[one-shots]: Defendere, H/D, R, 3/4

[lomonaaeren]

“What have I taken you from? I know that you went and got your things yesterday so that you could move into Grimmauld Place, but were you brewing potions, or did you have a political career, or something else?”

Malfoy looked up from his breakfast-it was chocolate biscuits and ice cream today, because that was Harry’s Wednesday morning tradition-and stared at him. Harry stared back. “Did you tell me and I forgot?” he added, when Malfoy’s stare went on. “Sorry. I’m not the best at taking in new information when my life is falling apart.”

“It didn’t fall apart,” Malfoy snapped, lowering his dripping ice cream cone so that it would drip on the napkins that covered the table for that purpose instead of on his morning robe. “Any more than mine did. And frankly, I was taking a few years off. Learning how to brew more complex potions, learning more languages, learning how to Apparate longer distances. I want to travel, but I don’t want to do it without precautions.”

“Like what?” Harry asked. He didn’t think he’d ever heard Malfoy speak so many words to him without insults, and he was sorry to probably put an end to that, but Malfoy’s last words really did sound nonsensical. “Are you afraid that you’ll get recognized by someone abroad and turned over to their Ministries?”

Malfoy laughed. His laugh was rather attractive when he wasn’t sneering or smirking or laughing to mock someone, Harry thought, and his forearms were much the same way, even the left one where Harry could see the edge of the Dark Mark.

Not that he could act on that. Harry didn’t know what would happen if someone under the Defendere bond had sex with his supposed “master,” but he doubted that it would be something desirable.

“No, like strange diseases, or animal bites,” Malfoy said. “The first time Blaise ventured outside the protected wizard areas in Australia, he got bitten by a snake that I’ve never heard of before or since. He nearly died.” He glanced away. “I don’t fancy summoning Pansy or Blaise to hospital at three in the morning for a similar case.”

Harry winced. “I’m sorry.”

“Yet another apology.” Malfoy resignedly swallowed his vanilla ice cream. “What is this one for?”

“It can’t be easy to watch another friend almost die, after what happened to-Crabbe,” Harry said. He had debated calling him Vincent, but Malfoy would probably point out that Harry didn’t have any right to his first name.

Malfoy splayed his hand on the table. “I was terrible to you,” he said clearly. “And you’ve lost friends yourself. You told me that last night.” Harry flushed. Yeah, he had been right, he did hate himself in the morning. “Why are you-why are you this concerned about me?”

“Because I can be,” Harry said. “Because this bond has disrupted my life, sure, and I know it’s disrupted yours-and I’m not about to start moaning again that it controls your mind or whatever,” he added hastily, since Malfoy had opened his mouth and Harry knew that would be the first thing he’d say. “Because I’m allowed to be, and I can choose, and I think living with someone means I should know him better.”

Malfoy leaned back in the chair and looped one leg over the other. “Have you lived with anyone before this?” he asked quietly.

“My relatives,” Harry said, trying to be playful, but Malfoy grimaced and shook his head, and Harry remembered what he’d said about them last night that might make Malfoy reluctant to be classified with them. Harry flushed, but didn’t look away. “And Ginny, for a while. But that didn’t work out.”

“Why not?” Malfoy had his head tilted, but the bond must not have thought that Harry needed him to know the answers to those questions.

“I didn’t want bindings,” Harry said. “And she wanted strict wedding vows, the kind that Ron and Hermione are planning to take when they get married. I didn’t want that kind of restriction or tie.”

“I understand a little better, now,” Malfoy said, and didn’t have to say what he understood. He continued to lean forwards, his chest nearly flat against the table. Harry remembered when it had been naked and pressed against his back, and this time, he did have to look away. “Potter-Harry. Why did you take up the bond?”

“Because I hated the thought of you dying or going insane more than I hated the thought of you being bound,” Harry said. He’d known that at the time, of course, or he wouldn’t have asked Ron for ways to become Malfoy’s “master,” but the words seemed to smash into Malfoy.

He surged to his feet. “I don’t know whether to thank you or strangle you,” he muttered.

“Yeah, I know,” Harry said, and found a real smile as he looked up at Malfoy. “And thanks for what you’ve been doing, by the way.”

Malfoy watched him through hooded eyes a moment longer. Then he said, “What are you planning on doing today?”

“Going back to work,” Harry said firmly. “I can’t waste more time prowling around here and trying not to injure myself. I only go this mad when I have to sit still and think and do nothing else. At least, on cases, I can apply that energy to doing something.”

“What happens if you get injured?” Malfoy’s fingers tapped slowly and meaningfully against his ice cream cone. Then he glared at it as if annoyed that it wasn’t a skull or something else more portentous and suitable to tap on. Harry stifled another grin.

“The bond will tell you,” he answered, standing and reaching for his cloak on the back of the chair. Malfoy had probably already reckoned that he was going back to work today, given that Harry had worn his Auror robes to breakfast. “And you can come into battle and give me that ice armor, if you want.”

“It would be simpler if I was there from the beginning,” Malfoy said, and held Harry’s eyes.

“Do you think Ron will accept you?” Harry asked. “Do you think that the reporters will leave you alone, when they must be dying to ask you questions about the Defendere bond? I know you’ve avoided them so far, or you would have mentioned it-” and complained until my ears bled “-but you can’t if you come with me.”

Malfoy’s mouth tightened. “The bond wants me at your side.”

“The bond, or you?” Harry took a step towards him. “I appreciate what you’ve done for me, Malfoy, but I also know that my desire is probably that you stay here in the house, safe and protected, until you’re needed.”

Malfoy moved in again, as he liked to do, and this time they wound up chest-to-chest. Harry started. He hadn’t realized until that moment how close they were to the same height, probably because so many of the times he’d spoken to Malfoy since the bond involved them sitting down, or lying down, or Malfoy lying on the floor in those awful chalked circles for the slave ritual.

“The bond would prefer that we stay closer together,” Malfoy said, and placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder where he liked to rest it. “And all of us would prefer it if you had a less risky job.”

“Not me,” Harry said, wondering if his vote counted when Malfoy and the Defendere bond were both against him. “I would prefer it if everything was back to normal. Or at least,” he added hastily, as Malfoy’s face clouded over, “if you were comfortable with the fact that I like my job.”

“Is this what you want to do for the rest of your life?” Malfoy asked softly, staring into his eyes. “Chase down Dark wizards, and avoid commitments?”

“Chasing down Dark wizards is a commitment.”

Malfoy gave him a strange smile. “I wouldn’t demand restrictive marriage vows,” he said, taking his hand away. “And I wouldn’t insist that you give up your job, except what you talked about was needing something to do. Not that you specifically wanted to go in for the joys of paperwork and chasing Dark wizards.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You know I’m an Auror. I didn’t think I needed to specify for you to know what I’m talking about.”

“I think it means something.” Malfoy watched him, complacent as a cat. “Whether you like what you do, or just like to do. Whether you want to stay the way you are for the rest of your life, or not. You’ve just proven that you can, absolutely, take a change that you hate and live with it. Think about other changes you can make.” He turned his back, adding over his shoulder, “If I don’t see you in the course of today, then I’ll be in either the lab or the library when you come home. I’ve got everything I need from the Manor for the moment.”

Harry stared after him, shaking his head. Then he turned and determinedly left the house, because he wouldn’t see Malfoy before the end of the day, and he intended to prove it to him.

*

You’d think I would have learned about making rash oaths by now.

Harry coiled into himself as the curses arched overhead, striking the Shield Charm that protected him and the unconscious Ron from the attack. He grimaced. He reckoned it was all to the good that Dark wizards were usually idiots, perhaps because they’d had years of exposure to the Dark Arts in the first place. They hadn’t realized yet that they could hit the bricks of the alley wall behind them and bring it down on Harry and Ron’s heads.

It had started out so well, and routine for that matter, an ordinary case, just something for Harry and Ron to do. Harry had to admit that he’d missed those cases the past few weeks, with Ron so involved in helping Hermione prepare for the wedding and then the excitement of the bonding with Malfoy.

They’d been following a witch they assumed was a low-ranking member of an illegal magical circle, one that was intent on inventing a potion that would allow them to reach new heights of physical pleasure-and which they kept testing on people who hadn’t agreed to have it tested on them. The witch ducked into an alley, and Harry and Ron had rounded the corner under Disillusionment Charms, anxious to watch her meeting with someone they thought would be higher-ranking.

Instead, it was an ambush. And the first curse had driven Ron into the wall and knocked him out cold.

Maybe they aren’t idiots after all, Harry thought, as the curses finally began to hit the wall. He grimaced and wrapped an arm around Ron, tugging him close to his side. He should have Apparated out the moment Ron fell, but he’d been stunned and defending himself against three of them, and the wizards had used that moment to raise anti-Apparition wards around the alley.

I’m sorry, Ron. If we get out of this, then I promise you can have holidays until a month after the wedding. Sitting at my desk and doing paperwork is better than this.

Abruptly, the curses shooting towards them fell silent. Harry gripped his wand. He had anchored the Shield Charms to a hastily-assembled wall of stone and rubble he’d put together, and barely looked over it since then, the barrage was so constant. Besides, he couldn’t shoot back through the Shield Charms anyway.

Now he had to look, though. He cast a Disillusionment Charm on his head he hoped would help, and cautiously raised it.

There were five other wizards in the alley, which made Harry grin in spite of himself. In that first frenzied moment after they flung Ron into the wall, he’d brought down more of their ten attackers than Harry had thought.

Now, though, those wizards and their anonymous grey robes were all facing the mouth of the alley. They aimed their wands in that direction, raised them, then lowered them. Harry heard them murmuring among themselves, though not well enough, thanks to the muffling effects of his charms, to pick out their words.

Harry looked, and saw a figure clad in grey armor standing there, like one of Hogwarts’s suits of armor come to life. It had its arms folded on its chest and enormous, stony wings, resembling a gargoyle’s, unfolding slowly from its back.

Malfoy! Harry knew it had to be him. He started to rise to his feet, sure that he couldn’t stay here. The Defendere bond might arm Malfoy with powerful magic, sure, but it had never been meant to stand up to the assaults of five wizards.

Then the circle seemed to decide that they couldn’t be intimidated by an empty suit of armor, and began to cast.

The curses thudded into the armor and simply faded. Harry saw no effects, even with the ones that he knew should have snared Malfoy with climbing plants or made the ground open up beneath him. His armor ate it, and ate it, and the spreading ripples of uneasiness looked as though they were consuming most of the circle.

Harry raised his wand, ready to demolish the bulwark in front of him. Malfoy knew some tricks, sure, but he was going to get hurt if he kept trying to face these enemies down himself.

Then the woman he and Ron had followed into the alley broke and shouted the incantation that ended the anti-Apparition wards, vanishing at once. The others followed her in a series of pops-and left their fallen comrades on the ground. Harry smiled, even as he heard Ron groan with a heartfelt sigh. Good. They had at least some witnesses, who might be willing to testify to the circle’s activities when they realized the people they trusted had abandoned them.

The armor on Malfoy turned to smoke and drifted away from him. He looked normal, without it, normal and a bit ethereal. He took a step forwards as Harry and Ron emerged from behind the Shield Charms, Ron still leaning on Harry and limping. Harry could feel the thrum of intensity in the bond between them, for the first time since he’d actually cast it.

“You’re well,” Malfoy said, and his eyes skimmed over Harry as though looking for wounds that Harry would try to hide from him. He relaxed a moment later, tossing his hair over his shoulder and folding his arms.

“Yes, I am,” Harry said, and tried for a normal smile. He had the feeling that it didn’t come out looking quite that way, but then, it wouldn’t, would it, when he’d just been saved by someone who had looked like a giant wearing armor and when he had his squirming, slowly waking best friend by his side. “Um. Thank you for your help.”

“You don’t need to thank me if you don’t want to,” Malfoy said, and took a delicate step forwards, his eyes so intense that Harry sucked in a harsh breath. “I’m only fulfilling my duties as someone in the Defendere bond, after all.”

“Just stop,” Harry snapped. The bond had to be making him this restless, he thought, since it felt like exploding sparks were raining down on his skin. “I-you know that you’re more than that to me.”

Malfoy paused, and then gave a carefully brilliant smile, the kind that Harry thought he would keep to use in front of an audience. “Ah. Of course. I’m the one that you had to rescue and give free will. I’m someone you can save, and someone you wanted to save, but still no different from anyone else.”

“Just stop it,” Harry hissed. “I said thank you.” He glanced down, and saw that Ron’s eyes were open, but still unseeing. “And now, you might want to get out of here before Ron wakes up so that we can arrest these people.”

“Weasley already knows about our bond.” Malfoy moved closer to him. “You feel it, don’t you? The bond tugging at us?”

Harry reached up and loosened his robe collar before he thought about it, and then wondered if he should have, when he saw the way Malfoy’s stare caught on the hollow of his throat. “Yes,” he said, managing not to spit his words out from between his teeth. “And I don’t know why. I thanked you. You defended me. What else does it want right now?”

“You still need something.” Malfoy studied him, a faint frown on his face as though he thought Harry was hiding a weapon under his clothes, and then moved abruptly forwards. Harry found himself turning instinctively, trying to shield Ron from him.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Malfoy’s voice was neutral, the hands that he settled on Harry’s shoulders more so.

“I-know that.” Harry blew his breath out and let his head settle forwards, his shoulders falling into place. “Sorry. I think I was still too keyed-up to see a sudden movement as harmless, no matter who it was from. I’ve done the same kind of thing to Ron in the past, and hated it. Sorry,” he added again, in case Malfoy didn’t understand that he was, in fact, apologizing.

“Mmm,” Malfoy said, which was a neutral comment if Harry ever heard one, and then he pushed Harry’s robes aside and knelt down so that he could see his back. Harry’s face flushed red, because the only thing he could think of was that Malfoy was at the perfect height to kiss his arse. Obviously, he wasn’t going to-Harry couldn’t think of anything Malfoy was less likely to do, even if required to by the bond-but that was the image in Harry’s head, and it lingered, and for some reason, he couldn’t drive it away.

“There it is,” Malfoy said, and pressed down with his fingers into the small of Harry’s back.

Flaring pain nearly made Harry drop Ron. Ron jerked away from him as he bent double and said, “H-Harry? Are you okay?” He knelt on the ground, next to Malfoy, and rubbed at his eyes. “That must have been one powerful curse that knocked me out. I don’t remember it even hitting me.”

“You’re hurt,” Malfoy said, his voice low and clipped, and this time his hands rested on Harry’s hips as he stood up. He spun Harry around to face him and urged him back a few steps. “When were you going to tell me?”

“I didn’t know that was there,” Harry said, teeth gritted. “I didn’t feel the curse hit, and I have a high pain tolerance.” Malfoy was still glaring at him, and he added, “I don’t-it doesn’t hurt as much as the bruises the other day, you know! Or I would have felt it. I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.”

“Well, that at least convinces me that your body can communicate with me even when your brain doesn’t know what it needs,” Malfoy said, and his eyes added all the elaborations on the subject of Harry’s brain that they would ever need to add. “That was why it took me a moment to understand you were wounded, because I hadn’t read a bodily impulse without any conscious control at first. So.” He raised his wand, and cast a Numbing Charm on the wound that hit Harry like a blast of liquid ice. “Now. To St. Mungo’s with you.”

Harry gestured at the wizards lying around him in the alley and raised his eyebrows. Ron staggered up, blinking, and rested a hand against the wall. “What are we supposed to do with them? Ron isn’t competent to handle them on his own yet.”

Ron’s eyes focused then. “Oi!”

Malfoy spun his wand counterclockwise, and ropes erupted out of the air and wrapped the wrists and the legs and the necks and the waists and the wands of every downed wizard in sight. Harry thought he saw the ropes start towards him and Ron for a moment, as though Malfoy was thinking of dragging them somewhere trussed, but Malfoy glanced at the ropes and they fell back.

“Oh,” Harry said, because he didn’t think that he could trust his voice for more than that. Malfoy’s silent, demanding stare made it clear that more was needed, and he coughed and added lamely, “Something else the bond gave you the strength to do, I suppose?”

“Yes,” Malfoy said, and curved his arm around Harry’s shoulders, as though he was having trouble walking. “I’ll see you to St. Mungo’s and come back for this crew.”

“If they get away in the meantime, or their comrades come back for them-”

“I promise to be away from this place for a very short time, and then with you for a very long time.” Malfoy bent towards him with his teeth gleaming. “That’s encouraging, isn’t it?”

“Look, it’s not like I got this wound on purpose,” Harry hissed at him, while Malfoy walked him out of the alley with encouraging hands of steel. He’d conjured a stretcher for Ron and already floated him onto it, so Harry couldn’t even object about that. “I didn’t hide it from you on purpose, and I didn’t take more risks than normal.”

“I know,” Malfoy said. “I’m just doing something that anyone concerned about you would, don’t you think? Taking you to hospital, and then coming back to stay with you until the Healers can see you and pronounce whether you’re fit to go home or not, and then staying with you in case you’ll be taking any potions that impair your functioning. I’m sure that you would do just as much for Weasley.” His teeth really did flash when he looked at Harry.

“I don’t-Malfoy, honestly, I didn’t-” Harry stopped and shook his head. “I just didn’t think about it that way,” he muttered, because yeah, he would have stayed with Ron if something similar had happened to him. But Ron and Hermione didn’t tend to do the exact same thing with him. They would visit him, and then they would go home, and if Harry still was on potions that made him mental when the Healers decided to release him, they could come over, get him, help him settle in, and then leave.

It wasn’t something they had decided on. It was just the way that they liked to do things.

“I don’t think I need this,” he said.

“Your back looks like someone held you down on a burning scaffold,” Malfoy said harshly, and his arm curved so strongly around Harry’s shoulders that Harry suspected he would wrench something if he tried to get free.

Harry blinked. “Wow, really?” He tried to stop and crane his head to look over his shoulder, but Malfoy shook his head at him and kept hauling him along.

“Come on, hero. I suspect that you’ll have plenty of chances to look at your new scar later.”

Harry opened his mouth to argue that he didn’t really collect scars, and then caught Malfoy’s eye-

And shut his mouth, and accepted that, for once, someone was caring for him, just for him.

It might not be so awful. Definitely not so awful, if he was listening to the little glow of warmth in the pit of his stomach.

He just didn’t know if he should be.

*

“I can’t believe that.”

Harry kept his back turned as he drank the last potion the Healers had left for him. It tasted like the gritty water that Harry imagined would be at the bottom of a pond. He grimaced and held his lips shut with one hand so he wouldn’t spit it out, the way he was really tempted to do.

“It fused your skin and your muscle together,” Malfoy continued, in a low voice, as though he had some compulsion to quote the Healers who had just come in and talked to Harry. “And you sit there looking as though that’s a normal thing to happen. And you didn’t even feel it until I pressed on it. Amazing.”

Harry hissed and dropped the potions vial on the table nearby, not caring greatly if it cracked or landed safely. He spun around on the bed, and Malfoy fell silent and looked at him. There was a weird, feral gleam in his eyes that Harry didn’t understand. It wasn’t like Harry had fought when Malfoy insisted on marching him to hospital, or fought the Healers, or objected to taking the bloody potions. Malfoy didn’t have anything to look smug about, and the Defendere bond hadn’t really affected things between them one way or the other.

“What do you want me to say?” Harry snapped. “Thanks for noticing it, for bringing me here? I already did.”

“You can tell me how many wounds you’ve had like that.” Malfoy tossed his wand up and caught it. His hands tightened on it for a moment, fingers digging into the smooth wood, before he tucked it away inside his sleeve. “You can spare me the trouble of breaking into your records either here or at the Ministry to check. And only you can tell me how many you’ve ignored until they got too bad to do that with, probably.”

Harry stared at him, his mouth falling open. Then he shook his head helplessly. “I don’t ignore them. There are just some that I don’t feel right away because I have a very high pain tolerance, you idiot. Which I just said.”

Malfoy might not have heard him, staring thoughtfully at the far wall instead. “In fact, now that the bond is between us, I might not need to ask for your permission to look at the records. There are people working in both places who would understand that the bond makes us closer than spouses, in some ways.”

Harry stood up and stalked across the room towards him, shaking. Malfoy met his eyes and smiled meanly, rising to his feet with a smoothness that nearly caused Harry to hate him. Harry braced his fists on either side of Malfoy’s head and leaned in close to his face.

“Don’t you do that,” he hissed. “Don’t you dare. The bond ties you to me, now, and you have to take care of me. Fine. But that doesn’t mean that you have to care about what happened to me before the bond began.”

“Oh, yes, I do.” Malfoy spoke without much passion or emphasis in his voice, tilting his head back and eyeing Harry intently from beneath the curl of white-blond hair that fell across his forehead. “You don’t understand, Harry. Past behavior predicts future behavior, quite a bit of the time. How long have you waited before your wounds get bad enough that you had to come to St. Mungo’s? How long do you put off going anywhere or telling anyone about them, because you want to work? How many times do you just forget to do anything for yourself, like with those bruises the other day?” Malfoy’s voice was by now a whisper against Harry’s throat, and he moved uncomfortably despite himself. Malfoy didn’t smile, which was a better indication than Harry had seen so far of how seriously he took this. “How long have you waited to tell someone about your Muggles in any more detail, because you were afraid of what they would say?”

“That’s not the reason,” Harry snarled, but he pulled away and watched Malfoy carefully. Malfoy stood up and whisked a bit of dust from his sleeve. His eyes remained on Harry’s as though he was never going to look away.

“Really?” he whispered, gentle as a lover. “Really. Of course it is. Or else you just disregard your own needs because you think they don’t matter. But I knew that already.”

Harry closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. “Look, Malfoy,” he said, when he thought he could speak without shouting. The last thing they needed was more curious Healers filling the room. “I-I don’t want to talk about my family because I hate scraping up the past when I’ve mostly got over it. And I don’t think that much about my wounds because I really don’t feel them.”

“Do you know,” Malfoy murmured, his voice without emotion now, “I’ve wondered for a long time why you didn’t react that much when the Bludger smashed your arm during second year? Did you have a high pain tolerance even then? Did you care so much about your reputation as the Boy-Who-Lived that you had to hold it up even in front of people like Lockhart? Or did your family teach you that no one would pay attention to your pain anyway, so you might as well not show it?”

Harry’s eyes flew open and whirled around again. “They didn’t beat me,” he snapped. “They didn’t whip me. They didn’t rape me. My cousin beat me up sometimes, sure, but never that badly. Stop-whatever you’re thinking.”

“There are other kinds of pain that can teach you to disregard your own emotions like that,” Malfoy said. “Other kinds of pain than physical abuse, I mean. Because it’s quite clear that you were abused. I’m just trying to determine what kind it was.”

“Let me guess,” Harry said, and held his voice steady with so much effort that he knew it would probably crack in the middle soon. “The bond is telling you that you need to find this out for my own good.”

Malfoy smiled at last, though his eyes remained intense. “No, actually. I want to know the specifics so that I can figure out how to serve you better-”

“Don’t say that.”

Malfoy paused, then said, “All right. You need me not to say that. You need to pretend that this bond doesn’t really tie us together, and that there are ways to escape it. Fine. That’s fine. But, Harry.”

Harry, who had taken a step towards the door of the room in sheer eagerness to escape, paused with his hand on the knob. “What?”

Malfoy looked him up and down, and when his eyes returned to Harry’s face, there was that fucking intensity in them again, cutting into him the way Harry imagined Muggle lasers would. Not that he had ever seen real lasers, but he had seen them at a distance on the telly, peering around the corner while the Dursleys watched it.

And that reminder just brought up his fucking childhood again, and all the things that he’d been foolish enough to confess to Malfoy last night. He gritted his teeth and held Malfoy’s eyes now because there didn’t seem to be anything else that he could do, waiting.

“Remember that I am here,” Malfoy said. “And there’s no place else I would rather be. I don’t care if the bond created that sensation in me, actually. This is where I want to be. What I do-brewing potions, teaching myself, slowly shedding the sense of slavery that I had during the war-I can still do. You’re part of my life now, but you didn’t destroy it. You don’t keep me from being myself. You’ve-amplified me, if anything. Made me bigger.”

“You can’t believe that,” Harry said feebly. “Not when you’re living in a smaller house than you’re used to, and you have to follow me around.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. “Sometimes you take things too literally.” Then he paused and snorted. “What am I saying? You’re a Gryffindor. You take everything too literally.” Then he aimed one finger at Harry, who found himself staring at it as if it was a wand.

Or a gun. That might be more appropriate, the way he kept comparing Malfoy to Muggle objects in his mind.

“I want this,” Malfoy said. “I told you, the bond gives me pleasure, and it’s more than that. This is a sense of purpose, a thing I can do that no one else really can. Bringing myself back to life is important, but it’s not a task that anyone else is going to notice if I get right, only if I fail. This way, people can notice, and I’m more involved in life again. I want you.”

“To further your purpose in the world? To further the glory of the Malfoy name?” Harry could feel his emotions shifting back into calm again. This was still a weird conversation, but at least it didn’t concern all those things that he would rather Malfoy just didn’t bring up.

“Oh, for that,” Malfoy said. “And to accept the bond, and-lots of other things.” His eyes traveled over Harry again, slowly burning, and then he walked past him and put his own hand on the doorknob. “Shall we?”

“You confuse the fuck out of me,” Harry whispered, as he followed him.

Malfoy turned back towards him, and for an instant, there was an expression on his face that could be described as remorse if Harry was feeling generous-about five bottles of Firewhisky inside him generous, really. “I’m being as clear as I can,” he murmured. “And through the bond, I can feel that you do want these things, or some of them. We’ll always disagree on how much you need to talk about your past with the Muggles, maybe.” He held up his hand when Harry opened his mouth to object. “And that’s all right, the way that friends or couples always disagree about things that are important to them in different ways. But for the rest, you might get your stubborn conscience out of the way if you can.”

He opened the door, and stepped out towards the front of St. Mungo’s. Harry trailed him, still feeling stunned.

I don’t understand him half the time, and the half that I do, he’s making such a big fuss about something as little as being filled with the adrenaline of battle and not noticing a wound because of that.

Then Harry winced and went silent. At least, in the privacy of his own head where there was no one to hear him, he could stop being stupid. He knew what Malfoy was offering, why they disagreed about it, what he would have to do to accept it.

He just didn’t know, even now, if he should.

*

“Stop staring at me like you’re about to tear my throat out.”

Harry blinked, and looked down at the book in his lap, the ostensible reason he had come into the library in the first place. Of course, when he had come into the library he hadn’t known that Malfoy would be brewing here, standing near the window and stopping every few steps in the creation of what looked like an extremely complicated potion to check the results in the vial against the illustrations in the tome beside him.

And he hadn’t known how much he would stare at the sunlight in Malfoy’s hair, and the faint smile that seemed to occupy his face when things were going right with the potion.

“Is that something you have a lot of experience with?” Harry asked, once he was sure that his voice would come out with the proper amount of dryness. “You can tell me, you know. Since we’re bonded and all.”

Malfoy’s smile vanished, and he spun on his heel as smoothly as an automaton to stare at Harry. “Stop acting as though that’s something to make fun of,” he whispered. “I don’t like it.”

Harry shrank back into the chair before he could stop himself, and then blew out his breath in irritation. Of course he knew that Malfoy wouldn’t hurt him. Not really, not-not in any appreciable way, at least. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was only trying to put you more at ease, and I thought watching you brew might. I don’t know. Give you an audience or something. Sorry,” he added, and fastened his eyes determinedly to the page in front of him.

There was a little silence, and then a clink. Harry thought Malfoy had gone back to his brewing, and was startled when a pale hand appeared on top of his book, tugging it down gently. Harry let it. Beginning Potions theory, which he had only started in the first place because he thought it might bring him closer to Malfoy, wasn’t so interesting that he resented an interruption.

“Talk to me,” Malfoy said, and it sounded like an order, which made Harry frown. Wasn’t he the “master” in the bond and supposed to be giving the orders here? But maybe the bond had also told Malfoy how much he hated that, how much he wanted to avoid it. “You sometimes act as though you want to make my life more comfortable here, but you also don’t do the simple things that I’ve told you would make me most comfortable. Why?”

Harry sighed and moved to the side on the couch. Malfoy took up the offered space, though Harry had really intended to stand up and pace a bit. And when Harry shifted, Malfoy gave him a small, half-mean smile and let his hand fall into place on Harry’s knee, shifting in turn and then gripping tight.

“I,” Harry said, staring down at the hand. It was easier to look at one part of Malfoy than his whole body, Harry supposed. “I don’t know how to explain this to you, but-it’s a little like-I don’t like talking about the things you want to talk about.”

“But you need to,” Malfoy said, his voice as simple and unshakable as it had sounded in those first moments after he explained the Defendere bond to Harry. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t feel those desires at all.”

Harry nodded and swallowed, his eyes rising to Malfoy’s face. It was near, intent, and Harry felt a flush rise to his own cheeks.

Malfoy paused, and then said, in a tone so neutral you could have painted Malfoy Manor with it, “And you want me.”

“I, yeah, that tends to happen to me,” Harry said, gripping his hair and tugging hard on it. Malfoy didn’t stop him from doing that, to his relief, which probably meant that Harry didn’t have a need for it one way or the other. “Talking to you like that means that I feel close, and it’s-people that I share intense experiences with that I want.”

Malfoy curled his lip. “Please tell me that that doesn’t apply to Weasley and Granger.”

Harry leaned nearer and lowered his voice. “Well, there was the night that we made mad, passionate love in the tent with Hermione in this furry tie that she likes to wear-”

Malfoy stared at him in such horror, with such a waxy grey tone to his skin, that Harry whooped and slumped back on the couch, laughing his heart out. Malfoy whipped his wand free and held it to his throat.

Harry grinned at him and shook his head. “Knowing that you have to do what I want takes a lot of the threat out of it, you know.”

“Not what you want, just what you need,” Malfoy said, and he scowled at him. “For putting those images in my head, you need a lot more than I’m going to give you, you realize.”

Harry let his eyes flutter at him, and Malfoy snorted and reached out, laying his hands on his shoulders. Harry stared at them, and then looked up to meet Malfoy’s eyes, an intense and shiny grey, as if he assumed that he could get away with anything now just because Harry had admitted to wanting him.

“I know some things about you, now,” Malfoy said, and his hands bore down, though not squeezing, just making Harry feel that he was surrounded by half a warm embrace-which was the case, really. “But I still don’t quite understand why you have the need to hide your needs. Why can’t you talk about the Muggles with someone? Why aren’t your friends privileged to understand you as well as I do?”

“You think it’s a privilege?” Harry muttered, but his return barb was weak, especially against the way Malfoy was staring at him.

“Harry,” Malfoy murmured, and leaned towards him, cupping Harry’s face and letting his fingers play in a gentle rhythm along his cheek. “Do you think that I would ask if I didn’t want to know?”

“If the bond didn’t make you ask,” Harry said, and closed his eyes, feeling as slimy in that moment as he had when Ron assured him the Defendere bond was permanent.

“We’ve been over that,” Malfoy said, in a voice like polished iron. “Now. I want you to tell me. If you want to talk about desires instead of needs, that’s my desire for tonight. I want to know why you feel this overwhelming compulsion to hide.”

Harry licked his lips. He hated the thought of speaking about this, as much as he would have hated the thought of speaking about the Dursleys and everything else he’d gone through as a kid if it hadn’t been for Malfoy’s relaxing massage the other night. It would sound stupid. That was the main reason he had kept it as secret as he could from everyone else, because he didn’t know how to explain it.

“Malfoy,” he said, his voice faltering.

“Call me Draco.” Malfoy’s voice was gentle, and Harry thought he heard a hint of pleading in it. That bolstered him, oddly enough. This was something Draco wanted, and that meant it was something Harry could give him.

“All right,” he said, and moved closer, putting his arm hesitantly around Draco’s waist. Draco hissed something wordless and nuzzled his hair. Then he sat there without objecting while Harry gathered his thoughts, which proved that he was-well, more patient than Harry had thought he would be, at least.

“I don’t know if I deserve someone to listen to me,” Harry said at last. He kept his head bowed and talked fast, because he didn’t think he wanted to watch Draco’s changing expression. “It’s not like I’m the only one who suffered during the war. Other people did as much as I did, and moved on. Snape did the most of all, and he’s still barely acknowledged by all the people who just want to talk about me. I don’t want that. I want-I want them to stop heaping riches and fortunes and honors and attention on me. I know that I don’t deserve as much adulation as they’re giving me, because no one could.

“And that makes me start thinking that I don’t deserve anything else, either, because I’ve already got enough attention. I could talk if I really wanted to. But it would sound like complaining, or it could, and it could put a burden on people like Ron and Hermione, who lived through most of it with me. I just don’t want to do that. I don’t want to make anyone feel like they have to listen to me. I don’t want to hurt anyone unless they’ve already shown that they’re going to hurt other people first. I don’t want to bind them into this hurt and helplessness I’ve got sometimes.”

He fell silent. For a moment, Draco breathed beside him and said nothing else. Harry wondered if he had explained it right, and if Draco really cared or was just stunned speechless at how stupid he was being. Of course, yeah, he was staying here, but that could be the pull of the bond-

“I am going to kill those Muggles,” Draco remarked, out of nowhere. “The only thing giving me difficulty is deciding how they’re going to die.”

Harry jerked back and stared at him. “You are not going to do anything to the Dursleys,” he said.

“Aren’t I?” Draco’s eyes glittered. “I think I am. They made your life very difficult, and they’re doing the same thing to me right now, since they’re the ones who convinced you that you don’t deserve any time or attention.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Harry said, after he’d spent some time gaping at Draco like a baby. “I just told you that it’s all me. I know that Ron and Hermione would probably be glad to talk to me. Of course I know that. I could just never convince myself of it enough to actually talk. The Dursleys didn’t fuck me up. I’m fine.”

“No one who goes around shrinking from the notion of being a burden on other people for asking someone to listen to him is fine,” Draco said coldly. “And I am going to kill them.”

“I don’t want you to.”

Draco’s eyes shone all the more. “No? But I think you need me to.”

“Damn, not that bloody distinction again.” Harry shoved the heel of his hand into his eyes. “You can’t get out of this by talking continually about them, Draco.”

Draco spent a few moments watching him in such a way that Harry almost wished he had, in fact, just carried on talking about the Dursleys. Then he nodded, a tiny movement of his head that nevertheless seemed to discharge half the tension floating around them. “I think you’re right. I’m sorry, Harry. I shouldn’t have assumed that you would want such a thing when I can feel that-yes, the bond tells me that you would be happiest if you never had to hear about or see your relatives again.” He paused. “I think you need to hear enough about them to know why you’re so reluctant to speak of your past, however.”

“And now you just told me,” Harry said. He hated the pleading tone in his voice, but after a moment, he decided that it could stay. He was more likely to get what he wanted from Draco that way. “Do we have to discuss it again?”

Draco smiled at him in turn, as though he had figured out a way to get what he wanted from Harry. He touched his head and ran his fingers back and forth through Harry’s hair, chuckling when Harry sighed and turned his head towards the touch. “That depends, I suppose,” he said quietly. “Are you going to be as stubborn again? Do you still think I’m a slave? Are you going to resist the bond with everything that’s in you, the way you did before?”

Harry swallowed, and found more words to say. “Another part of it is that I don’t want to be helpless. When you showed up and saved Ron and me in the alley, I felt that way.”

“Should I have felt helpless when you pulled me out of the Fiendfyre? Or when you started the Defendere bond to make sure that I had some future left after what those bastards did to me?”

Harry hesitated. Then he said, “Of course not.”

“So why should repaying one of my life-debts-you could look at it that way, if you wanted, instead of the bond-be a matter of shame for me?” Draco leaned back and cocked his head, waiting. He had even removed his hand from Harry’s head, and the distance between them felt enormous.

Harry said, “It’s different when I do it, that’s all.”

He mumbled the words, and wasn’t surprised when Draco rolled his eyes and leaned in close. “Of course you would feel that way,” he whispered. “But I frankly don’t care, Harry. I know how much of you is real, now, and how much is the front that you feel compelled to put on for people, so they won’t worry about you too much. How much of you is someone who wants more attention and wistfully dreams about it, and how much is someone who’s decided that he can’t afford people getting close to him.”

Harry shifted, his face burning. Trust Draco to phrase it in the worst way possible. “You make me sound like a scared little boy.”

“Oh, that would be an insult to scared little boys,” Draco said smoothly. “Most of them have no trouble asking the people around them for what they want and need. Or demanding it, in fact.”

Harry said, “I’m not a child.” If he said it strongly enough, he thought he could, perhaps, defeat the cool skepticism in Draco’s face.

“Of course not.” Draco shrugged and leaned back in the embrace of the couch. “Chronologically. But you’re worse than a child in the way you hold onto secrets that don’t need to be secrets, and refuse the offers of those who want to help you. I told you. Children can admit their desires. You can’t.” He paused, and Harry felt the way he had when, sprawled on the floor in front of one of the first Dark wizards he’d ever hunted, he’d seen her raise a whip. “Or you’re afraid to.”

Harry snarled at him. “You wish,” he said. “Just like when we were kids. You still wish that I’d be more frightened than I am. Because let me tell you something, Malfoy, you’re not that frightening.”

He stood up, but Draco seized his hand and held him there. “If you aren’t afraid,” he said, face shining like bone, intent under the glare Harry gave him, “then prove it to me. Do what you most want right now. You know I can’t sense that the same way through the bond as I can something you need.”

Harry glared at him. Draco sat there, unmoved, unsmiling but also not looking inclined to release his hold on Harry’s wrist, either.

Harry finally bent down and opened his mouth slightly. Draco leaned up towards him as if assuming that Harry would whisper, and he had to be close to hear properly.

Harry kissed him.

It was a hasty kiss, open-mouthed and as wet as his kiss with Cho had ever been, though for what Harry thought were better reasons. But his hands clenched in Draco’s shirt as he hauled him up, and Draco gasped into it, and his hands and legs both flailed about for a moment as though he didn’t know what to do with them. That satisfied Harry, on a level that made his groin throb almost more than the kiss did. Let’s see how he likes being the uncomfortable one in this bloody partnership.

Not that it wasn’t a splendid kiss, of course.

Finally, Harry set Draco back on his feet and licked his lips to get rid of some of the wetness. “That was what I wanted to do,” he told Draco, while Draco panted him at with bright eyes and dazed motions of his tongue, running over his lips as if seeking some sign that Harry’s mouth was still there. “Because I get close to people who care about me. And whatever category you fall into, I don’t think it’s friendship.”

He stalked off, and went back to his bedroom, and, because he still wanted to prove that sometimes he didn’t do things he wanted to do, didn’t wank.

*

“I must apologize.”

Harry looked up as Draco walked into the kitchen for breakfast the next morning, his head lowered and his steps as cautious as though he was testing the floor for tripwires. Harry drew his wand and cast a few elementary charms, murmuring the incantations but letting Draco hear them when he cocked his head. Draco frowned, and his hand drifted towards his own wand.

“What were those?” Draco asked, when Harry had finished.

“I was looking for glamours.” Harry picked up his cup of tea and gave Draco a thin smile over the top of it. “Since I don’t think what you just said is a sentence the real Draco Malfoy speaks often. But nope, no glamours, so you must have fallen on the stairs and hit your head last night. I’ll ask Kreacher to check for loose boards.”

Draco sighed and sat down in the chair across from him. “Anyone else on the planet would have accepted the Defendere bond more gracefully than you,” he announced. “That includes Weasley.”

“Ron is pure-blood, and he accepts things like that more easily than I do,” Harry said, snatching a biscuit from the plate that Kreacher brought ever morning but always sneaked away as soon as he could. “Look at his wedding vows.”

“Is it simply the forms of commitment that bother you, then?” Draco scanned him from top to toe.

“You’re the expert on my inner mind, you tell me,” Harry said, and popped a second biscuit into his mouth. The chocolate melted on his tongue, and he sighed. Kreacher, lurking near the doorway, gave him a distressed look. Ever since one of Ron’s teasing remarks months ago, he had been convinced that too many biscuits meant Harry would be too fat to run away from evil wizards.

Draco clasped his hands in front of him and closed his eyes as though meditating. Harry rolled his eyes at nothing and waited.

He had to admit that Draco’s face could be pretty pleasant to look at like this, as long as he wasn’t chattering about bonds and needs. He had the angles, sure, but they had changed to make him look like an adult and not a child. His eyes were a brilliant grey-not that Harry could see that at the moment-and when he gave his focus to something, it was intense.

You distracted him from his brewing yesterday.

Harry shrugged and picked up a third biscuit. All that meant was that the bond had changed Draco into a different person-someone that Harry felt sorry for, because he could never be what he would have been without that.

“No,” Draco said, and opened his eyes with a gasp that made him sound like he was surfacing from deep water. “That’s not it. You think-you don’t want to be a burden on others, you don’t want to impose on them, and that includes thinking that you deform their lives or impose on them by asking for things. You want them to go their merry way, without any impact from you one way or the other. There are exceptions. Your friends, the people you capture.” He leaned forwards until he was a few breaths’ distance from Harry, close enough for his voice to melt the chocolate as Harry sat frozen. “But for most of us, you think that we’d somehow be better off without you. You don’t want commitments because you don’t want anyone bound to you the way they were bound to you as the Savior of the World. The most important person in the world for a lot of us, whether we wanted you to be or not.”

Then he stole Harry’s biscuit, and, leaning back in the chair, ate it. “Did I pass the exam?” he added.

Harry opened his mouth, but he had no words, just as he had no food. And sure enough, when he glanced around, Kreacher had triumphantly whisked the plate back to the kitchen.

Harry stood up and staggered towards the door.

“Harry?” Draco asked behind him.

Harry held up one hand, shook his head, and escaped the house with the sound of truth ringing in his ears.

Part Four.

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