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Chapter Thirteen—Self-Ultimatum
"Hermione." Harry let out a breath of relief as he clasped his friend's hand. He'd tried to visit her yesterday, as soon as he left Malfoy Manor, but she'd been out of the Blood Reparations office, attempting to stop a pure-blood-Muggleborn disagreement that had the potential to build up into a riot. "I'm glad you're here."
Hermione lifted her eyebrows and gave him a small smile. She didn't look like a woman who had just given birth to her second child a few days ago and had a problem with the birth in the bargain. The ten years since the war had tempered her more than any of them, Harry thought. Of course, she was doing the hardest and most thankless job of all, listening day in and day out to petty insults, the airing of both sides' silliest prejudices, and the mistakes of people she politically agreed with. It made sense that she'd become harder or have to give the job up fairly soon, and one thing Hermione did not do was give up.
"It must be important, whatever it is," she said, and invited him into her office. The small room she'd fought so long and hard to get from the Ministry was a firetrap, crowded with so much paper—parchment, scrolls, books, loose drafts of legislation in progress—that one poof of flame on one piece would take everything else. "The people who saw you passing out of here yesterday said you looked desperate."
Harry gave a small, resigned grimace, and cleaned several of the parchments off one of the chairs. Hermione had adapted to the Ministry by using its endless gossip network for her own purposes, and so he shouldn't be surprised that someone would have tattled to Hermione, or that she'd listened.
"There are two problems I need your help with, actually," he said. "One relates to the Malfoy murder case, and one's personal."
"The Malfoy murder case!" Hermione ran a hand down her face and stuck her tongue out. She was sitting behind a desk, Harry knew, but since all the wood was covered, it looked more like a fortress built of books. "You wouldn't believe how much of our resources that's eating up already. The Muggleborn factions want us to arrest Malfoy, the pure-bloods are screaming and threatening demonstrations if we do arrest him, and the Aurors who don't like former Death Eaters are interfering in every attempt I make to calm the situation down."
"I'm trying to find the truth," said Harry, as soothingly as he could. If Hermione started complaining, she wouldn't stop until she had her full say—and that could take hours. "But there's a twist to the case that needs to be explained. Draco's wife has vanished, and she's left a great deal of blood all over her room. We know it comes from her, but I need that spell you learned that tells how and why the blood was spilled."
Hermione blinked once, and then nodded. "You think she might be part of the group trying to bring him down?"
"I can't be sure of that," Harry admitted, "and I don't want to jump to conclusions. But if the spell can show us that she spilled her own blood deliberately, hoping it would get him in trouble, then I'm more likely to believe it than I feel right now."
Hermione nodded and waved her wand in a complex fourfold movement, murmuring a rapid spell under her breath. Harry was just about to tell her that she would have to repeat the spell more slowly if she wanted him to master it when a pile of paper across the room glowed green and a book came swooping out of it and into Hermione's hands. The tower of paper fell over. Hermione didn't seem to notice.
"That wasn't a Summoning Charm," Harry said, watching in some bafflement as she opened the book and flicked through pages with an expert finger.
"Hmmm," Hermione agreed.
"Wouldn't a Summoning Charm have been easier to use?"
"I put this book under a code spell that even I can't translate without the countercharm," said Hermione, not looking up. "There are a few pieces of magic here that I don't want to see in anyone else's hands; they'd undo half the things the Department checks for. And I thought there was no reason not to give the countercharm a Summoning component, as well."
Harry squirmed a bit. Hermione's work ethic, as it had done since their Hogwarts days, made him uncomfortable. Somehow Hermione balanced her children, her relationship with Ron, and endless work. Why couldn't Harry balance taking care of his children, his relationship with Ginny, his work for the Department, his time with Teddy, and the—the friendship, or whatever it was, with Malfoy?
"Ah, here it is," said Hermione, and passed the book across the fortress to him. Harry studied the spell, and nodded in satisfaction. The wand movements were adapted from the same spell he had used to find out if the blood was Marian's, and the incantation was similar. He had it memorized in a few minutes.
"Now," said Hermione, when she'd cast the spells that coded the book again and returned it to its pile, "what was the personal matter?"
Harry licked his lips. "Has Ginny told you about the dreams that I've had?" he asked. "In detail?"
Hermione's eyes focused on him. "Yes," she said, and her voice sharpened until it could cut. "And that the dreams concern Malfoy, and usually leave you aroused, in fact."
Harry could feel his ears burning. He nodded twice, because once didn't seem sufficient. "Yes, well," he said. "Part of what I'm working on with Malfoy is a way to stop these dreams. He's had similar visions, though they're confined to mirrors."
Hermione hissed under her breath. "Even I've heard about Malfoy's extramarital affairs, Harry," she said. "Are you sure he won't try to seduce you?"
"I—Hermione, for God's sake—" Harry stood up. "What makes you think that even if he tried, I'd go along with it?"
"I'm sorry." Hermione lifted a hand to placate him. "I've just listened to Ginny's complaints about this for years now, since she felt she couldn't talk to you until you decided to address the subject, and I've adopted her point-of-view. But I'm glad that you want to get rid of them. That is what you want, isn't it?"
Harry sat down, trying to soothe his own ruffled feathers. You've ignored them for ten years. You can't really blame her for thinking that you might have been influenced by them.
"Yes," he said. "I want you to brew me some Dreamless Sleep Potion, since I can hardly will them to stop, and I'm pants at potions."
Hermione closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she said, "You know that it's addictive if you use it too often? You'll have to confine it to three nights out of the week. And it's best if they're not consecutive."
Harry had thought he remembered something like that. "Yes," he said. "I know. But I'm going to talk with Ginny, too. The potion is more important for showing her that I mean it, that I hate these dreams and want to get rid of them."
"Good." Hermione smiled at him. "I'd suggest you—well, far be it from me to give you advice about your sex life, Harry, but I know how easy it is to let work and children take precedence over that. Don't let them take precedence, not right now. And you especially should avoid giving her the impression that Malfoy matters to you all that much."
"Thank you, Hermione." Harry stood and reached out across the book fortress to shake her hand. "I think I'm letting this Malfoy murder case get to me too much; the pressure is making me think I have to solve everything, now, or I'm not doing enough good."
"I know the feeling." Hermione sighed dismally and waved him out. "The potion should be ready by tomorrow."
A slight cheerful note in her voice relieved Harry of some of his guilt for increasing her workload. A busy Hermione was a happy Hermione, or she would never have lasted as the Head of the Blood Reparations Department.
"Cruor eccillum!"
Draco blinked as light rose in a sheer white fountain from Harry's wand, and then whipped around like a massive octopus to every corner of the room, stretching searching arms. He ducked as one of them went over his head, but quickly realized it was reaching for a spot of blood on the wall behind him.
Harry gave a loud sigh, and Draco looked back at him. Now that he was giving himself permission to notice things like this, he could see the weariness settled like a load of gravel in the back of Harry's green eyes. It wasn't ordinary weariness, he thought, staring. More like the worn-down endurance of someone who had gone into an unpleasant situation once and knew he would have to do it again and again, until something changed or the problem was solved.
"What's wrong?" Harry chuckled self-consciously and raised a hand to his face. "Did I forget to brush my teeth this morning?"
"You look tired," said Draco, deciding that honesty was worthwhile in this instance. The spell was still gathering up the bloodstains and funneling them towards the center, which was gold, and it looked as if it would take a while. "Care to tell me why?"
Harry's cheeks flushed, and for a moment he looked cornered, as if he would rather run out of the room than answer Draco's question. Then he visibly gathered himself, stood more upright, and coughed. "Well, I've been having the dreams more frequently," he said. "And—I had a bad one the other night."
"A nightmare?" Draco asked in concern. Of course their alternate life together, or their possible, could-have-been life, could not be pleasant and light-filled all the time.
"Not in and of itself, but in its effects, yes." Harry tensed his shoulders and gave them a little shake. "Basically, the damn thing aroused me like none of the others have, which makes me think they'll get stronger, not weaker. And then I woke up, and this time I knew Ginny was awake. The other times, she feigned sleep well enough to fool me." Harry shrugged and looked at the floor with a small laugh. "I've been to Hermione for a Dreamless Sleep Potion, and I'll talk to Ginny about it as soon as I get home. And I don't know why I'm telling you this, really, except that I think you deserve to know. In case my attempt to stop the dreams—deepens the curse or something. Don't know why it would, but then, we don't know much of anything about the curse, do we?" He looked up, his face caught somewhere between melancholy and defiant, and captured Draco's eyes.
Draco licked his lips. He supposed he should feel sorry for Harry; the man carried one burden he didn't, since Draco had never had dreams like that, and he didn't have a wife who would be hurt by his having sex with another man in his dreams, anyway.
But all he really felt was irritated, as if the dreams were something he wanted to happen and Harry's wife was an obstacle in their path.
Harry has to make the first move, remember? he reminded himself. And from the sounds of it, it'll come sooner or later. He won't be able to help himself. He looked up with a small smile. "It sounds like you're taking adult steps to handle it, Harry. I would have been horribly tempted to sulk and make it Marian's task to address it first."
Harry laughed eagerly, as much to say that he was glad Draco was taking it so well. He would feel differently if he knew how much I want him, Draco thought, but tucked the thoughts under a thick coverlid, just in case those rumors about Harry being able to read minds were true. Friendship, for right now. Friendship was all they could have.
For right now.
"Thank you, Draco," Harry said, and clapped him on the shoulder. Draco ignored the racing silkiness that spread from the touch, especially since Harry was staring beyond him with a suddenly grim face. "And it looks like we have the proof that Marian shed the blood herself," he added.
Draco turned. The golden glow in the center of the room had turned into an image that flickered, like the picture on a Muggle telly Draco had once glanced at in fascinated repulsion. The image showed Marian, with an expression as stubborn as Harry's, drawing her wand down her body, creating a long cut that she kept reopening each time it closed. When she finished, she reached out and grasped something small that made her disappear in a whirl of colors.
"She took a Portkey out," Draco said quietly, though he knew it was stating the obvious. "She planned this, down to the last detail."
"It does look that way." Harry cleared his throat and banished the image with a wave of his wand, then moved towards Draco hesitantly. Draco could feel the small hairs on the back of his neck and arms straining towards that heat. "Are you—do you need—" Then he seemed to give up on questions as a bad job, and simply wrapped his arms around Draco, tugging him back against his chest.
Harry was overestimating how much this hurt, Draco thought numbly. He hadn't loved or even liked his wife in years, and now the main thought echoing through his head was how he could have been so stupid as to house a serpent in his manor and not know it. And how stupid he'd been to keep her so close to Scorpius, of course.
But Harry was offering comfort, and Draco didn't want to turn it down. He squirmed around until he was facing Harry and hugged him back, taking the opportunity to put his hands in Harry's hair and run them up and down his spine. He didn't miss the way Harry's breath caught when he did that, either, though he probably wasn't aware of it himself.
I am going to win, Draco thought, and he couldn't have said whether the thought was directed at Marian or Ginny Potter.
"So that's it." Harry took a deep breath and squeezed Ginny's hands. "I've had dreams for years that I was living a separate life with Malfoy, and the Dreamless Sleep will only stop them for a short time. But I think it's even more important that we remake the commitment to each other, and that we stop ignoring and not talking about things just because it hurts to talk about them." He ran a hand through Ginny's hair. She sat facing him in a chair in the study, and her face was so pale that he half-worried she hadn't heard most of what he said. "We'll begin this evening. Ask me any question you want to."
Ginny shut her eyes, finally. Harry let out a little breath of relief. She had a perfect right to feel the mixture of hurt and betrayal she was feeling right now, but frankly, it also hurt to have her watching him.
"Why did you avoid talking about it for so long?" Ginny asked in a tiny voice.
"Because I thought if I ignored them, they would go away."
She slitted one eye to peer at him, and she was angry now. Good, Harry thought. He could deal with anger more easily than tears. "That's a stupid life philosophy for anything, Harry, but especially a curse."
Harry hissed at her, since the adult thing was to let himself experience his own emotions, too. "Well, the attempts I did make didn't work. St. Mungo's couldn't find anything. Hermione couldn't find anything. And you never wanted to talk about them, either, if you recall."
"I was waiting for you to talk first."
"Why?" Harry really couldn't comprehend why she'd waited for so long when she was hurting. He understood his own cowardice, and her silence had been easy to comprehend when he thought she was unaware of the sexual nature of the dreams.
"Because—" Ginny clenched her hands suddenly, ripping them away from him. Harry shook his stinging palms and wondered if she had noticed. Probably not, because she was pacing back and forth, totally involved in her own anger. "Because I wanted to see if you trusted me enough to be honest," she told the wall. "And every time you kept silent, I thought you probably didn't trust me that much. It was important that you approached me first, Harry."
"And now I have." Harry stood up, keeping his hands away from his wand. He and Ginny had only had a few arguments that escalated to the use of magic, most of them before their children were born, and all of them had ended disastrously. "So what will you do about it, Ginny? Just ignore it some more?"
"No." Two more deep breaths, sounding choked with tears, as if she were fighting against the introduction of something vital but painful to the conversation. Harry swallowed. He forced himself to wait, though he also dreaded whatever could be making Ginny sound like that.
"I want you to get therapy."
Harry snarled in spite of himself. "What? It's a curse, not suppressed memories! It won't go away just because I talk to someone else about my childhood or my war trauma or whatever else someone pokes into your head about!"
"But even when the curse ends, the memories will still be there." Ginny wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. "Don't you see, Harry? You're not just dreaming about sex or someone else. I know the curse inspired that, and you can't help it. But you're getting aroused from it. That's—there's something else, there, something that points to sexual incompatibility between us."
"Ginny, I love you, and I love making love to you—" Even though we haven't done it in months.
"And you could also love making love to someone else," Ginny said firmly. She turned around, her hands braced on her hips. "I just want to know, Harry. Are you bisexual? Are you enjoying these fantasies because something is lacking in our sex life?" She shook her head, her voice softening as she saw his expression. "I don't think this is disgusting, if that's what you're worried about. I just want to know, and I think the only way I can is if you know."
Harry swallowed again. The mere thought of talking about his sex life to a stranger made him blush—
But you're doing it with Draco. Will doing it with a therapist really be that different?
And he had said he would do whatever was necessary to repair the breach in his marriage. He no longer thought, as he had when he was young, that he could outrun his problems. His attempt to ignore the dreams had been the last remnant of that philosophy. He would live with both Ginny and Draco after this, and if therapy was necessary to understand himself and content his wife—well, then he would do it.
"All right," he said.
Ginny blinked. Evidently, she'd been anticipating a longer fight. "Really?"
Harry nodded. "I don't think you're right," he said, just to prove that point. "I think the reactions I've had are only a result of the curse. Why shouldn't the dreams be able to cause a physical reaction, when they're cursed dreams? But I'll at least go to one therapy session, and see what happens."
The newspapers will have a field day with this, he thought gloomily, already picturing the Daily Prophet article that would surely result: HARRY POTTER FINDS OUT HE'S GAY! They wouldn't care about the truth.
But he'd lived with worse.
"And now," he said, reaching out a hand to his shining-eyed wife, "we should still have at least another hour before the kids wake up from their nap. Why don't we put it to good use?" He smiled at her.
Ginny blushed, and then clasped his hand. She looked happier than she had in months. Harry drew her close for a kiss.
It doesn't take much to make her happy, it really doesn't.
The message came while Teddy and Andromeda were visiting. Harry had just finished reading a story to James, reassuring Al that, yes, he would see his new friend Scorpius soon, and handing a sweetly smiling Lily to Andromeda. He was turning to ask Teddy if he'd like another story about his parents—Teddy approached them slowly, carefully, as if the day he knew everything about his mother and father was the day he would lose his growing connection with them—when the fireplace flared green.
"Harry!"
Harry was glad that he wasn't holding a baby anymore as he moved rapidly across the floor and knelt down in front of the fireplace. He hadn't seen Draco in a few days, since Draco said he wanted to do some more research on dreams and life-debts and it would be best if he did it alone. His voice was sharp, but also inspired with triumph, as though Draco had found out something worth knowing.
"Yes?" he asked, and Draco told him the thing worth knowing.
"Marian's been seen in Diagon Alley, Harry! One of my mother's Ministry contacts saw her!" Draco was whispering, but his voice rose back to normal levels as he added, "I'm in Madam Malkin's now. How soon can you come through?"
Harry leaned back and looked at Andromeda. Her face was very pale, but she held Lily close with one arm, put her other hand on Teddy's shoulder, and nodded at him.
"I'll stay with the children, of course," she said. "I'll need to send an owl to a friend who was expecting me, but I can stay."
"Thank you!" Harry shouted, and took a moment to make sure he had his wand with him before he sprang through the fire into Madam Malkin's shop.
Draco was waiting for him. He had on a set of formal robes, dark blue and striped with white, that Harry hadn't seen before. He found himself thinking Draco looked good, and shook his head. He'd taken Dreamless Sleep for two of the last nights. Perhaps the dreams were trying to have their revenge by making him want to step closer to Draco and stare in open admiration.
Draco didn't seem to notice, luckily, and neither did Madam Malkin, who hovered behind Draco, her eyes bright with the excitement of being close to important deeds. "This way!" Draco said, grabbing Harry's wrist and tugging him towards the door of the shop. "She was seen not far from here, at one of the food shops, and we might still be able to catch her if we run!"
Harry willingly stretched his legs. His heartbeat filled his ears, and he felt the dizzy urge to laugh aloud. Perhaps they were close to solving the mystery at last!
Three hours later, Harry not only had to concede that they weren't any closer to solving the mystery, but that Draco's attractiveness lessened considerably when he was in a foul mood. He'd stomped through the last three shops swearing, and now that they were heading back to Madam Malkin's from the Leaky Cauldron, he had settled on a dark scowl that warned Harry not to try and talk to him.
Harry sighed and wiped a hand over his brow. The search for Marian had turned into a hunt for shadows after nothing at all. No one had seen her, exactly, but they'd all seen someone like her. Or a woman with burn scars on her face had come into the shop last week, did they mean her? Or perhaps they'd seen a dark-haired woman sometime in the last fortnight, that might be who they were looking for, right?
Matters hadn't been helped by the usual crowd of autograph-hunters after Harry, or the people who stopped to stare, and spit, at Draco. Harry had cast a spell that reversed the spit so it landed on the aggressors' faces instead, and done another one that made their voices simply desert them if they tried to insult Draco, but the damage was done. Draco's back grew stiffer and stiffer as the afternoon wore on, and his manners with the shopkeepers didn't improve, either, especially with the ones who wore symbols that openly proclaimed allegiance to one or more of the Muggleborn groups.
They were almost back to Madam Malkin's, at least. They just had to pass one more shop with a large glass display window for its goods, which seemed to be jewelry. Harry glanced at them in disinterest.
And then he saw shapes and shadows swarming in the glass, turning blue like shadows on snow, reaching towards them like an enormous hand.
He leaped sideways at Draco, but it was too late; the hand had already punched through the window, and glass shards were raining everywhere, traveling past Harry's ears with piercing whistles. He felt them nick at his throat and hair, but his main concern was Draco, who had turned towards his sudden movement and caught the glass full in the face.
They landed on the cobblestones, and Harry gritted his teeth as he felt the enormous force pulling at him, trying to bring them back into the window. He thought of Lily with all his might, her softness and warmth and the sweet baby-smell of her, and the pulling force paused, then ebbed away like a tide.
He bent over Draco, staring, frantic—
And the world turned golden.
This time, he could hear a voice singing in ecstasy, and an even stronger smell filled his nostrils, like fresh air and salt spray, like the sea. Harry tried to move, but he had lost all sense of his body, save where his hand rested on Draco's forehead. Pressure bore down from each of his fingertips, anchoring him to Draco's head whether he wanted to be anchored or not, and he heard his breath leave him in a long hiss.
And the next moment, the gold was gone, and Harry was blinking down at Draco, who lay on the street before him, unconscious, with both his eyes intact—thank God—but with a thin, jagged silver scar snaking across his brow.
Harry's eyes narrowed, and his mind reached towards some conclusion. When it came, he thought, it would be outstanding.
He became aware of someone poking at his shoulder, and he lifted a hand to shoo the intruder away. "We're fine, we don't need help, thanks," he said distractedly.
"I disagree, sir," said a smooth voice from above him. "Why, look at you! You're practically about to fall unconscious."
Harry looked up, opening his mouth in annoyance, and only then saw that, within the hooded cloak his "rescuer" wore, the face was covered by the sleek emerald-green mask of the pure-blood supremacist group called Salazar's Snakes.
"Stupefy," said the smooth voice before Harry could move to grab his wand, and then there was nothing but a long, long fall into darkness and worry about Draco.