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Loup-garou	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 8099 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Seven—Tilting

            “Harry? Are you there?”

            Hermione’s voice, Harry thought, and he should have predicted that she would come and knock on his door eventually. He had wondered if his revelations to Ron would move him away from his friends forever, but they hadn’t ordered him out of the house yet, so he thought that was a good sign.

            He sat up, rubbing his eyes. He’d lain back on the bed with his eyes shut, trying to decide what he should do about Malfoy, and he had nothing for it but a raging headache and a mouth that tasted as if he’d swallowed a batch of fuzzy paper. “Come in,” he called, remembering just in time to lower the ward that had guarded the door.

            Hermione stepped in and looked at him carefully. Harry looked back, hoping beyond hope that she had come up with some solution to save the day again. He didn’t want to give in to Malfoy’s offer.

            And why not? asked a voice that sounded exactly like Malfoy’s, except that the Mark didn’t burn, so Harry knew it couldn’t really be him speaking in Harry’s head at the moment. What would be so bad about giving him a Mark and evening the scales? If you can’t be free of him anyway, then this is the second-best thing.

            Harry threw the voice from him, so hard that he could almost hear it hitting a far wall. He wasn’t going to give in and listen to it because he would be free of Malfoy. He would find a way to kill him, with Hermione and Ron’s help or without it.

            He tried not to remember what had happened the last time he had tried to kill Malfoy. There was no point in undermining his own confidence.

            “I’ve looked up what I can,” Hermione said quietly. “And from what I can tell, nothing like this has ever happened before.”

            Harry bit his lip to keep from snorting a bitter laugh. What would Hermione say if he told her that he and Malfoy had created magic together?

            Probably that it’s dangerous and Dark, and we need to stop that right now.

            Harry shuddered, less because of the imagined reaction than because he had thought the word “we” about both himself and Malfoy, and asked, “Is there anything remotely similar? Is there anything about the Dark Mark?” There had been a flood of books and articles about the Dark Mark in the years immediately after the war, he remembered, and it seemed likely that Malfoy would have based his fox Mark at least partially on Voldemort’s work. Where else had he got the idea?

            “There aren’t as many books about it here as there are in Britain,” Hermione admitted, sounding as though saying that her new home had imperfect libraries was a sin. “I can owl for some, but they’ll take time to arrive.”

            Time is what I don’t have. But Harry told himself a moment later that that was ridiculous. He thought Malfoy would be content to wait for months if he believed there was a chance of earning Harry’s consent to share and create power at the end of it.

            No, the contest against time was because of Harry’s own brain, which, stupidly, insisted that he had to choose and choose now whether he would accept Malfoy’s offer or build a defense against it. Because the more days that passed, the more he would reason away the objections and come to see the offer as forgivable.

            He nodded to Hermione. “That’s fine. I think it’s our best choice.” He hesitated, then plunged ahead, because if he was left with one tormenting uncertainty, his vulnerability to Malfoy’s offer, he wanted to get another one out of the way. “Have you decided what you think about my magic yet?”

            Hermione lowered her eyes. There was a tense silence. Color came and went on her face; emotions did the same thing. Harry waited, because he didn’t have any idea what she would say, which was why he had asked the question in the first place.

            “I don’t like what you’ve done,” Hermione said, in so neutral a tone that Harry wouldn’t have believed she felt anything at all if not for the evidence on her face. “But—I can’t condemn you only for that. You have the chance to change and continue the rest of your life without using a Dark spell again.”

            “What about if I have to do it to maintain my freedom and keep Malfoy away?” Harry asked. He didn’t want to voice the question, really, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep what probably sounded like a simple promise to her if his life was in danger. “Or if it’s a situation like the one during the war where the Unforgivable Curses are my best option?”

            Hermione squinted hard at him. Harry looked back.

            “You’re exaggerating,” Hermione said softly. “Joking. There aren’t many times that situations like the ones during the war arise. I condoned what we did then only because we were saving more lives than our own.”

            Harry blinked. “You mean…if it saves one life it isn’t right? Would it matter if I was saving someone else, like a victim who had been kidnapped, instead of myself?”

            Hermione’s nostrils flared. “You’re twisting my words,” she said. “I never said anything like that. But yes, Harry, I do think that you need to give up the use of Dark Arts and find another way to accomplish what you want to.”

            “They’re not my favored tools,” Harry said, although he remembered what he had done during his attempts to get away from Malfoy and wondered. “They’re spells that I can use to fight, though, and I’m reluctant to lay them aside.”

            Hermione shook her head. “If we find a way to snap the Mark bond between you and Malfoy, then you won’t need them.”

            Harry looked steadily at her. “You think that there won’t ever be another time in my life when they could defend me?”

            “You can avoid that,” Hermione said. “You could work for the Australian Ministry as something other than an Auror. Or open a shop. Or become an artist.” She ignored Harry’s mutter about how he had no talent at any art that mattered. “The war is over, Harry. Becoming an Auror was another way to continue fighting it, perhaps, but it doesn’t matter now. Let it go. Become innocent again.”

            Harry studied her for a few moments without replying. This time, she seemed to have found a position that suited her. She beamed at him as if it should suit him, too, and only started looking a bit nervous when the silence stretched between them and she realized that he hadn’t agreed.

            “Harry?” she asked.

            “Both you and Ron keep harping on innocence,” Harry said. “Knowing these spells doesn’t make me evil. If anything did, using them would. I don’t know what you think will happen if I do settle down and get myself a different life, and if I’m so lucky that no one ever tries to kill or capture me again. The spells won’t vanish from my mind. Or should I use a Memory Charm to remove the incantations?”

            Hermione turned abruptly away and thumped a hand against the wall. Harry blinked, impressed despite himself. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her take out violence on a defenseless object except during sixth year when she was arguing with Ron so intensively about his relationship with Lavender.

            “I’m doing my best to understand,” she said, staring at him over her shoulder. “But you’re throwing my words back in my face. You’re acting as if I want to cast you out of the house, which I don’t. But you have to let me help you, Harry. It’ll do no good if you poke holes in all the ideas I come up with because they don’t suit your imaginary idea of what someone who helps you should be like.”

            After a moment when the tension between them seemed to shimmer like heat, Harry held up a hand in apology. Hermione hesitated, then sat down on the bed again. Harry waited until he was sure she wasn’t going anywhere before he chose his words.

            “I don’t have a choice about using Dark spells, Hermione, because Malfoy will never stop coming after me even if we break the Mark bond. He might not be able to track me, but he’ll search for me. And if I kill him or defend myself against him, Dark Arts spells are what I’ll have to use. They’re certainly what he’ll use against me,” he added bitterly, thinking of the way that Malfoy had sent the pain of a Cruciatus, or worse, casually through the Mark when they were still in Fox Valley.

            Hermione studied him earnestly. “Do you think that you could put aside the spells after that?” she asked. “If defending yourself against Malfoy is the last thing you’ll ever have to do?”

            “Probably not,” Harry admitted. He hated the way her mouth immediately drooped, but he couldn’t lie to her. “I’m sorry if you feel like I’m throwing your words back in your face,” he told her. “But this is permanent for me. I can’t give up what I learned because it makes someone else uncomfortable.”

            “Dark Arts are a corruption,” Hermione said, sitting up. “It makes me more than uncomfortable. It makes you Dark, Harry.”

            “Surely it depends on what I do with them?” Harry asked. “If I used a Blasting Curse to knock someone off a ledge to his death, is that so much better than killing him with the Killing Curse? But the Blasting Curse is perfectly legal.”

            Hermione clenched her hands. “I’m not engaging in a philosophical debate,” she said. “I’ll find material on the Dark Mark and see if we can break the bond. Then Ron and I can help you emigrate if you don’t want to stay here.”

            Harry nodded slowly. From the note in her voice, she was stretching herself to her utmost for him, and he couldn’t ask for more. “All right. Thanks.”

            “I don’t want you using any more Dark Arts while you stay in the house,” Hermione went on, standing up and turning around to stare at him as though she assumed he would snatch his wand out the moment she wasn’t looking to cast the Imperius Curse. “Ron is right that it could get us arrested.”

            Harry nodded and did his best expression of sincerity. In fact, he didn’t want to get his friends in trouble; he just wanted a way out of this mess, and he wasn’t willing to surrender one of the best weapons so they could be more comfortable.

            “I won’t use them in the house,” he said. All his confrontations with Malfoy would take place away from the house anyway, or else in that strange half-world that the Mark stretching between them created.

            Hermione stabbed him with a glance as though she could hear the ambiguity in his words, but didn’t know what to do about it. Then she turned around, with a snort, and slipped through the door of his bedroom.

            Harry closed it and was left, as he had been before, alone with his thoughts.

            And the decision he had to make.

            Was Marking Malfoy enough compensation for what the bastard had inflicted on him?

            Harry shook his head. No. In the end, even if Malfoy removed the fox Mark and the only one that remained was whatever Mark Harry chose to put on Malfoy’s skin, it was still a connection between them, a link. Harry wanted nothing more than to escape into the distance and never feel Malfoy’s touch again, never hear him speaking in his head again.

            Don’t say that, my Harry. There’s nothing I want more than you, after all.

            Harry stiffened, then forced himself to relax. The answer is no, Malfoy. You claimed to understand why I rebelled against you? Well, understand this. There’s no way that you’re getting anything else from me—not surrender, not attention, not magic. Be satisfied with what you have, and remove the Mark.

            Malfoy laughed in his head, and it sounded half-rueful. That’s not the way things work for me, Harry. I will always want more. I will always be unsatisfied. I will always ask and hunger and devour what I can. It’s sweet of you to want to spare me that, really, but it’s useless. When we create magic, I’ll want more. When I spend time with you, I’ll want more. When you say or do something defiant, it makes me ache.

            Harry felt himself flush. He really didn’t understand how or why Malfoy got turned on being rejected by someone he wanted. Harry was fairly sure that he would take the hint gracefully and go away rather than continually pressing his attentions on someone who didn’t respond to them.

            That’s a lie, Malfoy said lazily. You might be less persistent than I am, but you understand the appeal of having someone who challenges you. In this case, the challenge that you present to me is a little different from the norm, but I still want you, and you still don’t want me to have you. And that’s enough.

            Then surely you’ll get bored the moment you could have me, Harry said, desperate to grab onto an argument that Malfoy might actually listen to. I wouldn’t be a challenge to you forever. I might give in out of simple exhaustion.

            I’ve seen your soul, now. No, you won’t.

            But it doesn’t invalidate the claim that you might get bored of me. Harry held his breath and waited for the response. Malfoy had to know that he was telling the truth, with his access to Harry’s mind through the Mark. And he had to know that Harry wanted this as much for Malfoy as for himself. He didn’t want to become the possession of someone who would be even more thoughtless and cruel than he usually was because of boredom.

            Harry. Harry felt as though a hand had reached out and stroked through his hair, insofar as that was possible with words. I won’t get bored of you. You underestimate both your own interest and your own value. You’re a rare and shining gemstone. I would never want to destroy that quality.

            Harry clenched his teeth. Let me go, Malfoy.

            I never will. Let me have you.

            I never will.

            Then we have an impasse. Malfoy’s voice changed, becoming brisker. That made Harry relax a bit. He didn’t like dealing with Malfoy’s open lust for him. And I’ve suggested a way to break the impasse. Put a Mark on me. I could release the one that you bear if I had your assurance that you wouldn’t run.

            I saw through your ploy, Harry retorted bitterly. Did Malfoy think he was stupid? You only want a link of some kind between us, so that you can make sure you always have a finger in my life. Thanks, but no thanks. Ultimately, I have to choose between my freedom and the magic that you have on offer, and the magic isn’t enough to tempt me. Power never was.

            An oath, then, Malfoy said, undaunted. If you won’t put a Mark on me—which I understand you might have ethical objections about—then promise me not to run away, but to meet with me in a neutral location. You can ward the location if you want so that I can’t simply use spells to overcome you. But meet with me. Talk with me. This is something unprecedented, Harry. You can’t ignore it.

            There it was again, the shiver of temptation in Harry’s gut. Because—as much as pure power for its own sake didn’t tempt him—being near something new and life-changing did, the same way going to Hogwarts when he was eleven had. He certainly had nothing in his life right now that could compare to it, with his career, his position in the Ministry, and his home gone, and his friends possibly drifting away from him.

            But how could he possibly trust that longing for this new thing, when he would have to cooperate with Malfoy to have it?

            The simple answer was that he couldn’t. He would have to continue resisting Malfoy and hope it would be enough.

            It won’t. Malfoy had tracked his thoughts expertly, and responded with a depth of feeling in his voice that Harry hadn’t heard before, because it wasn’t anger or exasperation. You know it won’t. You don’t have anywhere else to go, no close bonds that can sustain you in the face of a claim like mine. It might be different if you did. You could go to those people and they would shelter you and reassure you that you aren’t the monster you paint yourself as.

            I don’t think of myself as a monster, Harry snapped back reflexively.

            Malfoy might not have heard him. You’re a Dark wizard. You claim that title, because you can’t deny reality, but you’re guilty for it—and finally tired of the endless guilt, I think. Help me with the magic, and I think we can use it to create a spell that would show you objective reality. Perhaps working with a Pensive? Or the mirror magic that I’ve already used to such great effect. You could decide what you wanted to do with your life better when your mind isn’t clouded with all these abstract moral judgments about yourself that no one applies with as much force as you.

            I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Harry snapped. He knew that he couldn’t listen, or he would go mad. That had to be true. What Malfoy held out to him was only a shining fruit that concealed the poison within. I’m glad to be the person I am.

            No, you’re not. Either you want to be a Dark wizard free and clear, without apologizing for it, or you want to be pure again. I can help you with either, but you can’t remain in this in-between state for the rest of your life. Nor can we remain at an impasse.

            Harry felt more hunted than he had when Malfoy seized him through the Mark. There’s no way to get away from you, is there?

            No. Malfoy was unabashed. But you can have the connection of your own free will, by making the oath, and then I would release the Mark.

            Why?

            I would have no more need of it. Malfoy sounded puzzled. I can’t control you with it and I can’t find you with it, now that our powers are equal. The only value it has right now is as a fishing line.

            You could still try to seduce me through it.

            I can try to seduce you without it, too. Malfoy laughed, the sound sparking up and down Harry’s mind as though someone had built a ladder of fire out of his thoughts. And I think I prefer the challenge that would come if I gave you the chance to escape and then reeled you back.

            Harry thought about that, but he couldn’t find anything other than honesty in the words. Malfoy was arrogant enough to believe that he could seduce Harry once he removed the Mark, and arrogant enough to believe that Harry wanted to be seduced.

            Harry wondered if he could create the same kind of magic away from Malfoy, but he doubted it even before Malfoy’s silent laughter echoed through his head. If he wanted that future at all, then he would have to—

            Trust you? Don’t make me laugh.

            You can trust me to accept your oath, and I can trust you to keep it, Malfoy said.

            I’ll make it conditional if I make it, Harry said. I won’t believe that you’ll remove the Mark until I see it flying away from me.

            Of course.

            Something about the tones beneath the surface of his voice made Harry turn his head and focus sharply in the direction that he thought Malfoy was standing, although since they were speaking mentally, directions probably didn’t mean much anyway. You can remove it, can’t you? I thought you told me once that it would persist even if you died.

            I certainly never thought that I would think about freeing one of my Marked ones of my own free will, no.

            That’s not an answer.

            I haven’t done it before. That is one. Malfoy’s pride bled through the statement and made it dance and shimmer like a flame in Harry’s imagination, abruptly quenched by Harry’s own doubt. Malfoy snarled. I will make a go of it. If you’d like, you can think about my fascination with challenges and see that I would hardly allow a Mark to defeat me, if I would not allow you to do so.

            Harry snorted. I don’t feel like making an oath until you remove the Mark.

            Then the Mark stays. I already told you that the oath was a condition that had to come first, and from what you said when you tried to bargain with me about it, I had thought you understood that.

            Harry clenched his fists. He hated the idea of making an oath to Malfoy that would bind him for the rest of his life. Yes, it was an invisible bond instead of a physical one, but that kind could still destroy lives. He’d seen that much with Snape and the Unbreakable Vows that had sent him hurtling to his doom.

            Neither of us is blinded by years of bitterness and hatred, as happened to Severus. Malfoy’s voice was unexpectedly gentle. We have time to turn aside.

            From everything, Harry thought back to him, making his thoughts as emphatic as possible. Including this obsession that you have with me. You could let me go, and no one would notice or care. I wouldn’t tell anyone that you let me go and ruin your reputation as a skilled murderer, unless you want me to.

            The situation isn’t ideal. Malfoy remained so serene that Harry thought he had probably decided to just ignore the salvo Harry had fired at him. You don’t have the unlimited freedom that you would like, and I don’t have you as my willing slave. But we compromise.

            Why should I compromise with someone who was willing to control me for the rest of my life?

            Because you have no choice, and the Mark will remain as long as you delay.

            Harry ground his teeth so hard that one slipped and cut into his tongue. He grunted and touched his face, running a hand along his jaw and into his mouth. No blood came from the cut, but it would hurt like acid for a few minutes.

            He wished the world was different. He wished that Ron and Hermione had never moved to Australia and he’d had their support against Malfoy. He wished that he had managed to get away from Malfoy in Fox Valley, or that he’d succeeded in dying when he began to drain his magical core and give the power to Malfoy.

            The world isn’t fair, Malfoy said. But if we work together, then you might eventually have what you want.

            Not if you’re involved.

            He received a wordless ripple that he reckoned constituted a shrug as well as anything could in this sightless environment.

            Harry spent a few more moments considering. If Malfoy felt any impatience, he was concealing it well.

            What kind of oath do you want me to make? he asked at last.

*

            Draco kept his elation out of his voice as he responded, Swear on your magic and your blood. You can’t break the oath without bleeding out, in both your body and your magic. Swear to meet with me and work on the magic until such time as we know how to do it separately.

            But you must remove the Mark.

            Yes. I’ll swear that, too. In fact, I’ll go first: I swear on my magic and my blood to remove the Fox Mark on Harry Potter’s shoulder, no matter how long it may take.

            It took time, but Harry slowly gave his oath. Draco leaned back on the bed and released the connection between them without responding, because he thought his response would distress Harry.

            He had meant everything he said. He wanted to seduce Harry and he wanted to remove the Mark and he wanted to work on the magic. He would only get what he really wanted by surrendering a lesser desire, the rope around Harry’s neck. It had to go, now. He comprehended that.

            For a chance to have the glory that such power promised…

            For that, he would give up so much that he didn’t think Harry could understand, because Harry had never thought of him as selfless.

*

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