Threadbare

Eight: Revealed

Harry.

There is a beautiful hallway on the sixth floor that you have never been to before. One side is a high wood-paneled wall with hanging torches but no doors. The other side is an elegant display of stained glass windows that go from floor to ceiling. It is evening, and the moonlight from outside is too meager to light up the glass; but the torch fires, dancing to some soundless music, waver over the surface and illuminate the thousands of colors, making them sparkle. The four windows are really one huge picture, and it looks like it was created during the very beginning of the school, because the four founders are standing on a dais at the very center, posing happily. The rest of the picture is the entirety of Hogwarts painted with the most impressive details. There are boys and girls in their uniforms, the Quidditch pitch, the classrooms, the courtyard, various rooms within the school, magical objects, even the Great Hall, the lake, the giant squid. It is not a map but an artistic portrayal that fascinates and enchants you with its magnificence. So you lean back on the opposite wall, slide down to the floor, wrap your arms around your legs, and admire it.

It’s late, but sleep is like a Snitch in the wilderness. You’ve been walking around since your talk with Remus, losing yourself in the rooms and halls of Hogwarts, but the tour has offered no solace. You don’t know how to pause, to forget, because you’re more worried about this -- about everything -- than Hermione has ever been worried about her studies, and that’s saying a lot. Remus’s voice plays over and over in the back of your mind; you wish to tear your hair out and make it go away, if only you didn’t doubt that it would only make things worse.

“I think, Harry, the most feasible theory is that this was an effect of a broken contract. A marriage contract, to be specific. When a witch and a wizard have their wedding, they sign a magical agreement that promises some consequence if it’s breached. It’s not always a punishment against the offender; sometimes it’s just something strange that happens without actually hurting anyone, just to inform the couple what sin has been committed. There are different choices for agreements, but there’s one of them that’s popular with all the respected purebloods. It’s the faithfulness contract -- yes, that’s what it’s called -- and if ever, say, a husband cheats on his wife -- cheating is defined by sex with another person -- the wife gets knocked unconscious for a few days. Yes, it’s unfair, but that’s the way it works. The number of days actually corresponds to the number of years they’ve been married, and the sleep kicks in on the third day after the cheating happens. So if Lucius and Narcissa have been married for five years, and Lucius sleeps with another woman today, since today is Tuesday, Narcissa will go to sleep at midnight between Thursday and Friday -- assuming she’s not already asleep, of course -- and not wake up until Wednesday morning, after midnight. She’ll keep breathing but it’ll be very slight, because she’ll need less air. Is this exactly how Draco described it? If so, I guess we can assume Lucius is being a bad, bad boy.”

You sigh, eyes passing over the beautiful glasswork. You remember him threatening you not to “tell anyone about this, Potter, or you will regret it,” his voice slithering hot into your ears like the snake he is. You remember how his perfume was concentrated on his neck, whose side pushed against your nose so you could become heady from the smell of the lake and the Forbidden Forest and wonder why rich purebloods have to mix all the scents together because they can’t decide which one to buy. You were heady from sleep, but the tang managed to wake up your senses. Later you would wish it hadn’t. Because later he would clamp his teeth onto your neck and push into you unprepared, and there would be pain, frightening and angry and raw, and it would remain inside you forever, haunting and waiting, always waiting.

Before the magnificent windows in the magnificent hallway, you cry over the magnificent catastrophe for the first time, because there is always a first time, and you knew yours would come soon. You welcome the tears that flow like stray faucet droplets down your cheeks. They flow and you let them, warm and painful, until there are no longer tracks on your face because all the fresh ones have streamed over the others. You cry and there is no one beside you to wipe them away; you leave your cheeks wet and hug your legs and look down between your knees, watching the hot tears pool on the cold floor. And you know that nothing will make it better; and you know that no one can get things back to the way they were. You won’t tell Draco anything Remus told you. You won’t tell Draco his father raped you. You won’t.

You can’t.

~~~

Draco.

”I was at their wedding.”

You toss in bed, aware that your blankets are a tangle in your legs, and the collar of your pajamas clings to your neck with the sweat of anxiety.

“I haven’t told you the complete truth because I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but owing to your recent discoveries...”

When Snape first explained the bizarre contract your parents signed at their wedding with their wands, it sounded too strange to believe. But Snape was dead serious, and you had no choice, because even then you knew it was the truth, and you were just trying to hide from it. Wizards have magical wedding contracts -- didn’t you say that yourself?

“I had come up for some parchment, and I saw him talking to Potter on the seventh floor before the game. Before you started playing I asked him why, and he told me -- too ambiguously -- about a plan to take revenge on Harry Potter because Potter was seducing his son. I thought he was talking nonsense, making a Death Eater joke. Later, I noticed he had already gone -- I don’t know for how long -- and I went up there again. He was coming out of the Room of Requirement. He said he was only looking around, reminiscing. He asked me to accompany him downstairs. The game was over by then. We talked a bit before he left -- the usual things, the weather, how the wife is, how life is -- and when I went back up and opened the door to the Room of Requirement, there was nothing inside but shelves upon shelves of books. Potter had gone, and I wanted information.”

For the millionth time that night, you count the days. Saturday, twenty-fifth of October. Third day after that is Tuesday. Your parents have been married for twenty years. If all goes well (and nothing can go well, you think bitterly), your mother will awaken on the seventeenth of November. The total number of days starting on the twenty-fifth would be twenty-three, only one day more than the Bedivere average. It all fits well enough for your father to lie and get away with it -- only he didn’t. Half of you wishes he did.

You pull the curtains open and the dim moonlight illuminates your bed, which is now reduced to a tangled mess with you at the very center. Exactly what your life feels like. You run a hand through your hair and notice how sweaty it’s become. You rub your eyes, reaching toward the nightstand for the glass of water you always have there. Instead your fingers close in on your flask of Veritaserum. According to the instructions you have to add one red rose petal at precisely nine in the morning tomorrow for the finishing step. The class won’t be allowed to use it, of course; Snape will grade the potion by color, smell, and properties that can be distinguished by incantations.

But Snape won’t notice the absence of a few drops, surely: drops that might have been innocently spilled during the process. With your carefulness in preparing this potion, you’re certain you can spare much more than a few.

You know what you have to do.

*

You emerge from Transfiguration with a growing headache and drowsy eyes. Last night was a nightmare, although you were barely asleep. All you could think of was your father, and Harry, your father, and Harry--

Somehow you still cannot accept the idea that he, he, the man who raised you and fed you and taught you what dignity meant , was the one who took the dignity of the one person you truly cared about, and in so doing proved that he is totally unworthy of being a father. You trusted him. You hate to admit it to yourself, but until today you trusted him blindly and with all your heart; you knew he would never try to hurt you. But he has hurt Harry and this hurts you more than if you were the one he had raped.

That’s not true. You don’t know a thing, a voice inside tells you. You head straight toward the Slytherin dorms. Blaise asks you why you’re not coming with them to dinner. You reply in a sleepy drawl (and you really are sleepy): “I’m not hungry. You guys go.”

Blaise and Pansy and Crabbe and Goyle nod en masse. Goyle rubs his stomach as they go on to the Great Hall. The poor guy is always hungry. You, meanwhile, feel like going to sleep and vomiting. You take a few seconds to wonder which one to do first, but when you mutter the password and the stone slab opens, there is no time to accomplish either. At least not until your conscience leaves you in peace.

Up in your dorm room, you take some Veritaserum in a small dropper, twist your ring five times counter-clockwise, and disappear.

*

It’s all set. When you arrived you immediately rang your bell for a house-elf and requested two cups of tea. He brought them immediately in a tray, along with an expensive-looking teapot. When he disappeared you dropped the potion into the cup where the teapot spout was pointing. You’d read in a feng shui book that Chinese Muggles used to use pitcher spouts to point at the traitor seated at a table. And your father is a traitor like no other.

You carried the tray into your parents’ room, set it down on the table by the wall-length window, and now you wait. Your father is bound to appear any moment. He always does.

For him to take the spiked tea, you take big sip from your cup, then place it on the table surface outside the tray. You watch your mother, unmoving, the sun still in her hair and on her cheeks like the breath of life. She is beautiful even in sleep, and you realize that Lucius hurt her, too, like he hurt Harry and the people who care about him, including you.

You yawn from lack of sleep and keep waiting. You will wait until the end of the night. Besides, you will have to turn in the Veritaserum tomorrow morning and you will no longer be able to use it. Besides, you owe Harry this much.

You don’t know how to tell him what your father did. And you don’t know if you’ll have the courage to.

Lucius comes in.

“Draco, what are you doing here? Over-excited, aren’t we? I have only five presents for you so far.”

“I didn’t come here for presents, Father.”

Lucius’s eyes glint. “And what did you come here for, pray tell?”

“Please, sit down, Dad. I’d like to have a little talk.”

Lucius sits down, spares only a cursory glance at the tea, and looks at you straight in the eyes. You mirror his gaze, not planning to surrender. Your father likes games; in the rare moments when you try to defy him, he likes to push you into showing signs of weakness: to give up, to give in. You can’t risk that now, or you will never get this chance again. So you look at him and will him to drink the tea, drink the tea...

“To what do I owe this talk, exactly?”

“The truth, Father. I’ve received some very disturbing news.” You decide to be as ambiguous as possible up to the moment he talks himself to thirst and drinks. Just a few sips will do. The nine drops of potion you put in are actually quite strong.

“What news, Draco? I’m aching to hear it.” The sarcasm is evident in his tone, as well as the command to hurry up and say something of substance.

“Two Saturdays ago, when Professor Snape went upstairs before the end of the Quidditch match, he saw you coming out the Room of Requirement. You lied, Father. You said you went home to check on Mum, but you were still in Hogwarts. What were you doing in that room?” You are fully aware that you sound like a distrusting inquisitor. It’s only appropriate: Lucius Malfoy is a criminal, and he deserves to be interrogated like one.

Lucius frowns: a slight almost imperceptible twitch of his lips, a lifting of his chin. “What are you accusing me of, Draco?”

“Of lying, Dad. Tell me the truth.” Drink the tea, drink the tea, damn it.

He raises a delicate eyebrow, waiting for you to say something more. He appears impatient and superior, but inside he’s already seething. You’ve lived with him for sixteen years: you have your ways of knowing. For one, he tenses in his seemingly comfortable position, and his hands clutch the arms of the chair, aching to be turned into fists.

“I know what happened. But I need to hear it straight from you.” You are beginning to lose hope of him ever taking a sip. It seems you’ve made him too angry to think about drinking.

He sneers. “What happened, then?”

You inhale through your teeth, your anger rising to the surface like bile. Yes, he is a Death Eater, and he thrives on ruining people’s lives. But this is Harry’s life, God damn it, and it matters to you. You just want him to tell you that he did it, and why. Considering all he’s already done, that wouldn’t be too difficult, would it? But he has to stall, and he has to keep lying, as if he’s doing it purposely to annoy you. At this moment you want to take him by his hair and push him to the floor and punch his face, fight against him the Muggle way until the carpet is soiled with his sweat and blood, kick him in the ribs until he can no longer move. But you don’t, because he once taught you to play nicely, to win with your head and not your fists, and this is what you’re used to.

“Why did you rape Harry Potter?” you ask directly, and you cannot continue looking at him. You scowl at his nose and mouth instead.

He shrugs. Just shrugs, as if it’s such a trivial matter. “You and Potter were getting too close for my liking, Draco. It was the only way I could set things right again -- for good.”

You gasp inaudibly furrowing your eyebrows. How the--

“How the fuck did you know about me and Harry?!”

“Owls can be intercepted, dear son. I read all his letters to you in the summer, and I’m glad you didn’t notice. Very touching indeed, the way you apparently sympathized with his stay at his relatives’ -- the Dursleys, weren’t they?”

“You had no right,” you murmur, standing up. Your voice grows louder with every word, your cheeks hotter with fury: “You had no right to read my letters. You had no right to ‘set things right!’ You had no right to -- to--”

“On the contrary, Draco, I had every right. I only want what’s good for my son. Potter is the enemy, and I don’t think you’re doing our side a favor by sleeping with him. And I hardly think it’s a highly complex plan to make him fall in love and capture him in the end. It was my duty, as your father, to finish the disaster before it could do more damage to you or to anyone else.”

“Your duty?! Your duty to destroy someone, is that it? And don’t you dare think you can make me believe you did it for me, because you don’t care, you’re never cared about anything but yourself--”

“Sit down, Draco, and kindly shut up. I will not have you forget that you’re only my son--”

“And you’re only my Father.” You shake your head, boiling with rage. You glare with daggers into his uncaring eyes.

You twist your ring and disappear.

~~~

Harry.

The room is warm from the fire in the hearth. The shadows flutter across the light green walls, and you watch them with resigned fascination. The sky is dark outside the small window, a black silk blanket with pinpricks of stars. Draco is an hour late.

When twenty minutes passed after you arrived, you began using your wand to repair some rips in the armchairs. You also used some basic scouring and softening charms, and soon enough they looked brand new and were more comfortable than they had ever been before. And then, because Draco wasn’t there yet, you also made the effort to clean and repair the dirty chipped paint on the walls. The paint is still an undesirable shade, but at least now it looks more welcoming.

You are seated quietly on your chair, and you remember that day when you were an hour late and, even if he was angry about his lost game, he forgave you easily enough for it. You wait, determined to stay there until he shows up, because he did the same for you. You wait because maybe you love him. You wait because you have to let him go.

Draco never comes.