(Disclaimer: see first chapter. )
Beta: RedButterfly33. I don't always take all her suggestions - any remaining mistakes are my own. But I love her for the many good helpful hints, corrections and ideas! :D
(AN: mandancie, as always, thank you so much! ^^)
10.
May 20th, 1998
"Draco? I'm back."
Harry closed the door behind him and laboriously shrugged off his Death Eater's robes. Absent-mindedly, he uttered a charm to vanish the blood that had dripped from the black cloth onto the carpet.
"Hello Harry." Draco stood in the bathroom door, dressed only in silk pyjamas, and gave him a worried look. Well, as much of a worried look as a man could manage with a pink toothbrush stuck in the corner of his mouth.
Harry's own lips twitched at the sight. "Draco, I'll still be here two minutes from now. Please just finish brushing your teeth."
With a nod that sprinkled droplets of tooth paste across the door frame, Draco ducked back into the bathroom. Harry waved his wand in the pattern of the cleaning charm once more - but this time with a smile on his face.
He was sometimes surprised that he could still smile. Every day he went out on Voldemort's behest and led attacks against small wizarding settlements or against unsuspecting Muggles.
It was horrible. He tried to close off his heart while his brain mechanically filed away each spell that the Death Eaters under his command uttered for later use. The blood, the screams... He was plagued by nightmares in his sleep. His waking hours were filled with his conscience telling him to finally make an end to the cruel game.
He could not do that. Not yet. Only once he had learned enough to really be an equal to Voldemort could he drop his mask. Not only for the sake of his own revenge - but also for Draco.
Draco, the only man who had stuck by him.
Sometimes, he wanted to give in to crazy laughter at the thought that of all the people he knew, it had been the man he considered one of his worst enemies who knew him best and had believed in him.
That night roughly a month ago, when they arrived in Voldemort's keep, they had kept talking until Harry had to attend the gathering, and continued after he returned. In time, Harry had learned that Draco had done more than just research on his case. He had fought for Harry. He had brought to light every detail that could have led to a revision of the case. He had dug so deeply into Harry's history that eventually, a sense of admiration for the Gryffindor had taken hold of him. And more than that. He had realized why, in all their years at school, he had never been able to let Harry be. And it had nothing to do with house rivalry.
The conversation lapsed for several days after this revelation. To be precise, it lasted until Harry gave up for the first time.
He had killed that day.
He was stood in front of the mirror in their shared bathroom with his wand to his temple - when Draco suddenly burst in.
After a long screaming match, Harry eventually had to abandon his suicide plans, convinced that he could not abandon the only one who had believed in him and stood by him. He resigned himself to the fact that Draco Malfoy was in love with him, Harry Potter. He became reconciled to the idea that he could not just kill himself. He let himself be comforted by the man whose heart he owned as much as his body.
Harry did not love Draco, and perhaps he never would.
Draco understood that and though it pained him, he said he still wanted to be there for Harry. He gave freely without ever getting anything back.
More out of a sense of guilt than anything else, Harry had let Draco convince him after two weeks to share the bed not only in the literal sense. Draco had wrapped his arms around him after Harry had broken down crying the moment the door fell shut behind him. He had learned that day how to combine Imperius with Cruciatus to keep the victim conscious for longer.
Draco had comforted him, held him in his arms, while his hands soothingly stroked Harry's back.
Then he had kissed him.
Harry lost himself in that kiss. It was a tender kiss, filled with love and warmth. After what Harry had done that day, he felt so cold... He sunk into the offered warmth and just wanted to forget.
Draco granted his wish.
The next morning, Harry realized that he had taken advantage of the other. He was about to once more take drastic measures (his dagger), when Draco explained to him in no-nonsense tones that Harry's death would not do him any good. Draco preferred a Harry who didn't love him over a dead Harry.
So Harry felt obliged to at least give him physical closeness if he couldn't give him real love.
Harry was Draco's life.
Draco was completely dependent on him. There was the fact that he loved Harry; but he also had to play his slave. Draco could never leave the chambers they inhabited together. Apart from Harry, the House Elves who brought him his food and changed the bedding were the only living creatures he had any regular contact with. Every day, he lived for the moment when Harry would return; always afraid that one day, he would not come.
'Draco, I'm back' was their all-clear phrase. After some initial problems with Death Eaters wanting to 'make the traitor's son pay', the boys had become very cautious.
- Flashback -
"Well, little traitor pig, look at you! Finally, you are right where you belong!"
Smack.
"Aaah!"
"Say, what's Potter doing to you? Are you his little bitch now?"
Laughter.
"Does he even know the Ministry locked you up for arguing his case?"
Pathetic whimpering. "No..."
"What irony!"
More laughter.
Smack.
"Uaaah!"
"I assume you don't get to talk much, around here. The nights must be pretty steamy..."
"WHAT is going on here?"
Harry was standing in the doorway, his Avada green eyes flashing furiously at the two Death Eaters looming over Draco, who was cowering naked in his corner. One of the men held a whip in his right hand. Macnair.
The man turned towards Harry with a grin. "Oh, Potter. We're just having some fun with the traitor."
"I can see that. With whose blessing, if I may ask?"
The men exchanged puzzled glances.
"This is MY apartment and MY slave. I would politely request that in the future, you keep your damn paws off of my property!"
Macnair and his colleague now looked decidedly uncomfortable. "Potter... it was all in good fun."
"I do not jest where my property is concerned."
He walked over to the bleeding Malfoy who had curled up into a tight, protective ball. "You! How dare you let anyone else but me touch you?"
"Forgive me, Master! I did not mean to, Master!"
The Death Eaters recovered their grins at the spectacle. "Well, well, little Malfoy is afraid of the big bad Potter."
Their satisfaction was a tangible thing.
"If you would be so kind as to leave me now? I need to have 'words' with my slave."
Schadenfreude. "But of course, Potter." The Death Eaters turned to go.
"Macnair?"
"Yes, Potter?"
"Leave the whip."
More laughter.
The door banging shut.
"...Draco? Draco, sit up. They are gone... Oh God, what have they done to you?" Hurriedly, Harry transformed into a phoenix. He cried for Draco.
Only when all the wounds had closed, Harry alighted on the bed and sang a haunting melody for the still trembling youth. He put all of his pain and sadness into the song. Draco listened to the phoenix, and despite his agitation he felt safe. Soon after, he fell asleep, tears glistening wetly in the corners of his eyes.
- End Flashback -
As soon as he knew how, Harry had put up some serious warding around his chambers, barring anyone from entering without his permission. Thus Draco was safe. However, from time to time Harry had visitors or came home still talking to someone. Voldemort himself, or some other Death Eater he had not managed to shake off.
In those cases, Harry made a big production of opening the door, thus buying Draco time to prepare for the 'visit'. In detail, that meant he had to take off everything except for the sheer silk pants, put on the collar, and kneel down on the faded mattress they still kept for this very purpose. From that position, he would greet his 'Master' demurely, showing himself thoroughly intimidated.
They both stated out hating this act, but in time, they became pretty good at it. On particularly stressful days, they deliberately used the farce to burn off some steam through an extra adrenaline rush - and to get rid of unbidden guests more promptly.
It usually stared with Draco asking hesitantly if his Master desired his company right away or later. There were a few Death Eaters whom Draco knew for sure hated the idea of a same-sex couple. For those particular guests, the boys staged a blatantly exhibitionist, erotic show that frequently culminated in their guests' hasty retreat from the chambers, while Harry and Draco repaired to the bedroom no less urgently.
At first, they both had issues with their slave and master roles, but soon they found a perverse delight in playing their part to the hilt, only to switch roles with the door slamming shut.
Scaring off homophobic Death Eaters was one of the few real pleasures still left to the former Hogwarts rivals.
Harry was munching disinterestedly on a mozzarella sandwich he had ordered from the House Elves when a freshly showered Draco exited the bathroom, ready for bed. He grabbed one of the chairs and positioned it directly behind Harry's. Unbidden, he began massaging his raven-haired partner's shoulders.
"Ouch, I'm going to break my fingers! You are so tense I could not tenderize these muscles with a blacksmith's hammer." Despite the stated hopelessness of the situation, he continued fiercely kneading Harry's shoulders. A loud 'plop' sounded and Harry moaned, his face twisted in pain.
"Aah! I think one of those muscles just jumped back into place. How many are left, do you think?"
"Oh, several dozen, I'd wager."
"Sadist," Harry grumbled. But his posture slowly relaxed. He was putty in Draco's hands.
Surprisingly enough, after all that had happened, he still had enough trust in someone to surrender himself so completely to them. He held nothing back from Draco: neither the crimes he committed in Voldemort's name every day, nor the thoughts plaguing him when he stood over his fallen victims. Even his doubts whether he would ever be able to love again, or if he would find the strength to go on living after Voldemort's death, he shared with Draco.
The blond usually listened to him silently, then stated his opinion on one topic or the other. Often, he managed to dispel Harry's worries, to cheer him up or distract him. He was a priceless support without whom Harry probably would not have lasted even a week.
Not only his moral support was keeping Harry alive, but the intellectual, as well. In the evenings, or during Harry's days off, the two forged plans for the Dark Lord's demise together. During the day, while Harry was out and about, Draco hit the books Harry always brought back for him to find curses and charms that would keep his friend alive during the next bloody massacre. Or at least make his 'job' easier.
He had already hit upon some true gems. Like the method for re-directing any spell, up to and including the Avada Kedavra; or the jinx to curb a man's virility. No Death Eater would admit to the shame of obviously not getting it up in the ruins of a scorched village. Thus, after learning this spell, Harry at least never had to witness a rape again.
But by far the most useful thing Draco had found to date was a charm to hide a spell's true nature. Harry practised the nights away until he was capable of casting this charm silently and with minimal wand motions. Draco had been coaching him in wandless spell-casting from the start, and now it proved its full worth. With the help of this charm, Harry could pretend to cast an Avada Kedavra, while actually sending nothing more noxious than a green-tinged Stupefy.
It wasn't much, but at least it kept him from adding more deaths to his account. Only when the battle raged too fiercely, there was simply no time for such finesse. Like today.
"Draco... Today, we attacked Hogsmeade."
"Hogsmeade?!"
"Yes. For effect, only. We never intended to hold the village, that would be pretty unrealistic - much too close to Hogwarts, too well-guarded. But Voldemort wanted us to slaughter a few children to further intimidate the wizarding world. - It was a Hogsmeade weekend," he added tonelessly.
"Oh Merlin!" Draco stopped massaging Harry's shoulders and wrapped both arms tightly around the former Gryffindor's torso. Harry let himself be drawn close to Draco, soothing words being whispered in his ear.
"It was horrible," he then continued in the same lifeless tone. "Children everywhere, and us smack in their middle. I could not protect all of them. So many of them died..."
"Hushh... I am sure there would have been many more casualties without you."
"No, you don't understand! I killed one of those children! I... I redirected as many Avadas as I could and replaced many more with Stupefies, but - there were twenty of us! I could not watch everyone at once!
"And then there was that group. Three children. I don't know if they all had Death Eater parents, but one of them could cast the killing curse! He cast it at one of his classmates, Draco! I redirected the curse and it - it fell back on the boy who sent it. I killed a child, Draco. A child!"
"Shhh, Harry, you had no choice. If you had not interfered, the other child would have died."
"He still did." Harry sounded dispirited like never before. "I could protect him from one curse, but not from ten. Later, Dolohov was standing so close to me that I could no longer risk diverting any curses. It is great that as their leader, I am entitled to send him as far from me as I like; but I can't overuse that, or they will grow suspicious.
"God, I was so relieved when the Aurors showed up! Finally, we could let the children go and sound the retreat. But..."
"What is it?"
"Tonks was there." A whisper.
"Tonks? My cousin?"
"Yes... She looked at me. Her eyes seemed so disappointed and so - so dejected! Like she had abandoned all hope. Draco, don't you think it would have been better if I'd let it be, after all? If I'd just died?"
"Harry, don't talk like that! Then what would have become of me?"
"I'm sorry..."
"And besides. If you were dead, Voldemort would play your body like a puppet. I heard he is well-educated in necromancy. You'd still be out there just as you are now, Harry. Only you wouldn't be able to protect anyone, since your body would be walking about without your heart."
"My heart... do you think I've got one?"
Draco's chest constricted painfully at the lost sound of Harry's voice. "Of course you do. Without your silly Gryffindor heart, you would have sent your former friends packing long ago, thrown me to the Death Eaters like a hunk of meat to the wolves, and would have taken off for Canada or Switzerland or who knows where. Or you would have joined Voldemort for real."
"Yes..."
Both were silent for a while.
"Harry?"
"…"
"Harry. You need to cry."
"I know."
"So...?"
"I don't know if I still can."
"If you can no longer cry, you have lost. That's the first step towards madness. Harry, please. Try! Think of all the people who died today."
Harry's face remained blank.
"Think of the friends who abandoned you. Granger. Weasley. Dumbledore..."
The former Gryffindor's face twisted.
"Fawkes."
A single tear fell.
"Think of the childhood you never had."
And Harry knew he could still cry. For himself. For Draco. For the wizarding world.
After Draco had loosened his arms from where they held him, Harry turned into his phoenix form and started spilling fat, hot phoenix tears. Silently, Draco took hold of the wand Harry had brought back for him from one of the battles, and accioed a flat bowl from the keep's kitchen. He took great care to collect every single phoenix tear. Harry's tears might not be as potent as true phoenix tears, but they still had amazing healing powers.
Nowadays, Harry always carried several phials of phoenix tears into battle, which he spilled 'completely accidentally' over some seriously injured fighter for the light side in an unobserved second. To avoid questions about the phials, he also carried several poisons and a bit of Veritaserum, which had proven useful as well, a time or two.
Once his tears had dried, Harry transformed back. Then he vanished his barely-touched sandwich with a wave of his wand and carefully stood up. Dragging his feet, he slowly set off for the bathroom.
Their bedroom was very silent that night. Draco lay awake until dawn. He was holding Harry in his arms, who, despite a generous dose of Dreamless Sleep, moaned loudly and turned in Draco's arms as though in pain.
You have a heart, Harry. Of course you do. How else could you be in so much pain?