Disclaimer - The themes and most characters belong to my queen, JK Rowling, author of the true Harry Potter books.
A/N - I've been really demotivated for this story, mainly because 1. My Merthur story is really fun to write 2. I'm writing and editing a real novel and so my writing style is flourishing and to read over and edit this old work is painful (but it's still my writing so no negative comments agreeing with me) 3. I have two blogs now 4. I'm going back home 5. I have a billion books I want to read.
Anyway it's unfair to begin publishing this story and then not get to the sexy time so I will keep posting and then I might as well keep writing. I just need a shred of motivation...please.
Harry pulled the broom away from the self-locking rack and set it into hover, together he and Maligna got Draco on the broomstick.
"Will you be okay?" Harry asked the witch, not sure if she should walk back to Hogwarts by herself.
"Stop being such a muggle, I have a wand."
Harry nodded and hopped on behind Malfoy.
"I'm not sure about you two though, does it work with both of you?"
"Yeah Draco got me to the hospital wing just earlier this week, it seems to work fine."
"Yes but how do you get to the hospital wing on a broom?"
Harry begun to kick off.
"It's on the ground floor so I'll just land outside it and usually Pomfrey comes running out."
Together they flew up, as Winesap's concerned expression grew smaller and smaller. Harry thought he probably shouldn't have used the word 'usually'.
It was hard to see and the broom wobbled all over the place. How on earth had Draco managed this the other day when their positions were reversed?
"Have you cast a stabilizer charm?" Draco asked groggily from in front of him.
"No, should I have?"
"Yes, do you know how?"
Harry cleared his throat, in fact he didn't.
Draco moaned.
"Could you do it?" Harry asked as the broom lurched up higher and then rapidly dropped a few meters.
I guess that's a no. Harry thought as Draco's head dropped back as he became unconscious.
The broom jolted around, and Harry continued to push it toward the school, he couldn't make it land and that wouldn't do any good to them as it was. Most likely Draco would end up in a magical coma and it'd all be for nothing. In reality they were staying on the broom by a thread but it seemed a thread was all Harry needed as he navigated the pitch darkness.
"I'm going to die." Malfoy moaned.
"No you're not, you're safe. Pomfrey will help you."
"I am bloody well not safe, and unless Pomfrey can bring back the dead she's not going to be much help."
Harry moved the broom around a considerably violent twist and managed to fly it straight for a few minutes.
"No one's going to kill you."
"Except you, who has us fifty feet in the air on an unstable broom!"
Harry came to realize Draco was no longer talking about the war, as it seemed he'd come out of his shock.
"You were having an episode." Harry told him, having to shout over the wind.
"I gathered!" Draco's voice dropped a few octaves and he cleared his throat. "Was it bad?"
"No, not really, I mean you're okay now."
The broom began to plummet. Harry recognized the Hogwarts grounds as they sideswiped the Whomping Willow. Harry managed to pull them in a u-bend, soaring over Hagrid's newly built hut by a hair, hurtling across the land and toward the lake. There they landed underwater, lungs already half filled with the stuff and with no idea which way was up.
Harry felt a large force circle him tightly and wondered if this was the sensation of drowning. It must have been and he must've been dead because the force had pulled him clean out of the water and hurled him toward the spangled sky, he was flying but only for a second before land came near again and he hit it with a nasty crack. A similar occurrence happened near by him, only his broom got handled with any care, as it got placed down neatly on the shore before the placer retracted their giant tentacle and returned to their slumber.
"I must say I've never been more disappointed in my entire life, and with term starting the day after tomorrow! I've Owled for the life of me trying to find replacements for the two of you and I won't be giving up."
Harry struggled to comprehend, flinching from the immense pounding that threatened to knock him back unconscious.
His vision blurred but from what he peaked at through his lids the room was much too bright.
"Professor?"
"That's headmistress to you!"
"I'm sorry I don't understand."
"It's a miracle for you to understand anything with the amount of times you become unconscious! Another reason for your dismissal!"
"Dismissal! For helping Malfoy?"
Harry tried to sit up so McGonagall could see he was taking the matter seriously.
"Helping? We found the two of you bruised up and bloodied by the lake this morning, don't try and tell me you weren't dueling."
Harry gaped. "Of course not! We would never!" On school property, he added silently to himself.
"Then I suggest you start explaining."
"Has Professor Winesap returned?"
"I assume she has."
"She can help, explain I mean. I was helping Malfoy, I swear, where's my broom?"
The curtain around Harry's bed was thrust aside and there stood Malfoy, Pomfrey and Winesap.
"You need to hear this headmistress." Spoke Pomfrey in a tone that suggested she didn't yet believe the story.
"I can vouch for Malfoy and Potter." Winesap said.
"No need Maligna, Headmistress McGonagall will know the truth if Potter and I are agreeing on it."
McGonagall pursed her lips but nodded for Draco to go on.
"It seems I'm suffering from minor spellshock, a common after effect of the war. Having already witnessed my mother's exclusion from St. Mungo's Maligna doubted they'd receive me so when Potter here noticed I was going into shock she asked he take me back here as we'd gone into Hogsmeade on foot. However Potter being Potter neglected to put an extra stabilizer charm on the broom, which landed us in the lake. It's a Firebolt you see, Quidditch brooms can only hold one passenger."
"But I found them on shore." Madam Pomfrey pointed out.
"The giant squid threw us out." Harry said, remembering the force that had picked him up.
McGonagall sniffed.
"So you agree with his story Harry?"
"Well all except that I neglected to put a stabilizer on the broom, I didn't actually know."
"Claiming ignorance puts you in no better light. I'm blaming you for this as I have told you to avoid Mr. Malfoy. Seeing as you've disobeyed me and put his life in danger you can stay here until tomorrow morning as punishment."
Draco smiled smugly and Harry clenched his fists, a whole day under Pomfrey's restraining care would be torture.
"You're right to leave Draco." McGonagall informed him, getting up from where she had sat beside Harry's bed.
"No he is not!" Pomfrey had swollen up and looked livid.
"Seeing as I could not get a Mungo's healer to see him I'll have to watch him for at least two days and Harry has to stay here until I can reverse all symptoms of concussion.
"You're saying they have to stay in here all day regardless?" McGonagall looked crestfallen.
"Yes! So you can come up with a different punishment for Harry! Something other than quality medical care and attention!"
Harry had never seen the headmistress look so belittled.
"I don't suppose there's any way you could keep them apart?"
An evil glint crossed Pomfrey's face.
"No, in fact for my monitoring to work properly I'll have to keep them together, Professor Malfoy, on that bed."
And Pomfrey summoned over the bed closest to Harry's so they were practically touching. McGonagall paled.
"What are you trying to do? Have them kill each other?"
"These boys are somehow able to pull themselves out of their spellshock, and it seems this happens when they're in each other's presence, this is very necessary."
"I shouldn't allow this."
"But you will!"
McGonagall nodded reluctantly.
Harry looked to Malfoy, the pale wizard said nothing, Harry didn't understand, he was meant to be kicking up a fuss. Then Harry realized why he wasn't, he valued his job, so did Harry in that matter. Sure he had to stay at Hogwarts but McGonagall didn't have to employ him or make things so comfortable. So he stayed quiet until both he and Malfoy were in their respective beds and McGonagall and Winesap had left.
"I hate you." Malfoy hissed.
"I hate me too." Harry sighed.
They fell into silence for a while, both sat with their arms folded and the same look of melancholy on their faces, though neither could see it, they both stared straight ahead.
"You could have left me there and gone back to the school for help." Malfoy pointed out bitterly.
"And what if you'd died?"
"Are you stupid? I came out of the shock, the same thing would have happened if I'd stayed grounded."
Harry shrugged. "What can I say, I guess I panicked."
Draco made a noise of disgust.
"What?"
"Well why do you still insist on playing the hero, you're side's won, get over it."
Harry didn't answer for a while but in the end he felt like he did want to get what he was feeling off his chest after all.
"I don't believe that."
"What? You defeated the Dark Lord and the ministry kept their power, what else do you want?"
Draco seemed furious as Harry chanced a glance at him.
"Well looking back I don't really feel like I had a side, like if I could go back now and have a choice I'd choose neither."
Draco snarled. "Lying Gryffindor, you'd do anything for Dumbledore if he was still alive."
Harry shrugged again. "Well it's not like I'd ever know that but I like to think I wouldn't. When I think back on everything that happened it was such a waste, all history books are going to recall is a quick stamping out of a pureblood-elitist revolution and because of Dumbledore that's been allowed to take over my whole life, I wouldn't choose that for myself...if I could do it all over."
"Yes but in the end you still think good triumphed over evil." Malfoy said in a belittling voice that reminded Harry of exhausted adults explaining things to children.
Harry looked at Malfoy.
"No, how juvenile do you think I am? I know that's not how the world works, not even Voldemort could be simplified as evil."
"Then you didn't have him visiting your house." Draco said darkly.
Harry threw him a serious look. "No, just my head."
For a split second Draco looked apologetic.
"You saw what he did." Draco spoke, grimacing at the memories.
"But he was just one person, the war was between organizations, not just him and me, otherwise why else are you in the hospital wing? The whole of Wizarding Europe became corrupt in some way, and yes before you say it, that includes Dumbledore."
Draco seemed to lose his composure.
"Don't look so shocked, Dumbledore was telling me what to think since I was eleven and he gave me my first real home, I'll always have too much trust in him but he left me in the end. He had as much power as the minister and in all honesty if they hadn't been so busy in their political games to begin with the magical world wouldn't have been so vulnerable to Voldemort initially."
"You're wrong, Voldemort wanted Pureblood supremacy."
"So? And what's wrong with that?"
"Fuck, you've gone mad, where's my wand?"
"Well what I think is, the war was inevitable, the most powerful magical families identify as purebloods and that's because they've been part of this world for a long time and they've made contributions. Some hierarchy should have been established through the ministry long ago instead of letting it go on uncontrolled through social class-systems. Older families could have been given precedence for ministry positions and there could be scholarships into the better schools, you know."
"I have to believe you are incredibly drunk, because in no way, in no universe is the boy who lived speculating on how the Dark Lord could have succeeded."
"I'm not though, he never stood a chance, because he was out of his mind. I mean what chance does someone have if they just out right ignore the fact that muggle-born witches and wizards are kind of fundamental to the survival of our kind? Honestly he wanted to go up against muggles who outnumber us a thousand to one whilst simultaneously weakening our own numbers and genetic diversity? He also failed to extend any genuine offer of alliance with other magical races."
Draco made a non-committal sound.
"You actually mean this? You actually see there's honor in being pureblood? That we deserve…"
"Yes."
Draco just nodded; he had never considered that Harry was able to think for himself. Then again it wasn't as if Draco ever thought for himself either.
"What would you want us to do then though? Share schools with mudbloods no doubt, ruin our lineage with marrying them."
To Draco's despair Harry laughed.
"Come on Draco, all witches and wizards start out as mudbloods, the mudbloods of today are the future's purebloods, sure they aren't as much a part of this world as you are but shouldn't families like yours be trying to help bring them into our society instead of shunning them? Like maybe encouraging them to go to school so they and they're children will know magic and be able to make society stronger? Our real enemy is muggles, any magical blood is better than they are, if we could actually build some genuine alliances we wouldn't need the bloody statute of secrecy."
At this Malfoy actually choked, unable to convey his actual shock, of Potter using the word 'mudblood', declaring muggles the enemy and using his first name.
"Don't you agree though? Imagine real Quidditch stadiums in every country and towns like Hogsmeade only there'd be ones for Veela and Vampires and Hags too and the Dragon numbers would go back up because we could build reserves for them, if anything's killing the Wizarding world it's us keeping secret from muggles."
"But you know if they discover us they could destroy us."
"Exactly why we need a strong front, alliances across all magical blood, the secrecy would actually be a benefit for a while, people like Mr. Weasley could study muggle weaponry and we'd invent spells to shield us and disable the weapons. Or better yet we'd use spells to lower the muggle population."
"You don't mean…"
"I mean like potions in their water supplies that decrease their fertility."
Draco breathed out, long and slow.
"Well one thing that doesn't help is this one-heir thing you purebloods do."
"We only need one heir to carry on the name." Draco said defensively.
"Yes but don't you know how to count? Of course you'll dye out, you can't predict human sexuality anyway, isn't it safer to have more kids so if half decide to marry half bloods and muggleborns then you still get some pureblood grandchildren."
"We're not all Weasleys."
"Well maybe you should be."
"Well I for one know my duty, mother's managed to arrange a betrothal, a miracle in itself but at least I'll be carrying on the pureblood line."
Harry rolled his eyes.
"And let me guess you'll have one son and call it quits."
Draco reddened.
"I'm not talking about this with you Harry."
"It's Harry now is it?"
"You've been calling me Draco the past ten minutes, don't pretend you haven't." Draco exclaimed.
"But that is your plan."
"Why wouldn't it be?"
"Well you call it fulfilling your duty to your lineage but what about your duty to Wizarding-kind in general, you'd be better off marrying a half-blood witch you actually love and having ten kids."
Draco's eyes widened and then he narrowed them.
"What's to say I won't fall in love with my betrothed."
Harry snorted.
"I could."
"You will not, don't even try, it's more likely you'll fall in love with someone else before you ever see her."
Draco didn't say anything.
"When do you see her?"
"In three years, she's finishing her education at Beuxbatons."
Harry barked with laughter. "Then I'm right, you will so be in love with someone else before you meet her and then bully for you because you'll either have to break your own heart or forego your duty to your lineage."
"I'm not turning this into a bet with you." Malfoy spat.
"Why not? Because you know I'm right?"
Malfoy snarled.
"Of course you aren't!"
"Then don't bet on it, swear on it."
"Fine, but you have to swear something too."
Harry was half surprised Malfoy was even agreeing.
"What do I need to swear?"
"I don't know yet, give me some time to think."
They lay in silence for almost an hour. It was excruciating for Harry who wondered if the subject had been dropped completely.
"Okay."
Harry sat up as Draco spoke.
"We'll make this more interesting, essentially this is about the differences in our political views, you're saying I'm being a hypocrite going into an arranged marriage and having one heir. So on my part if I'm emotionally unfaithful to the arrangement over the next three years I have to forego it all together?"
Harry nodded.
"Then how about then, if I win and keep my emotions in tact, then you'll have to adopt pureblood values, you'll seek to marry into a pureblood family, you'll uphold pureblood customs, advocate all that bullshit you were on about before on pureblood benefits and should you ever have an heir, raise him as a pureblood."
"I'd say deal but I don't think I'd have an heir I think I'd have children if I ever got married."
"Not if you're upholding pureblood ways."
Harry sighed. "Fine, what kind of magic should we use to finish this?"
"I don't see why a blood oath won't do."
Harry blanched; a blood oath was way beyond protocol for such a situation.
"What? It isn't as if I wouldn't kill you if you went back on this anyway, oh and let's for fun add five hundred galleons into the mix."
"No way."
"Starting to doubt yourself are you Harry?"
Harry shook his head. "It's one thing to put myself through it, not my future family."
Malfoy smirked but his eyes were dead serious as his stare bore into Harry.
"Exactly." The blonde said before he lay down and shut his eyes.
Harry knew he wasn't asleep but he looked so peaceful that he too lay down and shut his eyes.
"We didn't have a witness." Harry pointed out.
"Oh we didn't?"
The smirk was clear in Malfoy's voice.
"Bloody Slytherin." Harry muttered.