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The Marriage of True Minds	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 55083 -:- 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 Nine—In the Same Bed

            “What happened to him?”

            Draco could only shrug as he moved Potter carefully into his bed and cast preemptive cleaning charms on the sheets that would take care of any sap and blood running down from Potter’s scars which might stain them. The Healer had come and cleaned the wounds as best she could, in silent shock; she could only shrug when Draco asked what the long-term consequences would be. Draco had given her a bag of Galleons and Obliviated her. “I don’t know. An assassin came after me, and when Potter saved my life, one of the curses struck him. Then, when we came home, he kept muttering about how he had to get me behind wards before he could hurt me. I wouldn’t go, and so he wrapped a Shield Charm around himself to hold—whatever it was—inside. Plus a Disillusionment Charm so that I couldn’t see what was happening,” he added, miffed now that he had a chance to think about it. Potter’s actions spoke his distrust more clearly than words, and no action more so than that one. “Then he tried to pretend nothing was wrong with glamours, and then he collapsed.”

            “I see.” His mother bent over the bed and studied Potter’s back with care that made Draco want to advise her to lift her face. She wasn’t used to sights like this, smells like this. Draco wouldn’t have wanted Astoria around them.

            “I have never seen anything that resembled it,” Narcissa murmured at last, taking a pace away from the bed and folding her hands behind her back. Draco watched her with admiration pulsing beneath his skin. So strong and so delicate at the same time, she was an example to him. And to Astoria, although it would probably be some time before Astoria could visit the Manor and take lessons from her. “The wounds stink of decay, but the original wounds—Draco, nothing should be able to cause scars like that.”

            “I know,” Draco said shortly. He had helped the house-elves to bathe and dress Potter’s wounds before the Healer arrived, but the sap and the blood kept pushing out of them. The wounds were too deep, Draco thought, or the scars crisscrossed too much of his back, to be soothed by such simple methods. He picked up the Dark Arts book and flipped to the index, looking for any instances of “rot” or “decay.”

            “You can stop now.”

            Draco started and nearly dropped the book. Potter’s eyes were open despite what must have been agonizing pain in his back, and he had his head turned to the side, his cheek resting on the pillow as he fixed his eyes firmly on Draco’s face. He hadn’t yet tried to push himself up, but Draco thought that wasn’t long in coming. Potter’s eyes were on fire, and not with pain.

            “Stop what?” Draco asked, because he didn’t think Potter really wanted them to leave his wounds untreated.

            “Stop pretending that you care about what happened to me.” Potter planted his hands beneath him, sure enough, and started to make himself rise. Narcissa moved forwards with a small distressed sound, and Potter snapped his head around. His expression faltered when he saw her.

            “Harry,” she murmured. Draco hesitated when he saw how Potter looked away. Perhaps he should be using the git’s first name if he wanted his attention, and not the last one that didn’t properly belong to him anymore. “Please, let us help. You look as if you are dying, and contrary to what you imply, I do not like to see my son-in-law in pain.”

            Potter narrowed his eyes. “I’m sure you wouldn’t,” he agreed, with a mild tone in his voice that warned Draco about the extreme contrast that was coming, “if you actually had one.”

            His mother let her head droop and her eyelids fall to shade her eyes. “Perhaps I deserve that,” she murmured. “But I think it is fair to ask if I really do, if you are not throwing my concern back in my face simply because you are uncomfortable.”

            “This isn’t—this isn’t something you need to worry about,” Potter muttered, with a late, awkward attempt at gallantry. Draco snorted, and Potter glared at him in turn, then returned a softened gaze to his mother. “Really. This is the worst attack, but I’ve been dealing with them for a number of months. I don’t want to stain your sheets or worry you.”

            And that didn’t even sound sarcastic, Draco thought in amazement. For the first time, it crossed his mind that Potter was serious—not merely rejecting Malfoy care because he hated them or it wasn’t good enough for him, but pushing it away because he didn’t want help. He wanted to keep this concealed and away from all eyes.

            Of course, that only made Draco all the wilder to find out what had happened.

            “I think it is,” Narcissa said, and her mouth had a gentle but firm set to it that Draco recognized from the days when he still did things like order the house-elves to perform impossible tasks and punish themselves when they couldn’t complete them. “When you could have destroyed my son, or at least so you claimed, it is important.”

            Potter winced and tried to push himself up again. Draco held him in place with one hand on his shoulder, being careful not to touch the center of his back. Potter switched his glare to him. Draco only smiled faintly back.

            “You saved my life,” he said. “There’s a platinum bond in the ring. Possibly it’ll be dissipated if you tell me the truth.” He looked at the scars again. They had stopped oozing, he thought, but they still looked exquisitely painful, nothing like the smooth marks on the skin that he had first seen when the marriage bond united them. “At the very least, we need your expertise to care for the wounds.”

            “They’ll heal,” Potter said. He lay back down on the bed and closed his eyes for a moment. Draco wondered if he was counting under his breath the way that Draco sometimes did when he was irritated. “You can move me to my own bedroom and leave me alone. With a fire, please. They need heat and light.”

            Draco noticed the catch in his voice on the last word, and wondered incredulously if Potter was afraid of the dark. But now wasn’t the time to tease him about it. He leaned down towards Potter’s ear and whispered instead, “Do you think we want the murder of Harry Potter on our consciences?”

            “What consciences?” Potter muttered back, but the words Draco had uttered were the right ones, either because Draco had used his last name or because he seemed to be retreating to a purely pragmatic viewpoint. His tremors relaxed under Draco’s hand, and he sighed and lowered his head. “All right. I’ll tell you what I can.”

            Narcissa caught Draco’s eye and shook her head, telling him without words to leave this up to her. Draco nodded and moved out of the way. Narcissa sat down in the chair beside Potter and took his hand between both of hers.

            “You can tell us more than that,” she said softly. “We are here to help you, not to harm you.” And she said it so gracefully and perfectly and gravely that Draco wondered how in the world anyone could avoid believing her.

            Especially someone who I think now is starved of care and honesty—strange among all those Gryffindors, but there you are.

*

            Harry felt the same weary frustration welling up in him that he felt whenever Hermione urged him to talk to some Mind-Healer about what he had been through. He could explain, yes, but they wouldn’t understand. On the surface, it was a simple story, not nearly as horrifying as it had been to live through. They would tell him to keep his courage up and look at him strangely when he couldn’t do it.

            Then he relaxed. That was a disadvantage with his friends or with people his friends wanted to help him, but it might be an advantage with the Malfoys. They would see that their concern was misplaced and leave him alone after this.

            “Fine,” he said. “Someone kidnapped me about six months ago. I never did get the name, but he was using the same kind of magic that the wizard attacked Malfoy here with.” He flicked his eyes at Malfoy without moving. He had to admit, at the moment it didn’t feel as though he could, at least not without melting some of his muscles. “He held me prisoner in a house for a few days. He took away my wand and kept me groggy with Stunners a lot, but he didn’t want me to spend all of my time unconscious.”

            “Why not?” Malfoy interrupted. “You’re dangerous enough that he should have.”

            Harry shrugged. “Another thing that I never really understood,” he lied. There were certain things he would not explain. “Probably related to the reason he wanted me in the first place, whatever that was. Well, after three days I did manage to raise enough wandless magic to hurt him. In fact, I killed him. I’d just meant to throw him against the wall, but he hit his head, and his skull cracked.”

            “You could have left then,” Narcissa murmured, sounding as if she were happy for him, rather than outraged about the murder. She had never stopped holding his hand, and her voice sounded like the cooing of doves. Harry reminded himself never to discuss anything serious with her at length. She’d probably be able to persuade him into agreeing with her against his better judgment.

            “I tried to,” Harry said. The memories bubbled up in his head, sticky and much clearer than the moment of the escape. Of course, he hadn’t been running on adrenaline and horror and sheer determination to survive or die then. “The moment he died, all the lights went out, and I was alone in the darkness. All the doors locked and warded themselves. I think it was probably an attempt on his part to make sure that no one who killed him would escape easily.” Harry tried not to swallow, but he did anyway, and saw Malfoy’s keen eyes follow the motion. Harry glared at him, daring him to comment, and then continued. “And I found out part of why he wanted me there, although not the whole thing.”

            “There was someone else in the house?” Narcissa asked.

            “Something.” Harry had to close his eyes then, and concentrate on controlling his breathing. He’d never got a good look at the thing, but he had felt it, oh yes. The suckers that ran across his back and dug into his muscles, the way they had dug deep and pulled at his memories, his soul, his magic. The coldness that whispered past his ear whenever its wings beat. How it had fastened on him and held him there, against the wall, for three months, pouring cool liquid down his throat whenever he began to die of thirst, forcing him to chew lumps of what might have been tasteless bread when he was hungry.

            Held him there.

            And ate him.

            In the dark.

            For three months.

            He was breathing too fast, he realized abruptly. Malfoy had risen to his feet and put his hand on his wand as sparks of magic began to rise from Harry’s wrists and trail down to the sheets.

Harry closed his eyes and turned his head away. He wasn’t yet at the point in his tale when he’d start lashing out with his magic because that was what had happened in the memories, but he was raw and frightened enough to be dangerous. He swallowed noisily, not caring who saw this time, and shook his head. That was the part that he could never retell to anyone else, that he had only got across to his friends and Ginny by writing it down, after which his magic had sealed him in a room with lights burning high on the walls. A fire would have been too much of a temptation at that moment; he would have slept close enough to it to burn his clothes off.

He always wanted to see what was coming for him, now. Now and for the rest of his life.

            “What happened? Harry?”

            That was Narcissa, and amazingly, she didn’t sound as though she was afraid. Harry didn’t understand. He huffed into the pillow and turned his head back. She sat there with one hand on his arm, rubbing gently. Harry tensed when it rose towards his shoulder, and of course she noticed and pulled back, rubbing his lower arm instead.

            “The creature attacked me,” Harry said. He couldn’t say the word ate, not aloud, for so many reasons. He felt a scream bubbling in his throat and clenched his jaw down. It was all right, he reassured himself several times. The Malfoys wouldn’t believe him, wouldn’t care. Or they would take their newfound comprehension and be satisfied with that. Malfoy had asked him the questions mainly out of curiosity, he knew. “It would keep coming back, and I never knew when it would strike again. I had enough food to survive the attacks for the three months it took them to find me, but it was unpleasant.”

            There. Enough truth that even if they chased the hints and rumors that surrounded the scars on his back among the Aurors, they wouldn’t find anything different. Enough lies that he could preserve his dignity. He gave Narcissa a tentative smile, wondering if he would see contempt or confusion in her eyes for him not being able to get away fast enough.

            He didn’t understand the emotions he saw at all. Her grip tightened on his hand until Harry winced, and then she backed off with a murmured apology and rose to her feet, staring at him. Harry blinked back. He wondered absently for a moment what he looked like, disheveled and dirty and blood-stained against the pristine sheets of her son’s bed.

            “When you wish for my compassion, then I will give it,” Narcissa whispered to him. “You don’t look as though you want it right now.”

            Harry blinked again. Huh. He wondered if it was more compassionate of her to have the insight and hold back, or to force it on him, the way that Hermione had had to force him to let her see the scars. “Well,” he said. “Um. Thanks, Mrs—” Too easy to understand the warning in her eyes this time, and he smiled. “Thanks, Narcissa.”

            She bent down and kissed his forehead, then left the room. Harry watched her go in some concern. Her back was stiff enough to affect the usually graceful way she moved, and he didn’t know why. Had he disgusted her so much that she had to go away and recover herself? Maybe that was it.

            “Potter.”

            Oh, right, Malfoy was still here. Harry turned back to him and sighed. “I’ll be out of your bed in a minute, Malfoy,” he said. “I don’t think I can sit up right now, but the weakness only lasts a short time. I haven’t been exposed to the magic that that first Dark wizard used to capture me since that first time, and that’s what made the scars react so badly, I think. But they’ve stopped bleeding and dripping by now, haven’t they? They always do.”

            Malfoy was watching him with an expression that was as incomprehensible as Narcissa’s. But he didn’t walk away, which made him a lot scarier. Harry tensed despite himself. Malfoy seemed to notice it, because he moved a step back and ran a hand through his hair. Harry stared. Maybe his bad habits were rubbing off on Malfoy. Narcissa wouldn’t like that. Harry was pretty sure she had raised her son to a higher standard.

            “Are you insane?” Malfoy asked.

            Harry blinked again. “No? And I think that’s a pretty impressive achievement, considering I spent three months in darkness with some kind of magical creature attacking me.” A defensive tone crept into his voice despite himself. He had hoped that telling Malfoy and his mother the truth would make them back off, but if they used it to make fun of him—

            Malfoy sat down on the bed beside him and reached out to put a hand on his back. Harry twisted towards him, hissing, wand firmly in hand.

            Malfoy pulled his hand away, but didn’t get off the bed, which was the other thing Harry was waiting for. Harry stayed still, eyes on him, wondering all the while what the fuck he thought he was doing and what had happened to their agreement that they didn’t need to act like a married couple in private.

*

            Draco could taste grit under his tongue as he stared at Potter. It was as if he had been, for a few faint moments, in the darkness with him, blazing with hope when his enemy died and then despair when he realized what else lived in the house with him.

            How had Potter endured those three months without going insane? Draco knew he could not have. Light, air, safety, magic—he would need all those things to go on existing at a very basic level, and without them, he would have gone mad.

            But Potter hadn’t. He had endured, and he even seemed willing to pretend—and have Draco pretend, which was more irritating—that those three months in darkness were nothing, and that he hadn’t done anything remarkable.

            Was he like that in school?

            Draco shook his head. He no longer thought he could trust his perceptions of Potter from Hogwarts, because he knew that the boy he’d thought he’d known could never have survived this. But he had, which meant that Draco might be wrong about other things.

            It was bitter to have to admit wrongness on a topic he’d always been so sure of. But he didn’t have to say it aloud, which eased the sting. Draco leaned forwards and spoke quietly, because he had some hope that Potter would listen to him if he said it that way.

            “Yes, it’s impressive. But I wasn’t actually talking about that. I was talking about the amount of lying that you did to cover up something like this. What did you think our reaction would be to a story like that? Did you think that we would spread it around, or laugh at you for it?”

            Potter looked at him as if he were the one with the excellent excuse for being mental. “Yes,” he said. “Of course.”

            Draco clenched his hands together in his lap. His rage that Potter could think so badly of him was fighting with the desire to hold down his emotions so that Potter wouldn’t retreat back into the hole that Draco and his mother had so recently pulled him out of. “We’re better than you think us,” he said. “We would never do that. Not to a family member.”

            Potter rolled his eyes. “Fine. Then I have until your father dissolves the bond, and then you will. Excuse me if a stay of execution sounds little better than the real thing.”

            Draco lunged forwards and grabbed Potter’s wand hand. Potter tried to yank it away again, his eyes bright as steel nails. Draco shook his head and held on. He had to hold on. His heart was pounding wildly, and his breath came short and sharp and fast.

            “What you endured,” he said, “is something no one should have to. For fuck’s sake, Potter, the Dark Lord was living in my house for almost a year. He tortured people in front of me. He made me torture them. My aunt hurt my mother. Do you think we have anything but admiration and sympathy for people who undergo that kind of pain? I can assure you that we don’t.” He slid his fingers in between Potter’s softening ones; Potter had tried to make a fist, but the effort faded as he listened to Draco. “My father might feel differently, but even he saw us tormented and knew he could do nothing. This is—this is something to bind you closer to us, not to make us laugh at you.”

            That made Potter tense again. “But we don’t want to be bound closer together,” he pointed out patiently, as though Draco had forgotten that. He looked down at the platinum strand in Draco’s ring. “We have to find some way out of this.”

            Draco’s mouth felt full of grit again. He shook his head. “Not at the expense of this,” he said. “Not at the expense of hurting you.”

            “I’m already hurt. What’s a bit more pain?”

            And it wasn’t said flippantly, Draco noted, it was said impatiently. As though Potter truly couldn’t comprehend that anyone would care about a bit more pain piled on top of what he already carried.

            Shame, hot and unwelcome, flashed through Draco. He would never have thought Potter could bear something like this, he would never have thought that Potter didn’t want attention, and he would never have thought that Potter would consider his own pain unimportant. It hurt his pride, to be so mistaken about someone.

            And it hurt his pride to let Potter go on being so mistaken about him. He locked his fingers in Potter’s again, twisting his hand so that their rings aimed towards each other when he tried to get away. Potter understood the silent message and stopped struggling, instead watching Draco with mistrustful eyes.

            “I won’t hurt you like that,” Draco said. “Not now, not after the dissolution of the bond, not ever. For what you endured, for what you told me about, and because you saved my life when you had to be in intense pain. Twice, in fact. You saved me from that curse, and then you saved me when you wrapped the Shield Charm around yourself and kept your lashing out from hurting me or anyone else. Or even any of our property. I’m impressed,” he repeated, sliding his free hand down Potter’s arm to his elbow. “It’s something a Malfoy would do.”

            Potter stared at him as if he was squinting into strong sunlight. “You’re wrong,” he said. “You have to be. Or the ring would show two platinum bands.”

            “Each one appears after a shared event,” Draco said. “The magic obviously considers these things all part of the same event.” He reclined against the pillows, shifting as he did so that he could continue to hold Potter’s hand, but from a more comfortable angle. “And as for my opinion about the way you acted, no, I’m not wrong. I couldn’t ask for a higher standard of behavior from myself. In fact.” He paused, and swallowed. “I owe you an apology. You never even brought up that I was a torturer for the Dark Lord, but I forced you to relive your story.”

            “It doesn’t work like that,” Potter said quickly. His eyes were very wide, and he kept tugging at Draco’s hold on his hand with restless little jerks of his arm. They reminded Draco of automatic movements that he didn’t know he was doing. “I mean—you don’t. You don’t. It didn’t happen that way. It’s just your perception of things. I wasn’t thinking about acting like a Malfoy. I didn’t think about bringing up your past and then decide not to. It’s just things I did. I did them for different reasons than the ones you attribute to me.”

            “I know,” Draco said softly. “But this is all just perception, isn’t it? The way we’re choosing to act around the marriage bond. Tell me, Potter—” And he was being ridiculous. His mother had made the transition before he had. Another thing to be ashamed of. Draco sighed and spoke around a burning in his throat that pierced him like a knife wound. “Harry. Why is it that we never thought about acting civilly towards each other, or even politely? It would have made waiting for the marriage bond to wear off less painful.”

            “I’ve—we were acting civil.”

            Draco smiled a bit at the slip-up. “I’ve treated people who betrayed me better than you, who owed me nothing.” He touched Harry’s hair, his cheek beneath the wide eyes. “I still don’t want to be married to you.”

            “Thank fuck for that.”

            Draco laughed a little. “But I do want to show you how impressive your achievements are to me, and to show you that the Malfoys can do something that’s equivalent. You shouldn’t be moved again as long as those wounds are open.” Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Draco shook his head and pressed on. “Stay here. Sleep, if you can. Rest. I’ll guard you from any return of that creature, and the lights will stay on.”

            “I can’t sleep in front of you,” Harry whispered. “I’ve always slept alone, since—that happened.”

            “Relax, then, as much as you can,” Draco said, and lay down beside him, turning his head away so that Harry could have at least a modicum of privacy. He never let go of Harry’s hand, though.

            He had fallen down badly. Harry Potter had shown himself as more gracious than the Malfoys today, more respectful of their property, more defensive of their lives. Draco was going to return that courtesy and consideration, to show that he could be polite to his spouse if he couldn’t do anything else.

            “Consider it my reparation for what I said at the dinner table the other night,” he murmured, when Harry shifted restlessly beside him.

            Amazingly, that caused Harry to quiet down. Draco closed his eyes with a chuckle he made sure to keep silent. I reckon he considers Mudblood too violent an insult to let go.

*

            It made no sense. Nothing made any sense.

            But Harry had to confront some hard truths, especially given the exhaustion that seeped through his muscles. The curse that had hit him would have no permanent effects, he thought, but it had weakened him to be thrown back into those memories and then made to relive them aloud to the Malfoys. He wasn’t going anywhere right now.

            He needed rest, and he’d taken it in worse circumstances. He’d managed to sleep in the dark with claws and suckers fastened on his shoulders for three months.

            He closed his eyes. Malfoy stayed silent, the warmth beside Harry saying nothing, wanting nothing, undemanding. Even his hand was as cool and motionless as a statue’s in Harry’s hand.

            Somehow, though Harry never quite knew when, he passed from half-tense relaxation to true sleep beside another person for the first time since he’d come back.

            And there were no dreams.

*

            Erin_49: The platinum glows because it’s part of the same event. But it doesn’t disappear because Draco has now saved Harry’s life, for the reasons explained in this chapter.

            Harry doesn’t know exactly what the decay magic does, because he never did learn the full reason that those wizards kidnapped him.

            And, well, you know what Draco does about the Healer now.

            Mrequecky: Thank you!

            Elizabeth Gomez: Thank you! I hope you think your patience well-rewarded.

            Narcissa Black: I kind of have to smile, because other people think Harry is being absolutely stubborn and stupid about the whole thing, and like Draco. I suppose it’s a sign of a healthy story when people disagree about it so much.

            unneeded: As Harry explains more later, he can feel the attacks coming, and has always made sure to shield himself in some way or make sure that no one is around.

            Kogas Hentai Luver: Thank you! I hope the partial explanation here satisfies you.
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The Marriage of True Minds