Duet

*~*~*~*
Bright Future

Harry stood at the top of the Astronomy Tower and looked over the place that had been his home for seven years. He felt his daughter flutter softly. There was now a slight bulge in his thin frame. Three and one half months pregnant and feeling alone, Lucius had not owled him in over a week. He heard rumors of increased attacks by Death Eaters and hoped his lover was safe.

Tomorrow Harry would leave Hogwarts against Dumbledore’s wishes. He knew he should accept the Headmaster’s offer of safe haven, but he couldn’t hide the pregnancy much longer. Harry just didn’t think he could stand the condemnation once his friends and the professors discovered he was carrying a Death Eaters’ baby.

Harry walked though the corridors of Hogwarts one last time before he ended up in the music room. He sat down and began playing. Students dropped in to say goodbye. It was almost curfew when Harry stopped playing; he was only mildly surprised to see Dumbledore sitting in the corner.

“I can’t convince you to stay?”

“No, Professor. It’s time to move on.”

“Do you have a place to stay?”

“Yes, Professor. I’ve already sent my trunk ahead. I’ve rented a room at The Leaky Cauldron. It will give me time to sort out my options.”

“You’ll be exposed, Harry. Voldemort will try to kill you.”

“No disrespect, sir, but he’s managed to get inside Hogwarts as well.” Harry gathered up his music and ran his hand over the piano as if saying goodbye. ”Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Harry.”

*~*~*~*
Harry stroked Hedwig’s feathers and smiled as she nipped his fingers. He was leaving her with Hagrid until he knew where he was going.

He adjusted his school robe over the swelling of his abdomen. He could see witches and wizards arriving; graduation ceremonies would be starting shortly. It would be bittersweet; there would be no family in the audience that was there just for him. Sirius was away on still another mission for Dumbledore. It was amusing in a way that a man hunted by the Ministry worked so hard to preserve the Ministry.

Harry joined the other graduating seventh year students in a large room off the side of the Great Hall. Professor Flitwick was placing them in alphabetical order for the final procession.

The graduates filed into the Great Room and took their places. Looking into the audience, Harry saw Mr. and Mrs. Granger, a contingent of red haired Weasleys and, on the far side of the room, the white blond hair of Lucius Malfoy. Although he knew they could not acknowledge one another, Harry was relieved to see him there.

Speaker after speaker droned on as the new crop of fully trained witches and wizards clutched their wands and their graduation parchments and shifted in their seats. Lazily, Harry watched as an anonymous Postal Owl circled the Great Hall and was surprised when it dropped a small envelope into his lap before circling once more and soaring out a window.

Harry broke open the seal on the envelope, expecting a letter of congratulations, but there was only a scrap of parchment bearing one word and an emerald colored crystal.

On a reflex, his fingers wrapped around the crystal and he felt the familiar pull of a hook beneath his naval. Padma Patil, who was sitting beside him, heard him utter one word in shock before he disappeared.

“Portkey.”

*~*~*~*
In the chaos that followed, Severus Snape caught Lucius Malfoy’s arm and hissed in his ear. “Voldemort?”

“No,” replied Lucius. “The Boy Who Lived booked a room at The Leaky Cauldron. The Dark Lord planned to kidnap him from there.”

“Dumbledore?”

Lucius barked a short laugh. “I wouldn’t put anything past that blue-eyed bastard.

With her hands shaking, Padma handed Dumbledore the scrap of parchment Harry had dropped. It said only:

“Mine.”

~*~*~*
Harry stumbled as he landed on a soft carpet. His wand drawn, he surveyed his surroundings. He was alone, in a small sitting room that was tastefully decorated in a mixture of antiques and leather. Propped against a vase of red roses were a note and a silver hand bell.

“My Beloved Harry,

I apologize if I frightened you but this is the only way to keep you safe.

You are at Malfoy Manor in a hidden suite of rooms. Please make yourself comfortable. Ring the bell for the house elves if you require anything.

I will join you as soon as I can. I look forward to holding you in my arms.

Yours,
Lucius”

*~*~*~*
Harry keened softly as he impaled himself on Lucius’ erection. He paused, leaning his back against his lover’s drawn up knees. With his feet planted firmly beside the dark wizard’s hips, Harry pushed up and lowered himself, embedded to the root. Awkwardly, he began to raise and lower himself. His center of balance was off with his swollen abdomen; Lucius gently caught his hips and tried to help him establish a rhythm.

Lucius looked at the frustration on the young wizard’s face. He could see the tears beginning to form. He stilled Harry’s movements. “This isn’t working, Love.”

Harry pulled off and curled up on the bed. Six months pregnant, hormones raging, and feeling unloved, Harry had initiated this round of lovemaking. Although a passionate lover, he had never been the one to start.

Lucius kissed his shoulder and lay beside his crying lover; he wrapped Harry in his arms, pulling the slight wizard’s back to his chest. He repositioned Harry’s hips and nudged his backside with his erection.

“Let’s try it this way, Love,” he whispered as he held the hips and slowly thrust in. Harry dropped his head back for a kiss. Rarely had they made love so gently, but Lucius realized that Harry desperately needed reassurance. Narcissa had been the same way when she was in her later stages of pregnancy.

Narcissa, he thought as he thrust into his beloved Harry, Narcissa had always wanted a girl. He reached around the swell in Harry’s abdomen and wrapped his fingers around his erection. He pumped in time with his thrusts and with a cry, Harry exploded, coating Lucius’ fingers. Several additional thrusts and he spilled his seed deep inside his lover.

“Mine,” he whispered into the ear of his lover, who had already fallen into an exhausted sleep.

Almost asleep, he felt a sharp pain in his arm. Voldemort was summoning the Death Eaters.

*~*~*~*
Draco climbed the stairs to the Owlery in Malfoy Manor. He was home for several days; unable to secure an apprenticeship outside of the British Isles on such short notice, Professor Snape and Madam Pomfrey agreed to accept him as an apprentice at Hogwarts. He would learn the art of Medicinal Potion Making.

Thankfully, Lord Voldemort agreed not to give him the Dark Mark; Snape and Lucius convinced him that Dumbledore would not permit Draco on the grounds of the school with a mark on his arm. Draco was therefore a better weapon unmarked and supposedly neutral; since he was apprenticed to Snape, a loyal Death Eater, he would still be under Voldemort’s control.

From the Owlery, Draco could see most of the Malfoy estate. He looked up at the sleeping owls and was surprised to find a large, snowy owl nesting in the rafters. He wondered where she had come from. Father would never use such an identifiable owl.

*~*~*~*
“Father,” he asked as the two of them sat eating dinner in the dining room. “I was in the Owlery earlier today. When did we get a white owl?”

“Damn.” Lucius thought. He had forgotten about Hedwig when he hid Harry and all signs of Harry away in anticipation of his son’s visit. Hedwig had arrived a week after Harry’s “disappearance”. Much more than just a postal owl, the intelligent bird had taken it upon herself to find her friend.

“A white owl?” Lucius repeated. “Oh yes, she just showed up this summer. She’s a wizard’s owl, that much is certain, but I don’t know anything else about her.”

“Why wouldn’t she just go home?”

“I don’t really know.” Lucius lied smoothly. “I suspect she doesn’t have a home to go to any more. The Dark Lord’s ordered murder of entire families; he wouldn’t worry about an orphaned postal owl or two. Anyway, she’s pretty to look at and gets on with the other owls…So, how is Severus?

~*~*~*
Draco awoke late in the night to hear the faint sounds of a piano. He smiled to himself. Father seemed to be happier than Draco had seen him in a long time. Even the piano melody seemed happier. Draco fell asleep to the music of a piano duet.

He walked into the music room the next morning and ran his hands over the keys. He looked at some of the sheet music beside the piano. These were intermediate pieces and simple duets. His father played much more complex pieces than this.

A silver framed photograph sitting on a side table caught his eye. Draco examined the photograph of his teenaged father and a teenaged girl playing piano; he couldn’t imagine that his father was ever that silly. Whoever she was, she had pretty eyes. He set the photograph back on the table and made his way to the Library to find his father.

Far off, he heard the faint melody being played on piano. Strange, he thought, it seemed to be coming from a wing of the house that had been closed off since his grandfather’s death fifteen years before. He shook his head and the music went away; must have been his imagination. He didn’t give it another thought for the rest of his visit.

*~*~*~*
The new school year began at Hogwarts; the Gryffindor banner was framed in black on the assumption that The Boy Who Lived was dead. There had been no sign of him since he had been portkeyed during his graduation.

Draco sat at the head table between Snape and Hagrid. Ginny Weasley, now a seventh year, gave him a nod of acknowledgement before hugging Hagrid.

“Hagrid,” she asked the half-giant. “Did you ever find Hedwig?”

“No, lass.” Hagrid shook his shaggy head sadly. “Poor lil’ thing…”

After Ginny returned to the Gryffindor table, Draco began to speak with Hagrid. They had finally come to a peaceful co-existence over the summer while gathering potions ingredients from the Forbidden Forest.

“Hagrid,” he asked suddenly. “Who’s Hedwig?”

“Harry Potter’s owl. I was ta’ take care o’ her but she took off a week after Harry disappeared. I figure she was tryin’ ta’ find him. Poor lil’ thing.”

Draco and Snape left the Great Hall on their way down to the dungeons to brew and bottle some last minute potions for the Infirmary. They heard a few tentative notes being played on the piano in the music room.

“Sir,” asked Draco. “Did my father play piano much when he was a student here?”

Snape stopped to glare at several first year Hufflepuffs who were running in the hallway. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

“Father has a photograph. He was young, maybe thirteen, and he was playing a duet with a girl in Hogwarts robes. I had never seen it before.” They had arrived in the dungeons.

“Hogwarts was different before Voldemort’s reign. The houses mixed more than they do now. He used to play quite a bit; had concerts with the other houses.” Snape’s face grew pensive. “That all changed during our sixth year…Hogwarts began to fragment as the Dark Lord grew in power…”

“Do you remember the girl? She and Father are acting very foolish…I’ve never seen Father act like that…was she his girlfriend?”

Snape bottled several potions as he tried to remember back more than twenty years. “What does she look like?”

“Pretty eyes, green I think and long brown or red hair…thin.”

Snape paused. “The only one that comes to mind is Lily…Lily Evans.”

Draco’s ladle hung in the air. “Lily Evans? As in Harry Potter’s mother?” He set the ladle on the counter. “My father was a friend of a Mudblood Gryffindor?”

Snape growled. “What did I tell you about using that vulgar term, Apprentice?”

“S-sorry, sir. Muggle born. My father was friends with a Muggle born Gryffindor?”

Snape pushed back his limp black hair. He spelled the door closed. “Lily Evans was the daughter of a Squib – she was not a Muggle, although she was raised in the Muggle world…”

“But…”

“Lily tutored Lucius and me in Charms; we could do any number of dark curses…but we were useless with Charms. I tutored Lily and Remus Lupin in Potions. She was our friend…until the darkness tore us apart.”

*~*~*~*
Harry was frightened. Voldemort had been summoning the Death Eaters more frequently. Lucius had been gone for a week already. He had been summoned early one afternoon and had not returned.

The house elf clucked to herself as she removed Harry’s untouched dinner tray. Master’s Mate did not eat very well when Master wasn’t there. She glanced at Harry’s eight-month pregnant form and smiled. Ginger was excited; soon there would be a new baby in the house. As she left the sitting room, she forgot to close the door behind her.

Harry practiced his music. There was not much else he could do. With Lucius gone, he was forced to remain in his hidden suite of rooms and couldn’t even visit the library or the gardens. A cage, he thought, a pretty cage but a cage none the less. Was he and his daughter condemned to remain hidden in Malfoy Manor for the rest of their lives?

Harry fingered the heavy silver and emerald ring on his finger. They had married shortly after Harry’s arrival at Malfoy Manor at Lucius’ insistence. Only the groundskeeper and his wife had been in attendance as witnesses and their memories had been modified immediately afterward as a security precaution.

A wedding band to a dark wizard was a symbol of ownership; Harry hoped desperately that it was also a symbol of love. He had agreed to the marriage only for the sake of his unborn daughter. She would face many problems in life for who she was and he did not want to add bastard to the list.

Lucius apparated into the sitting room as Harry was practicing on the piano. Quietly, he reached around and played a few notes. They played a short duet before Harry threw his arms around the white blond wizard.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” Lucius peeled off his damp cloak and collapsed into a chair. He looked tired and even paler than he usually looked. “That red-eyed bastard is insane.” He summoned a bottle of scotch and a glass from the cabinet. “He’s annihilated entire families that have absolutely no political influence. He sent the new recruits on raids in little Muggle villages just for practice.”

Lucius downed another shot before setting the glass on the table. Harry sat beside him, wrapping his arms around his lover. “Did he send you?”

“No. He’s stopped sending the Inner Circle, but…He cursed Severus twice with the Crucio … It’s getting harder to convince Voldemort of Severus’ loyalty…”

“Then make him stop going…”

“I can’t, love. Don’t you think I’ve tried? Sev is crippled by his guilt.”

“Then lie to him. Tell him the bastard knows…tell Dumbledore…”

Lucius stood up, helping Harry to his feet and leading him into the bedroom. “Dumbledore won’t care. We’re all just pieces on a Wizard’s Chessboard to Dumbledore and to Voldemort. Just tools, nothing more…”

Draco, hidden in the shadows of the dark hallway crept into the open door to the sitting room in time to see his father lead his lover into the bedroom. Draco had apparated into the manor shortly after Snape had answered Voldemort’s summons; he was searching for answers to his questions.

He spied a cluster of photographs on a side table. Most were of Malfoy ancestors but there were two of a girl playing Quidditch. Lily Evans.

Draco heard a cry from the bedroom followed by a softer sound and then his father’s voice, sounding alarmed. “Did I hurt you? Should I stop?”

“No. Don’t stop. The baby just kicked me in the bladder.”

“Maybe we should…”

Draco stared at the closed bedroom door. Baby? His father had taken a lover - from the sound of the voice - a male lover. He had no problem with that; many wizards were bisexual. His father was still young and his mother had been dead for almost two years. But, this lover was pregnant; why hadn’t his father told him?

A growl came from behind the door. “Damn it Lucius. Stop being so careful. I’m not going to break…”

Lucius voice rumbled, but Draco could not hear the words.

“You’re not going to hurt the baby…just fuck me into the headboard like you used to…”

Draco nearly laughed out loud. By the sounds coming from the bedroom, it sounded as if Lucius was complying with the request. Feeing extremely awkward and intrusive, Draco crept out of the sitting room door.

*~*~*~*
TBC