Careless Whisper

Disclaimer: Never was mine, never will be.

A/Nay! ay! emememembered how to write! I’m so excited! Hopefully it won’t be months between chapters anymore, but I am getting ready for 2 conferences and graduation, so please be understanding. I promise to have the story done by September. Reviews might help keep me moving in the right direction though. (Shameless plea for more reviews)


Careless Whisper


CH 11 – Love Me When I’m Gone

Harry burst into the Infirmary where Draco was sleeping and grabbed the boy’s hand. “DAMN!” he cursed and threw the hand away from him in frustration. A hand fell gently on his shoulder and he turned to face his mentor. “The bastard made her put the ring on him,” he hissed angrily.

Dumbledore’s own face contained more wrinkles than usual, for it was furrowed with worry. In fact, the faces of all those present, Hermione, Oliver, Madame Pomfrey, and Narcissa were all tight with anxiety. Narcissa timidly approached the opposite side of Draco’s bed to clutch desperately at his hand. Tears that had been unshed for her own part in the ordeal se fro from the corners of her eyes. So quietly that no one else could hear, she kept whispering, “What have I done? What kind of mother am I, who would do this to her own son?”

Trembling with barely suppressed rage, Harry turned and stalked out of the room. Hermione followed quickly to darkening his day further by informing him she had found the problem, but not an answer. Catching up to him at the entrance to of the castle, she placed a hand on his shoulder, so that he turned to face her. “Harry…” she began.

“Don’t, Hermione, just don’t. Whatever you found out, I can tell by the look on your face that I don’t want to hear about it. Just let me be,” he whispered dejectedly. Shrugging her hand away, Harry left the castle for the borders of the Dark Forest, the only place in the world that comatcmatch the somber tone of his own emotions.


*****


Ron entered Hogwart’s, exhausted after a long day of dealing with outbreaks of dark magic and pranks being pulled on muggles. He found his wife in the Infirmary next to Draco, books piled high all around her. She smiled up at him feebly and he noted lovingly a spot where she had somehow managed to stain her cheek with ink. “’Lo, luv,” he said quietly, kissing her upon the forehead.

“Oh, Ron, it’s just been awful here. Now the ring is on Draco and Harry’s run off and…” she paused and eyed the bulging briefcase her husband held. Ron had never brought work home with him, never needed to. “It’s started again, hasn’t it?”

“Well…yes, I believe so. I’ve had to bring in additional people. We’ve got Aurors from all over. Finally I had to cast a self-translating spell on the room so every one would be able to understand each other. But, well, you remember Dumbledore said I should stop those relics from being destroyed. I did, but I can’t make heads or tails of them. I brought them here because; well, because this is where everyone is. I have a book for you to work on.” At this Hermione’s head jerked towards her husband, paying extra close attention to the words flowing hastily from his mouth. “I can’t help but feel it’s related somehow. Also there’s this plain looking urn, it certainly doesn’t look like something for the Dark Arts. And this pendant can can feel the evil in it… I just knew I had to bring everything here,” Ron finished somewhat lamely.

Not that Hermione was paying much attention to the end of his spiehe hhe had already snatched his belongings and begun poring over the book. She flipped through the delicate pages, careful not to tear them. Slowly, realization came to her face and she began to smile slightly. Jumping up, she began down the hall, Ron calling after her. “Herm, where are you going? What is it?”

Turning quickly, she kissed her husband full on the mouth, a novelty in light of the events of the past several weeks. “Ron, I knew you’d come through! This could be the answer to everything! Go find Harry!” Then she was gone, disappearing in the maze of halls that would lead her to the library.


*****


Harry stood silently, remembering his first encounter with the Dark Forest. As punishment, he, Ron, and Draco had had to go inside the forest with HagriHagrHagrid -- gone for so long -- no sense mourning now. Harry hadn’t shed a tear for any of the numerous friends and acquaintances lost to the glorious cause. He kicked at a rock, his shoulders drooped and his figure hunched. “Glorious cause my ass,” he muttered to the thin air around him.

“Couldn’t agree more, mate.” The ebony-haired man jumped at hearing Ron’s voice so close to him.

“Merlin, Ron. You scared the shit out of me…You look like piss.”

“Well, you don’t look too good either. I imagine none of us have gotten much sleep in the last few…decades. Look, Harry, I didn’t come down here to chat about what a farce that whole war was. Hermione sent me down here.” In an effort to lighten his friend’s somber mood, Ron tried to make light of Hermione’s enthusiasm over the book he’d brought. “She’s all excited about some book I found, though it looked a bit like gibberish to me. Funny word, that. Gibberish. Sort of like a gerbil on hashish. Well, Hermione sent me to feyou you back to the castle. So, come on, mate. Let’s go,” Ron said, with a wry laugh. Harry would be useless unless he was in the frame of mind to find a solution.


*****


Hermione found Oliver sitting in a corner of the restricted section of the library. “Wood, here. This is is Druidic Runes isn’t it? It looks like the companion book of the one we looked at earlier. Do you think this could have the answer? Would you look at it? Now…please,” Hermione finished with the ‘please’ as an afterthought.

Oliver looked at her and nodded. “Hermione, I told you that I would help with this. I’m not going to give up on it. Let’s see. Ah, here we go: An addendum to the bonding elements of the infinity cross ring. Once the ring has been passed from the original wearer of the ring, in the case that they provide another in their place, the bond becomes weaker with each new wearer of the ring. If, in the instance of the second wearer, the wearer is then bound to another individual through the same process with a different ring then the previous bond will be broken. However, the second bond must be formed out of love, with the wearer of the ring voluntarily accepting the bond. Generally, this occurs when a parent chooses to undertake the bond with their child, in effect binding them to the child in a show of complete devotion.” Here Wood looked up from the book to face the witch looming over him.

“Well, I don’t know if it will work, but it sure couldn’t hurt. The question is, will Draco voluntarily accept a bond with Harry? It doesn’t say that there has to be a child, so I think a bond between the two of them would work.”


*****


The man that was and was not Draco lay in the Infirmary, turning and twisting restlessly in his sleep.
The essence that made him Draco was no longer there, lying actively in a hospital bed; instead, he was hovering passively watching the Draco who was not Draco do evil things to the Boy-Who-Was-About-To-Die. The Not-Draco had Harr a C a Cruciatus, playing with him as though he were a violin of pain for him. Harry lay, writhing on the floor in pain immeasurable. And the Draco who was Draco could only sit by, feeling or rather, feeling as though he were feeling, everything that his lover was. He could feel the pain begin somewhere in the deepest, most secret place Harry had; he felt it bubbling up and beginning to boil, consuming every nerve ending from Harry’s toes to the very tip of his hair follicles. Harry’s was a pain there would be no escaping from, a pain that, should he survive, would leave him haunted, a ghost.

The Draco who was Draco screamed the anguished scream of human nature at its most base. He screamed for the agony that this other human being was feeling and looked upon the Draco who was and was not him and loathed it. There was no word to define the essence of what he felt toward this Other Draco, and not because he was Other Draco or even because it was doing this to Harry, his Harry, Draco’s Harry; but because it, Other Draco, could do this to another human being. How could anyone who had a soul do this to another person and not hate themselves?

Draco, the one who was Draco, in his anger, roused himself from the dream he had been prisoner in and found himself in the Infirmary with a rather concerned looking Madame Pomfrey, his mother, and Professor Dumbledore at his side. Dumbledore smiled down at him, but Draco noticed that the smile came nowhere near the old man’s eyes, and said, “Well, glad you’ve joined us, then Mister Malfoy. How are you feeling?”

Draco’s eyes darted around anxiously, searching for the object of his affections, the only person that mattered to him at that moment in time. Frantically, he asked, “Where’s Harry?”

Striding up to the bed as quickly as possible, Harry, who had just entered, grabbed his hand. “I’m right here, Drey. No worries, I’m right here.”

Color crept back into Draco’s ashen cheeks before it ebbed away again. Everyone was here, fussing over him. But in the back of his mind was a voice, the voice of his father. It was quiet enough, but the insistence of the voice grew with each passing second. Draco looked down at his hand and remembered everything that had come to pass. Suddenly, he felt the overwhelming urge to squeeze Harry’s hand as tightly as he possibly could. Given his current condition, this would not have been very harmful to Harry; still, he fought the urge with all his might.

“What’s the matter, Draco?” Harry asked, noting the look of fierce concentration on his lover’s face.

Draco grimaced, looking sadly at those around him. “He’s here. I can feel him. He wants me to hurt you. Harry, I don’t want to hurt you. Maybe you shouldn’t be here…” he finished quietly.

The raven-haired man, hurt written across his face, nodded and left the room, his shoulders sagging under the invisible weight of love rebuffed.


*****


Hermione’s feet barely touched the ground as she ran from the library in the direction of the Infirmary. Skidding to a stop at the foot of Draco’s bed, her face broke into a smile at seeing him awake. “Draco, wonderful! We may have found an answer!”

“It’s no use, Hermione. He’s here. Already. I can feel him. There’s nothing you can do. I sent Harry away, he hates me,” Draco murmured, plucking at his sheet.

“Draco, this is your chance. So you didn’t choose sides during the war. It is never to late to be what you might have been…Let yourself be great. You can do this. I know you can. But you have to be willing to do it, Draco. You see, we can change the bond. Wood found a way so that you can be bound to Harry…” Hermione continued to tell Draco about the book and what was written inside.

After she finished, Draco hardly looked any more hopeful. “Draco, aren’t you happy?”

“What if Harry doesn’t want to do it?” he asked plaintively.

“Are you crazy? Harry’s completely in love with you. And I don’t mean he loves you in a way that might change. He’s never stopped loving you. It’s just that your wires got crossed and neither of you thought that the other loved you back. How could he resist you, Draco? Ron’s just lucky you’re not interested in girls,” Hermione joked, trying to relieve some of the tension the blond must be feeling.

“Hey, I heard that,” Ron said approaching the two at the bed. “Have either of you seen Harry? He went storming by me a little earlier and I haven’t been able to find him since.”

“He won’t want to do it. I have to find him. I have to talk to him. Where are my clothes?”


*****


Harry paced around in Dumbledore’s office, agitated that the old man would not hear him out. The plan was near perfect in his head. He would simply take a sleeping draught of some sort and allow Lucius to enter his mind. Then they could wake Draco up and Harry could destroy him for the last time. After all, that’s what heroes were for, and that had been his job description up to now. Dumbledore interrupted his thoughts. “Harry, I believe that Professor Granger-Weasley and Mister Wood are working on the issue of Misters Malfoy at present and I do not see the sense in putting you in danger. There is litteed eed for your death after you’ve survived so much already, Mister Potter,” the old wizard said in a manner intended to appear sagely.

“Professor Dumbledore, sir, it’s not that I’m afraid to die; I’d just rather not be there when it happens. This is for Draco and I will do anything for him. But this is also for the wizarding world. What if this solution that Hermione and Wood have come up with doesn’t work? What then? Lucius is free to roam the earth, disguised as Draco? I’m sorry, Professor, that just isn’t good enough for me. Please consider what I’ve said to you today. I will go through with my own plan, without your approval if need be,” Harry spoke stiffly, standing up to his mentor for possibly the first time in his life. He turned at the door and bid the wizard farewell. “Good day, Professor.”

After he left, Dumbledore removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. He understood the doubts of the young wizard, but cautions had to be taken to protect Harry’s well-being. Who knew when the next Grindelwald or Voldemort would appear, or the next Harry Potter for that matter? No, Dumbledore could not afford to gamble with Harry’s safety when there was no outstanding wizard to take his place…

Literary References: I’m not sure I’ll be able to remember them in order, but here they are: George Elliott, Summer Catch, Woody Allen, Marge Piercy (from Gone to Soldiers), and Redneck Octopus Sam. Again, if you’re interested in the references, just email me and I’ll tell you where they are…