Chapter Twenty-Nine of "Forgive Those Who Trespass"- The Meaning of Therapy
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Chapter Twenty-Nine-The Meaning of Therapy
“Harry.”
The voice was so soft and so thick with relief that it took Harry, swimming up from sleep, long moments to identify it. When he finally did, he stretched out a hand instinctively, groping for the one he knew would be waiting to clasp his.
Firm, warm fingers caught his, catching on new-grown nails, which Harry didn’t remember from the last time he’d been awake. He blinked slowly, and then turned his head and met Hermione’s gaze.
“Thank God,” she whispered again, and suddenly stooped over him and hugged him as much as she could whilst sitting in a chair next to a hospital bed.
Harry closed his eyes, because he was about to cry and that was just stupid. He patted clumsily at her back with his wounded hands and winced a little as her elbow dug into a rib that felt new and tender.
She was here, instead of dangling by her hair from a branch of Richard’s tree. There was no way to convey how he felt about that. He turned his head to the side and kissed her hair, hearing someone awkwardly clear his throat behind Hermione.
Looking up, he met Ron’s eyes.
Ron blinked himself, and then began to smile helplessly a moment later. “Hey, mate,” he whispered. He walked around the bed to grip Harry’s other hand. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard he’d got you out,” he said. “To owe-we can’t-I didn’t know-“ And then he fell silent, and just beamed at Harry like a fool.
Harry closed his eyes, and let himself bask in the warmth and comfort of his best friends, something he had been sure he’d never have again. They could have been chopped into building material the way Richard had promised in that maze; they could have been scarred as badly as he and Draco had been. Richard hadn’t had as much time to torture them, of course, but he had been clever and inventive enough to find ways of doing so. Harry hoped he had spared Ron and Hermione from anything more than a few weeks of fear and bad dreams.
“How long was it?” he muttered, when he could feel Hermione pulling back and wiping at her face, and Ron had coughed and turned away, embarrassed at his own show of emotion. “Draco mentioned something about three months I was part of the maze, but-“
He fell silent, because Ron’s eyes were huge, and Harry thought he had bad news to tell him. But instead, Ron said wonderingly, “It’s true. You really do call him Draco. I thought he’d altered the Pensieve memories he showed us somehow.” He stared at Harry for a few more moments, then shook his head. “Bloody hell.”
Harry smiled through the tears slipping silently down his cheeks, because Ron said it just the way Harry had heard it in his head whilst traversing the maze. “Yes, I do,” he said. “We saved each other’s lives down there-we became so important to each other-I can’t even tell you-“
“I know a little about it,” Hermione said gently, and smiled at him, so brilliantly that Harry felt compelled to grab her hands with both of his. If Ron was going to be a wanker and not hold his hand anymore, Harry would just have to make up for it with his other best friend. “Malfoy did tell us the true story of what happened to you. He had his voice back immediately after you sacrificed yourself.” She paused, and her face darkened, and Harry knew he was about to get a mouthful. “Harry James Potter, what a bloody stupid thing that was to do-“
“I couldn’t see any other way at the time,” Harry interrupted. He didn’t want to talk about the mistake that Draco was never going to let him forget, especially when he still didn’t really believe that it had been a mistake. “What about you? Were you hurt down there?” He realized he was shaking, he was so afraid of the answer. Richard was dead, but there were still other Unspeakables, and if Harry had to go after them to take revenge for his friends, it would only be after some time spent lying in bed, which would give them days to scatter.
“No,” Hermione said quietly. “They gathered all of the recruits together in a large room in the center of the Department of Mysteries, and told us that we were about to see history made. Then Richard cast a spell.” She paused. “And after that, I don’t remember anything until we woke up in front of the tree, and Malfoy was torturing Richard. It’s a good thing Ron didn’t have a wand at that point, or Malfoy would have died.”
“Some of the things he showed us suggest he should have,” Ron muttered.
Harry couldn’t help it; he snarled at Ron, his hands closing down on Hermione’s until he let out a little squeak. Ron turned so pale that his freckles really did look like spattergroit, and fell back with an uplifted hand.
“Whoa, mate! I know he did suffer, and I wasn’t really suggesting he deserved to go back there. Just that I don’t think he’s a perfect little angel of sweetness and light, either, though he’s been trying to convince the Mind-Healers he is-“
“Ron Bilius Weasley,” Hermione said, sitting up and preparing to launch into lecture mode, “we owe him a debt we can never repay because he brought Harry back, and you know they’re so entwined in each other’s lives that we’ll have to get used to him. Besides, he did help me with that research-“
“I know,” Ron muttered sulkily. “Doesn’t mean I have to like the git, all right?”
“Actually,” Harry said, thinking it would be good to explain before Ron and especially Hermione got the wrong idea, “we aren’t part of each other’s lives permanently. That was always just a temporary bond. We got close down there, but there’s no reason it should continue up here, where we both have other people.”
Ron and Hermione turned to stare at him. Ron’s expression was wary, tinged with just a hint of hope. Hermione was looking at him with pity.
“Harry,” Hermione whispered. “I saw the look on Malfoy’s face when he realized that he’d lost you to the maze, and especially when I tried to tell him that I thought it was hopeless and you weren’t coming back. He never gave up. He isn’t capable of giving up anymore, not when it comes to you. If you tried to give him space, you’d just be doing him a cruelty. If you tried to date someone else, I’d honestly be afraid for their lives. You have to go through therapy together-“
“I know that,” Harry said impatiently. Why could none of them see? He had thought his best friends would support him, if only because both of them disliked Draco so much. “I always planned to support Draco during therapy. But that isn’t the kind of deep and healthy relationship that Draco needs.”
Hermione opened her mouth, but someone else coughed from the door. Harry turned around to stare. A tall, slender, dark-skinned woman stood, her thick black hair wound on top of her head. She reminded Harry instantly of the Patil twins.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I couldn’t help overhearing you. My name is Sita Agarwal, and I’m a Mind-Healer here at St. Mungo’s. You’re going to be one of my patients, Mr. Potter. I had wondered why Mr. Malfoy was having so much difficulty in our sessions.” She raised her eyebrows in a gesture that made Harry instantly wary of her. McGonagall had raised her eyebrows like that sometimes. “I think I understand now. Mr. Potter, could I ask you to come into our first session with an open mind? Your preconceptions of what Mr. Malfoy wants could easily get in the way of his healing.”
Harry flinched and lowered his eyes. “I never wanted to do that,” he muttered, feeling guilt travel through him like a snake’s bite. “I just want to make sure he has the very best of everything he needs.”
Agarwal nodded briskly. “I understand, Mr. Potter-“
“Please call me Harry,” Harry interrupted. She was also reminding him of his Auror training instructors, and he didn’t really need that right now.
“Thank you.” Agarwal inclined her head, but didn’t return the favor. “That will make things easier. And I understand your desires, Harry. I think most of them are even commendable. But your employment of them is not. Please, will you come into our session prepared to listen to Draco as well as yourself?”
Baffled, Harry nodded. What in the world has Draco been telling her? She can’t really believe all that nonsense about his needing me as a permanent partner, can she?
Agarwal smiled at him, a smile that was cold and assessing, and then turned and walked away up the corridor. Harry blinked, shook his head, and turned back to Ron and Hermione, determined to talk about the Weasley family and other normal things for a while.
The normality resulted in Mrs. Weasley bustling in a few minutes later with an enormous platter of food that Harry suspected was contraband in hospital, followed by her husband, and then George, and then Bill and Fleur and little Victoire, and even Percy. Ginny peeked in shyly, then joined the rest of the family and started talking to him as if he had just returned from another daring escapade in Hogwarts, which was what Harry preferred, really.
As she left, she held out her hand for him to shake, hesitated, then leaned in and gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek.
It felt like nothing more than Mrs. Weasley’s kisses to Harry. He gave her a weak smile and thought of pretending to feel something, but Ginny had already seen. She was perceptive like that; she had already noticed there was a problem with their dating before he would acknowledge it. She squeezed his hand, whispered, “I hope you’ll be happy with him,” and then followed her family out of the room.
Harry was left to stare at the ceiling in silence, since it was near ten-o’clock at night and the St. Mungo’s attendants were chasing all visitors out.
He really did wish that everyone would treat him normally, he realized. He hoped the Ministry wouldn’t insist on honoring him with a medal or something. He hoped Ron and Hermione wouldn’t feel obliged to walk on eggshells around him just in case they accidentally mentioned something that triggered memories from the maze. He wanted everyone to think, or at least pretend, that being part of the maze, and traveling through it, hadn’t changed him.
Why? Hermione’s voice, back in his head after a too-long exile, chirped. Why are you so anxious to deny that this ever happened?
Harry pictured the consequences to Draco if he wasn’t able to adopt Harry’s point-of-view, and shivered. He would just have to hope that Agarwal’s stern commitment to reality-at least, Harry thought she had that-meant Draco could join reality again, soon.
*
“Harry.” Agarwal’s voice wasn’t a whit more welcoming in her own domain, which seemed to consist entirely of white walls and flooring and couches to Harry. There were cushions on the floor, too, no doubt for the comfort of patients too disabled or skittish to sit on the couches. “So good of you to come. You can take whatever seat you like.”
Harry looked around hesitantly. The only other person in the wide office was Draco, who started up from his couch with such a desperate expression that Harry really had no choice. He walked over to him at once and embraced the other man, feeling Draco grab for him with trembling arms.
Harry was aware of a bone-deep-no, a soul-deep relaxation that touched him the moment he was in Draco’s embrace. It must be because they’d spent so much time like this in the maze, he thought. They’d grown accustomed to the position, and of course Draco would still remember even despite the three months Harry had spent as the maze, because he’d been unable to move on, obsessed with bringing Harry out of it again.
But they had an audience in the room, one who would be watching their movements calculatingly and trying to work out as much information as she could, and Harry was aware of that even if Draco wasn’t. He coughed gently, trying to bring the other man back to reality.
“Missed you so much,” Draco whispered, and his voice was thick with longing. “Even being without you for a few hours hurts.” He lifted his head and stared at Harry with gray eyes in which regret and yearning and devastation sparkled together like pieces of shattered glass. “You won’t leave me again?”
Harry opened his mouth to give a reassuring reply, but the look in Draco’s eyes demanded the truth. He said, “I’ll stay as long as you need me to stay.”
“And if that’s forever?” Draco’s hands moved from his sides to his shoulders, rubbing along Harry’s shoulder blades as if he had to make sure they were bone and not wood.
“I-you don’t need me to stay forever,” Harry said, and produced a bright smile from somewhere. “Once we get through some of the therapy, which I don’t doubt will take a long time, then-“
Draco stepped back from him with a snarl that transformed his face. Harry hid a shudder. He was suddenly sure that Draco had looked like this in the moments right after Ron and Hermione’s waking, when he’d been torturing Richard. He looked warily at Draco’s hand, but there was no sign of a wand.
“You don’t understand,” Draco said, low-voiced. “You’ve never made any effort to understand. Even that promise you made to me in the maze was just humoring me, wasn’t it? You never intended to stay, and if we had got out of there without your transformation, you wouldn’t have done it, either. You’re so eager to run off to some little witch, to some version of a normal life, that you want to leave me behind like baggage-“
“I don’t,” Harry snapped, angry that Draco could have so misunderstood him. “How clear do I have to make it? You’ll need someone to help you through the healing. I can fulfill that role. But you’ll need someone else to help you through the rest of your life, and I’m not the best person-“
Draco seized him and shook him hard enough to make the teeth rattle in his head. Harry gasped and tried to pull away, but Draco had abruptly released him and was staring at him from across the room, hands clenched. His thumbs were rubbing compulsively over his other fingers, Harry noticed in a daze, as if he weren’t quite used to having them back yet.
“You don’t listen to me,” Draco said. “Why do you never listen? You’ll sacrifice your life for me, but you won’t live for me.” He was shaking again, and there were tears standing in his eyes. Horrified, Harry took a step forwards to reassure him, but Draco shrank away. That hurt more than anything Harry had been through in the maze. “I need you, I love you, and yet there are times I hate you!” Draco’s voice soared suddenly into a shriek, and he flung a hand out in a gesture that made Harry doubly glad he didn’t have a wand. “You think you know best all the time, and you just ignore what I want to say. You’re treating me like Richard did when he took away my voice. He thought if he ignored my objections, it meant I didn’t have any. How dare you-“
“It’s because I love you so much that I want the best for you!” Harry bellowed, the restraints on his temper breaking at last. “God, how many times and ways do I have to state this? You just need-maybe I could be the best for you, but you don’t know that! What if you’re missing out on someone even better because you haven’t looked? I’m so far from perfect, Draco, and you deserve perfect. You deserve someone who can listen to you without getting angry, who doesn’t remind you of the maze every time you’re near him, who won’t wake up screaming from nightmares of his own-“
“For the last year of my life, I’ve been denied the ability to want.” Draco spoke quietly, and yet Harry went still to listen. “Everything I tried to protect in the maze has been destroyed. Every good memory I had was raped, and replaced with screaming horror. I’ve done things that make it impossible for me to live with myself. I’ll be the rest of my life recovering from this. And in the middle of that I found a person who makes life more than tolerable for me, and you want me to abandon you, because maybe someone better is out there? Fuck no. You’re not leaving me.” His eyes took on that broken-glass glitter again.
Harry clenched his hands. “But what if-Draco, I’ve been good at so few things in my life. I suffered to keep you safe because I’m good at that. What if I mess up? What if I hurt you again?”
Draco laughed shakily. “We’ll hurt each other, of course,” he said. “I won’t settle for some bastard imitation of perfect, some relationship where I’m the child and my lover is my parent. You’re not my Mind-Healer. You’re just Harry, and you’re mine, and you’re more than enough for what I need you to do.”
Harry shivered. He felt as if the most fragile and the most honorable responsibility in the world had been placed on his shoulders.
“It would hurt me so badly to hurt you,” he whispered.
Draco took a long step towards him. “You already did, when you lied to me and became the maze,” he said. “Help me to recover, damn it. Stay here, and face your mistakes, and let me heal you, too.” His voice cracked, and he shook his head. “God damn you, Harry Potter, you’re the only person I know who would choose to have his ribs and his fingers and his memories torn from his body rather than just admit that he loves another man.”
“Well,” said Agarwal, “this has been more interesting and instructive than I could have reckoned.”
Harry leaped. He had honestly forgotten she was there. He turned to face her, cautiously, and only belatedly realized that he’d moved to put his body between her and Draco, as if she were a threat. He flushed and cleared his throat, but Agarwal was speaking on, her faint, cold smile lingering on her lips.
“Harry, you seem to have the impression that you’re wrong for Mr. Malfoy, that he could find someone better. Is that because you don’t love him?”
“No,” Harry said hotly. “Draco’s explained a little to you about our situation in the maze, hasn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Agarwal, with a slight shrug of her shoulders. “But I am not his only Mind-Healer. Mostly, he has spoken to me concerning his relationship with you. But I was able to hear only his side of the story, and even what he implied about yours does not prepare me for the reality.” Thoughtfully, she tilted her head at Harry. “You are stubborn and do refuse to listen to him. Perhaps you are getting the idea at last.
“Did you even know that you will have to have therapy, Harry?”
“What do you mean?” Harry would have stepped away from her, but Draco was leaning against his back, his breath sighing from his lungs as if Harry’s skin were oxygen to him. “I’ll support Draco as much as he needs, but I’m-“
Agarwal sighed, and spoke as if to a young child. “You spent three months as a strongly non-human entity, Harry. You also shared Mr. Malfoy’s memories, and some of his experiences. You also, might I add, thought it a good course of action to suffer endlessly in order to spare Draco’s life, instead of trying to find another way.”
“I was saving my friends, too!” Harry insisted, folding his arms. “And there was no other plan that would have worked.”
“What about detailing Richard as the sacrifice?” Agarwal lifted her eyebrows. “From what Mr. Malfoy has told me about him, he seems to have been fanatical enough to agree to it.”
Harry flushed, because he hadn’t even thought about that. “We couldn’t have known he was telling the truth about the incantation.”
“Mr. Malfoy also told me about the Gryffindor’s Potion.” Agarwal folded her hands on her knees and regarded him severely. “To me, it does sound as if you would rather run away from the difficulties of loving Mr. Malfoy than remain in the same world with him-no matter what the price of running away might be.”
Harry hissed. He had only had fifteen minutes of therapy, and it was already a blistering experience. “I need less therapy than Draco does!”
“I do agree with that,” said Agarwal. “And I will be talking with him alone, as well as with both of you, about his possessiveness and his general absorption in his relationship with you. It has mounted to an obsession, which is not healthy.
“But you will also need to realize that your love involves the need to love, as well as make sacrifices.”
Harry shook his head, closing his eyes. His tongue felt so heavy. “I’m not good at that,” he said at last.
Draco hugged him. Agarwal’s face softened for the first time. “You have enormous problems with your self-image, Harry,” she said. “It seems that you believe, because the most significant event in your life was defeating Voldemort-“ Harry looked up in surprise, but she didn’t seem to realize she had done an unusual thing in speaking the name “-that that is the only skill you have. It is not so. You can stand on your own. You had enough strength to enable both you and Draco to survive the maze.
“But you were changed by that. You did not emerge unscarred, because no one could have.” Her tone hardened again. “I need you to admit that, and accept the healing I can give you, along with therapy at the hands of other Mind-Healers. One of my colleagues works with wizards and witches who spent too long stuck in their Animagus forms; he will be handling your attempts at becoming fully human again, since he has the closest analogue of a true expertise. But all of this will be useless, and you will be a poorer partner to Draco indeed, if you do not admit that you have a problem.”
Harry turned away from her. Ultimately, she wasn’t the one who had to make the decision. That belonged to him, and to Draco.
He took Draco’s head gently between his hands, one on his chin, one on the back of his neck, and tilted his face up. “Is this what you want?” he whispered.
Draco stared into his eyes, apparently disbelieving that Harry had asked the question with the intent of listening. Then a watery smile lit his face, and he nodded.
Harry swallowed. He was still unsure-still thinking that someone who really loved Draco would search out someone different for him, someone who didn’t have as many faults-but Draco wanted this.
And he wanted to be with Draco, selfish as it seemed to admit that.
He turned around, and said, “All right.”
Agarwal sighed and flexed her hands.
“You’re not really that hard a woman, are you?” Harry asked, stroking Draco’s hair.
Agarwal smiled at him again, this time with amusement. “I’m as hard as I must be to get the results needed,” she said. “You will find that out in detail in the next few months, Harry.”
Harry did his best to smile back.
It was easier than it might have been to do that, with Draco snuggled against his side and under his arm.
Where he belongs, Harry thought, before he could stop himself, and then he couldn’t be horrified at the thought no matter how he tried.
Chapter 30.