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The Marriage of True Minds	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 55082 -:- 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 Eight—Linked and Locked

            Harry landed with a bump, barely feeling the wards part and shimmer around him, barely realizing that he had Apparated onto the doorstep of the Manor instead of inside the house where he had wanted to be. Maybe the wards were too strong for that. Maybe they didn’t yet permit him access, because he wasn’t a Malfoy in blood, whatever else he was.

            It didn’t matter, not when he could feel the anger and the dread singing through his veins, not when his blurred memories had begun to rotate through his head like clouds around the center of a storm. He didn’t know exactly how he had escaped, but he knew what had happened.

            It couldn’t happen to Malfoy. It couldn’t happen to any living person.

            Harry kicked the door in, sending a small house-elf who had been about to open it reeling. He wanted to gasp out an apology as he dragged Malfoy past and looked around frantically for the first warded room, but he wasn’t sure he had. He wasn’t sure of anything at the moment, except the sliding liquid on his back and what it would mean for Malfoy if Harry couldn’t get away from him in time.

            Abruptly, he wanted to laugh. What the fuck was he still doing here? He didn’t have to find a room in the Manor where Malfoy would be safe from him. He just needed to leave Malfoy here and then Apparate. He leaned Malfoy on the wall and whirled away, estimating the distance to the door.

            Malfoy turned his hand and tangled his ring with Harry’s ring.

            Harry felt the same tingling paralysis race up his arm, holding him in place. He swore and kicked, and Malfoy turned his body slightly to the side so the kick couldn’t connect with his shin the way Harry had meant it to. Malfoy was panting, his face flushed, his eyes bright, and he shook his head when Harry glared at him as though Harry had spoken.

            “Whatever this is, we’ll face it together,” he said. “Family doesn’t leave family alone when they’re hurt.”

            “It isn’t what you think it is,” Harry said, trying to grasp reason as it slipped away from him, “and I’m not your fucking family.” He lashed out again, and again Malfoy dodged. Harry started to lift his wand.

            Malfoy looked at him with fearless eyes. “You have no idea what the bond will do to you, if you attack me,” he murmured.

            As it happened, Harry wasn’t terribly afraid of what the bond could do. He had lived through hell on earth, and it took too much to make him afraid anymore, more than one marriage bond could manage.

            But on the other hand, if he was out of his mind with pain, he might be too out of his mind to hold back. He closed his eyes and swallowed, feeling cold sweat break out on his throat, trying to calm his trembling muscles by lowering his wand to his side. “Malfoy, please let me go,” he said softly. “You have no idea what you’re fucking with.”

            “I want to understand,” Malfoy said, and heaved his arm back in a complicated motion. Somehow, startled and stumbling, Harry found himself thrown into Malfoy’s embrace. Malfoy smiled and held him, not even commenting on the awkwardness that involved twisting their hands around to maintain both the hug and the linking of the rings. “I want to help you.” His hands slid down Harry’s shoulders and towards the wounds. “Let me—”

            The memories came closer to the surface, and Harry burned with fear. He was certain that he couldn’t let Malfoy touch the wounds. He didn’t know exactly what would happen if Malfoy did, but he knew enough.

            He tucked his wand in close to his body and cast the one spell that might help, on himself. His body glowed, and a Shield Charm abruptly formed around him, so close to him that nothing but that skin and a bit of air was included inside it. The magic sliced between their rings, pushing their hands apart. Malfoy swore in shock.

            Harry rolled to the ground, strengthening the Shield Charm again and again with steady bursts of magic. Then he cast a Disillusionment Charm, also hovering above his skin. He didn’t have time to get into privacy as he’d been aiming for, but at least this way, Malfoy might not see what happened.

            Then Harry wrapped his arm around his head and closed his eyes.

            The darkness burst over and through him.

*

            Draco wrung his hand, angry when he noticed small drops of blood beading beneath the ring’s twisted metal. He was going to have words with Potter about injuring him, if the magic of the bond didn’t get him first.

            Then he stared at Potter on the floor, and realized that Potter might have other things to worry about right now than a potentially pissed-off marriage bond.

            Potter was wrapped in a shimmering combination of spells, the Shield Charm that had appeared first, like a body-suit, and then a heat haze inside of it. Draco couldn’t be sure without hearing the incantation, but he thought that was Disillusionment, warped by the appearance of the Protego on top of it. He knelt down next to the idiot and reached out gingerly to touch him.

            His fingers collided with the shield and bounced away. A warning zip rang up his arm, rather like what he felt when their rings collided. Draco shook his head. He’d never heard of magic like this, but trust Potter to have mastered it.

            He wondered for a moment if Potter had really done all that just to escape the way that Draco had tried to hold him with the rings, but then he—

            He didn’t have words for everything he saw next, but the viscous ooze that he watched make its way over and around Potter, the flowing darkness, and the muffled screams he heard a moment later were descriptive enough.

            Draco crouched there, unable to decide what else to do. It wasn’t as though he could abandon Potter. No matter what the man thought, he was part of the family, enough to matter in some ways. (Though not in others. Draco had just sent an owl with courting information to Astoria yesterday, after all, including discussing the meal they should have the night of the wedding. It wasn’t as though the marriage was real. Just that some things about it were).

            But Potter had just saved his life. Potter had put up with it better than Draco had thought he would, even with all his complaining so far.

            Potter’s statue stood in the rockery, signs that the magic and the Manor had accepted him.

            Draco stayed, and when a house-elf came up to him and looked as if it would run off squeaking in terror, he ordered it rudely away.

*

            Harry was in the darkness. The darkness that had seized him as he was stepping out of the Ministry one night, swept him up in talons, and bore him off to a place that he still couldn’t locate now, because he had Apparated blindly from it and then scrubbed every trace of it from him in the shower as soon as he could.

            He hadn’t seen the sun for three months.

            The darkness came back and curled around him, and feasted on him. Harry laughed in the midst of his tears, in the face of the sanity and the madness combined that whispered to him with twin voices. What else would it do? He had understood, later, that the ones who had kidnapped him had rarely visited. They had left only one guard.

            And the guard had been killed early in the process. Which only left Harry, and one other.

            His memories boiled against the sides of his skull. Harry felt the hum of his magic against his skin, and knew that it was after the memories, that he had escaped and had the ability to use his wand again. He hadn’t had his wand then, and for long months, his power had meant nothing. He was free now. He was safe.

            He laughed again at the thought of that word. Safe, when the darkness still crouched inside his head, ready to be released again by a lack of light, by a careless touch or word, by his thoughts that would always stray in that direction whether he wanted them to or not.

            By a touch to the wounds on his back.

            The memories danced furiously then, and he really thought he would release them, that the Shield Charm he had raised wasn’t going to work. But no, it did. Because it had to. Because if someone else saw what had happened to him, and if Harry hurt anyone else, then he would have no choice but to—

            To do what I should have done when I understood what was happening and what I did to escape.

            No. Hermione would be angry with him. Other people would be disappointed. He would never get to enjoy his life, his real life with Ginny and the children he wanted to have and the rest of the Weasleys, if he killed himself.

That thought made the memories stop dancing, a sharp reminder of the difference between what and where he had been. Harry swallowed back the burning in his throat and slowly uncurled himself. The charms moved with him, still covering him, and Harry nodded in relief. The only thing that could stand up to his own magic was his own magic. He hadn’t unleashed his power on the Manor, though. That was good.

            He banished the Disillusionment Charm and stretched with a small hiss. Yes, he could feel the slick movement on his back. It was still there. Well, of course. He would have to deal with that. But the danger hadn’t been the physical damage nearly as much as the magical damage that he knew would follow once he lost control of his mind. His magic had contained his immediate reaction, the trauma that was an inevitable flashback, and so he was all right now.

            He would be all right, he had to revise that opinion, once he got some time to himself and the opportunity to heal the wounds.

            Harry rolled over, and froze when he realized that Malfoy was crouched beside him, staring at him. Harry had expected him to walk away the moment he realized he was still safe and that something was happening to Harry that he couldn’t see through the Disillusionment Charm. He couldn’t spy on Harry, he couldn’t have blackmail material to hold over his head, and watching Harry writhe on the floor couldn’t interest him. Why wouldn’t he walk away?

            Except that he was here. His prurient curiosity must be stronger than Harry had expected. Harry renewed the glamours on his back first of all, easy enough since his wand was inside the Shield Charm with him, and then sat up, removing the Protego. He had several ways to play this. He’d have to see which one worked best.

            “What was that?” Malfoy’s voice held the same flat tone Harry had heard him use when he was tutoring Crabbe and Goyle in Potions. He sat with his hands resting on his knees, his gaze unwavering.

            A demand for honesty, it seems. Well, there were lots of things Harry could do with that, still. He shrugged, and then hissed as the reopened wounds on his back pulled tight. “Nothing that need concern you. I recognized the magic that wizard was using, although not the man himself. He was coming after you because that stupid lie we spread for the public made him believe that I’d grieve if you died. We’ll take precautions, and it shouldn’t be dangerous for you after this. But I’d stay home for a couple of days.”

            Malfoy scrambled up as Harry stood, his face pale. Not an unusual reaction when he could have died, Harry thought. The man had probably wanted to kill Malfoy in front of Harry, or he would have struck before that. Harry reached out and put his hand gently on Malfoy’s shoulder, rubbing for a moment. It was a tactic he used a lot with victims who had barely escaped a Dark wizard.

            “I didn’t mean that,” Malfoy said, voice lower now than it had been, and ugly. “I didn’t recognize the magic that man used, either, and I’d like to, but I meant what came after. Why did you cast those charms on yourself? Why did you say that I would be harmed unless you could get me behind wards in time?”

            Harry felt his slowly forming smile freeze. He didn’t shrug, because it would have hurt too much, but he tilted his head to the side and feigned confusion. “What? Oh, I was overreacting. As you see, a Shield Charm took care of the problem. I shouldn’t have frightened you with all that talk about wards. I’m sorry.”

            Malfoy surged forwards. His fingers dug into Harry’s arm like claws, and once again he twisted his hand, trying to connect the rings. Harry expertly drew his left hand back, another Auror move, and cradled it against his chest. Malfoy panted at him, and then he reached out. Harry ducked, expecting a punch.

            He didn’t expect Malfoy to grab him by the shoulders and literally shake him until his teeth rattled, no doubt fulfilling one of Hermione’s fantasies.

            “You idiot,” Malfoy hissed at him as Harry came slowly out of the daze and the ringing in his ears that the shaking had caused. “You were hurt—badly hurt. And you had some sort of magical reaction to that. Did you think that you could keep it a secret forever? Did you think that we wouldn’t find out?” He sounded personally offended now, which made no sense to Harry. They hadn’t agreed to share every detail of their personal lives, only the ones that seemed likely to make a difference in forming or opposing the marriage bond.

            Why does he care if I live or die? In fact, it would probably be easier for him if I died, because then he’d be free of the bond, no questions asked.

            “I kept what I needed to a secret,” Harry said, and straightened his shoulders so that he could throw Malfoy’s hands off. “I’ve dealt with magic like that before, I said. I know that it’s not going to hurt me. It looks much worse than it was.”

            Malfoy stared at him with lips slightly parted. Harry looked back, calm and insolent, letting his hands rest on his wand and his chest. Malfoy couldn’t do anything to force him to reveal these secrets, not when Harry had kept some details even from his best friends. And Malfoy was far from a best friend.

*

            Draco wanted to shake Potter again. He wanted to scream at him. He wanted to knock him unconscious with a Sleeping Charm and call a Healer to tend him.

            He wanted to do a great many things that were not logical or necessary for a Malfoy to do. He settled for closing his eyes, pinching his nose, and counting to ten under his breath. Then twenty. In French.

            He heard the rapid click of footsteps before he could finish, and looked up to see Potter walking towards the grand staircase.

            “Idiot.” Draco sprinted after him. “Do you know what those steps will do to your back, the condition it’s in?”

            Potter glanced back at him mockingly. “What condition?”

            Draco caught a glimpse of his back, and hesitated. Potter looked as if he had grown new skin. Perhaps the green magic the wizard had been using was a kind that Potter knew how to counter and heal. He had said that he recognized it, after all.

            Then Draco told himself not to be a fool, especially because he recognized the small shimmer characteristic of glamours.

            He looked back into Potter’s eyes and slowly shook his head. “You’re such an idiot that I don’t even know what to say to you,” he murmured.

            “Good. Don’t say anything, then.” Potter dug his hand into the banister and swayed a bit. Draco realized abruptly how much effort it was taking him simply to keep upright. “I know what organization the man who attacked you is from. I’ll alert the Ministry, and they can take care of it.”

            “Tell me,” Draco demanded. “Where he was from. What magic he was using. You owe me that much, at least.”

            Potter’s eyes shone with sudden and glorious heat. Suicidal heat, Draco thought, remembering the grey ooze that had coated Potter’s back. “No, I don’t,” Potter said, voice snapping like frost. “And you know why I don’t?”

            Draco shook his head, hypnotized by those eyes.

            “Because you owe me a life-debt now,” Potter said. “And I’m claiming it. My price is that you don’t ask anything about today. I told you, the Ministry will take care of it. It’s a group that they didn’t think was active anymore, but when they hear about this threat, they can send a few well-prepared Aurors to take them down. Not something that you need to be involved in.” He flickered his eyes over Draco as though he was able to see every spell he could cast and the relative strength with which he could cast it in that one glance.

            Draco clapped his teeth together, then let his lips part in a grim smile. “You didn’t notice the difference in the rings, then, Potter?” he asked sweetly.

            “No, the way they bloody keep me from doing what I need to felt the same to me,” Potter said, and smiled back.

            Draco turned his ring over for answer. Potter stared at it, and then came to attention despite himself. Draco nodded. “You note the thread of platinum, now,” he said. “It was gold and silver and copper, nothing else. Now it isn’t.”

            “And what does platinum mean?” Potter’s voice was savage and strange.

            “That someone saved someone else’s life,” Draco said. “That we’re bound together in other ways, now, since the binding that we had before wasn’t enough. The marriage bond can change. It can pull us closer together. In fact, it was designed to do that. And now you’ve ensured that it’ll happen.” He shook his head, honestly awed by the thought of how much Potter had changed things, and ultimately for the worse, in about half an hour. “You have a gift for trouble, don’t you, Potter?”

            “It won’t matter, if your father ends the bond,” Potter said, and he sounded as if he were pleading for that to be the truth far more than he was convinced of it. “It won’t matter what we do or—how the bond has changed. What will matter is that it’s over, and done with, and we can move on with our lives.”

            Draco stepped up to him. Potter seemed to have forgotten about his intention to go upstairs, and stared at Draco with exhausted, ravaged eyes that Draco was relatively sure had no glamour on them. “Merlin,” he said softly, moving his hand over Potter’s face. “How badly do you need that to be true?”

            “Pretty badly,” Potter admitted in a low voice, leaning into his touch for a few seconds. He straightened immediately afterwards, shaking his head, but Draco had seen what he had seen. Yes, the bond was bringing them closer together, manipulating Potter’s desire to save others and Draco’s desire to show him up and perhaps even the kindness and curiosity that Draco felt about his injuries now. “I won’t be trapped here forever, Malfoy. I’ll find some way out of this and to a life I always wanted.”

            “There you go again.” Draco put a foot on the bottom stair. The conversation they were having seemed to have slowed Potter for the moment. Draco wanted to reach out and touch him again, but that could break the spell. He maintained his voice at a calm, rational flow instead. “Speaking of your future life as though it was a reward of some kind, a prize for you.”

            “And haven’t I earned a prize?” Potter’s eyes shone at him with feverish intensity. “With the war and everything else that I’ve suffered?”

            “Yes,” Draco said. “Perhaps you have.” Another step nearer, and he thought he could see the glamours on Potter’s skin beginning to fade, break apart. He tried to keep his eyes away from them, to avoid showing that he’d noticed them, instead focusing on Potter’s face. “But I don’t think you’d be willing to make yourself a prize at the expense of other people. Would you want Weasley to marry you merely because you wanted her to? Would you want children simply because you want someone to love you? I don’t think that’s how you work. One of my friends, yes, I might believe that. Not you.”

            “That’s not,” Potter said, and closed his eyes. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know. I need time alone to think about it. I promise, Malfoy, I’ll think. The platinum in the ring, and what you’re saying about Ginny, and all the rest. But I need to sleep.”

            Draco watched the glamours vanish completely. The muscles in Potter’s back became seamed with grey, and then with green. One was the color of the scars that Draco had seen before, the other the color of the spells that had struck Potter when the wizard was hunting. The green slime had hardened and dried into what looked like a protective covering, but Draco doubted it was. And the scars looked horrendous, like trails that had been dug into Potter’s back by some burrowing insect. Draco didn’t want to meet what had caused them.

            But he wanted to know what had. He shook his head. “You need help. A Healer.”

            Potter jumped, and his eyes flared open. He pressed himself backwards, away from Draco’s reaching hand, shaking his head frantically. “No one can see this,” he said. “I don’t want anyone else hurt, and I don’t want them to take the story and spread it around and doubt the Ministry and make fun of me.” He turned away, taking a single lurching step upwards.

            And fell. Draco watched as the grey scars broke open, flooding Potter’s back with red and with something thicker, darker. He dropped to one knee beside Potter this time, and took his wand away when he tried to raise it.

            “Idiot,” Draco said more forcefully. The ring on his finger jerked and buzzed, although it wasn’t touching Potter’s. The platinum strand glowed against his skin like fire. Draco reached out and drew him closer, calling sharply for house-elves, as he should have from the first. But he had wanted to coax and trick the answer out of Potter too much to call on them. Now answers would have to wait.

            Juli, Potter’s elf, and several others Draco knew appeared. They started to wail when they saw the wounds on Potter, but Draco hissed commandingly at them, and they shut up. He sent them for bandages, a book of healing spells, a Healer, his mother, some of the potions that he kept in his bedroom, and cloths that he could use to keep the pressure on the wounds. A second thought, and he called back the one who had gone for the book of healing spells and commanded it to bring a book on the arts of decay, as well. It was his best guess for the kind of magic that had harmed Potter, based on the way it had looked and moved.

            Potter was dazed, his eyes rolling back in his head, but he still fought and tried to shy away when Draco conjured a stretcher for him and lowered him onto it, making sure he arranged Potter on his stomach. “What? No. You can’t—” Magic ran, gleaming, along the edges of his arms, though Draco knew he didn’t have enough strength to use it against Draco.

            At least, Draco sincerely hoped he didn’t.

            “You have no choice,” Draco said. “You’re sick, and you need help.”



            “But not yours,” Potter said through barely moving lips. “Please, Malfoy, go and get one of my friends.”

            Draco shook his head. “Malfoys take care of their own,” he said, and began to guide the stretcher up the stairs.

            “I’m not a Malfoy,” Potter whispered. “You don’t want me to be one. Why do you keep contradicting yourself all the time?”

            Draco shrugged. “The marriage is real enough that I don’t want you to die,” he said. “And at the moment, you’re dangerously near that.”

            It would serve as the truth, for a while.

            Nevertheless, Draco was beyond glad when his mother joined him in his bedroom—it was the closest one, so he had taken Potter there—and began helping him do all they could when they didn’t know what they were dealing with. Family helped family, but Potter wasn’t the only one here who needed to be helped.

*

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The Marriage of True Minds