Severed
Harry opened his mouth to ask his Master just what the hell his drunken self was trying to say, but all sound in the corridor seemed to be silenced by the soft, crushed velvet voice that echoed about them.
"And just what is going on here?"
Harry turned in horror to see Snape billowing toward them, a sneer and disapproval etched all over his face. He took a few scrambling steps backward, but Draco—damn him—did not relinquish his grip and simply leaned forward, feet planted firmly to the flagstone.
"Well? Is there any particular reason you've deemed my class unworthy of your precious time, Potter?" Snape glowered as he swept up beside them.
"I was just on the way but, um," Harry muttered, shrinking under the incredibly black glare Snape seemed to be trying to overwhelm him with. It was working, seeing as all proper explanation and any other words were fleeing his head and he became suddenly very aware of that damnably delicious scent of mint wafting off of Draco.
"'Um', yes, right. Indeed, such a dreadfully urgent matter." Snape drawled, "So then this 'um' business of yours involves…kidnapping my students?"
Harry shifted his gaze to Draco, who was staring at Snape with a petulant look that was a borderline pout.
"Sev'rus," he moaned piteously, and Harry was gobsmacked to see what was unmistakably bit of softness creep into Snape's usually cold and heartless black eyes.
"Professor I—" And at the sound of Harry's voice whatever he foolishly assumed to be human vanished in the dour man's endless tunnels of eyes, the sneer returning.
Snape reached out and gingerly detached Draco's fingers from Harry's robes, taking the Slytherin by a limp wrist and guiding him away from Harry, who was left to stand there. Pretending he didn't want to object to Snape stealing his Master away—taking that fresh mint aroma and all the heat of his body with him, the corridor felt slightly cold as he could only watch the two parade away.
"Oh, and Potter," Snape suddenly called over his shoulder, "While I escort Mr. Malfoy to the Hospital wing, I expect you to make your way to class and begin a three foot essay on why it's immoral to kidnap classmates. I expect it on my desk by this evening when you serve detention with me after dinner."
The hallway felt significantly colder.
~o0o~
Draco couldn't quite tell if his godfather was angry with him, anyone would easily assume so by the way he dragged him mercilessly along, up stumbling flight after stumbling flight of stairs until he was sure that he was either going to faint or retch. However, Draco knew Severus well and if the man were indeed angry with him, he'd be left to fend for his inebriated self out of spite.
Draco decided however, that he was angry with him when he found himself shoved unceremoniously into the Hospital wing, that awful place with its sterile smell that made his head pound and stomach clench. Severus likely knew what it did to him, and what Pomfrey would do to him in a matter of moments.
A potion was thrust into his hands and he popped off the cork without question, the movement wooden and his eyes downcast as the Potions master glared at him. A smooth, bitter taste that slid down his throat and chilled it as he downed what was undoubtedly a Sobering Potion. It sent a frigid wind through his bones and a splash of ice water to his mind, the burn of the Firewhisky immediately deluged with a flood of sobriety that made him shudder and blink for a moment.
Severus stood there, more clear and a little less angry perhaps. He gave him a long look that Draco instantly understood and just as quickly hated. He did not want to talk to Severus later, not about the dangers of running about drunk, not about Nott and his hungry threats, and most certainly not about Potter. He had nothing to say about Potter.
Although he had so much to say to him.
He shook his head, making him dizzy all over again, and earning a scowl before Severus swept away, slamming the doors with an echoing thunk that Draco winched at.
The sound summoned Pomfrey naturally, and Draco groaned at the shrill, disapproving, mothering tirade she wound herself into at the sight of him. He didn't listen to the half of it, merely sighing and resigning himself to the coddling he was in absolutely no mood for.
"Mr. Malfoy!" she bustled him toward a bed, "Where have you been?"
He made no effort to explain the hellish places he'd been braving the few days he'd avoided her as she scurried off, fetching a ridiculous amount of potions that Draco probably didn't really need.
"You need to come to me straight after…after…" she faltered and gave him a sad look.
"I'm fine, just tired," he insisted as strongly as he could. That sort of sad knowledge in her eyes was worse than the wicked information that sparkled in Nott's. Pity was a thing he was surprised to find he swiftly grew sick of, the acknowledgement of a thing he wanted to bury and forget about never failing to make him feel even more tainted in the eyes of those around him.
Pomfrey, gifted with the medical talent of selective hearing, pressed several potion vials into his hands regardless. He swigged one that he presumed to be something brewed to numb aftereffects of curses such as the Cruciatus, and gagged just as he always did while she patted him on the back with a solicitous hand.
"I know it's rough," she said softly, before her tone got darker, "Especially when they're celebrating. Severus told me that your father's returned."
Fear and memory rose up in him like a wave on halcyon waters, colder than any chill of a potion and threatening to crest and spill in vomit and tears. His father had returned, broken out from one prison and thrust into another, nothing more than a trembling phantom of the proud, unshakable man he once knew and looked up to. Draco wasn't even sure it was him at first, and it was in only the briefest of smiles, a familiar encouraging smirk that he'd seen on countless occasions flickered from across the dimly lit room that he truly realized that the terrified man who twitched near his mother was indeed his father. Or what Azkaban had done to him anyway.
Draco couldn't smile back, couldn't hold his chin up like a proper Malfoy would, he couldn't even look at his father. Instead his gaze was grotesquely drawn to the new game about to be played, the celebration taking place, writhing and screaming and bleeding and imprinting itself on his mind where it would prey on his and darken them to match the stain on the drawing room floor.
He took a shuddering breath and realized that Pomfrey's unwelcome hand was lightly shaking him. He frowned and drank another potion, screwing up his face in disgust. This, for whatever reason, mollified the medi-witch as she nodded to herself and strode away.
After drinking the last potion thrust upon him, Draco snuggled himself down into the bed, giving in to the exhaustion that weighted his limbs. When was the last time he'd had a proper night's sleep? Not since there was a warm body wrapped around him, but that wasn't about to happen again anytime soon. He should be content, be able to rest, after all, even drunken and slurring he'd made sure Harry wasn't about to pitch himself off the Astronomy Tower because of his stupid, big Gryffindor mouth.
And then there was another big, Gryffindor mouth shattering any vain hope at a restful sleep.
"Excuse me? Malfoy?"
Draco supposed he could only be thankful that Granger hadn't turned on him as well for that Mudblood comment he'd never apologized for, unless this was the moment she'd exact her revenge on him, weak and vulnerable in the Hospital wing.
"And you desire what of me?" he asked dryly, rolling over to see Granger tentatively step toward his bed, one hand clutched securely around her precious notebook whilst the other twisted nervously in her bushy hair. This was not the appearance of a wrathful Gryffindor, but rather a skittish Hufflepuff.
"To know if you're alright."
Draco felt for a moment that she wasn't even speaking to him, this soft, concerned tone was reserved for the two that she constantly flanked, not some bratty Slytherin that called her a Mudblood.
"Well I'm in the Hospital wing," he replied wryly, "What do you think?"
Draco shouldn't have been so surprised when she decided to ruthlessly unload her entire mind unto him, after all without he and Harry as her captive audience in the library, where else had she to dump every notion her overly large brain created? He spared a moment to pity Weasley.
"You seem as if you've been…ill lately," she began, "And Harry and I have been worried. I'm not sure what happened after the altercation in the library, but I'm fairly sure you and Harry had a falling out of some sort."
He didn't say anything, but his silence evidently that was answer enough as she went on, her drone working its way into Draco's mind, leading him to a time that he used to live in not so long ago.
"You're frankly being a prat about whatever it is that's made you this way, but that's just how you're dealing with it. You're being so thorny so that you're keeping us away, but I do believe you've underestimated Harry.
"But Harry's scared, just like you, and though he can get past your thorns, he's afraid to examine what's going on between you, which we both know is more than the enchantment gone wrong. And now you've had this row and you probably think it's for the best because it's ridiculous to think about…well, you and Harry. But it's not, Malfoy, and I know that Harry doesn't think that way. He's never much cared for what the world thinks about him, though you may think differently. He really hates the fame.
"That's why I think I know what this row of yours was about. It's all been a misunderstanding, hasn't it? There's something that Harry doesn't know and he's being too stubborn for you to tell him, right? Typical of him. But you really need to try and tell him, even if he's being a thick git about it because I know he's unhappy with this and so are you, Malfoy."
She was met with silence again, but it didn't matter as she was addressing her notebook, reading the bits of notes and scribbles there in the pages where she'd recorded the dynamics between the master and house elf, the two oblivious boys that were blindly falling for each other.
"You're already so brave, Malfoy, facing the things you do," she said softly, "How much courage does it take to tell Harry that you're a spy and wake up to the fact that you two—love each other?"
Hermione blushed, staring wide eyed at the floor and waiting for the indignant denials or demands for her to leave or be thrown into a mental institution, and perhaps—if she was very luck and if Malfoy was very, very tired—the admittance that she was right about the fear and the row and even the love that had bloomed in the twinning of the botched spell, which had efficiently brought them together to finally realize that they just might be right for each other. (This is what she told herself anyway, when she was feeling particularly guilty for the curse she'd placed on her best friend.)
She was, however, only met with silence, and this was not the quiet of a resigned answer, a fact that hung in the stagnant air that spanned between them, nor was it the pause before a storm of anger struck, it was just…nothing.
And when she lifted her gaze, she knew why there'd been no response. It was because Draco couldn't respond, and Hermione could only gape at the Slytherin, curled in the hospital cot just as he'd curled up in his conjured arm chair in the library, fast asleep just as he would be by the end of any theory she explained.
Even if it was why he and Harry wouldn't admit they loved each other.
She couldn't bring herself to wake him and say it all over again though, not when he looked like he was experiencing the first bit of peace he'd had in days, years even, if the dark shadows under his eyes were anything to go by.
So she let him sleep and let him stay a coward, if only for this moment that he needed.
~o0o~
Harry had gone to Potions, but couldn't be arsed to pay attention even under Snape's glaring presence because his head was abuzz with questions, along with the lingering high that that intoxicating smell of mint seemed give him.
The curse knew its orders, but Harry didn't and that was troubling. Troubling enough to make him completely forget the easy he'd been assigned, but he didn't dwell on that, not when he was plagued with some many unanswered questions, including as to why Hermione was rushing in half way through the lesson he wasn't paying attention to.
She ran up to Snape and handed him a piece of parchment, which he read with a look of distaste and a mutter that was likely the deduction of house points according to the scowl on Hermione's face as she took her seat near Ron.
"Where have you both been?" Ron hissed, looking thoroughly exasperated.
"I told you, Ginny held me up in the corridor," Harry had neglected to mention the part where a drunk Draco Malfoy tackled him and he'd hit Ginny with a blast of accidental magic. Ron didn't need to know that. Not really.
"I was with Madam Pomfrey, talking to her about the enchantment." Hermione whispered.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Ron demanded.
"Why? You didn't want to come did you?" Hermione asked dubiously.
"Well if it could help, you know, work on a cure for Harry's…condition."
"I'm glad to see you've taken an interest, but why?"
Ron turned a little red, and Harry suspected he was regretting the fit he'd thrown over the curse when it'd first been cast all over again. Harry didn't blame him, nor did he blame his lack of involvement in finding the 'cure', between Hermione and Draco it wasn't exactly the most entertaining, or sane, study groups.
"Harry needs to be free of this," Ron said firmly, "Free of him, if—if that's what he wants of course."
He cast a nervous look to Harry and Harry couldn't help but smile. Ron was being brilliant about all this, a little frustrated and very concerned, but that's what a brilliant friend was and Harry was lucky to have him.
"Yeah," Harry said quietly, "I think that's what I want, Ron."
Harry missed the frown Hermione sent his way, but he unfortunately caught almighty sneer Snape directed toward their table.
"That's another twenty points from Gryffindor for your whisperings. Kindly discuss your undoubtedly pressing matters elsewhere or I'll grant you a long evening of detention in which you can gossip all you like as you wash out my vast collection of cauldrons by hand."
That effectively sent every Gryffindor in the room swiveling in their seats to glare at the three of them and silenced all conversation throughout the rest of the class, which was minimally disastrous thanks to Hermione actually listening to Snape while Harry and Ron brooded about their respective troubles. Neville's cauldron only bubbled ominously, but it never boiled over or exploded. This time.
After escaping Potions without any burns or injuries the three of them walked down their usual path, Harry casting a furtive glance to the curve that lead to the Slytherin common room, wondering if that was where Draco was now, wondering when he might be able to see him again, meet his eye, and if he had the courage, ask what the hell he'd told him to do.
"Right then, 'Mione tell us how close we're to finding the cure." Ron rubbed his hands together, and Hermione shook her head, fishing out her precious notebook from her bag.
"What I've found most probable is a certain order severing the bond," Hermione said, flipping furiously through the worn pages, "But I'm unsure as to what the wording would have to be or who has to say it."
"Who would have to say it?" Ron echoed.
"Draco, the heir, or Lucius the head of the Malfoy house?"
"Damn, I hope it's not Lucius."
"We can't be sure of course, after all one of Malfoy blood aside from Draco is knows about the enchantment gone wrong."
Hermione's words dredged up the memory of a statuesque woman standing in the rain, desperation in her voice, which bound him to an order, a command he was failing to see through. They did know, the Lady of the house did anyway, but no one, not even Draco knew that.
He wondered if Lucius did know, if his hold would even span the distance between Hogwarts and Azkaban to wring itself around Harry's neck. He wondered if Draco would still be able to whisper commands from his cell. He didn't want to know. He didn't want Draco to be put in Azkaban along with his father and that's why he said nothing as Ron and Hermione muttered their theories the rest of the day.
It might've made him a coward, or stupid. Above all, however, one thing was for sure, he was doing something that wasn't expected of him again in bidding his time and waiting for something to happen, waiting for Draco to do something.
And he did.
~o0o~
The corridors of the castle still felt cold as Harry trudged down to the dungeons for detention, empty handed of any essay as to why it's immoral to kidnap fellow students or any proper excuse. He'd easily be able to pen a five foot report about his mixed feeling and blurred suspicions, but all those thoughts were better left to brew in that cauldron in his chest until they went stagnant and he didn't have to feel torn in two anymore.
He caught himself taking the same path as before, this time blessedly without an unwelcomed, 'concerned' witch trailing after him.
He wasn't alone for long however.
Hushed voices were coming from around the bend in the corridor, hisses and a muffled rumble, but he couldn't make out the words of the heated whispers. A familiar burst of adrenaline shot through his veins as he pressed himself against the wall, fingering his wand in his pocket as he crept toward the curve with caution.
All the excitement of a small adventure was quickly dispersed with the breath-taking shock that associated itself with the sight of Draco Malfoy.
He was leaning against the entrance to the Slytherin commons, looking by all means casual if one neglected to see the dangerous narrow of his eyes and his slender fingers knotted in a white-knuckled fist. The two that stood before him obviously were oblivious to those small details, too focused on whatever point they were trying to put across with their growling whispers.
The two in question Harry instantly recognized to be Ginny and her boyfriend Anthony Goldstein, both looking angry and frustrated. Harry supposed anyone would feel that way when dealing with an uncooperative Draco.
"We all know it's been you so stop trying to deny it. You've done something to Harry; he wouldn't act this way otherwise." Ginny snapped, and Harry noticed that she had her wand drawn and it was spitting out sparks. Goldstein had his too while Draco stood unarmed, well, unarmed aside from his sharp tongue, which was a deadly weapon indeed.
"I haven't been denying anything if you care to notice. I've only been pointing out the obvious fact that you pair have gone round the twist."
"I saw it with my own eyes Malfoy," Goldstein rumbled, "You told him to do something and he did it, without question."
"Well then you should be familiar with that, yeah? Haven't you been thoroughly trained by your so-called girlfriend; or does she make you call her 'mistress'?"
Goldstein snarled and thrust his wand threateningly at Draco's throat, and Harry nearly jumped out of hiding as Draco flinched, a glimpse of that young, scared boy that only Harry seemed to be able to see peeking out from behind the cold mask. But then Harry saw something even more familiar and worrying, that smirk that spread across Draco's pale face before he said something very, very offending.
It was usually the face he'd see before Draco was hexed into unconsciousness.
"I've been wondering about you, Goldstein." He said slowly, poisonously, "Terry Boot is your best friend correct? We all know that you pair share similar tastes, so why not the same tastes in men? Bitchy, domineering, and slutty—yes, Theodore Nott and the Weaslette here are practical twins, aren't they?"
Harry felt the spell rather than heard it, though Goldstein's outrage echoed through the silence of the dungeons. He wasn't sure what it was, but it was angry and powerful and it didn't matter because Draco blocked it with his wand that had materialized out of nowhere. Ginny was standing by, looking as if she'd been slapped and Harry had the notion that she'd been hoping that whatever sort of intervention this was wouldn't resort to curses, because she full well knew how Harry would react.
And Harry's reaction indeed was violent, almost scary in its force. The curse was thrumming, vibrating on tension and poised to spring, demanding its master's safety and expecting Harry to do anything and everything in his power to make sure he was indeed safe.
Expectation is a terrible thing,
Instead of jumping to his aid, however, Harry found himself as dumbstruck as Ginny; kept in place by some fear he couldn't get over, the heart-thumping fear of the reason as to why he felt so warm when he looked into the face of a Death Eater.
The duel, if that's what the furious exchange of curses could really be called, raged on while Harry stood by and waited, because this time he knew something was bound to happen.
Draco was obviously getting as frustrated as he'd made Goldstein, his graceful counters turning to sinister-sounding spells as the Ravenclaw, who was admittedly holding his own, unleashed his vast repertoire of hexes.
And it was when what was surely Draco's last nerve wore away, his last grasp of sanity slipping, that cold concentration whittled down to nothing but a desperate, terrified boy with a crazed light in his eyes that almost appeared green, that it happened.
"Crucio!"
Harry heard it then, that high scream of a curse, but he mostly felt it; the swoop of something blood-curdling and bone-chilling, the briefest, most terrible of pains that Anthony Goldstein felt as he writhed in agony on the cold stone floor.
It was in that moment that Goldstein was screaming and Draco looked very well about to that realization—and maybe a dreadful sort of relief-burst through his mind in a cacophony of memories.
"It could be permanent! I've insisted, but no one listens! Severus has been lucky, but he's older, stronger! Mr. Malfoy, he's just a boy that can't take that amount of pain, prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus Curse is certainly not healthy for just a boy!"
"She was going to use the Cruciatus Curse on you," he said softly, "That's something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy."
Then there was that something, that flickering bad, painful something that Harry had now assumed to be nothing more than the weight of the title Death Eater.
Harry suddenly knew what was really going on, what Draco was really doing: taking lives and sacrificing his own for a name he never wanted, a weight he shouldn't be forced to bear.
It was only a few short—yet somehow excruciatingly long—seconds that the horror of the Cruciatus Curse held Goldstein in his claws before it was dropped along with Draco's wand from his slack, shaking fingers.
He looked like he was in just as much pain as Goldstein had been in, tremors rocking his frail form as he stumbled backward, eyes locked on a place that Harry knew wasn't in the corridor, but some hell where he played the part of Goldstein, the convulsing, pained puppet.
Seeing that, Harry wished he could Apparate Draco away from his own nightmares, but even with the miracle of house elf magic, he couldn't. So he did the next best thing.
He gave his master what he wanted, what he needed, and tried to make it better.
He rushed out from his hiding place, bypassing Ginny as she panicked over a recovering Goldstein on the floor and forgetting they were there all together as he gathered Draco in his arms just as he looked about to swoon.
"Draco," he crooned mindlessly, driven by a power and a volition that seemed to become one in that moment, the curse and the desire of his heart, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry,"
For a moment Draco clutched to him just as fervently, shaking and terrified, and Harry strangely felt perfect, the singing of the curse and the melody of his own heartstrings as one as he supported Draco, his master, his—
The moment was gone as quickly as it had begun.
"What did I say about apologizing when you don't mean it?"
The voice was as cold as steel, sharper than scissors as it sliced through Harry's thoughts.
"Draco," he tried, but the hands that had gripped him dropped in a whisper of cloth and a summoning spell. Then there was a wand poking his rib and a new, deadened command weaving through the curse with a lilt like a funeral march.
"Let me go."
Harry fought for the first time in a while, every twitch and twang reminding him of the glorious feel that had resonated through him for those wonderful days of the coldly friendly thing and the fetching of dropped quills and steadying of stumbles. His every tendon twitched in the fight, his will torn in two once more, but the order laced itself in his muscles like chains.
As he was pulled back, he glowered into those December sky eyes and implored Draco silently, trying to squeeze out some accidental magic to make him stay, make him face Harry or talk or do something other than run like Harry once did and how he knew he was about to.
But not a spark came and Draco ran, flitting away like a leaf in the wind and still trembling just as much.
His disappearance was his final act of cowardice.
~o0o~
A/N~ The next chapter will be the last, not including a bonus sort of story based from this one that will be nothing more than a short, silly thing that'll be posted as its own story. :D
Thank you all for supporting me through my second novel-length fic. I hope you'll be there to read and review the next one!
*bows like a humble house elf to my incredible, loyal readers*