Chapter Fourteen of "Nova Cupiditas"- Unlucky Number

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Thirteen.

Title: Nova Cupiditas (14/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Attempted rape, issues of consent, violence, gore, sex, heavy angst, profanity. Ignores the epilogue.
Summary: Nova cupiditas—the curse that makes the victim desire someone they hate. There is no cure, and the consequences grow increasingly violent the more the desire is denied. And now someone has cursed Draco Malfoy to desire Harry Potter.
Author’s Notes: This is a very dark story. It will probably be between twelve and twenty chapters.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Fourteen—Unlucky Number

“I want to know your name.” Harry’s voice was growing fragile and shrill with frustration, Draco noted, concerned. He didn’t know why Harry hadn’t simply let him torture these people for information in the first place. They had hurt both Draco and Harry. That meant they had earned their status of victims. Instead, Harry sat there and questioned them, and he had no recourse when they turned their heads away or spat at him.

Well, he had one recourse, the one he always did. Draco had cursed the one who spat at Harry, so casually that Harry didn’t realize what was happening before it was done. When the woman began to vomit blood, though, Harry had turned on Draco as though he was the one at fault, shaking his head with furious tears starting to life in his eyes.

“You can’t do that, Draco!” he’d shouted.

Draco took off the curse, but he didn’t understand, and Harry didn’t bother to explain his reasoning. He’d simply turned away again, his shoulders hunched as though he was bracing himself against cold winds, and he flinched when Draco tried to touch him. That hurt the most of all, Draco thought, though a lot of things hurt right now—his soul, his cock, his heart—and it was getting difficult to sort them out.

And, as he had foreseen would happen, their prisoners went right back to not giving them answers. Only pain would compel them to respond, not Harry’s constant questions.

Draco leaned forwards now and touched Harry in the shoulder with one finger. Harry spun to stare at him, his cheeks flushed and his chest heaving. Draco stared, lost in the sheer glory that was the sight of Harry until Harry sighed and snapped, ungraciously, “What?”

“I told you that simply interrogating them wouldn’t work,” Draco murmured. “Will you allow me to try something? Please?” he added, because he knew the automatic refusal that would rise to Harry’s lips all too well by now.

Harry sighed. “I can’t—Draco, I can’t permit that. They don’t deserve to suffer pain just because—”

“Just because they made me suffer?” Draco asked. “Just because they made you suffer? I’m curious about your standards for someone who does deserve it, then, if those crimes aren’t enough.” Jealousy sleeted through him again when he thought about the other people Harry might consider worthy of defending, but Draco soothed it by reminding himself that Harry was treating his own pain, like Draco’s, as unimportant. In this way, they were equals. And it mattered to Draco that Harry should think of them the same way. Sooner or later, he would have to start talking sense, because he couldn’t feel Draco’s pain, but he could feel his own.

Harry swallowed and stared at the ground. “No one should be tortured,” he whispered. “No one deserves that. I had hoped that we could learn their names and purpose, at least, but I think we should give them to the Aurors.”

“Really?” Draco hardened his voice. He had to make Harry see the truth, and if that meant he must be a little harsh, then he would be. Harry would thank him for it in the end. “And if there are sympathizers with this group among the Aurors? Or if someone ‘mistakenly’ allows them to get away or resist interrogation? If they have allies in the Ministry, it would explain why their group managed to evade arrest for so long.”

Harry stared at him with his mouth open. Draco smirked sadly and reached up to place a finger under Harry’s jaw and tilt it shut. “You’re staring,” he murmured. “I’m sorry, but I can’t stand the way that makes you look.”

Harry pulled his head back with a flush and a frown, one that Draco wanted to kiss away. But Harry had been most emphatic about not doing anything in front of their enemies, which Draco could understand, in a way. He would have liked to flaunt his successful seduction of the Boy-Who-Lived, the person they thought they were cursing him to long after and never be with, but on the other hand, he could do without the eyes that would rouse his jealousy. “I can’t think that all the Aurors are corrupt,” Harry muttered.

“Not all of them, no,” Draco said. “But it would only take one corrupt one to cause a lot of trouble. There was a corrupt one a few years ago, wasn’t there? And it took them months to discover him.”

Harry rubbed one hand over his mouth in meditation. Draco caught his hand and spread it tenderly, touching the tendons at the base of the fingers with a soft stroking motion until Harry’s flush deepened. Draco knew that he was only feeling embarrassment rather than acting in a sexual fashion—the Cold Water Curse ensured that—but he thought it charming anyway.

“What about Ron?” Harry asked. “Would you trust him? He’s an Auror, and he’s my best friend. He would do anything for me.”

“Except help me,” Draco said. “I know the rows you had about taking me to St. Mungo’s. He thinks you should give up on me. How much more tempting will he find that once he has the criminals in hand and thinks that he can put paid to one part of this crime? Once no one else is in danger of being hurt, will he mind the sacrifice of me so much?” He used his hold on Harry’s hand to draw him closer. Harry allowed it, caught up in his own thoughts, and Draco turned him so that Harry’s back pressed against his chest. He liked this position, the way that it made him feel as if he were curving around Harry and sheltering him from harm.

“I trust him,” Harry said at last, “but I can see why you wouldn’t.” Then he shook his head. “But I can’t let you torture them either, Draco, so if we don’t give them to the Aurors, we can’t learn anything from them.”

Draco stroked Harry’s spine. Harry started, only seeming to realize how close they were now, and tried to break free. But Draco couldn’t allow that, not without feeling a sense of desolation that made it seem as if he stood on a heath in the middle of winter, so he held him closer and raised his wand. “I know Legilimency,” he said. “I can enter their minds, if you permit me to do so.”

Harry turned and frowned at him. “Why are you waiting for my permission? You cursed that one without my permission earlier.”

“I don’t need your allowance to defend you,” Draco said, and held Harry’s gaze. “But this is something else, something that you seem to have strong feelings about. Will you let me read their minds without interfering?”

Harry swallowed. “I—didn’t think of it that way,” he said. “I don‘t like having power over people. Merlin, I hate this curse.”

“Now, that’s simply nonsense,” Draco said lightly as he focused on the woman he had cursed earlier. She was a tall, striking witch with auburn hair, whom Draco was sure that he would remember if he had ever seen her before. She glared at him with implacable hatred, and seemed to be readying herself against his Legilimency, but that would do exactly nothing without the Occlumency shields that Draco highly doubted she had. “You have power over people because of your knowledge and your name. You should face up to reality instead of trying to deny it, Harry. I’m sure that you would find your life running better, more smoothly.”

Harry muttered something Draco didn’t listen to. He pulled Harry further towards him, instead, cradling him with one arm and his thighs, making Harry gently aware of his erection, while he murmured, “Legilimens,” to the witch.

Even as his mind blasted into the witch’s thoughts, most of his attention remained on the sad fact that Harry still hadn’t acted as though he noticed Draco’s need. There would have to be something done about that, and soon. Draco wanted Harry to enjoy it, and that meant waiting until the Cold Water Curse wore off, but in the meantime, he was sure that Harry was generous—and loving—enough to give him some relief.

*

Harry closed his eyes. The shock had begun to fade, and what had happened here was catching up with him.

Asking the people who had taken him and Draco, and hurt Draco, questions had seemed like the obvious tactic at first. Harry knew he should turn them over to the Aurors, but he also knew that the Aurors weren’t commonly eager to release the facts they gathered. Harry thought names and motivations were the least he and Draco deserved, and they might not get all of them if they were part of the trial only on an official basis.

He hadn’t anticipated the wall of silence he ran into, especially considering how talkative the woman who had spoken to Harry had been…

Until he looked around the meadow again, and at Draco and his own body, and found himself seeing it through their eyes.

Eight of their friends and associates had just died, in a swift, bloody way that none of them had anticipated or fought against. Someone they had thought safely disposed of had come out of nowhere to claim revenge. Draco and Harry were still covered with the blood of the dead. Hatred could well prevail over fear in a setting like that.

Harry had cast Cleaning Charms on himself and Draco, at least, but the impression remained, and it seemed that these people were intent on one last revenge: depriving Harry of information that he had been foolish enough to show mattered to him. If he had questioned them under a mask of indifference, perhaps one of them would have spat the answers out.

Gloomily, he watched as Draco sifted through the woman’s mind, wincing when he saw the expression of helpless outrage in her eyes. He had felt that way when Snape attacked his mind. And it had hurt. Not as much as physical torture, no, but it had still been a violation. Harry wondered if he should ask Draco to stop, demand that they turn the criminals over to the Aurors after all and forget about learning in detail who they were or why they’d done this. They should focus on doing what was right, not what would benefit them.

Draco’s hips flexed, and Harry felt his erection rubbing against his arse.

Harry wanted to cover his eyes, but that would seem like an admission of weakness to most of the people there and would draw concern from the most important one, and he didn’t want to make the situation worse. It was precarious enough already. He had almost managed to forget about the curse, since Draco acted near-rational under the influence of the jealousy, but Nova Cupiditas was still a factor. Harry was lucky to have preserved the balance and spared lives for as long as he had, he knew.

He was so fucked.

So he stood there and let the Legilimency happen, until the way that Draco tightened his hold on Harry’s shoulders and breathed told him that he was out of the woman’s mind. She, meanwhile, slumped forwards and stared at the ground.

“Her name is Ariadne Kitchen,” Draco said, his voice sparking with several different emotions. His lips brushed Harry’s hair, and he moaned slightly, but then went on as if nothing had happened. Harry told himself to remember that. It could be important when he was trying to cure the curse after this.

Which is yet another thing that we have to do.

“She and most of the others call themselves, or think of themselves, as the Seekers of Justice.” Draco sounded normal in the way he sneered the title, and Harry struggled to seize and hold that memory. He would use it as a barrier against any temptation to go easy or slow in curing Draco. This was the way Draco should sound, not tender. Not loving. “They’ve been involved in most of the Dark curses laid down on pure-bloods, but not all of them. They decided to target me because they thought my father hadn’t paid enough and I hadn’t paid at all. And they were convinced that the most horrible thing they could do to me was make me fall in love with you.” He sighed into Harry’s ear. “Little did they know.” His hips flexed again, and Harry could feel his cock making a small damp spot against Harry’s back.

Harry swallowed and tried not to move away. He wasn’t ready to deal with the consequences of that right now. There were other things they needed to do first. “Yes,” he said. “Little did they know. What did they think I would do? Have you found any trace of that?”

“Of course,” Draco said, sounding more than faintly surprised. “Their intentions towards you were the first thing I looked for, before her name.” He tightened his arms around Harry’s waist. “You’re my life. You come first for me.”

Harry shook his head, blinking hard at the tears stinging his eyes, but before he could say anything, a snort from one of the men interrupted him. Almost glad for the interruption, Harry turned to face him. “Yes?”

This wizard had a small, neatly-trimmed beard and dark eyes that were rimmed red from weeping. Harry was horribly afraid that some of the people who had died here had been especially close friends of his, or family members. That wasn’t my intention, Harry wanted to say. When you captured me, I never thought it would end this way.

But there were so many twisted threads, including the fact that they wouldn’t have died if they had left well enough alone with Draco, and so Harry waited for him to speak instead of speaking himself.

“This is disgusting,” the man hissed. “Have you thought about what you’re doing? You, the Savior and the Chosen One, with a Death Eater for a lover? You’re a half-blood. You should be on our side. Do you think they would have welcomed your mother, had she lived? I don’t believe it. You ought to know who he is and what he’s done, what being a Death Eater means, better than anyone, but instead you extend your compassion to him as though he was someone to be pitied. It’s disgusting.”

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but Draco was there first. His voice was low and ugly, upset and smug at the same time.

“You never thought that, when you cursed me, it would end by both of us falling in love with each other, did you?” he asked in satisfaction. “Oh, no, you perfectly understand the nature of Dark magic, and revenge—your ‘justice’—would never turn on you. You thought the universe acted in accord with your perfect moral principles, the way you believed Harry did. So sorry to disappoint you.”

The wizard sneered at him. “You’ve probably raped him already, and he’s too compassionate to put you in Azkaban where you belong.”

“Who started this?” Draco’s voice had sunken and turned cold. Harry leaned closer to him, in hopes that that would calm him down, but this was the first time when Draco didn’t seem to notice. “If you hadn’t cursed me, then your precious Savior wouldn’t have dirtied himself with me. Your own interference caused what you profess to deplore.”

The wizard shook his head, refusing to admit what Harry thought he had to see was the truth. “You aren’t really in love with him, any more than he is with you. It’s a case of magic on one side and mistaken pity on the other—”

His voice cut off in a shriek, and Harry saw blood go flying from his mouth as his teeth clapped shut on his tongue. The shudders that racked him were ones Harry had recognized. Somehow, Draco had cast a nonverbal Cruciatus without Harry, who stood so close to him, ever noticing the movement of his wand.

Fuck! Harry slashed forwards with his wand and then whirled around to face Draco, even as his silent Finite canceled the Unforgivable. Now that he was angry enough, he noted, he could easily break free of Draco’s grip. Draco was staring at him with his mouth open, but that was something they would just have to live with.

“What’s the matter, Harry?” he asked. “He insulted us. He was speaking lies. Of course I was going to silence him. But I wouldn’t have done it that way if I had known you would object.”

Harry wanted to scream with rage, but it was difficult to get his point across while doing that, so he settled for speaking slowly and patiently. “I’m objecting because the curse is changing us, Draco, making us into what they think we are,” he said shortly. “You’re—you’re better than this. You weren’t a murderer, but now they’ve made you kill people, and torture them, and—this can’t go on, Draco. You must see it can’t. I can’t have someone who likes to torture, who thinks it’s right to torture, defending me that way. We have to deal with things a different way. We know some names and their basic motivations now. You can Legilimize Kitchen again to get more, if you want to. But then we’re handing them over to the Aurors.”

Draco lowered his head. He seemed to be thinking deeply. Harry wondered if the lust was overcoming the jealousy and braced for an attack, but in the end Draco shook his head and replied in a soft voice.

“Harry. This is different. Yes, I agree, I can’t randomly go around murdering and torturing people. But these are people who deliberately set out to hurt me, and who didn’t care if they hurt you. In fact, they predicated you not feeling any pain on the conclusion that you were an arsehole, which any sane wizard has to be able to see that you’re not. I’m getting our own back. And if you won’t take revenge for yourself, well, I’m here for you.”

Harry closed his eyes. He must be more tired than he thought, because Draco’s argument sounded reasonable. And he knew that some people in the Ministry could see things the same way. Because Draco was under a curse, he could be excused for using an Unforgivable and for the murders.

Perhaps. Harry knew there was an anti-pure-blood faction that would work against him being given mercy.

Harry exhaled weakly. Fuck. No matter where he turned, he was doing something wrong, something that was unlikely to get Draco cured, something that excused crimes or plunged Draco deeper into madness. He didn’t know what to do anymore. He would have liked someone to take over and make the decisions for him.

Except that he couldn’t allow decisions for things that he knew to be wrong, and he couldn’t allow decisions that would isolate Draco, trap him, or render it impossible for him to survive. Even if Harry disclaimed all personal feelings for Draco, he thought he had invested too much in him to allow someone to take him away.

He opened his eyes, determined to find a way through the madness, and found Draco in front of him, staring into his eyes with a yearning expression.

“I need you,” Draco whispered. “Please? Will you?”

Harry seized the first straw in the flood that he could think of. “In front of people who despise us?” he asked, gesturing to the wizards and witches who stared at them.

“It doesn’t matter,” Draco said. “All the better. They’ll see me assert my claim.” His eyes had acquired the dazed, fiery sheen that Harry knew well. “Please, Harry. I need this.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to Harry’s.

And again Harry was tempted to give in. The same way that Draco’s arguments made a sick kind of sense, it would help if he gave in, let himself bring Draco off, and then used the ensuring period of lucidity to make the decisions he needed to.

But he couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t help. It would result in more depravity instead of less.

Still clinging to his spinning moral compass despite everything that had happened to upset it, Harry pressed his wand to Draco’s temple and murmured, “Somnus.”

He really didn’t expect Draco, rather than falling asleep, to grab his wrist and give him a glare of betrayal.

*

Harry had tried to send him to sleep.

That was the ultimate sign, Draco thought, that he would rather do anything than sleep with Draco. The ultimate sign that he didn’t feel as much for Draco as Draco felt for him. Oh, Draco had suspected it when Harry seemed uncomfortable with his confessions of love, tried to avoid them, and acted as though he had something important to do whenever Draco pressed him to fuck, but he had thought that he could simply wait and that love would grow in Harry, called forth by his own.

Obviously not, if he’s going to send me to sleep whenever I start to press my claim, Draco thought, his gut churning with sickness. He tried to keep that out of his gaze and only show the anger, though. Harry would take advantage of his grief and mock him if he saw it.

“A sleeping charm,” he drawled. “Should I feel flattered that you think you have to stop me with that instead of simply asking me to back away, or insulted that you would try such a simple spell?”

Harry gaped at him, his mouth and eyes open so wide that Draco thought he could see into the emptiness inside them. The emptiness where love of him should have bloomed and didn’t, Draco thought.

His mind rebelled then. Draco couldn’t believe that he was sacrificing himself for nothing, that he could pour his soul out to Harry and Harry would turn away. No, it had to be something else. Someone else. Perhaps Harry was still in love with the She-Weasel, or fancied himself to be. Or perhaps he had seen someone recently that he thought he was cheating on with Draco.

Draco wouldn’t allow that. He suspected that he couldn’t actually compel love from Harry, but he could take steps to ensure that Harry showed certain signs only to him, only performed certain actions at Draco’s command.

Draco cast two spells of his own, in quick succession. “Iussu castitas. Somnus.”

Harry hardly had time to jerk his head up in alarm before he slumped against Draco’s chest. Draco stroked his cheek and his hair for a moment, feeling the warmth under his hand and hoping against hope that Harry would open his eyes, smile, and return the feelings that Draco knew had grown in himself.

But nothing happened, of course, given that one of his spells was a sleeping charm. Draco shook his head and turned to the wizards and witches staring at him.

He cast spells efficiently that bound them, put them to sleep, and rendered them invisible to anyone who might come searching the meadow. He wanted them around to deal with at his leisure, and that meant keeping both Aurors and randomly passing Muggles or wizards from interfering. He would bring Harry back when he had convinced him of the righteousness of taking revenge, and Harry would smile on him and agree.

Draco had no doubt that he could actually convince Harry.

He smiled and scooped Harry up now, murmuring a Lightning Charm. Harry was far from fat, but Draco didn’t want to stagger under his burden, as he would if he was actually carrying Harry’s full weight.

“I’ll make you see,” he whispered to Harry’s motionless form. The lust and the jealousy danced around him, warm and swirling, but a third emotion had joined them, as glassy and clear as the light that filled Draco’s mind. He knew it was his love. “I’ll make you see that you have to love only me, and that there’s no one else in the world for either of us, now and forever. And I can take you to a place where we won’t be disturbed while we’re doing it.”

He was grateful, now, for that period about two years ago when he had resented his parents and moved out to live in sulky independence. It hadn’t lasted long, but he had maintained a small house that he’d never told anyone else about where he could go to be alone and think. Since no one else knew it, no one would think to look for Harry there until Draco was done with him.

He made sure he had Harry’s wand, and then Apparated.