Chapter Twenty-Four of 'Nova Cupiditas'- All Too Divisible

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twenty-Three.

Title: Nova Cupiditas (24/?)
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-Four—All Too Divisible

Draco woke with a curse. For a moment, he had been dozing so heavily that he had started to slide into a dream, and then the jealousy had stuck spikes into his brain and pulled him back. He had to remember that Weasley might sneak into Harry’s room if he didn’t pay enough attention.

Weasley had gone home for the evening, supposedly. But Draco didn’t trust his words, especially because Harry did. Draco had learned, with some grim amusement at the fact, that it was all too easy to fool Harry if he trusted you. Draco had to be the one to look out for Harry in this particular context, since he wouldn’t do it for himself.

Then the jealousy blew away again like the tattered rag that it so often resembled, and Draco buried his head in his hands and breathed until he could feel the calm settling into the pit of his stomach.

Weasley has a wife whom he seems to love. Why would he do something like that? And I know that Harry wants me. I’ve seen how his eyes shine when he looks at me.

More than that, he knew where the jealousy and the paranoid fantasies that accompanied it came from. But Draco couldn’t help rising to his feet, wrapping a robe around himself, and walking down the corridor towards Harry’s bedroom.

The shimmer of wards would have identified it for him even if he hadn’t known the way. Draco leaned gingerly against the wall outside the limit of what should be the largest ward and peered in.

Harry had tossed off most of his blankets and lay under a single light sheet, his nightshirt also rucked up so that his chest was bare. Draco tried to swallow, but the saliva crowding his mouth made it difficult. He looked at the darker spots that Harry’s nipples made, and then had to look away.

The sight of him shouldn’t be able to affect me so strongly. Father would say that I’m weak.

The opinion of someone who knew nothing about the situation could be of little value to Draco, though. Instead, he stood there watching Harry sleep, and then he turned away, having seen for himself that Weasley wasn’t in bed with Harry.

Of course he wasn’t, because he was behind Draco, aiming his wand at him. Draco stopped, but did nothing so foolish as put his hands out to catch himself on the walls. That would make him look weak and scared, and that was what Weasley wanted. Draco watched him with a calm, remote gaze instead, and had the satisfaction of hearing Weasley’s teeth grind.

“Look, Malfoy,” Weasley said, his expression saying that he was reluctant to dirty his mouth with the name. He ought to understand why I call him Weasel, in that case, Draco thought, and shifted his weight so that he would be in a good position to dodge curses. “Harry seems to want you here, for some weird reason. I don’t understand it. But you have to know that, if you cross the line and hurt Harry, then it doesn’t matter, I’ll hurt you. Harry only sacrificed himself so that you wouldn’t be charged for the crimes you’ve already committed. Do something new, and I’ll arrest you.”

Draco opened his mouth. He expected similarly defiant words to come out; it wasn’t as though he would just stand there and permit Weasley to insult him.

Instead, he found himself laughing. He let that play out to the end, and in the end closed his eyes and shook his head. The weight of Weasley’s incredulous stare was almost worth it.

“You don’t believe me?” Weasley could be shrill when he thought that someone doubted his big manly Auror prowess, evidently.

“No,” Draco said. “I do. But you’re as stupid as I always thought you were if you think arresting me would change anything. Harry sacrificed himself once and did something I know was hard for him. What makes you think that he wouldn’t do it again?”

“Because—because he has no favors left to trade,” Weasley said, and Draco thought he’d been shocked into honesty, just from the tone of his voice. “He can’t ask Kingsley for anything else. Kingsley won’t give it to him.”

“You believe that,” Draco said, opening his eyes and pushing himself off the wall to move towards Weasley. Weasley tensed, and Draco reminded himself that the man did have Auror training, as ineffective as it probably was against someone who knew what they were doing and didn’t react like a brain-dead rabbit.

On the other hand, Draco didn’t have his wand. Perhaps it would be best to preserve the peace after all. He stopped and shook his head. “Harry can call on all the favors that he wants. He might not think of it this way, but the wizarding world owes him a debt that it can never repay, and Shacklebolt knows that. He would do whatever Harry wanted—within reason. And if Harry asked for a continuation of a promise that was already made, especially if you arrested me without Harry’s approval, then I would go free again.”

Weasley’s jaw worked. Then he glanced away. “You’re a danger, even if you’re not a Dark wizard,” he whispered. “You’re not in control of your actions.”

“Perhaps better not to provoke me, then?” Draco asked. “Don’t touch Harry. Don’t make comments about him that indicate you might like to sleep with him.”

Weasley threw him a disgusted glare. “That’s only in the depths of your paranoid and twisted mind.”

“Exactly,” Draco said. “Which is why it oughtn’t to be so hard, assuming that you’re telling the truth. Don’t say you love him. Don’t say you can’t wait to hug him again. Don’t hug him.” His voice grew sharper as he spoke. It wasn’t so hard to imagine Weasley with his arms around Harry. Draco had seen that happen several times in Hogwarts.

Where you would have thought nothing of it, because what were Harry’s lovers to you then?

It occurred to Draco that he hadn’t seen Harry with the Weasley girl yet. He would have to make sure she was no competition.

“You’re the one who needs to adapt, not me.” Weasley’s voice was cruel, digging like a knife into Draco’s brain. “You’re the one who’s cursed, and who has unnatural reactions. I don’t need to stop touching Harry. You should control your emotions, or sooner or later he’s going to leave you. Do you really think that he’ll put up with you cursing his best friends and holding us away from him forever?”

Draco winced, stung by the jealousy and by the conviction that Weasley was right at one and the same time. Yes, Harry would grow tired of having his every movement controlled and watched over. Draco had seen that during Hogwarts, when even the professors, who had the right to authority over Harry, couldn’t hold him still.

I don’t have authority, but I do have a claim. I could ask him if he would stay away from Weasley and Granger for the love of me.

Yet he didn’t know for certain if Harry loved him, either, or if those feelings were more born of pity and the desire to help. Sometimes Draco thought he saw one thing in Harry’s eyes, sometimes the other, but he had never had the full and sincere reaction from Harry that would have quieted his doubts.

“Is this reaching you?” Weasley was moving towards him, shaking his head. “You don’t understand, Malfoy. Harry might feel sorry for you, but you’re the one who was cursed. He’s not the one who should change his whole life around because of you, for you. Why should he? He’ll get tired of you eventually, and push you away.”

Draco shut his eyes and swayed. Those words went straight to the center of his deepest fears, and no matter how many times he repeated to himself that Weasley was only trying to get a rise out of him, only trying to make Draco distrust himself and react with fury or run away from Harry in confusion, it didn’t help.

Because there are things that won’t change. Harry won’t stop seeing his friends for me, no matter how much I ask him to. He’ll accommodate me, but he won’t change everything.

That gave Draco an idea about what he had to do. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.

Weasley stood there, staring at him, his wand dangling in his fingers as if he had forgotten its existence. Draco reckoned he could understand that. It wasn’t every day that someone got an apology from a Malfoy. He would let Weasley treasure the moment, and hopefully realize that it would never come again.

“After everything you’ve said?” Weasley finally asked, getting his voice back from wherever he’d put it. “After everything you’ve done? What is this apology supposed to be for?”

“For cursing you,” Draco said. He felt at peace with himself, and wondered if Harry had been right and offering someone an apology really could cleanse and help the soul. It felt good, at least. “That first night in the lab, when you were touching Harry—” his voice turned savage, and he paused and waited until he thought he could go on in a dignified manner—“and I lost control of myself.”

“Oh, yes,” Weasley said, and his eyes had narrowed. “The incident I’m not allowed to arrest you for, even though anyone using Dark magic should go to Azkaban.”

Draco just met his eyes and didn’t say anything. Weasley was the one who had chosen to bring up Harry’s sacrifice for Draco. He ought to be the one to realize that undoing it wouldn’t be the best move to keep himself in Harry’s good graces.

“Fuck, Malfoy, what do you expect me to say?” Weasley was suddenly aggressive, sweeping a hand through his hair and then leaning closer as if he thought Draco had his wand. “You think that your words are enough to make up for everything?”

“Considering that I was under a curse at the time and that I still have no desire to apologize?” Draco asked. “Yes, I do think that.”

Weasley rolled his eyes. “So you’re doing this because Harry told you to and you want to stay close to him. Excuse me for not taking your words promptly at face value.”

Draco sighed. He was trying to hold onto his patience, and it shouldn’t have been so hard, but he had to remember that he was without his wand and that Weasley was in control of the situation, no matter how much he hated that. “Yes, fine. You don’t have to accept it. But Harry suggested that I find some means to atone for what I’d done, to help myself come to terms with it. I’m doing this for myself and Harry, not you. I’d thought you would have been smart enough to realize that, at least.”

He started to move past Weasley, disgusted by the complete lack of understanding between them. Weasley had to know that no apology would ever emerge from Draco’s lips of his own free will, so why did he act as though apologizing because of Harry was some horrible revelation that Draco should apologize for in turn?

“Wait.”

Draco glanced back over his shoulder. Weasley had his fists clenched, no surprise. Draco moved to the side so that he could be sure his back was to the wall. If it came to a physical fight, then he would first try to take Weasley’s wand from him. He thought he could see a way to do that, even, if Weasley kept his hands in the same position they were.

“You’re not leaving,” Weasley said. “And you’re haunted by the remnants of this curse even now, because Harry couldn’t get rid of it fully.”

Draco held back the sharp words that wanted to rise to his lips, even though Weasley made it sound as though Harry had simply failed because he wasn’t good enough. He knew Weasley hadn’t meant it that way. He waited.

“And you’re jealous when I touch him, but that’s not your fault,” Weasley muttered. “And you apologized. Even if it’s worthless because you never would have done it without Harry to prod you along.”

Draco couldn’t help himself. “Does it always take you this long to reach a simple conclusion, Weasley?”

“Shut up, wanker,” Weasley said, frowning so intensely that Draco was sure it had become more about his own internal thought process than anything anyone outside him said. “I’m getting somewhere, and maybe that’s closer to an acceptance of you.”

Draco rolled his eyes, but again, managed to keep silent. He was never really going to like Harry’s friends, he knew that. He was never really going to like their closeness to Harry. But getting them to tolerate him was, frankly, more important. They weren’t the ones who threatened people when a random bout of jealousy took them, either.

He could feel his face flush, thinking about that—with embarrassment this time—and it helped to distract him from the mental disaster that was Weasley fumbling his way along.

“I reckon you’re not going away,” was the next thing Weasley said that he bothered to pay attention to, voice so reluctant that it made the words sound like a threat at first. “Though Merlin alone knows what Harry’s going to do with you, when you’re a danger to him and everyone around him.”

“I’m not a danger to anyone as long as I’m without my wand,” Draco said, and he thought the bitterness behind that must have been too visible, because Weasley snorted and pointed a finger at him.

“But you’d like to be, I know,” he said. “Anything to prevent us from taking our rightful places at Harry’s side.”

“If things were completely normal, I wouldn’t be here at all,” Draco said. “As it is, I’ll live with you being here because I have to.”

“Then go back to being completely normal!” Weasley leaned forwards again, and his voice shifted into the most intelligent tone Draco had ever heard it take. “Seize the chance! Get someone besides Harry to take off the last of the curse, and then walk away and don’t look back! Merlin’s balls, don’t you want to do that? It would make the most sense for you, and it would get you away from us and Harry.”

“I don’t know if anyone can remove this curse,” Draco said, rolling his eyes at Weasley’s naiveté. “Harry is the only one who’s managed to take off even half of it. Why wouldn’t I remain close to him instead?”

“You could look,” Weasley said stubbornly. “You ought to be able to think a little more rationally now that the curse isn’t as strong as it was. Go and look. Leave us alone.”

Draco shook his head. “No. You said it yourself: I’m here, and I’m staying. You’ll have to put up with it. It can’t be the hardest thing you’ve ever done in your life,” he added, wondering why Weasley was acting like this when Draco knew that he had been a hero in the war. “Hunting for a way to defeat the Dark Lord was harder.”

“Ha!” said Weasley morosely. He straightened, stared at Draco for a moment, and then said, “No sneaking in and trying to rape Harry.”

“That’s why he has those wards,” Draco said. He would have liked to protest that he could never rape Harry now, but he found it easier to tell the truth than a lie.

“Ha,” Weasley said again, eyed Draco as though he might sneak past him and try it anyway, and then walked away.

Draco watched him go. He thought of asking if Weasley had accepted his apology, but he didn’t want to think about the answer.

It did have one effect on him, though. He went back to his bedroom, and for the first time all night, dreamed peacefully.

*

“Sit still, please, Draco.”

Draco looked as if he would like to protest the order, but in the end, he sat down on the chair Harry had conjured for him—as promised—in the center of the warded circle and waited. His hands were folded in his lap, and the world’s best bored expression was on his face. Harry found that he had to keep more of his attention on the curse than on Draco, or he would have burst out laughing.

Not that that was hard, not when he really focused on the curse. It was fluctuating back and forth right now, between the black cloud with sparks of red that meant jealousy and the red cloud with sparks of black that meant lust. Draco hadn’t expressed either towards him this morning, unless snatched glances counted, so Harry thought this was what the stable state looked like. The relatively stable state, at least. The clouds never remained the same color for the same length of time, and the sparks of the contrary color came and went. The only things he thought were constant were the interlinked nature of those emotions, as shown by the flecks of one present in the other, and the way they “moved,” pulsing in and out like the breathing of a great beast.

“I don’t understand why it changes like this,” Harry muttered to himself, and cast another revealing charm. As he had thought it would do, it failed. Most of the time, trying to add a second revealing charm on top of a successful one did that.

“Like what?” Draco leaned forwards, looking interested for the first time all morning. “Those star-clouds you mentioned before? It looks like that now?”

Harry nodded, deciding that it wouldn’t be a problem if he involved Draco that much. “Yes. But why? Is this a natural stage in the evolution of the curse, once someone manages to hurt it, or has halving it done something entirely new?”

“Just remember that this counts as one of your four tries.”

Harry looked up sharply. Draco’s voice was deep, his eyes were glittering, but the cloud around his shoulders still only held flecks of red. It wasn’t the lust, Harry judged. It was Draco feeling ordinary desire for him.

He wouldn’t be feeling that, either, in the first place, if not for the Seekers of Justice and their curses.

Harry winced. He had to keep the guilt out of his work, though, or he would do nothing but think about that all day long.

“I know,” he said, in answer to Draco, and then stepped around behind him, on the other side of the circle, to see if the curse looked different from that direction. No. Draco craned his head to watch Harry go, but made no objection to him standing there, which Harry had half-thought he would do. An experience like Nova Cupiditas would make anyone paranoid.

“I apologized to Weasley this morning,” Draco announced.

Harry blinked and turned his head to look at him. Perhaps he should have stayed focused on curing the curse even now, but it wasn’t every day that Draco could make an announcement like that. “What? When?”

“While you were still asleep,” Draco said. “He found me standing outside the wards of your room, and threatened me a bit. I remembered that I didn’t have a wand, and he did say a few things about eventually accepting my presence in your life. So I apologized. I thought he was about to have a heart attack.” From Draco’s satisfied expression, that wouldn’t have been the worst possible result.

“I’m—glad,” Harry said, though the simple words didn’t begin to express the depths of his astonishment. “I’m glad that you can get along,” he added, since Draco cocked his head and seemed to expect more from him. “Do you feel better now?”

Draco shrugged. “I slept peacefully after that, so maybe apologizing to Weasleys has some hitherto-unknown tranquilizing property.”

“Not like you would have known it before this,” Harry muttered at him, and won a quick grin before he cast another revealing charm.

The star-clouds flickered wildly around Draco’s shoulders, and Harry took a step closer to the wards despite the fact that that brought his nose right up to them and he’d been trying to remain at a decent distance for Draco’s sake. If this revealing charm caused the curse to vanish after he’d spent so much time trying to see it—

But no. Instead, the charm combined with the first one in the way that Harry had been trying to do for hours and had begun to believe he wouldn’t get, linking with it and opening another “field” of vision around Draco’s shoulders.

Harry caught his breath. Yes, he could see it now. The clouds twined out reaching tendrils that locked into place behind Draco’s neck. Harry could see how they joined, and the way the tendrils were lazily climbing Draco’s face towards his ears, the place where the lust-crown had been locked into his brain in the original curse.

They’re not there yet. Harry swallowed. We’ll have to move quickly to make sure that they don’t put Draco back under the original curse, or at least regrow the lust to the point where he can’t think coherently.

This time, though, he would cast every spell he could think of at the connection, so that it wouldn’t split the way it had last time and leave Draco in devastating pain. Harry took a step away from the circle, intending to fetch his notebooks.

And saw something else, something previously invisible from the angle he’d been standing at.

The black and red tendrils of the clouds were twined around Draco’s throat, too, looking like some sort of bizarre necklace resting above the pulse point. They didn’t sink into the skin and thus show that they had latched on and Draco was once more under Nova Cupiditas, thank God, but they formed a big, ugly knot that Harry knew he would have to cut.

He thought he understood what he was seeing, now. When he had sliced the curse in half, he had sliced the shapes that haunted Draco’s head and shoulders in half, too, and this was the pattern that lay underneath them. Doubled, restored to full strength, the curse would resume the shapes he had learned so painstakingly.

That was worthwhile knowledge, at least. Harry wasn’t entirely certain how he was going to use it, yet, but at least he had it.

Then, because he remembered the disaster that had happened last time when he acted too quickly, he took a closer look, and ended up shutting his eyes.

“Harry?” Draco’s voice was sharp. “You can’t stand there looking as if you’re going to faint without telling me what you saw.”

Harry managed to swallow, and poured his attention forcibly back to the knot. “Some of the strands around you are red, and some are black,” he said dully. “For lust and jealousy. And some of the strands are both red and black. The two emotions run into each other. I don’t know—I thought I could pull them apart, but I don’t know how I can. Not like this. I’d probably cause you the same kind of pain I did last time.”

“No, thank you,” Draco said quickly. He paused, and then added, “I have faith that you’ll succeed, if that’s what you need.”

Harry winced again. It was hard to look at Draco’s face right now, knowing that he had so much more belief in Harry than Harry did in himself—

And knowing that the faith came from the curse, at least partially. What would happen if Harry did free him from it?

That still has to be your priority, Harry reminded himself. His freedom is worth more than his compelled bond to you.

And if you lose him because you dissipate the curse, then you never had him in the first place.