lomonaaeren

Chapter Twenty-Five.

Title: Nova Cupiditas (26/30)
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-Six—Twice the Misfortune

The whirlwind blew through Draco’s mind, its winds razored. Every time Draco thought it might begin to fade, the winds scraped another chunk of his mind off, and then tore that chunk to smaller and smaller pieces while they enfolded it.

Draco was gasping in pain. He knew someone was holding him up, but the sensation came and went, buried under the flood of agony from the inside of his skull.

Certain things were true. Certain things he had accepted without thinking about them, because he knew they were true and saw no point in questioning them.

But this renunciation uprooted them again. The curse was torn loose, and flew about waving dark tendrils. The assurance that Draco had come to feel about Harry’s feelings for him, whether or not Harry ever got around to expressing them, was gone, and the chunks became smaller than hailstones, and then froze and shattered. The idea that he could go on leaning on Harry, relying on Harry, although his father might scowl and disown him, was so much blown snow in the storm.

The spell was gone. Draco was certain of that. But what was left to replace it, fill his mind with thought and his heart with emotion?

Nothing.

He sobbed, but the sound was dry and tearless. He didn’t know what he would have wept about if he could have. Everything was gone. When the storm blew out, the emotions that were left fell back to the floor of his mind as dust.

What else could they do? What else could it have been like? Of course Draco was going to lose everything that Harry had stirred or inspired in him, and of course the curse was going to turn out to be connected to more things than Harry thought it was.

The storm was gone now. Draco lay there, aching, and gradually became aware that the hands from before were stroking his shoulders, and a voice was calling his name. He forced his dull eyes open and saw Harry bending over him, his own eyes so wide that Draco was surprised his thoughts didn’t fall out of them as tears.

“Draco?” Harry whispered. He sounded broken.

A single, bleeding fissure ripped itself through Draco’s numbness, and he remembered what Harry had done that forced the release of the storm. He struck out instinctively, one fist flying up and colliding with Harry’s face.

Harry staggered back, his hands clapped to his broken nose. Granger, whom Draco had almost forgotten, started to yelp something, but Harry shifted and put his body in between whatever spell it was and Draco.

Draco hardly cared. He fought his way to his feet, and faced Harry. Harry actually dropped his hands as he stared back, and the soft flow of blood from his nose made a background noise to the words that Draco spoke.

“You still think that you can control my life. You’re doing what they did, what my father wants to do. You’re trying to dictate my actions.”

Harry shook his head. “I was trying to give you your choices back,” he said, in the strange sort of hollow voice that someone with a broken nose inevitably had. “I’m sorry if it didn’t work out the way you thought it would, but—”

There it was again, that self-serving apology, that load of bollocks about the thing Harry wanted to do being the right thing that Draco hated. He flew at Harry, slamming him against the wall, hitting the back of his skull so hard that Harry’s eyes crossed and he seemed about to faint. Draco squeezed hard on his shoulders, pulling him back into consciousness, demanding his attention.

Granger again tried to cast something. Draco seized Harry’s wand, dangling limp in his hand, and raised a barrier against whatever her spell had been. Then he tossed the wand away. He didn’t need that to hurt Harry. He didn’t want that to hurt Harry.

His words would be enough, as long as he put Harry in a position where it would be impossible for him to speak back and justify himself.

“You tore my mind apart, just now,” he said in a low voice that he knew wouldn’t conceal what he felt—whatever that was. So many emotions were trying to resurrect themselves from the cinders that he didn’t know what would come next, what strange and fantastic growths they would take. “You don’t care any longer. You never did. You only wanted to be sure that you weren’t responsible for hurting me. If you had cared, then you would have admitted that your love was real, even if mine wasn’t, and you would have fucked me.”

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but Draco released one shoulder to slam his palm across it. No. Harry had talked too much. Draco was the one who would get to talk now.

“There was no going back, once that curse happened,” Draco said. “Things had to change. Why is it that I understood that better than you did, when I was the victim and you were the pure and noble researcher trying to help me?” His voice had stabilized by now. He sounded calm and almost casual. Draco liked that sound. He thought it would make Harry realize, later, what a fuck-up he had been.

Harry shook his head. His eyes were wide, and did have tears leaking from them, now, but that wasn’t enough, and Draco went on.

“I wanted to sleep with you. You could have honored my decision. I wanted to be with you. You could have honored that decision. But instead you pretended that every feeling I had was because of the curse, or at least suspect because of the curse, and that meant I didn’t get to decide.

“You utter fuck, don’t you realize that’s not going to change?” Draco was snarling now, the fury sweeping through him, exploding like a red flower out of the dust and who knew what seed it contained. “You’re always going to suspect what I feel, even if I say that I want to snog you! Oh, that can’t be real, it’s just a result of the experiences we had during the curse, or an expression of thankfulness, or something. If I declare that I want to leave, then you’ll let me go, and not accept that I might change my mind tomorrow. You’ll always suspect me changing my mind, even if I just become indifferent to you! Oh, it could have been more, or it’s supposed to be more than that; I’m supposed to hate you. But if I did that and made the hatred the center of my life, that’s still the curse affecting me without my knowing it. If I hate someone else for sleeping with you, that can’t be natural jealousy, it must be cursed jealousy. The Seekers of Justice didn’t want to allow me autonomy at all. You claim to want that, but you’ll keep saying that I’m not free no matter what, unless I act exactly like the little shit you always thought I was. And what’s the freedom in that?”

Harry’s eyes were wide. Draco let him go and stepped away. He was breathing hard, not sure what would happen next, and aware of Granger, outside the barrier, squeaking in outrage and waving her wand around…

But he still felt better than he had.

*

Harry held his nose, examined the blood on his fingers, and now and then glanced back at Draco, wondering what he should be looking for.

Most of what Draco said was true. But Harry couldn’t see why it mattered so passionately to him. What should matter was what the curse seemed to be gone, or muted to the point that Harry couldn’t see anything but a dull smolder around Draco’s head and neck. And he wasn’t responding to Harry’s emotions anymore, either, because his anger had flared up while Harry was still pretty calm from the spell he’d cast.

It was—he was free again. And Harry, though he was swallowing hard with the pain that cut at him, couldn’t imagine that Draco would really want to change things back again.

“Well? Answer me!”

Draco was staring at him, and apparently he did want an answer to the last of his outburst, which Harry had assumed was full of rhetorical questions. He swallowed and went to pick up his wand, using it to cast Episkey on his nose. Draco didn’t flinch when Harry picked it up, which seemed to indicate that he still trusted him. But he waited, with his eyes on Harry’s face full of accusations and questions.

Harry shook his head a little. “What do you want me to say?” he asked. “I never meant to do that, but I obviously did. And I do think that you’d have to be mad to stay with me when it was the curse that made you want to do so.”

Draco laughed. He laughed for a long time, leaning back against the wall, his eyes shut as though he couldn’t bear to look at Harry anymore. Harry swallowed and glanced from him to Hermione. She still stood behind the protective barrier that Draco had somehow raised in a few seconds with Harry’s wand, her hands spread wide and her eyes frustrated. It was obvious that she wanted to break through the barrier and come to him, and as obvious that she had no idea how.

Harry decided that he would let her stay there for a moment. It was petty of him, perhaps, but he thought she would interfere, and he needed to say this just right, without interruption, so he could convince Draco.

“Your feelings were under the dominion of the curse for several days,” he said, carefully picking his words. “The more time that passes since then, the more free you’ll feel. But yes, I do think it would be a bad idea for you to try to stay around me and—be with me.” He had to swallow when he said those words, but Draco still had his eyes half-closed, and Harry didn’t think he would notice. “You can find someone else you didn’t know during the curse. You can have an honest love affair with them.”

“Why wouldn’t a love affair with you be honest?” Draco’s voice was pure, detached interest and nothing else. Harry found it hard to deal with, after listening to his anger. He wished that Draco would pick one emotion and stay with it consistently.

On the other hand, wouldn’t that be demanding that Draco more or less alter his emotions to suit Harry, which he had already accused Harry of wanting?

Harry didn’t know. He was lost in a dark tunnel, far from the light, and he wished that someone would advise him. He instinctively glanced at Hermione, and then remembered his resolution to do this for himself and turned back to Draco. Draco was watching him this time.

“Because we could never be sure,” Harry said. “What if it’s just physical attraction and shared danger, and then it fades?”

Draco gave a chuckle, a dark, inward sound. For some reason, Harry expected him to pull away from the wall and walk out the door after that, and Harry wondered how he would stand it. But he had to let Draco go.

He had always known that. It had just taken him some time to work up to it.

“You sound as though that would be horrible,” Draco said. “As if the only kind of love affair you’d value is one that lasts forever. As if one that ends—and which could end for other reasons, mind you; we’re different people and come from different worlds—is inherently worthless.”

Harry swallowed. He was always making these kinds of mistakes, it seemed, ones he didn’t notice but Draco did. It was another proof that they weren’t the best-suited to each other, or at least he thought so.

“You don’t deserve to be subjected to that,” he said. “Not with what you’ve already been subjected to.”

“I see,” Draco said. “The only people you can make the recipients of your romantic attentions are the ones that have never had a curse like this cast on them. The unbroken. The innocent. The naïve.” His voice dripped with such contempt on the last words that Harry could practically feel the emotion hit him across the face like a spray of saliva.

“No!” Harry snapped. “It’s not—”

He stopped, shaking his head. Why was he trying to argue with Draco? They had already both made their choices. He should just be happy that the renunciation had worked and the curse appeared to be weakened or gone.

He should be. But he wasn’t.

He waved his wand, ending the barrier spell. Hermione came rushing forwards at once, first to anxiously check his fixed nose, and second to turn a threatening stare on Draco. “I suggest you leave right now, Malfoy,” she said.

“Wait,” Harry said, and cast the revealing charm that had shown him the flickering clouds of lust and jealousy. They continued to show him nothing but the same dull smolder as before. He nodded. “You might want to come back in a few days,” he told Draco. “That way, I can check that the curse isn’t growing back again.”

Draco smiled humorlessly at him. “I doubt that it will. Nothing could survive the kind of pain that tore through my mind.” Harry winced, but Draco went on without waiting for an answer. “Nevertheless, I will come back. Because we have too much to settle to make this the only conversation we have.”

“Why do you have to say things like that?” Hermione implored, but Harry couldn’t tell whether she was speaking mostly to Draco or mostly to him. “Harry did the best he could to help you, and you’re throwing it back in his face!”

Draco paused, his eyes distant and pitiless. Harry tensed, ready to jump in front of Hermione if he had to, but Draco just stared over her head and appeared to muster his words instead of attacking.

“Yes, I am,” Draco said. “Because I don’t think he realizes his own motives for helping me.”

“I got attracted to you,” Harry said. He made his voice as harsh as he could. If Draco could just be turned away from him forever, then Harry thought it would be better for the both of them in the long run. He had to believe that, or he thought it quite possible that he would start crying and never stop. “It was lust on my part, and the happiness that I feel when I’m saving anyone. It wasn’t you specifically. It was never you.”

Draco responded to Hermione as if Harry wasn’t there, serene, except for the tightening lines around his eyes. “You see, your precious Harry likes to suffer. He likes to tell himself there are things he can never have, when he could have them if he stretched out his hand. If I’d had all his power after the war and wanted a normal life, I would have carved one out for myself. But he couldn’t, because to enjoy something would make him feel too guilty. So he went on acting like the tormented saint they all expected him to act, and withdrew, and he helped me because he thought of it as one more way to punish himself. Oh, yes, he has sympathy and compassion, I’ll grant you that.” Hermione had opened her mouth, but she closed it again without speaking. Harry stared at her, and then at Draco. “But it’s secondary to his need to suffer. This is the perfect kind of love affair for him, one that hurts. And now that it’s done, he’ll wallow in the pain instead of trying to move on.”

“We can’t do any moving on,” Harry snapped. “How could we ever be sure that you were really feeling something for me and not reacting to my attempts to help you? How could we ever be sure that I really felt something for you and wasn’t reacting to the chance to help you? You just accused me of that!”

Draco smiled faintly at him. “But you can never know that about anyone,” he said. “Not really, even if you’re a Legilimens. You’d have to take my word for it that I love you if we’d met under more normal circumstances. And you might wake up sometimes in the night and doubt. You probably would, knowing you, because that would cause you the most pain,” he added meditatively. “You don’t believe that you deserve to have a relationship that’s not painful, do you?”

“Go the fuck away.” Hermione loomed up as though she would put herself between Harry and Draco’s words. “He did what he promised he would, and cured you. It’s something no one’s ever done. You have the chance to live your life now. Can’t you be grateful to him for that, and shut up, and go away?”

“No,” Draco said. “Because he doesn’t get to choose to just end it. You don’t get to choose. You weren’t involved except in the last step.” He kept his eyes on Harry. “I’ll go away for right now. I need to rest, and I need to think. And I need to accept that the man I want to be with is a royal idiot. If I stay here, then I might become bitter enough not to accept it.”

“You don’t need to.” Harry’s voice sounded duller to his ears than it should. “You can make any choice you want.”

“Including this one?” Draco raised his eyebrows.

“I—you need to consider that you might be unduly influenced by what you went through, and give it some time—” Harry said, because what else could he say? Draco could be fooling himself, and just because Harry wanted this to happen wasn’t enough reason for it to actually do so.

Draco turned to Hermione instead of him. “And this is another example of what he does when he’s uncomfortable because something he wants might actually be about to happen,” he told Hermione. “I do think that I might be spared that.” He turned to Harry. “If you keep insisting that this is the case, then yes, I’ll leave. But not without making you feel what you’re losing.”

Harry shook his head. He had run out of words. He wanted Draco to be happy. He also wanted him to only be with someone he had honest feelings for. If those two things came into conflict, then he didn’t know what he’d do.

Of course, that kind of painful uncertainty seemed to be something he would have to live with.

But I already decided that I wouldn’t be able to live with it when it was a case of Draco telling me that he wanted me to.

*

Draco rolled his eyes. How idiotic that he, the one with the torn mind and the radically changed perspective on his own life and emotions, should be the one expected to offer comfort to Harry. Granger should have been the proper candidate for that, but she only stood there, looking back and forth between the two of them with a blank expression on her face.

And, to be just, Draco thought, she probably hadn’t done such a good job of it in the past, or Harry wouldn’t still be acting like this. His friends had probably told him that his useless sorrow was noble one too many times.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I may still want you. I’m still going to come back. If you don’t want me, or think that I’ll be happier with someone else, you have to tell me. You don’t get to dither around and wait for me to make the decision. I know exactly why you’re doing that, and that tactic doesn’t work on me.”

Harry stared at him in perplexity. “What do you mean?”

The world, Draco thought, would be a much better place if someone had ever forced Harry Potter to really know himself.

“If I make the decision,” he said, “then you have someone to blame if you don’t like it. You can sigh and wonder what it would have been like between us, without having to confront the messy, stinking reality of it. If you made the decision, you’d have to accept that it might not be perfect, that it might end, that you might have done something irrevocable and wrong.” He moved close enough that he could see the nervous light in Harry’s eyes. He was putting on a good show of bravado, but it was there, behind the show. “You’d have to accept that hurting someone isn’t unforgivable, and that someone you hurt might still want to spend time around you.”

“I know that,” Harry said, but his voice was weak. Then he coughed, cleared his throat, and tried to go on more strongly. “If I’m that pathetic, why do you want to be with me?”

“Another finely-honed defensive tactic,” Draco told Granger. She hadn’t cursed him so far, only looked at him in puzzlement, so he thought he was on the right track. “He acts like he’s equally stupid and low all the time. Either he’ll drive someone away and then he can enjoy luxuriating in his pain, or he’ll receive the coddling and sympathy that he thinks is second-best. I’m not going to play those games.”

He glanced at Harry, who was pale enough that Draco thought he might faint in a moment. “See you later,” he said sweetly, and walked out.

When he got out of Harry’s house, he paused a moment before he Apparated, closing his eyes. Did he feel up to a confrontation with his father at the moment, which he knew would happen the second he got back to the Manor?

No, he decided, and Apparated to the same small house where he had taken Harry after their encounter with the Seekers of Justice. He stretched out on the bed, kicked off his boots, and was asleep almost instantly.

It was the sleep of the just.

*

Harry had to sit down, because he felt breathless, and it didn’t help that he had Hermione hovering in front of him, her eyes so wide with worry that he thought she might faint, too.

He was thinking about what Draco had said. Thinking about it, instead of dismissing it at once because, obviously, everything Draco said and thought had come from the curse.

Harry hadn’t realized how much he was relying on that defense until it wasn’t available to him any longer.

He put his hands over his face and took deep, steady breaths. He knew that some of the things Draco said were true: that he thought the worst if he failed to help someone else, that he accused himself, that he acted like a martyr too much for the comfort of his friends.

But the rest—especially that he cared more for his own pain than for what both of them wanted, because getting what he wanted was too scary for him and it was easier to distrust someone else’s motivation than accept that they might help him get what he wanted…

He didn’t want that to be true of him.

And though Draco hadn’t gone that far, Harry could trace the connection to Lucius Malfoy and the Seekers of Justice. They, too, hadn’t cared about what Draco wanted, and had pushed their own wills forwards without a pause.

Harry gulped air. He still knew, with one part of him, that he couldn’t just give in and go along. That would be another case of letting Draco make all the decisions and having someone to blame if they went wrong.

He would have to choose.

He made a soft, hesitant vow to himself that he hoped could weather the blast of criticism Draco would inevitably bring to it.

I’ll try.