Chapter 14
.o.o.o.o.o.
Harry returned to Hogwarts the night before the start of the spring term. Hagrid's hut was dark and empty and cold, and Harry set to work making it livable once again. The bright lights of the castle atop the hill seemed somehow warm and inviting when they hadn't appeared that way when Harry had left. The solitude of Hagrid's isolated little house had been so peaceful and calming before, but now was making Harry feel lonely and vulnerable. What had changed in the time that he'd been away?
In Harry's hand was written permission from Headmistress McGonnagal to set up a permanent floo channel between Hagrid's hut and Grimmauld Place. She hadn't so much as batted an eye when Harry had asked her for this, probably assuming he'd like to be able to floo home on the weekends and have Sunday brunch with the Weasleys. If she'd known it was so that Harry could have regular visits with Draco Malfoy, she might have been a bit more hesitant.
There was a wooden box filled with unopened bottles of butterbeer sitting atop Hagrid's table. Harry knew that before the holiday break, he would have already walked over and started his binge. Now, however, it seemed like a reckless and destructive thing to do. Sitting beside the butterbeer was a plain-looking river stone. This, Harry decided he needed in that moment, despite the fact that he'd already tried to quit it many times before. He went to the table and picked up the stone, turning it over in his palm.
"Suffering from a disquiet mind, Harry?" a voice asked from behind him. Something about that voice was immediately relaxing for Harry. He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to pretend that this was reality. The more that he'd used the resurrection stone, the more he'd come to realize that the ghosts it conjured were projections made from the user's own mind. Whenever Harry spoke with the dead, he was speaking with merely his fondest and most romanticized version of that person. After having noticed this, it became too hard to un-notice it. Thus, Harry now treated the resurrection stone as a way to understand his own thoughts.
"Sir, can I ask you a question?" Harry said to the shade of Albus Dumbledore. The old wizard smiled knowingly behind his snow white beard.
"Only if you want to hear an answer."
"How do you know if what you feel for someone is love?"
"Love is an ill-defined thing, Harry. It is what you want it to be. I think perhaps, that if it is strong enough to wake you in the mornings and pleasant enough to invade your dreams at night, it would be safe to classify it as such."
"Does love conquer all?" Harry wondered aloud. He knew it was a sort of vague and abstract question, but he also knew that his own mind's version of Dumbledore would understand exactly what he was saying.
"Yes, I believe it does," Dumbledore answered smoothly. He looked up to study the ceiling for a moment, as if deep in thought. "Yes, indeed. It conquers, Harry. Unequivocally. Sometimes savagely."
"What do you mean, sir?"
"Love is a powerful thing, Harry, perhaps the most powerful thing, but that does not mean it is always a benevolent thing. It can fester in darkness and become warped. Not all acts performed in the name of love are righteous. Love can be destructive. It can be a curse. Just look at what it did to poor Merope Gaunt."
A creeping sense of premonition tickled the back of Harry's neck, but he pressed Dumbledore further.
"How do you know if a love is pure or if it's destructive?"
"It can be impossible to tell, especially within that beautiful period of intense infatuation. Sometimes someone will be hurt before the darkness manifests. Sometimes many people will be hurt."
"Did you ever love someone, sir?"
Dumbledore had turned away, attention partially caught by some of the more curious knick knacks decorating Hagrid's hut, but Harry knew he had still been heard.
"It was my biggest regret," Dumbledore said softly after a while, "I let it blind me. I let it twist me against my very nature, and when I realized the terrible power it had over me, I spent the rest of my life running from it. I do not wish for you to become me in that respect, Harry, So while I might urge you caution, I also don't wish to crush a blossoming romance with an old and lonely wizard's cynicism."
That last part, Harry thought, might have been his own bias creeping into an answer that the dreamstate of his brain expected Dumbledore to give. Because Harry knew, at this point, that he was looking for any excuse to keep seeing Malfoy.
"I'll… try to keep that in mind, sir," Harry answered. Dumbledore beamed and nodded sagely before continuing his leisurely exploration of the single-room living space.
"I do like what you've done with the place, Harry. Hagrid, for all his talents, wasn't much for housewares. I once gifted him a wine rack, and the next summer I saw it being used out in the garden as a tomato cage."
Harry chuckled, soothed by the cadence of the voice and the mannerisms of the oh-so-realistic ghost of his old headmaster.
"Yeah, I was wondering what it was doing out there."
.o.o.o.o.o.
Draco pushed the food around upon his plate, attempting to decide if he had an appetite for dinner or not. His stomach cramped with hunger, alerting Draco that it was indeed empty, but every time he raised the fork to his lips, bile rose up in his throat. A maddening contradiction.
"Are you listening, darling?"
For some time, his mother's idle chatter had been going in one ear and out the other. How was he supposed to focus on anything aside from his rapidly approaching demise? He forced a tight smile upon his face.
"Forgive me, Mother. I was daydreaming."
"I said, a package arrived for you this morning by priority owl," his mother said. She set it upon the table and spelled it over to him. Draco, still numb and distracted, set about opening the small box and discovered the contents to be a stone arrowhead, on top of which sat an elegantly written invitation.
You are cordially invited to attend the handfasting of
Pansy Parkinson and Zacharias Smith
To take place January 13th at 8:00 AM
Portkey activates at 7:45 AM
A separate invitation had already been received by Draco and his mother for the reception, which would occur in a few weeks. Handfasting was a relic of the old days, back when witches and wizards still paid homage to the forces of nature that had bestowed their magic upon them. It was the traditional form of wizarding marriage, and only the old, pureblood families seemed to still require it.
To Draco, it was an annoying duty that he had inherited. If a member of one of the Sacred Twenty-eight was to be married, it needed to be with a handfasting performed by a druid, and a single representative of each of the remaining families was to be present as a witness. The druid would determine the auspicious day, which could happen randomly at any point during the engagement.
"Pansy's handfasting will be held tomorrow," Draco told his mother.
"Wonderful!" Narcissa exclaimed, wearing an expression that said that she'd just thought of something advantageous, "The Rosiers will send young Felix to attend, I expect. Do you remember Felix? He'd make you a fine husband, darling. You should take a moment to speak with him."
This tiresome topic again… Draco had no interest in speaking with anyone at this ceremony outside of offering a quick congratulations to Pansy if the opportunity arose.
"I have already sent an owl to his grandmother," Narcissa continued, "I was hoping to begin marriage negotiations soon, though she has yet to respond." Draco was immediately irritated. Why did his mother have to be so efficient with these things?
"Mother, you haven't told them of my… little problem, have you?"
"I would not be so uncouth as to mention such a thing over owl," she scoffed, "Although Draco, the gossip has been fierce since that incident with the aurors. The Rosiers will have already assumed that your pregnancy is the reason we are seeking a rather expedited marriage."
"Don't say anything to them yet. It's shameful enough having the rumor circulating. I'd rather not have it stated explicitly for anyone until the actual marriage negotiations." Draco didn't reveal to his mother his plot to sabotage all of his own marriage offers and later deny to the public that the pregnancy had ever taken place. He could glamour himself well enough that no one would ever have to see it, and of course, ultimately, there would be no child. If Draco managed to survive the next several months, then someday, hopefully, a nasty, scandalous rumor would be all this situation ever amounted to.
His mother simply raised an exasperated eyebrow in his direction, as if she saw no point in this kind of prevarication. Then she sighed, giving in.
"Wear the slate robes to the handfasting, darling. They complement your eyes so well."
.o.o.o.o.o.
The next morning, at approximately 7:45, Draco touched the portkey and was promptly whisked away to an unfamiliar place. He found himself suddenly standing upon a snowy mountain ridge. The air was thin and crisp and Draco could see nothing but mountains and wilderness, all cast in the darkness of the pre-dawn, with only a small halo of gold far on the horizon. The bitter cold had been dulled by an enchantment to keep him comfortable and the snow beneath his polished shoes had been hardened so that he could not sink in. A path ahead illuminated by hovering candles let Draco know where he was meant to go.
He climbed up to the peak, and though it had been a short and easy walk, the low oxygen left him feeling quite winded and dizzy. A reoxygenation spell would have gone a long way, if only he had a wand. Twenty-eight chairs had been placed in rows following a half-circle just below a stone outcropping that was the highest point of the mountain. Those already gathered sat silently in their seats, following Draco with their eyes as he found his own. Draco had never attended a Sacred Twenty-eight handfasting before. In the past, it had always been his father who went. With Lucius gone, it was Draco's responsibility to attend.
By sheer coincidence, Draco saw that he'd been placed directly behind Felix Rosier. As he approached, Draco discreetly glanced over the man who he'd never given much thought to before. Felix was seven years older than himself, which meant that their time at Hogwarts had not overlapped at all. They'd seen one another at parties occasionally, but not enough for Draco to have much of an opinion of him. He was tall, with dark hair and dark eyes. Handsome, but not obnoxiously so. Draco knew that Felix had been kept a bit isolated during the war. His grandmother, Isabel Rosier, had been reluctant to offer her only grandson to the Dark Lord after she had already lost her husband and son in his first war.
Draco wondered what it would be like to have a relative who had the balls to stand up to the Dark Lord like that. Sixth year could have been so much different if his focus had been on the quidditch cup rather than trying to murder Dumbledore.
"Malfoy," the other man acknowledged with a smooth voice and a courteous tip of the head while calmly watching him out of the corner of his eye. Draco was a bit annoyed that he could not find anything about him that was immediately objectionable.
"Rosier," Draco said with a nod of his own before taking his seat.
"Your mother has been quite persistent with her owls," Felix said, already addressing the elephant in the room, or rather, in the open mountain vista. Draco scowled, looking to put a quick end to a terribly awkward discussion. He tilted forward, closer to the other man, so that he could keep his voice quiet.
"Despite being forced to indulge my mother's wishes, I have no intention of actually marrying at this time. I would be most grateful if you were to send her a kind but firm rejection."
"It would be for the best. I have found myself already promised to another."
"Congratulations," Draco sneered, "Please don't choose to have your handfasting atop a mountain at dawn if you want the rest of us to be awake for it." Even though it was true that he had absolutely no desire to marry the man in front of him, it still hurt his pride to be so swiftly rejected. Oh how the mighty had fallen if a Malfoy was no longer worthy of a Rosier.
To Draco's surprise, Felix only huffed a short, relieved laugh and decided not to pursue the conversation further. This was almost a shame, because Draco had been looking for a fight.
While Draco sat in silence, glaring at those around him, he couldn't help but notice the many, empty chairs. However, it didn't seem like anyone else would be coming and it was nearly time to start.
"This can't be all of us," Draco said in disbelief. An observation that he hadn't entirely intended to make out loud.
"Some won't come," Felix answered, "The Weasleys, the Longbottoms, the Shacklebolts, the Prewetts, and the Abbots will make it a point to not attend, and the Gaunts were wiped out decades ago, but the amount of empty chairs isn't so crazy when you consider who we've lost in the last few years. Black, Lestrange, Crouch, Travers, Rowle. All of them dead with no heirs."
Draco's mind took a moment to process this. He'd never really thought about all the people that they'd lost, but now it was being displayed right in front of his face. Pure blood had been spilt on both sides, and Draco was only now realizing the heavy price they'd all paid for the Dark Lord's war.
"We're… dying," Draco remarked in mild disbelief. The way his father always spoke of the mighty pureblood families, the bastions that held wizarding society together, Draco had begun to view them as invincible. Clearly this was not the case. "In a few more generations, there'll be none of us left," Draco surmised. He remembered how the Dark Lord had always spoken of preserving as much pure blood as possible. However, in the end, he'd had no qualms with seeing their numbers thinned. He'd made so many lofty promises and delivered on nothing.
"Indeed," Felix remarked, a bit sadly, but with a note that suggested he'd come to accept this eventuality.
"Rumor has it…" said a new voice, and Draco turned his head sharply to meet it. Sitting next to Felix was Antonius Flint, the older brother of Marcus, who'd been Draco's Hogwarts peer. The larger, bulkier man draped an arm over the back of his chair and turned to face Draco, "...that you've been engaged in some repopulation efforts all on your own, Draco. Is this true?"
"Rumor has it," Draco repeated testily, "that your mother slept with a troll, Antonius. I think we all know better than to automatically believe everything the papers spit out, don't we?"
"I guess we'll know soon enough," Antonius said with an infuriating leer. He then bent toward Felix and quietly began discussing something with him. Having nothing better to do while waiting for the start of the ceremony, Draco listened to their whispered conversation with one ear. Apparently, they were attempting to restart some sort of amateur quidditch league that they had both been a part of directly after leaving Hogwarts. During this, a person had smoothly slid into the seat on Draco's right.
"Draco," the newcomer greeted. It was Theodore Nott.
"Back in the country, are you?" Draco said, somewhat surprised.
"Old Tiberius finally came through for us. All of our seized properties have been returned, even the muggle hunting cabin where some very nasty things were being kept. Father's Azkaban sentence is to be commuted."
This was certainly good news for Theo and his father, though Draco had to wonder how exactly it was possible.
"Tiberius McLaggen?" Draco remembered the name. A ministry bigwig. The kingpin of the McLaggen family. Lucius had once pointed him out to Draco during a ministry function. Draco remembered him to be ugly and vicious-looking, with a scarred face and a patch over one eye.
"Be wary of that one, Draco. He is ruthless and efficient. Look at the way he lets his younger, dumber, better-looking brother be the face of their family while he manipulates from the shadows."
"Is he one of us?" young Draco had asked, confused. Usually, when his father spoke to him about important people, he was quick to categorize them as fellow supporters of the Dark Lord, or detestable muggle sympathizers.
"Only when it suits him."
"Oh yes," Theo responded in the present, "He and father go way back. The McLaggens wouldn't be where they are today without the Notts. I'm glad that's finally been recognized." While Theo was speaking, another person bumbled their way into the seat on Draco's other side.
"Gregory?" Draco said with a double take and an incredulous cock of his brow.
"Hullo, Draco."
"I didn't realize you'd left St. Mungo's."
"It was sudden. Thought they were going to keep me there forever. They put me on all these potions that were making me go mad. Then this lawyer type showed up one day and told me that all of the investigations against my family were being dropped and that I could go home. I couldn't really understand most of what he told me."
Draco couldn't really understand either, though he got the feeling that these two strokes of fortune were somehow related- perhaps the efforts of someone trying to accumulate favors. Nevertheless, he managed to express to Goyle that he was pleased to see him finally restored of his dignity. In the lapse in conversation that followed, Draco was able to hear the discussion happening in front of him again. Felix and Antonius were still speaking about some quidditch game.
"Charlie's nearly got his team. I think we can make it work," Felix was saying.
"But we don't have a seeker," Antonius responded. Then, something seemed to occur to him. He turned his head and his beady troll eyes honed in on Draco. "Maybe Draco would want to play for us," he said in a louder voice, casual but challenging. "How about it, kid? Marcus says you're good. I don't know though. We wouldn't want to hurt the baby."
"That's funny, because Marcus always said his older brother was shit at quidditch. Said he was forced to humor you when you tried to teach him things he already knew," Draco retorted. This earned him a snigger from Theo and a guffaw from Greg.
"With that mouth, I'm surprised the Dark Lord never punched your face in."
"If you'd ever managed to show your craven face before the Dark Lord, you'd know his nails were too long for him to make a proper fist, but if you need a seeker for your pathetic quidditch scrimmage, I'd be happy to offer you an easy victory." Draco couldn't really care less about some stupid quidditch game, but he was eager to keep insulting the dumb brute in front of him. His friends were similarly amused.
Antonius growled but Felix quickly silenced him. The druid had apparated onto the stone dais and all whispered conversation ceased.
The handfasting ceremony commenced as the rising sun erupted into the clear and vast sky. Draco had never seen a druid in the flesh before, and he found the one that was leading the ceremony to be… unsettling. She was a small witch dressed in a simple, brown cloak. She had white hair and a strangely ageless face. Draco could not tell whether she was a young woman or an old crone.
Druids were remnants of a bygone era. They were witches and wizards who were part of an ancient and reclusive coven. They practiced a type of wandless and nonverbal magic that predated the modern style of magic preferred by witches and wizards today. Rooted in mysticism, spirituality, and nature, they were known to be incredibly powerful and capable of great magical feats, but their magic was wild and not easily directed, leaving them incapable of using magic to perform the more mundane and everyday tasks. They did not teach their magic to outsiders, though it was rumored that they had allowed Albus Dumbledore to study with them for a brief time. It was also rumored that they had rejected the Dark Lord when he'd attempted to do the same.
Draco wondered, ever so briefly, if a druid's magic could help him escape his fate, but the thought passed quickly enough. They might sooner see him dead after knowing the extent of what afflicted him.
He turned his attention to Pansy, who was all done up in a blood red gown, looking absolutely flawless, and overshadowing her little snot of a fiance. From what Draco had already observed at the masquerade, she seemed to tolerate him well enough, and that was really all that one could hope for in a marriage like hers-, in his own marriage too, if he should actually survive long enough for it to happen.
For some reason, being shackled in a marriage bond to a person one was merely ambivalent about was suddenly sounding quite depressing. Was this because Draco had recently had a sampling of true passion? Had that one night spent in Potter's bed caused him to become a senseless romantic?
The handfasting concluded within an hour and Draco lagged behind the other guests on the way back to the portkeys, taking his time in the descent so as to save himself from becoming too dizzy. The wind whistled meekly through the enchantment and the fresh, morning sun was becoming quite strong and hot. Draco was so focused on his steps that when he reached where his arrowhead had been lying atop the snow, he found that the imprint was there, but the portkey itself was nowhere to be found.
His panic level quickly rose. Without that portkey, he'd be left stranded atop this mountain with no wand.
"You ask for help and then don't stay to receive it? A curious, young man you are," said a voice. Draco whirled around to see the druid standing in the middle of the candle lit walkway. Everyone else had already gone and it was only her and Draco left remaining upon the icy ridge. Draco remembered to breathe again.
"I… never asked anything," Draco answered.
"Your cry for help has been heard. To my ears, it was the clearest thing," the druid explained. She took a few steps down toward him. Draco noticed that, in the footprints that she was leaving behind, vibrantly green grass was breaking through the ice and small flowers were unfurling and blooming in her wake. They swayed with the magically muted wind, stark color against a desolate backdrop.
Draco had never been much for religion, spirituality, superstition and the like. He'd always assumed that druids like the one before him lived primitive, but sheltered lives, not much different from squibs and magical savants. He'd never considered them worthy of his respect, but suspended in that dizzy moment, he found himself willing to believe this strange witch might be in touch with powers that were entirely beyond him.
"Then, can you help me?" Draco said hesitantly. The air was so thin and the world was spinning. Was this even real?
"No, but I can guide you," she said, holding out her hand. She opened it to reveal his stone arrowhead portkey. For a short time, Draco waited for her to elaborate, to say something or to make some other movement, but she did not speak again or move again, even when the silence stretched into what was uncomfortable. Draco was left to assume that he was meant to take the portkey from her. Seeing as there was no other portkey available to him, it wasn't as if he had much choice to begin with.
His fingers closed around the arrowhead and the world around him spiraled away.
The portkey did not deposit him back at the manor, as it was meant to. Instead, Draco found himself standing in a brightly lit forest clearing. The sun made the frozen trees sparkle and the hush of winter pressed on his ears. The trees were thinner in one direction, and Draco could see a glimpse of a steep, hilly landscape and a castle that he knew far too well. He'd been teleported, somehow, into the Forbidden Forest.
Filled with relief that he wasn't lost in some unfamiliar place, Draco trudged his way out of the woods and up to the small hut. Potter must have seen him from the window, because he ran out into the snow, barefoot, to meet him.
"Malfoy? Why are you here? What's happened? Why aren't you wearing a coat?"
Potter. Always so good, even when it served no purpose, even when he had every incentive not to be. Draco just couldn't understand why he cared the way he did. Was there actually a man born into this world that wasn't selfish and duplicitous by nature? Potter made him almost think it was possible.
Draco was shivering hard enough that he decided that speaking was useless. Unlike when he had been on the mountain top, there were no enchantments artificially heating his surroundings, and he wore only his dress robes. Potter continued to fuss, so Draco simply hooked his ice cold fingers into Potter's flannel shirt and brought their lips together.
He wasn't certain what was driving him in that moment. Maybe it was the druid's magic. Maybe he'd actually gotten caught up in the spirit of the wedding he'd just witnessed. Maybe it was to do with the dark magic of the thing he was carrying. All he knew was that he really wanted to have sex with Harry Potter. He'd wanted to do it for a while, he realized, but he'd been in denial about that deep ache of arousal that he'd been feeling while in the other man's presence.
Potter, if he'd been surprised by Draco's forwardness at all, certainly didn't balk at it. In fact, he welcomed Draco's advance most passionately, as if it was all that he'd been waiting for. Their kissing immediately became rough and urgent, and Potter must have realized that the daylight was unforgiving, and that a party that was interested enough might be able to view them from the castle. He lured Draco into the hut and shut them inside the cozy warmth.
.o.o.o.o.o.