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Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3831 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Five--The Twisted Truth

            "You can't be sure," Draco said. He was almost stuttering, and Harry saw the state of his knuckles when he looked down. Draco's hands were tight enough to bring blood if he kept driving his nails into his skin that way. "You can't be sure that she really is. It makes sense, but it also makes sense for us to look in every direction and under every bed for twisted, since we've spent so much time hunting them."

            Harry nodded without looking away from him. He felt the immense sorrow and sympathy at the back of his mind, which he wasn't calling pity only because Draco would kill him if he thought Harry felt that way. But he wouldn't let Draco back away from this, or from him because Harry had been the one to tell him. He could have all the time he needed to deal with it, of course. That was important.

            "There are other explanations," Draco said, pacing in a circle. Harry was starting to wish he had found some other way of breaking the news, at least, but he'd simply blurted it out when the idea fully formed in his mind. "She could have had some disease. Some enemy could have threatened them, and they could have used the mirror and necklace as protection from that. No wonder she was pissed when we shattered them."

            Harry waited until he was sure he wouldn't interrupt, and then cleared his throat gently. When Draco whirled on him, he whispered, "And what theory makes hiding the natural history book make sense?"

            Draco all but snarled at him.

            "I only want you to think about this," Harry said, in a much slower and calmer voice than he really wanted to use when he saw how much Draco was suffering. But yelling at him, even out of concern, would upset him more right now. "The natural history book has those passages about wizards mimicking natural magical creatures' gifts and ways to defend against them. That's most of what the book is about, in fact. Yes, they could have an enemy who threatened them with Dementors or Lethifolds. But that wouldn't explain the mirror or the necklace, would it?"

            After a moment, Draco reluctantly shook his head. He had been through the same training Harry had, Harry thought, watching him with his chest aching. He knew as well as Harry did that few indirect defenses worked against Dark magical creatures, especially ones like the two species that Harry had named. A Dementor wouldn't be frightened of its reflection; only a Patronus Charm could fend it off. And a Lethifold was the same way.

            Draco finally sat down on the bed, raking his fingers through his hair. "I don't know what to do if it's true," he mumbled, not looking at Harry.

            And that was the heart of it, Harry thought, the reason he had resisted so long. He moved over and put his hand on Draco's shoulder, rolling it back and forth until Draco tilted his head back and blinked at him.

            "You're acting as though I'm going to abandon you," Harry whispered to him. "I'm not, you know. I'll never back away as long as there's something I can do. I don't know if we can keep your mother from becoming a twisted, especially since we destroyed the defenses that seem to have done something against it, but I'm going to try as hard as I can to find some way out of this for you."

            Draco gave him a rictus grin in response. "How can we even help her?" he asked. "She's been my enemy for years. She hired someone to have me killed." Then he bowed his head, and it dangled on his neck. "She's forgotten all about me."

            Harry stood with his hands on Draco's shoulders, until Draco's breathing smoothed and calmed, and he thought the chances were good that Draco was paying attention to him. Then he said, "We're going about this the way we would the hunt with any other twisted. First we have to figure out what her flaw is."

            "But every other time, we've had some idea," Draco muttered, looking aside. "Except for Alto."

            "And with Morningstar," Harry pointed out. "Her flaw was the kind that we couldn't fight even when we knew about." He flinched a little. He certainly hoped that Narcissa Malfoy's flaw didn't include the power to erase memories.

            "All right, so other times we've hunted twisted, we haven't known what their flaws were," Draco said, tugging his hair. Harry reached up and took his hand, holding it gently, so that Draco wouldn't hurt himself. Draco gave him a single dark look that told Harry he recognized the origin of what Harry was doing, but then he leaned back and snorted, accepting the restraint. "That doesn't mean it'll be easier this time."

            "No, it doesn't," Harry agreed. "But we're united, and they don't know about you. That's actually a real advantage, if you think of it." He grimaced and pushed ahead, ignoring the incredulous look Draco gave him. "It is. Yes, this isn't ideal, Draco, and I don't think any of it will be. But although they know that I came back to hammer on my wards, they don't know who my partner is. They don't know that you have intimate knowledge of their characters."

            "I used to know who they were." Draco shook his head, refusing to be comforted. "But we were separated for seven years, and I had no idea about the necklace and the mirror. What can I tell you?"

            "A lot." Gently, Harry lifted Draco's chin with two fingers and made Draco meet his eyes. "For example, would Lucius stand by her no matter what, or would he have some sort of contingency plan where he would kill her if she went insane?"

            Draco blinked and flinched at the same time, but answered. "He would stand by her no matter what. He would only kill her if she was going to kill him and he really believed she was. Her just threatening to do it wouldn't convince him." He hesitated, then added, "Or if he really believed that she was going to damage the Malfoy fortune and line."

            "He doesn't seem convinced of that yet," Harry said quietly. "Since he was going to do some sort of magic with the mirror shards to defend against me, and he talked with her and they agreed on that before he came into the study where you were hiding."

            Draco nodded in silence, observing Harry. When Harry just looked back, not knowing what he was waiting for, Draco added, "So--what's the next step? Convince me that you can find out."

            Harry nodded. "Well, think about it. Not many more spells are actually deflected by a mirror. They can be reflected. But your enemy just hurls another curse in the next instant. And we already discussed how few magical creatures can be handled by indirect defenses, instead of a direct spell that works on them."

            Draco narrowed his eyes to slits. "You have some idea already, don't you?"

            Harry swallowed. "Yeah, I do." He paused, wondering if Draco wanted him to say it or had already arrived at the conclusion himself, but he said nothing, and his stare was as potent as a spell, and Harry reluctantly continued. "I think, with the mirrors themselves and the snakes on the necklace, that her flaw has something to do with a basilisk."

            Draco closed his eyes and bowed his head again. Harry rubbed his shoulders in silence, letting him do all the grieving he needed for his mother. Or perhaps for the potentiality lost with his mother, the relationship he perhaps could have recovered if she wasn't twisted.

            Then Draco looked up, and his eyes were wild and not yet accepting. "You could only be thinking of that because of your experience with basilisks during our second year of school. What if you're wrong?"

            "I could be thinking it because of that," Harry agreed, slowly, inclining his head. "But I really don't think that's it."

            "But you can't be sure." Draco climbed to his feet under his hands and pointed one finger at him. "So you might be mistaking the symptoms for something else, and when we go to face my mother, there's a chance that we might die from her flaw. I want you to be sure before we try to do something about her. I want you to bring me proof."

            Harry waited a few seconds, and Draco's hand wavered and started to fall. Then Harry asked, as gently as he could, "And are you really sure that she doesn't have some connection to a basilisk or are you deciding that she doesn't because it would make you feel better?"

            Draco sagged. Harry grabbed him under the arms and made sure that he sat on the bed instead of the floor. Draco sat there with his head bent down almost onto his knees, breathing harshly. Harry crouched beside him and clutched his hands until Draco stirred enough that Harry thought he was paying attention.

            "I don't know for sure," Harry said quietly. "I'll do what I can to find out. There are--things I might be able to do that no one else could."

            Draco stared at him blankly for a second, and then nodded. "Because you're a Parselmouth?"

            Harry inclined his head. "Of course, no test may prove it for certain, but it would be interesting to find out if she understood what I was saying if I spoke Parseltongue to her, at least."

            A faint, ghastly smile passed across Draco's lips, and he was obviously picking up words in his head, turning them around and waiting for some way to put them in order. He finally offered, "I remember that my mother, some time after the war, expressed an interest in breeding magical snakes."

            "Thank you," Harry whispered, brushing a kiss over Draco's knuckles and standing up. "I know that cost a lot for you to say."

            Draco leaned his head on Harry's shoulder, and made a short, harsh sound. It might have been a laugh, it might have been a sob, it might have been a cough. Harry sat there and let him rest, stroking his hair.

            If his partner could support him when Harry was drooping with grief over Lionel, surely Harry could do the same for him when he was grieving his mother, or what his mother might become. A year ago, Harry wouldn't have believed it. He would have thought that all his ability to be compassionate for someone else's grief had died with Lionel.

            But now he knew he hadn't. Because Draco was more than his grief or loss. Draco was his life.

*

            "You don't think I should come with you."

            Draco spoke the words flatly, and hated the way his voice shook. He promptly slammed his lips shut and stared at Harry, daring him to comment.

            Harry kept his head bowed, working over a parchment that he'd covered with drawings of snakes that morning. Draco didn't consider them to be very good drawings of snakes, and had added some of his own, including the one from the Slytherin crest. Harry had explained that he could usually only speak Parseltongue when he concentrated on a snake, and getting there and being unable to do it was not in the plan.

            "I don't think you should," Harry said, when he, presumably, felt the deep drill holes from Draco's stare enough to realize that Draco wasn't letting him escape without saying something.

            "Why not?" Draco turned and walked away from the table with the parchment spread on it to stand in the doorway of the bedroom, staring down the corridor they thought they'd fully swept for Dark spells. The dull, bloody letters of Ernhardt's wards glowed as Draco watched them.

            "Because you can't speak Parseltongue," Harry said. There was a long silence during which Draco could practically hear Harry's lungs inflating. He wished Harry would speak. Nothing hurt as much as this waiting. "And because you're too involved. The way Rudie was with the search for Macgeorge."

            Draco turned and stared at him. That particular reason wasn't one he had expected Harry to offer. "But that worked out in the end."

            "When no one could have known it would." Harry raised his eyebrows. "Yes, I understand that you want to come, and I understand that you would probably be fine. But." He licked his lips. "I'm still seeing you fall out that window whenever I think about us escaping the other day."

            "Technically, that was my father's fault, not my mother's," Draco muttered, but he subsided at the look Harry gave him. How many times had he wanted Harry to stay out of trouble, to stay with him? And he had been angry when Harry insisted on going off and acting on his own anyway.

            At least Harry was telling him straight-out this time what he wanted to happen, and the way he expected things to work out.

            Which doesn't mean that they'll work out that way, Draco thought, his fingers working for a moment in the folds of his shirt.

            "Please, stay here?" Harry whispered. "For me?" He followed Draco's gaze down the corridor for a second, and nodded. "If you want to keep the door closed the entire time so that the letters don't influence you, that would be fine with me. I just--I want you safe more than I want anything else."

            Draco sighed. The wounds on his back ached when he shifted. So perhaps Harry was right, and he belonged flat on his stomach in a bed for a while longer. He swallowed and reached out to rest his hands on Harry's shoulders. "If you don't come back whole after that little speech you made me, then I'm never, ever forgiving you," he whispered.

            Harry smiled and kissed him on the forehead, in the exact place Draco's lightning bolt scar would be if he had one. "That's fair. But I promise, I'm going to come back as whole as I can." He rested one hand beneath Draco's chin, not forcing Draco to look at him, but simply stroking the soft stubble there. "I'll come back."

            With that reassurance, Draco thought as he watched Harry head towards the front of the house, he had to be content.

*

            Harry appeared again outside the Manor, and spent a moment listening. There was a kind of ward that would cause an alarm to ring elsewhere the minute someone wanted appeared near it. Harry wouldn't have discounted the possibility that Lucius and Narcissa would have put up such a ward and connected it to the Ministry. The Aurors had probably put them near Ron and Hermione's house, Ginny's place, and Harry's and Draco's homes.

            But the ward couldn't alert the people on the other end without making a distinctive, thin ringing noise, and Harry didn't hear it. He smiled and strode forwards. It seemed the Malfoys preferred to handle their problems themselves.

            Or maybe they were afraid of what Aurors would find, if they came to the Manor and close to Narcissa Malfoy.

            Harry reached into his pocket, making sure that his parchment with the images of the snakes was there. It bent comfortingly beneath his fingers. Sometimes he had been able to speak Parseltongue by doing nothing more than imagining a serpent, but he didn't want to take a chance this time.

            Particularly in light of all the other chances he had been taking lately.

            He halted a good distance from the wards, wrapped a Disillusionment Charm around himself, and then stepped into sight of the fence. Immediately, he felt the ragged edges of the hole he had torn in the wards.

            Harry froze. Even if Lucius was hurt more than Harry had thought he was by Harry's spell yesterday and Narcissa was preoccupied with attending to him, they still should have repaired the hole. While it lasted, anyone could come through it into the Manor property.

            "Mr. Potter. I've been looking forward to the chance to meet you."

            Harry turned slowly towards the voice, being careful to move in a way that wouldn't make the Disillusionment Charm ripple too fast over its surroundings and make it visible. Although, from the certainty in the voice, that wasn't going to matter.

            A tall, red-haired wizard bowed from his place next to the tree where he hadn't been a moment before. His hair wasn't the color of the Weasleys', instead having a strange, metallic shimmer, as if made of ruby wires. He had black eyes and a firm chin and white teeth and white robes. They bore a crossed symbol on the left side, which Harry made out as a wand and a tooth when he concentrated. He had never seen that particular crest before. A wizarding dentist?

            "Why don't you take off the Disillusionment Charm?" the wizard asked softly. "We will deal better with each other if we can see face to face and eye to eye."

            Harry felt a sharp tickle at the bottom of his mind, the same place that the Imperius Curse affected when someone was foolish enough to cast it at him. He stiffened and shook his head before he remembered that the wizard shouldn't be able to see him.

            But that hadn't stopped him so far.

            "Who are you?" Harry asked, wanting to see the stranger's reaction to a voice emerging out of thin air. "And why do you think that I need my teeth checked?"

            The wizard laughed quietly, looking straight at the point Harry's voice had emerged from. He really had unnatural eyes, Harry thought, too bright and wide. He wondered if perhaps the man had ingested an illegal potion. There were a couple that might cause that reaction.

            "This symbol?" The wizard's fingers rubbed the crest. "That was a joke of the wizards who first established my Corps. They saw us as removing little problems and aches from within the Ministry itself, like someone yanking broken teeth." He paused, then added, "And little though it profits you to have my name, I will give it to you. Edward Montgomery."

            Harry nodded. He had suspected it was the wizard Jenkins had warned them about, the one who had approved Elder's transfer to the Socrates Corps, but he hadn't known for sure.

            "You aren't unfamiliar with it," Montgomery said, his fingers rubbing up and down his wand now. "I wondered. Well, are you going to remove the charm so we can talk to each other like adult wizards?"

            The pulsing in the back of Harry's mind was stronger this time. He grinned without meaning it. Of course, Montgomery could probably figure out that he didn't mean it without the extra help of hearing Harry's thoughts.

            "I don't mean to disillusion you, sir," Harry whispered, "but you as might as well know that I'm immune to the Imperius Curse."

            For a brief moment, something flashed across Montgomery's face. It was buried again in seconds, and Harry reckoned there were a lot of people who wouldn't have recognized it.

            But he had. It was the same sort of rage he had seen on Voldemort's face, on Snape's, on Quirrell's, when something didn't go according to plan. It seemed this man was in much better control of himself than Voldemort or Quirrell ever had been, and he had to be powerful if he could cast the Imperius Curse nonverbally and without visible wand movements.

            But that didn't matter, not if he had that temper. A temper Harry might be able to push him into losing. He'd had several people tell him that was the only talent he really possessed, after all.

            "Very well," Montgomery said. "You must know that I cannot allow you to go on tormenting the good Malfoys."

            Harry held back his snort. "And what about their forsaking their son, their only blood heir, was good?" he asked.

            Montgomery's head turned just slightly, to look back over his shoulder, where he probably thought Draco was creeping up.

            It was an unexpected advantage, but one that Harry had no intention of losing. He immediately struck, so fast that he surprised even himself, a one-two jab of a curse that aimed directly at Montgomery's wand, to break it.

            Montgomery spun, his cloak flaring out, and then flaring with blue light as it absorbed the curse. Harry grunted. That was another advantage that he hadn't looked for, but this time, all to the enemy.

            Montgomery came around swinging, and he didn't seem at all discomfited by the Disillusionment Charm, if the Shattering Charm he sent at Harry's kneecaps was any indication.

            Harry leaped that one, and struck out again as he landed, heavily enough that Montgomery staggered to the side and grunted. The Blasting Curse hadn't hit as solidly as Harry had wanted, probably because Montgomery was warned about his opponent's abilities and already moving, but at least something had touched down.

            Montgomery faced him without moving for a minute, his wand twitching in his hand as though stirred by the passing breeze. Harry held his breath. Was Montgomery calling for help? Harry could take him, he was sure, but two or three other wizards, and on the very edge of the Malfoy wards--

            Then he recognized the movements of the wand and the spell they were meant to perform, and leaped to the side.

            He very nearly escaped. The silver cage above him came down hard, the bars jarring Harry as he slammed into them. Harry stepped back and hit the bars with the same flare of fury he had used against the Malfoy wards--or as near to it as he could get when he didn't have the sight of Draco injured to set him off.

            The bars held. Harry grimaced. He had to admit he had known they would. This was a cage of the kind used to hold enraged werewolves, and the silver material of the bars wasn't its main weapon. It was strong, it was solid, and it prevented anyone from using magic on it from the inside.

            Harry turned his head slightly towards Montgomery. He was standing in front of Harry and studying him, shaking his head a little. Harry realized that something, probably either the shock of landing in the cage or a spell Montgomery had cast and Harry hadn't felt, had broken his Disillusionment Charm.

            "You aren't much to look at," Montgomery muttered, rolling his eyes. "Not much to have caused the Ministry and the Malfoys so much trouble." He turned his head and raised his voice. "My lord, my lady, I have the nuisance contained."

            There was a ripple in the air, and Lucius and Narcissa stepped through the hole in the wards. Harry sighed in disgust. He hadn't even noticed the ripples that marked their own Disillusionment Charms.

            "Thank you," Lucius said to Montgomery, and went on, talking about terms that Harry didn't bother to listen to. His eyes were on Narcissa, who never looked away from Harry, and kept stroking the scar that wound about her throat, too.

            Harry blinked. The idea that had come to him was silly, perhaps, but what did he have to lose? It wasn't as though he could use any other kind of magic from inside this cage.

            His eyes fixed on the way the scar coiled about Narcissa's neck, he hissed the Parseltongue command for "Come to me."

            And Narcissa screamed.

*

            SP777: Sorry for the cliffhanger! I'm afraid this chapter end is not much better. But you got your extra information!

            Good point about being with Draco. I think Harry recognizes how Draco affects him, and how he's different from Lionel, in his own way.
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Mansions of a Monstrous Dignity