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Chapter 37- Draco's Plans Accelerate
"This is the first time that you won't be spying on my session with Theresa, isn't it?" Harry remarked, staring curiously at him.
Draco sniffed and swung the cloak around his shoulders, then paused to consider the figure he made in the mirror. Yes, quite dashing. Besides that, there was another purpose for the fine, soft sable cloak he wore, with a hood that could easily be cast over his head, but Harry didn't need to know that. "I prefer the term observing, Harry. But yes, it is. If there's something that you need to say to her in private, perhaps it's the best time to say it."
"There's almost nothing that she won't disapprove of," Harry said dryly.
Draco turned from the mirror and regarded him. "And what about you, Harry? Do you disapprove of it?"
He really wanted to know. Harry had not seemed unhappy with their experience of two nights ago, but neither had it been repeated. When Draco wanted to have sex, Harry put him off with talk about thinking. And he certainly did have a thoughtful expression on his face every time Draco surprised him, so there might even be some truth to that.
The truth was not that he was a rotten lover, Draco assured his faltering self-confidence. And since when did his confidence falter? He knew he had done a fantastic job, and persuaded Harry out of that nonsense of not liking men once and for all. If Harry didn't feel like fucking right now, they would wait. That was all it was. Harry wanted some time to think. God knew he should have it.
"Where are you going, again?" Harry asked.
Draco concealed a smirk. Harry really hadn't been paying attention to the cover story Draco gave him. That meant, of course, that he was less likely to notice any gaps or inconsistencies in the details. And that suited Draco just fine. Harry wasn't ready for revenge yet. When he was, then Draco would tell him the whole truth, and watch as a contented smile spread across his face.
"Out," he said, and slipped his hand under Harry's jaw, tilting his head up for a kiss. Harry gave it to him, and Draco drew back before he could grow dizzy with that success and push too far, too fast. "I do have business interests to take care of, given the Malfoy money, Harry. And I really should visit my mother, and make sure that she knows she isn't welcome to return to the Manor any time soon."
Predictably, Harry flushed crimson. "Of course you should visit your mother," he said. "But, Draco, are you sure that you want to keep her out of the Manor? She- "
"Did her best to turn you against me, and get you kidnapped," Draco finished calmly. "And you are the most precious thing in the Manor to me, Harry. Forgive me for thinking she might do worse than that when she comes back again." He knew his mother. She would take any sign of yielding on his part as a certainty that he'd forgiven her and be up to her old tricks within moments of stepping through the Manor's door. Draco wanted to make sure she understood that he wouldn't tolerate that, and so he would leave her outside the door until such time as she learned to behave.
"She's still your mother," said Harry, and Draco saw, as clearly as someone seeing to the bottom of a clear pond, how much he didn't want to be responsible for turning Draco against his family.
"We squabble like this all the time," said Draco, and grinned when Harry gave him an incredulous glance. "It's true, Harry. That's why I could send her away like that. One of the houses is always kept furnished and ready for her, in case she's done something wrong this week and needs to leave."
Harry opened his mouth, fumbled for words, and closed it again, shaking his head. "I can't imagine doing that to my mother," he whispered.
"You value family." Draco reached out, plunged his fingers into Harry's hair, and slowly drew them back towards himself. Harry arched to follow the motion, a noise very like a purr breaking from his throat. Draco grinned at him. "Of course you'd want to have a closer relationship with your mother. But if you'd grown up with them- who knows? The charm of parents is rather reduced when you see them every day."
Harry opened eyes that looked on the verge of being drugged, and sighed. "You need to leave," he said. "Or you'll be late to see your mother, and I'll be late to my session with Theresa."
Draco placed a knee on the bed and his hands on Harry's chest, bearing him gently down. "I could arrange for neither to be troubled by the lateness," he murmured, and blew on Harry's ear.
A breath, a moment of temptation, and then Harry pushed at him. "Go on, Draco," he said. "I hope that- well, someday, I mean, if we- I want Narcissa to like me, when she can. Just in case. And I don't think she'd forgive me if I made you late."
Draco nodded reluctantly, regretting the lie now. Of course, that would have done nothing about Theresa's time of arrival.
His eyes on Harry in a silent promise, he Apparated. He would indeed be visiting his mother in the small house she used later. But first, he was going to Surrey.
There were some Muggles he had to terrify as the first stage in the long, long process of getting vengeance for Harry.
"Well," said Theresa, looking as pleased to see both Harry and her tea as she always did, "why don't we talk about Draco, Harry? Seeing as he's not here to stop us, and you might have some things to say about him that you wouldn't want to say in his presence." She eyed him calmly when he remained silent. "Nothing at all?" she asked gently.
"Nothing you might approve of," Harry said, and folded his arms. He knew he was being transparent as fuck. He did not care.
"Forget about whether I approve or not, Harry." Theresa's eyes were unearthly in their steadiness. "Tell me what you think of him. It's not up to me, ultimately, to say whether you should be friends or lovers, or how long Draco's obsession might last. It's up to me to listen to you, and try to have you talk about the things that truly bother you. Is Draco one of those things?"
Harry linked his fingers together in front of him and stared at them. But the tug of knowing that Draco wasn't in the next room, listening and watching through the enchanted window, was irresistible. "Maybe," he muttered.
"That wasn't so hard to say, was it?" Theresa encouraged him, and then picked up her tea to blow away the steam. "Come, Harry, tell me more. What does 'maybe' mean? Does he bother you in ways you haven't confessed before now? Or are you unsure if he bothers you?"
Harry sighed and leaned back in the chair, staring at the ceiling. Draco could probably have one of the house-elves listening in on the conversation. Or he could have cast a spell that retrieved the memories of words from the walls. But Harry would just have to trust that he hadn't, and speak his mind.
"He frightens me, sometimes," he said lowly. "He insists that I'm the most important person in his life, and I- I can't understand that. He loves his mother. He's known her all his life. Why in the world would he decide that I'm the most important one? Even if it's true, it bothers me, because I don't want to come between them." His throat tightened. The only memory he had of his mother was her voice screaming. He would not be the cause of anything even a tenth as horrible between Draco and Narcissa, not if he could help it.
"She disapproves of you?" Theresa asked.
"She hates me." Harry wrapped his arms around his body and shivered slightly. "I can't even blame her. I'm the reason her husband went to prison, the reason he died there. And I would bring exactly the wrong kind of notoriety to the Malfoy family as a partner for Draco. Some people would always be certain he'd seduced or corrupted me. And Narcissa has contacts of her own. There are people who would shun Draco if she asked them to, at least as long as he was dating me."
"That worries you more for Draco's sake than your own, doesn't it?" Theresa asked, her voice as soft as rain.
"Yes," Harry said. "I care about him, and he doesn't seem to care about what living with me will cost him." He looked up and locked eyes with Theresa, then forced the next words out. "I've already cost people who care for me their lives. I don't want to do it again, in any sense of the word. Even if it's 'only' a social life. I want Draco to have everything he did before he kidnapped me. But he can't, and- well, if the cost I bring to him is greater than the pleasure he derives from me, then I need to leave. I've thought and thought about that since- Sunday." He was not going to tell Theresa what they had done on Sunday. It wasn't her business. "But I don't know a way to broach the subject, either. He keeps insisting that I matter the most to him. Today he even said that he and Narcissa have disputes like this all the time."
"And who says that is not the truth?" Theresa said.
Harry clenched a hand in front of him. "It might be. I can't really accuse him of lying. But I don't want them fighting over me. His mother is the only relative Draco has left. It's not worth it, his dating me, if it hurts his relationship with her."
Theresa hesitated for a long time, then said, gently, "Harry. I do not approve of Draco's obsession with you, nor the way he kidnapped you. But I will say that I have seen improvements in you that I do not think are possible with my care alone." She drew her wand. Harry instinctively tensed, but she only met his eyes and said, "Do you mind if I cast the Soul's Mirror spell?"
Harry gave her permission with a wave of his hand, and watched as the picture of his bonds with other people appeared again. The one connecting him to Theresa was green, and the one that stretched away in Draco's direction a brilliant color, somewhere between blue and violet. Harry swallowed.
"He does you so much good," Theresa said. "He is helping to heal you, Harry, to let you live again. Until and unless you see more evidence of your presence costing him than an argument with his mother, I think you should remember that he can make his own decisions, too." She softened the sting of the words with a smile, and then banished the colors. "Now. What do you think is most important between you? What basis does your relationship have?"
"Trust," said Harry. "I trust him to keep his word, and care for me now. It's why I can't accuse him of lying about the fight with his mother."
"Then trust him until he lies to you," Theresa urged. "You've managed the first and hardest step, Harry, listening to him above the promptings of your own instincts. And you trust him not to do things that you don't want, don't you, unless they're for your own good?"
Harry let his breath out slowly. "Yeah. Yeah, I trust him. But it would be so hard to do that if I found out he lied to me."
Draco consulted the photograph the Auror, Dogfoot, had snapped for him, and then looked up and studied the Muggle home in front of him. Yes. This was the house where Harry had spent his childhood, and the house where the Dursley Muggles lived still. Draco wanted to be sick at the sterile look of it, but then reminded himself Harry lived here no longer, and Dogfoot hadn't even been able to find a psychic trace of him. This was about the child Harry had been, but Draco didn't have to vomit. He had to think, and plan a careful justice equal to their crimes.
Casting a Disillusionment Charm on himself, he walked around the house. The flowerbeds were neatly taken care of, and all the curtains drawn. Draco saw a light shining from the center of the house, however, and cast a spell that would move the curtain aside enough to let him peer in.
In front of a box blaring with light sat all three Dursleys. It must have been a holiday for the two fat ones, Draco thought. The son sat squashed between his parents, eating what looked like an enormous sandwich dripping with juices. He laughed at something on the Muggle device, and bits of food flew from his mouth.
Draco sneered softly. That would be Harry's cousin, Dudley. And all three of them looked as if they hadn't a care in the world, rather than as if they carried the memory of a small, abused child about with them.
Draco tried to restrain the anger that climbed his throat, reminding himself that he had no idea how bad it had truly been. Harry had almost certainly tried to soften the neglect, but that didn't mean his relatives had truly beaten him.
The amount of uncertainty only encouraged the rage, though, Draco found. As long as he had no limits, his imagination was free to conjure any images it liked, and Draco could see Harry sitting on the floor of a cupboard, trying not to cry, with disturbing clarity.
Careful, careful, he reminded himself. You aren't here to destroy them- yet. Just to scare them, to warn them of what's coming.
He pointed his wand at himself and whispered a glamour, drawing the cowl of his cloak around his head as he did so. Glamours were easier when they had something to work with, especially physical materials that resembled what they were supposed to mimic. Draco concentrated on his own memories of what he wanted to appear as, and smiled in approval as his vision fogged and an intense chill radiated out from him.
When the Muggles looked through the window, he knew, they would see what looked like a Dementor there.
He raised one hand and scratched on the glass. The sound took long moments to penetrate the fat Muggles' trance, but at last Dudley turned around. Draco breathed out a cloud of breath, which turned the glass pane to frost.
The boy shrieked, which got the parents' attention. Harry's uncle leaped to his feet, backing away from the window. The aunt was screaming a variety of words, among which Draco could make out, "It's them, Vernon, them! The freaks!"
Dudley had fallen to the floor in a dead faint. Draco raised an eyebrow, wondering if he'd somehow encountered Dementors before.
It wasn't his concern, however. He knew the parents would tell their son everything about what had happened when he woke. He lifted his wand, which would look like a long, pale finger to the terrified people watching him, and scribed bone-white letters on the pane.
You will pay.
Then he Apparated, taking a vicious satisfaction in the wails that accompanied him.
It's not nearly enough. But it's a start.