The Marks We Bear

Chapter 8
Saturday 4th Oct cont.

Draco spent that afternoon studying in the library, his detention didn't leave him as much time for homework as he would like. He was on his way down to his dorm room to put away his things before dinner when an owl swooped through a nearby window and landed on his shoulder. On it's leg was a scroll sealed with the Malfoy crest, another message from his father. He tucked it into his robes and carried on down the stairs followed by the owl which had obviously been instructed to carry back his reply, he didn't open the scroll until he was seated on his bed.

'Draco, It has been some days since I have heard from you, I am most concerned to hear how you are getting along with your new friends. I await your reply. Lucius Malfoy'

Draco was immediately reminded of the last letter which he had purposefully allowed to slip his mind... 'should things go well inform me immediately, I have a task for you on behalf of our mutual friend.'

He sighed and sat down to compose a short letter before dinner. It looked like he would find out before long what this task was. Whether he liked it or not.

'Father, All is well at school. Potter and I have become much closer over the past few days and even Weasley has been forced to accept that I am part of their circle now. I hope this news finds you well. Draco'

He gave the message to the owl and carried it up the stairs to release it on the way to dinner. He might as well enjoy himself this evening... it didn't look like he had long before he was expected to get down to it. He couldn't imagine anything that his father and Voldemort might ask of him would be enjoyable... or even vaguely tolerable.

He arrived later than he had intended, delayed by his letter writing, to find dinner already served. He walked over to the Gryffindor table feeling strangely exposed and nervous. He berated himself for his weakness, his father's letter had put him on edge again. Since early this week he had been unusually relaxed, actually he could pretty much narrow it down to when Harry had started taking his meals at the Slytherin table. Something about the other boy's presence calmed something inside him... a nervous tension that had been present for so long he wasn't sure where it even came from.

Everyone at the Gryffindor's table was watching him as he sat down at the end of the bench next to Harry.

"You're late," Harry whispered. "I thought you weren't coming."

"And miss all this?" Draco muttered in answer.

Harry poked him in the ribs. "These are my friends remember."

"How could I forget." Draco began to pile food on his plate distractedly.

"What's up with you? You're all in a bad mood again."

"It's nothing, just..."

"What?"

"I don't want to talk about it here. Besides it's not important."

"If it wasn't important you wouldn't mind talking about it here," nagged Harry.

"Don't start being logical now and break the habit of a lifetime," Draco said sarcastically.

"If you're going to be like that I guess I'm just going to have to guess what it is."

"Harry..."

"So... you found out that tonight's detention is handwashing Snape's dirty underwear."

"That was what we did on Wednesday," retorted Draco. "I think Weasley kept a pair as a souvenir."

"Ugh... you did not!"

"Why'd Weasley agree to this anyway?" asked Draco, redirecting the conversation.

Harry shrugged, glancing up the table to where Ron was manfully ignoring the two of them. He seemed to be clutching his cutlery a little tighter than was necessary. "I dunno. He's been a bit odd since this morning, I think he's still in shock. It's kind of like he's found out I've got a terminal disease and he's being extra nice to me before I keel over. He has that strained look."

"So I'm incurable am I?" asked Draco with a grin.

"Insufferable more like," smiled Harry.

Just then a small glob of mashed potato flew through the air and landed in Draco's hair. Draco's jaw dropped in shock which then turned to irritation. Their gazes flew up the table to where Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan were just about falling off the bench with laughter.

"They actually threw food at me!" said Draco. "I always knew you lot were childish but really... what year do they think they're in?" He had wiped away most of it with his napkin but you could still see where it had hit. "This is what it comes to when you're too stupid to come up with a smart remark... throwing food!" He turned to Harry and noticed that he looked absolutely furious. "Hey," he put his hand on Harry's arm. "Don't over react, it was just a bit of potato."

"You're my guest," hissed Harry. "Ron told them to back off." He glared past Hermione at Ron who held up his hands to deny any involvement.

"Nothing to do with me, I swear," he protested. "I told them to to lay off." He didn't look too upset that they hadn't listened, in fact it looked like he was trying to suppress a smirk.

"Then tell them again!" demanded Harry.

Ron rolled his eyes. "Hey, Seamus," he called.

Seamus sobered a little. "Yes, Ron," he asked solicitously.

"Harry here respectfully requests you not throw food at Malfoy." He was definitely smirking now.

"Well I shall certainly bear that in mind," said Seamus in a faux serious tone.

Draco could see Harry's hands curling into fists.

"Harry, leave it. What did you expect?"

"I thought maybe they'd remembered that they're supposed to be my friends," spat Harry.

"It's not about you, it's about me! And I don't care, so just ignore them. Rome wasn't built in a day. Now simmer down or I'm going to go sit at the Slytherin table."

"If you leave I'm going with you," warned Harry.

"Oh, for Pete's sake." Draco looked up and caught Seamus' eye. "Hey, Finnegan! Next time aim at Potter, he's starting to take life too seriously again."

Seamus just gaped at being addressed in such a familiar way by the enemy.

Harry found himself stifling a smile at Seamus' shocked expression. "Well, you seem to have cheered up again," he said to Draco.

"It's hard to mope while being hit in the head with mashed potato," replied Draco. "So perhaps we ought to thank Finnegan for that much."

"Oh, I'm going to thank him all right," muttered Harry. "Just you wait and see."

Draco spent the rest of the meal allowing himself to be distracted by Harry and then afterward indulged in some meaningful glaring with Weasley during his detention but eventually the evening was over and there was nothing for it but to face up to his thoughts. He delayed for a few hours with some more homework but finally he was left to his worries and his fears.

He sat in the Slytherin common room staring into the fire, everyone else was in bed but he was delaying for several reasons. Because he was afraid of what tomorrow might bring by way of new messages from his father. Because he didn't want to fall asleep and risk what he might dream. Because he didn't want to go to bed alone after the comfortable closeness of sleeping next to Harry that morning, the boy that his fathers next message would undoubtably ask him to betray.

------------ Draco's Dream

It was this again, the dungeon. He was almost resigned. He listened for her voice and sure enough...

"Please, just let me go. I didn't do anything. Please."

"What are you waiting for, Draco," said his father patiently. "Time to practise what I've been teaching you."

Draco turned around slowly, knowing what he'd see behind him... Harry?

Harry was chained, wearing the vest and underwear he'd had on earlier, his face streaked with tears. Draco stared at him in horror.

//No, this is wrong...//

"Go on, Draco," said his father from behind him. "Isn't this what you always wanted?"

"Please, Draco," pleaded Harry. "Help me." There was blood trickling into his eye and Draco realised that his lightening bolt scar was fresh and bleeding.

"Harry?" he reached out his hand to him. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought we were friends," wept Harry. His eyes were liquid green, they looked so big that he could barely see anything else. "You said I should trust you and I did."

"You did a good job, Draco," said his father behind him. "Now finish it and we'll have a party. Dancing and romancing and birthday cake."

Draco realised that the hand he was holding out to Harry held his wand. He stared at it, thinking stupidly that his wand was supposed to be confiscated. How had he got it back?

"Try out the Imperius curse first, it's bound to come in useful in the future," hissed Voldemort.

"I already did," he answered. "How do you think I got him here?"

"Draco?" said Harry. "I don't understand."

"You have to leave, Harry," he told him urgently. "You're not supposed to be here. It's a mistake." He could feel something coming inside him and tried to push it back. "You have to escape."

"Help me."

"I can't." //No, no, no, I won't say it, I won't...//

"Help me."

"Harry!" //No...// "Avada K..."

----------------------

Draco stood in the dark outside the opened portrait hole wearing Harry's invisibility cloak. This was a really bad idea. He shivered hard and wrapped his arms around himself. The corridor was cold and he was... it was stupid but he was afraid. Afraid he might suddenly find he was still dreaming and there would be something behind him, something awful...

He swallowed hard and ducked through the entrance, closing it behind him. Berating himself for a coward and a fool he quietly climbed the stairs and entered the boys dormitory. He quickly made his way over to Harry's bed and ducked through the curtains.

In the darkness he felt his way over the covers until he found a warm, sleeping body. He hoped to hell he hadn't got the beds confused as he climbed under the covers and snuggled down next to what he thought was Harry. If he woke up next to Weasley instead they'd probably both die of shock. He left the cloak draped over his head and shoulders just in case and wrapped his arms around Harry's warm body, it seemed to ease the fear inside and the memory of that searing green flash was replaced by a warm dark-red calm. Draco fell asleep.

-------------------- Sunday 5th Oct

Harry woke slowly, there was a comfortable weight across his chest and for a moment he thought maybe Crookshanks had snuck in, but he usually preferred to pester Ron. He shifted slightly, waking up a bit more, and realised the comfortable warmth ran across his chest, right down his side and over his left leg and there was soft breath tickling his neck. He turned his head slightly to the side, feeling soft cloth rub aganst his cheek but seeing nothing. He reached over with his right arm and pulled the invisible cloth away to reveal Draco's blonde hair. He lay on his side against Harry, one leg hooked over Harry's and his hand splayed across his chest. Now that the invisibility cloak had been pushed aside he could feel Draco's hair against his face, he ran his fingers through it wondering if he was having some sort of memory problem. He had absolutely no recollection of how Draco had ended up in his bed again. Maybe Ron was right and he really was losing his mind.

He could think of worse ways to go if it meant waking up like this more often.

He sighed as he contemplated how happy it made him feel to be so close to someone... not just to someone... to Draco. //Well why not?// he thought. //People need physical contact, that doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean that I want... more. It's just nice to be touched. I'm a little fucked up cause I didn't have anyone to hold me when I was young and that's bound to have an effect. Right? I'm just... overcompensating or something. And maybe he is too... I mean his father's a Death-Eater. That can hardly lead to a pleasant normal upbringing. He's lonely too, like I am. He's afraid of Voldemort, just like I am.// He realised Draco must have snuck into the room after he'd fallen asleep. //Another nightmare,// he thought, remembering the awful dreams that had plagued his summer. He still had them from time to time but not so much now he was back at school. Being at school didn't seem to help Draco, but being here obviously did. Harry rolled over into Draco's limp body and wrapped himself around it, rubbing his cheek on the other boy's soft hair. It felt good, more than good. It felt like everything he had ever been missing. Draco's arms tightened around him in his sleep in response to his embrace.

A few moments later he felt the flutter of eyelashes against his skin. "Draco?" he asked quietly. "You awake?"

"Mmmm." Draco wiggled a little against him sending a shot of something far more disconcerting than comfort through Harry's body.

"What are you doing in my bed?" Harry asked.

Draco didn't answer, maybe he was still asleep. Harry sighed, if Seamus or Dean saw Draco in his bed he would never live it down.

"Couldn't sleep," Draco muttered into his neck. "Had a nightmare."

He was awake. "I figured. Don't you think this maybe isn't the best of ideas?"

"Feels pretty good to me," murmured Draco, pressing closer to Harry in a decidedly non-platonic way.

"Hey!" Harry hissed, trying to pull back out of Draco's arms. "Don't do that."

"What?" Draco looked up into Harry's panicked face. "What's wrong?"

"You shouldn't be here. Ron'll have a fit, Seamus and Dean'll ... I can't even imagine what they'd do, but it wouldn't be good."

"Has anyone ever told you," said Draco. "That you worry too much."

"I worry just enough. You clearly don't worry enough."

"I worry about the important things, whether your house-mates find me in bed with you or not falls very far down that list."

"Well how far up your list is my sanity?" asked Harry.

Draco seemed to be in a teasingly good mood. "I'll get out of here on one condition," he answered. "A favour let's say, I think you owe me one."

"What?"

"Let me kiss you."

"What!"

"I know, I know... you're not gay etc etc. But surely one little kiss won't hurt, then I'll put the cloak on and get out of your hair."

"But... just one?"

Draco smiled and rolled on top of Harry. "Just one," he murmured and brought his lips down onto Harry's before he could say no. Once the initial contact was made Harry seemed to forget his reservations and made no struggle to end it. Draco took his hands and laced their fingers together either side of Harry's head as he explored the soft skin of Harry's mouth and face with his lips. As Harry had done before he laid patterns of soft kisses across his face, nuzzling against him like a cat. How could it be that skin moving past skin could feel so different when it was someone else's skin... Harry's skin. He moved back to Harry's lips, their mouths coming together in a soft, mutual openess. He was suddenly intensely aware of every inch of his body pressed firmly into Harry and the desire for more.

Harry was right, this wasn't a good idea. Not here and not now. He pulled back and gazed for a moment at Harry's aroused, submissive expression. But somewhere and soon.

He kissed him once more on the lips, quickly, then rolled off him and gathered up the invisibility cloak.

Harry lay there, dazed. He raised himself up slowly on one elbow and put his hand to his lips.

"You'll need to let me out in case anyone sees the doors opening by themselves," Draco told him, pulling the cloak back around him.

Harry just stared at him.

"It's okay, Harry. Don't worry about it. Come on." Draco touched him lightly on the cheek then covered himself fully with the cloak and waited for Harry to lead him out.

Harry stared into the empty space where Draco had been for a few moments then got out of bed. Still with that same dazed expression he put on his dressing gown and let Draco out of Gryffindor Tower. When he got back upstairs he sat down on his bed and looked at his hands, they were trembling so badly he tucked them underneath him to keep them still.

//What the hell?// he thought. It was about the only coherent statement his mind could form as he groped for an explanation for what had happened that didn't involve him being gay. Finally he got as far as, //Physical contact, I'm a teenage boy... looking at linoleum can turn me on, of course that did. It doesn't mean anything. Just like Ron and everyone when they mess around together and jerk off, it doesn't mean anything. Just a bit of a laugh. It's what boys do.// But part of him knew he was lying, a part that was growing more and more vocal every day. He was beginning to think of it as his inner Hermione. It said, //You're gay, Harry. Live with it.// It also said, //Fuck that was good, when can we do it again?// Actually that sounded a bit more like an inner-Ron. Hermione would never say fuck. Whoever the hell it was, it wasn't him. It was some runaway part of his brain that didn't know what was good for it... that didn't understand that this was not possible. He would not be gay, it would ruin everything. All the things that he desperately wanted even if he'd never said as much to anyone... a family, wife, children... a normal life. He knew what it meant to be gay, Uncle Vernon had talked about it a lot when he had found out one of his brother's children was a 'disgusting pervert' as he had put it. The boy's at his old school were always on about it, if they took a dislike to you were called gay... a poof, a faggot, a queer, an arse-licker, a pillow-biter, a fucking homo... Harry had heard it all, been called it all. He remembered that time when they had been driving home late at night, picking up Dudley from Aunt Marge's... Uncle Vernon had taken a wrong turn and they'd ended up in a pretty seedy area. There'd been a group of people laughing and shouting at the car dressed in tight leather and feathers and lycra and sweat. They'd just come out of a club of some sort and they were drunk and falling over one another, showing more skin than Harry had ever seen. They were all men though some of them were dressed as women, with strangely muscular calves under fishnet stockings and flat chests in tight boob tubes, stubble showing under their makeup. Uncle Vernon had nearly run them over, muttering comments under his breath as Dudley sat gaping out the window. He had turned to both boys as they drove away and said, "You see that! That's what your life is if you don't stick to the straight and narrow. Drunk and whoring yourself out to strangers on the street. Disgusting. Shaming their families, ruining their lives... they'll die in the gutter you mark my words. Filthy perverts."

Harry wasn't one to listen to his Uncle Vernon but somehow that life lesson had stuck inside him. Perhaps because he had been frightened by the dark and by the strange, drunken men. Perhaps because everyone he had ever met had seemed to agree with his Uncle Vernon about homosexuality and the results of it. That it destroyed your life, hurt your family and friends. Harry hated that thought most of all, the thought that his mother and father would be so disappointed to find out their son was gay. That there would be no more Potter's to carry on the family line. He couldn't do that to them. He had to get past this somehow. He didn't have to be gay if he didn't want to be.

He sank his face in his hands, but how could he get past this when all he could think about, all he could feel and taste and want, was more of Draco Malfoy. This had to stop.

--------------

Back in the Slytherin Common Room, after putting away the invisibility cloak and dressing, Draco was accosted by his fathers owl as he was about to leave for breakfast. He froze as it landed heavily on his shoulder and his high spirits drained out of him. With numb fingers he untied the scroll and carried it to his dormitory to read in peace. When he first unsealed the message he stared in confusion at what appeared to be a blank sheet of parchment. He ran his fingers across it wondering what it was supposed to mean, but at the touch of his hand words suddenly appeared. He drew back in surprise and the writing vanished again. Realising that the message was keyed to appear only when his hand was touching the center of the parchment as identification he placed his fingers again on the paper.

'Draco, This news finds me very well indeed. Lord Voldemort has instructed me in his plans for Potter and orders you to make sure that he 'loses' his wand by this coming Friday. It doesn't matter what you do... steal it, break it, destroy it. Just make sure it is not available to him. I am sure I do not need to tell you what failing in your task may mean, Lord Voldemort does not suffer failure well and we are both putting our trust in you. Do not disappoint us. Burn this letter to be sure it cannot be found.

Your father, Lucius Malfoy'

Draco dropped the parchment onto his bed and watched the ink disappear again. What did they have planned for Friday? Gods, Friday... barely 5 days away. But what good would it do them for Harry to lose his wand? He would still be here at Hogwarts, protected by the wards over the school and by Dumbledore.

Dumbledore... tomorrow he was supposed to go to Dumbledore with Harry and tell him about Voldemort. He had promised that he would. Somehow, when he was with Harry it was so easy to think of betraying Voldemort and his father. So easy to imagine he could tell the truth and live happily ever after.

Here, on his own with his fathers veiled threats before him, it was not so easy. Voldemort was so powerful, Draco had felt it just being in his presence. Disgusting and evil and frightening and so powerful the air around him crackled with it, the smell of ozone after lightening struck. How could a handful of teachers and children stand up to the swelling ranks of the Death Eaters? How could they protect Harry when the Dark Lord chose to make his move? How could they protect him if he tried to stand with them? If he failed his father, if he betrayed Voldemort... what sanctuary could they possibly provide for him?

He picked up the parchment and crumpled it in his hands, marched through to the Common Room and threw it into the fire. As he watched it burn he remembered crying helplessly in Harry's arms only a week ago and wished he could travel back there. Because right now he wanted to cry, he wanted to scream and rail at the world and have Harry hold him and rock him and tell him everything was going to be all right. But everything wasn't going to be all right and there was no time now for tears and protestations. He had decisions to make. No just one decision...

Did he want to follow Voldemort and live or follow Harry and die?

He stared into the flames for a very long time.

------------------

In his office Professor Snape watched the last of the parchment burn as he turned over this latest message in his mind. As usual he knew that he was not being told the whole story, despite his best attempts he was still not fully trusted by Lord Voldemort. However he was trusted enough to be asked to play an important part in the coming plan, even if it were only due to desperation. He was almost 100% sure Voldemort had no-one else on the inside of Hogwarts with the power to do what was needed, to open up a gap in the protective wards that surrounded the area of Hogwarts and Hogsmeade. Only a teacher would know the access spells to bring down the barriers and this coming weekend was a Hogsmeade weekend. Furthermore he had informed Voldemort himself that Dumbledore would be away from the school, far away.