Chapter Forty of 'The Name I'll Give to Thee'- Some Answers

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Thirty-Nine.

Title: The Name I’ll Give to Thee (40/?)
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 Forty-Some Answers

Harry had to say this for her: Once she realized what was going on, Daphne Greengrass knew how to react, and fast.

The walls came into being around them. Greengrass turned her head, smiling, eyes lingering on the furniture and the colors in the bedroom as though she could use them to judge how wealthy Harry was. And hell, for all Harry knew, she could. What just said “expensive” to him might explain itself to her in terms of Galleons.

But her face changed a moment later, and she whirled towards him, extending her wand towards his heart. Her eyes were narrowed, her throat visibly bounding as she came to terms with something.

“I should have known,” she whispered. “I should have known who you were.” She gave a loathing look to Harry’s hands, as though being touched by a Mudblood was worse than anything else she could imagine. “You can’t do anything gracefully.”

“Including kidnapping you, you mean?” Harry asked calmly. He saw no need to react. This one bedroom had dropped the anti-Apparition wards so they could come into it, but Draco would have snapped them back up the minute they appeared-and Draco still hadn’t revealed himself under the Disillusionment Charm. “I thought I managed that gracefully enough.”

Greengrass hissed like a snake who didn’t know how to speak its own language, and struck at him.

Or she tried. Her wand twisted neatly out of her hand, and flew towards Harry, since he had cast a nonverbal Expelliarmus, always a good precaution when dealing with someone this enraged. Then Draco was on her, grabbing her arms from behind and twisting her towards the floor, kicking her legs out from under her when she tried to resist.

“Draco,” she said, and stared back and forth between the two of them as Harry removed the glamour and his contacts. The makeup over the dragon scar he left in place, for now. He didn’t need to hear Greengrass make fun of it. It would be hard enough to retain his temper during the interrogation.

“Yes,” Draco said, and smiled at her in a way Harry had never seen. In fact, Draco looked a little strange in general, with a violent flush to his cheeks and his hands clenched so hard in Greengrass’s robe that he must have twisted the collar up around her neck and be hurting her. Harry wondered if something else had happened while he was flirting with Greengrass to make Draco upset or worried. “A good choice, that first name. If you had called out ‘Malfoy,’ then both of us would have had to answer.”

“You can’t do this,” Greengrass said, in the confused manner a child might use. She twisted and kicked in Draco’s grasp, and seemed more astonished than ever when he simply restrained her. “You’ll get in trouble for taking me.”

“During your long lunch?” Draco was flitting his hands over her robes now without letting go of the grip he used to imprison her, feeling for weapons, Harry assumed. He took something silver and twisted out of one pocket and flung it aside with a shudder. To Harry, it only looked like a corkscrew, but he had never made a special study of weapons the way he had of spells. “I don’t think so.”

Greengrass let her head droop for a second, panting. She wasn’t fooling anybody, though, and although Draco watched her instead of touching her, he was ready the second she moved again, trying to whip her head back to bash him in the nose with her skull. He simply leaned back out of the way, and then kept feeling for weapons, smiling into her face as he did so.

“A good try,” he said, condescendingly enough that Harry had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. That would enrage Greengrass. “Really, it was.”

This time, Greengrass tried to kick and bite him, and Harry was tired of that nonsense. He bound her with Incarcerous ropes and put her on the bed. Greengrass was unable to move; Harry had used some of the tightest knots that the spell could conjure. It didn’t prevent her from trying to spit in Draco’s face.

“None of that,” Harry said, his voice cold enough that Greengrass snapped her eyes to him at once. “We just need to know how long you’ve been conspiring with Blaise Zabini, and who you used to stab Draco in the Ministry.”

Greengrass flinched so hard that the bed bounced. Harry exchanged a hard smile with Draco. Of course she would deny that she’d done it, when she was here and surrounded by unsympathetic enemies, but that involuntary reaction was all the proof either of them needed.

“You’re mental,” Greengrass whispered, shaking her head. “You have no-you have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“Maybe not,” Harry agreed pleasantly. “Not yet. But you’re going to tell us. And you should be aware that we already know about the other things Zabini did to try to rid himself of me and take my place. We might not know about all the parts that you had in it, but he gave you up to us.”

Draco blinked at him, but Harry maintained his bland smile. If Greengrass thought Zabini had betrayed her, she had even less reason to trust him after this, and she might turn any spite she still had on him.

“He did not,” Greengrass whispered, but her teeth was clenching. Harry reflected that the problem with having friends in the way these Slytherins had friends was that you distrusted them as much as you relied on them, probably more. “He promised that he would never do anything like that.”

Draco laughed at her and tapped his basilisk wand against his palm. “He had a better offer.”

Greengrass shut her eyes and lay there as though struggling to master her doubt and take apart the suspicions forming in her mind. Harry didn’t intend to give her that time. He leaned towards her and made her jump when he touched his wand to the center of her forehead. She stared at him with some muddy mixture of dread and desire.

“Listen,” Harry said quietly. “We want the full and true story of that night at the Ministry party, anything you know about it. If you don’t tell us, then we’ll simply take it from your mind.” He had never learned to be a painless or graceful Legilimens, but he had managed to force his way into Snape’s mind, and sometimes a few other people’s when information was vital and they were running out of time. He thought Greengrass would probably find that threat more disturbing than Veritaserum.

Sure enough, her whole body flinched. She lay still and panted for a few moments, hands folded behind her head. Then she said, in a high, thin voice, “You can’t-you can’t seriously believe that I wanted to sleep with you.”

Harry discounted that. She had made him the offer the night of Draco’s party, and she had been attracted enough by a few relatively simple changes in his face and the way he acted. “That doesn’t matter right now,” he said. “What we want to know is whether you were involved in that stabbing. Did you do it yourself, or hire someone else?”

Greengrass sneered. “As though I would want to get blood on my hands.”

“Hired someone else, then,” Draco said, prowling in from the side. Harry had to admire the angles of his face at the moment, the poised and perfect sneer there. “I told you, Harry. Someone like her is never going to do her own dirty work.”

Harry raised his eyebrows and smiled. “I can see the attraction of that philosophy, but she should have covered her tracks better. Or been smart enough not to trust a Slytherin, perhaps.” He looked pointedly at Greengrass.

That made her spit and twist in her bonds. “You know nothing about it,” she whispered. “You know nothing about pure-bloods, or the way we want to marry.”

“I know enough to realize that it was counterproductive for you to stab Draco-excuse me, arrange to have him stabbed,” Harry added, when the perfectly furious look settled back over her face. “Zabini wanted to marry him. Was he happy about you threatening him?”

Greengrass seemed to have forgotten that, at one point, she hadn’t wanted them to know this. She sneered and drew herself up. “He was going to go in and present himself as the hero, while you, as a false demi-husband, wouldn’t even have known Draco was in danger. He only had one thing to do, and he blew it. I played my part perfectly.”

Harry gave her a little smile. “Who stabbed him? Who did you hire?”

“That’s a name that I don’t need to give you.” Greengrass’s gaze was clear and cold, and there was something about her face that Harry might have admitted was beautiful if his tastes tended that way. As it was, he found people who had left his husband bleeding on the floor in a bathroom repulsive. “I hired him, and he stabbed you, and that was all he was there to do. Not too deep, and in the right place. I would have distracted you, Potter, but you decided to look for Draco first.” She shook her head. “Not my fault that it didn’t work out the way Blaise wanted it to.”

Harry looked up at Draco. Draco nodded slightly. He didn’t think they needed to feed Veritaserum to Greengrass to get the name. More than likely, she was telling the truth, and it was only a random mercenary, the kind of wizard who would do anything for a few Galleons. He wouldn’t come after Draco again. If Greengrass hadn’t paid him, she was the one who would have to watch out for his attacks.

“I have no objection to whatever you want to do,” Draco said, his eyes glittering and his face flushed. Harry cast him another curious glance. He looked almost aroused by the predicament they had Greengrass in, but Harry couldn’t imagine that he would-

Oh.

The way Draco looked at him was what made the flush deepen in his cheeks, and his hands twitched as if he would reach across the bed and grab Harry, drag him in and drape him over the bed. Harry looked off to the side, clearing his throat awkwardly. Greengrass stared between him and Draco at that, and Draco’s smile deepened, his eyelids falling over his eyes briefly as if to shield what burned there from her gaze.

“Do you want to kill Draco now?” Harry asked. “Or me?” He was a little surprised that Greengrass hadn’t chosen to retaliate against him directly, when he was the one who had insulted her, but there was that complicated, indirect, Slytherin pure-blood thing again.

“No,” Greengrass said. “Why should I? I paid you back for the insult. Not my fault that you were too stupid to recognize the repayment when you saw it.” She sneered at Harry again.

Draco looked down at her, and Harry thought for a moment he would strangle her. His twitching hands certainly tended that way. Harry interrupted hastily. “Then I think a Memory Charm ought to be enough. Draco?”

Draco looked at him with eyes as motionless as a lizard’s. Harry had to repeat his words before Draco shook his head a little and said, “Yes. I think that’ll work.” He drew his wand, and laid it against Greengrass’s forehead.

“You know I’ll get around it,” Greengrass said, staring up, apparently communicating something to Draco with the words that Harry didn’t understand, because Draco’s jaw tightened. “No matter what you do, you were always shite at Memory Charms, Draco. I’ll find my way around this, and I’ll make sure that you regret it when I do.”

“Enough,” Harry snapped at her. “I don’t actually enjoy hearing someone threaten my husband, Greengrass.”

“I’m not concerned about you,” Greengrass said, in the kind of empty tone that indicated she really might not be. “I was talking with your husband here.”

“Right, Draco,” Harry said, feeling a great coldness take him over. His voice mimicked hers. He could have borne it if she had simply threatened him, or if her retaliation had been against him directly, the Memory Charm would have been enough. But to hear her speak like that of Draco, as though their demi-marriage was nothing… “I want to mingle another spell with the Memory Charm, if I might, Draco?”

Draco turned to him, his breathing speeding up and his flush getting even deeper. Harry blinked until he remembered what Draco had said about Harry’s more powerful magic getting him interested.

Harry blushed, because he couldn’t help it, but he didn’t see a reason to back down when he was doing this for his husband’s sake. He cocked his head back and lifted his wand in a slow, sensuous movement instead.

Draco closed his eyes, with a small movement at his groin. His voice was a little choked. “What spell?”

“Just one to give her a generalized slimy feeling,” Harry said, and smiled into Greengrass’s face. It surprised him, now, how little he cared about her. This was for Draco, all of it. “And you make the suggestion, via the Memory Charm, that she slept with a Hufflepuff and noticed that his cock was dripping after she woke up next to him. She really ought to get tested for that, don’t you think? Only the feeling won’t leave, no matter what cleansing charms she uses down there.”

Draco burst out laughing. Greengrass simply gaped at Harry as though she had no idea who had stolen his skin and replaced him with a Slytherin.

“Excellent,” Draco said, when he could stop laughing. “I admire you sometimes, Harry.” He dropped his voice. “I want you.”

“Yeah, I knew that,” Harry pointed out.

Draco’s eyes glowed with a fiercer light, and it occurred to Harry that letting Draco know he was doing this to show off to him might not be the best way to calm Draco’s desire down.

Do I want to calm it down?

He wasn’t sure, and he had to admit that showing off in front of Greengrass was increasing his own desire, making a slow, long, burning feeling settle in the bottom of his stomach. So he smiled at Draco and turned back to Greengrass, and cast his spell as Draco cast the Memory Charm.

Draco’s voice droned out the words he and Harry had agreed on, adding a few details about humiliation and Greengrass’s imaginary lover throwing her out of their bed that Harry didn’t think were necessary, but supposed were Draco’s part of their revenge. All the while, Draco’s eyes were on him, and his smile was deep, and his head kept inclining as though he intended to bow to Harry.

Harry would keep him from doing that if he intended to, which didn’t seem likely. Harry’s hands would keep Draco from doing anything but falling on the bed and yielding to him, would pry his mouth open if he tried to keep it closed, would stroke Draco’s skin and make him moan.

It was enough to make him practically dance with joy when Draco ordered Ossy to Apparate Greengrass back to the middle of Diagon Alley, and they were finally alone. He moved towards Draco, but Draco grabbed him and propelled him up against the wall before Harry could throw him to the bed, his mouth seeking Harry’s.

Harry understood a minute later. Of course Draco didn’t want to have sex on the bed where Greengrass had lain telling them about her attempt to murder him. Harry understood, in fact he approved, and his hands were just as fast in diving under Draco’s clothes as Draco’s hands were in diving under his.

Just as long as we get to a bed quickly.

*

Draco couldn’t believe how hungry he was. He had thought he would calm down a little when Daphne was on the bed in front of them, making her spitting noises and struggling in the ropes like a cat, but he hadn’t. Not when Harry was looking at him like that, conscious of Draco enjoying him and wanting Draco to enjoy him.

Draco had never before had a lover who was initially reluctant in his bed before, and he had known nothing about what that reluctance turning to teasing would do to his passion.

Now he knew. It kindled him like a burning sacrifice, and he drove Harry into the bedroom he’d had Ossy prepare, licking and sucking at his lips, shivering when Harry pinched his nipples and ran his hands up and down Draco’s shoulders, but resisting the temptation to simply give in. Harry would have to earn that.

And he had things to teach Harry, things to show him.

Namely, how happy he made Draco.

This bedroom had large windows with long red curtains and a huge bed that would probably have been dusty in any home without house-elves, and still did have a faintly abandoned air. Draco grinned as he pitched Harry onto it. Who knew who had last slept here, guest or Malfoy? Either way, Draco fully intended to surpass anything they had done.

Harry flipped over on his stomach. Draco wondered what he was doing, until Harry cast a spell that floated his shirt off over his head and wriggled his arse at the same time.

Wriggled. His. Arse.

Draco went slightly mad. That was his only explanation for pouncing on Harry and trying to take his trousers off with his teeth. At least Harry helped him with the trousers, although sometimes he laughed and Draco had to break off from the stripping and pop up to occupy his mouth with a kiss. It was nothing personal, just what he had to do, and Harry was gracious about accepting it, tilting his head back to take Draco’s tongue into his mouth, and licking Draco’s lips in return until Draco almost forgot that such things as recalcitrant trousers existed.

Harry stripped Draco naked before Draco got a hand on Harry's pants, and then it was Harry’s kicking as much as Draco’s tugging that removed them. And then Draco could lean back and look at Harry’s body, his chest flinching in and out with his breath, his taut stomach, his cock resting and dripping there, and bow his head.

Harry arched up, almost guiding himself into Draco’s mouth before Draco got it down. Draco made him lie still by the simple expedient of slamming his hips to the bed, and finally got his mouth where he wanted it, around Harry’s cock. Then he was sucking and moaning, and Harry was shouting as he reached down to grab Draco’s hair.

Draco didn’t enjoy being pulled away the way Harry did to him, and made his point with an especially hard suck. But when he pulled back and stared Harry in the eye, Harry didn’t look at all repentant.

“Get in me before I strain something,” he snapped.

Draco went a little mad again, and although he was sure that Harry could have told all the movements he made as he slicked his fingers and got them inside Harry, and then his cock and got it inside Harry, his own memory turned into a rush of sensation. There was the tightness and warmth around one part of his body, and then around another, the most sensitive part. He shut his eyes and bit his lip and rocked. It was a long moment before he could touch Harry with his hands, or part his lips to speak, or open his eyes.

When he could look, Harry’s face was red, and straining after all. Draco started to lean into him, reach towards him. He was afraid that he might have hurt Harry without realizing it and that Harry had simply borne the pain because he didn’t want to ruin Draco’s pleasure.

But Harry threw his head back and cried out, and Draco knew then that he had been trying to keep the cry in, as if it would embarrass him. The flush in his cheeks were growing redder and darker, too, and the way he reached out, his fingers clutching at air, to thread his hands into Draco’s hair and onto his shoulders, always slipping, never touching for long, showed how violent this was.

How good.

Draco smiled smugly-he knew it was smug-and rocked, then lost the smugness in a gasp and rush of new pleasure. Harry twisted a little and raised himself up, with what strength Draco didn’t know, and shoved himself back.

Finally, they found a rhythm that suited them both, or sometimes suited them. Harry kept stopping to break it up with fast, irregular thrusts into the air, and Draco continually forgot what he was doing and groped Harry’s hips to hold him still for just a little while, because what he felt at that moment in time was so incredible. But then it would go back to the endless mess of thrusting and thrashing and gasping and sighing, and Draco buried his face against Harry’s shoulder when he came, because that was what was there.

“I love this.”

Draco blinked and lifted his head. Harry was shaking his head as though to deny what he’d said, and driving himself backwards. Draco caught his chin and turned his head towards him as well as he could, so he could see into Harry’s eyes when they opened and caught his.

“Love me, or love this?” Draco whispered, with a thrust of his hips to emphasize the point. He almost slipped out of Harry, but recovered his balance in time, with a little jerk of his haunches.

“Why can’t I love both?” Harry muttered, and tried to hook an arm around Draco’s neck, a gesture that almost sent them both crashing off the bed. When Draco braced his elbows in the sheets and held them still, Harry gasped into his ear, “But you more,” and shuddered around him, clenching down hard.

Draco shut his eyes and held him, shaking all over. The jealousy that had possessed him when Harry was flirting with Daphne, the desire that had taken over when he saw how strongly Harry was prepared to defend his family, had melted into this, something soft and molten and as dark a red as the curtains of the bed around them. Harry would hold the family and defend and protect them all, Draco knew that. Well, maybe Draco could be the one to hold and defend him if Harry insisted on not thinking about his own safety.

“Love both of you,” Harry mumbled into the pillow, a little drunkenly.

Draco didn’t think he knew the words to respond, so he pulled Harry’s head back and kissed him instead. That would do for words, between them, for right now.

It would do for a promise, and it would do for the future.

Chapter Forty-One.

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