Chapter Twenty-Three of 'Nova Cupiditas'- Unknown Factors

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twenty-Two

Title: Nova Cupiditas (23/?)
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-Three—Unknown Factors

“We need to find a way that I can permanently see the curse. Part of the problem is that it hides itself, and that means I have to keep casting revealing charms. It distracts me from the notes that I could be taking.”

Draco nodded. The stipulation made sense to him. “I presume that this try to find it will take place in your lab?” When Harry nodded back, he leaned nearer and gave him a winsome smile. “Does that mean that I could get a chair in the center of the warded circle?”

He startled Harry into a laugh, at least. Ever since Harry had agreed that he would accept Draco’s decisions, he had looked as grave as though they were once more facing a Dark Lord. Draco wanted to shock him out of that, shake him out of it, make him remember that the situation was less desperate this time.

“You can have one, if you want,” Harry said. “But I’ll have to conjure it myself, since you won’t have your wand.”

Draco paused. Harry hadn’t said anything about that so far. “What do you mean?” he asked carefully.

“I mean that I intend to keep your wand until we know that either the curse can be cured completely or we give up.” Harry’s eyes were straightforward to the point that Draco suspected it would be foolish to argue with him. “I don’t want you to hurt my friends, or someone else, or yourself. Your assault on Ron proves that even halved, Nova Cupiditas is stronger than I thought. I’ve already flagellated myself several times over the fact that I could have prevented the torture and murders that you did commit if I’d taken your wand away earlier.”

Draco raised his eyebrows. “And if someone comes after me that I need to defend myself from?”

“I’ll be there to defend you from most threats, and Ron and Hermione won’t hurt you if I ask them not to.” Harry sounded absolutely confident about that.

Draco was not nearly so certain. He leaned back in his chair and let the silence stretch between them.

Harry raised one hand as though he was going to begin a lecture, but instead he slid it through his fringe and sighed wearily. Draco felt his body ache from that sigh. He would have done something to make it better if he could have, but the only form of comfort that he had it in his power to offer wasn’t one that Harry would accept right now. So he sat there quiet and waiting while Harry chose his words. Draco had the feeling that he was choosing his words so as not to offend, and Draco had to be grateful for that, at least.

“Haven’t you reflected more on the actions that you performed under the curse?” Harry asked. “I know that you said that you wouldn’t let the Seekers of Justice control you, and that you’ve made the choice to be with me in spite of that. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the curses that you cast on your father and Ron, and on the Seekers of Justice.”

Draco shifted in place. In truth, he had avoided thinking about those curses as much as possible. He knew the attitude of his divided mind concerning them—horror and glee—and he had no wish to revisit that.

“I’m not thinking here about the effects on the people cursed,” Harry went on, raising his head and pinning Draco with a solemn stare. “They know what they are—or did, if they’re dead now. And you could argue that the Seekers of Justice deserved it. But the effects on you…can you be comfortable thinking of yourself as a murderer? A torturer?”

“For you, yes,” Draco said. He knew that the remnants of the curse lingered in the back of his mind, ready to enfold him if he so wanted. He sat upright uncomfortably on his chair and watched as Harry gave him a look of profound pity.

Not a good beginning to the tries we have to make.

“Not for me,” Harry said. “Think about the way that you’ll live the rest of your life. I know that you can’t go back, exactly, to the man you were, but I think you should meditate more on the effects of your actions than on the sex that you might get to have with me.”

Draco turned away and didn’t respond. He knew why Harry wanted him to think about this. He could see that all his fragile joy in the past few days, which he had thought stemmed from his defiance of his father, might instead come from his need for a mask to keep himself from the horrifying thoughts.

But…

“You’ve freed me from persecution,” he said in a low voice. “And do you suggest that I become like you? Brooding on the wrongs of my past and wishing that I could do something to change them, even as I realize that there’s nothing I can do, and my hopelessness increases my guilt?”

*

Harry winced. Was that what his wishing that things could be different had looked like from the outside? He hadn’t realized.

“Not exactly, Draco,” he said, and then hesitated, wondering what he did mean. This was territory that he had never explored for himself. He had always known that there was nothing he could do to make up for his mistakes in the past, like not trusting Snape, so he had worked through a few years of nightmares and anger and then tried not to think about them anymore. It was the exact opposite of the course he was recommending to Draco.

On the other hand, I can’t become too distracted by my own issues, either. I have to think about what Draco needs, and if I’m a hypocrite, so be it. Nothing like this ever happened to me in so short a span of time. I always had more time to recover than he did before the next blow came along.

“No,” Harry repeated, as calmly as he could. “You might try to find the rest of the Seekers of Justice, who I’m sure weren’t among the group who captured me, and bring them to true justice. Not abusing them. Not torturing them. That might reassure you that you’re not irrationally violent with a wand in your hand.”

“I already know that,” Draco said, with a glint in his eye that made him resemble the Draco Harry had known in Hogwarts, who would never admit he was wrong and had no interest in thinking over his actions.

“You don’t know that, right now,” Harry said. “You killed without hesitation. But I know that you never would have done that under normal circumstances, not even if they’d taken your parents. That has to go against the grain. That makes you into someone else, and you’ll need some time to come to terms with it.”

Draco scowled and picked at his palm. “And what do you suggest about the curses that I cast on my father and Weasley?”

“Apologize,” Harry said with a slight shrug. He had to admit that he didn’t think either of them would accept an apology, but since he didn’t know what Lucius would accept and Ron had tried to strike back, he didn’t know that Draco’s responsibility went any further than that. “Talk it over with them. You don’t have to be enemies forever.”

“I am not enemies with my father,” Draco said.

“I don’t think that you’re allies right now, either,” Harry said. “Or I don’t think you will be, once he finds out about me. Will you?”

Draco grunted and bowed his head. Harry waited, but he didn’t say anything aloud, so Harry left him to think it over while he turned to his notes. There had to be some reason why the jealousy had suddenly grown so much stronger around Ron. The revealing charm that would let Harry see the curse permanently was a necessary first step, but that was the dilemma Harry was more interested in finding a solution for at the moment.

Is the lust as strong? I’ll ask Draco.

He cast another glance at Draco, who had his head in his hands by now.

But later.

*

Bloody Potter, making me think about all the things that he believes I did wrong.

But Draco had to admit that he couldn’t have evaded them forever. And at least Harry hadn’t decided that he should go back home and face his father right now. Draco didn’t know if he would have the strength to do that. Harry was going to allow Draco to stay the night, to eat with him, to sleep in the same bedroom he had had the last time he was here. He was putting wards around his own bedroom, as he mentioned over dinner.

Draco thought about telling him that he didn’t have to do that, and then the lust seized him around the throat and made him gasp as he thought about the way that Harry would look kneeling at his feet, mouth open for his cock.

“What?” Harry was standing up, staring alertly at him. He must have been watching Draco’s face extremely closely to know when he started to feel the lust, but that made Draco feel no better, at least at the moment. His mind was swimming, and he reached up a hand and began to fumble blindly at the collar of his robes. The only thing he could think about at the moment was getting them off, and Harry had taken his wand away, so he couldn’t remove them with a simple charm.

Harry will have to prepare us, too. But Draco didn’t mind that. The mere thought of Harry waving his wand and speaking the soft charm that would coat his fingers with thick-gleaming oil, the way he would touch himself and close his eyes with pleasure as he brought himself closer to the edge—

But no, I want to be the one that does that.

“Draco!”

Draco’s eyes snapped open. Harry was kneeling in front of him, just the way he’d imagined, but he wasn’t bowing his head, and the look in his eyes wasn’t a mixture of calculation and shy delight, the way Draco had thought it would be. Instead, Harry was clasping his hands and staring earnestly into his eyes.

“I need you to tell me about the lust,” Harry said. “What is it like? Why do you think it struck you just now? Is it weaker or stronger than the other times it’s appeared?”

Draco tried to clear his throat. He tried to think rationally. If he had had a divided mind since Harry halved the curse, he ought to be able to understand himself now and hold himself back.

But the only thing he could think of to say was, “Yes, it’s stronger. I want to fuck you.”

Harry swallowed, as if the announcement of the words had affected him in some unanticipated way. That increased Draco’s curiosity. Did Harry have kinks that he didn’t know about? Perhaps the Seekers of Justice had done him some good after all, binding him to someone who could act in bed in the ways that Draco liked—

The sheer insanity of that thought made the lust puddle up in him and then drain away, and Draco slumped back in his chair, shaking. It felt as though someone had dug fingers into his heart and stirred it around.

“I need you to talk to me.” Harry’s voice was clear, calm, and steady, and Draco reached out and clamped his fingers more tightly down on Harry’s hands. Harry didn’t even wince. “Do you think it’s stronger because you’re in proximity to me?”

Draco shuddered and opened his eyes. “Yes,” he whispered. He still couldn’t look at Harry without thinking about fucking him.

Harry sighed. “Then maybe you ought to go home after all. If that would give you some space, some time to think about other things than me and concentrate on coming to terms with what’s happened—”

“No,” Draco said. “I know what will happen if I do that. Your friends will come up with excuses to keep me away from you, and my father will find some way to enforce his will. He might try a Memory Charm, as much as he wants to keep us apart. And you made a promise, if you remember.” He locked eyes with Harry and tried to force him to remember that, assuming that he still wanted to.

Harry looked infinitely reluctant as he nodded. “Yes, I did,” he muttered. “But I still need facts, Draco. Tell me the next time you experience one of those surges, whether it’s lust or jealousy. I need to cast a revealing charm just as it happens.”

Draco let out a soft little sigh. He had won the battle more easily than he had thought he would, and so he could be generous. “I thought you didn’t know which revealing charm would work yet,” he said, as he changed his hold on Harry’s hands to a caressing one, and then to one that helped him back to his feet.

“I don’t,” Harry said. “But I’ve eliminated several that I know won’t work, because they don’t detect the presence of magical states as subtle as the ones that you’re experiencing. I want to try one of the others instead…”

He launched into a theoretical explanation about spell signatures that left most of Draco’s understanding behind, but he didn’t mind. He simply nodded and made admiring noises when appropriate, and watched Harry’s lips move or his eyes spark or the sharp gestures of his hands as they cut through air.

He knew that the curse had taken much from him. But it had also revealed beauties to him that he wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.

And those beauties would go on existing whether or not he ever found a cure for the half of the curse that clung to him now.

*

“That’s the problem with every suggestion to talk to someone you make.” Draco’s voice was tight with anger. “Who in the world can I talk to about this? Not you, you say. You’re too close. Well, my parents won’t listen to me, and most of the Healers either have some sort of prejudice against me, would want to treat me like an experiment, or would be horrified that I hadn’t been arrested for my violent acts. So whom do you suggest?”

Harry leaned back in his chair and sighed. He and Draco had been working for the past few hours to try and determine the best candidate for someone who could help Draco sort through his issues. As he had said, the choice was limited.

Harry was determined, though, that it not be him. He had been too close, and he had been the one whom Draco had committed those murders and cast those curses to save. He would be too tempted to excuse them, or go the opposite direction and insist that Draco feel more guilt than was warranted.

I probably should have beaten myself up more than I did, since I used Unforgivables during the war, but I ran from acknowledgment of that guilt.

Other people hadn’t, though, and a recollection came to mind that made Harry sit up. “Wait a minute,” he said. “There was someone Hermione went to see, someone who makes a specialty of listening to war trauma and helping the survivors deal with the killing or other crimes they may have committed.”

“I wasn’t in a war,” Draco said in a muffled voice. Harry glanced at him and saw that he had his hands over his face. Harry’s heart throbbed in sympathy. Draco could no longer ignore what had happened, what he had done, now that he didn’t have the driving goal of getting Harry’s attention and agreement to his proposition, and Harry thought the emotions were starting to close in on him.

“But you were under a curse, and most people agree that that is its own kind of extenuating circumstance,” Harry said soothingly. “This is someone Hermione visited when she was trying to deal with the fact that she took her parents’ memories of her away so that Voldemort wouldn’t be able to torture them.”

Draco’s face flickered with a few complex expressions before he seemed to settle on simple incredulity. “Granger did that?” he demanded.

“Yes,” Harry said. Hermione had looked calmer each time he saw her after one of those sessions, though her pale face and the tear-tracks on her cheeks made it obvious that she’d wept. Harry sometimes wondered if he should have tried it himself, but the price Hermione described was not one that he’d wanted to pay. Besides, with his luck, someone would have uncovered his visits and revealed them to the Prophet.

“I think I like her more now,” Draco said.

Harry frowned at him. “Does that mean that you’ll be able to control the jealousy when you’re around her?”

Draco held up a hand in silent acknowledgment of his point. “You haven’t told me who this person was that she visited. Who?”

“A person named Sanguis-Mentis,” Harry said, watching Draco closely. He only looked blank, and Harry continued, wanting to ease up to Sanguis-Mentis’s nature in his own way. “She said that she was able to draw off some of the pain and make Hermione feel better about what she did. She explained the situations in a calm, logical way. That appealed to Hermione. I don’t know if it would do the same thing for you. I don’t know if she would use the same tactic, for that matter. But it might be worth looking at.”

“What made her able to be so completely logical about a war that involved most of our world?” Draco asked suspiciously. “And if she’s a Muggle, what made Granger able to be so open with her?”

Harry winced. Of course Draco had spotted the weak point in that particular story right away. He wondered if Hermione would have shaken her head in pity and said that she’d told him so if he complained.

“Sanguis-Mentis isn’t human,” Harry admitted. “And not of a race of creatures that traditionally concern themselves with wizards, either, like house-elves. She agreed to help Hermione because of what Hermione paid her.”

“Harry.” Draco’s eyes were narrow. Harry could envision that it would go badly for him if he continued to lie by omission, and yielded.

“Sanguis-Mentis is a kind of vampire,” Harry said. “Or at least, that’s what I call her. Hermione had some long technical name. She’s related to Dementors. But she feeds on despair and emotional anguish instead of happiness, the way they do. She was able to help Hermione because she took some of her trauma away.”

Draco let out a slow breath. His eyes glittered, but Harry didn’t see anger over being partially lied to there, the way he’d expected. Instead, Draco looked amused.

“What?” Harry asked.

“I’m amazed that Granger was willing to resort to such a measure,” Draco murmured. “I would have expected her to suffer through the consequences of what she had done like a good little Gryffindor, instead of getting a magical creature she must think of as evil to take it away.”

Harry smiled. “You don’t know Hermione very well,” he said. “She doesn’t see any value in guilt for its own sake. You do something because of it or you don’t do anything, and in that case, it’s better to take the guilt away. She saw no way of making up for what she’d done during the war.”

“But you mentioned ways that I could,” Draco said. “Searching for the leader of the Seekers of Justice, and apologizing.” He said the last word with the same kind of resigned distaste that Harry would have expected him to show towards picking up a poisonous spider.

Harry blinked. “I did. But—I also assumed that you wouldn’t want to do those things. And you have to get rid of the anguish somehow.”

Draco shook his head. “There are still things I would rather do than trust myself to a cousin of Dementors. Or a vampire. Perhaps someday, if we’ve tried the other methods and they’re not working,” he added, probably because Harry had given him a dubious glance. “But I’ll try these first.”

Harry nodded hesitantly. “Do you think that you might want to speak with Hermione about Sanguis-Mentis, in case you change your mind?”

Draco shook his head and started to respond, but someone moved in the doorway of the drawing room. Harry glanced up just as Ron leaned in.

“Hermione wants to stay here tonight, mate, in case something happens,” Ron said neutrally. He kept his gaze aimed away from Malfoy, as though that would lessen his disgust, but his lip kept curling in spite of himself. Harry smiled back, knowing that Ron really would have preferred it if he and Hermione had been able to simply leave and go back to their own home, where they hadn’t spent nearly enough time the past week.

“Fine,” Harry said. “I assume you’re going home, then?”

“Yeah.” Ron couldn’t help himself then; his eyes flicked sideways at Draco, and Harry found himself looking at Draco in turn.

Draco, who was staring at Ron with an expression more reminiscent of a hungry tiger than anything else, his eyes so bright that Harry thought they would start sparking any moment. Whose hand was closed on the back of the chair as if he would turn that into a missile to throw at Ron. He was muttering something beneath his breath that Harry recognized as a try at a wandless Summoning Charm.

Harry didn’t bother watching Ron’s expression of disdain, or watching Draco anymore once he realized what was going on. He flicked his wand and cast the revealing charm he’d been thinking of, the one that he hoped would mark the subtle changes in Draco’s mind, like the jealousy.

The charm leaped across the distance between him and Draco, sparked, hesitated, and then finally caught and clung to Draco’s shoulders like St. Elmo’s fire. Harry squinted to get the best sense of it, and finally the jealousy, or something that he thought was the jealousy, appeared, entwined around Draco’s shoulders, a dark mist that was shot with sparks of what looked like darting stars.

Harry swallowed. The jealousy was wider than he had expected it to be, simply based on the puzzle pieces that he had seen when he had halved the curse. And he didn’t understand what the sparks meant.

Or the way that it suddenly flared, red joining the black, as Draco turned back to regard Harry with widened eyes and lips that looked as if he’d been biting them. Harry decided it was the lust he was seeing when Draco rose from his chair and proceeded towards him with much the same stalking walk he had shown earlier when he wanted to take Harry to bed. And yes, the look in his eyes was the same.

“Harry,” Draco whispered.

Harry tried to ignore the sensation of disappointment from his body as he studied the lust. It was shot with dark sparks, in turn, also like stars, and then the dark spread out and took over as Ron cleared his throat and said, “No offense, mate, but I don’t really want to watch you two rolling around on the floor.”

“Better him and me than you and him,” Draco snapped, turning around. The darkness writhed and twisted, and the red sparks had faded to the point that Harry had to squint to make them out.

If he was right, and the blackness was the jealousy, while the red was the lust…

Harry swallowed. He didn’t know how or why the way he saw the emotions had changed from the original curse, but he understood enough to know the extent of the problem.

He would try. Of course he would. Besides, Draco had set a limit of four tries that wouldn’t be that hard to pass.

But Harry very much feared now that he wasn’t going to be able to cure Draco.