The Marriage of True Minds

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Chapter
Thirty-Six--Together in the Dazzle

            As soon as
they stepped outside the Ministry, Harry could pick the reporters out of the
crowd. They tried to lounge casually, but they never did manage it. He thought it was something that got trained out of
them when they were taught alertness and attention to the finer details around
them. That training was more valuable than not for writing articles, but it
meant they appeared like hounds on the scent to anyone who knew what to look
for.

            Too, he
knew some of them by sight. The tall woman straightening up on the far side of
the crowd was Sylvia Abernathy, one of the Prophet's
more persistent gossip columnists. The man who was thin all over--thin
glasses and eyebrows and moustache to go with everything else--represented the Cackler, a paper that mostly reported Quibbler-style about conspiracies but
would follow any scandalous story about a wizarding world celebrity they could
find. And there were a few others who opened their mouths and started yammering
the minute they saw him.

            Harry
grimaced. This was why he hated doing things like this. Nod and look vaguely
above their heads, give them nothing, and he stood some chance of holding his
own in this contest.

            But Draco
had begun to swagger as soon as he saw them, his hand resting on Harry's
shoulder and his smile so sharp that Harry thought it would slice the Cackler bloke's head off when he stared
at him, and Harry reckoned that he couldn't ask him not to have fun. He followed
along behind Draco in a resigned way as they came out onto the street and the
reporters churned a way through the casual stream of people passing back and
forth from the Ministry on legitimate business.

            This is a legitimate business, too, Harry. He
could almost hear Hermione's voice scolding him. Just because you don't like it...

            Harry would
like it better if reporters had some basic manners, but none of them knew what
the word "dignity" looked like. Abernathy had her Quick-Quotes Quill
poised near his face before he could duck behind Draco.

            "Mr.
Potter," she said, and gave him a smile so syrupy it would have made Rita Skeeter's jaw drop in shock. "Can you tell us, how
soon are you leaving the marriage with Mr. Malfoy? Of course he'll tie you down
and try to force you to commit to him, and I don't
think that's a good idea for someone with as...long and varied a sexual record as you have."

            Oh, she was
good, Harry had to acknowledge. It wasn't just the smile, but the elaborate
pause in her voice, as though she was searching for words that wouldn't hurt
him. A few of the other reporters had stopped to stare at her in admiration.

            Too bad for her that Draco wasn't one of them. (Though Harry
did have a sudden flash of what Draco might act like if he reported on gossip
and had to bite hastily on his lip to stifle a snort).

            Draco took
a step around Harry and smiled at Abernathy. "I'm sure you'll want to know
that you're using the wrong name for Harry," he said. "He should be
addressed as Harry Malfoy, due to the nature of the marriage bond." He
paused, then added thoughtfully, "Fancy someone like you, who's spent so
much time with pure-bloods, not knowing that."

            A high
flush colored Abernathy's cheekbones, and Harry had to work hard to stifle a
chuckle, this time. He remembered hearing that her family wasn't pure-blood,
but that she had worked hard to make people think so.

            "My
apologies," Abernathy said, becoming even softer and more polite, the way
she had a gift for doing in the face of provocation. It was one reason Harry
hadn't turned to insults when he spoke to her. He would always come out looking
worse, no matter what he said. She faced Harry again and gave him a sort of
sympathetic smile that seemed to argue she and Harry were alone together, facing
a world of hostile, prejudiced pure-bloods. "Mr. Malfoy,
then. When do you intend to leave--Mr. Malfoy?"

            Harry
smiled at her. He could see it would frustrate her, having to call two people
by the same last name, and that gave him a flash of inspiration. "You
still have the name wrong," he said coldly. "It's Auror Malfoy."

            Draco's
left arm was behind Harry's back. When Harry spoke the Malfoy last name as
though it was his own, Harry felt Draco's fingers scraping up and down his
arse. Draco's hand had curled in what seemed to be shock. Harry made sure he
kept any smile off his face and eyed Abernathy sternly.

            She did a
little bow of her head and said, "Auror. When do you--"

            "You've
had them long enough, Sylvia, it's my turn," the thin man interrupted, and
bustled up, inserting himself in a little gap between Harry and Abernathy's
elbows. "We've seen lots of pictures of you admiring non-human beasts and
beings, Malfoy. Who gave you the best ride?"

            "I'd
say Firebolt," Harry said obediently. Ron and
Draco had come up with a list of the most likely offensive questions and
prepared him with some answers. "I was once loyal to Nimbus, of course,
but I'm afraid their brooms just can't compare with the newer and more
expensive Firebolt models."

            The thin
man looked blank. Abernathy laughed at him and shoved him out of the way with
her arse as she faced Harry again. "That isn't what we're talking about,
and you know it," she said, her eyes sparking as though she was glad that
Harry had turned out to be a worthy opponent after all. "We want to know who
fucked you the best."

            "The
Ministry's fucked me over many a time," Harry said. That wasn't a question
on the list of questions, but he saw no reason that he couldn't turn it around
on Abernathy. Draco hadn't interfered so far, and Harry knew he would have if
he disapproved of Harry's performance. "I can't give too many details that
would lessen the public's trust in our leaders, of course, but--"

            "Enough," Abernathy said, in a
louder voice than Harry had thought that slender chest could contain. Well, he
reckoned that she had to be able to surprise him some of the time or part of
the challenge would be gone from confronting and evading the reporters.
"We want to know who you had sex with, and right now. The trust of the
public in you is at stake, Auror
Potter." She pointed her quill at him, her face flushed, and Harry saw
something in her eyes that he hadn't expected. She believed this story, or at
least part of it, and she was disappointed
in him. "They will want to know whether they've been loving and admiring a sex maniac, someone who only cares for
the latest bed he can jump in and out of--"

            "The
only beds Auror Malfoy has been in during the past few months are the ones that
I approved."

            Harry
jerked. He had been going to let Abernathy play herself
out, but he had reckoned without Draco, who stepped forwards and let his own
grin glint at her. It shone jaggedly enough to make Abernathy take a step back.
Draco went on speaking into the silence he had created as smoothly as though he
had planned this all along.

            "Harry
has two lovers at the moment, Auror Ian Shelborn and
me. He certainly couldn't have gone on most of the liaisons that you think he
had without inviting me along. And those photographs that you put so much stock
in?" Draco moved his fingers, and a photograph torn out of the paper, the
one that showed Harry supposedly snogging a
dark-haired man, appeared in his hand. "Fakes."

            Draco was a
quick study, Harry had to admit, in things other than how
to irritate him. He'd memorized the spell that Ian taught him within seconds.
He murmured it now, and the enchantment on the photograph visibly tattered and
spiraled away, revealing the original of the picture: Harry standing in front
of the man, staring into his eyes, as he bound him with the ropes of the Incarcerous spell.

            There was a
rising murmur of excitement from the back of the crowd. Harry smiled. He
suspected that many of them were only interested in a story they could write
down and claim ownership of, which meant that it wouldn't matter to them where
that story came from or who it concerned. There was just as much material to
sell papers in declaring that Harry Potter was a wronged hero as in declaring
that he was "the Salacious Savior," as the Cackler had put it that morning.

            Well, maybe
not quite as much, Harry admitted to
himself a moment later. But the papers had published so many photographs that
there wasn't much to fall back on if they wanted to continue the story. A new
twist, like Harry being a victim after all, would make them happier than
repetition of stale facts.

            "That
can't be true," Abernathy said, looking as though someone had killed her
kitten. "We--we all saw them, we saw all
of them, there's no way that all of them can be false..."

            In silence,
Draco held up the picture of Harry and the horse that Harry remembered from the
case where the Dark wizard had enchanted pets to kill. Again
the spell, again the smoke, again a photo that was perfectly innocent.
Harry grinned at Draco, who twitched a corner of his mouth in response but
didn't look away from the reporters in front of him.

            "I
would think," Draco said, his voice traveling out like a whip that Harry
could almost see coiling around Abernathy's neck, "that the Daily Prophet would know their own photographs better than this. Since those pictures
were the basis for the deception..." He got to trail off and look smug,
which Harry was already beginning to suspect was one of his favorite things in
the world.

            "That
doesn't mean all of them are false," the man from the Cackler said suddenly. "Or even that the ones you've shown us
are! You could have put an
enchantment on them that would make them appear innocent, because you want your
husband out of trouble and the scandal is embarrassing!"

            Other
voices piped up agreeing with him, while someone else began to claim that they
knew the incantation and it was only used for revealing the truth, not hiding
it. Harry raised an eyebrow at Draco, who looked more annoyed than resigned.
They'd tried, and Ian and Ron had other strategies up their sleeves.

            Only
Abernathy didn't join the growing cacophony. She stood still, except for a
slight swaying, her eyes locked on Harry. Harry frowned. Had she taken the
undermining of her story that personally? He didn't think she was the one who'd
written the Prophet's report on the
photos.

            Then she
reached down and drew her wand.

            At the same
time, the air filled with the heavy, sweetish scent of decay.

            Harry
reacted instinctively, spinning around and dropping Draco to the ground, behind
him. He fell into a defensive crouch beside Draco and looked frantically at the
crowd, wondering how he would protect them from the vines and the flowers that
had apparently planted the beast in Grayson.

            Then
Abernathy shouted, and Harry realized he might not have to worry about that as
a blast of pain and power took him in the chest and sheered what felt like a
huge patch of skin away. He fell, twisting over to try to fire back, and
skidded in something large and wet. When he looked down, he realized it was a
pool of his own blood, already an inch deep.

            This is bad, he thought, muzzily. This is very
bad.

*

            Rage such
as Draco had never known stirred to life in him when he heard the rings buzz
and saw Harry fall, his chest ripped open to expose the heart.

            But the
rage was because Harry was dying, and Draco had to prevent that no matter what,
not go after Abernathy. He raised his wand and spat out a spell that he would
normally never use in front of the Ministry, a Dark incantation that spread a
shimmering, impenetrable shield over them. He dropped down beneath the mist of
dark purple and turned to Harry. He would have to hope that the decay magic it
seemed Abernathy wielded couldn't eat through the shield, as it had done with
the Ministry wards his mother had discovered.

            All this
traveled through his mind and body in a splinter of a second.

            Harry was
dying. That much was obvious to Draco. Bleeding out, no one could survive that
much blood, Draco's knees and legs were soaked in it. There was very little
that would even keep him stable until someone could move him to St. Mungo's, not least because the movement alone would
probably kill him.

            But there
were spells that might increase his chances of survival.

            Sanguis, sanguis cruore, Draco thought in his head, because a nonverbal
spell would be faster than a verbal one and speed mattered right now. He had no
trouble putting enough force behind the spell, which was sometimes a problem
when one was used to casting spells aloud only. Now, the magic leaped and
ripped through him, slicing hard enough at his veins that he winced. But that
was part of the point. The magic had to escape, and he was the conduit.

            The magic
bore a stream of blood with it, starting at his arm, though no cut was visible;
it simply opened a vein and flowed into Harry. Draco was casting healing spells
at the same time, tying together ragged strips of skin, creating a covering so
that his own blood wouldn't immediately flow out again. He was growing steadily
weaker, but the spell he had cast was the most powerful one he knew, the only
one that could adjust itself in the face of continuing weakness, and if
anything could save Harry, then he knew it would.

            As Draco
fell lower and lower beside Harry and his vision blurred and grew faint, he
thought he saw movement outside their shield. Well, tough. If it was enemies,
they hadn't managed to burn through yet. If it was friends, they could help the
most by fighting Abernathy and not interfering with what Draco was trying to do
for Harry. Clumsy healing spells or, worse, a misaimed Finite at the wrong time could undo Harry's chances of survival.

            Draco knew
that his own clear, cold mask of glazed ice over his emotions was a deception,
that it would break in a while and his screams would leak through. Well, that
was too bad. He would have to do what he could while he
could, and if Harry survived, that would be more than he had thought could happen.

            Hope wasn't
thought. Hope wasn't rational.

            The blood
flow looped back and forth between him and Harry; as he weakened, the spell
picked up the blood lying on the ground, Harry's blood, and poured it into him,
so that he in turn could grow stronger and continue contributing the blood and
weaving the skin that would keep Harry alive. Draco was vaguely aware that
there were dangers to this, that wizards had died
doing this, because a wizard's blood carried magic just as every other part of
his body did and another wizard's body sometimes rejected that power. But,
well, without it Harry would die. That made it as good as having no choice,
where Draco was concerned.

            His vision
blurred, then cleared, then blurred again. The magic continued to make the
rounds, tying them together, joining them together, transforming
them together. Draco wanted to yelp in tiredness and collapse, but that would
be stupid when it was still working. The magic would have stopped at once if
Harry was dead, because the wizards who had invented it saw no point in killing
two people.

            As long as
Draco could see that stream pouring through his uncut flesh, then Harry was
still with him.

            He pulled
together two strips of skin above Harry's heart, panting. Then he sat back and
stared down at a ragged but whole chest, the rents and slashes
in it wounds of the kind that Draco thought someone could survive.

            The magic
stopped flowing.

            For long
moments, the world contracted, and Draco could feel the heartbeat in his own
chest even more powerfully than the buzzing of the ring. The ring that would
have fallen from his finger, he reminded himself, if Harry was dead. The ring
that felt suddenly heavier, but Draco couldn't look at it right now; his eyes
remained locked on Harry's chest, the way it was trembling.

            The way it
began to rise and fall.

            Draco
closed his eyes and leaned his head on Harry's legs, heedless of the blood
smearing his cheeks and sticking to his hair. He knew that the Healers at St. Mungo's would have to do other things, that weaving skin
back and contributing blood wasn't enough, but for a moment he let himself go
and spoke silent thanks to whatever power wanted to receive it.

            Then he
conjured a stretcher, lifted Harry onto it with the gentlest of gentle spells,
and looked up to see how the battle outside the shield was going, whether he
could safely drop it or not.

            Both
Weasley and Shelborn were pounding on the shield, and
it looked as though Abernathy had either escaped or someone had safely downed
her, because Draco didn't see a sign of her. Either way was good enough for
him. As long as she wasn't in the immediate vicinity, then she couldn't hurt
Harry. He turned, placing his body as a barrier between Harry and his friends
so that they couldn't hurt him accidentally, and then lowered the shield. He
was staggering with tiredness, he realized abruptly, and needed the floating
stretcher himself to keep upright.

            "What happened?" Weasley's hair was
literally standing on end, and for once it wasn't the reddest thing about him.
The blood that smeared his robes was gleaming and sticky and sickly, and Draco
had to look away from it. That was blood that had been outside the shield, and
so outside the range of the Blood Transfer Spell he had cast to save Harry's
life.

            "Someone
cut Harry's chest open," Draco said. "St. Mungo's. Now."

            For once,
neither Weasley nor Shelborn demanded arguments or
explanations. They gathered up the edges of the stretcher, and Shelborn Apparated them. Draco blinked as they landed in a
bright, clear room, which moments later was filled with shouts and scurrying mediwizards. He sat down hard in a chair, awaiting the moment when they would move Harry to a room, so
that he could go with him.

            He looked
at his left hand. He had reached out for Harry's left hand without even
realizing it, linking their rings together.

            On both
rings was a new band of metal, a heavy, dull one that Draco stared at without
recognition for long moments. Well, the blood that covered everything certainly
didn't help.

            Iron.

            Iron, the metal that ran in blood. Iron that was the sign
the partners in the marriage had spilled their blood for one another.

            Draco
closed his eyes and had to fight back a hysterical giggle. Well, this was one
way to create that band for the ring.

*

            "...a
real lead at last."

            That
promising sentence brought Harry up out of the darkness. He became aware that
he was breathing with the aid of magic--that constricting sensation around his
chest and nose was unmistakable--and grimaced. He always hated it, and he'd had
more than his fair share of experience with that spell, since there were a few
times after his escape from the darkness when he'd stopped breathing in the
middle of his panic attacks.

            He opened
his eyes and turned his head, procedures that shouldn't have made him feel as
if he were trying to cast a defensive spell with his left hand while fighting
off three Dark wizards with his right.

            Draco sat
beside the bed, his left hand still linked and locked with Harry's. Harry's
gaze went to him first, and stayed there, because he knew without asking, the
way Draco's gaze lingered on him and clear sparks glowed in his eyes, that he
had come close to dying and Draco had saved his life.

            Again.

            At least we already have the platinum band
in the ring, Harry thought. For some reason, it seemed incredibly
important.

            "Mate!"

            Ron tried
to hug him, which, given all the bandages on Harry's chest as well as the way
that Draco refused to let go of Harry's left hand, was a bit awkward. But Harry
held Ron and patted his shoulder with his free hand, murmuring, and Ron made a
noise like he was swallowing tears, and it was more than all right.

            "Harry.
Welcome back."

            Ian was
watching Harry with eyes that were so brilliant Harry had to squirm a little,
even though he was lying in bed and there was a Healer coming through the
doorway at the moment who raised a protest against exactly the kind of squirm
that Harry wanted to do. "Thank you," he said. "What happened,
exactly? I know that Sylvia Abernathy was using decay magic, but I don't know
what spell she hit me with."

            "A
spell that tore your chest away," Draco said, and from the savage creaking
in the back of his voice, he wanted Harry to pay attention to him. Harry rolled
his head over again, and the sparks that he could see, or thought he could see,
rising from Draco immediately calmed. Draco smiled at him and reached out,
fingers tracing his collarbone as though checking for breaks. "I used
another one that transfers my blood to you and gathered up the fallen blood to
send back into my veins."

            "I don't
understand that part," Harry said, after thinking about it for a few
seconds. "Wouldn't it have been easier to force the blood on the ground
back into me?"

            Draco shook
his head. "Magic works strongly with cycles and circles, not so much with
reversing the effects of another spell. Even Finite could only have removed Dark magic that was preventing you
from healing, not given you your blood back. Plus, it would have been a bit
useless without the skin to hold it in," he added dryly. "So I worked
the skin, and the magic set up a cycle that would feed strength to me as I lost
it and feed you strength as you lost
it. When the magic reached a balance that meant you wouldn't immediately die,
we could move you. But the Healers here did almost as much as I did."

            "You
don't believe that," Harry said quietly. Draco's eyes got that glow they
only had when he knew he had saved Harry.

            Draco
tilted their hands in response. The rings had a new band,
Harry saw when he glanced down. Iron.

            "Do
you mind?" Draco asked.

            "I--of
course not," Harry said, though if Ian's gaze had made him want to squirm,
Draco's made him want to run out of the room. "It was just--unexpected,
that's all. And of course, I thank you for saving my life."

            "Out
of here, now," the Healer said, who had been
hovering in the background and looking more and more agitated as the
conversation went on. "Auror Potter's still not strong enough for
visitors."

            Ron and Ian
left, though not without squeezing Harry's hand on the way, but Draco stayed
right where he was. The Healer seemed used to that, since she rolled her eyes
and started working around him.

            "I
hope that we at least can stop this from happening again," Harry
whispered, closing his eyes as exhaustion began to press on them.

            "Oh,
we didn't mention it, did we?" Draco asked. "They took Abernathy
alive. And it seems she's a full conspirator, not an innocent victim."

            That
allowed Harry to smile as he slipped into sleep again.

            Well, that,
and the kiss he felt Draco press on his wedding ring.

*

            Althydia: Harry is already feeling a bit more uncomfortable
with Ian, though a lot of that comes from discomfort that he seems to have lied
to him about his relationship with Draco.

            Draco and
Hermione are going to meet each other, yes. How much of a confrontation it is
depends on at what point it happens.

            I can't
answer your question about the rings yet!

            SP777: Whenever
someone says that, that chapter is always the same length as all the others!

            But thank
you.

            unneeded: A lot of it will depend on how easily Draco admits
things.

            Night the
Storyteller: Harry will talk with Ian later. He doesn't want to hurt him.