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The Marriage of True Minds	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 55083 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Five—At the Same Table

            “You’re not leaving without breakfast, are you, Harry?”

            Harry started and turned around. He hadn’t expected any of the Malfoys to be up when he needed to leave; apparently it was the decadent aristocratic thing to lounge in one’s bed all day and have meals brought to one. But Narcissa stood behind him, wearing another ice-colored gown and a warm smile that contrasted with everything Harry had experienced here so far.

            “I had Juli bring me a scone,” Harry said. He could deal with her. Malfoy and his father were best avoided, but then again, Harry hadn’t seen Lucius since the day he enacted the marriage bond. “And a glass of milk,” he added, because Narcissa’s smile had turned a bit fixed. Perhaps the Malfoys had stores of food that would go bad if someone didn’t consume them. It was the only explanation Harry could think of that would make sense of her expression.

            “A scone is not breakfast,” Narcissa said. “Not an adequate breakfast for someone like you, who fights danger all day.” She looked up and down Harry’s body with a frown, as though she could see his muscles softening and withering away.

            Harry felt a moment’s conviction that she could, that she would see what he had looked like when he came out of the darkness. But he averted his eyes a moment later instead of taking a step back like he wanted to. She didn’t know that, he reminded himself. No one did except the Minister and his best friends, and the Minister had already spread rumors to allay the panic that would have resulted if someone outside that select group knew that Harry Potter had been missing for three months.

            “I won’t be doing any chasing today,” he said. “Just ordinary Auror work. Sitting at a desk and pushing papers around.” He started to add that they had all sorts of food at the Ministry, but choked the impulse back. What was he, a five-year-old trying to defend his eating choices to his mother? Even if he had married into the Malfoy family legitimately, he wouldn’t have needed Narcissa to play that role for him.

            Narcissa sighed as though someone had poked her in the stomach. “Truly, Harry, this is not a threat,” she said. “I told you that you were ours while the bond lasts, and that means that we are responsible for your care and feeding.”

            Harry restrained the tendency to snap that he wasn’t a Crup, and thought about it from that point-of-view. Yes, he reckoned he could see that. The Malfoys had their pride, and someone would notice and be all too glad to print a story about how they were “mistreating” Harry if he looked a little gaunt.

            “You’re right,” he said. “I’ll use glamours to make sure that no one sees anything different about me from usual but the ring.”

            Narcissa’s mouth tightened. Harry watched her hands, but she didn’t appear to be putting them anywhere near her wand, wherever she had the wand under that gown. She met his eyes and shook her head, once.

            “You are a hard man to help, Harry,” she said.

            Harry felt his face heat up, and did his best to shrug and smile. “I just—I’m not comfortable here.” He didn’t think that he was giving away too much with that revelation, since she already knew it from watching his reaction to his rooms. “I thought I would spend as much time out of the Manor as I possibly could. Draco said that I only need to sleep here for the bond to be satisfied.”

            “But there is also the matter of human satisfaction,” Narcissa said, and drew near enough to put a hand on his arm. Harry saw her coming, so he didn’t lash out the way he wanted, but it was still hard. He didn’t trust much of anyone now, and he found Narcissa’s attitude alien. She knew this wasn’t real, so trying to pretend it was made no sense to Harry. “I would like to see you eating, healthy, happy.”

            “I do eat,” Harry said, but he felt like a sulky child in the face of her stare, and after a moment he nodded. “I’ll ask Juli for more breakfast tomorrow.”

            “And you’ll come to dinner tonight.” Narcissa seemed to realize she would waste too much time asking him for breakfast. She left her hand in place like a chain. It felt heavier than the ring on Harry’s finger.

            “Yeah, all right,” Harry said, with a duck of his head and a miserable twitch of his shoulders. He had promised to have dinner with Hermione and Ginny tonight, so they could tell him what they had discovered about breaking the bond, but they weren’t here right now to make him feel bad, while Narcissa was. He could grab a quick lunch with Ginny instead. He’d like to spend some time with her.

            “Excellent.” Narcissa stepped away from him and walked to the other side of the immense entrance hall. Harry sighed and beat a retreat to the opposite side, trying not to look as if he was retreating.

            “Harry.”

            Harry stopped and glanced over his shoulder. Narcissa was framed in a pointed doorway that led to a dining room, her eyes on him gentle and knowing, both.

            “This is not a war,” she said softly. “You need not fear us. You need not think that I will lash out and drive you away because my husband had the bad taste to force this issue.”

            Harry only nodded. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he feared her husband and son a lot more than he did her. Or to tell her that it was the whole world that didn’t seem to have safe corners left, after the darkness.

            “I’m glad to see that nod,” Narcissa said. “The next time, you might try a smile.”

            She surprised one out of him just then, but she had the good sense not to press. Instead, she smiled back, stepped inside the dining room, and closed the door behind her.

            Harry shook his head and settled his ruffled feathers as much as he could. He couldn’t take this mood into work with him, where Ron would want to know what he was smiling about and be displeased when Harry told him it was a conversation with his mother-in-law.

            I should never have a mother-in-law unless it’s Molly Weasley.

            He stepped out of the Manor, and left behind the Harry Potter Narcissa wanted to see eating. (Such a bizarre idea that they should care about his meals. But then, Molly was the same way. Harry reckoned it was some leftover mothering instinct).

*

            “You have to admit that it’s a brilliant match.”

            Draco grimaced and tilted back his glass, pouring more of the scented cordial that Pansy favored down his throat. This month, it was the rough flavor of ashes and something dark beneath them that didn’t explode into fire until it reached Draco’s stomach. It had a kick stronger than brandy, which made it exactly what Draco needed right now.

            “I didn’t choose him for his looks, or his prowess in bed,” he said. “Only for his money. That means I could have chosen better.”

            Pansy smiled at him. She was wearing a robe that, as usual at this time of the day, barely concealed her breasts. Her dark hair was still tied with a red ribbon; given the trailing edges and the stains, Draco reckoned it had come from last night. She had shining white shoulders and long white hands with brilliant red nails, and she showed them off to advantage as she leaned across the table and poured him another glass.

            Draco turned his head to the side. The time to be attracted to Pansy and to do something about it had come and gone. Pansy had made it clear more than once that she wouldn’t mind extending the fun they had to the bed, but Draco wanted a lover who he didn’t have to worry would exhaust him in all possible ways.

            “You can tell me, Draco,” she said.

            “What?” Draco stared at her. Pansy was too much of a gossip for him to be comfortable telling her the truth, but she might have guessed it.

            “Does Potter fuck like a lion?” she purred, leaning forwards so that her robe shifted again.

            Draco controlled the flinch he wanted to give. That would only hand Pansy more ammunition, and he was not in the mood for that. Besides, confirming that he fucked Potter and that he didn’t fuck him would both have their disadvantages, and offer more cracks in his armor for Pansy to sink her claws in.

            He sighed instead and looked away from her. “You should know better than that,” he said. “Use his new last name to refer to him, or his first name if you must. If you must,” he repeated, turning back to her with his lip curled and his eyes clearly showing his boredom.

            Pansy uttered a small shriek of laughter. “Can you imagine me calling him Malfoy every time I want to refer to him? Someone listening to us would think that I sometimes thought of you one way and sometimes the other!”

            Draco didn’t see what was so funny about it, but he made himself open his mouth in a small, soundless laugh of his own, because Pansy would take it worse if he didn’t seem amused at her joke. He was glad that she had other endearing qualities besides her sense of humor. That wouldn’t save her on a dare.

            “All right, Draco, I won’t ask any more questions about your marriage if you’re as sensitive as all that.” Pansy took another sip of her cordial and leaned back on the couch, watching him with slitted eyes. “But be sure that you come over here often. I’ll want to hear all about how His Majesty is getting on in Malfoy Manor. D’you think it’s grand enough for him? He’s the Savior, after all, used to the wonders of the world being piled at his feet.”

            Draco snorted. “You know the sort he is, Pansy. Too noble to reach out and grasp at all the young things offering him their bodies. He looks down his nose at me for having more than one bedroom. He isn’t used to money.”

            Pansy sat up straight and clapped her hands. “That gives me an idea! A gift. He should have a wedding gift, to welcome him to a world that he must think is horribly decadent and only a haunt of pure-bloods like us.”

            Draco eyed her. “Possibly,” he said. “But I don’t want a gift that embarrasses me. I didn’t marry him for that.”

            Pansy waved one hand. “Just think what wonderful opportunities your marriage provides for your friends,” she said. “I’m sure that you won’t begrudge me a laugh or two.”

            “It depends entirely on the gift,” Draco said, and drew himself up. “I mean it, Pansy. Don’t give him something that would embarrass me.”

            Pansy locked her eyes with his, hard and measuring. Draco looked back, and fought to make sure that he didn’t flinch, any more than he had at her joke about fucking earlier. Pansy would attack if she sensed weakness, and Draco was the public face of the Malfoy family now. He had inherited decades earlier than he would have otherwise, and he had to show his friends, as he did everyone else, that he was strong enough to stand out of Lucius’s shadow.

            This time, he seemed to have convinced her that he had that strength. Pansy relaxed and smiled at him. “I’ll think of something perfect,” she said. “I hope that you won’t be disappointed if the gift doesn’t arrive for a fortnight or so.”

            Draco smiled. “Not at all,” he said. “That gives me the time to anticipate the expression on his face when he opens it.”

            Pansy leaned across the table to toast him. Draco listened to the clink of their glasses and tried to find hope in the sound, as if it were a bell tolling out a forecast of how long his marriage would last. Draco had not spoken to his father since he forced the bond, but he knew that Lucius had to lose patience eventually. That was the quality Draco most strove to eliminate from his own being: the frantic need to have his own way, which would ensure that he leaped before he needed to all his life.

            One earned rewards by waiting.

            This time, Draco intended to earn the reward of a house empty of Potter and one full of Astoria.

*



            “It’s not encouraging.”

            Harry winced and leaned back in his chair, although he had expected the news from the moment Ginny strode into the small, private room at the back of the Hog’s Head to meet him. Harry disliked using his name to earn favors, but he had paid Aberforth extra, and it was important that no one see them. “I saw that in your face,” he said.

            Ginny sat down across from him and sighed. Today, she was wearing a set of blue robes that made her look like a vision out of heaven. Harry swallowed his longing. She wouldn’t let him kiss her while he was still married. He had to wait, and thinking about what he couldn’t have would do nothing to improve either his temper or his libido.

            “Is my family lower in status than the Malfoys, then?” he asked.

            Ginny held up a hand and tilted it back and forth like a seesaw. “In a way,” she said. “It fluctuates with the centuries. The Malfoys usually have more money, but they also have a talent for getting themselves in trouble with the Ministry.”

            Harry snorted. “I see that hasn’t deserted them.”

            “No.” Ginny picked up a folder and spread it out on the table. Harry glimpsed several maps and genealogical tables before Ginny spread out a report written in a neat hand and bent over it. “The last time that someone used the forced marriage bond, this is how your families stood in relation to each other.”

            Harry began to read. Whoever had written the report had the same kind of dry style that the Auror Department encouraged their trainees to use when writing essays about proper procedures for arrest, which meant he was soon skimming. Some of the references to other books and laws didn’t make sense for him, but he got the gist of it. In particular, the underlined sentences at the bottom of the page made sense to him.

            The Malfoys stood higher in both public regard and in terms of property owned at the time that the last forced marriage bond took place between them. The Potters were not able to reclaim their heiress, and eventually she accepted the bond and bore the Malfoy heir children that became part of his line. The Potters undertook a magical ritual that designated a second cousin as heir so that their line would not die out.

            Harry grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. That acceptance was not going to happen to him, especially since he couldn’t make a real family with the Malfoys. He sighed and sat back in his seat. “Thanks, Ginny. That means I can’t make a legal challenge, right?”

            Ginny shook her head and reached out to gather up the report. “No. There might be magical answers, though. Hermione is working on those.” She paused, and her eyes darted up to his face. Harry blinked at her, suddenly realizing that the tension in her shoulders might come from more than one source. He wasn’t the whole of Ginny’s life. He knew that, but it was something he had the tendency to forget.

            “What?” he asked.

            “Why did you cancel our date?” Ginny asked.

            “I told you—”

            “You told me Narcissa Malfoy invited you for dinner.” She leaned forwards and traced the grain in the wood of the table. “You didn’t tell me why you accepted.”

            Harry blinked. He had somehow just assumed that Ginny would know that. She seemed to know more about him than he did, most of the time. But her steady stare and folded arms said that she didn’t, not on this occasion.

            It wasn’t a hardship for Harry to give in to her request and say, “Because she was there. Because she was asking. She’s been nice to me, the only Malfoy who has. I don’t think it’ll cause any trouble. She’ll probably take one look at me in the same room as her husband and son, and decide that it’s not worth trying again,” he added, hoping to win a smile from Ginny.

            She gave him a faint one and shook her head. “Let’s hope that she does,” she murmured, and picked up another folder. “This is the first of the magical solutions that Hermione came up with. If we could—”

            She cut herself off as Harry took her hand. Harry was careful to make it his right hand, so that the ring couldn’t come into contact with her skin, but there was something he wanted to clarify before they went any further.

            “Why does this disturb you?” he asked quietly, rubbing her knuckles. “Mrs. Malfoy isn’t the one I’m married to.”

            Ginny gave him a strained, tense smile. “Yes, but Harry, all the records I could find of these forced marriages said that those who were married gave in in the end. The Malfoys can offer you more than I can. Luxury, and a family who’s not large, so they can give you more attention, and money, and…”

            She trailed off again, this time, Harry knew, because of the smile on his face. He shook his head. “Do you think any of those things matter to me, against the love I have for you and your family?” he asked quietly.

            “I don’t know,” Ginny said.

            Harry winced. He had hoped that she would have more faith in him than that.

            “Maybe there was some sort of magical compulsion that came along with the forced marriage,” he said. “But it wasn’t having to work against personal hatred between the Malfoy heir and the other heir, I think, and it’s not like—it’s not like I want to stay there. I was raised by a family who never got me used to luxury, so it’s not like I would be tempted by it. Their family is creepy, and I don’t want it. And I have money of my own.” He squeezed her fingers. “Please, Ginny, will you stop worrying? I’m not going to betray you to be with Malfoy. There’s nothing I want less than to be with him, nothing I want more than to be with you.”

            After a long moment, Ginny’s fingers relaxed in his. She bowed her head. “I do know that, Harry,” she said. “But I spent all morning reading the historical records of the forced marriages and seeing each one end the way the Malfoys wanted it to. That makes me a little nervous. Sorry.”

            “You have nothing to be sorry for,” Harry said fervently, wishing he could kiss her. Damn bloody Lucius, anyway. “You’re doing what no one else in the Malfoy family is doing right now. You’re helping me. Because you love me. I’ll always choose the one who loves me and who I love, Ginny. Gold and silver doors can’t compete with that.”

            Ginny’s mouth curved up in a slow smile. “Gold and silver doors?”

            Harry shuddered and rolled his eyes. “It’s ridiculous. You wonder how much they paid for that thing. And it’s the door of a guest room! Why couldn’t they keep the stupid, over-the-top luxury for themselves?”

            Ginny laughed this time, and left her hand in his as she started pointing out the magical factors they should watch for. Harry relaxed and listened to her voice more than the words, knowing that he would need to study the notes for himself before he could hope to understand them anyway, and then probably listen to a second reading of them from Hermione.

            He was lucky to have such wonderful friends and such a wonderful woman to love.

            So what if he was separated from them by this forced marriage for right now? It would end soon enough, and then he would have what he had always wanted.

*

            Potter had atrocious table manners.

            Draco watched him from the corner of his eye, trying not to show how much he wanted to sneer, because that would also be ill-bred, and there was enough ill-breeding in the room right now. Potter didn’t know the proper way to eat his salad. He stared at his soup as if he’d never seen it before and shot obvious glances at the spoon Draco was using. Draco angled his body so that Potter’s line of sight was blocked, and then regretted it when Potter acted on his own. Letting Potter copy him would have been better than the slurping noises that resulted.

            His mother kept up a flood of light, effortless small talk. Potter mostly grunted in response. He jumped when the house-elves Apparated in, and he thanked them much more than he should. Draco was getting tired of house-elf tears in his dishes.

            “Stop it, Potter,” he snapped the third time that happened, when the ancient elf he’d thanked nearly dropped the platter of quail. “You should know that they don’t really like to be thanked, no matter what your Mudblood friend may have said.”

            Potter turned towards him even as his mother hissed a warning against rudeness. Draco leaned forwards across the table, more than eager to begin a blazing row. He hated this forced, unnatural quietness between them. They were meant to be fighting, and the price of presenting a respectable face to the world was that Draco burned with unused aggression when he got home and saw his “husband.”

            But though Potter’s eyes flashed once, he turned his head away in the next second and answered Narcissa’s question about his Auror work with a few simple words. Draco blinked, then settled back in his chair and studied Potter more closely. There were other things to learn about him than his bad manners if he could ignore a provocation like that.

            What he noticed more than anything else, after watching for a bit, was how wary Potter was. Coiled tension brimmed in his muscles, his shoulders, his gut. He smiled with his lips alone, as if he had forgotten how to involve his eyes. He kept his gaze on everyone’s hands without seeming to notice that he did so.

            Draco tilted his head to the side. Paranoia made sense for an Auror, but he had dined with them before and hadn’t noticed this level. Did it come from a youth spent in war, as well, which most of the Aurors hadn’t possessed?

            “Please tell me.”

            And while he watched, his mother had started an intense, low-voiced conversation with Potter that was more important than the rest. Potter squinted at her, then turned his head decisively back and forth. He put out one hand as though he would push back from the table and stand.

            Draco’s mother covered it with one of hers. Draco smiled as Potter stared at it. It was hard for someone to resist Narcissa’s personal touch, and stronger men than Potter had resumed their meals or agreed to dance rather than storming out of the room at a simple brush of her fingers.

            But Potter didn’t sit back down. He answered her, though, voice weary and warm. “Thank you, Narcissa, nothing, really. I’m just not comfortable here, and it has nothing to do with your hospitality.” He turned his head to glance at Draco. “I think your son would agree with me. I don’t belong here. Changing my rooms or increasing the amount of food I eat or getting me a different house-elf won’t solve that.”

            Draco surged to his feet. Potter whipped towards him, one hand falling to his wand. Draco forced himself to breathe and remain still for a moment.

            And to think about why Potter’s words had roused him. Why should he care if Potter was uncomfortable? He did agree, in fact, that the changes his mother had likely proposed would give Potter no real understanding of their blood or family.

            But the wards and the understanding they wrote in his bones, as the head of the Malfoy family, said that Potter was wrong. He belonged here. And Draco would show him so.

            “Follow me,” he snapped at Potter, and strode across to the far door. Potter hesitated, then went after him. His mother, knowing good sense when she saw it, remained at the table. His father hadn’t bothered to attend this dinner.

            “Going to duel me?” Potter’s voice was low when he caught Draco up in the entrance hall.

            Draco didn’t bother to look over his shoulder. “Can’t duel each other with the marriage bond involved,” he said, and flung open one of the doors that led into the gardens. “Come with me if you want to see why you belong here.”

            Potter waited inside for a long moment, but in the end, Draco heard him succumb to curiosity and come out. Draco smiled as he listened to the pad-crunch of Potter’s footsteps in the soft, wet grass.

            He would show the officious Auror, the Ministry’s darling, the public’s pet, that he could not sneer at the Malfoy family. They were greater than he could ever understand.

            And he was part of them now, whether he liked it or not.

*

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The Marriage of True Minds