Chapter Nineteen of 'The Name I'll Give to Thee'- Around the Corner
Chapter Eighteen.
Title: The Name I’ll Give to Thee (19/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco (eventual), Ron/Hermione, Lucius/Narcissa
Rating: R
Warnings: Heavy angst, violence, illness, references to canonical child abuse, forced adoption.
Summary: Harry just saved the world-again. But he did it by pulling on the magic and lives of all the wizards tied to him, and the Malfoys had the most to lose. Now Draco is demanding the ancient payment of such a debt: that Harry become a Malfoy, in name and life and tradition.
Author’s Notes: This is going to be a long, slow-moving story, with lots of angst, especially at the beginning. I don’t yet know how long it’ll be. The title comes from a variation on a line in the poem “Be Mine, and I Will Give Thy Name” by William Cox Bennett.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Nineteen-Around the Corner
“Why did you let me sleep this long, Ossy?” Harry snapped at the house-elf as he tugged his shirt over his head and then smoothed it down over his stomach with a few angry pats.
He and Draco had come home last night, and Ossy had immediately appeared in Harry’s room and glared at him. Harry couldn’t figure out why until Ossy had come back with a new set of clothes. He supposed that he had slept in his dress robes in hospital, but for Merlin’s sake, he’d used charms on them to ensure that he didn’t come back to the Manor stinking. So the honor of the Malfoy family ought to be clean.
But it seemed Ossy didn’t consider it was until he had dressed Harry in a new set of loose-fitting clothes that looked like they were somewhere between robes and pyjamas, and then hustled him into bed and fed him. Harry had been concerned over Narcissa, assuming that Affy was doing the same for Draco, but Ossy had told him they were both under his care and then vanished before Harry could contest him.
Now he had discovered it was nearly ten-o’clock in the morning, and God knew what Draco would do to him for being late to breakfast.
Harry suddenly realized Ossy hadn’t answered, and looked up again. It was unlike him not to let Harry know what was going on in his mind, and this seemed a rather strange thing not to have an answer for.
He discovered that Ossy was pinching his own chin with long fingers, and staring at Harry broodingly. Harry rolled his eyes and snorted. “Does my shirt not fit right?”
“Master Harry Potter was needing sleep.”
Apparently that was the answer to his first question, and he wouldn’t get a second one, because Ossy would have popped him out of this shirt and into a different one in moments if it didn’t fit, and also expected Harry to know that. Harry rolled his eyes again and moved for the door.
Ossy disappeared-and appeared in his way, so that Harry would have had to trample over him to get out. Harry halted and stared at him. Ossy went on pinching and stroking his chin, but this time he met Harry’s eyes while he did it.
“Master Harry Malfoy is not being feeling well.”
Harry looked down at his arms, wondering if he had broken out in welts from some hex that he didn’t remember. It was true that his left arm still bore the bandages that the Healers had wrapped around the wound, but Ossy had stared at them and sniffed them-which was disturbing-yesterday and then declared them fine. So Harry didn’t know what Ossy had to be concerned about.
“What do you mean?” he asked, swallowing experimentally, in case he had started to develop a sore throat from some of the food Ossy had had him eat yesterday. Good food, yes, but still richer than most of the things Harry had been used to eating in his life.
“Master Harry is not doing well,” Ossy said, and stamped one foot as though Harry should be able to read his mind. “Master Harry is being worried too much.” Those words came out in a stiff and measured manner, as though he was making a great concession to Harry’s obviously limited intelligence.
“I don’t know what you mean, and I already overslept,” Harry snapped. “Draco probably has books laid out in the library for me, and then this afternoon I’ll need to watch Narcissa. Excuse me.” He edged around Ossy.
“Master Harry is doing other things.”
That sounded like another of those prophecy-proclamations that Ossy was fond of making. Harry cocked his head back towards him. “Then you should speak to Draco about that,” he said. “Because I’m pretty sure those are the things that he wants me to do.”
Ossy did some more glaring, then threw up his hands and disappeared. Harry sighed. He didn’t want to irritate Ossy, who seemed to care about him, but he honestly didn’t know what Ossy meant, either, and he was going to be dealing with enough things where he didn’t know what they meant today, given the pure-blood history books he had to read.
Draco wasn’t in the dining room, after all. Harry reckoned that made sense, when he thought about it. Draco’s wound had probably kept him in bed, and Ossy would fuss a lot more about Draco as an invalid than someone like Harry whose cut was already healing.
He grabbed a few scones from the plate of them sitting in the middle of the table, spread them with the butter and the honey that either Ossy or Affy had left there, and retreated to the library. He would beat the words of the history book into his head by force if necessary. Hermione sometimes said that applying a book to his forehead would make him learn more than simply teaching him.
But she said that about Ron, too, so Harry didn’t think he needed to worry.
*
Draco smiled and signed the letter with a flourish. Harry had come up with a good plan when he’d left it to Draco to blackmail the Healers of St. Mungo’s. Draco could imagine a subtle and credible threat, while Harry would probably still be scowling at the parchment and sucking at the tip of his quill in bewilderment.
Not necessarily.
Draco leaned back with a frown as he remembered that-that Harry had revealed his capacity to think when he came up with this plan, and that he could think, after all. Draco wondered what he was doing right now, and whether it had anything to do with his thinking capacity.
He snapped his fingers, and Ossy appeared, looking as though he was in the middle of a long baking session, from the apron draped on his head. Draco had never known why Ossy particularly wanted to protect his ears and head from the flour and sugar he handled, but as long as he continued to wear something suitable over his groin, it wasn’t Draco’s business, either.
“Master Draco Malfoy is being in bed,” said Ossy, glancing over Draco’s position, flat on his stomach in the bed, with sheets pulled up and warmed over the wound. Ossy had done that last night before Draco fell asleep, and the charm was long-lasting, as was the same with all domestic magic cast by a house-elf.
“Yes,” Draco said. “But I still want to know what Harry is doing. Carry a message to him and ask him to visit me immediately, would you?”
Ossy immediately bobbed his head. “Master Harry is being in the library and studying,” he announced. “He is be coming up here immediately!” And he winked out of existence so fast that he might have been waiting for the order all morning.
Draco blinked at that. He hadn’t specifically told Harry to go to the library and study. If anything, he would have assumed Harry was watching Narcissa, since he seemed to enjoy that more.
What made him decide on that?
Then Draco shrugged. It was true Harry still needed lots of work at understanding even basic pure-blood concepts. He might be more intelligent than Draco had thought, but he couldn’t make plans or understand their enemies without knowledge. Draco settled himself more comfortably and awaited Harry’s coming.
*
Harry leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms wearily. His head thrummed and swam with words, words about pure-blood ancestors and chains of inheritance and the Ministry’s founding and what that had done to the laws of inheritance. Nothing, as far as Harry could tell, except that the Ministry kept more permanent and less easily-accessed records and so some of the faking that had gone on was no longer possible. He had probably missed something, because that seemed too simple.
“Master Harry Potter is coming.”
Harry almost leaped out of his skin. When he got focused on reading, he got really focused, and Ossy had startled him by appearing like that. He turned around, trying to swallow the panic in his mouth so that he wouldn’t say or spew up something unexpected, and nodded. “Does Draco want to see me? Or want me to start watching Narcissa now?”
Ossy was standing still, his eyes fastened on the table where Harry had been studying. Harry followed his gaze and saw the crumbs from the scones still scattered on the books.
He blushed and waved his wand to Vanish them. Ossy probably spent a lot of time each day cleaning-or baking, if the apron he peered at Harry from under was any indication-and Harry hadn’t meant to add to his trouble. “Sorry. I’ll use a plate next time.”
Ossy looked at him and shook his head. Apparently the sight of crumbs on pages was too great a disappointment to be handled any other way. “Master Draco Malfoy is wanting Master Harry Malfoy in his bedroom,” he said softly, and started to lift his hand the way he usually did when Apparating.
“Can you please guide me there?” Harry asked quickly. He knew the vague direction Draco’s wing lay in, but there were too many corridors for him to be sure, and he’d been too tired last night to really note the direction Affy and Ossy had borne Draco off in.
Ossy appeared closer to Harry’s chair, making him jump again, and once more leaned in. “Master Harry Potter is doing well,” he whispered.
Then he turned and walked out of the room, his back firm and straight. Harry blinked after him, then followed after him. He really didn’t know what had changed, except that Ossy seemed to think he had healed from the sickness that was threatening him earlier, and as long as that was changed and he didn’t disappoint Ossy, then Harry thought he might be forgiven for scattering crumbs on the books.
*
“How are you feeling?”
Draco nodded as he studied Harry. He didn’t move as if his left arm hurt him, which Draco thought was probably the best result anyone could expect after using the kind of stupid spell that Harry had. Harry took a chair at the side of the bed and leaned towards him, eyes anxious as he studied Draco.
I suppose he does care for me a bit after all. Draco smiled slightly. “Why do you conceal your intelligence?” he asked.
Harry blinked a bit, then said, “That doesn’t sound good. Are you feeling so bad that you’re delusional?” This time, he was clearly studying Draco’s eyes, looking for some sign of blown pupils or glaze.
Draco scowled at him. And I try to compliment him, and he dismisses it out of hand. I should have known that it was more than likely to end up like this. “Idiot. I’m fine. But the plan you came up with, to have me blackmail the Healers, isn’t something a stupid person would come up with. So I want to know. How long have you been telling people that you can only succeed by being rash when you know full well that you’re capable of devising complex plans like this?”
Harry hunched in on himself and scowled at Draco, as though his words were enough to hurt Harry. “I didn’t say I was stupid. I disagreed with you whenever you brought the subject up in Hogwarts, remember.”
“You implied otherwise with Potions,” Draco snapped, and then took a deep breath. He would let himself be distracted by this if he waited too long. He wasn’t here to rehash arguments that should have been long over by now, and he wouldn’t let his old perception of Harry distract him from the new one. “Look, Harry. I just wanted to know why you made it sound as if you could only react to something that happened, not act. I should have guessed it when you made that plan to get us out of the party, in fact. You’re smarter than you wanted me to know about. Why?”
Harry shook his head hard enough to make Draco flinch a little at the thought of what a jerk it must have given his neck. “You’re twisting things again,” Harry complained. “I said I was good at one thing and not another. You’re the one who’s decided that being good at complex plans and working things out in advance is the same as being intelligent. I just tried to give you a realistic view of what my strengths and weaknesses were. That’s all.”
Draco leaned back, his eyes narrowed. If that was true, then Harry really had done his best, and told the truth as he saw it. Draco didn’t have to think he was lying.
No, instead I simply may be unable to trust the way he estimates himself, and have to second-guess him.
Draco worked his hands into the sheets, stroking and clutching the blankets, and said quietly, “Look. We have to be able to work together. If you make a plan in the future, even if you think it’s one I may not approve of, bring it up to me. All right?”
Harry only nodded. “Of course,” he said a minute later, when Draco guessed that the pressure of his gaze had begun to demand an answer. “I wouldn’t keep it from you. I know that’s not the way for us to survive, either individually or as a couple.”
“Or as a family,” Draco stressed. “We need to think about ourselves as members of a family, even more than individuals.”
“All right,” Harry said.
Draco watched him in frustration. He still thought there was something he wasn’t reaching, some deep essence of Harry that he hadn’t brought to the surface, and that Harry was hiding from him. But he couldn’t imagine what it would be. He had Harry’s word he wouldn’t keep his concerns to himself, and he knew Harry was intelligent now, not the tower of unthinking brute strength he had thought him. (He had so little strength, in fact). But what did Draco want? Someone who argued with him all the time? That would hardly be in the best tradition of Malfoys and their demi-spouses, either.
“Fine,” he said at last. “I’d like you to go watch my mother now.”
Harry nodded, and stood up, and cast a Warming Charm that made Draco gasp a little. It landed on the muscles around the wound, not directly on top of the injury, and relaxed and loosened them. Draco stretched, groaning. Affy and Ossy were more than happy to cast any magic for him that he couldn’t yet manage for himself, but he had to ask for what he wanted, and he wouldn’t have done it with this spell, which he hadn’t known existed.
“Why did you do that?” he whispered, when he could recover his voice.
Harry shrugged. “You looked uncomfortable,” he said. “This is a spell that’s helped me sometimes when I’ve been wounded on an Auror mission. It worked?” He looked into Draco’s eyes for a minute, and then nodded, looking satisfied. “It worked.”
“Do go away,” Draco breathed, leaning his head back into his hands.
He heard the door open and shut, and had no doubt that Harry had done as he commanded. And he would do what else Draco had commanded, and would go and watch Narcissa until one of the house-elves could relieve him.
It was-all that Draco could have asked for, of course. He could so easily have had a demi-spouse who mocked and laughed in the face of the Malfoy family’s traditions, or refused to marry him at all. Given that Harry was the son of a Muggleborn witch and had fought on the opposite side of the war, he was doing well.
Which didn’t explain the more that Draco wanted from him, or the way that Draco really couldn’t have put what he wanted into words.
*
Harry achieved that state of watchful alertness more easily this time, and counted the time between Narcissa’s breaths and heartbeats without effort. This time, when Ossy appeared next to his chair, Harry could turn to him and nod, recognizing him, without starting and thinking he was an enemy.
“Master Harry is coming downstairs now,” Ossy said, with that hard shine in his eyes that meant Harry had fucked up again, somehow. “Ossy is having to fetch him.”
“I’m sorry, Ossy,” Harry said. His voice sounded passionless, which was probably the reason Ossy eyed him, but he didn’t mean to sound weak or as though he wasn’t paying attention. It just took him some time to come back to a normal state of mind when he’d been so deep in concentration. “I’ll be there directly.” He stood up and paused, stretching, then cast the charm he’d used on Draco earlier on his own back. The muscles loosened and flowed, and he thought he was ready for the uncomfortable chairs in the Malfoy dining room.
Ossy did some more glaring. Harry watched him with his eyebrows raised, but Ossy said nothing, so Harry walked out of the room and down the stairs he knew well by now, hearing the small bang behind him as Affy Apparated in to take up the watch over Narcissa. So long as she had someone with her at all times, Healer Bowman’s wishes were being obeyed.
Harry wished he had more idea of the right thing to do, that he could accelerate the process Bowman was using to work on a cure for her, or do something other than simply sit there. But he had seen the perils of acting as a Healer without advice when he nearly killed himself over George. He would wait this time, and do what the Healer said to do, and nothing else.
“You’re late.”
Draco’s voice was sharp as Harry took his seat at the dining room table. He had a cushion behind his back, Harry noted, between his wound and the thin, knobbly back of the chair. He nodded at Draco and began to eat as the first course appeared before him, a soup so thick and steaming that it obscured most of the actual ingredients. Good, though, Harry judged. Some of it was probably beef. “Sorry.”
“Didn’t you realize it was six-o’clock?”
Harry looked up and blinked. That seemed a silly question to ask, although at first he couldn’t think why. Then he shrugged. “You didn’t tell me the time when Affy would be rested enough to watch her,” he said, and returned to his soup.
“You could have come and asked.”
“How, without leaving her or disturbing Affy’s sleep?” Harry asked. He was proud of himself for remaining so reasonable in the face of Draco’s provocation. Not that he thought Draco was really fighting with him the way he would have fought when they were children. It was just that Draco wasn’t thinking of how Harry could have done or known all this, and his back was probably hurting him. Harry needed to make allowances for his pain.
Draco said nothing. Harry looked up and found his face was twisted as though he’d bitten into a pickle without warning.
“You could have called for Ossy, and sent him to ask me,” Draco said.
He still sounded angrier than the situation warranted. Probably because it takes away from the time I can spend with the pure-blood books, and that means I’m more likely to embarrass him when we go out in public, Harry realized. “Sorry,” he repeated. “I didn’t think of it.”
They ate the rest of the first course, and the second, a flaky silvery fish on a bed of vegetables, in silence. Harry became aware that Draco was stabbing the fish with his fork, so hard the fork scraped and rang off the plate, and winced. “Do you need a pain potion?” he asked. He should have thought to ask before.
“No, I don’t need a fucking pain potion.”
Harry looked up, gaping. He had heard Draco swear plenty of times, but never in a context like this, with so little prompting. “What?” he asked.
“I would have sent Ossy for a pain potion if I needed one.” Draco leaned forwards. “Just the same way you could have sent him to ask when I needed you to stop watching.”
“Okay,” Harry said, mystified. He didn’t understand exactly what he had done wrong, but maybe not making use of the expected services of house-elves was enough. “I’ll remember that next time. Sorry,” he added, and returned to his fish.
“It’s not enough.” Draco pressed himself forwards, only to hiss and sit back down when his back rose out of the cushion. Harry met his eyes and started to stand up, but the vicious glare from Draco had him sinking back down. “You have to-you have to do more than this.”
Harry laid his fork carefully beside his plate, in the proper position. “I don’t understand,” he said. “You want me to start studying different books? Sit with you? Do something else to promote the Malfoy name? That interview with me that Skeeter did was pretty successful. Do you want me to do another one?”
Draco threw his fork at Harry. Harry ducked it, and came up staring at him again. “I think you do need a pain potion,” he said, and looked around. Ossy popped into being beside Harry’s chair, although he didn’t go for a potion. He just stood there with his eyes twitching and jerking, looking back and forth between Draco and Harry as if he wondered which of them had the right to command him in this instance.
“I don’t need a fucking pain potion,” Draco said, between his teeth this time. “You’re not listening.”
“Tell me what you need me to do, and I’ll be happy to do it,” Harry said. He could feel himself settling into the same calm, patient alertness he had adopted when he was watching Narcissa. Maybe Draco was the one who needed it more, in which case he was even gladder that he’d practiced it.
Draco was silent for long moments, mouth twisted as though he’d chewed something else sour, and then he said, “I need you to stop being so eager to bloody help people, okay? Do-something else. Give your passion to me. Argue with me. You sat there watching my mother today and you weren’t hungry at all, you didn’t notice time passing? That bothers me. Why didn’t you notice?”
“Because I’ve done things like that before, in the Aurors,” Harry said. “And I’m an expert at skipping meals. I like eating, but I can go without them for a while before I notice.” He ignored the way that he could feel Ossy staring at him. Yeah, so what? The house-elf couldn’t be any more interfering or officious than he was already.
Then he had to pause and consider the terrifying prospect that he could, and shuddered a little.
“I want you to come to me and ask,” Draco said, standing up and throwing his napkin on the table. He hobbled away, but when Harry started forwards to help him, Draco hissed at him and gestured Ossy to him instead. Harry stepped back and watched as Ossy made Draco float to the doorway of the dining room.
Draco turned back, cocking his head, to say, “You’re not a servant. You’re my husband. I want you to claim something for yourself, feel emotions, talk to me. Not just do what I ask.”
He left. Harry sat back down in some bewilderment, and a dessert that seemed to be comprised mostly of cherries in some kind of sauce appeared, glaring at him; it was in the shape of Ossy’s face. Harry had no doubt he was supposed to stay and eat instead of following, so he did that, but never took his eyes off the doorway.
He wants me to argue with him? But no, not exactly.
He wants me to-live with him. Show him what I feel instead of keeping everything to myself. I reckon, at least.
But why he wants that, I can’t say.
Chapter Twenty.
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