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Bonded Consort	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 33021 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Six--Wedding Preparations
Draco arrived back in his room in time to see soft stars shining through the window. He snorted a little and shook his head. He had left night behind on the other side of the world, in Harry Potter's flat. It was odd to see it here again.
He didn't know if he would be able to sleep any time soon, however. His chest was burning with exhilaration.
Smiling, Draco undid the slightly formal robes he'd worn to see Harry and reached for a more casual set. He had made a major step in convincing Harry to let Draco court him. In the meantime, Draco would start to think about what kinds of information and money and gifts would be appropriate for that courtship.
Someone knocked briskly on the door. Draco turned with a frown. His parents and the house-elves would usually simply appear. "Come in!"
The door swung open, and Dahlia stood framed in it. Draco blinked at her and tried to resist the urge to groan as she swept him a curtsey and moved into the room, looking around with eyes wide with awe, although she'd seen it before.
She wore a set of robes even more formal than she had the night of the ball when Draco had learned about the contract with Harry, and she had little mincing graceful steps, and she had a wrapped box in her hands. Draco finished buttoning his own robes, wondering what in the world she thought she was doing.
"Draco," she whispered. "Your mother mentioned to me that she thought you were reluctant to continue our betrothal." She raised her eyelashes and gave him what she probably thought was a melting glance, but it only contrasted badly in Draco's head with Harry's fiery, direct gaze. "Please accept this gift if I have offended you in any way." She held the box out. The wrapping shimmered a sharp scarlet.
Draco looked directly at the gift and said, "You didn't offend me in any way."
Dahlia seemed not to understand for a second. Then she said slowly, "You refuse my gift?"
"You didn't offend me."
Dahlia pulled her hand back to her side, staring hard at him. Then she said, "Why did your mother think you were reluctant to continue our betrothal?"
"Mothers believe silly things about their children sometimes." Draco smiled at her, still so singing inside from his meeting with Harry that he could find it in himself to be nice to someone he despised. "You wouldn't want to jeopardize our betrothal and insist that I accept a gift when I hadn't offended you, would you?"
Dahlia pushed a shiny strand of red hair behind her ear and said slowly, "No...no." But she still seemed disturbed, and after a moment of pondering, she blurted out, "Why don't you like me?"
Draco paused. He had tried numerous times before to get an opinion or a preference out of Dahlia, and she had never obliged. But perhaps she had been disturbed enough by Narcissa's words to figure out the real problem. Draco didn't like her. He didn't want to marry her.
Perhaps she can make it unnecessary to go behind my parents' backs.
"Because you don't speak up very often," Draco said. "I don't know what you're thinking. I don't know what you like. I don't know what you're really like. I feel like I know more about Lilac than I do you, and I'm not even betrothed to Lilac."
"I like what you like."
"But you don't like the idea of my not marrying you."
Dahlia appeared utterly stumped by this. She stared at him some more, and then looked down at her sleeve, as if she thought wearing a different color of robe or slightly longer lace would make him change his mind about her. Her voice was barely a thread. "I don't."
"See? But ultimately, it is our choice to make. It would be hard to have an impact on family honor, but if your family ended the contract..."
"Why would they? I love you. I want to be with you."
While that declaration was the most feeling he'd got out of Dahlia in all the years he'd known her, even this was oddly blank, Draco thought. Her eyes had a sheen to them, but it was still the sheen of a doll's. She studied Draco as if she assumed that he would rush over and put his arms around her now that she'd expressed an emotion.
"I want a betrothed who can answer me with more conviction than that. And without being prompted."
"I'm the betrothed you have."
If Dahlia had snapped those words, or stamped her foot, or folded her arms, or tossed the gift at him and left, it wouldn't have changed Draco's mind about preferring to bond Harry, but it would have made him respect her more. Instead, she stared at Draco with those eyes, and stood motionless, the gift still clasped in her hand as if she assumed Draco would reach for it in a minute.
"What's the thing you want most in life?"
"To honor the contract. To marry you."
Draco shook his head slowly. "You don't want anything else? We would be married for far longer than you've lived with your family. What do you want out of this marriage, Dahlia? Why do you want to be my wife when I've already told you I don't like you much?"
There was a splintering crack across the sheen in her eyes, so deep that Draco could almost see it. She stared at Draco, and opened her mouth a little. Her eyes were bright with fear that Draco knew would probably be panic in someone else. But Dahlia's emotions were so muted this was the best she could manage.
It's my fault. I influenced her.
You did not, Draco snapped back at the imaginary Harry, and smiled a little at Dahlia. "You don't have an answer. I don't think you've exactly thought about this much, for all that you're telling me this is what you want to do."
For a second, she did seem like she would snap, maybe demand what he wanted when she was telling him her preferences. But then she drew her breath in and straightened up with a slow smile once more. "It's you who haven't thought of what would happen if you breached the contract, Draco. I know it seems like you have, but you haven't really. What's more important than family honor?"
For the first time in eight years, Draco felt something like pity for her. "Happiness. My happiness. What about yours? Are you sure that you would be happy in an arrangement like this?"
Dahlia gave him the fleeting, wounded look of a terrified animal. Draco nodded and started to speak, because he thought he was finally getting through, but Dahlia promptly smiled and straightened up again.
"You haven't thought this through at all," she said. "I know my only happiness can come through marrying you. I've been in love with you since I was seven years old. Maybe you didn't know at the time. Maybe you thought I was just a little girl. But it's time to face that I'm old enough to marry you and nearly old enough to be your wife in truth, Draco. It's time to grow up."
"Time, indeed," Draco said a little sadly, because he knew the last traces of interest in her would probably leave him now, and drew his wand.
Dahlia stood still and gazed at him meltingly, as if she thought utterly trusting him would be enough. Draco moved his wand negligently, and her eyes rolled back in her head as he Obliviated her.
"You came to me to discuss wedding plans," Draco whispered. "As far as you remember and will tell my mother, you found me willing, even eager, to marry you as soon as possible."
Dahlia blinked, came back to herself, and nodded to Draco with a placid face. "I hope that my gift meets with your approval," she said, and set it aside before she walked out the door. Draco sighed. He knew she had the kind of mind that would construct material to fill the blanks, to convince herself she'd had a pleasant time with her betrothed, because she wouldn't allow herself to think otherwise.
He hadn't wanted to use the Memory Charm on her, but what could he do? Even this new surge of personality had only come about at the command of his mother, who would have to be dealt with carefully.
Draco shook his head. He had someone in mind he could barely envision obeying his parents, even if the Potters had still been close to Harry.
The memory of the fire in those green eyes charred his guilt away.
*
Harry sighed and rubbed his eyes. At least he'd managed to cure the ball python, and then the chameleon someone brought in who was off his food, and it had been a simple matter, not even needing Parseltongue, to help repair a lizard's broken leg.
But his scar had been writhing all day, as if the last remnants of Voldemort knew Harry might be close to freedom from him and were going mad.
Tell me what you are thinking.
Harry blinked and glanced at M.H., who had decided he would rather have scraps of beef today than a fuller meal. "What do you mean? You don't usually want to know what I'm thinking unless it's about you." He chopped the beef one more time and wrapped it up gently in the tortilla. When he was tired, this was the most complicated meal he was capable of making.
Tell me what you are thinking.
"I'm tired. And Voldemort's acting up."
Your Malfoy said that this Voldemort does not exist. M.H. twined around his ankles. That it is a lie and the magic is yours.
"But Malfoy has only known me a little while," Harry said, although part of him was frankly stunned that M.H. had said that much in a way that was neither question nor command. "He can't know more than my parents do."
Tell me why they would know you.
"They knew me for ten years as a baby." Harry stomped to the table with his plate, blinking back something hot and furious that felt a lot like tears. It shouldn't, but it did. Normally, he didn't worry that much about his parents and the way they'd rejected him. "They could tell how dangerous I was and what kind of magic I had."
Hatchlings do not always show all their magic, or all their danger.
Harry sat down and stared at M.H. He was sniffing the table leg with his tongue the way he sometimes did when he thought it might have transformed into meat overnight. "What is making you so talkative? You don't care about people like this, normally."
Tell me what I said I wanted when I came to you all those years ago.
It was only two years, but Harry didn't feel the need to argue the point right now. "Someone to praise you and take care of you and keep you company. Someone you could talk to." He ate a few bites, not looking away from M.H.
Tell me what else I said.
Harry scanned his memory, but ended up shaking his head. "I really don't know. That's all I remember."
I said I wanted someone powerful, M.H. once again said, without a demand. Someone who could use his strength to impress other snakes. He wound himself around the clawed foot of the table, moving until almost everything but his head was wrapped up. His eyes glinted at Harry in a way they never had before. You agreed to that, perhaps without much thought. You have not kept that side of the bargain.
"I heal other snakes! That impresses them!"
It is not enough. You do not do it through magic. If you have a chance to become more powerful because your Malfoy thinks you can, you will take it.
Harry swallowed a little more beef, and thought about that. He honestly didn't remember the conversation M.H. was talking about, but he didn't think the bushmaster was making it up. He'd never shown the inclination to do that before.
It would be uncomfortable living with M.H. and continuing to insist that his magic came from Voldemort and was evil. Or saying it was evil, anyway. Draco seemed comfortable with the idea that it came from Voldemort.
Which is bizarre.
Then again, Harry didn't actually know details about what Draco was like. Lily had never said much about him in her letters, James and Sirius even less. All Harry really knew was that he was blond and handsome--that was mostly from Lily--and he was going to marry Dahlia, and his family was the sort that would be offended to find one of them would have a Squib brother-in-law. So Harry had stayed away.
Not that I ever intended anything else.
But whether Draco was the sort to be scared of a dead-and-gone Dark Lord, or to seek someone else out if Dahlia bored him, or cruel, or kind, or proud, or meek, Harry hadn't known. He had to go with the impression in front of him now.
Proud, of course. I suppose I could have guessed that much from him being a Malfoy. Harry ate a little, and smiled a little. But not the others. If he didn't come to make sure I wouldn't attend his wedding, I would have thought he wanted to gape at a Squib.
There was a sharp crack in the center of the kitchen, and Harry started back and dropped beef on the floor. He blinked as he watched Draco stroll towards him. M.H. stayed coiled around the table foot and seemed prone to ignore them both.
"Hello," Draco said, with a faint smile that made Harry flush. He held still as Draco reached out and brushed his hand over the lightning bolt scar. It writhed again, but Draco didn't pull his fingers back. He only looked at it, nodded, and sat down on the other side of the table.
"Should you be leaving to come over here this much? Won't your family miss you?"
"I told them I would spend a few days at my friend Blaise's, and his mother and mine have a cordial hatred. They'll owl me before they Floo me. And my mother thinks I'm sulking about the wedding. She won't be surprised if I don't talk to her for a while."
Harry nodded slowly as he sipped the cup of water in front of him. "So you want to spend a few days...here?"
"Yes. Is that a problem?"
"My couch isn't suited for you to sleep on."
"I can Transfigure it with no problem. Or share your bed."
Harry felt himself flush and flinch at the same time, and M.H. hissed in what Harry knew was amusement. He refused to look away from Draco's knowing eyes, though. "I think you should Transfigure the couch."
"Very well." Draco didn't seem put out. He reached into a pocket of his robe and took out a book that Harry thought looked as if it might crumble like a biscuit. "When you're ready, look at this. It's about what happens with magic won by conquest."
Harry let Draco put the book in the middle of the table and leaned over to look without touching it. It was soft, and green, and old, and when Harry flicked the cover open gingerly, a part of the first page did fall off. Draco waved a hand before Harry could apologize, though. "I actually copied the book in my parents' library. The copy is always inferior to the original. You should still be able to read it, though."
Harry nodded and read his way through the first three paragraphs. They were boring enough that he had to keep his eyes from crossing. They also used enough wizard terminology that he didn't know, he honestly wasn't sure what he was reading.
"So," he finally said, slowly. "It means that when you conquer another wizard and kill them via powerful magic, their magic belongs to you?"
"There are other circumstances. They have to die of a spell they cast at you backfiring, and there have to be no other wizards around who could absorb it themselves, and so on." Draco shrugged. "But yes. There's no ghosts hanging around. Those conquered wizards aren't still alive and able to possess you, either. Voldemort's magic is yours."
Harry closed his eyes. "There's no way this could backfire?"
"What do you mean?"
"If I really let Voldemort out of control the way my parents were afraid of..."
"They should have supported you anyway," Draco snapped, loudly enough to make Harry open his eyes in shock. "They should have done something to contain Voldemort's magic earlier, or block it, if they were that worried he would come back. You don't ask your son to sacrifice everything that he could be, everything he should be, because you're worried about it. That's insane. I think your parents must not have liked you very much in the first place. Or maybe they thought you were too much of a problem to deal with after you conquered Voldemort and shunted you off to the side because of that. I don't know. But it doesn't matter. They did something wrong. You don't have to worry about what they think."
Harry sighed. "I still have to worry about hurting people."
"Not when I'm here. I know a lot more about magic than you do. I could stop you from casting any spells you don't mean to."
Harry felt his muscles relaxing from his fiercely-held tension. "You could, couldn't you?" he murmured in wonder, and Draco smiled at him.
"Let's go into the bedroom," he said. "It looks like the emptiest room, and we'll shrink the furniture so it doesn't get damaged. Then we'll do some magic."
It felt like Harry had been waiting his whole life to hear those words, and to feel the way Draco took his hand.
*
Addiena Safir: Thank you!
Jan: Draco fully intends that Harry should have both magic and Draco's consort status when he comes back to Britain.
Tiddly: Thank you!
SP777: That Harry hasn't is more proof, to him, that he's a Squib. On the other hand, he wouldn't necessarily be able to distinguish Dark magic from Light. He has no training in doing so.
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Bonded Consort