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I Give You a Wondrous Mirror	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 17806 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 40
- 41
- 42
Thank you again for all the reviews!

The story is not far from its end now. Chapter 44 should be
the Epilogue. And this chapter resolves the life-debts and marriage vows
conflict (though some details will need to wait for the next two chapters to be
settled completely, so if you�re confused, don�t worry; it will probably be
explained).

Enjoy!

Chapter Forty-One�Halved

�� She wants
to do what?�

�� Draco could
not blame Harry for being wary; he would be, too, if Julia hadn�t explained it
to him so well. But she had, and that meant he felt confident in proposing the
plan to Harry.

�� Your wife
won�t be hurt,� he said gently, running one hand up and down Harry�s arm. Harry
still lay in his own bed, with bandages crisscrossing his wounds to be sure
that they wouldn�t break open again. Draco had performed healing spells until
his lips were numb yesterday and brewed a few of the simpler healing potions
for Harry, but it would still be several days until he was able to walk
comfortably. �And of course we won�t do this until your injuries are healed and
you�re able to stand on your own.�

�� That�s�not
it.� Harry�s hands played with his blankets. �I trust you, Draco, and I know
that you would never put me in danger deliberately. But you heard Hermione.
This situation isn�t one that�s in the history books, or in wizarding lore at
all. How can we be sure that it will
resolve the way your ancestress says it will?�

�� Draco gave
him a quick kiss. �Do you really want to live out the rest of our lives like
this?� he asked when he heard Harry make a noise of discomfort as the itching
started. �Unable to touch each other for longer than a few moments, at least
with any desire? Condemned to meet in a dream-world and have sex with each
other only there? Or do you want something more? Do you want that life that you
saw in your dreams, where we�re full partners, able to play with each other and
love each other to the fullest extent?�

�� Harry
closed his eyes. He was sitting with his hands folded in his lap, now, because
refraining from touching Draco was necessary in order to calm down the marriage
vows. But the lines of tension around his eyes told Draco that was at least
thinking about it.

�� Draco
played with his hair, and waited. Harry blew out his breath in a shaky
exhalation and opened his eyes at last. �And you think that Ginny would come to
the Manor if we asked her to?� he asked.

�� Draco
nodded at once. �Why wouldn�t she? She�s probably dying to know what�s going
on.� He heard a snide tone creep into his voice, and tried to suppress it. He
and Harry had owled the Blood Reparations Department with the truth yesterday,
but had forced Granger and her people to meet them at the gates of the Manor to
collect Pensieve memories, the captives, and Andromeda�s body, rather than
intrude. Their official excuse had been that the children didn�t need to see
strangers right now, which was certainly true. Granger had said she understood.
On the other hand, she had looked increasingly anxious throughout the
interviews because she couldn�t intrude and control the situation. Ginny had to
be frantic, too, Draco thought. She had already shown that she had no sense of
good timing when she showed up on the battlefield outside the Tonks house to �persuade�
Harry; why should she be any happier about being shut out now? She might even
think that her place was at her husband�s side, if she was really as penitent
as she had tried to act.

�� What about
Marian?� Harry asked, with no voice behind the question. �You told me that she
sounded more reasonable.�

�� She does,�
Draco admitted. �Her experiences serving under Andromeda changed her.� He had
talked with his wife a bit yesterday evening, when he wanted to fill in missing
gaps in her story. She had explained that, as she had joined Andromeda out of
longing to touch Scorpius again, so her longing to protect him had brought her
back to rationality; she would rather have seen him safe with Draco than in
danger because of her own political affiliations. Her comments about blood
betraying blood had convinced Draco she spoke the truth. Marian had come dangerously
near to betraying her son, in light of her own principles. She was anxious to
make up for that.

�� But you��
Harry seemed to be nerving himself up for some large question, but Draco still
didn�t expect it when it came. �You have no desire to get back together with
her and give Scorpius a normal family and a mum?�

�� Draco
stretched his arms around Harry and locked them carefully into place, so that
neither his elbows nor his hands were resting on any wounds. He let Harry feel
the possessive tightness of that hold, not enough, by itself, to trigger the
marriage vows. And he whispered the resulting words into Harry�s ear, making
him shiver.

�� She can
never be to me what she was. I haven�t trusted her since the day she tried to
take Scorpius and run. And though I do believe she�s changed her mind and would
cooperate with me as much as possible in the raising of him, why should I
settle for a passionless marriage when I could have you?� He paused, then added, �Are you having second thoughts, Harry?�

�� Harry
twisted around in his embrace and glared up at him. �Of course not! But then, I
don�t think I�ll ever trust Ginny again. It sounds as if you could trust Marian.�

�� Miracles
of reconciliation and healing are possible,� Draco said. �But I�ll just take
the miracle I already have, thank you.�

�� Harry
rested his head against Draco�s chest. Draco spent a moment stroking his hair,
letting him make up his mind once more.

�� And then
Harry nodded slightly. �Let�s do it.�

*

�� That�s
important?� Draco eyed the large, round mirror Julia was rolling into place
against the wall of the alcove where they had, until a few hours ago, kept
Marian. He was virtually certain that the mirror was not one he had seen about
the Manor in the last few years. Probably the ancestors had found it in some
ancient corridor or corner and polished it to a high gloss again. He took an
instinctive step back when his own reflection came into view.

�� Of course.
When you told me about the life-debts manifesting at first through reflective
surfaces, I knew we would need this.� Julia strode forwards a few steps,
frowning at the mirror, and then grasped it and rolled it another quarter-turn.
She finally turned to face him, her eyes and smile matched in intimidation factor.
�Did you not think it significant that mirrors played so large a part in the
visions connecting you and your lover?�

�� I didn�t
know why,� Draco admitted with a small
shrug. �And once we had accumulated five matching scars, it seemed we could
save each other�s lives and the debts would take hold without needing mirrors.�

�� But for
this, the final transition, you do need one.� Julia swayed her head back and forth,
facing her own reflection. �From what you have told me, not even being in the
same room as your wives might work. The visions�the tunnels�that open and
attempt to take you through badly need a destination, a place to reach to. And
this shall provide one.�

�� I still
don�t understand why,� Draco complained. �If what Harry and I have is rare even
in the history of life-debts, the connection to mirrors is unheard of.�

�� It should
not be so strange.� Julia gave him a sharp grin over her shoulder. �You have
heard those old stories, the old superstitions, that our reflections in mirrors
live in alternate, separate worlds?�

�� But they are only superstitions,� Draco said,
bewildered. �One of the first things the Founders of Hogwarts did was
experiment with mirror magic. They concluded that it was much more limited and
less powerful than generally supposed.�

�� The Founders
of Hogwarts did not have multiple life-debts binding them.� Julia paused
wistfully for a moment. �Though I grant it would have been amusing if they had.
The rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin would have had to take a different
turn then.�

�� But you
weren�t alive when they were.�

�� Of course
not. But I did pay more attention to the history textbooks I had than any of
you modern children seem to have.� There was scorn in Julia�s face that made
Draco flush, for all that he knew she was dead
and would return to her crypts the moment the matter of the life-debts was successfully
settled. �And one thing I remember about history is that it may be made again.
Just because this has never happened before does not mean that it would never
happen.�

�� Yes, Aunt,�
Draco muttered. Julia had explained in broad, vague terms how the �transition�
and �fulfillment� of the life-debts was to work, but not enough to satisfy him.
But since it was the only solution he and Harry had been offered so far, Draco
was wise enough to clasp it.

�� Do not
look so dejected, nephew.� Julia chucked him under the chin as she passed him,
which was rather like being nuzzled tenderly by a sword. �Soon enough I will
solve your problem, and then I will be gone from your daily life.� She paused
in the doorway of the alcove, glancing back. �And do try not to get yourself involved in another spectacular mess
quite so soon, hmmm? I am not used to being called back more than once in a
generation.�

*

�� Harry swept
Al into his arms and held him close to his chest for a moment. Al clung to his
robes and accepted a kiss, but squirmed to get down when Scorpius called his
name across the room.

�� Harry let
him go with a small smile. Whilst his children were still not easy with what had happened, and liked
to have him in sight a majority of the time�even Teddy had taken to wandering
casually into the rooms where Harry sat for a while�they had recovered more
quickly than he dared hope. Having Scorpius for a friend helped Al along.
Narcissa�s constant attentions to Lily kept his baby daughter happy and cooing.

�� And Teddy
and James had helped each other. Evidently neither of them wanted to look too
scared in front of the adults, but looking scared in front of each other, or at
least spending a lot of time together and with the house-elves, was acceptable.
Teddy was cheerfully challenging James to a puzzle contest right now, figuring
out one of the toys the house-elves had deposited in front of them, and Al and
Scorpius were sitting down next to a set of wooden horses that moved by
themselves.

�� Harry took
a deep breath and stepped carefully out of the room, wincing a little. The skin
on his legs and hips was still tender, not that he would admit that to Draco.
He wanted to be out of bed�not even
having his lover fussing over him made that experience pleasant for him�and he
wanted to confront Ginny and get this over with.

�� Draco had
dropped some of the wards around the Manor, with his ancestors extending
magical senses through the gaps and watching for the approach of any enemy. He
had promised that if the pain got too bad for Harry to endure, or if something
unexpected went wrong, any of them would be able to Apparate away to safety.
And there were house-elves standing by with orders to take the children to
safety, as well.

�� This was
the best chance they would ever have to end the problems, to free Harry from
his marriage vows and please the life-debts. Harry knew he would regret not
taking it forever if he let it pass by.

�� But still,
he was frightened.

�� He worked
through breathing exercises as he walked down the corridors, extending his arms
over his head and wringing them in circles behind his back, both to calm
himself down and test the range of movement. His wand, which Andromeda had
hidden in one of the chests Narcissa had brought along from her childhood home,
rested comfortably in the waist of his robes, where he could get at it in an
instant. He could feel his muscles moving without effort, without strain. He
was healed, and rested.

�� He would
have to do this.

�� And he must
not show his fear. If he appeared nervous in front of Ginny, she wouldn�t trust
him enough to come further into the Manor, and it was imperative that she do
so.

�� His wife
was waiting at the front gates of the Manor. The moment they vanished, she ran
through and flung herself into Harry�s arms. He stood there for a moment,
holding her, and soothingly patted her shoulder. He tried to imagine himself
reconciling with her, as he had envisioned Draco perhaps reconciling with
Marian.

�� Nothing. He
was not as angry at her as he had been, but there was nothing there to hang
onto or build on, either. He pitied his younger self, who had engaged in the
strict marriage vows under the firm conviction that nothing could happen to
change his mind or his love. Massive changes happened all the time.

�� Harry did
manage to smile at Ginny when she lifted her head and murmured, �I missed you,
Harry. So much.�

�� Thank you
for coming,� he said. Since he couldn�t return her sentiments, he thought the
best thing was to avoid any and all declarations. �Draco wants to meet and talk
to us in the company of his wife, Marian.� He wouldn�t have been able to
explain what Julia Malfoy hoped to accomplish even if he thought it wise to try,
but he wouldn�t fool Ginny about whom they were going to meet. �If you�ll come?�

�� Ginny
frowned and pushed a strand of hair behind her ears. �We can�t have any time
alone to talk, first?�

�� We can
have it, if you still want it, after we meet Draco and Marian,� Harry promised.
A thrill of mingled fear and excitement raced up his back. If Julia is right. If the marriage vows and the life-debts both have to
exist, then we�ll have the time for a talk. And we�ll need it, Ginny and I. At
least, in a sense, it�ll be Ginny and I who need it.

�� What�s
going to happen?� Ginny was staring at him, and her eyes were as piercing and
strong as they had ever been since the day Harry walked up to the wizard who
would marry them and saw her waiting for him, clad in a shining gown and a
garland of flowers.

�� I don�t
know exactly,� Harry said, which was only the truth.

�� She stared
at him again, but, after a moment, nodded, and kissed him�Harry tried not to
grimace, as in truth he felt nothing�and let him lead her in.

*

�� Draco could
feel sweat prickling under his collar as he waited for Harry in front of the
enormous mirror with Marian at his side. He could sense green and golden
shadows stirring in the glass. He refused to look at it directly, though.

�� Marian had
likewise refused�to take part in this at all, she said, unless she could touch
and hold Scorpius for an hour that morning. Draco had reluctantly permitted it,
with house-elves and Malfoy ancestors watching her the entire time to be sure
that she didn�t try to Apparate with his son. Marian had not. She had come back
from the encounter quiet, cold, and pale, though, and she kept shooting Draco
looks of intense dislike.

�� He could
live with that. If what Julia proposed was true, he would be happy to, after
this morning.

�� In a sense.

�� With part
of himself.

�� Harry�s
footsteps sounded down the corridor beyond the alcove, accompanied by the
almost soundless footfalls of his Weasley. And Draco saw the shadows in the
mirror begin to churn anxiously, rearing and falling like waves in a
storm-lashed sea, while swirls of white-gold magic, barely visible, drifted
about him like snowflakes.

�� When he comes into the room, Julia had
said, he must endure. Whatever happens.
If you wish this to end.

�� Seeing his
lover about to put his life in danger displeased Draco to no end.

�� But if
Julia was right, there would be life beyond.

*

�� Harry
stepped into the alcove, with Ginny slightly behind him. She had wanted to take
his arm, but he had managed to detach her politely halfway down the corridor,
without making it obvious he was doing so. If Julia was right, no one should be
touching him when the life-debts began to fulfill themselves.

�� If Julia
was right.

�� Despite the
defeat of Voldemort, despite his recent fear that Andromeda would hurt his
children, Harry thought that stepping into the room where Draco and Marian
waited was still the bravest thing he had ever done.

�� The moment
he stepped in, the life-debt magic pounced.

�� The air
flared white-gold and turned uncomfortably hot. Harry put an arm over his eyes,
but didn�t struggle as he had in the past, when the magic tried to pull him
down the tunnels and he didn�t want to go. This time, he wanted to go. He
relaxed his breathing as much as possible, even when he heard Ginny shriek,
even when he felt the pull begin as the marriage vows rose to the challenge
with a snarl and began to drag on him like red-hot wires sunk in his flesh.

�� Julia had
explained, much to Draco�s displeasure, that Harry�s enduring the greater pain
was inevitable, because the life-debts bound him as strongly as they did Draco,
and his marriage vows were much stricter. Draco would feel some tugging as the
life-debts attempted to get him away from Marian.

�� Harry would
be halved.

�� And it was
necessary, and it made sense, even, Julia said, given the mirrors that had
stirred with shadows of another life and the visions that had tried to reach
out to them and the dreams as clear as memories of another past.

�� But Harry
hadn�t fully understood the magical theory. He had to trust that he was doing
the right thing, as Ginny�s cries grew angrier and more fearful, as his own
fear of leaving Draco alone and his children without a father mounted�

�� And as the
pain increased, piling on top of itself until he was barely conscious, barely
sane.

*

�� Draco could
feel his hands growing slippery with blood as his nails dug into his palms. He
couldn�t look down and attempt to pry his fingers out of the skin, though. He
couldn�t withdraw his gaze from Harry.

�� Harry had
fallen to his knees, his hands clasped around his head, his breath traveling
outwards in long, low moans more heartbreaking than any scream. Around him,
reducing him nearly to a silhouette because of their brilliancy, two kinds of
magic raged, wrestling each other, coils of dark rusty red-brown piling on top
of living wreaths of white-gold. And each kind of light had sunk firmly into
Harry and was tugging.

�� He had to
let them tug.

�� Julia had
said so.

�� Harry had
said he could bear it.

�� Draco
banished, as best as he could, the vision of his lover battered and bleeding
when Andromeda had tortured him in front of their children. This was not like
that. This was for the best. And Harry was still there, not dead, though the
biggest sign of it was the way he writhed as the magic spat and played around
him like a lightning storm.

�� Draco felt
a hand catch his elbow, and he turned his head, barely making out Marian�s face
in the madness. She shouted at him, her words already dim and dull in his ears,
�What is happening?�

�� He shook
his head and shrugged off her hand. It would be disastrous if someone touched
Harry while he made the transition, but it wouldn�t be much better if someone
was touching him.

�� He looked
back at the crouching figure, a solid black now, hardly visible, the light
making Draco�s eyes blink and water and long to close.

�� But he
would not�could not�look away, not as long as Harry was crouching there.

*

�� Harry
wailed. Or he thought he did; it seemed increasingly hard to get any breath
into his body that would permit him
to wail. His hands were clawing into his hair. His skin felt as if it were
being scalded off his bones. He had no bones left, in fact; they were melting
down to useless slag, like the ground in front of the Tonks house when the
dragons came.

�� But he
could do this. He wanted to give himself to Draco. And that, Julia had told
him, was utterly necessary. If he had not been willing to pay the price and fulfill
the life-debts, they could never have become equal in power to the marriage
vows, no matter how many of them he and Draco accumulated.

�� Equal. Equal. They�re equal. They both have
to come true. And tearing me apart would ensure that neither of them does.

�� That solid
sliver of logic and magical theory was all he had to cling to as the pain grew
worse, and then worse again, and then twice as worse again, and soon he was
repeating equal, equal, equal, in his
head without remembering what the word meant.

�� And then�

�� He heard
the glass of the mirror rip itself apart, splintering and shattering. He heard
the white-gold magic boiling around him make a snarling, triumphant sound from
the left side of his body. The marriage vows uttered the same sound, at the
exact same moment, from the right side of his body.

�� And in
front of him, around him, across him, on every side, the same tunnel that had
several times tried to bear him and Draco to another world opened.

�� Harry gave
a sob of relief, and spread his arms wide. The pain had ceased abruptly. But he
still felt a shudder down to his bones, rocketing through him and down and up, and then spreading out in a flood of
ripples to every corner of the room.

�� He turned
his head.

�� He found
himself looking into his own eyes.

�� Already the
two of them crouched on either side of a perpetually widening breach. One half
of the image, his, was filled with the white-gold dance of life-debt magic, the
other half with the dusty red-brown of the marriage vows. Harry watched with
wonder and awe so keen it felt like numbness as the magic, in the ferocity of
its obedience to its own laws, created two
worlds, two Harry Potters, two men�one of whom, him, could become Draco�s
partner in a world where the life-debts were fulfilled and the marriage vows
had never existed, and the other of whom, the second Harry, could remain Ginny�s
husband in a world where the life-debts had no power and the marriage vows were
intact.

�� The second
Harry Potter turned away and clutched at his Ginny, who had come rushing up
beside him. Harry turned away, as well, but only to watch the spreading of the
process, the doubling.

�� He was
drifting in the midst of a white-gold sea, which every moment changed colors
and became more solid as it duplicated the original world, weaving an
alternative universe where the dreams were real, where the visions he and Draco
had seen were real�the world behind the mirror. It had been only a reflection
for years, Julia had explained, but it was always trying to become true. If he
and Draco had not been so stubborn, and if Harry�s marriage vows had not been
so strict, it would have snatched them through the gate and come into being
years ago. But that would have meant kidnapping them from their own world and
making them into the Harry and Draco of the visions. Only an equal, opposing
magic could have forced the creation of two separate realities instead.

�� And the
people he and Draco had imagined when the visions tried to snatch them away had
delayed the creation of that world, too. He had not been able to imagine living
in another place without his children, without his friends, and Draco had
likewise relied on images of the people he
loved to keep himself safely at home. The life-debt magic had wanted to
make them happy, so it would have to
bring along everyone they loved into the other world in order to ensure that they
were so.

�� Now, with the
magic expanding around him and the power growing softer and softer the farther
it traveled, Harry wondered, in his exhaustion, how much would have changed. Of
course, he knew what his and Draco�s past for the last ten years was like. The
dreams shimmered in his head, solid as memories�their reality, now. There had
been a reason that the life-debt magic was so very careful to ensure they remembered
the dreams. In this world, he and Draco had been lovers for a decade, he was an
Auror, they had had an argument that resulted in their traveling to northern
South America instead of the Caribbean or Peru�

�� And they
had had their children in a distinctly different way, which Harry didn�t know
about yet, but their children were still there, as Al proved when he came
dashing into the room a moment later, pursued by James, who was pursued by
Teddy.

�� Harry
opened his arms to embrace them at the same moment as Draco hugged him hard
from behind.

�� And then the tears came.

*

�� Draco stood
shakily with one arm around Harry�s shoulders and the other holding Scorpius,
who had toddled in in the company of a house-elf and demanded to hug his Daddy.
Narcissa stood in the doorway, holding Harry�s baby daughter, frowning at them
both quizzically.

�� And behind
her was Julia.

�� Though it
would necessitate all kinds of explanations to Narcissa later, Draco spoke to
his ancestress first. �Did it work?�

�� Look
behind you,� said Julia, with a predator�s smile.

�� Draco
turned. The large mirror hung on the wall there, as in the room in the�the other
world�but it did not reflect them. Instead, it reflected that other world, with
the second Harry standing securely in his wife�s arms. The second Draco stood
facing Marian, now and then casting glances at Harry and shaking his head, as
if he had awakened from a dream.

�� Another
world, where the marriage vows were satisfied. Safely shut behind glass, where
it could never come back to haunt them.

�� Draco
buried his face half in Harry�s shoulder and half in Scorpius�s hair, and
thought, I�ll take this one.

*

�� Amiyom:
Well, Julia�s not only undead, she�s also very old, and knows magical theory
that not even Hermione does. ;)

�� Lilith,
thrnbrooke: Thanks for reviewing!

�� Mangacat:
*Snicker* An interesting idea, but no.

�� Mephistedes:
And here it is!
- 40
- 41
- 42
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I Give You a Wondrous Mirror