Careless Whisper

12.14.03

Disclaimer: I don’t own them. Legally J.K. Rowling owns them. But then, are they really something that can be owned?

Careless Whisper
Ch 6 – Devil in Disguise


Draco looked at the woman standing before him. Time had been kind to her. Her features had softened since the war. He felt his body stiffen and stretch to its greatest height. He would not be cowed by her.

“Hello, Draco dear,” she said as she walked towards him with her arms out, ready to embrace him.

He put his hands up and backed away, signaling he had no intention of having her touch him. With a strain in his voice he nodded and replied curtly, “Mother.”


*****


Just as suddenly as Draco had appeared, he disappeared. Harry wandered calmly through the fog, in search of the man he loved. Draco had sounded happy enough to talk to him, but Harry couldn’t shake the feeling that Draco still hated him. There was no possible way for Draco to turn around and love Harry after all this time, was there?

Harry remembered a time when he thought Draco had loved him.
Looking at the clock, Harry watched the minutes slowly tick by. Each passing second felt like an eternity. Sitting up, Harry gave in to insomnia.
Sleep had been a luxury since the war, a luxury that often eluded him. His sleep was always riddled with dreams of the final battle: watching those around him drop dead before him, watching the power that emanated from Voldemort. It had been sheer luck that allowed Harry to destroy that evil.
Harry rolled over and watched the sleeping Draco by his side. Draco’s body instinctively wrapped around Harry’s in sleep. Harry hated disturbing Draco, but he could not stay in bed a moment longer.
Harry eased out of bed and walked to the living room. Eyeing the bookshelves, he shook his head; he had read all of their books at least twice by now.
Instead, he sat down to work on the design for the ring he intended to give Draco. The idea had struck him about a week before. He worked for a few minutes before shoving the paper into the desk when he heard Draco coming down the hall.
“Harry?” Draco had called.
“Hey, darlin’. Go back to bed. I can’t sleep,” Harry answered.
“Is it my fault? Can you not stand to be in the same bed with me? Why do I feel like you’re always hiding things from me?” Draco had accused.
“Drey, it’s not that. You know I have a hard time sleeping. I don’t want to wake you, so I come in here. I was just working on some correspondence that is long overdue. It’s nothing, go back to bed, please,” Harry had urged softly.
This was an argument that had turned into an every night ritual: Harry got out of bed, Draco pouted, Harry apologized, and Draco sulked. This night was different somehow, Harry could feel it.
“Since you seem to enjoy the living room so much,be ybe you should just stay out here and not bother coming back to bed,” Draco had said coldly before turning on his heel.
Harry sighed. Attempting the bedroom door later, he found that Draco had locked him out. That night a seed had been planted in the back of Harry’s mind. It was then that he started to doubt that Draco truly loved him.

Harry felt tired. The fog only seemed to be getting thicker. He felt sure he had imagined Draco’s presence. Perhaps it would be best for everyone if he were to just lie down here and stay until someone found him…


*****


Draco gestured to the loveseat, indicating his mother should sit.

“Draco, dear, whatever is the matter? Why are you acting so strangely?” his mother queried as she perched on the edge of the ancient furniture piece.

“I don’t even know who you are, Mother. You know damn well why I’m here. Did you think I would never find out? Why? Why did you do this to us? To me?” Draco demanded.

Narcissa Malfoy drank in the presence of her son. He stood before her, fully grown. The man that she and Lucius had always hoped he would become. Draco stood nearly six feet tall. His blond hair was perfectly coiffed, not a hair out of place. Leaning against the mantelpiece, Draco maintained an air of aristocracy that could not be feigned. His eyes had a piercing quality, as though the silver could see through to the quick of you. He was thin, perhaps almost too thin since the end of his relationship with Harry.

She sighed, contemplating an answer. Really, there was no answer. She couldn’t explain what had made her undermine her son’s happiness. Sometimes she felt as though she were no longer herself, as though someone else were planting thoughts inside her head. Instead, she told him what he wanted to hear, what he expected to hear.

“Darling, you know I have grown fond of Mr. Potter. I even welcomed him into my home with open arms. However, you seemed to fail to realize that you are still a Malfoy. You still have appearances to uphold. It did not do for you to flaunt your relationship with the Boy-Who-Lived. It did not reflect well on both of you, and it certainly did not bode well with your father-- “ Narcissa gasped as she realized what she had just said.

All the color that had flooded Draco’s angry face at Narcissa’s speech drained as soon as she mentioned his father. He marched over to her and jerked her up from her seat.

“What in Merlin’s name are you talking about, Mother? Lucius is dead. I killed him myself. I thought you were talking crazy, but now I know something is not right.”

“You, there’s something wrong with you. I can see it in your eyes. They’re empty, Mother. What is wrong with you?”

Draco shook his mother roughly before realizing what he doindoing. Fuming, he pushed her roughly from his grasp so that she fell back on the loveseat. He wanted to apologize to his mother, but felt that he wasn’t speaking to his mother anymore.

Narcissa couldn’t believe what had happened any more than Draco. At that moment, she had an epiphany. Lucius was dead physically, yes. Draco had killed him in the final battle. Looking down at her finger, she thought about the spell Lucius had placed on her wedding ring all those years before.

It had been years since she had even thought about her marriage to that monster. He had been a cruel husband. Draco would never know the extent of the torture he had put her through. Still, it had never occurred to Narcissa to remove her wedding band. She was bound by wizarding law to never remarry. The ring was lovely, so she saw no reason to remove it.

“Well, say something, Mother. Don’t just sit there,” Draco said harshly.

Narcissa looked up at Draco with tears in her eyes. Looking back down at the ring, she tried to slip it off of her finger. The ring wouldn’t budge. She began frantically pulling and jerking at the ring, trying to remove it from her body. The ring, however, remained fixed on her wedding finger.

“Draco,” she whispered fearfully.

Draco’s eyebrows arched as he watched what she was doing. Then he realized what was on her finger.

“Mother, you don’t think…Why didn’t you take it off before?” he asked as he knelt down to attempt removing the ring himself.

“It was pretty. I never thought of it. Oh Merlin, Draco, what have I done?” Narcissa panicked.

Draco kept pulling until his mother cried out in pain. Examining the ring and finger more closely, Draco could see that the ring was physically bonded to the finger. There was no way to remove the ring.

Looking up at his mother with concern, he knelt in front of her and took both of her hands in his. “Mother, why don’t you tell me what you remember, at least? Then we will try to figure out what to do,” Draco whispered.


*****


Ron and Hermione sat by Harry’s side, keeping a silent vigil. The only sound in the room was the occasional beeps and blips from Harry’s different monitors.
Harry had been unconscious for several days. The weekend had come and gone without much change. Neville left only to shower, change clothes, and eat. He, along with Ron and Hermione, had set up cots in an unused room in order to be nearby in case something happened.

Hermione was reading her students’ essays in the corner and Ron was reading a muggle book about a war that reminded him of the wizard’s war with Voldemort. Besides the lack of magic, the wars were very similar. Just as Voldemort targeted mixed-bloods, this Hitler person had targeted the Jews. Voldemort tortured and killed countless people, just as Hitler destroyed an estimated six million Jews. Ron shuddered involuntarily at the thought of a muggle with this sort of power. It was one thing if the capability for dark magic was innate; however, it was quite unsettling for someone to be handed that kind of power by the people of nations.

Lost in his thoughts, Ron didn’t hear the monitor start beeping. In fact, Ron remained oblivious until Neville rushed in with some other mediwizards and witches. Ron backed into the corner and watched. The medical team ran their wands over Harry’s body, checking for different things that may have caused the beep in the screen. Finally, Neville muttered a spell and the beeping returned to its steady rhythm.

“Neville, what happened?” Ron asked, relieved that the activity was over.

“His pulse dropped dramatically. He’s giving up.”

“I want Draco back here, as soon as possible. I can admit when I’m wrong. I think Draco is the only one that can save Harry. It was uncanny the way Harry calmed down when Draco was here. Bring him back now,” Neville said.

Ron looked over at Hermione who nodded. So this was the emergency Draco had devised the port key for. Muttering the spell, Ron activated the mechanism to bring Draco back to St. Mungo’s.


*****


Draco held his mother’s hand while she told her story. As afraid as he was, he didn’t want to scare her as well. Her trembling voice revealed the amount of terror she felt already.

“I don’t know, Draco. All of a sudden, the sight of you and Harry disgusted me. I told myself that it was because you were flaunting your relationship, and I didn’t want you to get hurt; but deep down, I knew that it was more than that.”

“Then, I had a dream about Blaise Zabini hoarding relics from the war. I went to see him, intending to persuade him to give them up. Instead, I blackmailed him. I forced him into entrapping Harry in an improper situation. I never meant to say those things, it was as though the voice was not my own.”

“He resisted of course, but then I cast cruciatus on him. I’m not even very good at that spell, and I had no intention of hurting the boy. I guess it was then that I noticed I wasn’t using my wand any longer.”

“The wand I had taken with me was Lucius’. I didn’t even know we still had Lucius’ wand here in the Manor. I didn’t think I could use his wand; I tried before. He used to throw it at me when he was beating me, encouraging me to hex him with it. I tried once and was punished severely. I’d never been able to use his wand before, Draco, I swear.”

“I remembered today a spell he cast on our wedding bands when we were married. It was an old Dark incantation. Obviously, it bound me to him, since I can’t remove this damned ring. It was an ancient language I had no knowledge of. I was still in love with him then; I didn’t think to question it. Draco, do you think you will be able to help me? I’m so sorry, I never meant to hurt you,” Narcissa cried quietly.

Draco lifted her chin so that she looked at him. “Mother, I will talk to Ron and we will fix…” Draco was interrupted.

Both Draco and Narcissa felt a pull at their navels as the port key was activated. Seconds later, they found themselves at St. Mungo’s.


*****


Draco and Narcissa Malfoy appeared in the middle of Harry’s hospital room, looking around curiously. Draco paused only a second before rushing to Harry’s side and taking his hand.

Harry’s hand was cool to the touch and his coloring had grown even paler since Draco had left hours before.

Neville approached Draco. “Malfoy, I think you need to talk to Harry. He appears to be giving up. Unless you can prove to him that he has something worth living for, then I think we are going to lose him,” Neville said matter-of-factly.

“What am I supposed to do? Just sit here and hold his hand?” Draco asked.

Neville shrugged. “Talk to him. Talk about good times you had together. Don’t mention anything sad or negative. Just encourage him to wake up,” he offered.

Draco sat down next to Harry and shot the others a look to encourage their absence. Narcissa momentarily forgotten, Draco brought Harry’s hand to his lips before speaking to the sleeping beauty.

“Harry, it’s me. It’s Drey. I’m here. I just wanted you to know. Just relax, I’m not going anywhere.”

“Hey, do you remember that time when we went to Italy? We stayed at Capri and lounged on the beach for days. We swore we would never leave. We were so happy there, Harry. You slept straight through every night. It made me so happy to wake up with you sprawled all over the bed -- even it did mean I didn’t have very many covers.”

“Oh, do you remember Ron and Hermione’s wedding? You were the best man. You looked so handsome in that tuxedo; I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I don’t even remember what Ron or Hermione were wearing. All I could see was you.”

“I know I never told you often enough Harry, but I do love you. I took you for granted. I assumed you would always be there and you would always know that I loved you. I guess I’m not the only one that needs reassurance every now and then.”

“Harry, please wake up…” Draco paused as the door opened.

Narcissa walked in, wand outstretched, pointing at Harry.

“Mother, what are you doing?” Draco asked.

“Quiet, boy,” a tone not unlike his father’s answered.

Draco realized, in that split second, that before him was not his mother, but rather some devil in disguise. Rushing to snatch the wand, Draco couldn’t be sure if the killing curse that was cast hit its intended target or not.