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Emergence	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 2815 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Title: Emergence
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco (mostly pre-slash), Ron/Hermione, mentions of George/Angelina
Warnings: Angst, illness
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Being given custody of Draco after the war was not Harry’s idea of a good time, but he supposed he’d spoken up for him, now he was saddled with him. And at least Draco couldn’t cause that much trouble at the Burrow. Soon enough, though, Harry will be wishing for the kind of trouble he thought was going to come out of this.
Author’s Notes: The newest of my Wednesday one-shots, based on an anonymous prompt that asked for Harry and the Weasleys to have custody of Draco, and eventually coaxing him into a fuller life. It should have four or five parts.

Emergence

            “And is it your opinion, Mr. Potter, that Mr. Malfoy should go to Azkaban?”

            Harry shuddered a little. His eyes went to Malfoy’s face. Malfoy stood absolutely blank in chains in front of the courtroom.

            Harry knew what was behind that look. Not only was Lucius in Azkaban for life, but Narcissa Malfoy had received two years. Harry blamed himself for that, a little. He hadn’t spoken up much at her trial, confident that she hadn’t committed many crimes and that she would receive a light sentence for saving his life in the Forbidden Forest.

            But they’d found some more prisoners in the cellars of Malfoy Manor who had testified, eloquently, to how Narcissa had tortured them under the guidance of Bellatrix and Voldemort. The fact that Harry thought she’d been coerced into it, much like her son, hadn’t been enough to change the judges’ minds.

            “Mr. Potter?”

            The only thing Narcissa had asked for, in a mutter to Harry as he stood at her side waiting for the Aurors in depressed silence, was for him to save her son from prison. Harry had thought at the time that he couldn’t even if he wanted to, because the Wizengamot would sentence Draco to Azkaban the same way they would his parents.

            But now, studying the bored expressions on the faces around him, Harry thought perhaps he had a chance. There had been a lot of people here with an interest in seeing Lucius Malfoy go to Azkaban, and the testimony of the prisoners had tipped even those who might have been neutral on Narcissa. But the people Draco had tortured had been Death Eaters, none of them here as witnesses, and they seemed…

            The Wizengamot seemed like the sort who would ignore the son if the parents had been properly punished.

            “Mr. Potter.” The witch who spoke had some sharpness in her voice now, but she honestly sounded like she just wanted to finish and go home for the day, not like she was going to yell because he hesitated.

            Malfoy’s eyes met his, dead. Because he expected Harry to abandon him, more than anything else, Harry turned to the witch and shook his head.

            “I don’t want him to go to Azkaban,” he said. “He’s just a kid. Let him stay free.”

            The brightening of Malfoy’s eyes with disbelief was the most pleasing thing Harry had seen all day.

*

            “Let him stay free.”

            Draco wanted to raise his hand and rub his eyes, but the chains kept his hands down. He blinked and stared at Potter, but the moment had already moved on and the Wizengamot was arguing with Potter in a yawning way.

            “Why let him stay free?” The man who spoke was a cousin of Pansy’s, one of Lucius’s political contacts who used to come to the Manor for holidays. Draco hated him in the same low, steady way most of his emotions burned at the moment. “Azkaban always has room for another, and his family is there.”

            The man laughed at his own nasty joke, and a few more people tittered. Draco didn’t bother looking at them. He was the one looking at Potter, whose jaw firmed and who shook his head as though the man wasn’t worth his time.

            “I think he should, that’s all. He’s a kid. He was tortured. He didn’t give me away when he had the chance to. I know he came after me during the Battle of Hogwarts, but even that was just—bollocks. Like a kid might do.”

            Draco knew he probably should have felt offended, but he didn’t. The more passionately Potter believed that, the more chance he stood of convincing the members of the Wizengamot.

            Of course, a second later, with a tremor in his stomach, Draco had to wonder what exactly Potter hoped to get out of this. He wouldn’t do Draco a simple favor. And his indifference couldn’t be real, either, or he would have left the trial long before this. Draco hadn’t listened to stories from his father for nothing. He knew exactly how “Light” wizards tended to think of “Dark” ones.

            If he went to Azkaban, it would be horrible, but at least he would know what was coming. What would happen if he was released on Potter’s say-so? What kind of debt would he owe? What kind would he be expected to pay?

            Draco clenched his chattering teeth and didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the Wizengamot’s debate. As he had known they would, they accepted Potter’s arguments, for what little they were worth, and voted to release him. Draco gave a single shiver of gratitude.

            But then the Wizengamot started talking about who should keep a watch over him for the next few months, using the words “custody” and “Weasleys” in the same sentence, and Draco started shivering harder.

            The Weasleys hated his family. Draco had grown up on vicious bedtime stories of the kind of tricks they would play on innocent Malfoys to try and get their own back, and what they’d done on the rare occasions that they were involved directly in the punishment of a Malfoy.

            And when the Wizengamot announced that he was to be released into what was technically Potter’s custody, that didn’t soothe Draco’s fears much. Because as anyone—even prisoners locked up and only able to listen to guards’ gossip—knew, Potter was living with the Weasleys.

            Draco closed his eyes as the Aurors came up to take him away and hoped that Azkaban wouldn’t prove to be the kinder fate.

*

            “Malfoy? Did you know that you can’t use magic for a year?”

            Harry would have expected a stronger reaction to that part of Malfoy’s punishment. But instead, Malfoy had only stared at the Burrow with horrified, despairing eyes since they Apparated into the garden. Ron stood by Harry’s side, eying Malfoy with dislike that Harry knew had moderated since the end of the war. He still didn’t want Malfoy there, but he wasn’t going to curse him.

            Still, Malfoy wouldn’t have known the dislike had moderated. Harry caught Ron’s glance and nodded at the Burrow. Ron blinked once, then shrugged and walked towards it. Hermione had already gone inside. Harry knew she would rather just stay away from Malfoy than confront him.

            Then again, Hermione had her own ghosts to deal with from the war. She’d already made one trip to Australia and hadn’t found her parents. She was getting ready to make another one.

            Malfoy stood there, even though he had warm clothes and no chains on him anymore, shivering. Harry stared hard at his face. Had Malfoy always been that thin? He didn’t think so. And Malfoy also hadn’t had so much pallor in his face. His lips looked like they’d been scribbled on with Muggle makeup.

            “Did you hear me?” Harry asked very softly.

            Malfoy shivered and didn’t answer, didn’t respond.

            Harry drew his wand and conjured a wooden bench, a crude little thing that he’d got a lot better at making since the Wizengamot trials had started. The Wizengamot had often left him waiting for hours in an attempt to get him to leave. Harry sat down on it and pulled Malfoy down after him when he didn’t appear to notice it.

            That got a reaction. Malfoy flinched and ducked and shielded his head with one arm. Harry swallowed, trying not to let pity paralyze him.

            “I promise no one’s going to hurt you,” he said.

            Malfoy lowered his arm and stared at him again. At least this time he looked a little more “present,” like he could listen.

            “The Weasleys,” he whispered. “Don’t think they’ve given up the notion of a feud against my family. And I know they lost a son. They’re grieving, and they’ll blame me for that.”

            Harry shook his head, at a loss. “Did someone tell you that? It’s not true. They don’t blame you for it. Or your father,” he had to add. George had spent a lot of time investigating whether Lucius Malfoy could possibly have killed Fred, but he’d come up with no evidence. In fact, during the trials all the testimony had suggested Lucius was at the other end of the castle at the time, or hadn’t even Apparated in.

            “I know they’ll want to hurt me because I’m alive and he’s dead.” Malfoy’s voice was so small that Harry had to bend down near him to make it out. Malfoy was staring at the winter-stripped trees and almost closing his eyes. “My father told me. My mother. What members of their family have done to ours in the past, when they got their hands on them.”

            Harry opened his mouth to say that was stupid and Ron would never do anything like that, but he ended up closing it without saying anything. Not because he thought the Malfoys were right, but because he didn’t know the right words.

            Damn it. I wish the Wizengamot hadn’t put me in charge of him.

            It was better than Malfoy going to Azkaban, sure, and maybe his mum would even count it as saving her son. But Harry didn’t know how to take care of people. He knew how to teach them and save them and maybe even lead them, if you went back to the DA. But other than that…

            “Look, Malfoy,” he said, “anyone who tries to hurt you is going to have to go through me first, okay? And that includes George and—and anyone else.” George and his near-insanity after losing Fred were the only possible culprits he could think of, but he doubted Malfoy would agree.

            Malfoy looked at him with haunted eyes that at least had more color than his face or his lips. “You don’t want me here.”

            “I wish things were easier,” said Harry with complete honesty. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t protect you.”

            Malfoy actually mouthed the words for a moment, as though struggling to find the sense of them. Harry watched him with worry scalding his insides as though he had swallowed a whole vat of boiling water. He didn’t know what else to say, what else to do. The Healers had apparently visited Malfoy and said he wasn’t sick, but he seemed so lost.

            “You’ll stop them if they try to hurt me,” Malfoy finally whispered, his voice thick and low.

            Harry nodded, encouraged by the way that Malfoy’s eyes had started to focus again. “Exactly. And it doesn’t matter who they are. Ministry Aurors or Weasleys. I’ll protect you.” At least that was something he knew how to do.

            Malfoy still sat there for an absurdly long amount of time, especially considering how much he was shivering, before he finally inclined his head and said almost inaudibly, “Okay.”

            Harry reached out for him without thinking, and Malfoy flinched. Harry slowed his hand down and let it rest on the bench, and finally Malfoy took it and let Harry pull him to his feet.

            “Molly has a room ready for you,” said Harry gently. It was Fred and George’s room. Harry could understand why no Weasley would ever want to stay there again, but at least it meant Malfoy would have privacy. “Come on.”

*

            Draco found the room small and cramped, but it had a bed with thick, deep blankets. They were warm as long as he ignored the shades of maroon and orange they came in.

            He nestled down and closed his eyes.

            He knew they would bring food to him. They wouldn’t want him eating in the kitchen any more than Draco would want to sit at the same table with them.

            If he could stay here, keep his door barricaded from the inside with one of the scarred and battered trunks sitting in a corner, and not speak to anyone, until they forgot about him and the tortures they probably wanted to inflict on him, then Draco thought it would be all right.

            The blankets stopped the shivering. Potter brought the food on a tray. The food was as thick as the blankets: porridges and soups and bread baked in a lumpy, uneven way that no Malfoy house-elf would have tolerated.

            Had the Ministry undone the complex spells binding the Malfoy house-elves to the Manor yet? It was an ancient art, and one reason that not many people transferred elves between families anymore. The bindings might not take when the elves found themselves in a new building, serving new masters, and more wizards than one had died when confronted with a recalcitrant house-elf.

            Draco shook his head. Sometimes his mind wandered in ways that confused him. It was natural to think about all the things that were gone now, and about his parents in Azkaban, but why should he care about the new masters that his house-elves might have?

            Meals came. Draco went out and used the loo when he had to, and only after listening to make absolutely sure there was no one else in the corridor. He dodged the questions that Potter tried to ask him, because he knew without asking that Potter would demand more than the rambling that was all Draco could give him.

            On the other hand, this was a routine of its own. Draco slept and ate and wondered and used the loo. That was existence. Probably more existence than his parents had right now. Draco knew prisoners in Azkaban were fed or they would die, but he didn’t know how often they got to sleep or use the loo. And his food had to be better than theirs.

            Not that I deserve that. If I’d been stronger, then I would have asked the Wizengamot to send me to Azkaban, too. I deserve to bear what my parents are enduring, and I ought to lie where they are.

            Those were broken and drifting thoughts, though, and after a time, Draco stopped having them. His mind slid and tumbled, and he knew there was heat. Lots of heat. Of course, he had blankets piled on top of him and porridge that clotted in his mouth when he tried to eat it sticking to his ribs. So Draco stopped eating it.

            So much heat. Roaring around him. Sometimes Draco thought he was in the middle of the Fiendfyre, too, and Potter had simply turned his back on him and decided not to rescue him.

            Sometimes Draco thought that would have been better.

            So, when someone tried to shake his shoulder and rouse him, Draco simply rolled over and burrowed further down into the heat. Potter had flown out and left him there. It wasn’t like he could change his mind now.
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Emergence