Chapter Twenty-One of 'The Name I'll Give to Thee'- Checkmating Desire
Chapter Twenty.
Title: The Name I’ll Give to Thee (21/?)
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 Twenty-One-Checkmating Desire
“Master Harry’s is being a visitor.”
Harry looked up from the books. Excitement seemed to have made Ossy even more incomprehensible than usual, but he watched the way the little house-elf was hovering, and made what he hoped was the right deduction. “There’s a visitor?” he asked, casting a few spells on the books that ought to make sure they stayed open at the pages he was reading, instead of flopping shut. “At the Floo, or the front door?”
“The Floo,” said Ossy, and stopped flapping his hands for a moment to glare at Harry. “The wards is not letting people through to the front door.”
Harry grinned a little as he stood. “All right. I’ll see them.” Draco was asleep, Narcissa was asleep with Affy tending her, and it was Harry’s private opinion that neither of them was in any shape for visitors anyway. At least not hostile, questioning ones, which was likely to be the case unless the visitor was Ron or Hermione.
There are some things even they might question, though, Harry thought as he followed Ossy down the corridors towards the overly-decorated room that contained the public Floo, and they’d be right to do it, too.
Such as the way Harry was feeling more and more at home in the Manor. Those dark memories of Hermione being tortured here, of Luna and Ollivander and everyone else being held captive in the dungeons, didn’t bother him now. He woke up in the night from fewer nightmares than before; it was easier to remember the thick wards, and wallow in the thick blankets, and turn over to go back to sleep.
I don’t want to change myself too much, Harry thought, as he paused outside the door of the Floo room to make sure that his fingers weren’t covered with dust and ink, a far too common occurrence when he was looking through those old books. I hope I can strike a balance between being Malfoy and being Harry.
He stepped into the room, feeling he was prepared for everyone from a Healer to one of his friends.
Everyone, it seemed, except the face that actually waited for him in the fire. It was Blaise Zabini, raising one eyebrow and making Harry feel underdressed and underprepared with that one simple gesture. Harry tried his best not to show it, moving slowly over the thick gold carpet instead to stand in front of the fireplace. He nodded.
“Zabini,” he said. “If you wanted to speak to Draco, he’s resting right now.” The Healers had indeed come out with an article yesterday, one that said they’d treated Draco and Harry but hadn’t wanted to. It made them look like arseholes, which was good enough for the moment. “I’ll tell him you firecalled, though.”
“Resting,” Zabini said, with an inflection and timber that Harry didn’t like at all. “How strange.” Then he seemed to reconsider, and smiled at Harry. “Well. Strange if one remembers that you supposedly took him drunk out of the party, and no worse. But then the St. Mungo’s Healers said that he showed up injured on their premises, and someone made them break their own vow not to treat Death Eaters. How did that injury happen, I wonder?”
Shit, Harry thought, as he tried to meet Zabini’s gaze blankly, as he tried to keep his racing heartbeat from showing, and knew by the deepening of Zabini’s smile that he hadn’t managed to succeed. I never considered that.
Which only proved that he was no good at this intrigue, no good at being a Malfoy. Harry threw his caution away. “You can ask Draco when he wakes up,” he said, and moved to shut the Floo.
“I’m not the only one who’ll make the connection,” Zabini said quietly, in a tone that Harry thought could command Muggle traffic to stop. “I’m not the only threat you’ll have to deal with, if I’m right and Draco was injured at the party?” He paused, looking inquiringly at Harry, and then nodded. “I’m right. Really, Draco shouldn’t leave the open book of your face lying around.”
“Not the only one, but the only one I have to deal with right now,” Harry said, and this time, he really did mean to shut the Floo. Zabini flung out his hand, and shook his head.
“You’ll want more than this to convince me to shut me up, Potter,” he said. “I want more than this. And I have a bargain to propose to you that ought to satisfy the both of us, our different wants and needs and desires. Will you permit me to come through? This will only take me five minutes to explain,” he added, when Harry hesitated.
Harry took a deep breath. Something he had read in a history book that morning came back to him. “I will let you through if you promise on your name not to destroy or damage anything or anyone in the house.”
Zabini blinked at him, and then laughed, a deep, soft sound that Harry supposed made him popular at parties that didn’t have anything to talk about. “Where did you find that one?” Before Harry could respond, he shook his head and went on. “You’re delightful. If my decision hadn’t been made so long ago…”
Harry refused to worry about what that meant. “Are you going to make the bloody promise or not?”
Zabini sighed. “I promise on my name not to destroy or damage anything or anyone in the house.” He settled back, waiting for Harry to open the Floo.
Harry nodded, grudgingly, and glanced once over his shoulder. Yes, Ossy was still in the room, staring at him, although that could be because he knew Harry would need him there to serve refreshments to Zabini. “All right.” If something went wrong, then Ossy knew more about the defenses of the Manor than Harry did, and he could always throw Zabini out again.
“Thank you,” Zabini said, as he stepped out of the Floo and dusted himself off with a single shake, and without a stumble. That was something pure-bloods must learn from birth, Harry thought. “Now. Shall we be more comfortable?” He glanced around the room and lifted his eyebrows at the lack of adequate furnishings.
There were chairs, though, even if they were tall chairs with the sort of uncomfortable backs that Harry found intolerable in the dining room. He gave Zabini a bright smile and sat down in the nearest one.
“And then, there are times that I’m glad my decision was made long ago,” Zabini muttered. He took the chair across from Harry, crossing his legs and folding his hands on top of his knees as though that was the only approved method of doing it. “Now. I know you married Draco for convenience, and out of guilt.”
Harry met his eyes, and said nothing. “If you know, then you wouldn’t believe me if I tried to contradict you,” he said, when Zabini’s gaze had become too challenging to ignore.
Zabini laughed again. “Yes, I see,” he said. “Anyway. I know how demi-marriages work. You don’t yet, because you came in from the outside instead of from within our circles, as is usual for these things, but you’ll learn.” He paused.
“You can’t expect me to know what all the little hesitations and nuances of your talk mean, either,” Harry said in a voice as dead level as he could make it. “Kindly get to the point.”
Ossy came in with a tray of ice and glasses of water. Harry was briefly startled that he hadn’t offered wine or champagne or something, but perhaps it wasn’t appropriate for the afternoon, or for days in the middle of the week, or because of some other minor point of pure-blood etiquette that Harry didn’t understand yet. Zabini picked up a glass, waited for Ossy to ladle ice and water into it, and then accepted a small sip.
“I can take a great inconvenience off your hands,” Zabini said.
More waiting. Harry raised his eyebrows. He was the one who looked composed and adult right now, he thought, and Zabini was the one who looked silly, unable to overcome his cultural training even when he knew it was necessary.
Zabini made an irritable gesture. “Fine. I want Draco. I’ll fuck him for you, leaving you free to find another lover.”
Harry stared at him until he felt as if his eyes would burn out of his head. Zabini showed no reaction this time, only sipping his drink with small motions that made the ice crack and clink against the side of the cup.
Harry finally gave up on the staring and said, “Are you insane?”
“That is a vulgar word, and unworthy of Draco Malfoy’s demi-husband,” Zabini said quietly, putting his glass down on the table beside him and folding his hands on his knees again. “This is one reason why it would be a kindness to both of you for you to let me share his bed. It would make your life considerably easier. It would content me. It would give Draco something he needs.”
“Someone to fuck him?” Harry shook his head, not understanding. Draco had said that spouses in demi-marriages often had partners outside the marriage, but Harry had assumed they chose them themselves and were discreet about it. Someone offering to come fuck Draco was-unimaginable. “Yes, you’re insane.”
“He needs someone to want him,” Zabini said. “You might make a good enough husband on the protection aspects, and you’re already building up the prestige of his family. But Draco is a prize all by himself, without the mere value that his name implies. He doesn’t need someone to stand by his side with his lip curled and never remind him how beautiful he is.”
Harry did some more staring. This time, Zabini really had reached the end of his words, it seemed. He sat there, with his cool and bright eyes, his dark skin and hair and implacability, and waited for Harry to say something to it.
Harry took the only course he could. “It’s not my decision. It’s Draco’s.”
Zabini frowned for the first time. “Of course. But you are likely to prove the greater obstacle. Everyone knows how much Gryffindors value faithfulness. You would insist on at least the appearance of fidelity, or you would shake him off and walk away no matter what he offered you.”
Harry wondered for a moment why Zabini thought Draco was bribing him to stay in the demi-marriage, when he understood that Harry had entered it out of guilt. But anything Zabini didn’t know was a potential strength, so he didn’t say that. “If you’re going to be his lover, you’ll need to be discreet anyway. The appearance of fidelity would be preserved.”
Zabini sat up. “You will make me wait on your decision?”
“It’s not my decision,” Harry repeated. “It’s Draco’s.” He was viciously pleased with the way that Zabini stood up at that and turned towards the back of the room, pacing a single step away before he whirled around to face Harry again. Harry made a motion towards his wand. If Zabini thought to use the Imperius Curse or another spell to convince him, then he would find Harry ready to counter him.
But Zabini only stood scanning Harry’s face raptly, as if he could understand something under the surface by prolonged gazing. Harry continued to sit down, and was able to meet Zabini’s gaze serenely now. He really didn’t understand what was so hard about this. If Zabini knew the way things usually worked, why not just wait and approach Draco when he was better? He was the one who was all about tradition, or should be. Harry was the one who could sit back and just wait for other people to choose.
He didn’t want Draco to choose Zabini. Harry distrusted the bastard and his cryptic comments and his little smiles. But if Draco wanted to sleep with him…
Harry didn’t clutch the arms of the chair only because he knew Zabini would see that and probably guess what it meant. It’s his choice. And he won’t have any sex in the marriage otherwise. No sex for five years would probably be pretty tough for him.
“I’ll go for now,” Zabini said, pitching his voice in such a way that Harry wanted to rip something. “But I’ll speak to Draco. He won’t thank you for keeping me from him. Why would you think that he would want someone who understands nothing of the way that our lives work, that our world works?”
“I wouldn’t think that,” Harry replied, startled into responding despite himself. “What I think is that he deserves to make his own choice.”
Zabini went on staring, and then he turned and walked to the Floo. He waited with his face averted until Harry opened the fireplace, and then he went through without a glance back, a word, a gesture. The Floo shut silently behind him.
Harry shook his head and shut his eyes. Then he opened them, because Ossy had appeared in front of him, holding the tray with the glasses of ice and the carafes of water. Harry started to thank him, but Ossy said, “Master Harry is not being sick.”
Maybe he means in contrast to Zabini. Harry found a wan smile from somewhere. “Thank you, Ossy. Is Draco awake?”
Ossy considered him for a long moment with his head on one side, as though he was considering saying something else. Then he nodded and said, “Master Draco Malfoy is being awake and irritable.”
That’s a state of nature for him, Harry thought, but he didn’t say it because it wouldn’t have been fair. He wasn’t feeling fair, he was feeling tired and like there was yet another challenge they had to deal with, and thus yet another opportunity for him and Draco to get into an argument, but he still had to tell Draco. Keeping it from him was so much less than fair that it made Harry wince to think of it. It would take Draco’s choice away.
“I’ll be right up,” he said, and made sure the Floo was tightly closed before he began to climb.
*
Draco flexed his back the way he would if he was lifting something heavy on his shoulders and took a deep breath, then nodded. Yes, his wound had mostly healed. He wouldn’t have been able to do that yesterday.
Now to convince Ossy and Harry that they didn’t have to keep him flat on his stomach in bed.
He looked up sharply as the door opened and Harry entered. “Ossy told me that we had a visitor,” he said. “Who was it?”
“Blaise Zabini.” Harry pronounced the name with exquisite care, and took his place in the chair beside Draco’s bed with the same care, never looking away from Draco’s face, as though he wanted Draco to understand that he was telling him everything. “He said that he had a bargain for us. He wants to sleep with you, and that way you could have a lover. As long as I didn’t make a scene about it. And I don’t plan to.”
Draco stared at him for some time. It sounded as though Harry had sold him to Blaise, which was-
Stupid. For one thing, the Harry who would have done such a thing wasn’t the Harry who had looked at Draco with challenging eyes the other day, or the Harry who had sliced his own arm in front of the Healers to force a treatment.
“So,” he said, leaning back and folding his hands in his lap, “you think that I would consent to be his lover?”
Harry blinked. “I told him it had to be your choice. He wanted me to agree without saying that. I don’t know why it was so important to him, but it was. He told me that he would come back and speak with you, and he implied that you would agree.”
Draco smiled without mirth. “Why did it seem to you that it had to be my choice?”
Harry’s eyes flared, and the last trace of the careful mask cracked and fell away. “Are you kidding? Because it’s your choice, of course! It’s not like Zabini could just march in here and fuck you without your consent, is it?” Draco winced at the crudity of the language, but Harry, on a passionate high, didn’t seem to notice. “But he acted like it was my choice, like as long as I didn’t make a fuss everything was fine! Well, he can sod off. If you want to do this, go ahead and do this, but Blaise bloody Zabini is not going to waltz in here and think my agreement is all he needs!”
Draco swallowed. Then he said, “I have no wish to be Blaise Zabini’s lover.”
Harry fell back in his chair and stared at him. “Oh,” he said. Then he frowned. “I thought you might not want him, but you’re going to want someone, because being high and dry for five years would be hard on you. Is there someone you’d prefer?”
Draco checked his impatient sigh. “The more important thing is to find out why Blaise approached me-or you-in the first place. I’ve never encouraged him, and in fact, I had no idea that he desired me. What did he say about wanting me as a lover?”
Harry shrugged. “That you needed someone who understood the pure-blood way of life, someone who would be for you what I couldn’t.”
Draco narrowed his eyes. “That was all?” From what he knew of Blaise, that was not only more blatant but less sophisticated than he tended to be. On the other hand, he might have thought that no other appeal would work with Harry.
“Pretty much,” Harry said. “He was mostly frustrated that I wouldn’t just agree, and he stomped out threatening to be back.” He snorted. “As though I would stand in your way if you wanted it. But he acted as though I might.”
Draco shook his head and set his fingers to his temple for a moment. “I’m going to have to talk to him myself,” he said. “Something isn’t right here.”
“I agree.”
Draco looked up, ready to snap that some people found him desirable, whether or not Harry did, but stopped at the sight of Harry’s bright eyes. Harry was frowning, but he didn’t look as though he was mocking Draco or downplaying his suspicions, and at the moment, that was all Draco wanted. He leaned tamely back against his pillow, and waited.
“I think,” Harry said, scowling at nothing, “that this might have a connection with our enemies. Or at least it could prove a distraction for them to use against us. If word leaks out that Zabini is courting you, then one of the other pure-bloods might start a rumor that, oh, I don’t know, I’m not the best demi-husband for you, or something. The last thing we need to do right now is give them arrows.”
Draco rolled his eyes. “If you’re suggesting I accept Blaise simply to avoid a scandal, Harry, then you haven’t learned after all from the books and the lessons that I’ve tried to teach you.”
“I’ve learned from life, and that’s more than enough,” Harry said, and his smile turned sharp. “I’m tired of being on the defensive, of just having to wait until one of our enemies makes a move, or the Healers publish an article, or Zabini starts spreading gossip. I want to do something. Go on the offensive. Carry the battle to them.”
Draco frowned and shook his head. “We cannot do much else until we know who our enemies are. As for waiting on the Healers, that was advice that Granger herself gave you. Are you saying that we should have done something else instead?”
“No,” Harry said, slowly, as though he was testing the waters. “Perhaps not then. But now? The article is out. We know. And we know where the threat is coming from, with Zabini, and we know that we have an enemy who wants to strike at you in the middle of parties, and one who has the resources to send mercenaries and dragons after us.” Draco breathed a little more easily. Harry had figured out for himself that there were two enemies, then. “I’d like to do something else,” Harry said, and his eyes fastened on Draco’s face. “Set up an illusion. If that’s agreeable to you.”
Draco spread his hands. “You are the one who would have to cast any glamour charms.” He didn’t look at his basilisk wand, lying on the table, but he was sure that he could feel it smugly laughing at him.
“Not that kind of illusion,” Harry said quietly, and the light in his eyes was almost gentle. “An illusion based on our actions and words.” He hesitated, then plunged ahead. “The illusion that there is something more to this demi-marriage than a sense of my guilt and your needing my money.”
“Isn’t there already?” Draco met Harry’s gaze, and held it. He decided that healing potions were probably behind his unusual courage, but the words were out, spoken, and if they might help, then so be it.
*
Well, shit, anyway.
Because when Draco was looking at him like that, Harry had very little choice but to remember the way his hands had wanted to strangle the chair when Zabini announced that he was interested in Draco, and he had to remember the way Draco had taught him to dance, and he had to remember the fork Draco had thrown at him and the declaration he had made about wanting more passion at the table.
It wasn’t that Harry was in love. He would have recognized that ridiculous, heady feeling from his time with Ginny. But he was more interested and invested than he would be if there was only polite cooperation between them.
So he swallowed, and met Draco’s eyes, and said, “Yes. I think there is.”
When Draco smiled, he looked as Harry had seen him look with his Slytherin friends the couple of times he’d spied on him. He nodded and clasped Harry’s hand strongly, his fingers exploring up to his wrist. When Harry caught his breath-well, the touch felt good-his smile twisted a little. “You shouldn’t have trouble playing a part, then. I notice you act best when you feel something.”
Harry half-shrugged, and tried to take his hand back. Draco wouldn’t let it go. Harry raised his eyebrows and let his hand lie on the coverlet as if that had been his idea all along. Draco’s half-laugh, his softly gleaming eyes, said that he knew the truth, but that wasn’t as irritating as Harry would have assumed it was. “Yeah, I do,” Harry said. “Which made it hard to conceal my irritation at some of the Ministry parties.”
Draco sat up. “Well, you’ve displayed something at this latest party, anyway. Even without this illusion, I think some people would assume you care for me, with the way that you hauled me out of the party rather than let me stay and embarrass myself.”
Harry blinked. “I thought they would just assume that I didn’t want to embarrass the family.”
“To do that, they would have to believe that you cared about the Malfoys’ reputation,” Draco said. “And I doubt they do.”
“Do you?”
Draco, put on the spot, reacted more gracefully than Harry thought he had, without a blush roasting his cheeks, and he didn’t pretend to misunderstand the question, either. He met Harry’s eyes and said, “Yes, I think that you care about it. Not in the same way I do, but that can come later.”
Harry nodded slowly. “And you don’t care anymore if I never value it in exactly the same way that you do.”
“No,” Draco said. “I want-this is what I would have said the other night, if I’d had better control over my temper-I want a working marriage. We’re good in public. I want us to be good in private, too, Harry. Share our concerns, even if they don’t have to do directly with the family. I won’t be a spoiled little prince, and I don’t want you to be a mindless automaton. Complain, if you want to. Ask for what you want to.” He smiled abruptly. “It doesn’t mean I’ll always give it to you, mind.”
Harry laughed. “That makes you no different from a lot of the other people in my life, including my friends.”
He hadn’t expected the way Draco’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, Harry thought he was going to talk about something different, but instead he said, “You agree?”
“I do.” Harry shook the hand that held his.
*
I shall have to see if I can distinguish myself from those others by what I can give.
Chapter Twenty-Two.
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