Chapter Twenty of 'Nova Cupiditas'- Problems Twice Over

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Nineteen.

Title: Nova Cupiditas (20/?)
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 Twenty—Problems Twice Over

“I think that you need to take a few days to recover, Harry.”

Harry smiled wearily at Hermione over the top of his cup of Pepper-Up Potion. He had thought he’d better take some this morning, since he was meeting Draco in a few hours and he didn’t want to stumble around, bleary-eyed and misty-minded, after being up all of last night. Saying the wrong thing could damage his relationship with Draco beyond repair.

Since when does that matter? You know that you won’t see him again after this. You could insult him the way you did when you were a child and it wouldn’t matter.

Harry shook his head and sipped some more of the potion. He wanted them to part as friends, at least, and to show that they could coexist. He thought Draco might want the same thing, under the confused feelings that the curse had given him.

“Harry.” Hermione put her hand on his. “I’ll be more blunt, since you seem not to be listening to me. Take a few days to stay home and think about this, before you go to Malfoy. You’ll go to him now with your head all mixed up, and who knows what you’ll do or say? You’ve been through a lot. You’re hurting. You can’t defend yourself if you don’t put your thoughts in order.”

“I won’t have to defend myself,” Harry snapped. “Draco isn’t perfectly recovered yet, either. He’ll probably still remember the loyalty and love he felt towards me under the curse, and that means he’ll be quiet instead of lashing out.”

“I meant that you could protect yourself from getting hurt again.” Hermione’s voice softened still further. “I know that you might feel I haven’t been a very good friend lately, Harry, and I apologize. But Malfoy won’t come back. You have to look towards the future and protect your heart from being hurt.”

Harry grunted, and said nothing. She might be right. He didn’t know. He had to hope she was right, he thought a moment later, because otherwise Draco would still feel too much for him that was the result of the curse and its magic.

Not real. Nothing they had been to each other was real.

Except to me.

Yes, it was stupid and it was childish and it wasn’t something that he could admit to Draco because it might set his recovery back, but he had, in fact, come to feel things for Draco that the curse couldn’t excuse or explain. He had never been under it. And yet he had come close to yielding to Draco’s words of affection and romance and seduction, false as he knew they all were. He had come close to wishing that Draco would still look at him the same way when the curse was partially lifted.

I have to fight harder against myself for that very reason, because giving in and doing what my body and heart want me to do would be unfair to Draco. He’ll struggle with the curse for a time. He might struggle forever. I’d be preying on him.

Harry sighed and continued drinking his potion. He knew the danger. He also knew that putting things further off wouldn’t help, because the longer he waited, the more dangerous, and higher, the chance that he would convince himself it didn’t matter if he just hinted to Draco that his own feelings were real. But he couldn’t do that. Draco needed to be as free as possible to make his own choices, take his own path. The Seekers of Justice had tried to take that from him. Harry was going to give it back.

“Harry? Are you listening to me?”

“I can listen,” Harry said, reaching out so that he could squeeze her hand in return. He wouldn’t die because he didn’t have Draco, he reminded himself. That wasn’t possible. He wouldn’t die of a broken heart because his heart wasn’t about to break. He had his friends, and he would go on.

I can always do that. What was the way I fought Voldemort but just—enduring, through death and the walk there?

*

“I wish you to consider the following, Draco.”

From Lucius’s tone, Draco thought he would recite a long list of conditions, but instead, Lucius handed him a scroll and several photographs. Blinking, Draco put them on the table in front of him while he studied them. They were all photographs of pure-blood witches, as he could see at a glance, several of them familiar to him from Hogwarts.

“These are the women that you want me to marry,” Draco murmured. His mouth was filled with ashes. He licked his lips and tried to think of something else to say, but what was there? Lucius had told him that he wanted Draco to marry, that it was going to happen, and that Draco had no choice.

“Oh, of course not all of them.” His father sat across from him, smiling as if he had made a clever joke. “Only choose one.”

Draco nodded without looking up, because his eyes would betray his horror and disgust. Instead, he sorted through the pictures as though he was giving them serious consideration. Astoria Greengrass drew him for a moment because she had, along with the pale hair, bright green eyes that reminded him of Harry’s.

But they weren’t as bright, and she hadn’t risked her life for him, and she hadn’t done something romantic and impossible for him. Draco laid her photograph carefully aside and looked at the rest. Pretty faces enough, and impeccable lineages and large fortunes, which he knew would be more important to his father.

But…

One part of his mind could intellectually consider the force of that argument, even though emotionally, he couldn’t feel it. The other part dreamed restlessly of Harry and lit his blood on fire at random moments, telling him that Harry wouldn’t be long in finding someone to date or marry if Draco wed.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to come to a conclusion about that, Draco thought, as the sensation of jealousy faded and he returned to his “normal” mind. Harry couldn’t give me my normal life and mind back.

He had to smile at that thought, a moment later. And if Harry had, what would Draco have done with the memories of the curse that haunted him? He might not have remembered them as strongly or clearly, but he would have had to deal with them. Putting that confrontation off would do no good.

“Make your choice as soon as you can,” Lucius said casually, blowing across his tea. “I would like Mr. Potter to know that, while we are grateful, there is no chance that he can become part of the Malfoy family.”

Draco froze. Then he reached out and picked up Astoria’s photograph as though he was considering it more closely, while his mind went quietly back to work.

Ah. Of course. This isn’t about Father wanting heirs soon, or even wanting to take my mind off the sexual aspect of the curse, the way he told me it was. It’s about Father wanting to make sure that Harry knows he isn’t welcome in the inviolate little circle of our family.

Draco felt his lips part in a silent growl. Yes, he could see the reasoning. That didn’t mean he would ever agree with it. He knew that Harry wouldn’t have demanded marriage as the price of the cure, even assuming that the cure was full instead of partial, even assuming that he had been in love with Draco.

But I don’t want him to marry anyone else. I couldn’t stand for that.

Draco grunted and looked up. “I’ll still need some time to think about it, Father. I want someone more than simply a woman who can bear healthy heirs. She has to be handsome enough to tempt me, and to have a personality that I can live with. You were lucky in Mother. I dare not hope I will be as lucky.”

“It is true that your mother is a rare kind of prize,” Lucius said, with the kind of self-satisfied smile that had, more than once, made Draco want to hit hm. “But you may have your time, son.” He spoke as though he were giving a sweet to a child, which meant Draco took a bite of toast so that he wouldn’t be tempted to snap. “Do not take too long. Do not speak to Mr. Potter again. That is all I ask.”

Draco grunted again and stood up, sweeping the scroll and the photographs with him. The scroll turned out to list the lineages of the women his father was offering, the time since their last intermarriage with the Malfoy family, and the amount of their fortunes, to Draco’s complete lack of surprise.

And all the while that he was preparing to go into the library and act like an obedient son, he knew that he would rebel. He would see Harry again. He would think. He would make a choice.

It might not be the one that his father wanted him to make.

*

“You don’t want one of us to go with you?” Ron was looking at Harry with wide, concerned eyes, as if he saw him about to walk off a cliff.

“It can’t work that way,” Harry said, with a brisk shake of his head. He managed to keep his eyes mostly off Hermione, who looked even more upset. He checked his face in the mirror, and nodded when he realized that he looked calm and not too pale. That was good. He wasn’t—he knew that he couldn’t go to this meeting with the intention of winning Draco back. He would just have to hope that things went well anyway, despite intense desires of the heart pulling him in a second direction. “We have to be alone.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Ron said, just loud enough for Harry to hear him.

Harry pretended that he hadn’t heard anyway, and turned to kiss Hermione on the cheek. “I hope that you don’t wait up late for me,” he said softly. “I should be back—I mean, it shouldn’t take me that long.”

“I’m going to wait anyway,” Hermione said grimly, looking at him now as though she’d like to cast an Incarcerous charm. Harry stepped briskly towards the fireplace. Draco had sent him an owl not long before noon requesting that they meet not far from the Manor’s grounds. Harry was planning to Floo to Diagon Alley and then Apparate from there, since he didn’t put it past reporters to follow him.

Or Draco’s parents to spy, for that matter.

Ron, who Harry knew wouldn’t be waiting since he had to go back to work as an Auror today, called out softly, “Be careful.”

Harry nodded to him and cast a handful of Floo powder into the fire, which flared. When he went through into the Leaky Cauldron, he received the usual number of appreciative glances, but most of the people there seemed lost in both drink and their thoughts. Harry smiled. Although he hadn’t suggested the time to Draco, he was grateful that Draco had chosen it. Most of the people Harry would meet in the Cauldron at this hour of the day were the serious drinkers, the brooders, with no reason to remember that a hero had passed them.

Which you’re not. You’re the hero only in other people’s minds.

Harry winced as he nodded to Tom and then ducked out of the building and made his way towards one of the isolated Apparition points. He had to watch out for thoughts like that one, too. If he thought of himself too much as a hero, then he might think that Draco owed him something, and he might ask for…

Harry ground his teeth. What was wrong with him? He had rescued other people and never wanted this particular thing from them.

You didn’t see them naked, either, his thoughts whispered back to him. That’s all this is. It’s lust, not love.

Harry sighed and closed his eyes as he drew his wand and spun around before the Apparition. He didn’t think that was really true, except in his most cynical moments, but he was afraid that a large part of his feelings for Draco were based on pity.

*

Draco, walking in the field near the Manor where he had told Harry to meet him, paused when he shimmered into sight.

He had expected to feel either more or less than he did. He didn’t think he had a good handle on his emotions right now. He would make mistakes. He would be withdrawn when he should be forward, and vice versa. He would snap at Harry over things that weren’t Harry’s fault. Or he would try to pull back behind a wall of coldness the way that his father would have and he wouldn’t get it right, leaving Harry to scorn him for not having the courage of his convictions.

He hadn’t expected the way his heartbeat suddenly seemed to fill his head. Or how his mouth flooded with so much saliva that he couldn’t say anything at all. Or the way that his hands clenched at his sides as his mind bulged with emotions.

“Hi, Draco.” Harry cast him a cautious glance. He was standing with his head half-bowed, as though he assumed Draco would attack him. “I—are you all right? Physically, I mean? I wanted to ask after I halved the curse, but it didn’t seem like the right time.”

“I’m doing all right,” Draco whispered. “The aftereffects are mental and emotional.”

Harry grimaced and dragged his hand through his hair. He shouldn’t do that, Draco thought, almost mindless. Draco should. “Yeah, I was afraid of that. I—”

Then he stopped, and stared. Draco looked up, too, and quickly snatched his hand back. It had reached out without his permission, arching towards Potter’s head. He’s Potter, Draco told himself, dropped the hand back to his side, fixed his gaze on the ground, and shrugged.

“Yeah, I see,” Harry said, as if Draco had made a declaration aloud. He hesitated. Then he added, “I wanted to tell you that you don’t have to worry about the persecution from the Ministry that you might have worried about. I told them everything, but I gave them the half-cure to Nova Cupiditas that I worked out and called on my fame. I’d never done that before, and I think Kingsley was kind of—upset. But he’s agreed to cover up what happened. The only person who might not agree is your father, but I don’t think he’ll be any too eager to go back to Azkaban if he doesn’t have to.”

“No,” Draco said. His tongue and lips felt numb. He fumbled around for a subject inside his head and ended up adding, “I—Father wants me to marry.”

*

It was like a blow across the stomach. Harry closed his eyes.

Pity and lust, he reminded himself. It’s nothing more than that. It will never be anything more than that, since you’re separate now and will have to remain separate until the end of time, to make it fair.

“I—well, that’s for the best, maybe,” Harry mumbled. He couldn’t bring himself to sound happy about it, but he hoped Draco would attribute that to shock rather than anger. “If you haven’t so far, and he wants a Malfoy heir, then you should have one before someone else tries to hurt you.”

Draco abruptly snarled at him, eyes slitting as though he were fighting strong sunlight. “And that’s the only reason you care, is it?” he snapped, his voice so thick that Harry took a moment to make out the words. “Because if I were married, I would stay out of trouble, and keep you from having to perform so many underappreciated heroic efforts?”

Harry blinked and pushed his hair out of his eyes. He didn’t know what had made Draco react like that, and so he didn’t know whether he should be angry or hopeful or cautious. “What are you talking about?”

“I know that you don’t care about Malfoy heirs and my family’s bloodline and all the rest of it,” Draco said roughly, leaning forwards as if he assumed that he would spring on Harry and rend him apart. Harry’s body tensed with eagerness for that, and Harry shook his head. Draco’s voice sharpened. “So that must mean that you want me to stay out of trouble, and you assume that a marriage would do it.”

“Not what I meant,” Harry said, starting to get a bit angry himself. Even the knowledge that Draco was still suffering under the remnants of the curse, and so it made sense that he would get upset at nothing and otherwise lose control of his emotions, couldn’t make him calm down. He’d come here to perform the delicate and painful task of saying farewell, not to argue about something that didn’t matter. “I only meant that you’ll be moving on with your life, and if a marriage helps you do that, it’s for the best.”

Draco shook his head. “Moving on with my life. What is that supposed to mean?”

Harry’s fingers curled around air. That was a good thing, he told himself. Draco was going to row with him if he was back to his normal self; of course he was. Harry only wished that he didn’t feel short of breath because of it. “You’ll put the curse behind you,” he said. “The Seekers of Justice didn’t manage to kill you. The Ministry will track them down now that they have the knowledge I gave them. Anyone who uses Nova Cupiditas on you again can be stopped. You’ll forget about this, put it behind you.”

“Idiot,” Draco said. His voice was cold with the kind of coldness that Harry thought was meant to conceal pain as well as anger. “You assume that nearly raping someone, nearly being raped yourself, is that easy to get over?”

“The only other option is constantly reliving it,” Harry said. He took a step away from Draco. Maybe it would be easier to think if he wasn’t standing so close and remembering the way Draco’s lips had looked when they formed some of the words he’d spoken. All delusion, Harry reminded himself again, forcefully. “You don’t want to do that.”

“The option I want,” Draco hissed, “is coming to terms with it. Really understanding it, and what it meant, and keeping it from poisoning my life.”

“Well, marriage might help with that,” Harry said. “The emotions you’ll feel for your wife can’t be anything like the emotions the curse mimicked for me, can they?”

Draco edged nearer. Harry carefully backed away to keep the right amount of distance between them without looking like a coward. He could hardly tell why they were rowing, only that it had to be the right thing to do, since Draco was back to normal now—or as much back to normal as Harry thought he would ever get—and he must resent the alien things he felt for Harry.

“You’re doing it again,” Draco said. “Acting as though you know me, and you can dismiss what I think and feel because it doesn’t fit the neat little picture you’ve drawn of me. Stop it.”

Harry winced a little from the sharpness of Draco’s tone, but shook his head. “How can I?” he asked. “You can’t know exactly what you feel right now. That’s normal, since the curse remains attached to you. And I know that we have to separate. I came here because I was going to tell you about the bargain I made. And now I should go.”

*

The jealousy, never entirely subdued since this morning when he had thought of Harry with someone else, flooded through Draco again. And the lust, which had been renewed by seeing the git stand there as if nothing had happened, except that his eyes were too bright and he looked at Draco too often for that to be true.

And he said…

And he acted…

Draco didn’t know all he felt, but he knew he was angry, and he knew why, and when Harry announced that he was going to leave because, of course, he was the only one who got to make decisions about something that concerned both of them, Draco’s temper exploded.

He covered the distance between them so fast that Harry couldn’t have stopped him even if he had known Draco was coming. He grabbed Harry’s arms and pinned them behind him at the wrist, then spun him around so that Harry’s back was to his chest. Draco bent down and spoke certain truths into Harry’s ear, trying to ignore the way that he felt and smelled this close, while all the time reveling in it.

“I’m not going to listen to you say things like that. You have no idea what I really feel, and you’re not going to walk away.”

Harry stood there and spoke more calmly than Draco would have thought he could. Of course, Draco remembered, Harry was the one who had faced more dangerous situations than probably any other wizard alive right now. He had had the time to get used to them. “I’m not trying to ignore what you feel. I’m trying to help you. How can you be sure of what’s real and what’s not, when you’re still partially under the curse? The only thing that would help us is a complete separation, so you can be sure.”

Draco laughed. The sound was too hysterical for his taste, and he stopped after a moment. “And how do you know that that would help?” he snarled into Harry’s ear. God, his mouth watered. He wanted to bite Harry’s earlobe and keep chewing until Harry cried out in surrender. “How do you know that I wouldn’t long for you, and the emotions wouldn’t fade? The curse is only half-gone. I have to live with it the way it is, not the way I wish it could be.”

The last thing he expected after that speech was for Harry to draw in a pained breath and shut his eyes.

“I’ m so sorry, Draco,” he whispered. “I should have come up with a way to destroy the curse completely.”

Draco shook him so hard that Harry’s head flopped back and forth. Rage rode through him now, rage that he could recognize was born of confusion and despair without being able to do anything about it. It didn’t matter how many times he said it, he thought. Harry still wasn’t listening!

“This isn’t about you, you great, stupid git,” he hissed into Harry’s ear. He thought Harry’s eyes had fluttered open in shock, but he wasn’t really sure. “You’re always taking the opportunity to be a martyr or a masochist, and you’re not seeing me the way I really am. Look at me! Don’t hide from me behind the wall of your own guilt.”

Harry twisted around so that he was staring up at Draco. Draco stared back, and wondered what those green eyes, which were wide with fear or pain or both at the moment, actually saw.

Not enough, as it turned out. Harry lowered his head and shook it back and forth, his face bright with self-loathing. “You can’t be sure of what you feel right now, since the curse manipulated and controlled your emotions,” he muttered. “It’s still controlling your emotions, for all you know. You—”

“If that’s the case, then I’ll have to bloody well live with it, won’t I?” Draco snarled into his face. “Contend with every feeling. Scrutinize every thought. But not hide from it, not pretend that the curse doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter, and not spend the rest of my life distrusting myself because I can’t be sure. Sometimes I’ll be sure. Sometimes I’ll act. And the sure thing I know right now is that this isn’t over, no matter what.”

He fastened his mouth over Harry’s and kissed him as hard as he could. Harry made a choked sound, his eyes wide. Draco smirked against his mouth, and then flung Harry away and stood back, panting.

“That felt good,” he said.

Harry touched his lips as if he expected to find bruising forming there. Then he shook his head a little. “Because of the curse,” he said.

“No,” Draco snapped. “Because it did. Because my body still responds to yours, curse or not. And you want to do it again. I can see it in your eyes,” he added, when Harry opened his mouth as if to deny that. “Unless you’re going to tell me that you’re somehow affected by the curse, now, despite not having it cast on you?”

Harry’s frown deepened. “I’m affected by its existence,” he muttered. “Of course I am.”

Draco nodded. “We’re connected. And this isn’t over. I’m going to go away and think some more now. And you’re going to go away and do the best you can to get over your guilt. I’ll hunt you down otherwise,” he added casually, enjoying the flash of panic in Harry’s eyes.

He turned to stride towards the Manor, but had to pause and say over his shoulder, “You were concerned about the curse affecting my integrity and my freedom as a human being. Well, the only one who can make decisions for me is me. When it comes to decisions about the both of us, you can participate, of course,” he added generously. “But you don’t get to take my choices away because of what you fear. That’s what they did.”

Harry’s eyes flashed before he lowered them. Draco smiled. This might be a useful way to employ Harry’s guilt.

And away he went, feeling as though he walked in sunlight for the first time in weeks.