- Chapter 4 -
Bound
Thankfully, Minerva McGonagall had more sense than the average Gryffindor, and didn't immediately summon the Aurors to arrest Snape for his 'crimes against nature' (something that had once been suggested by a former student - Gryffindor, of course). She did, however, release Potter from his chair, and revive Poppy Pomfrey.
Pomfrey was another kettle of fish, however. As soon as her eyes flickered open, she began to screech at the Headmaster. Or former headmaster, as was looking more and more likely to Snape's mind.
"Have you any idea how irresponsible you have been?" The Mediwitch bellowed angrily. "What if a student had been injured?"
"What if one was?" Potter muttered to himself from his seat on the floor, but his words were ignored by all but Snape, who turned his nose up at the Gryffindor.
"And to bind children in marriage, Albus, what on Earth were you thinking?" McGonagall piped in.
"The two are soul bound, Minerva, can you not see it as I do? Their marriage will be a blessing for us all."
"In that case, I'm grateful that they are not married." Snape snapped snidely, to the shock of the others in the room.
"Professor, we are bound." Malfoy spoke into the silence for the first time, his voice hoarse with disuse. "I felt the bond complete, sir."
"It was not a marriage bond!" Snape insisted. "Neither of you are wearing rings, the thread of the bond was too thin, and it was gold coloured!"
"Uh, that might have been partly my fault," Harry admitted in a small voice. "I was trying to rub out some of the runes, although I don't know how many I got, or if they mattered."
"That may very well be the case, Mister Potter," Professor McGonagall nodded seriously, looking at the floor where Harry had been laying. "Merlin, Potter, are you bleeding?"
"Maybe a little," Harry hedged. "Not much, I don't think…"
"Potter, more of these runes are obscured by the blood than obscured by your smudging." The Scotswoman sighed. "Poppy, I think you're going to need to take a look at him."
Snape softly snorted as the Mediwitch flustered over the brat.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?" She whined petulantly.
"Maybe, Madam, because it is your job to notice injuries." He said darkly. "And there is another possible reason that the bond may have faltered; Myself, Draco and Potter all sent out negative magic. Our combined power was, at least, close to that of the Headmaster's."
"No matter now," Pomfrey huffed, obviously upset with Snape's pithy comment. "I need to take Harry into the treatment room to deal with his head. Minerva, if you'd help me to get the boy upright?"
The two women each grasped Potter underneath the arm, and hefted him towards the treatment room, but before they had gotten twenty feet from Draco both boys let out screams of anguish. Again, Pomfrey seemed nonplussed.
"Oh, Minerva, we've hurt poor Harry moving him!" She squealed. Snape swore, and moved over to take a hold of Potter himself, dragging the still screaming boy over to his Godson. The two only quieted when they were touching.
"What the hell just happened?" Draco angrily asked in a hoarse voice. "That… That felt worse than Crucio." Potter snorted weakly, as if disagreeing.
"Pomfrey tried to move Potter." Snape answered when none of the others seemed inclined to answer.
"Why should that hurt me?" Draco paused before speaking again, his voice coming out thinner, with just a hint of worry. "Godfather, can you take off whatever spell Dumbledore put on me? I still can't see!"
"Draco, Dumbledore did not put a spell on you."
"Then why I am I bli-" his voice seemed to catch in his throat, so he changed tactics. "Why can't I see, Severus?"
"You remember the fight that you had?" Snape began awkwardly. "With Potter?"
"Then get Potter to take the damn spell off me!" Draco growled, then shifted his weight to nudge the dark haired boy that he couldn't see from his legs. "Potter! Wake up you oaf and cast the counter curse!"
"Mister Malfoy, Mister Potter cannot remove the curse." McGonagall this time, then Snape.
"The curse has no counter, at present." Snape's voice was low, and so soothing that Draco almost missed the content of what he had said.
"No counter? You mean I'm - I'm stuck? Like this?" His voice was higher pitched now and he was speaking faster and faster as the implications sunk in. "No. That's not possible! I am not bli- I can't be! This isn't happening, it isn't. It's just a dream, that's all. Somebody spiked my drink with a nightmare potion, that's it."
"Draco, I promise you, you are awake, and this is happening." Snape took a step forwards, resting his hand on Draco's shoulder only to have the unseeing eyes turned towards him.
"Fix it, Uncle Sev!" He whined, frantic now. "Fix it for me!"
"I will fix it, Draco. I'll make it all better." The others present could see the tears glistening in Snape's eyes. Wisely, no one chose to mention them. "But it will take some time, and we have to work some things out with your other situation too." The blond nodded, then suddenly frowned.
"Er, Uncle Sev? Where is my wife? The only women's voices I have heard are McGonagall and Pomfrey." He turned his face from side to side in agitation. "Godfather?"
"Draco, the headmaster, in his infinite wisdom, has bound you to Potter." Severus said slowly, moving to sit on the bed next to his godson. "But you are not married, you are bonded. There was no marriage. We may yet be able to fix this."
"But… why would he try to bond us?" Malfoy asked confusedly. "Did he… Does he… want… this?" Draco's hand waved with a surprising degree of accuracy between himself and Potter.
"No, Draco, as far as I can tell Potter harbours no affection for you." This seemed to be the right thing to say, as Malfoy visibly relaxed, leaning back into the bedding. "In fact, your feeling for each other may also have changed the bond.:
"Why do you all keep saying that we're bonded?" Potter bit out wearily from the bottom of the bed, looking in confusion between the motley group. "I thought there was only marriage bonds?"
"No, Mr Potter, there are a variety of bonds. From the runes, Albus obviously intended to bind you in marriage, but from what Professor Snape witnessed, you are not bound by marriage, but by something else." Her Scottish brogue deepened as she turned to speak to the Headmaster who still sat serenely in the floor in the middle of the wing. "You will provide your memories to me, Albus. I am relieving you from your post as Headmaster, pending a hearing with the board of governors, as supported by the school Mediwitch, and by Severus as another senior member of staff. I shall summon Horace for our fourth." With a whisk of her wand a silvery tabby-cat patronus flew out of the hospital wing.
"Severus, you will be my deputy?" She asked briskly, ignoring the weak protests of Dumbledore. "I shall need your support in holding the school together."
"No, Minerva, I cannot. I must dedicate all of my time to relieving Draco of this curse. Speaking of, we obviously need to give the pair rooms together, and alter their timetables so that they may attend lessons together." Snape frowned. "Or perhaps even relieve them of lessons, as they clearly cannot be too far apart from one another, and Draco may well struggle with the lack of vision."
"We need to investigate the bond, as well. I believe I will ask for Gringotts to release Mr Weasley into our employment for a time, also. He may have some idea about what to do with this whole mess." McGonagall sighed, smoothing back her hair with one hand. "For the moment, they will stay in the Gryffindor Head's chambers."
"And leave my Godson is vulnerable to the hordes of malicious Gryffindors? I think not!" Snape hissed darkly. "They may reside in the Slytherin's Head's chambers."
"And leave Mr Potter vulnerable to the hordes of malicious Slytherins? I think not!" McGonagall threw Snape's words back at him with vicious glee.
"Why not put them in the Founder's quarters?" Slughorn interjected, having arrived without being noticed, only to be met with two sets of rolled eyes, a sneer from Snape and pursed lips from McGonagall. "Potter is the heir to two Founders, is he not?"
"Potter is heir to nothing." Snape snapped angrily.
"No, Horace, explain. Where would you get that idea from?"
"Well, his second year shows it rather well, from what I've been told." Slughorn straightened his shoulders, and pulled self-consciously at his bow-tie. "He managed to get into the Chamber of Secrets; Slytherins secrets. And, while he was there, he pulled Gryffindors sword from the Sorting Hat. If that's not clear enough for you, I don't know what is!"
"And you have been listening to student rumour more than you should, Horace." Snape spat. "Potter no more entered the Chamber than he faced off the Dark Lord down there! It is lies, nothing more."
"I did, sir." Harry's hoarse voice entered into the conversation.
"Did what, Potter?"
"I did fight Voldemort in the Chamber, Professor." Harry coughed, a deep, wracking cough before continuing to speak. "He came out of a diary that Malfoy gave to Ginny."
"I didn't give the Weaslette a thing!" Draco hissed in the direction Potter's voice had come from.
"Your father. That's when he released Dobby too." Harry looked up, over at Snape who stood stock still, eyes half bugged out. "So, er, does that mean that we do get the chambers? I'm really tired, and my head still hurts."
- HBP - HBP - HBP - HBP - HBP -
Harry and Malfoy had come to a consensus on one thing, and one thing only. If one of them had to go somewhere, the other would go with them. They'd hoped that the restrictions of the bond would slacken, given time, but in the few hours that they'd been bonded, they had had no joy.
The most embarrassing thing for Harry had been when Malfoy had fallen asleep on their sofa. Harry had been working on an essay at the other end. He'd judged the distance between Malfoy and the bookshelf to be minimal, and had stood to retrieve a book he needed.
The pain had been awful. Harry had revised his earlier thought that the pain of Crucio had been worse. There was nothing, nothing like the searing heat that clutched at his spine and simultaneously froze every molecule of his being. He could breathe one moment, and then the next his lungs were petrified. From the way his head had fallen, he glimpsed the blood alternate between flowing and not to his left hand. His eyes felt like they had been skewered, leaving him flailing and half-blind with bright flashes. His bones melted, reformed and melted again.
Harry was grateful when Snape entered their quarters at a dead run, picking up Malfoy and depositing him on Harry's chest. Both he and Malfoy gasped in relief. Snape narrowed his eyes at them, and raised his wand.
"I am going to tether the pair of you together." He growled darkly. "I will not have the pair of you doing this every ten minutes." He swished his wand between them, and a semi-transparent rope appeared tying Harry's left ankle to Draco's right. "There's a charm on it as well that will, if the pair of you somehow manage to pull further away from each other than that, that will work like an elastic band and snap you back together, hopefully before the worst of the pain sets in."
"Godfather, do we know what we're to do about classes, and such?" Malfoy asked, face pointing at the wrong corner of the room.
"You and Potter will not be attending classes until we get at least one of your issues corrected. Be that the bond itself or your sight. You will attempt to study in these quarters, and work on a better relationship between the two of you. According to the headmaster, that means you are to 'have wild sex', but I'm sure you'll both be pleased to know that he has now been stunned. If I find you in a compromising position, you will regret it - private rooms are not for canoodling!" Harry snorted involuntarily, stopping almost immediately as Snape turned the full force of his glare onto Harry. "You find this situation amusing, Potter?" He growled darkly.
"Well, to be fair, it is a little. I mean, who'd have thought three days ago that I'd be practically married to a blind Malfoy with an overprotective Godfather?" Harry felt rather than heard the snort from the blond who was still on top of him.
"Trelawney." He said, remarkably straight faced, before bursting into laughter. "And then your suicide, of course."
"Yeah, can't have a prediction without my death. Wouldn't be a real fucking prophecy then, would it?" Harry replied, only half sarcastically.
"Potter!" Snape hissed darkly. "You will not give out the details of that prophecy to anyone who you come across!"
"But he's not just anyone, is he?" Harry returned, sitting up and shocking an undignified squeal from Malfoy, as he slid off Harry. "Sorry!" Harry moved to steady Malfoy with the grace and speed of a Seeker, before turning to continue with Snape. "This prophecy is about him. He deserves to know."
"But what if he…" Snape didn't need to finish his sentence, merely pointing at his left arm where Harry knew the Dark Mark was branded into his skin.
"He should at least know exactly what is at stake when he makes his choice." Harry maintained obstinately. "I know what it feels like to have people dictating your life, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I can't speak for Malfoy, but it makes me want to do the exact opposite."
"Potter, I…" Snape shook his head, frowning. "You'll tell him no matter what I say, won't you?"
"Yep." Harry clarified. "So the only thing you need to decide is whether or not you want to be hear to deal with him after he hears it."
"I'll stay." Snape said, and then scowled at the two boys who were still on the floor of their sitting area. "Get up now! Sofa!"
Harry scrambled to his feet, it was still close enough to summer that he obeyed barked instructions without thought, and was seated upright on the sofa within a minute. Malfoy, however still sat where Harry had positioned him earlier.
"Oh no, don't help the blind boy, will you Potter?" He snarled viciously, refusing to move even a single inch. With a quick glance at Snape, Harry darted back down, pulling Malfoy to his feet and guided him back to the sofa, careful not to touch him anymore than he had to. Merlin knew that things were already weird enough without even risking Malfoy possibly being gay, and Harry was fully determined that if the blonde was, he'd ask Ginny out, no matter the debilitating nerves that struck whenever he so much as looked at her. Or Dean Thomas being a possessive idiot.
"Potter, will you stop staring into space and say whatever you had planned to say?" Snape's irritable growl snapped Harry out of his contemplative trance.
"Uh, well, I didn't really have anything planned, but, here goes, I guess. Malfoy, there's a prophecy, about you and me. The Dark Lords shall return, Stronger than ever, A world full of chaos, A world without Light, Two chances, two boys, For Their defeat to be served, These two together, May desecrate the thrones, The first be a storm, of dark thundering power, Lightening's stain on his brow, his past be marked, The other be passion, fire and ice all in one, A dragon flying high, his bad faith longing to be free, The dragon will live a full life with no pain, no matter the winner, both to his gain, But Lightening must choose, To fight or to die, yet the choice is still none, for both may still be true, The dark and the light may come together, To vanquish the world of Their cruel endeavours, Bound as one, Forever and ever." Harry paused for breath, not noticing the curious look that Snape was giving him. "I don't actually really get why it's about you, but Dumbledore seems to think so, so I guess-"
"Draco means dragon," Malfoy interrupted. "And Malfoy means bad faith. You didn't have to tell me this. In fact, it would have been better for you not to tell me. It would have been easier for you to just be nice to me, to convince me to join your side. This way, there's no incentive for me to join you." Harry shrugged, kicking at his feet.
"You should know." For all his nerves, his voice was like steel. "I know what it feels like to have people running around messing with your life because of a stupid prophecy, and if you know, you've at least got a shot of getting them to bugger off."
"Thank you, Potter."