Chapter Forty-Nine of The Marriage of True Minds- Accepting the Bonds
Chapter Forty-Eight.
Title: The Marriage of True Minds (49/50)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco eventually, Draco/Astoria, Harry/Ginny, and Harry/OMC.
Warnings: Sex (het and slash), angst, manipulation, bonding. Ignores the epilogue.
Rating: R
Summary: Lucius curses Harry and Draco into a forced marriage. They’re required only to live together, not to be together, and so both of them pursue relationships on the side. But as time passes, things change.
Author’s Notes: This will be a leisurely novel-length story, and at the moment, I don’t know how many chapters it will be. If you don’t like the cliché of a forced bond, it’s probably not going to appeal. The title comes from Shakespeare's Sonnet 116.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Forty-Nine-Accepting the Bonds
“And that is all I can find in the way of what cobalt means.”
Harry looked at the books that Narcissa had laid on the bed in silence. They were filled with notes, underlined passages, small question marks in Narcissa’s delicate hand, and he could understand why she had done it that way. There was nothing directly about cobalt, either as a separate metal or as the blue glaze it had appeared on their rings as. He rubbed his hand absently.
Above him, Draco reached down and squeezed his shoulder. Harry looked at his cobalt band out of the corner of his eye and smiled as he turned through the pages of the books, towards Narcissa’s notes at the end.
Narcissa concluded several things: that the cobalt they had was not a pure metal, unlike the other bands that they had added to their rings; that the important thing about cobalt historically was its deep blue color when made into a glaze and its use as decoration; that no one else had ever had cobalt in their rings before, and that had to mean something; that no other forcibly married couple had ever added as many bands to their rings before, and that had to mean something, too. Her conclusion was at the bottom:
Cobalt represents the ultimate choice, the decoration at the end that seals and finishes off the work of art. You made the choice of each other, and the cobalt appeared. We may never know exactly what it represents, but that is the best guess we have.
“You agree?” Narcissa asked. She sat on a chair across the room, and her hands were folded in her lap, her bright eyes fastened on Harry’s hands as he read the books. Her gaze had never wavered from the time that Harry began looking through the books, otherwise Harry would have said she was nervous.
“I think it’s the most likely explanation, yes,” Harry said. He paused, then added, “Is it all right if my friend Hermione checks over the notes?” He knew that Hermione wasn’t as familiar with pure-blood culture as Narcissa was, but she was almost certainly better at research, given how many times she’d done it.
“That will of course be acceptable,” Narcissa said, and then leaned forwards with a small smile. “Let us speak of more agreeable things. Have you decided on the marriage ceremony that you plan to use?”
Draco stirred uneasily beside Harry, and then said, “We haven’t, Mother. Granger’s concerns are well-taken. We need one that not only settles the bond, but takes account of all the bands on our rings, including the cobalt ones. We weren’t entirely sure that we had found one that would.”
Narcissa leaned back in her seat and tapped her fingers together for a moment. Harry listened for the clack of her long nails against each other, but heard nothing. He shook his head in wonder. He had never known someone who moved in as much silence and grace as Narcissa, and he knew that it would have unnerved him at one point. However, she seemed like a protective predator now, one whose strength he could shelter under.
“I do not think that the cobalt band adds a harmful aspect to the equation,” she said at last. “Not if I am right about the meaning it contains.”
“But we should still respect it,” Draco said, and ran an absent hand over the back of Harry’s neck. Harry leaned into the touch. It was hard for them to separate even an inch’s worth, even now that his bandages were mostly gone and he was beginning to recover from the burns taken in the inferno ritual. Well, their wedding should settle that. “It’s still a sign of powerful magic, after all.”
“Of course,” Narcissa said. “But respect does not mean that you should cower in fear or allow the band to put off a marriage ritual that you otherwise like and have chosen of your own free will.”
Draco squinted at his mother. Harry grinned. He thought it was one of those moments when Draco would have liked to come up with something superior and cutting to say, but couldn’t, because this was his mother. He had them with Harry sometimes, too.
“Yes, of course,” Draco said at last. “But we haven’t chosen a ceremony yet.”
“I have a list of possible choices.” Narcissa pulled out another neat scroll of parchment and handed it over. “I have marked my favored ones, but I do not know that my sense of beauty and fitness always corresponds to yours.”
Harry looked up, hearing a heavy meaning in her words that he didn’t know the significance of, and flushed when he felt her eyes on him. He looked away and cleared his throat. “I think I’ll be guided by your sense of beauty and fitness, Narcissa,” he mumbled.
“I have a wise son-in-law,” Narcissa said, and bent down to kiss Harry on the forehead. Draco’s hand tightened and then relaxed on his shoulder. “Why can my son not always be as wise?” She turned her head and gave Draco a look that didn’t have to be chiding to be effective.
“Because your son knows your tactics better,” Draco said dryly. “Now, Mother, if you’ll leave so that the bond doesn’t make me spring at you and tear your throat out, then we can get on with choosing a new marriage ceremony for ourselves.” By now, his fingers were like claws digging into Harry’s shoulder. Harry reached up and detached them, patiently, and then looked up at Narcissa and shook his head.
“When he gets like this, it’s best just to leave,” he advised her, as if he was talking about a fractious dog who liked to bark at strangers.
A faint smile crossed Narcissa’s lips. “Of course it is,” she said, and turned and departed the room with an equally faint swish of her skirts.
Harry expected Draco’s hold to loosen when she was gone, but it didn’t. He wondered if that was the bond, or just Draco being an idiot. He turned around to ask, only to find that Draco had set the list of possible marriage rituals aside and was staring down at him solemnly.
“What is it?” Harry touched his ring for reassurance, the way he had a lot in the past few days. The cobalt band was slick and smooth beneath his fingers, a good contrast to the entwined hardness of the other metals. “Is something wrong?”
“There’s something we ought to discuss before we choose a marriage ceremony,” Draco said. “I recognize the names of the ones my mother chose from the time we spent researching. They emphasize openness and honesty, especially if other family members take part in them.”
“Of course you want your mother there,” Harry said. “And your father, if it can be arranged.” He knew that Draco wasn’t sure yet how far Lucius’s repentance went, or if it would be wise to invite him to a marriage ceremony that he’d tried to prevent from happening once before.
“We should discuss Laura,” Draco said.
Harry relaxed. “Of course. I know you were trying to negotiate terms that made you both happy when you were thinking about marrying her. I can be there, and we can talk about the same things. The bond shouldn’t react too badly as long as it’s a firecall instead of us all being in the same room.” And then I shouldn’t react by trying to claw her eyes out, either.
“And more than that,” Draco said. “I want to know what we should do about your Muggle family.”
Harry felt as though he had come down a familiar staircase and ended up stepping off a cliff instead. “I-of course I don’t want to invite them to the ceremony,” he said, when he could catch his breath again.
“My mother already suspects something is wrong, concerning them,” Draco said quietly. “I don’t think we can allay her suspicions with anything less than the truth. Will you permit me to share it?”
Harry shook his head hard enough to hurt, and then sat there, panting. Draco watched him in quietude for a few moments, then sat down in front of him and took his hand. His fingers ran back and forth, threading through Harry’s, bearing down as though the tension was in his knuckles and Draco could massage it out of him.
“Why not?” Draco asked, and he sounded as though it was a reasonable question.
Harry licked his lips. He didn’t think that he could respond in any way that would make sense to Draco. “I told you,” he said. “But that was different. Special. Because I knew that I didn’t want to keep secrets from you.”
“And you want to keep secrets from my mother?” Draco’s voice was calm. Curious.
“No!” Even Harry winced at the volume of his voice, and made sure that he was speaking softly when he did speak. “It’s just…I trusted that you wouldn’t go off and kill them, Draco. And I’m not sure I can trust your mother to do the same thing. Or lack of the same thing.” Harry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Normally, thinking about the Dursleys didn’t trigger these reactions in him; normally, he could take most of the memories that showed up in his dreams and shrug them off during the day.
But he’d survived and coped by telling himself that he would never have to see them again, and lately by thinking that Draco and Narcissa would protect him against any of the nightmares or other consequences that came up. It wasn’t-if they interfered in the Dursleys’ lives and dragged them and Harry back together again, then Harry would have to see them. He would have to tear open the wounds and watch them bleed.
He just wanted them scabbed over. He would talk about this if Draco and Narcissa wanted, but that was far different than seeing the Dursleys again in some kind of unnatural confrontation, or knowing that they were suffering out there, somewhere, and he’d done nothing to prevent it. They’d probably forgotten all about him by now. Dudley might have children who wouldn’t know why these strange people wanted to punish their father.
For Harry, it was done. It was over. But he didn’t think Draco and Narcissa would let it be.
*
Draco watched Harry, the way his face had flushed an ugly, mottled pale color, and shook his head. That Harry thought they would ignore his wishes and drag these Muggles in and up in his memory whether he wanted to face them or not was…
Understandable, actually.
Draco sighed and grimaced. He knew there were times that he would have ignored Harry because he was so sure that Harry needed something else. But now, he’d had a good look at exactly how Harry could face and conquer his fears when he had the right motivation. Forcing the conquest was stupid, though. Harry had run from the beast for as long as he could. He had been the one who had to make the decision to bring it down.
For now, Draco thought he should step back, and tell his mother to do the same. Harry might want vengeance someday, and they would be ready.
“All right,” he said quietly. Harry stared at him, and the bond hummed in what sounded like confusion, if Draco was going to assign human emotions to the thing. Draco reached down and caressed Harry’s cheek. “I won’t force you to let us hurt them. That would do us more harm than good, in the end.”
Harry blinked. “I agree with that,” he said. “I didn’t think you would.”
“You come first,” Draco said. “Not them. Not vengeance. Hurting them when you don’t want us to do it basically says that we care more about them than about you. And as much as it would please me to pull their intestines out through their noses, I can wait until you decide what you want to do about that.”
“You wouldn’t do that,” Harry said, his voice a bit weak.
Draco stared at him in silence.
“Oh, God. You would.” Harry reached up with a trembling hand and pushed Draco’s hair back from his forehead. “Draco, it means more to me than I can say that you feel that way, but please don’t do it.”
Well, that was clear. Draco nodded. “But can I tell my mother, at least?” he asked. “Or can you? Because I think the mystery as to why you won’t accept certain gifts and why you flinch away from the kindnesses that we want to give you troubles her more than the notion that you might not want to take vengeance.”
Harry gnawed his lip. Draco wondered if he knew how young he looked.
That’s only another sign that he does get young when he deals with this, that he hasn’t accepted it fully even though he thinks he has.
But Draco was wise enough to let it go at that. He had made a promise, and Harry was more important than all the Muggles in the world.
“Yes, I will,” Harry said at last. “I know that you’d try to be considerate, but…you might exaggerate things, Draco.” He gave Draco a wan smile. “At least I know that I can tell her what it was really like, because I was really there.”
And she’ll see more of the truth from the way you think and speak and react, Draco decided. Yes, that was a good plan, and it would ease some of his disquiet about keeping a secret so strong from his mother. Some of the things he and Harry shared, he was perfectly happy not to tell her about, but this was one that his mother had already, mostly, figured out on her own. And she was the one who had tried to ease Harry into the family and run into those unexpected, silent barriers he kept up that prevented it. She would be relieved to know that it wasn’t her fault, that she had done nothing wrong.
Draco knew she would agree to hold off on vengeance, as well. There were more important things they could concentrate on in the present, such as easing the shock of Harry’s marriage for the newspapers.
And what fun would it be to take vengeance, if we couldn’t talk to Harry about it and see his eyes widen in approval? We’ll wait until he’s ready.
*
“Of course, Harry.”
That was all Narcissa had said when Harry and Draco came to her and asked if they could speak to her about something. She had taken a seat on the couch in front of them and folded her hands, as if prepared to listen until the stars fell down. Harry studied her, but he didn’t see any unusual nervousness or anger. That would be perfect, if she could take the news like that, without the twitch of murder in her eyes that had showed in Draco’s when Harry first told him.
It gave him strength to be calmer and colder when he told the story, himself. The kind of rambling confession he had given to Draco was out of the question. Narcissa might have been able to accept it, but Harry knew that she wouldn’t appreciate it.
His voice did break more than once, he had to admit, and in the wrong places. When he talked about the cupboard, when he talked about the locks on the door of his bedroom, when he talked about the way that Uncle Vernon had screamed at him. He should have found the food the most difficult to talk about, since that was the thing Narcissa had noticed first in him, or the lack of Christmas gifts. Harry had assumed she would hate that one most of all, since she was the one who had most insisted on him taking gifts from them.
But Narcissa listened throughout it with the same tranquil expression on her face, and Draco was beside him, stroking his shoulder when Harry glanced over at him. That gave Harry the strength to go on and finish the way he should. Draco cocked his head when he was done, and then kissed the side of his neck. Harry flushed, but it felt different than the other times they’d done this in front of Narcissa. For one thing, she had closed her eyes as though she had fallen deep inside herself and was thinking, and he didn’t think she noticed.
For another, he finally felt…well, better. Less strained. Less convinced that Narcissa would confront him about it one day and he wouldn’t have an answer.
What do you know? Draco might be right, and talking about it really does make it better. Sometimes. It still wasn’t a subject that Harry wanted to spend a lot of time every day thinking about.
Narcissa finally stood and nodded to him. “Thank you, Harry,” she said, quietly, with grave emphasis. “I know that it must have been difficult for you.”
Harry flushed and ducked his head. “Not more difficult than waiting for it,” he muttered. “For the explanation, I mean. You must have wondered about it a lot. And I know that I hurt you when I wouldn’t accept your gifts.”
“My pain is not nearly so great as yours,” Narcissa said, and then turned and met Draco’s eyes for a few moments before she went on. Harry didn’t know what she saw there, but it must have been something important, because her face softened when she looked back at him. “And you do not wish us to take revenge on them?”
“No,” Harry said, and wondered what he could say that would convince them. Draco was already convinced, to hear him talk about it, but Harry didn’t think that was the case with his mother. He trusted Narcissa, but he wanted to do more than that. He wanted to do something that would ease the pain, too, that would make up for the insults he had offered her, unwittingly or not, when he was first married to Draco.
“They’re my past,” he said finally. “You’re my future. That’s what I want to remember. That’s what I want to concentrate on, being part of your family and marrying Draco and-and all the rest of it. Living here. Not then.”
This time, Narcissa smiled. She came over to kiss him and take his face in her hands, and Harry relaxed. The hum of the bond was uncomfortable and disconcerting, but he could endure it for the sake of making his mother-in-law happy.
“Then of course we will not do it,” Narcissa whispered. “Yes, this distressed me, and I cannot help but wish that your own desires as far as punishment is concerned were different. But I would much rather that we help you and care for you than distress you, in turn.”
Draco added a squeeze of his hand from the side to complement that. Harry leaned his head on Draco’s shoulder and closed his eyes. He didn’t know why he was so lucky or even if he deserved the luck, but he was able, finally, to accept it as a gift.
*
“These need to come off carefully.”
Draco knew that he was chattering to distract himself from his own nervousness, but, well, he thought he had a right to be nervous. He would have had a Healer here to remove the bandages from Harry’s back and tend the newly-revealed scars, but merely thinking about it caused him to feel sick. And the bond had tightened around both their throats nearly hard enough to cut their air off.
Better not to risk it.
“I know.” Harry’s voice was muffled, since he was lying on his stomach with his chin propped up on a pillow, his arms stretched in front of him. Most of the potions had done their work well, and Draco had removed the bandages from his hands and legs yesterday, and from his torso the day before. But the scars had been so bad the last time Draco looked at them that he’d winced and left them alone. It had taken Harry asking him to look that made Draco decide they both had no choice and the bandages were coming off today.
He smoothed one hand down Harry’s shoulders and nape of his neck, safely high above the scars, and then reached out and began pulling the bandages loose. They stuck and clung, and once Harry made a shrill noise of pain that Draco knew he didn’t mean to. He let one hand rest on Harry’s shoulder blade and took a deep breath, shaking his head. He would wait until the tension flowed out of Harry’s muscles.
It didn’t. Instead, Harry said in a high, restless voice, “You can’t go fast and pull them off like they’re a scab?”
“Carefully is only one word,” Draco muttered, glad that he had something else to think about besides the fact that his husband might have horrid-looking scars all down his back for the rest of his life. “How did you manage to misunderstand it?”
“I think it’ll hurt worse to leave the bandages there for any length of time.” Harry lifted his head and turned around to stare at Draco.
Draco licked his lips and lowered his head, ashamed. Harry had been so brave so far, and Draco had been the one to pull back because of one sound. “All right,” he said, and then gripped the bandages and pulled.
They peeled off while Harry arched like a cat, clenching his jaw down as though he knew how much it hurt Draco to hear him scream like that. Draco touched his shoulder and murmured wordless reassurance over and over, and at last the bandages were pulled free and Draco was staring at Harry’s back.
It hadn’t healed without a trace, but it wasn’t the ruin he had expected to see the last time he changed the potion out, either. The scars were still prominent, long and grey, but when Draco reached out to them and ran a finger down one, Harry didn’t start. They weren’t channels cut into his back any more, but simply ordinary scars.
“Don’t look so disappointed,” Harry said. He had rolled up on one elbow when Draco wasn’t looking and arched an eyebrow. “Unless you think that I should be unmarked to match you.”
Draco snatched his hand at once and kissed it, to ease the slight pain in Harry’s eyes and voice. “I don’t think that,” he whispered. “Of course not. I hoped it would heal better than that, that’s all, so you would never have to think about the beast again.”
Harry gave him a quiet smile and touched the side of his face, then leaned forwards to kiss Draco. “You’re the one who taught me that that doesn’t work,” he breathed out, his breath gently rushing against Draco’s ear. “The things I don’t think about still affect me. I would rather always remember the beast, and always remember that at the end, you were the one who helped me defeat it.”
Draco kissed him fervently, and decided that the other news he’d meant to impart to Harry then-the news that he’d finally found a marriage ceremony he thought would work to settle the bond and also make them happy-could wait. He had all he needed, all he wanted, in that moment.
Chapter Fifty.