NOTE: Warning for violence! Skip it if you can't take it.
Skim it if you don't want to miss any plot development. :-)
When the wards broke, the two primary occupants of the manor, felt it. Lucius sat at his breakfast table, preferring a mimosa to actually eating. He saw everything on the table shake, and measured that jarring motion against the force it took to violate his new wards. They were reinforced to keep one particular person out, and now that they shook, he knew that wasn't possible. The property's loyalty was compromised. Instead of reacting, he swiveled his chair, put his back to the table, and waited for Harry to find him.
Narcissa sat in the adjoining room. She had been riffling through her collection of family photos, looking specifically for images of Draco that looked like Iece. A shopping spree loomed on her horizon, and she wanted to cheer herself up by purchasing the most elegant pearl and diamond encrusted frames to showcase her granddaughter alongside her son. A party would have to follow. Only the friends who still loved them would be allowed to visit and see the child for themselves, once Harry came around of course. She didn't mind that it was all taking so much time. She got so much pleasure from the thought of becoming an influence in the child's life, in throwing scandal back into the faces of those who ridiculed her family, that she lost a second to the realization that she had an intruder.
The expansion of energy startled her and she dropped a photo of Draco's first trip to Greece. Her eyes scanned the sitting room's cranberry and cream textures, looking for what was out of kilter. Her magic told her before she could label it. She bristled, fighting down the instinct to jump up. Back straight, she listened to what her magic was telling her. Like a tractor beam, she identified the intruder before he spoke, and kept silent.
"Where is he?"
Harry's voice sounded like twisting iron. Though she was not afraid for herself, it made the hairs on her arm stand at electrostatic attention. He exuded erratic, sparking energy and she kept calm to avoid provoking him further.
"Mr. Potter, this is a surprise." She didn't have to turn around to feel his wand pointed at her.
"Screw that. Where is he?"
"I'm unarmed. May I turn around?"
"I don't give a fuck what you do. Where is Lucius?"
She wanted to say, if you weren't so upset and out of control, you would've apparated right to him. But she settled for, "You're close. He's taking his breakfast. Can I persuade you to wait a moment? Perhaps we can talk."
"I'm done talking."
She felt air as he stormed passed her. Now that she could see him, her disappointment was typical. He always dressed like a muggle and looked so common that it frustrated her to no end, to know that he possessed such stellar magic. He should represent himself better than that, and not doing so felt like a slap in the face. Fear for her husband's safety came as an after thought.
"At least tell me what you're doing in my home."
He glared over his shoulder. "What I should've done a long time ago."
She leapt to her feet. "He's unarmed."
"That's not my problem." He yelled Lucius's name, making her twitch. Without knowing his way, instinct and anger swept him into the hall. She followed, her slippered feet danced to keep pace with him. Her satin, lilac robe fluttered.
"Please listen to reason. We can't keep you out. We don't want to, but we don't want your wrath either. We would welcome you if you would give us a chance."
She tried not to touch him, but her hands reached for his shoulder against her will. She was not a touchy person, reserving that unconditional affection for Draco and only Draco. But in her conflict, she knew that her generosity had the power to sway the balance. The outcome. She did it for her husband. Harry shook it off as if her hands burned him.
"Don't you fucking touch me! Where is that coward? Let's end this once and for all."
"Watch your language. Your disrespect will not be tolerated. What's happened? This isn't like you. What's changed?"
As if he'd been waiting to be asked that question, he turned and pushed her against the wall. His strength stopped short of violence and she felt his muscles tremble to restrain themselves. He held her, his grip demanding that she look at him and take him seriously. She was so delicate in appearance, her neck so slender, that he had to remind himself that this was the woman who watched her sister torture the Longbottoms nearly twenty years ago. She was tougher than she looked. That reminder didn't stop the tears from standing in his eyes. Already, his frustration was taking him places he vowed he'd never go. Putting his hands on a woman, in anger, was one of them.
"That goddamn curse! It didn't stop with me. It didn't stop with that night, or with Draco. My fucking daughter has that goddamn curse. You bitch! You malicious fucking bitch. I'll cuss you like the beast you are. I'm not fake like you. I don't cover shit with shiny, sparkling things and pretend it's okay. I hate you so much right now, the only thing stopping me from killing you, is the need to get to your husband first."
She steeled herself against his attack and held herself rigid. Her unhappy mouth matched his, frown for frown. "If we could take it back, we would. I didn't mean for that to happen to you. I certainly didn't intend to fracture my family and my marriage by letting it. We were terrified. We thought we had to be cruel. You kept coming at us, with your magic and your bravery. We were trying to stop you, not torture you for the rest of your life. Put an end to it. A horrible end, but an end. To your suffering as well as everyone's. We had no idea that night would follow us out of the war. We had no idea how lasting the effects would be. We did it to our own son. He survived it, so we didn't think it would be any different for you."
"I should kill you for saying that. Something died in Draco when he came back to school. Something died in me that night. We'll never be who we were again. And how could you not know what you're doing when you give your husband permission to rape someone? When you watch it being done?"
She had the decency to lower her head, but brought it back up defiantly. "Mr. Potter, I'm sorry that you were tortured. But you're not the first person to ever have sex against your will. In pureblood families, it's almost a rite of passage, and a matter of familial duty. I love my husband now, but not when I was nineteen and ordered to marry him. I gave my body, so that my family could thrive. And not gladly. Not at first. That came later. Lucius was not a monster and didn't act like one until he himself fell victim to one. We weren't trying to scar you, we were trying to keep Voldemort from killing our son. I didn't know the Dark Lord would order my husband to be so cruel to you. I endured that night because I thought that would be the end of it."
"So you admit it. You thought I would die, and that was okay with you."
She grabbed his arm. "If I had a choice between seeing Draco suffer your fate or seeing him dead. I would see him dead. I would spare him that. I didn't know how vile Voldemort's plans were. You gave us all the courage to stand up to him, but for some of us, it was too late. Yes, my husband did monstrous things and I'm truly sorry. If you need to hear it from him, he'll say it. He'll admit it. But don't hurt him. He's lost his son. He's lost his magic. He received torture in Askaban that he is too ashamed to admit to, and nearly died repeatedly at the hands of their guards. Nicee, that's what Draco calls her. She'll be fine. Draco has fully recovered. You will too. Don't go after him. He doesn't have nearly the power that you think he has. That was all smoke and mirrors. Like you say, covering up shit. We were in too deep to say no to Voldemort, until you showed us how."
He made the mistake of listening to her words, of hesitating, before pulling free and kept going. With his back to her, she gave into her panic and summoned her wand.
"He's defenseless."
He didn't bother arguing with her. He'd been defenseless that night too. His rage tracked Lucius to the next room. At first he couldn't see him, only a sparsely set table set for two, with windows radiating light all around a sickeningly cheerful, lemony-sun décor. The largest chair at the head of the table, was turned away from him. The back of it was so tall, he barely saw the top of Lucius's head. Then he saw his hand, resting on a plush arm, drink in hand, and knew that the other was well aware of him. Narcissa's breathing rushed up behind him.
"I tried to stop him." She spoke to her husband and tried to keep her voice steady.
"Face me yourself. Like a man." Harry stopped short of the table, suspecting a wizard of Lucius's resources to have some hidden tricks. If he didn't know that he was about to die, then he really didn't have any magic left in him. And if he did, there were bound to be last-minute, futile attempts to thwart it.
He saw the glass swirl indifferently. Slowly, the chair turned and Lucius's unsmiling face lifted up to him. "I must admit, this is not the visit I was hoping for."
Harry yanked up one of the candle placements on the table, and used his wand to send it flying for Lucius's head. Lucius dashed aside and silver chipped the walnut mantle behind him.
He raised his voice. "If you've come looking for a duel, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I have no wand, as you very well know. And since I am in no doubt as to my manhood, I feel no urgency to prove it to you."
For that, Harry exploded the glass he was holding. Shards swiped across his face and left his open hand dripping and the carpet soaked. A look of anguish told Harry that the cuts burned. Multiplying spots of blood, told him that they were deeper than he'd hoped.
Lucius could not hide the tightness in his mouth now. He stood, leaving the chair swinging behind him. His throat constricted and his words came out hoarse. "Ask yourself if you really want to do this, Harry. Do not let your temperament get the better of you. If you kill me, you will have to tell the world why. You will have to come up with a reason for invading my home and attacking when I have no weapon and have made no threats. We both know that you don't want to do that."
Quickly, Harry reached behind and pulled Narcissa's wand from her hand. Before she could gasp, he'd already thrown it at Lucius. "You have a wand now. Fight or don't. I don't care."
"How dare you!" Narcissa scowled.
Lucius smirked, staring at the object that bounced off of him. "Picking up that wand, is a one-way ticket to prison. I'll not fall for silly entrapments. What brings you to such juvenile tactics? You've been meek for over two years now. Why the sudden, testicular fortitude, to face me? Weren't my actions that of such a bogyman that you are scarred too deeply to confront me? Certainly too wounded to tell the world the truth. And if not, then perhaps what I did wasn't as bad as you and Draco would have it seem, for all your dramatic flight from my presence."
"Pick the wand up."
"I will not. I will not return to Azkaban by my own hand, or yours. If you're going to kill me, then you might as well do it in cold blood and join the rest of us in infamy. Only bad people kill when they're not in any danger, and have not been for two years. Only twisted people harbor that kind of resentment. The trouble with living in a state of grace, is that the fall is inevitable, no matter who you are. Even the great Harry Potter can sink to our level. Go on, prove me right. Show your worshipers that you can be just as brutal as your brutalizers. Posterity will then be unable to tell us apart. Go on."
"You blond fuck." Harry's wand trembled. "I'm not here because of what people think, but that would be important to you. I'm here because of her. Because she'll never be safe unless you're gone. You've hurt us for the last time."
"Hurt you? In what manner? Or does taking my breakfast in private cause some discomfort to you?"
Harry jerked his wand, causing a shard to lift off the carpet and dash across Lucius's throat. The slice was superficial, but made his point. Lucius staggered. Narcissa stifled her scream with her hand.
"Every second you're alive, is uncomfortable to me. I'll bear it. I'll put up with it. But I won't ask my daughter to do the same. I won't ask her to hide from you anymore. She'll be able to go any where in the world, and not have to fear you. She won't have to run. After all this time, today I've learned just how far your reach can go. And none of us can outrun it. So yeah, I couldn't face you when it was all about me. But when it comes to her, I'll face you, and I'll make sure it's the last time I do."
For the first time, Lucius's eyelids fluttered with recognition. "What's happened? What's brought this on?"
"You. Iece fell apart yesterday. And she still hasn't recovered. Her doctor doesn't know what to do. They can't wake her because her magic is going crazy. It's attacking her body and everything around it. She's bearing the curse that you inflicted on me and Draco. If she has to live with that, then you have to go. I won't let her grow up having to fight both. It's too much for one person, let alone a child. I can't change the curse, but I can get rid of one of her biggest problems."
Lucius's sigh conceded Harry's point. But he risked the use of logic. "You're forgetting one fact. I didn't create that curse. I didn't curse you or Draco. I merely survived and helped him to survive. I followed orders, I was not the commander that night."
"But you didn't do anything to stop it, you fucking coward. And when it was done, you did everything in your power to make it worse. For me, at least. I can't allow you to live in the same world with her. I won't."
"Surely, you don't think I would lift a finger to harm her. These are different times and those dark days do not interest me. I want to put as much distance between them and myself as possible."
"Too late. Take the wand."
"No."
"You're going to die."
"You won't kill an unarmed wizard. You won't kill anyone. You've yet to prove yourself in that manner."
"I killed Voldemort."
"A demon on feet, and armed up to his seventh horcrux."
He spoke with such unerring accuracy, that Harry wavered. He had killed enemies in the war, in the heat of battle. He assumed that responsibility, though he'd never singled people out and hunted them down. He'd always acted in self-defense and didn't hang around to see how effective his efforts were. But he'd never been able to use the killing curse. He knew that it was wrong and his conscience wouldn't let him cast it, let alone get away with it. Now that Lucius had called him on it, he knew what it would let him do. If he was going to have blood on his hands, then he'd have blood on his hands.
"Fine." He threw down his wand. He licked his lips and appreciated how strong and ready he felt. In his heart he was glad. If it had to end like this, and it did, he was facing it in a way that he could be proud of. No more shame. Out in the open and no apologies. Already, he was thinking more than he knew to be wise. He shored up his anger the way some people roll up their sleeves. He charged.
Physical violence, muggle style, was the last thing Lucius expected. Between Harry's speed and his punch, he barely saw him take aim. Harry put his whole body into it, and the blow sent Lucius sideways. He fell into his chair, unable to recover before Harry jumped on top of him. Narcissa scrambled for her wand and fired stinging jinxes to separate the two. To avoid her, Harry thought fast. His mind and his magic took Lucius to the only place he could imagine where magic could not factor into the ass beating he was going to give. He wanted Lucius dead, but he also wanted to strike until that craving was satisfied. Until he was up to his elbows in blood. An instant death would've been more mercy than this wizard deserved. So when he found himself on a muggle street, on a muggle lawn, with garbage bins tumbling from their abrupt arrival, he just kept hitting. He just kept delighting in all the red and seeing how colorful he could make all that pale hair.
Lucius was far stronger and larger, but not as adept at muggle fighting. His fists figured out what they needed to do, but not before Harry's bullet impact, had him struggling to pick himself up off the ground. Before he could do that, he had to get Harry off of him. That was impossible. Harry survived every swing and pummeled him that much harder. They rolled in grass and dirt, right off of a muggle curb and onto the street. It was broad daylight and the people pointing at them sent further alarm into his attempt to avoid blows.
He was still wearing his house robe and got himself entangled in it. Harry used the advantage to grab him by it and sling him into the middle of the street. Cars slammed on their breaks. Screams from tires and people, had Lucius staring wildly at his surroundings. He guessed the neighborhood to be lower middle-class and wondered briefly how to find his way out of it. His slippers were gone. His teeth were loose again and he tried to pull himself up by the grill of one vehicle, only to have Harry tackle him, providing liquid momentum that sent them both over the bonnet of the car. Inside, a male driver gaped at the splatters of blood left on his windshield.
Endorphins made Harry feel invincible. He should've done this a long time ago. In his mind, he beat Lucius into a soup. In reality, he felt the exertion on his muscles. He felt his limitations and his strength giving out. He tired and raged against it all the more. He couldn't give up that easily. This wizard was still too much alive. Too much intact. He pushed unnatural strength from his body and his magic. He never felt the swings that landed on him and relished bouncing Lucius's head off of the pavement, just as he'd seen in muggle movies. He wanted to hear the skull crack. He wanted bleeding out of the ears.
Unfortunately, Lucius's head was too hard to give him that satisfaction. The older wizard managed to grab his leg before he could achieve it, and pulled so hard that Harry's feet left him. He landed on his back with 200 pounds of wizard on top of him. The first thing Lucius did with his advantage, was deliver a series of slaps that were violent enough to be blows, but left Harry with the feeling that he wasn't being taken seriously. He brought his hands together, making one great fist with both of them, and drove it against Lucius's head. This got the weight off, but Harry sent his superfist into his jaw and again into his gut. Bulging eyes indicated Lucius's inability to breathe as he fell back. Harry stood, wiped his own blood away, and took fistfuls of Lucius's robe. He drug him.
The robe ripped between his weight and the asphalt. His pajamas now hung off of him. Dirt matted his hair. His body, that of a middle-aged man, looked wiry and sagging in the morning light. Fatty deposits made the muscles that once intimidated Harry, seem gross, coarse with greying hairs, and pitifully vulnerable in their loose flop. Harry tried really hard to be disgusted. To feel superior. But pity nagged at him, and he beat Lucius all the more for not deserving his pity.
When Lucius tried to stand, he kicked him into the pile of bins that had already scattered. They were back on the same lawn and the sight of Lucius slipping on grass and garbage, gave him the idea to open as many bins as he could and dump all the contents on top of him, like the garbage he was. Each time Lucius tried to crawl away, apparently wounded now, he wondered what he'd have to do to actually break some bones and keep him in one place. It was beginning to dawn on him why wizards had wands. They actually needed them to do serious harm to one another. Lucius may not have been using magic by the Ministry's definition, but he was a magical being and it worked in his favor to keep him hardy enough to take Harry's blows.
This was so frustrating a realization, that Harry began kicking. His legs were ten times stronger than his arms. He aimed for the soft places. He stopped taking note of where the blood was coming from or the effect he was having. In the back of his mind, he knew this was a repeat of yesterday's catastrophe. Of muggles standing around, bearing witness and taking out their camera phones. He knew that this would very likely land him in another cell, and no one was going to save him from it. He'd avoided his punishment for far too long, been way too lucky. The best case scenario, Lucius dies from his injuries and the police have no way to subdue him, but by putting a bullet into him.
In his imagination, that grand sacrifice to his daughter played out with such vehemence, he had no idea how Lucius got back on his feet again. This time, all smug superiority had vanished, and Lucius wore a sobering expression of pain and fear. He retreated from Harry's advances. Hands up, he pushed Harry away.
"You've proven yourself. You win. I don't have the strength to continue this."
Judging by the sound of his voice, and the unbroken string of intellect he was piecing together, Harry found him to have too much strength. He was still talking, wasn't he? That pissed Harry off. Why couldn't he kill this wizard? Did Lucius think this was a game? He decided to test how weak he really was, and leapt for his throat. Instead of standing his ground, Lucius ran. Limping, but it qualified as a full speed dash until Harry slung him into a holly bush. He screamed from their thorny spines and rolled his body into the next neighboring yard. Muggles observing from their porches, ran back inside. Two dobermans barked alongside Harry, but never interfered as Harry kicked Lucius, tripping and stumbling, onto the next lawn.
When the sirens sounded, he was no where near killing Lucius, and that angered him enough to have him picking up landscaping stones and smashing them over various parts of Lucius's body. He swore he wasn't getting locked up until something broke. He had to actually hold Lucius down over a bird fountain and use the concrete bowl to brace his shoulder and chest while he pulled the arm back as far as he could get it. It took repeated smashings with a stone, to break the humorous and get it to pop out of its socket.
He thought that finally hearing that scream, that cry, would give him some satisfaction. The sound of Lucius, reduced to grovelling and begging in pain, should've produced pure euphoria. It didn't. It sounded no different than hearing any man humbled by the effects of pain. That strangled sob made him seem more human, not less. Its pitiful inflection robbed Harry of his prize by showing him what he'd done. He'd beaten a man too slow and too old to hurt him without magic. Lucius's sobs were now open and loud. Is that how he'd sounded the night it happened? He'd wanted to make Lucius cry the way he'd cried for so long, he listened for that same depth of helplessness, that same abyss of shame, and didn't stop smashing and breaking things until he heard it.
They would ask him later, on trial, why he continued to abuse him long after he'd won the fight. He would confess, 'Because I wanted to kill him. I wanted to see it through.'
It was easier to say that, than to explain that he listened for Lucius's humiliation in those sobs, and never heard it. Not like he'd heard his own, the night it happened. And all the nights since. He almost wished he'd had the guts to do to Lucius what had been done to him, only that would be insanity coming full circle, and he was sure that Lucius would laugh in his face. Such a crime would be a flea bite to him, and prove that he had the power to cause Harry to join his side all along.
So Harry kept fighting, kept kicking that groaning and sobbing wizard around, not because he got any more pleasure out of it, but because he despised the fact that nothing he could do, could cause Lucius to feel one ounce of genuine regret for what he'd done. Nothing.
He wished for his wand. He wished to materialize some sort of weapon. Something sharp. If he could truly escape his conscience, he'd manifest a machete and cut Lucius's head off. A proper, ancient execution. But since he couldn't, he settled for holding him down by his neck and squeezing. Lucius's face expanded like an over inflated soccer ball. His mouth opened wide, unable to suck in air. His tongue rolled like a fat worm amid red and black holes, where missing teeth had been. The one arm he could still use, flopped uselessly against Harry. His bare feet bled. Some of his kicking toes were at broken angles and no one realized that at least one of his smallest toes was missing.
That beautiful Malfoy complexion became an equally enchanting oxygen-deprived shade of blue. And though blood vessels stood on the whites of his eyes, Lucius never lost consciousness.
Harry wore himself out. That's how they found him. Muggle police arrived, only to be confused and obliterated by the Aurors who followed. They drug Harry into custody and spirited Lucius's body to a hospital. Events captured by cell phones, were uploaded to the muggle communications system before Harry found himself apparated to a holding cell. He looked at the blood staining his hands and clothes, and whispered to his daughter.
"I tried, Iece. I tried for you." He sank down the wall and waited for life to retaliate. To do what it wanted with him.
Hermione covered her mouth as she watched Harry on her television. The anchor woman was going on about a strange viral video, where two men appeared out of no where and engaged in a vicious battle, which both miraculously survived, for over twenty minutes, before mysteriously vanishing in front of eyewitnesses. More footage was surfacing, revealing unsettling clues and other phenomena, regarding the incident.
Draco got the call, telling him that Harry was in custody, forty-five minutes after he'd left. He gave the signal to his lawyers, and sent them off. If there was any hope for Harry, they would salvage it. He couldn't be there. He couldn't go running to put out another fire. They were taking their toll. Iece needed him here.
He ignored all the calls from his mother. She apparated and found him. She demanded that he go after Harry and talk some sense into him. He refused to argue with her. He locked himself in a bathroom stall until she yelled herself hoarse and went away. He took refuge in Iece's room and laid his head down on her hospital bed. Anxiety wouldn't let him sleep, but he drifted on his thoughts until they started to look like dreams. He kept seeing the bracelet his mother had given him, and knew he'd have to try it. Hell, if platinum was all she needed, he could get her some tiny earrings. Those little balls that they start piercings with for little girls. Maybe that would work. Harry would have a fit, but his vote wasn't going to matter much with him behind bars. He wasn't going to get out of this one, and that hurt more than knowing what Harry had done to his father.
When he opened his eyes, the room was significantly darker and Avi stood over him.
"Mr. Malfoy, can I talk you into taking a chair? You'll be more comfortable."
Draco wiped his mouth and denied his embarrassment at drooling. He noticed they were back on a formal basis since Harry's outburst, which must've been hours ago. He accepted that and pushed himself up. Harry was going to be wondering where he was, why he wasn't checking on him.
'Because your daughter needs one of us,' he sneered at Harry through the anger in his mind. One of them had to stir clear of those cages. And since Harry couldn't do it, that left him. Never mind what he was in there for. That was a whole other mountain all together.
He noticed Avi staring at him. "Do you have news?"
The doctor gave a limp smile. "No, I don't know any more than I did, except we're going to let her awaken. If she starts to exhibit any more rogue magic, we'll start different therapies of suppression. I want her another week, at least, for that. As far as the other, we'll make a point of observing before we decide on anything. This is too new to leap to conclusions."
Draco nodded.
"Have you heard from Mr. Potter?"
He shook his head, avoiding that conversation. "Arrested, as predicted. But otherwise fine."
"I'm sorry. I regret any part that my diagnosis has played."
"It's not your fault. We've been avoiding this forever. Time to pay up."
"You seem to have resigned yourself to Harry's fate."
"I'm just tired of running. Of being afraid."
"Of what?"
"Of having Harry and my father in the same room together. I've held it back for so long. I had to make a choice. Let them kill each other, and get her the hell out. If he can't get his shit together, I can't let her suffer for it. It's not his fault, but we can't wait on him."
"Wait on him?"
Draco's head snapped up. "Look, I know what you want. You want me to talk. To tell you all about that curse. Now that Harry isn't here, you think I'm just going to open up to you. It's not going to happen."
"Not even to help your daughter?"
"Don't try to manipulate me like that. I could spill my guts and that won't guarantee you can help her. Give me time to wrap my head around this."
"I would give you all the time you need. But her illness may not. We don't know what we're facing."
"I'm facing prison. We're all facing prison. Not because we did anything wrong, but because we omitted a few little details. Details that would destroy Harry. If I go, there will be no one to look after her. I know enough about the curse to love her in spite of it. I got used to it. In one of our earliest sessions with you, you said that we could keep our secrets. So let us keep them. She's so young, she wouldn't know any other way of life. It would be no different than raising a, what do they call it now, a differently-abled child. Only I'd make sure she knew how capable she is."
"You have no idea the repercussions such a decision would have on her life. You haven't thought it through."
"You haven't given me time."
Avi held up his hands and made a show of backing off. "Take some time, then. I encourage you. Today was too much of a shock."
Defensiveness receded in Draco, and he let his shoulders drop.
Avi's posture said he wanted to back towards the door and give Draco his space. But he lingered, unable to help himself. "You're not well, Mr. Malfoy."
Draco looked annoyed, but said nothing.
"I've been watching you. I can't help but notice certain things. Please consider letting me scan you. This comes at a bad time, and it's not to trick information out of you. You are genuinely unwell. I thought it was anxiety at first, at keeping Harry out of trouble and trying to be a parent without a partner. You do most of the work with her. That much is obvious."
He didn't deny it, but he remained on guard against anyone else speaking badly about Harry.
"There's something else going on. You must be feeling it. Maybe you haven't put a name to it. I know you don't want to deal with this, but I must warn you, I think you're pregnant. I think that you never recovered from the curse, and I think you're not healthy enough to have a child."
Shock drained the life out of Draco's face.
"Your good looks fool the world, but I know what to look for. If my guess is correct, you would need medical help. And if you don't confirm that you're pregnant, you won't take any measures to care for yourself and you'll lose it. I repeat, you will lose it. I'm only telling you because I know that you and Harry have enough to deal with, and the inconvenient timing of a second child might be too much stress on your relationship. For many couples, it's par for the course. You haven't screwed up. Whatever birth control you thought was effective, can't stand up to a curse like that. Just think about it. Come to me when you're ready. Of course, it doesn't have to be me, as long as you are monitored by a physician. My point is, I'm not your juror. I'm not going to hand you over to the Ministry, over a family secret. Your health, and the health of your daughter, are my priorities. Whatever you're afraid to tell me about the curse, about you, I will hold in the strictest of confidence."
He took a moment to let this sink in. "I'll leave you to think about it. I'll return the minute I have any news I can give you." He left, closing the door softly.
Draco stood by Iece's bed, not knowing where to look or what to do with this brand new terror in his heart. He sat down to keep from pitching forward. Impossible. There was no way. Simply no way. He pressed his knuckles into his forehead to rid himself of the thought.
Note: I said another chapter will be updated today. Sorry, that's not working out. Thank you all for your kudos and positive comments.
Fan_FicAddict1993, you got your wish to see Harry get some payback. :-) Of course, I can't kill Lucius. He will be very much needed and appreciated before it's over with.
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I'm working on getting Harry and Draco to see that they need each other. It may not be romantic love, but it's love. If they can survive this, they will have a "late bloom" in the romance department when their lives settle. They will be so in love, and so capable a couple, that it will make up for everything. That's not a promise to write it in detail, just a promise of where the story's headed. The pregnancy is there to anchor Harry to Draco (and to complicate everything!), no matter how far he goes chasing after Snape. He will chase Snape and he will heal Snape, but he'll have something worth coming back to when all of this is over.
