lomonaaeren

Thank you for all the reviews! This is the second-to-last chapter of Forgive Those Who Trespass. An epilogue, Chapter 34, will go up later today, and that will complete the story.

Thanks for coming along!

Chapter Thirty-Three—Steps on the Road Out of Hell

Harry woke screaming this time. He didn’t remember this dream nearly as well as he remembered the one the other day that had involved Richard; he just knew he’d been dangling above a pit meant to collect and drain his blood, whilst Draco skinned him lovingly with a dull knife and a blank face.

Harry blinked up at the lights for a moment. Were there supposed to be lights on in the middle of the night? And then he turned over and realized he had fallen asleep with Draco on the bed in Draco’s room.

And Draco was propping himself up on an elbow, his brow wrinkling. Harry flinched, a little, as he met his eyes. Draco noticed, but he just frowned harder.

“You told me you weren’t having nightmares,” he said.

Harry looked down, picking at the sheets. Then he swallowed. There was no excuse he could offer—no excuse that would be good enough for lying to Draco. He’d done it because he thought Draco should be spared worry, but that motivation wasn’t worth the hurt and gathering fury in Draco’s face now. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I don’t—it was wrong.”

That seemed to defuse the fury. Draco sighed and wrapped his arms around Harry, dipping his head to rest on his shoulder. “How much sleep are you missing?” he whispered. “Are they coming every night?”

“Every other night,” Harry admitted. He’d already talked about the nightmares to Agarwal, so he couldn’t figure out why it felt so good to tell the truth to Draco. Maybe because he had faith that Draco listened to him like no one else in the world. He turned to the side and slung an arm over Draco’s waist. “The mediwitches have said there are some spells that might help, but they’d make me unable to wake up from the dreams. I don’t—want that. I want to know that I’ll always be able to rip myself away if it gets especially bad.”

Draco was quiet for a moment, stroking his back. Then he said, “Talking about the nightmares might help, too.”

“I have—“

“With me.” Draco’s voice was both exasperated and tender, which Harry thought might be his favorite combination of emotions in the world right now. “In detail.”

Harry lifted his head and scanned Draco’s face closely for a moment. It was pale and exhausted; Harry didn’t think he’d seen Draco looking completely happy, or rested, since the maze. But that was to be expected.

This is the kind of life you’ve let yourself in for.

Then Draco smiled at him sweetly, and Harry remembered that that life also included joy and the right to be protected and cared for. They might be fleeting compared to the weight and oppressiveness of the struggle, but when they came, they made the struggle completely worthwhile.

“All right,” he whispered.

Draco’s kiss was slow and unhurried. A moment later, he settled back in the same way to listen, as Harry stumblingly told him the nightmare.

*

Harry roamed around his room restlessly. Every now and then, he got the temptation to go to his door and down the corridor, but then he’d pull himself up with a sharp reminder that Draco was visiting the Manor this weekend, so Harry couldn’t see him. And that was right, that he was visiting. He needed to get accustomed to his mother and to people outside hospital again.

But it created a hollow, unsatisfied craving in the middle of his chest.

To think Harry had thought it was Draco who obsessed over their relationship.

He roamed pathetically around the room twice more, to the point where his heart started seizing in his chest and he was forced to remember Odd Robert’s warnings, before he stopped, clasped his hands behind his head, and let out a deep, hissing breath. So he couldn’t see Draco. Draco was all right. He was with Narcissa, the person who would come nearest to Harry’s fierce protectiveness. She wouldn’t let anyone stalk him, or hurt him for his perceived crimes in the maze, or drive him to tears.

Maybe Harry could just Floo the Manor, really quickly—

Then he sighed as he remembered the instructions Draco had given him just before departing St. Mumgo’s. There was to be no contact between them this weekend. It was a test to make sure they could actually separate and begin leading (cautiously) independent lives. Draco had been stern when he asked Harry for that favor, and Harry had agreed, a little subdued by the strength in his partner’s gray eyes.

He’d agreed.

Besides, he had friends, didn’t he? Friends who would probably be delighted to spend the day with him.

So he Flooed Ron and Hermione from one of St. Mungo’s private fireplaces, and they came through the flames at once, eager to spend the day telling him how the Ministry was handling the Department of Mysteries fiasco—badly—how they had done on the latest set of trainee Auror exams—well for Hermione, not so badly for Ron—and how the Weasleys were eagerly waiting for Harry to be well enough to stand a little excitement, so they could take him to a Quidditch match.

Harry laughed with them, and listened to them, and laughed loudest of all when Ron made a casual reference to their wedding, something he never would have done before the maze, when he’d still been trying to pretend he was absolutely independent of Hermione and in love with her at the same time. Ron flushed, then smiled goofily and kissed Hermione on the cheek.

It seemed Draco wasn’t the only one who had changed when Harry spent three months as a building.

And if their presence never quite satisfied him like Draco’s presence did, it satisfied in a different way. And Harry felt a hole in his heart he hadn’t known he possessed quietly filled in.

*

“We’ve been working together for a month now,” Harry said abruptly to Odd Robert a few days later. “Tell me the truth. Do you think I’ll ever have the coordination that I had before the maze?”

The Mind-Healer paused, his wand extended in front of him. Then he cleared his throat and lowered the wand. He examined Harry with keen eyes from behind his glasses, and said, “Why that question, lad? You know as well as I do that we can’t actually judge how good your coordination will be until you’ve made more of a trial at it.”

“But you’re an expert.” Harry stared blindly down at his hands. More and more magic was coming back to him now, but his body remained shaky. He still couldn’t run faster than a swift jog, and his hands faltered when he tried to write for longer than ten minutes or catch anything flying through the air. He could grip a broom, he suspected, but with nothing like his usual grace. Sex with Draco was likely athletic enough to push his boundaries, though because Harry always rested afterwards it didn’t seem like it. “You’ve handled a lot of cases before. Tell me.”

Odd Robert sighed gustily, then said, “No, lad, you’ll never be as good as new. Never be at the level of physical strength and speed you were when you went into the maze.” He paused, then added, “I’ve suspected this for some time now, and was figuring out how to tell you. Though there are some parts of your body it didn’t affect—for example, your skin is still as elastic as it was—becoming the maze aged you. You’re lacking some of your coordination and so on because your muscles are those of a forty-year-old wizard, not a twenty-one-year-old. We’ve got some of your flexibility back; you were more like a sixty-year-old when you started training with me. But you can’t improve much more.” He glanced up at Harry. “We can get you to the point where you don’t have a heart attack when you want to hurry around hospital, yes. But we’ll never make you into someone who can jump off a cliff again, as you tell me you did to enter the Department of Mysteries, even with a Lightening Charm. Your hands will have some stiffness. Your eyes’ll be faster than your limbs. You’ll ache more if you take a tumble or break a bone. I’m sorry, Harry.”

Harry closed his eyes and nodded slowly. “Will this shorten my life?”

“Now that? I really don’t know.” Odd Robert’s voice was thoughtful. “The age damage to your organs will be the answer to that, and I think many of your organs escaped more than minimal damage because they were the most thoroughly transformed.” He hesitated.

“Tell me,” Harry commanded again, not daring to open his eyes just yet. He didn’t want to weep.

“Your heart,” Odd Robert whispered. “You’ll have to be careful for the rest of your life, I think. It won’t be easy to strain, but you can always strain it.”

Harry licked his lips twice. He could hear Agarwal’s voice in his head, telling him that neither he nor Draco would pass out of the maze unscarred.

But his voice was steady, and his eyes were dry when he forced them open. “Thank you for telling me.”

*

“Draco.”

He stood no chance of fooling someone who knew him as well as Draco, of course. Draco turned around and arched an eyebrow, putting down the letter he’d been writing—to one of his friends, Harry devoutly hoped. He’d told Harry casually that he’d met a few of “his old crowd” at the Manor, and some, like Pansy Parkinson, had encouraged him to write. “What is it?” he asked, pushing a hand through his hair with a simple gesture that Harry had to stop himself from drooling over.

“They caught the bastard who sold our secrets to Skeeter,” said Harry simply.

It was all he needed to say. Draco was out of the chair in moments, crossing the distance between them and snatching Harry’s hand. “Well?” he asked, craning his neck back when Harry remained still. “Let’s go look at him before they take him away.”

Harry, who had really remained in one place just to see Draco stretch his neck like that, agreed absently, and followed his partner for a short distance down the corridor before taking the lead. Draco’s hand clamped on his arm, casually making sure they couldn’t be separated. That delighted Harry. So many things about Draco delighted him, and putting them into words would still sound sappy, so he didn’t try.

They reached the circle of mediwitches and Healers gathered around a wiry young man, who stared at the ground without looking up. The mediwitches and Healers all wore disgusted expressions.

Harry couldn’t blame them. Toby Bannering looked like what he was: a thin, weedy, contemptible snitch who would sell out anyone for a few Sickles. His hands clenched at his sides as he listened to the people asking him angry questions, and he didn’t respond to any of those questions. Harry clamped his lips down on the urge to spit, so strongly was he reminded of Peter Pettigrew.

Draco had no such restraints. He forced himself through the crowd, who fell back to let him come, and spat right in Bannering’s face. Bannering started back with a gasp, as if he couldn’t comprehend why someone would want to do that, and appealed to the watchers. “Did you see what he did?”

No one appeared ready to sympathize.

A Healer Harry didn’t know very well, though he remembered she was the Head of the Spell Damage ward where he and Draco stayed, caught Harry’s eye and bowed stiffly to him. “Mr. Bannering violated every confidentiality procedure St. Mungo’s has,” she said. “He will be sacked, but we’ll make quite a thorough example of him before then, you can be certain.”

Harry smiled brightly, even as he received Draco’s hand back again. Draco was trembling, and Harry knew it would be best to get him out of sight before he could break down. “I’m sure it will be a painful example.” After all, Healers knew so many little spells that affected the body.

The Healer’s smile widened into a smirk. “Quite.”

And then Harry took Draco out of sight, and in his room Draco broke down crying and swearing, in anger and in wonder that he had been able to express that anger, and that no one had punished him for it. Harry held him close, and rubbed his back.

*

“Harry.”

Agarwal’s voice was a reminder that she was waiting, and probably wouldn’t be content to wait much longer, for an explanation. Harry sighed and dragged his fingers through his hair. “I shouldn’t have left St. Mungo’s yesterday,” he muttered.

“You should have,” Agarwal corrected him sharply. “You need to get used to moving about in public again.” She paused. “What you should have done is come back to hospital the moment you realized it was getting to be too much for you.”

“The Weasleys were having so much fun,” Harry defended himself weakly. “It’s not often they all get together to go shopping in Diagon Alley, and Ginny and Bill and Mrs. Weasley hadn’t seen me for more than a few minutes at a time since I came out of the maze. I didn’t want to spoil their trip.”

“And you think your explosion into violence at the end of it didn’t do that for them?”

Harry scowled at his hands.

“Harry.”

“He was insulting Draco!” Harry hissed, bringing his head up. “He had to know I would hear. There’s no reason to randomly start talking about Draco Malfoy when Harry Potter and the Weasleys walk by. All that nonsense about how Draco isn’t good enough for me even if I am gay, how Draco just needed a proper term in Azkaban and then he’d stop pretending to be a sniveling do-gooder—“

“Being angry about what he said is perfectly fine,” Agarwal said. “You know as well as I that casting the spell you used is not.”

Harry stared at his hands again and shrugged his shoulders. How could he say that he would have done it all over again if he had heard the man’s voice saying those words a second time? The voice had been a penetrating whinge, announcing every word, in perfect confidence that everyone who went by would agree with him. It made Harry furious to know that some people regarded Draco that way.

“Have they managed to get the boils off yet?” he mumbled.

“No,” Agarwal said severely. “Nor have they managed to repair his nose, which you turned inside out.”

“I’d do it again,” Harry said, and it was very easy after all to speak the words.

“Defending your partner does not require violence—“

“Yes, it does,” Harry said, looking up in surprise. “Sometimes, it does. There are still people who hate Draco just for his name, never mind what he did in the maze. Sometimes we get rumors that people associated with the Death Eaters are hunting him.”

Agarwal’s nostrils flared. “Then what you must do is learn to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable responses. In the long run, striking out against everyone who threatens him will do his reputation no good.”

“Yes, but it would make me feel better,” Harry muttered.

“Harry.”

He sighed, and set himself to learning better like a good little patient.

*

“Mr. Potter. I’m pleased to meet you.”

Given the shadows in Narcissa’s face, Harry wasn’t sure that was entirely true, but he also knew Narcissa understood the anxious, proud shine in Draco’s eyes as well as he did. Draco wanted them to get along, and making Draco happy was important to both of them. Therefore, they would get along.

Her hand was smooth and cold in his. Not quite like marble, Harry thought, bending over to kiss it. She was alive, and to be sure of that he only had to watch the minute changes in her cool expression whenever her gaze shifted to her son.

“Thank you for welcoming me here, Mrs. Malfoy,” he said, straightening. “You have a lovely home.” And if that wasn’t quite true, if he would never see Malfoy Manor free of the shadow of Dobby’s death or Hermione’s torture, he could still say it in an unwavering voice, and Narcissa could accept it as the truth.

“Thank you,” Narcissa said, with a fraction more grace this time, and gathered up her dress robes. “Shall we?”

And then there was a magnificent dinner that would have made Hermione have a fit, since it was entirely prepared and served by house-elves, and then a parlor filled with so much expensive furniture Harry was reluctant to sit on it, but he had to because Draco wanted him nearby to cuddle with. And Narcissa’s mouth twisted only a little at their cuddling, before she hid the expression behind a tall glass of wine.

Draco and his mother talked about things Harry didn’t understand more than one word in three of, apparently acquaintances of theirs and magical theories that Narcissa made a habit of studying. Harry made little assenting noises whenever they wanted him to, and cheerfully put up with Draco’s snorts and increasingly drunken corrections when Harry made a noise of assent to the wrong thing.

And Draco’s head dipped more and more, his eyelids fluttering softly, until at last his head rested on Harry’s shoulder and his snores filled the room. Harry drank in the sight of Draco resting, really resting; he had known his nightmares were getting fewer, but there was a difference between the knowledge and the sight. He ran a hand through Draco’s hair. The light, unexpected touch didn’t make Draco shout and struggle to get away; instead, he pressed closer, some sleepy, contented mumble escaping his lips.

“You really are good for him.”

Harry glanced up, startled but careful not to disturb Draco. Narcissa was watching her son with the wistful expression Harry had seen Mrs. Weasley wear when Bill married.

She met his eyes in the next moment, and all resemblance to Mrs. Weasley vanished when she said causally, “If you hurt him, I will twine your guts around a pole and arrange for them to pull themselves out of your body and put themselves back forever, giving you a never-ending gut wound. You cannot imagine the pain.”

“I can, actually,” Harry said. “That was the spell Draco used on Richard. He was in the maze for three months like that.”

An expression of deep pride passed over Narcissa’s face. “Good,” she said, and Harry wasn’t sure whether she was talking about Draco’s use of the spell or Harry’s experience with it. She sipped her wine again.

Draco pressed his face into Harry’s shoulder, and snuffled.

*

“We can’t convince you to come back then, Harry?” Kingsley’s eyes were wistful but also watchful. Harry couldn’t really blame him, not when he’d blackmailed the Minister into keeping the press quiet. At least that had worked. There had been no more threats from Skeeter.

Of course, Skeeter was reportedly abroad, seeking cures for rare diseases in other countries, so perhaps Harry’s threat had more to do with that.

“No,” Harry said. Carefully, he placed his resignation on Kingsley’s desk. “The maze left me with permanent effects. I won’t be able to sustain the sheer physical fitness required of an Auror anymore. And I have to be available to take care of Draco. An Auror works such long hours that it wouldn’t be feasible.”

“So what will you do?” Kingsley leaned forwards across the desk to express that the matter was of no small interest to him.

“For now?” Harry met his eyes calmly, steadily. He suspected he knew what was coming, and he wasn’t about to let himself be pressured back into the Ministry. “Get a flat in Morgana’s Yard. A little village in Wales,” he added, when Kingsley crinkled his eyes in puzzlement. “Mixed Muggle and wizarding. Far enough away not to be hounded by the press or reminded every single day of what happened. Close enough by Floo and Apparition to reach St. Mungo’s in an instant and visit friends.”

“You’re really going to retire, then? At twenty-one?” Kingsley was disapproving.

“Not retire,” Harry said, irritated. Ron had expressed much the same doubts when Harry talked about their plans. “Just—rest for a while. Get our lives in order. I may eventually become a Quidditch coach. I’ve had a few offers like that already. Not all coaches have to fly all the time. Or Hermione’s offered to teach me Arithmancy and Ancient Runes, which could help me get a few jobs I’m not qualified for yet. Draco—he has plenty of skills, but he doesn’t know how to apply them yet.”

“I see,” Kingsley said.

Here it comes. Harry braced himself.

“I had hoped—well.” Kingsley made a throwaway gesture, but he still spoke softly, intently, his eyes never leaving Harry’s. “I had hoped you would come back to the Ministry. If not as an Auror, there are Departments that we would still be thrilled to have you take a place in. You know that.”

Harry shook his head. “The Ministry was what hurt Draco,” he said. “And hurt me. Even though most of the time you didn’t know all the details about the Department of Mysteries and Richard’s work, I’d never be able to forget that.”

Kingsley sighed. “It just seems such a shame that the maze destroyed the life you were going to have.”

Harry blinked. “Of course it’s not,” he said, wondering why he was the only one in the whole world—other than maybe Agarwal—who seemed to understand this. “I have Draco.”

*

Harry gasped and threw his head back. Draco was using his lips on Harry’s nipples, and oh, this was much better than Harry had ever thought it would be. He backed up a step and smashed into the locked door of his room. With some support at last, he hooked a leg around Draco’s thighs and dragged him in, pulling his mouth away from Harry’s chest to kiss him ferociously.

Draco kissed back, his eyes wide and shining, and his hand slipped down Harry’s body. Harry anticipated the touch of it on his cock, but instead it detoured, sliding around his hip and settling on his arse. Harry tensed a little, but another of those wonderful kisses started, and he could lose himself to that—

Until Draco’s finger pressed suggestively against the crease of his buttocks, and then he tensed and barked, “Stop.”

Draco pulled his hand away at once. He wore a look of understanding on his face, but also a look of disappointment. Harry knew how he would have liked to go all the way, get his fingers into Harry’s body.

At the moment, he wished he didn’t have the skill to read Draco’s face so well.

Harry staggered over to the bed and sat down. Shuddering, he buried his head in his hands. He knew the mood was utterly broken, and now he felt just slightly ridiculous with his shirt off and his softening erection in his pants. But he couldn’t help it; he still panicked at the notion of something going inside him, or, for that matter, putting his cock up Draco’s arse. It was so—ugh. The anus was the hole you shit out of, for God’s sake.

And it was still more than that. Harry was absolutely sure he wouldn’t be able to hold back if he did bring himself to surrender to such a touch. It wasn’t the pleasure he thought would overwhelm him, but the intimacy of it. He could hurt Draco, pounding away like that. And though he didn’t believe Draco would hurt him, he was sure Draco would be gently merciless if Harry let him inside his body, and it—

He just wasn’t sure he could bear it. What if he dissolved and cracked into pieces, and never came back together again?

“Hey.”

Draco sat down beside him, and put a hand on his shoulder, and there was no blame in his touch. Harry leaned into it, releasing a shuddering sigh.

“I can wait,” Draco whispered into his hair.

And Harry tensed, then relaxed once more. Because the response was perfect. Draco was acknowledging that they had time, that he didn’t expect miracles from Harry right away. But he wasn’t letting it go, either. He wanted that much from Harry, so he would gently push him until they reached the goal.

And then there would be a new goal to reach, and another new one beyond that. Because they would never exactly heal, they would never exactly be well, but they could get a little better and a little better and a little better.

Harry leaned up and kissed Draco.

There are many victories still to come. And I love him. God, how I love him.

And how he loves me.

I can believe in that, now.

Epilogue.