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The Devil You Know	By : JBankai89 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 2281 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, I gain nothing from this but a way to pass the time.

Chapter List
- 1-Taken
- 2-Hostage
- 3-Survival
- 4-Home
- 5-Aftermath
- 6-Suspicions
- 7-Confessions
- 8-Recovery
- 9-Verdict
- 7
- 8
- 9
A/N: Bit of a time jump in this chapter. Hope no one finds it too jarring.
Chapter Eight – Recovery

From the time that Draco learnt the depths of Harry's deceit to the present moment, nearly six months had passed.

Harry had been kept under lock and key in a lower level of Azkaban for prisoners awaiting trial. Draco had been barred from seeing him, but this didn't bother Draco very much—he didn't want to see him.

Thinking of Harry hurt beyond all reason, and Draco was ashamed of how many nights he'd spent crying himself to sleep over it. He knew that this was no way for a Malfoy to behave, but at the same time he felt as though he couldn't help it. He felt broken, he felt wrong.

And it was all Harry's fault.

How could have have done such a thing?

Some nights, Draco would dream of the good times he'd spent with Harry—the first time he'd brought Draco to the Burrow, and how he'd stopped George from pulling pranks on him, and saved him when Ron had tried to hex him behind Harry's back. He remembered how warm and welcoming Molly Weasley had been, how she adopted him into their family without a shred of judgment in her eyes, and how she'd press more food on him constantly as she proclaimed that he was too skinny. It made Draco feel warm all over, and he was amazed at how much this woman (whom he had spent much of his adolescence making fun of) reminded him of his own mother.

And it had been thanks to Harry that he'd ever met her, that he'd ever built that bridge between the Malfoys and the Weasleys. How could someone who'd done that go so far off the rails? It didn't make any sense.

Other times, Draco would recall what Harry had said during his questioning, and his subconscious would blend it with his ordeal in the forest it in vivid detail. He would see the attacker coming at him, touching him against his will, threatening him, but now unmasked, and it was Harry staring down at him as he attempted to sexually assault him.

Every time, Draco would wake from these nightmares screaming.

Granger and Weasley visited him often, extending their apologies for what he'd been through, and they seemed to be trying valiantly to extend a branch of friendship to him (at least, Granger was. Weasley seemed to be going along with whatever she did without question). Draco had no idea how to interpret this, and after politely asking them numerous times to leave him and his family alone, Granger finally took the hint and they stopped dropping by.

More difficult to shake off were his friends, in particular Pansy and Blaise, who seemed to be out for blood after hearing of what Harry had done.

“Oh, it's a good thing he's locked up,” Pansy had said angrily, just after he'd told her at length what Harry had confessed to, “because if I could, I'd kill him.”

Blaise's reactions were far less murderous, and more calming.

“Can't wait to see those house-prejudiced twits try to protect their boy-hero now,” Blaise had mused over tea one afternoon, “now that everyone knows he's nothing but a piece of scum, sort of another nail in the coffin of Gryffindor House, wouldn't you say?”

Paired with this were a number of (surprisingly accurate) articles in the Daily Prophet detailing his experience, and it seemed as though everyone had an opinion of why Harry had done what he'd done, from Post-Traumatic Stress brought on by the war, to a pupil of Peter Pettigrew, to simply, that he was just as evil as his former enemy.

All of these opinions were voiced to Draco in a literal flood of letters, nearly all of them extending their sympathies for what he had endured, though a fair few accused him of using Dark Magic to manipulate the Aurors into arresting Harry on false charges.

These Draco binned with barely a second glance.

Even after all this time, Draco had no idea what to think about it all. He was still stuck on the deep betrayal his former partner had shown him, and it burned deeply, but also he struggled to truly believe that it really had been Harry who'd done such a thing. He'd said it under Veritaserum, he knew that it was true, but that did not make it any easier for Draco to accept.

Interspersed with all this were a number of visits with Healers, Aurors, Magical Law Enforcement Officers, the family-hired solicitor, and many others. Draco struggled to remember just who he had spoken to on what particular day, and he'd been prescribed half a dozen different potions for shock, post-traumatic stress, insomnia, and several vials of tranquility draughts, following one botched suicide attempt one month after Harry's initial interrogation.

Despite all the support that surrounded him, Draco had never felt so alone, and so worthless.

He felt broken; damaged, and struggled to believe the positive words of his family and friends.

“Draco, you're not worthless, and you are not less of a person because of something that has been done to you, you didn't ask for this...” said his mother.

“Draco, this experience shows nothing but your strength of character. You were put through something that would break a lesser man, but you came out of it with your head held high...” said his father.

“Draco, you practice the old ways, and you stayed strong throughout what that scum, Potter, did to you. Anyone else would have abandoned their beliefs and just given Potter what he wanted, but you didn't. You stood by your choice to remain celibate until marriage, no matter how little respect Potter showed for that decision. You're stronger than you know,” said Blaise.

The words were comforting, but it did not completely quell the sting of Harry's betrayal.

The worst (and most baffling, given that he could not recall ever in his life speaking to him) by far was when Zacharias Smith, the former Hufflepuff, approached Draco and asked for permission to court him.

Draco did not recall what had happened next, but woke in hospital a week later with his wrists and ankles bound to the bedposts 'for his own good', and he was informed that he'd suffered a complete mental breakdown.

Smith sent him a single chrysanthemum with green and orange ribbon tied to its stem with a short apology note, and did not approach him again.

Six months of hell.

And now, it was time for Harry's hearing.

Even with all his mental and emotional preparation for this day, the prospect of seeing Harry again filled Draco with a near-childlike terror that refused to go away, no matter what he did. He hated that he still felt so much the part of a victim.

“Sweetheart, you need to eat something,” his mother chastised gently the morning of the hearing, and pushed the platter of crumpets towards him. “You need to keep your strength up.”

“I'm not hungry, Mother,” Draco muttered as he fiddled with his morning tea and daily doses of potion, but did not touch the food. “I think if I eat anything, I might be sick.”

“Just remember that he can't hurt you anymore,” Narcissa said gently, and laid a hand over his. When he flinched, she quickly backed off.

You're wrong, Mother, Draco thought miserably as he knocked back his potions, he still hurts me, every night, in my nightmares.

The thought was enough to make Draco shiver, and he busied himself with his tea again, and tried to avoid the concerned looks his parents continued to direct at him.

At quarter to nine their solicitor arrived, a man named Frederick Barrel. He had a leather briefcase under his arm, and a gentle, relaxed smile upon his face that immediately eased some of Draco's nerves—though not by much.

“Morning,” he said, nodded to each of the Malfoys in turn, “I would like, if I may, to go over things one last time before we head over to the Ministry. Would that be all right with you, Draco?”

Draco nodded stiffly. He didn't particularly want to discuss it, but he knew that they needed to be as prepared as possible if they were to have any chance of putting Harry behind bars.

“Perfect,” he replied with a small smile, and sat down alongside Draco.

“Can I offer you anything, Mr Barrel?” Narcissa asked as he snapped open his briefcase and extracted a thick folder from inside. “Coffee? Tea? Perhaps something to eat?”

“A coffee would be nice, thank you,” Barrel replied, and immediately turned back to Draco.

“Now, from talks with the defence, I understand that they will be trying to prove to the Wizengamot that Potter is insane, some sort of trauma brought on by the war, and sharing his brain with You Know Who and all that. If they are successful, Potter would be confined to St Mungo's Mind Damage ward under lock and key,” Barrel explained, consulting the folder in his hands as he spoke. He paused to nod his thanks to Narcissa as he accepted a coffee from her in a transparent mug, and took a sip of the drink before he continued.

“However, it is unlikely that they would keep him there for a long period of time. Wizarding culture is painfully lacking in professional help for the insane—both generally and criminally—and a few years in a locked ward with good behaviour, he would likely be deemed cured, and released.”

The idea of Harry free was enough to make Draco shiver.

“Our plan, as I have discussed with you and your parents at length, is to prove that Potter was of sound mind when he committed those vile acts against you, and he deserves a life term in Azkaban for the accumulated charges of assault, kidnapping, attempted rape, and intent to murder,” Barrel said in a simple, matter-of-fact tone. “We have more than enough evidence to prove that Potter is something of a psychopath, from his manipulations of not only you, but virtually everyone around him as well. We have testimonies from Hermione Granger, as well as several of the Weasley family, detailing Harry's abrupt change in attitude following the war. But unlike the defence, who are using this fact as further proof that Potter is mad, we are using it to show that Potter was using his ordeal during the war to justify his poor treatment of his partners, when in reality he was of sound mind.”

“This life term...” Draco said uncertainly, “does it mean he will be in Azkaban for life?”

“Not necessarily,” Barrel replied with a small frown, “new legislation means that a life term is thirty to forty years, depending on the seriousness of the crime. If they are considered an extreme danger to the public, they get a mark on their file that states that they are never to be released. The Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot is the one who makes those decisions however, it is out of my hands. If we play our cards right, I see no reason why we wouldn't be able to lock him away for at least thirty years, so he'll be eligible for release when he's in his fifties.”

“He should rot in there,” Draco muttered, and crossed his arms; the words sounded false in his own ears, and even as he spoke them, they sounded wrong to him. How could this be the same man who saved him from Fiendfyre? Who protected his parents from Azkaban? Who did not blink in rescuing every man, woman, and child from danger, in whatever form it presented itself in? It made no sense. Draco gave himself a little shake, and returned himself to the present.

“Yes, well, with a little luck, we'll convince the Chief Warlock of that,” Barrel replied with a reassuring smile.

Draco forced himself to nod, but he could not smile in return. So much rode on the outcome of this hearing, and he was far too nervous to even force an optimistic attitude, when inside he was a nervous wreck.

This is Harry Potter, Saviour of the Wizarding World, Draco thought over and over, and I am a former Death Eater. Why would they bother to believe anything that I have to say?

The thought did not bolster his spirits, but instead made the idea of getting any sort of fair trial seem positively hopeless.

His father soon announced that it was time to leave, and nervously he followed his solicitor and his parents to their fireplace, and used the Floo connection to head straight to the Ministry's Atrium.

They all had their wands registered with the security wizard at the back of the expansive space, and they followed Barrel to the lifts in silence.

Outside of Courtroom One—the same courtroom Draco's own trial had been held in years earlier—he was shocked to find a line of people sitting outside. He spotted Granger and Weasley, along with the rest of the Weasley clan, and a number of pretty young men whom he did not know, but had to assume that they were Harry's ex-lovers.

Looking at them, Draco felt a chill run through him.

They were all blond, blue-eyed, and waif-like. So similar to his own appearance in fact that he felt a little sick, and his vision swam. Clearly, Harry had a type.

Warmth covered one of his hands suddenly, and a jumped a little, only to belatedly realize that it was his mother holding his hand. To his negative reaction, she moved as though to pull away, but his hand tensed over hers, and she silently returned the gesture.

Just as Draco sat at the end of the line of people with his parents on either side of him, and his solicitor at the end, the doors at the end of the passageway burst open. Draco's breath caught as he spotted someone approaching them—someone with a head of very untidy black hair.

Harry looked very different from the last time that Draco had seen him. He wore the grey and black Azkaban prisoner robes, his wrists were bound in thick iron cuffs, and he was dirty, unwashed, with a thick beard and gaunt sort of look to his face. He walked bracketed by two Aurors, both of whom looked positively disgusted, and would not look towards the prisoner between them.

Draco fought to hide his trembling as they approached, just as Harry's eyes fell to him, and his mouth twitched into a leering smirk. Draco shrunk back, and pressed his spine fast against the wall, while the Aurors led him past the group of witnesses set to testify, and into the courtroom. Barrel stood and offered the little family a single nod, and followed the prisoner inside.

Draco sat in silence, his head bowed, and eyes fixed on his fingers, tangled together as though he was set to pray. His vision was blurred and he blinked hard, but it did not stop the tears from dripping down his cheeks.

Close to half an hour passed before the courtroom door opened again, and Draco saw his solicitor peer out. When his eyes found Draco, the older man said the words that he had been both expecting, and deeply dreading.

“We're ready for you, Mr Malfoy.”
- 7
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The Devil You Know