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Chapter Twenty-Nine—Unforgivable Things

Draco tried to control the compulsion to fuss as they left the hospital—walking quickly so that anyone who might recognize Harry wouldn't remember that he was supposed to be recovering and force him back into bed—and prepared to Apparate to Harry's house. He didn't know what to make of the look on Harry's face. It had settled from open fury into something stronger and darker, like the expression of a Gorgon when she saw her own face in a mirror.

When they arrived just outside Harry's house, Harry stood still for a moment, looking at it, and then pulled out his wand. Draco tensed, but Harry turned and handed it to him. Draco held the holly wand in his hand and just blinked at it for a moment, wondering what he should do.

"I don't want to curse Ginny when we start yelling at each other," Harry said quietly. "For the same reason, I'll ask you to get the children out of the way. Ask Ron and Hermione to help you if they're here. They shouldn't have to see what will happen."

Draco couldn't put off the compulsion to fuss any longer. "Harry, are you sure that you should be doing this? You're still tired, and the Healers did say that you should go to sleep as soon as possible after you woke up. And is taking the children away from your wife—"

"I have to have them at a distance from her, at least," said Harry, and his voice sounded odd, rippling in and out as though he were speaking underwater. "I think she'll use them as pawns against me otherwise, and they don't deserve that."

"And you won't use them as pawns against her?" Draco asked. Maybe someone else wouldn't have had the courage, with Harry in the strange mood he was in now. He had never suffered from the same kind of deficiencies that others did, however—he only suffered from uncommon ones—and so he trusted Harry not to hurt him.

"I won't," said Harry. "Because this is what ends it for me, Draco."

Draco swallowed. He didn't like the sound of that. "Oh?" he managed, since his throat had closed up tight.

"Yes." Harry shook his head a little. "I can't—I can't be responsible for her happiness anymore. I won't hold her back from seeing the children, though I'll take precautions to make sure that she can't hurt or kidnap them. And when they're old enough to make their own decisions, they can live with her if they want to. I'll do my very best not to damage their relationship with her.

"But for me? This is the end. I will have no more ties to her after this."

Draco thought the news should have thrilled him. Instead, he felt like weeping, and he didn't even understand why. He averted his eyes, and stood still for a moment. Harry pressed his shoulder once, then vanished into the house.

Then he heard the sounds of children playing from the garden, and decided that he should gather them up. It helped that James and Al would recognize him, at least. He tracked around the house towards the sounds.

He relaxed when he saw Weasley sitting on a bench, watching the children, without his wife. He glanced up when Draco came around the corner, his wand held not at all casually in his hand, and then inclined his head.

"Malfoy," he said. "Harry's in there?"

"Yes," said Draco, and turned so that Weasley could see the two wands he held. "And he gave me his wand before he went in."

Weasley closed his eyes, and leaned his head back against the bench. Draco let him have a moment, since he could hardly imagine that Weasley would be cooperative when he suggested moving the children to Malfoy Manor.

Harry shut the door of the house softly behind him. He wondered if Ginny would think it was Ron coming back, or her mother, or him. Would she bustle out to confront him, trying to pretend that nothing was wrong, or would she hide?

But something is wrong, Harry thought, baring his teeth. Something is very fucking wrong, oh yes, indeed.

His fury was building again. Perhaps Draco would have said, were he there, that Harry still had no conclusive proof that Ginny had been behind the overdosing, but Harry knew. He remembered the way that Ginny had offered to make him tea the night of George's death, and how suddenly he had felt sleepy after starting to drink it. And it had been incredibly hard for him to wake from slumber in order to join the defense of Hogwarts from the dragons.

How could she have been so selfish, so—

Harry shook his head. He would have the chance to ask that of Ginny in a few moments.

He walked down the entrance hall and turned right. A few glances were sufficient to convince him that Ginny wasn't in the library, the kitchen, or any of the children's rooms. That left the drawing room, the loo, or—

Harry bared his teeth again, and turned right again, into their bedroom.

Ginny stood there with her arms held stiffly at her sides, and her head bowed. Hermione hovered a few inches from her, whispering words that Harry couldn't make out, her wand weaving back and forth as if she thought she would convince Ginny by emphasizing her points with it.

Hermione saw Harry first. Her eyes widened, and she stepped back and away. Harry wondered for a moment if he looked like he had the day he killed Voldemort. Hermione had once told him that was the only time she had ever been frightened of him.

Ginny looked up next, and her eyes met Harry's. She froze for a moment, and then lifted her chin and shook her hair back.

Maybe he should have admired her for facing the consequences of her actions with courage. However, it was rather too little, too late. Harry prowled forwards, feeling for a moment as he had when facing the Masked Lady.

This hatred was worse, deeper, more personal. The Masked Lady had committed no betrayal of him; she was struggling against Harry because he had political power she would have been a fool to ignore. This was Ginny. His wife, his love, a woman he probably still loved if he was being honest with himself, the mother of his children, the partner he should have been able to lean on no matter what.

And now—

Now, Harry was going to do his very best to light the remnants of his love on fire. He couldn't stand it anymore, to be connected to her the way he was. The links of the past would remain, but they were the past and that was the way it should be. This was now.

And now was Ginny saying, "Harry. I didn't—there's something you should know—"

"There are a lot of things I should know, I think," said Harry, and his voice swelled in power like the incoming tide. He felt the blaze of defensive magic pick up around him, but he was channeling his rage through his voice, and he didn't think it would react adversely to Ginny. That was the reason he hadn't been afraid to give his wand to Draco: his wandless magic was primarily defensive, thus unlikely to attack, but at the same time strong enough to protect him if his "loving wife" fired a curse. "For one thing, did you poison me with the Dreamless Sleep, by giving it to me long past the recommended dosage?"

Ginny bristled, her skin flushing with lion-like heat. Given the flash in her eyes, Harry couldn't be sure that it was all embarrassment, either, the way he would have liked it to be. "I did," she said. "But I didn't mean to poison you. I just thought that it would make you stop dreaming of him so much, that it would bring you back by reminding you of what we could have, that it would help you rest better—"

Harry's raw, hoarse laughter cut her off. She stared at him as if she didn't know how to deal with that. Harry was sure she didn't.

Not only were the side-effects of the potion, whatever of them still remained, and his lack of dreams coming down on him now, but all the years—and, recently, the torturous weeks and days—he had worked hard for Ginny's happiness. He'd worked, and he'd hoped he could have a friendship with Draco without offending her, and he'd felt so guilty for the dreams, and he'd felt so guilty for the only things that made him happy, because he knew those things cost Ginny. So much work and time and emotion poured into a relationship that was just going to die anyway.

"You knew better than that," he said. "Why wouldn't I have taken the Dreamless Sleep every night in order to spare you, if it was harmless? I would have. I put your happiness ahead of my own so much that Draco had to trick me into remembering my own. That's the kind of fool I was—"

"Really, Harry Potter?" Ginny leaned forwards, her fingers hooked into claws. "Not from what I can see. What I can see is that you've been selfish all your life, and adept at concealing that selfishness under selflessness. You wouldn't have tried to have sex with someone other than me if—"

"I didn't try to have sex with him—"

"You kissed him! Hermione told me! She saw!"

Harry didn't bother glancing at Hermione. Her guilt and her happiness weren't concerns of his at the moment.

Ripping himself apart from Ginny, burning all his bridges so conclusively that she would never want to get back together with him, was.

"So I kissed him," he said. "Strange that even before that happened, you poured Dreamless Sleep in my tea—"

"I saw that you were becoming closer to him!" Ginny spat. "You bastard, if you cared about me at all, if you cared about the children, you would have gone to a Mind-Healer the way I urged you to and let her suppress the dreams—"

"I tried, there was nothing she could do without driving me insane—"

"That would have been—"

"Who took their problems outside this marriage first?" Harry snarled, his magic flaring around him enough to stir the curtains. "Hermione tells me that you were telling her all about our marriage problems for years—"

"Because you wouldn't listen!"Ginny's throat sounded raw with her scream. "I tried to talk to you, and you pushed me aside, or dismissed me, or told me that I had nothing to worry about, that you only loved me! What a load of rubbish that turned out to be."

"I didn't know that I would fall in love with Draco—"

"But even if you didn't," Ginny spat at him, "once you did, then you damn well should have stayed with me and given up going to see him. There were plenty of other things that you could have done, Harry. It's not like this was another fucking prophecy. You could have fulfilled the life-debts and dissipated the magic that way. You could have spent more time at home with your family instead of staying over with him all the time—"

"I had to do that—"

"You fucking did not! At least admit that you chose this instead of hiding behind your excuse of needing to do it—"

"All right!" Harry shouted. His nerves had been worn down faster than he would have believed possible. If Ginny wanted to hear what she thought was the truth, then she would hear it. "I treasured every moment I spent with Draco, and dreaded coming home to you! I can't remember when the last time was that I felt passion for you, instead of feeling that I had to protect you like you were a helpless child! With Draco, I can have someone who's my equal, someone who doesn't need me to look out for his happiness all the time because he's perfectly fucking capable of taking responsibility for it on his fucking own! With you, I'm always dreading when I'll say the least little thing wrong and ruin your whole damn day, because God knows, you're not resilient enough to push the little things away and find some happiness in the midst of it!"

"What did I endure?" Ginny's voice was low and quiet. "Having three children in a row even when I didn't want that third pregnancy, and then staying home with the children just so that you could work overtime with the Blood Reparations Department. Tell me that I've let little things ruin my happiness when you've been pregnant, Harry, and miserably sick every single morning for weeks—"

"If you didn't want Lily, you should have told me! I would have agreed to do something about it," Harry said, but he choked, and Ginny leaped onto that sound like a Niffler onto gold.

"Oh, yes, because that wouldn't have been the end of our marriage right there," she said, and rolled her eyes. "You giggled the day I told you, Harry. All you've ever really wanted are children. If there was a way to have them without having a wife, then you would have been perfectly happy to do so—"

"Well, I wish there had been a way without having you as a wife, you're right about that," Harry said, as coolly as he could, but now his mind was full of the image of Ginny, pregnant with Lily and not nearly as happy as he'd always assumed she was.

"You never asked," Ginny went on, stalking forwards. Harry refused to back up, but he did avert his eyes, and he saw Hermione with her head bowed and tears streaming down her face. Ginny's voice snatched his attention back again. "You just assumed that I was happy to have all the children in the world, and in a few years you'd be suggesting that we have another. But, of course, any objection on my part would have got me looked at as if I were inhuman. And what do you think Mum would have said? She's always wanted dozens of grandchildren. She's not satisfied with the six she has! Tell me that I could have said something about it without immediately being ostracized by my own family, Harry. Tell me that and mean it."

Harry was breathing harshly. He wondered what in the world Lily and Ginny's relationship would be like in the future, with Ginny continually looking at the girl and remembering that she hadn't wanted her. Suddenly the weariness that he had seen on Ginny's face when he came home from Blood Reparations work in the last few months took on another meaning.

How could he not have known his own wife like this?

And it was made worse because he really would have looked at Ginny like that if she had suggested not having Lily once she was pregnant, and he knew it.

He looked up and straight at his wife. He tried to imagine getting into bed with her now, or trusting her again, and revulsion curled up his spine at the idea. His trust had been broken into pieces by this revelation, and it hurt the more because Ginny was right. If he had been as sensitive to and in tune with her as he'd always believed, then he would have noticed her discomfort when she became pregnant for the third time in four years.

"There are always other choices—" he began.

Ginny shook her head impatiently. "I won't be a bad mother, whatever other kind of monster you make me into," she said, and her voice swelled with passion. "I love my children. I want what's best for them. And that includes having their father around."

Harry lifted his head slowly. The rage had withdrawn, and guilt had nearly taken its place, but now the anger was washing back in. "So," he said quietly, "you really didn't care what the Dreamless Sleep potion might be doing to me. As long as it made me into a better husband and a father for your children, then—"

"It's inevitable anyway," Ginny snapped. Her eyes and her cheeks were bright. Harry knew the feeling. He'd felt it in hospital, the sudden shock of realizing that he was saying something he'd wanted to say for a long time. "We're bound by these marriage vows. We can't change them. We can't depart from them. This really changes nothing, Harry. I'm glad you've survived. Maybe you can be a little more considerate of my needs from now on."

Harry shook his head slowly, eyes locked on her. The fury was rising, sloshing around him.

"You could have said something," he said.

"I told you why I didn't say anything about my feelings towards that third baby—"

"About the dreams," Harry said, and his voice broke off at the end, into a snarl. Ginny narrowed her eyes at him, as if trying to determine what he could have to be angry about. "About your fear of their effect on our sex life. You told Hermione. Why couldn't you tell me?"

"Because you would have reassured me, and done nothing about it," said Ginny. "You were aroused by them. You wanted them, Harry—"

"I never did!" It was Harry's turn to scream. "You think I wanted to lie awake next to my wife, aroused by another man, aroused by my old school rival? Of course not! I—"

"You could have done something about them, if you really didn't want them!" The air around Ginny was stirring with her magic now, too, lifting and letting the ends of her red hair fall as if she were some kind of banshee.

"I tried!" Harry roared. "I went to Healers, I researched spells, I tried any combination of potions a few years ago, remember? Nothing worked. What am I supposed to have done, taken a Time-Turner back and not saved Draco's life so that I wouldn't owe him anything?"

"Don't give me that," Ginny said. Her voice had lowered and grown more deadly once again, while Harry was fighting the temptation to keep from just leaping ahead and hurting her. "You're Harry Potter. You defeated the Dark Lord. You always find a way around obstacles that should stop you. Hell, you made me want Lily after she was born, just because you were so enthusiastic around her. You make a business out of changing minds and hearts so that Muggleborns can return to the pure-blood parts of the wizarding world. If you really wanted to overcome those dreams, you could have. That you didn't tells me you wanted them, for whatever reason."

"I am not a bloody fucking hero for all seasons, Ginny," said Harry, and his voice was soft, now, as he came to the crux of the problem. "I can't solve everything. I can't do everything. I certainly can't do anything about problems that I thought we'd mutually decided to live with, when all the solutions I could try didn't work."

"There's always some way," said Ginny. Her eyes and her face were overly bright, as with fever. "And you were the one who just came home one day and shrugged and told me that you couldn't do anything about the dreams. If you'll remember, which you probably don't because your own needs have always occupied you more, I had to turn away to hide my tears. I was sworn to living with a man who wanted someone else. At least I never did that to you, Harry. I never fell in love with anyone else. When I did feel a pull of attraction, I stopped spending time with that person. You just went right ahead and fell blithely in love again. Of course, you'll probably forget about him, too, in a month's time, when the challenge of pursuing him isn't enough for you anymore, and find someone else. Does he know that? I bet he doesn't. He probably doesn't realize that someone who's fickle to one partner can be just as fickle to another one."

Harry shook his head slowly. "I put off considering my happiness for years, Ginny, because I thought that was what you wanted. I didn't complain, I didn't tell you what I was thinking, because when I tried it seemed to hurt you so much. I went to therapy because you wanted me to. I—"

"Not enough, Harry," Ginny said, and now her hands were clasped around each other, scratching hard enough that her nails were tearing off flakes of skin and blood was springing out beneath them. "I never asked you to consider my happiness that way. I'm an adult. If you really felt that way, you should have told me, too. How can you accuse me of keeping secrets when you did it all the time?"

Harry closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing, since he could feel the magic building up in dangerous levels against his skin.

Draco was right. She never asked to be managed. I should have realized that.

I should have done something like this long since.

"You're right," he said, opening his eyes and looking at her.

Ginny stared at him, caught off-balance like someone who had been building up to a run and then had her opponent give up the race. "What did you say?"

"You're right," Harry repeated. "I wasn't sensitive enough. I didn't notice. I didn't talk enough.

"And I never will be able to, because I can't be what you need, either. I can't be someone who doesn't have dreams of Draco. I can't be the perfect father of your children who makes you love them because I love them, too.

"And most of all, I can't be that hero you need, Ginny. I won't overcome the obstacles you need overcome all the time, and I won't be perfectly loving and forgiving. This—I can't forgive this. I can't forgive that you almost poisoned me. And you didn't know about the specific symptoms, maybe, but you knew that Dreamless Sleep was dangerous." Harry's head was pounding, his vision blurring. He wondered almost clinically if he would cry if he stayed here much longer. "I can't read your mind. Your motives, as you tell them to me here, don't convince me. It's through, Ginny. I'm walking away now."

"Harry, you can't." Ginny was sighing now, like she did when confronted with James's antics on his toy broom. "We have to stay together because of the marriage vows. The children—"

"Are apparently restricting your freedom," said Harry. "And I don't know what you're capable of anymore. What you say makes sense, but—how that could have led you to think that slipping me the Dreamless Sleep was a good thing, instead of talking to me about it more?"

"You didn'tlisten to me when I talked to you!"

"Did Hermione?" Harry asked. The tears were squeezing the corners of his eyes. He wasn't sure what he was mourning. Maybe the death of his marriage, maybe just the extent to which he'd done damage to it.

"I like to think so," said Ginny. "But none of the advice she offered was practical. She just told me to talk to you again, and—well, you know what it's like when I do." She laughed. The sound was bitter. "I was caught in a trap no matter which way I turned, Harry. You say that you can't be the hero for everything, but when you were deaf to me, I needed someone who would be."

"Why didn't Hermione talk to me?" Harry whispered.

"Because I swore her to secrecy, of course," Ginny said, looking at him like he was mad.

Harry shook his head. It was just all too much. And talking to her about it would only spin them around in further circles, with Ginny refusing to see what she had done wrong and Harry condemned to mistrusting all her words.

All he had left was this.

"I'm going," he said. "I'm taking the children with me—"

"You can't do that—"

"Because I don't know what the hell you'd do with them, now," Harry said. His voice was dull. Everything about his feelings was dull, as if they were knives that hadn't been sharpened in weeks, cutting away at him. "They restricted your freedom, you didn't want Lily, you love them now but you were absolutely sure that you needed a father in the same house for them even if he was getting sick because of lack of dreams—"

"I'm not a monster," Ginny said, her voice steel. "I won't let you make me into one. I told you, I love my children."

"But I don't know that," Harry whispered. "I don't understand anything anymore. As you say, I wanted children. I know that I can take care of them. I'm not sure about you. Someone can be a good person and still incapable of taking care of children properly, Ginny. I won't use them as pawns against you. I'm not sure that you won't use them as pawns against me. You're already trying—"

"You can't—"

"I can and I will." Harry looked into her eyes. He didn't recognize her. He wondered if he would have at any point during their marriage. "I would rather go without sex for the rest of my life, and negotiate out all the delicate points of having our children visit you, than stay with you for one moment more."

He turned and walked out. He would have to fetch his wand from Draco, and Summon his clothes, and Tutela, and the other things that were his and that he might need from this house.

He was dazed with pain, and ending, and the need for sleep. He wanted to go away. He wanted to fold himself up in Draco's embrace and shelter for a while from the world.

He wasn't sure that he deserved it, when he'd played such a part in destroying his own marriage and apparently done everything wrong no matter how hard he'd tried, but that was what he wanted.

Luckily for Draco, Weasley had listened to what he had to say about taking the children to the Manor and simply nodded.

"Might be safer for them behind the wards, anyway," he said, and then turned to pick up Lily, who lay sleeping on the bench next to him, and handed her to Draco. "Here, take her. You do know how to hold a baby, right?" Amusement bubbled under the surface of his voice.

Draco almost snapped that of course he did, but he quickly found out that holding Scorpius and holding a little girl were different. Lily's bright brown eyes were fixed on him with what seemed to be more innocence, and it had been a long time since Draco had held a child this small. He went quiet at the warmth against his chest, and for a time it helped him to stop thinking about what might be happening in the house. He hadn't smelled the sharp ozone smell of Dark magic, at least, and Weasley had said that his wife was inside with his sister and would stop any incipient duels.

"Why are you being so pleasant about this?" he asked, his voice muffled, since he had his head bowed over Lily.

Weasley didn't answer. Draco looked up to meet a thoughtful gaze, somewhere between rueful and wistful.

"I've watched Harry's marriage falling apart for much longer than he realizes," Weasley said quietly. "But I always thought I was mistaken. Hermione didn't want to talk about it. And Harry seemed happy. I've never been the keenest observer. Emotional range of a teaspoon, Hermione tells me." He shrugged. "But you learn patience as an Auror, so I thought I would at least wait and see whether I was right or not. You—you're not the end of their marriage I expected, but you're a lot better than what it could have been. And Harry's in love with you. I can tell. I'll accept it for his sake."

Draco looked away. He hoped, more strongly than ever now, that Harry's friends never found out he had killed George.

Harry walked out of the house.

Draco stood up. Harry's sons, who had continued to play with toy wands, oriented on their father and ran over to him, babbling. Harry put his hands gently on their heads, and smiled, and Draco was grateful to see a spark of joy in him after all, in the middle of his desolation.

"My wand, please," Harry said, turning to him.

Draco paused, both because he held Lily and because he didn't know what Harry was going to do with the wand. But Harry just shook his head. "It's over," he said. "I know it won't work, even if she doesn't. I'm just going to Summon my clothes and Tutela and the rest of what I want, and get the hell out of here."

"She accepted your taking the children?" Draco asked warily.

"Not accepted it," said Harry. "But she confessed that she didn't want Lily when she was pregnant with her. That's—I don't know what it says. Bad things about me, I think, more than about her. But I want them more than she does. That alone—" He broke off.

Draco gave his wand back in silence. This wasn't the same Harry who had walked into the house, who was silent in the midst of his frightening, flaring anger. This was a Harry who looked as though he had listened to someone he loved die screaming.

Harry turned and aimed his wand at the house, incanting several Summoning Charms. The Guardian Angel was the first to come flying out, locked in her cage. The moment Harry unlocked the door, she flew up and fastened her talons to his shoulder, hooting and cooing in a mixture of tenderness and rage that Draco found endearing. At least he would have help in taking care of Harry.

As the rest of Harry's possessions came flying, the door opened. Despite Granger's attempts to hold her back, Harry's wife was walking across the lawn, staring at Draco and then away. "Harry," she called.

Harry stiffened and shook his head, looking aside.

"Harry, we can still make this work, if you just try a little harder—"

Draco wanted to kill her where she stood, but Harry had already gathered his possessions around him, shrunk them, and taken his sons' hands. A moment later, they Apparated out.

Draco followed with Lily, leaving Weasley and Granger to deal with the aftermath. He wanted to get back home and settle the children as soon as possible.

And then he would make sure that Harry went to sleep, damn it.

Come to think of it, given how delayed the dreams had been, it might not be a bad idea for him to join in.

Harry was perplexed.

He'd taken some time to comfort the children and ensure that they settled in—as long as he could before Draco shepherded him off, at least. Harry's vision was shutting down by then, and he could feel gray fuzz snowing across his brain, so he accepted the dismissal inherent in Narcissa's words and Draco's actions, and went to bed. He had expected to start having dream visions the moment he lay down.

Instead, he was standing in the middle of a vast, empty space with stone walls, something like one of the many rooms that Harry supposed must exist under Malfoy Manor. He turned in a circle, looking up at the ceiling, and sniffed. The air smelled stale. He pinched his skin. It hurt.

"Harry?"

He turned quickly. Next to him was Draco, looking as bewildered and out-of-sorts as he had when Harry had last seen him awake. He looked around several times, then turned to him and frowned. "What do you think this is? It seems to be an odd dream."

Harry swallowed. He could smell Draco's scent, and he could feel the stretch of skin along his side when he moved, showing that the scar of the sixth life-debt was still there. This wasn't a memory of another life, or a dream of something that could have been. This was them.

He remembered how the dreams had changed after the fifth life-debt, and wondered if they could have changed yet again. Or maybe the change had something to do with the fact that he hadn't dreamed in entirely too long.

He edged forwards, and laid his hand against Draco's cheek. He was shivering with desire. Draco turned to look at him with a slight frown; he'd been peering at the ceiling as if he expected to recognize the carvings along it. His eyes widened as they darted from Harry's face to the hand on him.

"Harry?" Draco whispered.

Harry's breathing sped up. He was touching Draco's skin, sexual desire was racing through him, and the marriage vows weren't reacting to punish him. At all.

The wording of the wedding vows returned to Harry, as clearly as though he stood in front of the elderly wizard who had married him and Ginny in the Burrow's garden even now.

"Flesh of my flesh and spirit of my spirit, we are bound as one. We are loyal to one another. We need not ever fear disloyalty, because the touch of our desire on our flesh is reserved only for one another."

"Our desire on our flesh," he whispered.

"Pardon?" Draco was still staring at him.

"I can only touch Ginny when I'm in the flesh," Harry said, his voice growing stronger. "But, realistic as the dreams are, they never counted. The vows never punished me in them, because they were dreams.

"And so is this."

And with dozens of emotions surging through him, too many for him to give them any name at all, he lowered his head and pressed his lips to Draco's.