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The Curse	By : Samaelthekind Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 2828 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: JK Rowling's Harry Potter series and its associated works and characters are not mine, and I do not profit from their use!

Chapter List
- 1-The Curse
- 2-Part 2
- 3-Part 3
- 4-Part 4
- 5-Part 5
- 6-Part 6
- 7-Part 7
- 5
- 6
- 7
The Curse (Part 6 of 7) by Samayel

Draco walked into the old church with the limp bundle across his shoulder weighing him down, saw Granger laying out components in the corner and marched over, only to show surprising gentleness when he deposited a blanket wrapped Potter onto the unused altar. Harry was unconscious and breathing softly in slumber, and Hermione looked at her long missing friend for the first time in years and muffled a cry.

"God! Look at him! He looks like half starved." She came closer to the altar, leaving her tools and books behind, pushing the blankets aside and getting a closer look at Harry's sleeping form. "Ugh! You pig! He's bruised everywhere! What did you do to him?"

Draco shrugged mildly and sighed. "What do you think? You said it would take three days for you to get things ready for this. How do you think I kept him distracted that long? Whatever part of him would normally respond to empathy from someone else makes him meaner than an enraged bulldog now. Even I wouldn't want to take him on with a fair warning or an honest expression of concern! So to keep him content and in the dark about what we were up to...I spent the last three days hate-fucking his brains out between trips to the mansion for a couple of helpful items. About an hour ago I put him through as much as I could manage...then while he was half dazed, I Stunned him completely by surprise, dosed him with a powerful sleeping draught and got these around his hands."

Draco pointed to the chain linked bracelets on Harry's wrists. They looked deceptively fine in make and impossibly slender and delicate in design...but were in fact as hard as the finest steel and could have held against an attempt by a troll to snap them.

"YOU HAVE A SET OF...!!!" Hermione's outraged voice rang through the old church before Draco's upraised hand momentarily silenced her.

"Yes...they were in the estate vault. And yes...I know exactly how incredibly illegal it is to have a set of cuffs that block the ability to use magic completely. Stop being judgmental and try to remember that, if I didn't have those cuffs, we'd never be able to hold him still long enough to cast anything at him...much less finish a spell you said would take time! When the spell comes off of him and the potion wears out we're not going to be able to hide anything from him...and take it from me...he might look skinny and small...but his punches are like being hit by a small lorry with a nice ass. I thought these might improve our chance of success."

Hermione bit her lip, torn between disapproval and acceptance. It was strange to see her friend looking so different than she remembered him. The last time she'd seen his face, he'd only just been discharged from St. Mungo's after demanding to be let out. Harry had made his way to Grimmaud Place and seemed uninterested in setting foot out the doors of it ever again. Hermione had attended Ron's funeral and had seen no sign of Harry. Not a card or a letter, not a flower or any small symbol of interest.

She'd lied to the Weasley's...explaining on Harry's behalf that he wasn't yet well enough to make it out of the house on his own. When it was over she'd gone there herself, still warded though it was, because she was one of the few who had permission to cross the wards.

The loss of Ron was still fresh and aching in her, and the funeral had made it a raw wound and a terrible reality. She'd confronted Harry with anger at first, and he'd seemed downright indifferent, curled in a couch next to a pile of books, looking like he'd slept in his clothes after leaving the hospital.

It was when she'd changed tack after venting her anger...when she'd tried to ask if he was really alright...if he needed help...then it had all gone horribly wrong. Harry had shrunk into that couch like he was being kicked in the gut, curled into himself and could barely speak. When she came close and put a hand to his head...to show with a touch that she cared...Harry had exploded outwards, punching and kicking and screaming epithets.

The things he'd said were spectacularly hurtful, far more so than the ineffectual blows. They were the kinds of things only someone close to you, someone who knew your every doubt or fear, could have said, knowing exactly how much they'd hurt. Bruised and shocked, she'd stormed out of Grimmaud Place with only a pair of upraised fingers and the words "Piss off then, you absolute, fucking cunt!" as a farewell between her and her fellow survivor.

Now here they were, years later. Her life had become a hermit's existence, with scholarship taking the place of the brief time she'd spent wrestling over too much drink. Harry had spent all that time lost to them...vanished out into the streets where he wouldn't be recognized, as far from the Wizard community as he could get and still be among humans in England. Even changed by self inflicted indulgence and near starvation...it was still Harry. She could push away that shock of cheaply dyed hair and see the faded scar above his brows.

She looked over at Draco, and for the first time it dawned on her that she was looking at an expression on his face that she'd never seen, or even imagined seeing. He looked sad. Genuinely, deeply sad...and tired almost past the point of staying upright.

"He'll have to be awake for it, won't he? You're sure there's no other way?" Draco sounded as tired as he looked. There was an air of defeat in his voice. Mostly, he sounded afraid, and damned uncomfortable with it.

"Yeah. This is a long shot at best. I know what you said, but I had no idea he would look this rough. I don't even know if he can take it. Draco...it might be too late no matter what we do. I told you what you needed to do...what this spell will take. Are you sure you can do this?"

"I don't have a choice, do I? Even if I'm not ready, we won't be able to pull off this stunt twice. Once that potion wears off and he wakes up...I'll never catch him unawares again. We either get this right...or he'll run off somewhere until he dies. Or, worst case, we kill him trying to cure him. I don't deal in rosy imaginings, Granger. I always thought I liked ugly realities...I may have kidded myself, but at least I'm used to them, even if I hate this one."

"Merlin help us." Hermione exhaled. "We must be insane to even attempt this. The theory is sound, but if I'm wrong, he's doomed." She felt panic taking hold. What if this was for nothing? An incantation wrong, a sentiment not strong enough...or a body not healthy enough to endure indescribably agony. Any of these things could leave them with a dead body on their hands instead of just a severely damaged person in need of immediate treatment at St. Mungo's. It could all fall apart too easy...too much left to chance.

"I...I can't...can't do this. There...St. Mungo's maybe...they could...we..." She knew she was babbling and gasping at straws but she couldn't stop herself. Then a pair of hands grabbed her sweater and jerked her almost off her feet.

"GRANGER! DO NOT...I repeat...do not fall apart on me now! You know what you can't handle? You can't handle that this will hurt him. You can't handle that this might fail. This will be ugly, and hateful and every part of it will make us wish we'd been somewhere else, doing something less horrid than this! You know what made this possible? I did! It's happening because I can lie to someone's face, because I can cheat behind their back, because I can hurt them if it needs to be done, because I'll break laws, bend rules and finish what I start to get what I want!

Well...I'm not lying now...if you don't get it together and do your part to make this happen...I'll kill him myself rather than leave him like this! What he'll go through will be worse than hell! He's already dead either way...so we do this....and we hope its enough! Heroism didn't get us here...except for him...I got us here. Only ruthlessness will get him out of this...and I...I...am...ruthless!"

The hands loosened and Hermione slid back to her own feet, stunned into silence by Draco's sudden intensity and certainty. It was all an act...the preening and posing, the condescension and sneers. Under it all was a survivor whose strengths were all saved for those precious, terrible moments when it mattered most. In his certainty she found her own...and pushed the hands away.

"On your head be it. I...I can do it...when I start chanting...break the spells...you already know what to do when he comes to." She walked away breathing deeply, trying to focus her mind for the ritual. Despite all she'd ever thought of Draco Malfoy, against all odds, he was right and she knew it. "Hang him over the cross...that's where we found him when we broke in here back then."

Draco found an old chair and hitched Potter over his shoulders, clambering up and pushing the manacled arms over the top of the old cross...then leaned against his recently unlimbered burden and sighed. He muttered, "Ever the fucking martyr, aren't you, Harry. How come I only ever get to be the villain, eh?"

The spell was a spell of reversal, performed in the same ancient style as the one that had cursed Harry years before. That spell had been built on hate, fueled by pain and suffering, locked into place with total contempt for another human being's life. For this to work, it had to be the undoing of all that had happened before, it had to be the opposite in every meaningful respect, and yet a bright mirror image of a dark moment. The same place, but perfectly opposite circumstances.

Hermione lit the candles one by one, then opened the small book in which she'd hand penned the appropriate words. A censer of herbs had been prepared at home...and these too she set to smolder, letting the scented smoke waft through the old building. Then came the words she had written herself, a chant that would start a process, but couldn't hope to finish it without a proper catalyst. She began the intonations, hoping her shaky voice would hold out long enough for this to work. The rest...was in the hands of Harry...and Draco.

Draco heard the first words of the chant beginning, and he knew that time was up. There was no time left for anything but waking Harry and letting the chips fall where they may. A hasty spell and the potion and Stunner wore off instantly...with Harry's head promptly bobbing upright as he returned to consciousness, eyes wide open and slightly blurry.

"Son-of-a...never...trusted you...fuggin' bastard! Wha...what did you...do?" The green eyes suddenly snapped sharp and clear when Harry tried to make use of his wandless magic and realized that something blocked his abilities. In seconds the curse would take hold again when he sensed no longer concealed concern for his well-being...and Malfoy knew these were the last words Harry would ever consciously hear him say.

"I told you I could hurt you in ways that no one else had ever dreamed of, didn't I, Harry? Looks like I didn't lie to lie to you about that...and I'm not lying about this: I love you, Harry. Just try to stay alive long enough to remember that." Standing on the chair, Draco surged forward, pinning Harry's body to the old cross, face buried in Harry's neck while he held the slender man tight against the wooden construct.

Harry was too gobsmacked to say anything at first, blinking in shock just before the first of the pain hit like a tidal wave. Then there was no time or way to say anything intelligible. All around him he could feel it hemming in...very real, very genuine, and very terrifying. That was Hermione's voice in the background, and the man who'd been using him as a sextoy for the past months was muttering things about hurt and love that he could barely hear into his ears. The presence of their fear for him, the love, their concern and need for his wellness was choking...and the pain started to well up inside like a volcano, burning inside until nothing within him was free from scorching pain.

He couldn't form proper words, only screams, and he could taste the copper tang of blood in his throat when he grew hoarse from shrieking. He pulled and flexed with all his might, until the muscles of his arms twanged like cables and he barely felt the shoulders pop from the sockets through the haze of pain. It seemed endless, a torment that wouldn't stop even though he gibbered and flopped and pissed himself while weeping and incoherently praying for death to take him so that this feeling could just end.

Then, mercifully, something deep inside his being was struck like a chord, and just as he was sure that there was no sanity left in him there was a moment of absolute and wonderful peace. A split second where the agony in his spirit could be felt fleeing away and all that was left were the sorenesses and pains of his flesh. Then darkness slid over him like a blanket, and Harry sighed and fell into the darkness with nothing but gratitude for the way it stole away his battered senses.

Draco had latched hold as the chant got underway and had gotten the worst of the screams only an inch or two from his ear...as well as a crazed bite to his clothed shoulder that ached in the extreme, but at least it had distracted him from the fact that his eardrums felt punctured. He'd listened to the cries of people in throes of pain and pleasure before...but these were not like those sounds at all. These were the cries of a wounded animal, tearing at the flesh that moored it to a trap. If Harry had been free to do so, he'd have chewed a limb off to get away from them.

Draco had been right to immobilize Harry the way he had...and he knew it when the first terrible screams had welled up and burst forth. They didn't stop at all, and he could barely hear the shrill chant of a terrified Hermione in the background over the noise. He knew the spell wasn't enough...it was time for his part.

He never actually said another word. It wasn't a thing that could easily be said. Words would have cheapened it, made it hollow and worthless for this. It was something that had to be felt. It had to be thought...experienced...witnessed in silence and recognized. It was the hardest thing he had ever imagined doing, and it didn't come naturally to him. It was alien and frightening...and letting it just well up and take over was almost more than he could manage in his first few tries. But he could tell it was working by the way that Harry's screams began to crescendo, by the desperate way his charge struggled against him, and by the way it made his own eyes tear up beyond his control.

Control. That was Draco's sacrifice. He abandoned it entirely at last, even hating himself at that last second before he collapsed into Harry and just wept into the shock of violet hair in his face. Every stress he'd ever carried, every pride he'd ever borne like a standard, and every fear he'd ever feigned indifference to flooded up and out of him. Again and again he pushed thoughts of Harry into the forefront of his mind, forcing himself to confront a desire to let his own guard down and let someone be a part of his life as an equal. Love. Selfless, decent, gentle, miraculous love. The only thing in thousands of years of human history to defy the bitter cruelties of human nature. The great balancing force that separated man from beast. It wasn't something that control could touch...it was a thing that control could only obstruct.

Unobstructed it came, and it cut like a two edged sword. Draco felt it when it came, when Harry fell limp like a puppet whose strings had been cut, when the screams stopped and only soft breaths were against his ear. Something enormous and fluttering and powerful, like some vast invisible bird, brushed against them...and then there was silence. Absolute and utter silence in that desolate place. Draco pulled away, mopped the tears from his face, and pulled Harry up from the cross and carried him over to where Hermione sat in stunned silence. He laid Harry gently on the floor in front of Hermione, released the cuffs and tucked them into his coat, and stood back up.

"Is it...is he...?" Hermione looked uncertain and half scared to death of what the answers might be.

"He's alive...and breathing. I think he's got dislocated shoulders. Also...he may have bitten his tongue...as well as my shoulder. I'm wet...I think I'm bleeding...or it could be his...I don't know. Just...take him. Go. St. Mungo's is waiting." He felt dizzy enough to fall over...and only the fact that he hadn't had anything in his stomach was keeping him from vomiting. Mostly he just wanted to go home...back to his flat...back to some semblance of peace and quiet. His ears were ringing from the screams. He wanted silence and started to turn around and stagger toward the exit.

"Malfoy! Wait...I...what you did..." Hermione's voice broke off.

Draco kept walking and just waved a hand behind him as he stumbled away. "NO! Don't you even tell him! I just want to be left alone. You did enough by getting this done. The rest is up to St. Mungo's." He didn't have the strength to look back. She'd seen it all...or at least enough. She'd seen him weep without any shame left in him. There was nothing to talk about, nothing to hide, but nothing to add that wouldn't bring it all back to life. He really just wanted to forget.

Without another word between them he walked out of the old church and wandered the streets of London disheveled and sore until he found his way home. He barely had the wits about him to ward his bedraggled self against the prying eyes of muggles on the streets. Draco finally lurched in the door of his flat, pulled the cork from a bottle of wine, collapsed into a chair that still stunk faintly of Potter's sweat and smoke, and quietly drank himself to sleep.

TBC
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The Curse