Chapter 50—Mouse, Cat, and Lion
Draco turned and looked down at Harry, who was lying in a corner of the bed in his room, mouth slightly open as he snored. Harry's hair looked as disheveled as if mice had been playing in it, and tangled across the pillow. His lips still bore a trace of the ferocious kissing they'd endured the night before.
Draco ignored the temptation to climb back in beside him, wake him, and show him, once again, exactly how much he mattered. They'd done that quite a bit last night, and Harry needed his rest.
He turned back to the window that gave an enchanted view of the gardens, and sipped at the cup of ice water Trippy had brought him with a faint smile on his face.
Besides, it had been several days since he'd cast the nightmare curse on the Dursleys. It would have started to fade. Draco needed to return to Privet Drive and show them exactly how many of those nightmares would be coming true, and how many would lead to something even worse.
Harry opened his eyes slowly. A flood of sunlight lay on his face, and he thought that was the only thing that had awakened him. His muscles stayed relaxed puddles of warm mush, and he could have lain there for hours more.
Except for one thing: Draco wasn't in the bed.
Harry raised himself on one elbow and stared curiously around the room. Almost at once, air rushed together in the middle, and Trippy stood before him, with a low bow. She held a tray of food in one large hand and a letter in the other.
"Master Draco's compliments, Master Harry, but he had to run an errand," she squeaked now. "He left this breakfast for you. And Mistress Narcissa is outside the gates." She extended the letter. "She sent this letter for you."
Harry tried to pick up the envelope, but Trippy retracted her hand and proffered the breakfast instead. "Master Harry is to be eating up, first," she said sternly.
Harry looked over the tray. He noticed the usual pancakes, eggs, and strawberries that he and Draco tended to eat in the mornings, but among them were several cakes of grain, apples from the orchard, and pieces of bacon. He shook his head in amusement. Apparently Draco thought he needed to keep his strength up.
And he's right, isn't he?
Thoughtfully, Harry picked up an apple and bit into it, running the fruit around in his mouth before he swallowed. Last night, they'd had sex several times, but Harry had done more exhausting things as an Auror. It wasn't the physical exertion that he needed to save his strength for.
The emotional, though—
Last night was the first time Harry would have said that he and Draco made love instead of fucked.
He knew the cause of that on his part. But the overwhelming tenderness in Draco's eyes, which never left even when his face twisted in pleasure, made Harry wonder if there was something about Draco he didn't know.
He started eating. He was determined not to rush through the breakfast. Yes, he didn't want to keep Narcissa waiting, but it would do no good for her to demand an audience and think she could get one any time she wanted, either.
Draco concealed his arrival at the home, but not his entrance. When he examined the Muggles' front door, he found several thick locks. He snorted and whispered Alohomora a few times. They all opened with faint clicks.
The door swung inwards, and Draco heard a brief, frantic scramble, which reminded him of cornered rats. His mouth lifted in an expression somewhere between a sneer and a snarl. You might think you can escape, but I'm blocking the only exit.
A roar and a bang sounded, and Draco felt the discharge from some Muggle weapon pass him closely enough to make his robes riffle. He clucked his tongue, and looked up to see Harry's uncle aiming the weapon at him again. A gun, Draco knew, from tales his mother told.
He briskly swept his wand in a circle, thinking the incantation for the Disintegrating Curse, and the gun tore itself apart into sparks of steel, then fragments of air, then nothing. Vernon backed away from him, sweating and breathing heavily. Next to him stood Petunia, carrying, absurdly enough, a skillet. Dudley was trying to hide behind his parents.
"Is that the best you can do?" Draco asked.
"You have no right." Vernon spoke more calmly than he had the other day, as if he thought intensity, and not volume, would make Draco leave him alone. "We haven't done anything to you and the other freaks. So what if Potter lived here once? We don't know where he is. We haven't seen him for more than ten years—"
"Didn't you listen?" Draco whispered, stepping inside and kicking the door shut behind him. "Stupid Muggles. I can only be thankful that Harry didn't inherit your stupidity in any form. I know exactly where Harry is. I've come to take revenge for his abuse, not torture you for information on his whereabouts."
"We didn't abuse him," said Petunia, and fought her way forward again, though she lowered the skillet when Draco stared at her. "If he told you that we beat him or did—things—to him, he's lying."
"It was emotional abuse," Draco said softly, "and verbal abuse, and neglect. I think that's quite enough. It made him close himself off for decades, and it's still affecting him. And, as a matter of fact, no, he didn't talk willingly about it. He did his very best to make it sound as if it were nothing at all. But he's mine now—" he was not about to tell Harry's Muggle family that he was in love with Harry before he got to tell Harry himself "—and I can see how deep the scars went. That's what you'll be paying for, not anything you've done since."
"It's wasn't abuse," Petunia repeated. "So we didn't treat him exactly like our son. Well, he wasn't."
Draco had had enough. He Body-Bound them so they couldn't interfere or run, and then turned to Harry's uncle. He was the one screaming about freaks, and probably the one who would have intimidated Harry most, accounting for sheer size. And now he had almost hurt Draco. The torture would start with him.
Draco cast a mild pain curse—at least, the Ministry accounted it mild. It would make Vernon feel as if someone were slowly, slowly pulling the toenails out of his feet. Draco watched with academic interest as his face turned green.
Then it was Petunia's turn, and, since she denied she'd abused Harry, Draco thought she should feel exactly what starvation was like. Her face turned pale, too, as the curse struck her, and she gave a low whining sound.
Dudley had beat Harry up, Draco knew, and chased him, and tried to keep him from having friends. Draco used a spell of his own devising, one which alternated the fear of pursuit with invisible fists that struck bruises. Dudley stood there, shivering, longing to get away and not able to, whimpering when a fist caught him in the corner of his mouth and his cheek, and then wailing when they went to work on his back.
Draco twirled his wand between his fingers and watched, with a smile.
Harry checked Narcissa's letter several times for spells, even though Trippy was ready to iron her ears at the mere thought of letting a dangerous envelope pass into a master's hands. Finally, satisfied that she had meant to send a simple letter and not hurt him, he slit open the seal.
The letter was simple and to the point, though Harry frowned over it.
Dear Mr. Potter:
I assume that you wish to stay with and love my son for the rest of your life. The light I saw in your eyes at the dinner party the other night certainly seemed to suggest so. And I know that Draco has often spoken of his desire to spend his life with you.
What you may not know is that Draco, himself, can endanger those chances. He has played you false about something very important, and he is edging nearer and nearer to an investigation by the Ministry, or, perhaps, an Azkaban sentence. I do not wish to see that happen, but, should I interfere, my son would simply accuse me of trying to mold him to my own wishes again.
I have set my own house-elf, Breezy, to watch him. If you would summon Breezy, simply speak her name aloud. She can tell you the details of what Draco has been doing. She wears a charm that ensures she speaks the truth.
Yours in our mutual love for my son,
Narcissa Malfoy.
Slowly, Harry lowered the letter and shook his head. He couldn't imagine what Draco was doing that could merit an Azkaban sentence, and decided that Narcissa had probably been exaggerating, again, in an attempt to worm her way back into Draco's life.
On the other hand, could summoning Breezy cause trouble? Even if the house-elf tried to hurt him, he had Trippy with him to help.
He raised his voice and called, "Breezy!"
At once a house-elf smaller than Trippy appeared with a crack. She was wringing her hands, and she looked at him and squeaked desperately, "Master Potter is to come quickly! Master Malfoy is torturing the Muggles!"
Harry was on his feet before he quite knew what he was doing, and his wand was in his hand. He cast a spell that would detect magic, and the amulet hanging around Breezy's neck brightened and began to glow white. The spell told him that it indeed made sure she was speaking the truth.
"What Muggles?" he whispered, even as his stomach began to churn and he thought he knew. "Who are they, Breezy?"
"The Muggles who live in Surrey, Master Harry Potter, sir!" Breezy mourned. "Master Harry Potter's family."
Harry Apparated without a thought.
Draco had moved on to the second round of spells by now. Vernon was experiencing exactly what it meant to be pressed to death, enormous weights crushing his lungs and chest. Petunia struggled against the pain of her bones being broken one by one. Dudley had fainted from the application of slight pain, so Draco had cursed him to bad dreams instead of peaceful unconsciousness. All their faces were flushed red, marked with tears and snot.
"Have you learned?" he asked, and then paused. Petunia stared at him hopefully for a moment, then moaned as Draco shook his head. "I don't think so, not yet," he murmured.
Magic rushed past him. The Muggle house rose from its foundations, quaking, then settled back with a boom that made the pictures on the walls vibrate and the cutlery in the kitchen fall with a crash. Draco whirled, wondering if the Aurors could really have sensed the magic being used in front of Muggles and come to confront him.
"DRACO!"
No. Worse. Harry had found out what he was doing, and come to confront him.
And here he came, through the front door as if it wasn't even there, his hair billowing around him, his eyes bright and fierce and burnished green. His wand was clutched in his hand, but he didn't exactly need it, Draco knew. His magic was roaring all around him. It could kill Draco if Harry wanted it to.
Draco took a step backwards in spite of himself.
Then he realized Harry wasn't looking at him, but at the Muggles, taking in their bruises and their wounds and their stricken expressions. His own face went so pale that Draco could see the vivid line of the scar on his forehead in contrast. He closed his eyes and whispered a few spells, making passes with his wand so rapid that his wrist looked like a blur.
Draco felt his curses and the Body-Binds dissipate. More of Harry's magic caught the Dursleys before they could slump to the ground, and leaned them against the wall. A moment later, Harry was healing those of their wounds he could heal, still ignoring Draco completely.
Draco took a step back and eyed him warily. He wasn't sure what would happen, or, for that matter, how Harry had found out.
Then he recalled those cracks he'd heard the time he Apparated to the Dursleys' house and back, and closed his eyes in self-loathing. Of course. It had probably been Breezy. The detection spells he used would have picked up any trace of wizarding Apparition, but house-elf magic was fundamentally different. He had never even thought that Narcissa would do without Breezy for any length of time, much less the length it would take to find out who the Dursleys were and spy on him, but it seemed she would.
Harry put his relatives to sleep, and then turned and looked at Draco. Draco could see him trying as hard as he could to shove anger and disappointment and hurt behind emotional shields, but Draco had shredded those enough that Harry couldn't do it any more.
"You did this," Harry whispered.
Hurt had become most prominent, it seemed. Draco moved a step forward. Harry backed away from him, a wary eye on his hands, as if he thought that Draco would cast pain curses on him next. Draco felt as if his liver had tugged itself away from the rest of his body and fallen into small chunks inside his chest. He had trouble breathing.
"It was for you," he whispered. "Harry, you were abused. And you would never have taken vengeance. You told me that. But they had to pay—"
"So you thought you could make up for their hurting someone defenseless by hurting people who were defenseless compared to you?" Harry's voice was horrified and raw. The air around Draco danced like a heat shimmer, as Harry's magic reacted to his trembling emotions.
"It was revenge. Payment." Draco wondered why he didn't sound more convincing. He'd been very convinced of his own righteousness five minutes ago. "They abused you, Harry."
"It wasn't that bad!"
A surge of anger returned to bear Draco up. He moved closer to Harry again, who seemed too preoccupied with staring at him this time to notice. "It was," he said. "I don't care if they didn't leave physical scars, Harry. They left emotional ones. You know how deep they run, because you're the one who's lived your life."
"I made it through," Harry said, lowering his head. His eyes had gone so dark it hurt Draco to look into them. "So that means it wasn't that bad, nothing compared to what other people suffer. At least I didn't die. And I left them on my seventeenth birthday and I was done with them forever, Draco. How could you—what right did you have to dig up my past like this? None."
"You did suffer," Draco argued. "And no one else was going to do it, just like no one else was going to help you when you were an Auror, Harry. This is what they deserve, the pain and fear they inflicted on you."
Harry put a hand over his eyes. "Draco," he said, "no. You can't make up for pain by causing pain. You can't torture someone because they tortured someone else. It—it doesn't work that way. All it does is taint you with their crime, too."
"Didn't you kill the Dark Lord out of vengeance?"
Harry gave a massive, whole-body flinch, and Draco realized he must have touched a buried nerve, Harry's fear that he would become like Voldemort.
Then Harry dropped his hand from his eyes, fixed his gaze on Draco, and said, in quiet tones, "Arguably, yes. But I never did anything like that again. I worked with the worst criminals and still managed to get them whole through trial and to prison, even when I had to protect them from my own partners. I never lost myself again, Draco, because I promised myself I wouldn't."
"I never made a promise like that," said Draco, feeling angry and embarrassed and half-defensive, a mixture of emotions he hadn't experienced since trying to explain to Severus why he could too help the Death Eaters in battle.
"But you still tortured them," Harry whispered. "And lied to me while you were at it, but that's the smaller part, compared to the fact that they suffered."
"And so did you!" Draco scrambled for some kind of relief like a climber about to fall off a cliff.
"But that's over and done with." Harry stared at the Dursleys for a moment. "They'll have new and traumatic memories. Unless—" He paused, and then abruptly cast Rennervate on all the Dursleys. Vernon and Petunia awoke, but lay still, too petrified to move. Dudley started blubbering again on seeing Harry.
Draco felt Harry's magic gather. He pointed his wand at a spot between all three Muggles, and whispered, "Obliviate."
Their faces smoothed into passive expressions. Draco thought Harry would grab his arm and storm from the house, but instead he jerked his head, and Draco followed him out the front door.
He isn't touching me. He doesn't want to touch me. Draco had that confirmed when he tried to take Harry's shoulder, and Harry ducked away from his hand without even looking at him.
"I shouldn't have done that, not if I wanted to remain true to my principles," Harry said, his eyes on the ground. "But there you are. I can't stand to see someone I'm in love with taken to Azkaban."
Draco tried to swallow, but both spit and breath were gone from this throat. "You're in love with me?" he asked, while his mind said, Hell of a way to find out.
"Yes." And Harry gave a laugh that frightened Draco. "No idea what I want to do in the future, now that I'm not going back to be an Auror, but I told myself that was all right, that I could wait and you'd support me while I searched for another path. And now I find out that I'm in love with you, but I can't trust you, and you have to inflict pain for past hurts that are done with and paved over, and I can't retreat behind my walls again, and—" He took a breath that sounded as if it were brushing through broken glass in his throat. "Everything's a mess," he whispered. "I should have suspected it would be. Nothing in my life goes right. My luck's not that good."
Draco reached for him again. The moment his arm brushed Harry's robe, though, Harry leaned away. "Don't you touch me," he hissed.
"I'm in love with you, too," Draco told him. "Harry—I meant what I said about not letting you go—"
"Stop me leaving, then," Harry snapped at him, and Apparated.
And Draco had not the least idea where he'd gone.
