking with humans or paying them any attention was beneath her. Like most catlike creatures, she seemed to be enjoying sunspots, and like most cats (though, she physically was only a half-cat, theoretically) she often had symptoms that resembled narcolepsy. Draco could sometimes hear her indignation, as she was sitting on a windowsill, looking outside at the people leading dogs on leashes. She called for Bastet's anger to fall upon the 'filthy creatures', 'foetid mutts' and their 'blasphemous' owners. It seemed she was mostly talking to herself, but it was amusing to listen to her blistering tirades about the uselessness and filthiness of dogs. It was really amusing when it wasn't getting too far and becoming annoying.

     Very soon Draco found out that there was another pet in the house; it was just a domestic Siamese cat Meow (Draco hoped that it was Potter's son who had named the cat, because he just couldn't imagine a grown up person coming up with something this... oddly simple). The cat quickly warmed up to the new inhabitant of the house (without any effort from Draco himself) and often came to sleep in his room. The feline was very eager to share its warmth, curling up against Draco's side or back, and its purrs lulled the blond to sleep. At the same time, Meow was an independent creature and most of their communication happened on his, feline's, terms. Draco decided that it was rather understandable that some people considered animals as much better companions than humans.

     He hardly saw anyone, except for Potter. Even when Harry returned to his work and was away for the most part of his workdays, he left Draco enough food each morning before leaving the house. Some food had the sustained warming charm around it, so it wouldn't get cold.

     More than two months had passed since Draco had started working in the house. Each room had been cleaned thoroughly, so it wasn't such a big problem now to keep those rooms in order. It meant that the time when Draco could stay away from Potter's family and hide in one of those rooms had ended. And eventually he found himself washing dishes in the kitchen. Kitchen always needed cleaning, as well as the dining room, where the children often made a mess. What of kitchen, both Potter and his wife liked cooking. There were always dirty kitchen utensils after cooking and dirty dishes after meals. It seemed that Potter's wife purposely left Draco as much mess to clean as she could during her cooking. 'The bitch.'

     Once, when the curse wasn't satisfied with the amount of work Draco had done, Potter asked him to lay the table before supper. When he returned, he couldn't hold back a quiet, good-natured chuckle. The table looked a bit too lavish for a simple supper. Draco glared at him through narrowed eyes.

"It's very beautiful, Draco, but next time, um... make it a bit simpler," Harry said carefully, smiling slightly. He didn't want to offend the blond.

"Of course, Master," Draco replied in several moments, but his tone made Harry think that it was as good as if he'd said: 'I always knew you were uncultured pigs.' It made Harry smile again. He liked to see some rebelliousness and obstinacy in Draco's demeanour, even if they weren't quite obvious. For example, he kept calling Harry 'Master' just to spite him, to rub it in his face. Long ago Harry had asked not to call him that, but Draco persisted even though the curse had punished him for that. And, after all, it wasn't against the rules. On the contrary, it was who Harry was, - Draco's master, whatever Harry thought of it.

     Draco had found out some more details about the curse. For example, it wasn't satisfied when he was cleaning his room or bathroom that only he used. It didn't consider such things as a part of his daily work, though it, fortunately, didn't mind. The curse wasn't a puppeteer, but it was an unforgiving slave driver, and Draco often felt its discouraging warning when it didn't like something, even Draco's thoughts full of hatred about his masters. Draco was once punished with acute pain when in his thoughts he very vividly wished Potter's wife to fall and break her neck. The curse once punished him severely for taking the book from library without permission from his masters. The odious curse considered it stealing! The pain, comparable with Cruciatus, made Draco scream at the top of his lungs and, as Potter ran to him, he seemed to quickly realise what was wrong, seeing the blond sitting on his knees on the floor in pain with the book lying next to him. Potter verbally permitted Draco to take everything he needed for his personal use, including any book from the library. It satisfied the curse and it stopped the torture. But Draco felt so defeated and irate that he stormed away to his room, leaving the book on the floor and ignoring Potter's stupid words of comfort. That incident, however, spared Draco the necessity of asking for something he really needed. He hated to ask for anything from his owners. Now he could just take books. Not that he was reading a lot these days. His tired, bitter and often numb mind didn't let him concentrate on reading, anyway.

     There were other things he unintentionally found out, without being really interested. Granger was now actually a Weasley, because she'd married Ronald Weasley about a year ago. Not that it was a surprise. It had been so nauseatingly predictable, it was a given. Weasel was a keeper for the Chudley Cannons team, and they didn't see each other often, because he was at the peak of his career, and Granger (well, Weasley...) was at work nearly twenty four, seven. She was now in the opposition, fighting against the ways of the current government. At first Weasel had started the auror training with Potter, but then he had suddenly changed his mind and got the job proposal from Cannons. Potter had got one, too, but refused, not wishing to be away from his son (when he'd actually had only one son), especially given that his wife was into Quidditch, too, and had dedicated a lot of time to it before having the second offspring. But, despite the lack of time, the stupid Golden Trio still consisted of best friends. Why, of course, they were all family now, after all.

     The blond had long accepted his hopeless, humiliating situation, even though, occasionally, some things made him want to shout at somebody; such as Potter's elder spawn that had suddenly decided that he could order Draco around. It was Potter's wife's doing, because the annoying spawn parroted her. Potter himself never ordered anything in such a manner. It always sounded more like he asked Draco to do something. But the brat quickly learned that Draco was there to do what he was told. For example, several times when the blond was busy about the kitchen, the little shit demanded sweets (usually before meals), since he couldn't ask one of his parents, knowing that it was useless. He insistently pointed his small index finger in the direction of the sideboard that contained biscuits and sweets, because he was too small to reach it, and loudly demanded to give it to him. It could last for around half an hour and it was noisy. As Draco always ignored the brat (usually clenching his jaws to prevent himself from saying something that wasn't meant for the ears of a child), Al was stamping his little feet in frustration. At least, the curse never punished Draco for this. When Potter finally witnessed one of those tantrums accidentally, he put his pouting spawn in the corner for an hour and deprived him of any sweets for a week after the educational talk. It worked and Draco was almost ready to thank him. The brat even asked forgiveness later, but Draco ignored him once again.

     But the most annoying thing was the visits of Potter's friends and his family, namely Weasleys. It would have been unbearable, but Potter, fortunately, wasn't a complete imbecile, and could imagine how Draco felt among them, so he always allowed him to stay in his room or to tidy up one of the rooms as far away from their parties as possible, even if everybody knew about him and his position in this house. In fact, Harry was afraid that someone would say something insulting to Draco, gloat and remind him about their rivalry at school, when the blond was at his most vulnerable. Harry knew that some people hadn't grown up enough to keep their mouths shut about Malfoy's situation. And Harry was holding on to the illusion of peace in his house. As much as he didn't like to see the blond this subdued, he also didn't want to provoke any conflicts that, in turn, would provoke the curse to punish Draco. He hadn't even acknowledged Draco's birthday on the fifth of June, just knowing that it would have ended badly. He wasn't comfortable about it, but he knew he'd done the right thing.

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A/N: If you're curious what Semiramis looks like, look for the picture of the sculpture of the right Greek Sphinx on the Northern perron of the "Empain" castle in Belgium. Just type it in your browser and, I'm sure, you'll find it. I just love that sculpture! The left one doesn't have that pretty, enigmatic face (in my opinion, of course), so look for the right one :).

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The Shards Of His Beloved