(no subject)
Title: Ambivalent Lucidity: Rewrite (21/24)
Rating: R
Author: sakaim
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Summary: When Draco Malfoy's mental health mysteriously declines, he is placed under the care of the only person he responds to: Harry Potter.
Warnings: Violence, rape, character death, mental illnesses (Dissociative Identity Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress, Paranoid Schizophrenia), slash, Pre-HBP
Draco was sitting at the kitchen table by himself at the Burrow, a cup of tea shaking in his hands as he held it close and inhaled the steam. He was choking and sobbing into the mug, his face blotched and his knuckles white around the hot mug. He did not even notice that it was burning his palms. He would allow no one else in the kitchen, not even Mrs. Weasley, who was anxious to start dinner for the forlorn house filled with her children. “GET OUT!” he snapped at her as she tried to come inside again, and she left with a sad sigh.
Hermione was sitting in the living room with a frown on her face, and she crossed her arms over her chest as she listened to Draco crying in the kitchen. When Harry walked into the room and sat down beside her, looking thoroughly miserable, she smiled and wrapped her arm around his shoulder. “How are you holding up, Harry?” she asked quietly, and she smiled as Harry gave a bit of a pathetic nod. “Have you tried talking to him at all yet?”
“No,” the black-haired boy whispered, and he looked at the doorway to the kitchen. “I…I should have killed Lucius myself, Hermione…Why did I hesitate? God, why the hell did I hesitate?!” He dropped his gaze to the floor, but he felt himself being pushed off the couch, and he swallowed hard as he was pushed towards the kitchen. He stumbled in and saw Draco, a complete mess, sitting there, and his heart broke. Without saying anything, he walked over to his boyfriend and wrapped his arms around him from behind. “Give me that,” he whispered, and he took the hot cup from Draco’s shaking hands, setting it on the table, before he enfolded Draco.
“Come on, okay?” he asked quietly, and he smiled as Draco allowed Harry to pull him to his feet. “That’s it…” His hands were shaking as he took Draco’s, and he led him from the kitchen, giving a nod to Molly before he led the blond boy up the stairs and to the bedroom they would be sharing with Ron. Ron was out playing Quidditch with Charlie, Bill, and Ginny, so the room was completely deserted, and so Harry took him inside and locked the door before helping Draco onto the bed. “You want to talk?” he asked as he sat down beside him.
“No,” Draco whispered, and he looked up into Harry’s eyes. Harry smiled very softly and moved to wrap his hand up in Draco’s hair, and he drew him close. “Harry, I’m sorry,” Draco moaned softly, and he looked away, suddenly completely unable to look at him. “I was under the Imperius curse for a long time…right up until I got really, really sick and we moved into those private quarters. I fought through it then, but before that, it wasn’t me. It was…you know, him.”
Harry struggled with his thoughts for a few moments before he slipped his hand onto Draco’s cheek and turned his face towards him. “It’s okay,” he said quietly, and he saw emotion break in Draco’s eyes. “Do you love me, Draco?” His hands were on the other boy’s hips, and he pulled him a few inches closer. “Do you?”
Draco looked up and met Harry’s gaze again, and he clenched his teeth before he nodded, and Harry leaned forward to kiss him. Their lips crashed together fiercely, and tears flooded over Draco’s cheeks as Harry pushed him back onto the bed and crept on top of him, catlike in his movements. “I love you, too,” Harry breathed, and he slipped his tongue deep into Draco’s mouth. Draco had saved him, had killed his father to save Harry, had orphaned himself so they could have this together. “Draco, you just have no fucking clue…”
Draco moaned at these words and let Harry’s tongue plunder his mouth again. The voices in his head were quiet, the quietest they had ever been, and he knew it was because Lucius was gone. He was free. He was free from obligation to join the Death Eaters, free to pursue whatever he wanted, and, hopefully, free to live as one, whole person He was so caught up in kissing Harry that he scarcely noticed as Ron came into the room and gave a shocked, embarrassed yelp before backing out of the room.
“Er, Harry, Dad wants to talk to you!” he called through the door, and Draco heaved a small sigh as Harry stopped kissing him. They shared a look that promised a continuation of this later, and Draco kissed him on the chin before he was left on his own in the bedroom. He watched Harry leave with a small smile, and he was just settling under the blankets to have a nap when the door opened again, and Ron came inside. His ears were noticeably pink. “Hey, Malfoy,” he said quietly, and Draco nodded at him. His eyes did not open. “Can I talk to you?”
Draco cocked an eyebrow and then nodded before opening his eyes, though he made no movement to get up or even move from his half-buried position in the bed. Ron struggled trying to find a place to sit, and he finally settled on the foot of the bed, looking awkward and red. “Stop blushing, Weasley,” Draco said with a snort, and he shifted the blankets a bit so he could see better. “What do you want?”
Ron turned and met Draco’s gaze, and to Draco’s shock, he smiled at him. “You saved Harry,” he murmured, and Draco had to roll his eyes. “Don’t do that. Anyway, you saved Harry, and…That was damned decent of you, Malfoy. Draco, I mean. You’re…all right.” He held out a hand for Draco to shake, and Draco just stared at it before he smirked and reached out to take it. They shook hands briefly, their gazes steady, and slowly, the two boys broke into smiles, forming what had to have been the most unusual truce in Hogwarts’ history.
Arthur smiled as Harry came into the kitchen, and he offered him a traveling cloak. “Come on, Harry,” he said with a smile, and he went to the fireplace. “We’ll be going to Grimmauld Place tonight, if that’s all right with you? I won’t be free any other day this week, and I imagine you don’t want to wait until next…” He saw the expression on Harry’s face light up in the brightly-lit living room, and he smiled at him. As much as he did not like the Malfoy family, he found that, as he learned more about Draco from Ron’s letters, the more he found that he liked him. His first impression of him and Harry had, of course, been when Harry, shaken up and very sick-looking, had carried Draco into the kitchen. The moment Harry left the room to change clothes, Draco had burst into noisy, painful tears and forbade anyone from entering the kitchen, and though he had really wanted a spot of tea, he respected Draco’s grief and chose to leave him be.
Harry seemed to genuinely care for him, and that was what mattered. He watched as Harry threw a handful of Floo powder into the grate and called out their destination, and he hesitated for only a moment before he followed. When he arrived on the other side, Harry was already disappearing through the side door, and he took a place at the table to wait on him.
Harry eased through number twelve, Grimmauld Place with a feeling of dread. He had not wanted to return here ever, much less on a rescue mission for Draco, and so it was with careful steps that he walked through the house. He saw the black curtains behind which the painting of Walburga Black hung, and he thought about passing her up before he walked right up to them, his mind changed, and he opened them. “Mrs Black, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” he said with no small amount of sarcasm, and she regarded him with a nasty, haughty look.
“Halfblood scum, come back to ruin my slumber, have you?” she asked, venom in her voice, and she sneered right back at Harry as he did so. “What are you doing here, Potter boy? Still out ruining lives of respectable men and women such as myself?”
Harry crossed his arms and shook his head. “Look, Mrs. Black, I’ll be out of your hair-with pleasure, believe me-the moment I find a book in your library which will explain the Ancestral Rites of the Black family,” he claimed, figuring that there was no point in beating around the bush with her. He wanted that book as soon as possible, though judging from the look on her face at his request, he should not have even bothered asking her.
“The Potter boy! The boy who ruined my family, who ruined everything we stand for, is asking me for HELP!” She burst into screeching laughter, and Harry snarled at her before forcing her curtains closed and stalking into the library in the old house. As he looked up into the thousands of books, he closed his eyes and sighed. This was going to be a long night.
Draco, Hermione, and Ginny were sitting together in the living room, Hermione and Ginny grinning at Draco as, after being begged for the hundredth time that evening upon his descent from the bedroom, he sat back and told them about his and Harry’s first kiss. “I was still under my father’s Imperius curse at the time,” he stated quietly, and although he felt like such a gossip, he loved to tell stories. “Potter had really pissed me off, you know, dumping me on someone else because he couldn’t handle it…Well…He pissed father off, I suppose. I had that big tantrum in the Great Hall, then after Harry took me away, I sort of kissed him right there.” He gestured to a spot on his neck. Ginny blushed.
“He wasn’t happy about it. It was a whole three weeks before I woke up with nightmares, and Harry just sort of…rolled over and started kissing me. My father was furious, told me to kill him right there, but I couldn’t do it…I couldn’t. That began my fight against the curse, and a few days later, I was free again.”
Hermione crossed her arms in her lap as she leaned forward. “Did you develop feelings behind the curse? About Harry, I mean? After all, you could have just left him after you’d broken through the Imperius and worked with your problem on your own…”
“I could have,” Draco sighed, and he smiled to himself before smiling at her. “But yes, I’d developed feelings behind everything else. Harry was just…you know.” Ginny nodded with a grin, and Draco nodded back to her. She would understand more than Hermione would; he knew she was in love with Harry. “Anyway, I hope he finds something to help me soon…I feel rather bad for him, having to deal with me switching personalities all the time. You’d think he enjoyed it, looking at him, but he’s stressed. I can’t wait until he looks in my eyes and knows it’s me…When he’s looking at me and not wondering who he’s talking to.” He hung his head in guilt.
Hermione reached forward and touched his shoulder. “I think it’s wonderful, Malfoy.” She smiled as he covered his face with his hands, and she thought nothing of wrapping her arm around his shoulders. “We’re all the family you need.” She was relieved when he nodded.
It was three in the morning, and Harry picked up the last book he was going to look at for the evening. He had looked at hundreds, but there was no mention of the Ancestral Rite in any of them, and he pointed the wand at the last book. He uttered the spell and was prepared to throw the book aside when the book glowed, and his eyes widened. He flipped through to the section on rituals, and his eyes widened as he came upon pages and pages explaining the Ancestral Rite. “I got it!” he yelled, and he slammed the book shut. He heard Arthur jerk awake in the kitchen, and he hurried in to him. “Let’s go!”
Need to catch up?
Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten, Chapter Eleven, Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen, Chapter Fourteen, Chapter Fifteen, Chapter Sixteen, Chapter Seventeen, Chapter Eighteen, Chapter Nineteen, Chapter Twenty
Rating: R
Author: sakaim
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Summary: When Draco Malfoy's mental health mysteriously declines, he is placed under the care of the only person he responds to: Harry Potter.
Warnings: Violence, rape, character death, mental illnesses (Dissociative Identity Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress, Paranoid Schizophrenia), slash, Pre-HBP
Draco was sitting at the kitchen table by himself at the Burrow, a cup of tea shaking in his hands as he held it close and inhaled the steam. He was choking and sobbing into the mug, his face blotched and his knuckles white around the hot mug. He did not even notice that it was burning his palms. He would allow no one else in the kitchen, not even Mrs. Weasley, who was anxious to start dinner for the forlorn house filled with her children. “GET OUT!” he snapped at her as she tried to come inside again, and she left with a sad sigh.
Hermione was sitting in the living room with a frown on her face, and she crossed her arms over her chest as she listened to Draco crying in the kitchen. When Harry walked into the room and sat down beside her, looking thoroughly miserable, she smiled and wrapped her arm around his shoulder. “How are you holding up, Harry?” she asked quietly, and she smiled as Harry gave a bit of a pathetic nod. “Have you tried talking to him at all yet?”
“No,” the black-haired boy whispered, and he looked at the doorway to the kitchen. “I…I should have killed Lucius myself, Hermione…Why did I hesitate? God, why the hell did I hesitate?!” He dropped his gaze to the floor, but he felt himself being pushed off the couch, and he swallowed hard as he was pushed towards the kitchen. He stumbled in and saw Draco, a complete mess, sitting there, and his heart broke. Without saying anything, he walked over to his boyfriend and wrapped his arms around him from behind. “Give me that,” he whispered, and he took the hot cup from Draco’s shaking hands, setting it on the table, before he enfolded Draco.
“Come on, okay?” he asked quietly, and he smiled as Draco allowed Harry to pull him to his feet. “That’s it…” His hands were shaking as he took Draco’s, and he led him from the kitchen, giving a nod to Molly before he led the blond boy up the stairs and to the bedroom they would be sharing with Ron. Ron was out playing Quidditch with Charlie, Bill, and Ginny, so the room was completely deserted, and so Harry took him inside and locked the door before helping Draco onto the bed. “You want to talk?” he asked as he sat down beside him.
“No,” Draco whispered, and he looked up into Harry’s eyes. Harry smiled very softly and moved to wrap his hand up in Draco’s hair, and he drew him close. “Harry, I’m sorry,” Draco moaned softly, and he looked away, suddenly completely unable to look at him. “I was under the Imperius curse for a long time…right up until I got really, really sick and we moved into those private quarters. I fought through it then, but before that, it wasn’t me. It was…you know, him.”
Harry struggled with his thoughts for a few moments before he slipped his hand onto Draco’s cheek and turned his face towards him. “It’s okay,” he said quietly, and he saw emotion break in Draco’s eyes. “Do you love me, Draco?” His hands were on the other boy’s hips, and he pulled him a few inches closer. “Do you?”
Draco looked up and met Harry’s gaze again, and he clenched his teeth before he nodded, and Harry leaned forward to kiss him. Their lips crashed together fiercely, and tears flooded over Draco’s cheeks as Harry pushed him back onto the bed and crept on top of him, catlike in his movements. “I love you, too,” Harry breathed, and he slipped his tongue deep into Draco’s mouth. Draco had saved him, had killed his father to save Harry, had orphaned himself so they could have this together. “Draco, you just have no fucking clue…”
Draco moaned at these words and let Harry’s tongue plunder his mouth again. The voices in his head were quiet, the quietest they had ever been, and he knew it was because Lucius was gone. He was free. He was free from obligation to join the Death Eaters, free to pursue whatever he wanted, and, hopefully, free to live as one, whole person He was so caught up in kissing Harry that he scarcely noticed as Ron came into the room and gave a shocked, embarrassed yelp before backing out of the room.
“Er, Harry, Dad wants to talk to you!” he called through the door, and Draco heaved a small sigh as Harry stopped kissing him. They shared a look that promised a continuation of this later, and Draco kissed him on the chin before he was left on his own in the bedroom. He watched Harry leave with a small smile, and he was just settling under the blankets to have a nap when the door opened again, and Ron came inside. His ears were noticeably pink. “Hey, Malfoy,” he said quietly, and Draco nodded at him. His eyes did not open. “Can I talk to you?”
Draco cocked an eyebrow and then nodded before opening his eyes, though he made no movement to get up or even move from his half-buried position in the bed. Ron struggled trying to find a place to sit, and he finally settled on the foot of the bed, looking awkward and red. “Stop blushing, Weasley,” Draco said with a snort, and he shifted the blankets a bit so he could see better. “What do you want?”
Ron turned and met Draco’s gaze, and to Draco’s shock, he smiled at him. “You saved Harry,” he murmured, and Draco had to roll his eyes. “Don’t do that. Anyway, you saved Harry, and…That was damned decent of you, Malfoy. Draco, I mean. You’re…all right.” He held out a hand for Draco to shake, and Draco just stared at it before he smirked and reached out to take it. They shook hands briefly, their gazes steady, and slowly, the two boys broke into smiles, forming what had to have been the most unusual truce in Hogwarts’ history.
Arthur smiled as Harry came into the kitchen, and he offered him a traveling cloak. “Come on, Harry,” he said with a smile, and he went to the fireplace. “We’ll be going to Grimmauld Place tonight, if that’s all right with you? I won’t be free any other day this week, and I imagine you don’t want to wait until next…” He saw the expression on Harry’s face light up in the brightly-lit living room, and he smiled at him. As much as he did not like the Malfoy family, he found that, as he learned more about Draco from Ron’s letters, the more he found that he liked him. His first impression of him and Harry had, of course, been when Harry, shaken up and very sick-looking, had carried Draco into the kitchen. The moment Harry left the room to change clothes, Draco had burst into noisy, painful tears and forbade anyone from entering the kitchen, and though he had really wanted a spot of tea, he respected Draco’s grief and chose to leave him be.
Harry seemed to genuinely care for him, and that was what mattered. He watched as Harry threw a handful of Floo powder into the grate and called out their destination, and he hesitated for only a moment before he followed. When he arrived on the other side, Harry was already disappearing through the side door, and he took a place at the table to wait on him.
Harry eased through number twelve, Grimmauld Place with a feeling of dread. He had not wanted to return here ever, much less on a rescue mission for Draco, and so it was with careful steps that he walked through the house. He saw the black curtains behind which the painting of Walburga Black hung, and he thought about passing her up before he walked right up to them, his mind changed, and he opened them. “Mrs Black, it’s a pleasure to see you again,” he said with no small amount of sarcasm, and she regarded him with a nasty, haughty look.
“Halfblood scum, come back to ruin my slumber, have you?” she asked, venom in her voice, and she sneered right back at Harry as he did so. “What are you doing here, Potter boy? Still out ruining lives of respectable men and women such as myself?”
Harry crossed his arms and shook his head. “Look, Mrs. Black, I’ll be out of your hair-with pleasure, believe me-the moment I find a book in your library which will explain the Ancestral Rites of the Black family,” he claimed, figuring that there was no point in beating around the bush with her. He wanted that book as soon as possible, though judging from the look on her face at his request, he should not have even bothered asking her.
“The Potter boy! The boy who ruined my family, who ruined everything we stand for, is asking me for HELP!” She burst into screeching laughter, and Harry snarled at her before forcing her curtains closed and stalking into the library in the old house. As he looked up into the thousands of books, he closed his eyes and sighed. This was going to be a long night.
Draco, Hermione, and Ginny were sitting together in the living room, Hermione and Ginny grinning at Draco as, after being begged for the hundredth time that evening upon his descent from the bedroom, he sat back and told them about his and Harry’s first kiss. “I was still under my father’s Imperius curse at the time,” he stated quietly, and although he felt like such a gossip, he loved to tell stories. “Potter had really pissed me off, you know, dumping me on someone else because he couldn’t handle it…Well…He pissed father off, I suppose. I had that big tantrum in the Great Hall, then after Harry took me away, I sort of kissed him right there.” He gestured to a spot on his neck. Ginny blushed.
“He wasn’t happy about it. It was a whole three weeks before I woke up with nightmares, and Harry just sort of…rolled over and started kissing me. My father was furious, told me to kill him right there, but I couldn’t do it…I couldn’t. That began my fight against the curse, and a few days later, I was free again.”
Hermione crossed her arms in her lap as she leaned forward. “Did you develop feelings behind the curse? About Harry, I mean? After all, you could have just left him after you’d broken through the Imperius and worked with your problem on your own…”
“I could have,” Draco sighed, and he smiled to himself before smiling at her. “But yes, I’d developed feelings behind everything else. Harry was just…you know.” Ginny nodded with a grin, and Draco nodded back to her. She would understand more than Hermione would; he knew she was in love with Harry. “Anyway, I hope he finds something to help me soon…I feel rather bad for him, having to deal with me switching personalities all the time. You’d think he enjoyed it, looking at him, but he’s stressed. I can’t wait until he looks in my eyes and knows it’s me…When he’s looking at me and not wondering who he’s talking to.” He hung his head in guilt.
Hermione reached forward and touched his shoulder. “I think it’s wonderful, Malfoy.” She smiled as he covered his face with his hands, and she thought nothing of wrapping her arm around his shoulders. “We’re all the family you need.” She was relieved when he nodded.
It was three in the morning, and Harry picked up the last book he was going to look at for the evening. He had looked at hundreds, but there was no mention of the Ancestral Rite in any of them, and he pointed the wand at the last book. He uttered the spell and was prepared to throw the book aside when the book glowed, and his eyes widened. He flipped through to the section on rituals, and his eyes widened as he came upon pages and pages explaining the Ancestral Rite. “I got it!” he yelled, and he slammed the book shut. He heard Arthur jerk awake in the kitchen, and he hurried in to him. “Let’s go!”
Need to catch up?
Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten, Chapter Eleven, Chapter Twelve, Chapter Thirteen, Chapter Fourteen, Chapter Fifteen, Chapter Sixteen, Chapter Seventeen, Chapter Eighteen, Chapter Nineteen, Chapter Twenty