The rights of 'Harry Potter' belong to Joanne K. Rowling and Warner Brothers.
I don´t receive any monetary reward for writing this story, but feedback from my readers, which is reward enough for me.
The war is over. The light has won...but something dark is growing inside Harry.
Will he win the fight against himself? And at which price...?
Harry/Draco
abusive!Harry dark!Harry hero!Harry
warnings: slash, darkfic, possible main character death
Stand My Ground
1. Losing Time
Harry carried the wooden cutting board over to the dustbin and opened the lid. With the edge of the kitchen knife in his hand he shoved the remains of the carrots he had just cut off the board, watching how they landed on unmistakable shards of light blue coloured china. He sighed in annoyance, saying farewell to the broken tea cup, before he shut the lid.
"Draco, you smashed one of my favourite cups!" he accusingly called in the direction of the living room.
The softly clattering sounds emerging from the next room, indicating that his boyfriend was laying the table, came to a halt, replaced by approaching steps. Draco´s slightly confused face appeared in the door frame, and grey eyes settled on Harry.
"What are you talking about, Harry? I did not destroy anything." Draco said, feeling a small stab in his heart at the disappointed look Harry gave him.
Harry huffed, opening the lid of the dustbin again to take out the piece of the broken cup to which the handle was attached, sliding his finger through the small loop. He turned towards the blonde, who stared at him with defiance, having his arms crossed and one delicate eyebrow raised.
"This cup I´m talking about. You know that I love this china, Draco. Molly gave it to me last Christmas. Couldn´t you take better care?" Harry said, tired of his love´s careless attitude.
"Merlin´s beard, Harry! If I had been the one who has broken your cup, wouldn´t I simply have repaired it? I am a wizard, after all," Draco hissed, his face flushing slightly as he picked the shards out of the waste to drop them on the counter with a disgusted face, before he added the last shard, which was dangling from Harry´s index finger. "Scourgify! Reparo!"
"See!" Draco grinned triumphantly, slapping the cup into Harry´s hand. "There you go, Harry. Your precious cup is whole once again."
Harry stared in confusion at the cup in his hand, wondering why Draco would have thrown the shards away before, as it was indeed easy to repair a broken cup. Maybe Draco was still harbouring a secret grudge against the Weasley´s, though it was rather unlikely, as Draco and Ron had become great chums since Harry had started to go out with Draco. Nevertheless the broken cup had to be Draco´s doing, because Harry had not even taken tea this morning. They had slept in, wonderfully exhausted from a night of hot, steaming sex.
"This is the second time now, that you are accusing me of breaking something! You are the one living here, not me. Are you sure you have no poltergeist in the house? After all this shack you´ve bought is old enough to come complete with ghosts," Draco drawled, clearly expecting an apology.
Harry kept his head down and looked up through his long, dark eyelashes, giving Draco the puppy-look, before he smiled and wound his arms around the blonde.
"I´m sorry, Draco. It was stupid of me to think you would do such a thing. Forgive me?" Harry whispered, locking his gaze with the stormy grey of his lover.
One of the things Harry loved in Draco were his impressive eyes. Some people might think that they were cold and hard like stone, but that was not the whole truth. They could be warm and sad and loving and sparkling with mirth. Right now he could observe how they changed from a light marble grey to a warmer, darker shade, shining with love.
"´course I forgive you, Harry, you know that," Draco assured him, moving closer until his lips touched Harry´s in a short, sweet kiss, his tongue only following the outlines of Harry´s lips without ever entering his mouth.
"I have to continue cooking." Harry said, withdrawing from the warm embrace with regret. "Our friends will be here soon."
"Can´t we fire-call Ron and Hermione to tell them to come another day?" Draco whined, trying to pull Harry into his arms once again.
"We´ve already done that the last time we´ve invited them. You should stop thinking with your dick," Harry scolded, although he would barter a lazy afternoon with their friends any time for a lazy afternoon in bed with Draco.
Harry couldn´t deny that he was a horny young man, as the tightness of his trousers clearly stated. Well, better young and horny than young and dead, he thought, vividly remembering the war which had ended only a year ago. Suddenly he felt not so happy and horny again. Harry put the cup with a loud clank into the sink. He avoided Draco´s hurt gaze, as Harry was not ready to talk about the war, and maybe would never be. He had fulfilled his duty and killed Voldemort, but he would never talk about the things he had seen and done in this accursed war.
"Right. I´ll go and finish setting the table," Draco grumbled, trying to shake off the slight hurt he felt as Harry scowled at him, just because he had suggested to have fun alone instead of with friends.
Within the last months Harry had developed terrible mood swings. Had Harry been a woman Draco would have suspected him to be pregnant. He had started to worry about the emotional Gryffindor when those nightmares had begun three months ago, deeply unsettled by Harry´s screams, which were shocking him out of his sleep at least once a week since then. Draco had already talked to Ron about them, whose alarmed face had told him that this was not the first time Harry had such problems.
Harry had every right to be uptight, Draco thought, as his whole youth had been overshadowed by the Dark Lord. Draco would never want to carry such responsibility on his shoulders, as Harry had done. Draco snorted at the thought that Harry was the prototype of a Gryffindor with his hero-complex. No matter into which crappy situation life manoeuvered him, Harry always managed to come out as the hero. Maybe that was one reason why Draco felt so drawn towards him, as Harry could make him feel protected and cared for like nobody else before him.
One hour later they were sitting at the dining table, sending each other loving looks and smiles and playing footsie under the table as if they were teens, while Ron and Hermione were bickering over the name for their first child. The baby was due in five weeks time and still they had not even remotely decided on a name. Draco was very grateful for being gay. Children were a pest, and even though Harry dreamed of their own child, they had not decided to adopt one so far.
"What is wrong with Josephine? Josephine Weasley is a sophisticated name, Ron!" Hermione pouted with tears in her eyes.
"´Mione, don´t do this to me! Don´t you start crying now. You can´t blackmail me into liking that name. Audrey Weasley sounds much better. Mates, what name do you like better?" Ron asked, his face comically screwed up with despair.
"Josephine." "Audrey."
Harry and Draco said at the same time, before they looked at each other and, turning back towards the expecting couple, now said the name the other one had claimed before.
"Audrey." "Josephine."
Draco snickered at Harry´s innocent look.
"Blimey! The two of you are just as weird as the twins," Ron said, shaking his head in wonder.
"You should give it a Muggle name. After all it will be the bastard of a Mudblood and a blood-traitor," Harry deadpanned, shocking them all for an awkward moment into silence.
"What did you just say, Harry?" Hermione finally asked with a shaken smile, while Draco and Ron were still gaping at Harry, who calmly took a sip of his wine, looking for all the world as if nothing out of the normal had happened.
"Now that I come to think of it, you should drown your worthless spawn at its first cry," Harry said quietly, sneering at them.
"What the fuck-" Ron jumped up, a murderous expression on his face.
"Harry, what has come over you? Hermione, Ron, I´m sure he is just joking, no, drunk, yes, drunk. Let´s get you into bed, Harry!" Draco sputtered, frantically trying to pull Harry out of his chair to propel him out of the room.
Harry would have none of it. He violently pushed Draco away, as he got up, almost causing the blonde to crash to the floor.
"Take your hands off me, Malfoy! And don´t call me Harry." Harry hissed, as his face contorted with loathing. "I´m sure you would like to have me in bed, dirty faggot. Do you open your legs for everybody who is willing to fuck a blood-traitor, or only for the famous ones?"
All colour drained from Draco´s face as he stared with disbelief at the man he loved. Harry radiated such hatred and brutality that Draco instinctively receded when his boyfriend stepped closer to him.
"Stop this, Harry! You are frightening me!" Hermione pleaded, clinging to a furious Ron to hold him back.
Harry slowly turned towards Hermione, sneering again as he let his glittering eyes wander over her swollen middle, which she immediately encircled with her arms to hide it from his sight. The trembling woman shrieked when a plate flew past her head to explode on the wall behind her, missings its target by no more than an inch.
"Have you gone crazy? That´s enough now, Harry!" Ron shouted, as he protectively stepped in front of his terrified wife.
"I don´t want to see any of you in my house again, or I will kill you like the vermin you are!" Harry hissed with a vicious smile on his face, pulling his wand out in one fluid motion to point it at his best friends.
Draco, who had been standing to the left side of Harry, now directed his own wand at his love´s temple, something he would never have thought possible.
"Ron, take Hermione out of here," Draco said with a voice as shaking but decided as his wand hand. He did not want to hurt Harry, but he would, if he was forced to.
Ron sent a last lingering look at Harry and Draco, embraced his crestfallen looking wife closely and pointed his wand at them. "Apparate!"
"You-" Harry hissed, irate, turning his head to send an intense gaze filled with unadulterated hatred at Draco. "You dare to raise your wand against me?"
Draco yelped with surprised anguish and staggered back, when a hard hand made contact with the side of his face, snapping his head to the side with the brutal force behind it.
"Stup-" Draco hissed as soon as he had overcome the initial shock of having been hit by Harry, a Harry who had never been prone to violence.
"Expelliarmus!" Harry shouted, proving his battle-tried magical skills once again, as he sent Draco´s wand flying into the air before the blonde could stun him.
Harry caught Draco´s wand with his left hand, an ugly sneer twisting his features. Draco shivered at the look in Harry´s eyes.
"Harry, please, I love you!" Draco tried his last desperate approach, hoping that somehow the old Harry would resurface, the Harry who loved him and protected him.
"I told you not to call me Harry," Harry said quietly, his face an expressionless mask again, sending a shudder down Draco´s back. "Crucio!"
Draco was completely taken by surprise by the torturing curse Harry directed at him. The agony searing through his body brought him to his knees, which elicited a satisfied grin from the man he loved. He tried so hard not to scream, tried not to show how much Harry hurt him, but Harry´s Cruciatus Curse rivalled even the deceased Dark Lord´s with its incredible force behind it. The pain raced like fire through his body, devouring his bones and muscles, stretching his tendons until they snapped, stealing the air out of his struggling lungs and lacerating his heart. Finally his mind was shrouded in agonizing, red haze, the pain silencing his last conscious thought, shredding his will to endure--and he screamed.
Harry looked up in confusion, wondering what he was doing in his study with a shot of firewhiskey in his hand. Well, maybe he had wanted to get something to drink for them. He took the bottle, which stood in front of him and leisurely strolled back into the living room, a happy smile on his face. His steps became slower when he entered the room and found it empty. There was an odd rhythmic sound reverberating in the room, and it took him some moments to realise that it resembled ragged breathing.
Slowly he stepped around the large sideboard to find a trembling Draco sitting on the ground, huddling into the corner behind it.
Draco looked up at Harry with wide, frightened eyes, slightly relieved when he found that Harry was holding a glass with firewhiskey in one hand and the corresponding bottle in the other one instead of a wand pointing at him.
"Where is everybody? Did you fight with Ron?" Harry asked, startled by a prominent bruise on Draco´s left cheek, right over the cheekbone.
Draco just shook his head, still not moving out of his corner, as he watched Harry carefully. He could not stop trembling, as the after-effects of the Cruciatus Curse were still raging like a rabid beast through his body, and the best he could do was not to moan with pain. Harry had not removed the curse from him until Draco had stopped screaming on the brink of losing consciousness. He watched with trepidation as Harry placed the firewhiskey on the sideboard, flinching when his boyfriend offered him his hand to help him up.
"Don´t-" Draco whispered, shaking his head again, as he stared at Harry´s hand.
They both started when there was a sudden whooshing sound coming from the large fireplace and Ron stepped out of the green flames, wand in hand, closely followed by Fred and George. Harry´s smile melted into a frown when the three brothers raised their wands, each of them having only one target--his heart.
A/N This plotbunny did not stop biting me. It was one of my first ones and came back to harass me again, so I decided to use this fine day to write a chapter and post it. If you are interested in reading the full story, please, leave a review. The plot might be a bit overdone (though would you know now if it´s the old horcrux story or a mad Harry..), but I hope to have a unique twist to the plot. I have the story completely planned out but not written. This way I will let your response decide if I should continue this story or start another one (x-shudders-x I have so many plots planned out, but not enough hands and time to write everything at once as I would want to). Btw., this story will have no influence on the posting of Demonchild, as I will definitely complete Demonchild. Uh, and my beta is on well-deserved holidays, so whatever mistakes you find are mine, and mine only, except of if you want to have them as a gift.