Once settled on the train, Harry did a quick visual of seeing himself making light-hearted conversation, swapping anecdotes, and generally holding his own against what his fame had done to public perception. That's how he prepared his mind for the public pace of the next two weeks. People seemed to think that just because they knew of him, that meant they also knew him. He was used to that, but he wasn't eager to deal with all those conclusions about his character. It was one thing to know he had something worth giving, and another to put up with all the ignorance.
In his best moments he relayed the actions of others. He told the stories of those who had no voices to speak. He told, not only his history, but the history of those who were with him, and brought urgency back to life for the people who appreciated what they'd all come through. His speeches had turned into informal lectures. They won awards. And when he refused to take those awards back to his lodgings, they materialized in the trophy room at Hogwarts, or in his Gringott vaults. His magic knew their value even if he did not.
It had started when he couldn't give a lady in the audience the answers she wanted. That woman, a stranger he'd never laid eyes on, was mourning a fifth-year daughter, whom he also couldn't remember.
"Who cares if you're a hero," the woman heckled him, even as security approached her. "It doesn't bring back my child, who had nothing to do with your crazy war!"
Harry stopped trying to appeal to her to listen right then. He dropped his notes on the podium and tossed aside all his coaching on how to deflect and diffuse audience tension. He looked directly at her and asked, "And how did she die?"
The aiming of his words were meant to trigger the answer in her mind. Subtle suggestion could've worked more effectively, but Harry was tired of being polite. He didn't have to go after the information. She automatically reacted, transmitting the shock of being told that her daughter's body was recovered from the lake. The woman didn't answer him, but he saw it flash in her mind. Emotionally hysterical people, whether from grief or habitual feelings of helplessness, advertised their thoughts. He didn't have to go after them. He didn't have to remind himself that he was taught this skill by a master.
The mere act of having to acknowledge the word, 'daughter' triggered his defenses. It forced him to think of his own, and hide her from the world, even in thought. If this woman wanted to talk daughters, that was her choice. But his daughter was off-limits. He did not speak of her in public. If he knew nothing else about protecting her, he knew not to do that. Her existence was a matter of whispered speculation and it could stay that way as far as he was concerned.
"You think I'm standing on this stage because I'm some hero? No, I'm up here because of this." He pointed his wand to his head and flung the tip out towards the audience. The memory expanded between him and the lady. It was a scene of the last day of battle, and the castle lying in rubble, with dead students, teachers, and Death Eaters alike. The audience gasped. Harry's magic was projecting what he'd experienced, without a pensieve. Even security stopped in their tracks.
"Do you see that? Do you see that no matter who these people were, innocent, evil, young, old, they all bled the same? They all died the same? Voldemort wanted everyone who refused to serve him, dead. Unfortunately, that included your daughter."
The woman stumbled back, knocking over the folding chair behind her.
As the edges of the memory spread, an image of Lavender Brown with her neck torn open, flashed for everyone to see. A second later, Fenrir's corps, fangs just visible, paired with it.
"I'm here to pay tribute to your daughter and everyone who didn't come out of this. Did you come here to blame me for your daughter's death? This is Lavender Brown, a lovely, besotted seventh-year Gryffindor. And this is Fenrir Greyback, the werewolf that ripped her throat out. I saw this. You weren't there, I was. So don't tell me I don't have a right to be on this stage talking about these people, their fight, and their sacrifices. I'm not trying to bring your loved ones back, and I never said I could. I'm up here because this is my personal experience and I have a right to talk about what I've been through, with those who want to listen, who want to come as close to knowing why their loved ones died, as I can provide for them. I need to talk about it. It's too much to hold inside. That's why we still come together the way we do. It's support and it soothes the nightmares that we all live with."
When no one challenged him, when he saw that backs had straightened and people were leaning forward, he continued.
"I don't have any answers, but I do have unalterable moments that speak more strongly than I ever could. If your daughter was an innocent casualty in the battle, appreciate that she didn't die like this. If they pulled her from the lake, then she was probably on the bridge that collapsed with Death Eaters. She was right in the line of battle and helped Neville Longbottom slow them down. That bridge took out over a hundred Death Eaters. She wasn't hiding in her room, that's for sure."
Harry didn't have his own memory of what that moment looked like. But he had Neville's account and he knew what it looked like as Neville had described it to him. Murmers went up when he showed it to the audience. People stood as the scene spread out in panoramic detail before them. At the moment when Death Eaters stomped and swarmed from the forest, tearing down the wooden planks to make an example out of Neville, the moment they got past the last of the barrier holding them out, Seamus' bombs lit the joints in the bridge. The night sky filled with suspended bodies that had no ground beneath their feet. Those in Harry's audience, saw the closest record they would ever see of Voldemort's followers dying en masse.
"All the kids who where able, tried to save their stronghold, their home, their school. That's why your daughter died," he told the woman. "If that doesn't give you any comfort, then you've come to the wrong place and there's nothing I can say to make your loss, right. It's not right and it never will be."
The woman looked stricken. When she could speak, she asked with quivering lips, "How are you doing that without a pensieve?"
"Magic," Harry snapped back. His tone was unyielding to her grief. Now was not the time to explain that he'd spent the last two years cross-purposing his patronus energy into projecting his memories. Time spent with war orphans forced him to hone the trick and have something to offer those he encountered. Teaching one or two, to create their own patronis, gave them common ground enough to open up to him and to unblock the trauma of the war. When he saw that his efforts had a real impact, that it released something in him as well, he went with it.
The woman sunk back into her seat, ashen.
Harry wasn't done with her. He knew the audience was listening closer than ever, and the woman was the perfect catalyst for delivering a message to his critics.
"I am no more responsible for your daughter's death than I am for Lavender and Fenrir. I fought to end the war. I, and countless others, fought to keep the war from reaching your daughter. We failed. We are forever scarred by that. If we need to come together and talk about it, until the worst of the pain is gone, then that's what we'll do. It's a celebration of survival, as much as it is a tribute to those we miss. I've tried not talking about it. Believe me, when Voldemort was defeated, I just wanted to go underground and hide from the fallout and the publicity. But doing that lets people like you, people who can't get passed their loss, waste in grief. You came out today because you didn't want to waste. You're tired of it. You're fighting it, just like your daughter felt the call to fight. You came here hoping for something to let you connect to her. I came out hoping to ease someone's pain and make them feel better about getting on with life. Did we both get what we wanted?"
The audience had been stunned into silence. Harry gave up and cut his speech short. He left the stage kicking himself for not controlling his annoyance. He'd barely made it into the wings, with several other guest speakers offering sympathetic sighs, when he heard applause at his back. Two retired aurors and officials encouraged him to return to the stage, but he refused. He did however, hear the Minister congratulate him in front of the audience. "And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we come together as we do. No greater statement, can I give you, than the harsh reality survivors live with, as shown by the very mind of Mr. Harry Potter. I do not apologize for the graphic nature, if that's what it takes to remind our detractors why we celebrate our survival nearly two years on, and why we take time to remember properly."
For those who were not on the front line of battle, for those who only had the half-truths of newspapers and mysterious disappearances of friends or family, muggle or magic, who survived it all by holding their tiny little corner of daily work and life together, Harry's accounts put their lives into perspective. There were shops that didn't make it. Neighbors that never resurfaced. Onlookers knew exactly what had happened on their timeline. Harry's accounts allowed them to triangulate their place in the war and see that they were standing on victory. Not just over some wizard downfall, but over all they feared.
Harry brought the heroes back to life when he talked about them. He made them real again when he let the audience in on Dumbledore's Timeturner, or Hagrid's nervousness the first day as a teacher. When he revealed what Umbridge did to him, or what it was like to stand before Tom Riddle in theTri-Wizard Tournament, they were in the grip of history-come-to-life. Mouths open, silent, and eyes glutton for more, they really did appreciate that he had been there. Even those older wizards, who refused to take him serious because he was barely twenty, nodded with respect after he finished speaking.
It was usually then that he did something no one else had thought of. He allowed the faces of all he honored, all he remembered, to show through his thoughts, to a gaping, mesmerized audience, as he called out their names one by one. Every person, from Severus Snape to Remus Lupin, projected from a real-life experience of Harry's, to the onlookers who had no reason to come into contact with those key players behind the scenes of the war. For five seconds, projected against a backdrop of black vapor behind Harry's head as he spoke, Voldemort stared all of them down, as he'd stared Harry down. The sight of that gaze confirmed that many of them would not have survived such an encounter. For five seconds, everyone witnessed Severus Snape turn to Umbridge and cover for Harry, saying in his most stilted voice, "I have no idea." By then, those words would've come full circle and the audience will have understood that Snape had lied to protect the truth.
People seemed to forgive and let go when Harry matter-of-factly told why he was there in this way, and as he allowed others to see what he knew. They understood that the window into his mind, was a privilege that he did not have to give. It wasn't long before others, like Gilderoy Lockhart, began copying his lecture methods, and telling their versions as well. But Harry's presentation remained as unique as his placement in the war. And he never told the same story, in quite the same way, twice. When he started talking and warming up to an interested audience, he could always remember a moment at school, catching a snitch, sparring with Draco, or even running from a dementor, that added spicy detail and intrigue to those listening. Gilderoy, nor anyone else, could ever reproduce the fuller, vivid dimensionality that Harry's images projected onto the air around him. It was as if his aura acted as a prism, producing full-bodied holographics. He was working on sound, but he wasn't there yet. If he could hear Snape's blood-freezing voice in his mind, and he could, he was sure he could get it to sync with the image somehow.
Learning to put his memories together for a targeted presentation, and even sharing spontaneous memories so vividly, gave him a new tool for communicating and cutting through the barriers of strangers. Harry's speaking engagements, at first few and ceremonial, grew to such popularity, that the new Minister, Vector Banks, quickly monopolized on it and created an entire Post-War Relations Committee around the outpouring to hear Harry's Tribute Speeches, as they called them.
Minister Banks, the nephew of Griselda Banks, used her ties to the Wisengammot, to pad his ten years in the Department of Ethics and Relations before she retired. When word got around that Embassy Officials, both magical and non-magical, were securing seats to Harry's presentations, and whispering about 'Underground events finally coming to light in that other world,' the Minister demanded to know what it would take to gain Harry's loyalty and happiness as a Ministry team-player. Until then, if Harry didn't feel like taking on engagements, he didn't. There was no getting him to intern or to take running for any office seriously. His free-will way of coming and going from Ministry-regulated affairs, made the new Minister uncomfortable.
Banks had that same greased wheel, suit and tie ambition, that seemed to be a requirement for all Ministers. At that first presentation, he had pulled Harry off to the side, his emerald earring glistening. It made Harry wonder if the Minister's Gryffindor qualities had been slightly more dominant than his Slytherin style. He wore forest-green pinstripes, kept his dark-rust hair clipped to boxed precision, and let one side of his mustache go as snow white as he dared, to elicit magical charm from those who were not expecting it. Sixty looked like fifty on him. He smelled of a younger man's aftershave and handled a crowd like he was the ring leader of a circus. The way he drove his gaze into Harry, advertised that he was a proud student of Mezmer and had courted his way into politics from an early, protege determination.
A foot taller than Harry, energetic, and well aware that he had something to prove in the wake of his predecessors, he appealed to Harry, "You must give me something. Some commitment. These people love you! Politics has left a bad taste in their mouths. The legal system, worse. The polls show that you're the only reason sixty-five percent of voters are still reading the Prophet. That, to me, makes you an asset. I can keep you connected to the people who want to hear you, but I need some measure of agreement from you. Insurance. Tell me what I can do to keep you from running off with the next younger, prettier deal. Let me create a position for you. All you have to do is keep talking to the youth. Keep the veterans in comradeship. In other words, keep doing your thing. Are you and Draco happy? Do you need bigger quarters? More privacy? Let the Ministry hire you properly, so that everyone knows you're one of us."
Harry eased out of his grip. "We've talked about this, Banks. I'm not one of you and I'm not choosing sides. I talk to the people who want me to, that's all. This is healing me. I'm being very selfish and I refuse to obligate myself to anything outside of my family."
"But you're so good at it. The Ministry will pay you to do what you love."
"I don't love remembering the war. I do it because I have to. I have to connect with people and get the infection out of my system. When people listen and see that someone else shared that darkness, relief comes to both of us. Those kids open up to me. They tell me things no one else will ever know. When I tell them my story, they finally feel permission to let go of some horrible burden. You can't pay me enough to go through that journey with someone. It can only happen as long as I want to do it. As long as I need to heal. I'll give my presentations as long as they seem to be helpful. I can't give you, or anyone, exclusive rights to my experience. You'll just have to trust me."
Victims, made mute by the horrors of Death Eater crimes, regained their voices at Harry's lectures. Orphans related to him, an orphan himself. And childless parents looked for the faces of their dead, in the sporadic memories he allowed them to see. Rumors grew of the cathartic experiences taking place at his speeches. Speeches became lectures. Lectures won notice.
Harry retold his stories, not to dwell on the past, but to show his gratefulness to have a future. It was always perfect timing when he closed his presentation with, "No matter who you are, or what your story is, you and I have the most important thing in common. We came through this. If we're here, and others aren't, it means we have to get on with a new beginning."
He always thinks that he wants to talk about his daughter at that point, and validate all the rumors. He wants to prove that Iece's presence was just as much a cruel card dealt by Voldemort, as losing a loved one or becoming an amputee. At the time, she'd spun him into another dimension of lost and powerlessness. He'd had no idea what to do with her or himself. And now he loved her. But that was too personal. That was too reckless. She didn't deserve the hunger with which they'd turn their curiosity on her. They'd all mean well, at first. But appetites would grow. His critics would find the holes, ask too many questions, and turn his desire to be honest against his whole family.
No, he'd rather show them being tortured by Voldemort, naked under the Cruciatus, before he gave them a crumb of her light.
He tried to never show the audience things that were too terrible for anyone to see. Things that he was still recovering from, himself. It was Draco's idea to create an interactive book that would let anyone access appropriate information in the form of his memories.
"It'll be like an artifact, triggered to respond to magic." Draco had used every word but 'Like Tom Riddle's Diary,' to say that Harry could control what went into it. The book would preserve history and show it in a way that the written word could only supplement. "We're talking magical artifacts. Not horcruxes."
Draco encouraged, "It's not as if you're creating a dark object. Why spell things out for people, when you can just show them?"
Harry thought about it. But the best reason for doing it came when Draco added, "Then it'll all be recorded and we can put the whole thing behind us. There won't be any reason to talk about it anymore. Anyone who wants your presentation, can just pick up your book. I don't know all the spells required for such a project, but I'm learning a lot. I'll be able to help you."
The idea of working on the project with Draco, breathed warmth into the idea. It was the first time Harry considered telling his full and true story. No matter how long he fought it, it would all come out eventually. Maybe the world would be kinder to Iece, if they knew how she'd happened. Maybe that's why he was telling the old stories. One day they were going to look at her and see how different she was. Her magic was starting to show, and it wasn't easy to understand. He was saying to them, "Remember what she's been through. Of course she's different. Don't hate her. Don't fear her. Let her live, as you've found a way to live."
Harry settled into the train ride ahead, acclimating to locomotive jerks in spite of the luxury quality of the car. It was an expensive seat, but the privacy was worth it. He never knew when he needed to relieve his magic. It was a side effect of PTSD, or so the doctors at St. Mungo's told him. Ancid Falleptic Shock. He used to lock himself in the closet and beat the walls until his fists bled, until Draco threatened to run off with Iece if he didn't see a therapist.
He hadn't meant to let her roll off the sofa. He'd made sure that she was wedged between pillows. She must've squirmed more than he thought she was capable back then. When he heard her crying, unusual shrill bursts stretched the length of her screams. It sounded like pain to him. It hurt him. By then, his hands were as useless as noodles and he didn't even know where his wand was. When the urge to punch something came, he'd learned to go to a closet. He didn't understand it, he just obeyed it. It was powerful and it overcame him. He didn't stop denting the drywall until there were holes and blood. Usually, he could repair the fractures enough to function and then he'd use his magic to clean and repair the wall. But that day, his useless hands betrayed him and Draco saw the walls of the closet for himself.
It was either agree to counseling, or fight Draco over who was more fit to care for Iece.
After weeks of being prodded to open up to a doctor, Harry revealed, "Rage comes out of nowhere. I'm fine for weeks. Then it's like I remember everything all at once. Not in detail, I just feel it. And I want to punch whatever's standing in front of me. It's overpowering."
Under the confidentiality agreement that Mediwizard, Avi Rankar, swore when he took on Harry's case, Harry allowed himself to acknowledge that the violence within him, might have something to do with war crimes committed against him. He and Draco shared separate, thirty-minute sessions with the wizard, before it was agreed that Harry needed therapy every two weeks. The thirty-five year-old, looked young enough to have graduated only a few years ahead of them. Stout, with hairless, equator-warm skin, he wore a medical white sherwanis, but holstered three different wands in a satin sheath around it. Intense concentration radiated from his quiet attention and unblinking stare. His manner was as subdued as the décor velvetizing his office in soothing greens and purples. Below his smoke-black hairline, a subtle, crescent tattoo with a red star, had been etched between his eyebrows. It had Harry thinking that the cultural equivalent would've been a Gryffindor Lion inked between his own eyebrows.
When Harry had turned pale and froze under questioning, Draco supplied some details.
"He locks himself in the closet to protect us."
Harry noticed that Draco was shrewd and didn't lose his poise at the mention of Death Eaters and torture. How eerily 'Malfoy' of him, it was. In telling his own story, which Draco assumed was common knowledge by then, he thought he was keeping Harry from having to tell his. They'd worked out that Harry's fits had something to do with having the choice to be a father completely taken away from him.
"I was the subject of Voldemort's curse," Draco volunteered. On Avi's sofa, which glowed velvety forest green, he shifted beside Harry.
"It changed my body. At school, Harry and I engaged intimately, without knowing the dangers. I nearly bled to death. So I suppose, even though my body is completely normal now, a part of him is still reacting to that huge mess. The war kept everybody running. We never got time to adjust to anything. Changes hit us so fast, and kept coming. Not only is he trying not to hurt me again, there's some people he would like to hurt. But those people are gone and they're not going to pay for what they did. So how do we stop him from feeling all that?"
Avi didn't accuse them of withholding information. If that was as much as both were ready to venture into the pain, then that was fine. He used all three wands to measure subtle energies around them and take readings of their magic-biology. Without coming to any conclusions, he scheduled visits to get Harry more comfortable talking to him. It took four sessions to get Harry to say it.
"Okay. I was…"
"It's one of the most common, unreported crimes there is. It happens to thousands daily, male and female. In times of war, the numbers go up exponentially. You are not alone, Mr. Potter. It's a crime of power. By the age of seventeen, ten percent of men experience some form of sexual assault. Those are just the ones who admit it. And even then, it usually takes them years. It is a professional estimation that that number is far greater than we can confirm."
Sighing, Harry tried again. "I was raped."
There was no relief. There was only a fist-curling surge of anger as Harry imagined shattering the skull of the wizard staring back at him. All of Avi's composure looked like mockery. No man, that competent, that masculine, and intelligent, could possibly see Harry as anything but pathetic. Oh, sure, the doctor part of him had a job to do, to make Harry feel normal. But the man - Harry could see it - sneered in disgust. No real man lets that happen to him, Avi's soul whispered behind all the intellectual jargon.
"Harry, anyone can be overpowered. It can happen to anyone. Faster than many suppose."
Does the intellect ooze, like brains, if you drive your fist into the nose and crack the skull open to let all that superiority spill out?
It wasn't just what happened. It was that word. It was having to say that bloody sickening word. It would hit Harry in the middle of the day, or in the middle of a conversation. It wasn't going to let him forget. It wasn't like saying you got your ass kicked, or you lost the fight. It was telling people someone held you down and took every ounce of dignity you had left. They made you less than dirt. They wiped your face in shit and you took it. You took it. Because you couldn't stop it, means you somehow consented to public humiliation and lower life form ridicule, as the new status people regarded you with when they found out.
And they had to find out because the legal system claims you're hurting others if you don't drag your own shit out into the open for everyone to discuss. Like they'd know better than you. Just thank god, or whoever the fuck was running things, that that's all you had to admit. Your best mates were behind you, including Draco. You told the court that you were drugged and assaulted, along with all the other victims who got done to, under the general label "war crimes." But you didn't tell them the details because you couldn't quite bring those into focus. You didn't tell them that all you knew was that your body was different and there was this thing growing inside you. That you did your best not to think about it so that you could concentrate on destroying fucking horcruxes. You didn't tell them any of that.
The man sweating on top of you, bearing his teeth, and gloating to see it hurt just as much as he supposed you made his son hurt, is behind a pane of glass. He's dangerous. Even the deceptive color of his long hair is dangerous. He's like one of those man-eating plants that lure their prey close with immaculate beauty. Go on, touch the pretty white flower. But he can't hurt you now. He's on one side of the glass and you're on the other. And that fucking audience behind him saw it all. Including your friends. That's okay. They're on the other side of the glass too.
That was as much as Harry could recall from that conversation. When he came to, Avi's wand was drawn and his office looked like a pack of wolves had run through it. Classy globes and brass knick-knacks were missing from the desk. Paper littered the carpet, and velvet cushions lay heaped on piles of curtains torn from their frames. Avi's hair held the remnants of incense and feathers from his antique pillows. His mouth was bleeding. Harry learned later, that the injury was from attempting to duck behind his desk when Harry sent his crystal paperweights flying. Without reaching for his wand, Harry's hands seemed to be happier doing the heavy lifting without magic because, "It feels better when I actually feel the objects break in my hands. I can pretend I'm breaking his bones."
Avi had temporarily paralyzed him to get him to stop. This was why Harry needed a closet whenever his memories tried to reconstruct themselves fully in his thoughts.
"I'm sorry. I know my anger doesn't make sense. I talk to kids who've been through practically the same thing. People older, younger. Then I hear from people who wish that had been their fate, instead of seeing their friends and family slaughtered in front of them. I have the nerve to tell them their lives are going to be okay, when I'm walking around punching shadow demons. I'm not being honest with people."
Avi disagreed. "People don't need to know everything. You're giving as much as your balance will let you give, and still have something for yourself, or for the people who need you. You're getting those kids through. You're getting through it together. You never promised to be able to take their pain away. All you can do is talk them through it. One day, they'll be standing in a better place, and they'll see how they made it out of the dark. You're doing that for yourself and you're trying to bring as many people out with you. You don't have to show people every little secret. Forgive yourself for having secrets. If you're going to have anything for your daughter, you're going to have to hold something back. Your true resource is your happiness. If you sacrifice that for the sake of someone else's idea of honesty, then you've truly lost the war."
Avi had sent Harry home to rest. On his next visit, he had an answer to the closet dilemma.
He explained, "Your magic is part of your biological system. If something has gone wrong with your magic, then your body will express this in parallel fashion. For instance, in some medical cases, a broken heart yields actual, cardiac disease. Your diagnostics show significance disintegration to your feedback tests. From your school records, we can tell that you're only functioning at seventy percent of your standard, magical capabilities. You've lost thirty percent of your brain's ability to conduct your magic, yet your seventy percent is stronger than that of a wizard functioning at one hundred percent."
Harry didn't need the math. He wanted to know what was wrong and how could he fix it?
"Your memory actually shows up like a stroke on our screens. The dark patches look like permanent damage, but yours is healing. We attribute this to war stress, but more importantly, it means that your body is rebuilding new connections between your intent and your magic. Since your neural bridges are burned, so to speak, where pleasure centers are concerned, your magic does not know where to go.
Your energy gets rerouted in sporadic and unpredictable ways. Sometimes, sexual arousal is the brain's way of emptying excess magic that the body cannot conduct properly."
Harry waited to see the connection to this and the closet.
"It's a disposal, recycling system, and a rather smart one. But until you forgive yourself for what you think of as allowing your victimization, you will cross wires of natural arousal with natural aggression. The minute sex comes into play, is the minute your defenses escalate to survival mode. You just start fighting. You're still punching the person who did this to you, magically and physically. It has been very responsible, and very pragmatic of you, to lock yourself in a closet to spare your family.
Your urges appear during, what you consider to be inappropriate times, and are usually met with denial or self-blame. It's rather like a child who fights sleep. The body needs sleep, but the child's rationality is to remain awake so as not to miss something. The sleepier the child gets, the more discognitive and uncooperative its body seems to behave. Balance can only be regained through restorative sleep. In your case, guiding your body and thoughts to a healthy, natural release, is what will regenerate a healthy response within you. Not only to painful memories, but to whatever currently stimulates your sexual desire."
The connection made sense to Harry. But the prescription did not.
"The key to this, is to deliberately create the response to intimate stimuli that you want to have. Twice weekly, I want you to take back your privacy. Take back your right to pleasure. Make a point of finding moments alone and quickly, before you can talk yourself out of it, bring yourself to sexual climax. Be done with it, and go about your business. This reinforces the place for pleasure in your life without it becoming even more of an emotional hurdle. If you don't invent a problem with it, your brain and magic cannot see it as a problem. The more smoothly experiences go, the more you will bring your magic back into alignment with the healthy person that you are."
"You've confided that you and Mr. Malfoy shared complications with intimacy. Sex is no longer what it was for you both. It's logical that the disruption in your private life is symptomatic of the disruption in your magic. You have open-ended wiring that leaves your magic no where to go. Likewise, your body tries to convert this into a sexual outlet. Because of your particular difficulties, you do not permit an easy flow for intimacy.
"Draco is right, you're afraid you will hurt him again. You want to hurt something or someone. You've already lost one family over the machinations of war, you feel you stand to lose this one as well. So when Draco isn't around and you feel arousal, you are attempting to shut it down and get back at the person who did this to you all at once. All of this blocks the natural instinct until it becomes pressurized and expresses as aggression. Your decision to self-gratify is you disrupting the violent cycle with positive feelings, before it gets started."
Holy fuck, that had sounded so crazy. He wasn't crazy. He'd been perfectly sane for putting himself in the closet, no matter what it looked like. Since Iece's fall, he'd been carrying a mountain of guilt. She wasn't hurt, but she could've been. He and Draco made it a point to spell her and everything in her immediate vicinity with protection.
That still left him and his hand for a date. Doctor-approved masturbation. Not nearly as exciting as approval would've made it back in school, when that had been the only option. He knew too much now. Correction, he knew what Draco had taught him. Or maybe he'd blown that one, first night out of proportion. Since they'd never been able to repeat it, maybe he had glorified it and made it unreachable after their fantastic fall from grace. He'd figured both he and Draco were ruined for sex forever, and they might as well take it out on each other.
There had been dates with other people. Even sex. All ending badly. After the trials, their reputations to heroic, bachelor status, had them ready to put some healthy distance between them. Both of them knew that they were being used. Dates were mostly fodder for gossip and social ladders. If a beautiful body let them forget their troubles for one blissful night, then it was a fair trade.
More often than not, Harry got to brag that women were still appealing to him, and that he had the ability to perform on command. That world of adult women actually hitting on him, was entirely new and pretty amazing, even if his stomach soured at the thought of them using him as a trophy. To the seventeen year-old, pre-war version of him, it was cool as fuck and he wasn't going to miss out on it just because some reptile decided to shit on his whole life. Every time he tried it with a woman, he was telling Voldemort, and all the Death Eaters, to go fuck themselves. That was fun at first.
Then it dawned on him that the girls and ladies who cornered him in bathrooms and parties, were so much more experienced than him, that he amounted to nothing more than a device that didn't need batteries. The only way he could make it fun for him, was to pretend they were long-waisted and flat-chested, like Draco. That their soft thighs were actually wound with cords of muscle that flexed and released to cushion against his momentum. When this wasn't enough, he let men take him home. He was still processing those few encounters, as if something simply shut down for the time it took to let them do what they wanted to do to him. He never saw the same person twice, and the one or two times he'd actually let himself have the pleasure he wanted, caused comments to circulate. He'd heard himself referred to as a "Diamond in the rough. All power, no breaks," twice at one banquet. His reputation acquired a waiting list as well as a host of quidditch slurs.
That's no seeker. He's a bloody fucking beater's w'ot he is.
I don't even like the game, but I wouldn't mind getting bludgeoned by Harry.
Draco hadn't faired any better. He enjoyed sex more than Harry, but found that spending any time with his encounters, beyond the sheets, left him intolerant of them. Their lives, their careers, their problems, were petty and insignificant compared to the crucible of outrunning his father's reach and keeping his sister safe. Not to mention the unforgivable: boredom. If all he wanted was a few minutes of mental obliteration through the occasional blowjob, why was that asking too much? He was willing to return the fucking favor. Women wouldn't shut up and men wanted seconds. Draco didn't have time for that. None of them were interesting on any engaging level.
After all the crap he'd been through, he didn't want to talk art and politics. He didn't want to discuss the news of the day or the newly appointed Minister. He had shit to do, he needed to get back to it. The drain of trying to spare another's feelings, had him resorting to putting up with whatever Harry wanted. Seeing other people, fine. Being flung on his back from a dead sleep, fine. Just don't wake up the baby. Crying with every single orgasm and squeezing Draco's throat like he wanted to choke him. Fine, as long as he didn't really. They both knew that if either of them wanted to see someone else on a regular basis, it most certainly would not be fine.
What they didn't talk about, was the time that Draco wondered if he could fix Harry. If he could make him happy again. Shortly after moving into the condo, they had one full evening together before Draco's internship started. Iece was immediately put to bed after their meal, Draco knowing full well he'd pay for it in the A.M. hours. With Harry on one sofa, and Draco across from him on the other, they turned the television off, drank wine, and watched Iece's shadow puppets charmed to play on the wall.
Draco had asked, "Do you miss my body the way it was?"
It took Harry a moment to get past the shock of Draco bringing it up. It wasn't a subject he would've guessed that either of them ever wanted to speak of again.
"Our first quiet night in a while, and that's what you want to talk about?"
"Answer me." Draco's voice sounded tight.
"Absolutely not."
"You're lying to be nice."
"Oh my god. That first time was different. We hated each other. You were suffering. Of course two virgin boys are going to entertain themselves with one of the darkest curses imaginable. That wasn't who we were, so no, I don't miss it. And frankly, I don't want to talk about it. It's an insult to us both to bring it up."
Draco had let it go. Or so Harry thought. It was weeks later, when the urge woke him and he rolled into Draco's warm scent, knowing he would be forgiven for taking without asking. But when his hand slipped into that most private of places, Draco's eyes sprung open and he waited for Harry to verbalize what he held. In the dark, with both their eyes adjusted, fire in Harry's eyes told the truth. He withdrew his hand and his body doubled backwards.
Draco lay there, assessing whether he should talk Harry down from his hysteria or simply roll over and go back to sleep. Disappointedly, he turned his back to Harry. He didn't expect to go back to sleep, but damn if he was going to let Harry see him giving a shit. The thing was, he was almost asleep when he felt Harry explore what had at first frightened him. He suppose, it was only natural that Harry made sure it was real and that he wasn't hallucinating.
When Harry's hands got responses from Draco that shook the bed, he understood that it was real. Draco had somehow willed his body to be what he thought Harry wanted. That sacrifice was meant to get Harry back to a place where it was okay to take that much pleasure in his body. Instead of simply letting his instincts take over, Harry had the lights up, covers thrown back, and held Draco at wand-point, demanding to know what evil trick it was. His grip hurt Draco's pride more than it hurt him physically.
"You idiot! You have no idea what it took for me to let you see that. If I'm that fucking evil, let me go and I'll get out of your life forever. And I'll take my sister with me."
"Like hell you will. What did you do? How long have you been able to do that? Is it a glamour?"
"No, it isn't a fucking glamour. Did it feel like one? I did that for you! I remember the fevers. I remember the swelling and what it put my brain through. All I did was retrace the steps. I made myself feel every second of what it was like and my body changed, okay?"
Harry's forearm drove into Draco's neck and didn't ease up. "How long have you been able to do that? How long have you been hiding that?"
Draco's arms were twisted behind him, pinned by both his and Harry's weight. He freed his left arm, but still couldn't get to Harry's wand. "I haven't been hiding anything. I didn't even know I could do it. I just wanted to see if I could."
He coughed as his throat went dry under the pressure of Harry's arm. "That's all you wanted that night. I wanted to see if I could give you that…again."
His vision went white before Harry let up. Harry looked like he might be ready and willing to discuss it, but Draco brought both hands together and drove them into Harry's jaw. Harry flew left, Draco pushed to the right. "I can't believe I trusted you to see that."
He got to his feet, grabbed his own wand, and pointed it at Harry. "Let me tell you something. That curse has fried my body and my magic. I didn't know I could slip back and forth until I wanted to make you happy. I didn't know for sure until yesterday. It doesn't happen all at once. But it happened faster than it ever did before. You better hope I change back because you are not worth this."
He pointed to his T-shirt and shorts, and what was now concealed beneath them. "If you ever touch me to hurt me again, I'll make you wish my father had killed you. I might have a pussy at the moment, but I am not weak. This is only temporary. I can give you one that's permanent."
Draco snatched the blanket off the bed. "I'll take my sister and never look back. If you so much as think about coming after us, your lies about who her father is, will destroy your character and your testimony. Mine's already shot. But yours sent Death Eaters to prison."
He backed out of the room, slamming the door. Harry heard him enter the nursery, hit the doorknob with a locking spell, and it clicked behind him.
Harry had the whole night to think about where he went wrong, and what he could do to fix it. But it wasn't fair to spring something like that on him, and just think it'd be okay. Draco had no idea where that put him mentally. Draco had months to live with something that dark and unspeakable. His whole family had been in on it, discussed it, made arrangements around it, and generally accepted it.
Harry had been expected to die from the first night it was inflicted upon him. You bet he'd prayed for death since that time. But Draco had always been there to drag him back to the light. Draco always saved him from his darkest moments. What scared him more than the sight of Draco's body, was the thought of what would happen if Draco's light went out for him. Iece needed him, and he needed Draco.
On the train, Harry thought again about Draco's rough kiss that morning. They were both pretending that it had something to do with the house elf Harry would come home to. Now that he'd rested with it, he was sure that the kiss was as close to obtaining Draco's expressed forgiveness as possible. Not even breaking the lock and pulling Draco against him after their argument so many months ago, had accomplished that. Months ago, Harry thought he'd had to prove it. He thought he had to show Draco that he was thankful for the sacrifice, even if he wasn't committed whole-heartedly and it still freaked him out that Draco's body knew how to do what it did.
Just like Draco's change wasn't about Draco, Harry slipping beneath the covers wasn't about himself. His friend, the only one who'd stuck by him, had offered him something. The only proper thing to do was to accept it. That's why he'd placed an extra silencing barrier around the baby's bed and a sleeping charm over her. That night, after wondering if he could do it, he'd crept into the nursery and found Draco sleeping on the floor. That night, he made it about Draco. He made it about saying 'thank you' the best way he knew how.
Draco had been right. It was easy. It was better. There was no competition. For the first time in months, gentleness took over and rage subsided. But it only lasted that one night and Draco hadn't offered to use his body that way again, until last night. Last night, Harry had been smart enough to keep his mouth shut and let Draco climb on top of him.
Please Review! :-)
A/N: No, discognitive is not a real word.
Nothing about this is cannon.
I personally don't glorify war. I'm using it as a prop, just like I do all drama in my stories. I trust the reader to know that war is bullshit. I do honor soldiers, if for no other reason than they feel they must protect, and they do it, without knowing what else to do. They mean well, and that's who you want on your side if you're so focused on war that you find "the enemy" at your doorstep. Not that there has to be sides, or that people don't have everything they need to chose peace and prevent war in their personal experience long before it gets to that point. :-)
"You get what you [emotionally] focus on". -Seth/Jane Roberts. The Nature of Personal Reality
I highly recommend Ester Hick's Law of Attraction, which is phase two of taking back your power and training your mind to deliberately select, rather that wait for CNN, or your neighbor, to tell you what's real. Your mind is your Kingdom, don't let anyone else dictate what is and isn't possible for you.