Promises to Keep

Harry sort of had his doubts about the whole Malfoy Family Yule thing. On the one hand, Draco was curled up next to him on the couch, the fire was blazing, and he could smell the roast turkey the house elves were cooking. On the other hand, Snape and Lucius Malfoy were in the other room, fighting in the kind of whispers that carried as well as shouting. And Harry hated them both.

He ran his fingers lazily through Draco's fine, pale hair, because he couldn't stand not to touch him. Draco sighed, but he curled into Harry's touch, too. The past few weeks had been hard on him, and Harry knew he still hadn't really come to terms with his father's resurrection--or with Snape's betrayal. Or with the fact that Harry, no matter how much he struggled to conceal it, clearly hated them both.

"You've made him into a cripple!" Lucius was saying, and Harry flinched, even though words never seemed to bother Draco. "You let them keep him pinned in that chair, dependent on you for everything, like he was some kind of pet."

Harry could remember when Lucius Malfoy had been nothing more than a pampered house cat, with a dish of his own and a bed made out of folded towels. Draco's cheek was against Harry's knee, his face turned away from Harry, but Harry could feel him smiling. And, that was almost harder for Harry than civility: dealing with the realization that for Draco, Lucius wasn't a monster or a legend, that Draco loved his father as much as Lucius loved his son. Draco knew exactly how dirty Lucius's hands were, Draco knew that Lucius belonged in Azkaban and that he was managing to buy his way out. Draco didn't mind, and he expected Harry to look the other way.

Harry was doing it, more or less. There was nothing else he could do, short of killing Lucius; the Malfoy fortune had magically reappeared, and with it a dozen legal specialists who seemed to honestly believe that Lucius deserved his freedom--and was owed restitution for the time he'd served.

Snape said something, low and probably obscene, that Harry couldn't hear; Lucius overrode him. "His best interests? The way it was in my best interests to spend that time as a cat? You told me the spell was irreversible." Harry could feel Draco tense, straining forward. They both wanted to know how Snape would answer this accusation.

"It's a bit late in the day to be moaning about lies," Snape said derisively. "I didn't turn you back because I didn't want to, Malfoy. What do you think about that? You landed on your feet anyway. You always do. Draco doesn't. He needs something neither of us are capable of giving him. Merlin knows how, but you and Narcissa and I managed to raise a child a thousand times more decent than any of us. If you think that all he needs is a broom to make him all again, by all means buy him a fucking broom. Throw some more money at the problem. It's what you always do, isn't it?"

Lucius snorted, and Harry winced. He'd heard Draco make that noise a thousand times and until now he'd found it sexy. But Lucius was laughing, and he sounded like Draco, and not at all like the man who'd been responsible for Sirius's death. "Now you sound like Snape," he said. "That's the man I love. 'I left you as a cat for six months because I liked you better that way, and besides you talked less!'"

"You talked just as much as a cat," Snape said grumpily, but there was a breathless edge to his voice, so much so that Harry involuntarily wondered what Lucius was doing to him. "You just said less."

Abruptly, Draco lifted his head and let it fall, quite hard, against Harry's shins.

Harry yelped. "What was that for?" he demanded.

"I think my father might be having sex with--that person--with his child in the next room," Draco said tragically. "Do you think Snape is going to be my new stepmother?"

Harry kissed the only part of him he could reach, the top of his pale head. "If you were really a decent person," he said, "you wouldn't mind."

"Fuck that," Draco said. "But, Harry, do you think it's true, what my father said?"

"Nothing your father has ever said in his life has been true." Harry would have liked to take the words back as soon as they came out of his mouth, but he couldn't. He could only wait, and hope Draco wouldn't be too angry. Their relationship was still new, the boundaries undefined. "Sorry."

"Not the cripple part," Draco said, twisting around in Harry's lap so that they were face to face. "The broom part. You brought yours, right? Want to give me a ride?"

"In more ways than one," Harry said, and kissed him. "But you'll have to settle for just the one today. It's too cold to go outside."