The Marks We Bear

This chapter should be read while listening to Red Angel by Gavin at http://www.mp3.com/gavinsound

"Do you ever feel the same, do you ever wonder what I think
My darling Red Angel
No fear in your eyes, no smoke in your hair
My darling Red Angel.
Thank you for loving without hurting."

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Chapter 11
Monday 6th Oct cont.

Once they had both been dismissed Harry and Draco found themselves alone in the dim corridor. Draco looked around, feeling a little disoriented.

"Are you okay?" asked Harry laying his hand on Draco's shoulder. "What did Snape say to you?"

Draco pulled himself together enough to look at Harry although his expression was still dazed. "I'm fine," he answered. He looked down at Harry's hand and absently brought his own up to cover it. "Fine."

"You keep saying that and I really don't believe you," Harry told him. "Did you tell Snape what he wanted to know?"

"I told him what my instructions were if that's what you mean," Draco answered.

"And?"

"What?" Draco looked up in confusion.

"Well, what are they? Or are you not going to tell me," replied Harry in frustration.

"Oh, right. They want me to take your wand, I don't know why."

A dark cloud passed over Harry's face. "I know why."

"More secrets," said Draco in a hollow tone.

"No... I'll tell you..."

"No!" said Draco sharply, stopping him. "It's okay, I don't want to know. I'm tired of talking about Voldemort, I wish I'd never even heard his name." He looked around the corridor again thoughtfully. "Let's get out of here. I want to forget about all this stuff... let's go to your Common Room and irritate Weasley. That always cheers me up."

"I really don't think starting a fight with Ron is going to help," Harry said doubtfully.

"I didn't say I was going to start a fight, just being there will bug the hell out of him. It'll be fun."

"You have a very twisted sense of humour."

"What can I say," Draco said with a hard look in his eyes. "I'm a twisted person." He turned away, pulling Harry with him by the hand. "Come on. It'll piss Finnegan off too, that'll teach him to throw food at me."

Harry followed after Draco, wishing he could keep up with the other boy's mood swings. He was sure there was stuff they should be talking about but it looked like that would have to wait till Draco was in a more introspective frame of mind.

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In the common room Hermione had finally cornered Seamus and was attempting to smooth over the current situation without telling him anything Harry wouldn't want him to know.

"So you want me to be nice to Malfoy, even though you and Ron still don't like him, because Harry thinks he deserves a second chance cause he hasn't been such an asshole as he usually is," Seamus tried to sum up Hermione's argument.

"Well... sort of."

"I'm sorry, Hermione, but I just don't get it. Why don't you go tell Harry to stop being an idiot instead of trying to get everyone else to put up with it? I know he's our friend but why should we put up with him putting Malfoy before us?"

"He's not," Hermione tried to explain. "It's just that... Malfoy isn't trying to tell him who he can be friends with and you guys are and that's not fair. You have to let him make up his mind for himself."

"But he's wrong!" protested Seamus. "Besides I didn't tell him not to be friends with Malfoy, Ron already told me to back off on Harry. I just threw potato at Malfoy, nothing wrong with that."

Hermione sighed, this was just going in circles. "In theory, no there's nothing wrong with throwing food at Malfoy. It's not like he hasn't asked for it. It's just that Harry gets all upset that you don't want Malfoy around and I don't want him to go back to sitting at the Slytherin table."

"It's not my fault Harry's being all sensitive about it."

Just then they were interrupted by the rest of the room falling completely silent. They turned around to see what was going on and there stood Draco Malfoy, Harry stepped in behind him and closed the door. For a long moment everyone just stared at each other.

"Well..." said Draco finally with a raised eyebrow. "It's delightful to see you all again too." He made his way through the crowd of silent figures towards where Hermione and Seamus were standing followed by a concerned looking Harry. "Granger, Finnegan." He nodded to them.

Hermione's eyes flicked to Harry where he stood slightly behind Malfoy, hovering uncertainly. "Malfoy," she nodded to him in response. "How was your detention?"

He eyed her, Harry would likely have told her and Weasley why they were meeting with Dumbledore tonight. "Informative," he answered shortly.

"I thought Ron had detention with you," said Seamus in a challenging tone. "Where is he?"

"Separate detentions tonight," Draco replied civilly, giving Seamus a cool look. "I guess I got finished first." He refrained from the sarcastic comment that automatically sprang to his lips, he'd told Harry he wasn't going to start a fight. Now that he was here he was beginning to regret his impulse, the jumpiness caused by the tense meeting was beginning to wear off and he really just wanted to find a nice quiet corner to curl up with Harry in. He looked around the room, it was pretty full and there were no empty seats.

Hermione studied the two of them. Malfoy had seemed cocky when he'd walked in but now he looked strained and pale as his eyes flicked over the room. Harry looked worried and she got the impression that he wanted to reach out to the boy next to him but was holding back due to the presence of so many other people, his hand hovered by Malfoy's but didn't make contact. She also got the impression Seamus was about to say something he shouldn't and stepped in before he could. "It's pretty busy down here," she said. "Why don't we go up to your room and sit down?" As the words left her mouth she almost giggled at the thought of the similar reactions both her father and Ron would have if they'd heard that. Well her father wasn't here and she could deal with Ron.

Malfoy looked at her in surprise and maybe even a little gratitude as Harry agreed with her. The three of them trooped upstairs and into the boy's dormitory where Hermione sat primly on the edge of Ron's empty bed.

Draco threw himself untidily onto Harry's bed and buried his head in the pillows with a moan of relief and comfort. Harry sat down next to him and reached out to lay his hand on Draco's shoulder but then stopped himself, leaving it hovering as he looked over at Hermione.

"Don't let me stop you," she said. "Just keep it clean, Ron's already laid down the law about you and Malfoy being alone in this room together."

Draco raised his head as Harry let his hand drop onto his shoulder. "What did you say?" he said in surprise.

"Ron was a little traumatised by last time," Hermione said with an amused smile. "He said if you wanted to hang out together you could do it where we could keep an eye on you."

At that Draco laughed and when he caught Harry's eye even Harry couldn't keep from allowing a mischievous grin to cross his face at the thought of what they had done only last night behind closed curtains while Ron slept in the next bed.

"So you're our chaperone are you?" asked Harry with a smile, his hand moving almost of it's own accord to stroke the skin at the nape of Draco's neck.

Draco bowed his head slightly to give him better access. "Maybe she just likes to watch," he suggested slyly, giving Hermione a teasing look that she almost missed for the fine hair falling across his face.

"Draco!" exclaimed Harry in embarrassment.

Hermione blushed and looked horrified at the same time. "I have no interest in seeing anything you might want to do to Harry," she informed him.

Harry shook his head. "Nobody is doing anything to anyone, especially in front of Hermione."

Draco turned onto his side, catching the hand that Harry had on his neck and bringing it to his lips. "Spoilsport," he said and then kissed it.

"Quit fooling around," said Harry mildly, not pulling his hand away. "I know you're just trying to wind us up and it's not working."

Draco smiled. "I don't know," he nodded in Hermione's direction. "She looks a bit flustered to me."

"Revolted more like," retorted Hermione, although Draco was right. She was a bit flustered. She decided to change the subject. "So how did your meeting with Dumbledore go?"

That shut Draco up more than she had expected, in fact his entire face closed up and he let go of Harry's hand. "It went fine," he said shortly, rolling back onto his stomach.

Harry was looking concerned again, he stroked Draco's back tentatively. "We told Dumbledore what we could," he told Hermione. "I... Draco?"

"Tell her what you want, I'm done talking about it," Draco snapped, his voice muffled by the pillow.

"You're sure?" asked Harry. There was no answer and he leant down for a moment to press his cheek to Draco's hair, stroking his hands up his arms to where they were buried under Harry's pillow. "Draco?" he asked softly.

"It's up to you, I don't care," the other boy answered quietly, but he allowed Harry to retrieve one hand from under the pillow and clasp it in his own.

Harry gestured Hermione to join them on the bed and closed the curtains. "I've got silencing charms on the curtains," he told her. "I don't want anyone to over hear this." Once they were settled and had lit their wands he said, "There's going to be an attack this Saturday. You can't tell anyone else, no-one can know that we're expecting it. Dumbledore's ready for it, he said he'll make sure we're out of the way."

Hermione digested this for a moment. "Why are they attacking?"

"They want Harry," said Draco into the pillow.

"You're sure?" she gasped.

"It seems like it," confirmed Harry. "They told Draco to make sure I don't have my wand, which means Voldemort wants to avoid what happened last time he tried to kill me."

Staring at the blank swirls in front of his closed eyes Draco wondered what had happened last time but he wasn't up to actually hearing about it, he just wished he already knew. Finally he rolled over. "I don't want to know everything that happened," he stated. "Just tell me why your wand's so important."

Harry looked down at him then at the wand he held in his hand. "It's connected to Voldemort's wand, both of them contain a tail feather from the same phoenix."

Draco looked at Harry's wand. "I've read about that, my father had an old book in his study about it that he was studying. He never told me why."

"Then they've been researching it," said Hermione.

"Why doesn't he just get a new wand and use that to kill me with?" asked Harry.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "It's not that simple, Harry. You can't just use any old wand, you ought to know that."

"Especially for dangerous spells like the Killing Curse," added Draco. "It's draining at the best of times and with an unfamiliar wand it could easily backfire, leave you too weak to defend yourself."

There was a moments silence. "You sound as if you're speaking from experience," said Hermione finally.

Draco looked at her and the depth of sorrow in his eyes made her regret her words. He looked as if he were trying to find a reply but eventually he just rolled away from them both.

Harry gave her an angry look and leant down to put his arm around Draco and whisper in his ear, "I'm sorry, she didn't mean to..."

"Don't apologise." Draco cut him off. "How do you know she's not right."

Harry stiffened, his hand tightening around Draco. "Is she?" he asked.

"Ask me," said Draco simply.

"I... I thought I just did."

Draco turned around and sat up, his body tense. "Have I ever used the killing curse? Is that what you want to know?" he asked them both.

Harry just stared at him numbly.

"Have you?" asked Hermione.

Draco stared at her as if he had never seen her before and then his gaze shifted as if he were seeing something very far away. He wanted to tell them this, how could he choose sides without knowing whether they could accept who he really was, what he had done. "Yes," he answered.

"A lot?" Hermione pressed as Harry just sat and stared at Draco.

"Once," Draco whispered. "Just once. To prove to them that I was loyal."

"Prove to who?"

"Voldemort... Voldemort and my father."

"Who did you kill?" Hermione was as pale as Draco, horrified yet unable to stop talking just as he seemed unable to stop answering her.

"I didn't know her name," he said. He reached out his hand to something neither of the others could see, as if framing the shape of a face. "She was a Muggle, she was crying."

"Why?" asked Harry finally, hoarsely. "Why did you do it?"

Draco broke away from whatever vision he was seeing and turned to Harry, the horror the others felt mirrored in his own grey eyes. "They would have killed her anyway," he said directly to Harry. "They would have killed her and then they would have killed me," he pleaded for some small measure of understanding.

"But your father..."

"My father has no power over Voldemort." Doubts crossed his mind as to whether his father would even try to intervene if Voldemort had chosen to end the life of his only son.

"Then you had no choice," Harry said desperately.

Draco longed to believe that but found he couldn't, his self-loathing over this was too great to accept solace. "There's always a choice," he said bitterly. "I took the one that would save my skin."

There didn't seem to be anything else to say, they just sat there staring at one another. When the dorm room was thrown open with a loud bang they all jumped.

"I'm coming into the room!" announced Ron very loudly. "I'm stepping through the door right now!"

Hermione moved to open the curtains around the bed, Ron was standing in the doorway with his hand over his eyes.

"I'm going to look in a minute and if anyone doesn't have their clothes on there's going to be trouble," Ron said to the room in general.

"Don't be ridiculous, Ron," said Hermione impatiently. "Nothing's going on."

Ron uncovered his eyes and looked over at them. "I thought I told you not to let them come up here any more," he accused her.

Draco had dropped back down onto the bed, hiding his face, but Harry was still sat in the same position with the same look of horror on his face. He didn't even look up at Ron.

"I'm right here with them, Ron. What do you think they're going to do?"

"They're on the bed together!" Ron said as if that explained everything.

"We were talking."

Back, behind the darkness of his eyelids and the soft smothering of Harry's pillow, Draco could only half hear what Ron and Hermione were saying. He could feel Harry's eyes on his back but could not imagine what the other boy was thinking, didn't dare to. He had a horrible feeling that it was all over but he wouldn't leave, not until Harry asked him to. Every member of Gryffindor House could troop up here and argue about it but he wasn't going anywhere until Harry told him to go. Because when he left here, when he got up from this bed with it's scent of Harry, there would be only one place left to go. Maybe he could just bury his head deep enough in this pillow that he couldn't breath anymore and he would die here with Harry watching him and never need to find out what he was thinking. He stopped breathing for a while to see if he could, pulling the pillow tight around his face with his arms.

Harry studied the rumpled folds of Draco's robes, the soft silver of his hair. His mind was buzzing with a hundred thoughts and feelings and as an underplay to all of them was an echo of memory. A woman's voice crying out, a flash of green light, over and over and over. He could see the soft lift of Draco's shoulders as he breathed. Part of him couldn't accept that the troubled boy on his bed, the boy he'd spent the last two nights sleeping beside, could have killed someone in cold blood. Part of him said, of course, what did you expect? You should be surprised it was only once, you should be amazed that he even told you. He could have kept his mouth shut and you would never have known. He wished he had, he didn't want to know. But he knew why he hadn't, he had seen what hiding this had been doing to Draco. Eating away at him, making him hate himself, making him hurt himself. Harry's eyes flicked down to Draco's thigh, he hadn't asked him how it was since he had bound it over a week ago. What had he been thinking, he should have checked on it. Changed the dressings. He looked back up to Draco's shoulders allowing his concern for Draco's well-being to blot out his confused thoughts. He looked again for the hypnotic heave and sigh of Draco's shoulders but couldn't find it. The other boy's body was utterly still. Harry frowned, waiting for him to breathe in. Nothing... still nothing... nothing!

//Nothing,// Draco thought to himself. His chest was tight now, at first it had been easy then the pressure had started to grow. It had become an ache in his diaphragm as it fought his conscious instruction not to move. He clenched his teeth together against the growing impulse to draw breath. There was no pain and yet it hurt desperately.

"Draco," cried Harry in panic, his hand flying to the other boy's shoulder to haul him over onto his front.

Draco gulped air out of sheer surprise as Harry literally threw him onto his back. "Harry?"

Harry stared at him in relief. "You weren't breathing!"

Draco just stared at him.

Harry touched his cheek as if to reassure himself it was still warm. "You scared me."

"I'm sorry," said Draco, the simple phrase seemed to cover far more than this moment.

Harry swallowed nervously as he held the other boy's eyes. "I know," he said. "But I can't forgive you."

Draco looked stricken.

"No, I didn't mean... I mean that it's not up to me. I can't forgive you, and she's gone now so she can't forgive you either."

"Then there is no forgiveness," said Draco.

"You're wrong," Harry told him. "You can forgive yourself."

"How can I?"

"Because it wasn't your fault, you said it yourself. She still would have died."

"I tortured her!"

Harry fell silent again.

"What are they talking about?" Ron asked Hermione quietly.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "I think we should leave, this is private."

"I'm not leaving them here alone," he protested.

"I really don't think they're going to be doing anything you wouldn't approve of. In fact I think you may finally get your wish."

"What wish?"

"That Harry would quit hanging out with Malfoy."

"Oh... well, good," said Ron, letting Hermione lead him out, but the part of him that cared more about Harry than it did about whether Malfoy was an asshole or not couldn't help but think that anything that made Harry look so unhappy couldn't be a good thing.

Harry looked around as Ron and Hermione closed the door behind them, he stared after them. "Tell me," he said. "Tell me what happened, tell me it all."

Draco looked at the back of Harry's head wondering why he was doing this. Harry had been ready to let it pass, to accept his confession, and he had refused that. Refused to let him. Snape had said it didn't matter, why couldn't he have accepted that. Had Snape ever told anyone the things he had done? Probably not, he wasn't that stupid. He had a much better sense of self-preservation. Draco got the feeling he was pushing for something and that it was probably some form of punishment. Self-destruction. He wondered if maybe it was fear of going up against Voldemort, if he drove Harry away he wouldn't have to choose, wouldn't have to fight. He could just curl up and rot in peace. "Why do you want to know?" he asked Harry.

"Because until you tell me everything we can't talk about this."

"Everything?"

"Everything that you're hiding from me, everything that's eating away at you, everything that makes you cut yourself and throw up when you remember it and wake in the night screaming."

Draco sat up feeling reckless. "Look at me," he said.

Harry turned around to see Draco unbuttoning his robes. "What are you doing?"

"It's all right here," Draco said. "Everything you do leaves it's mark." He uncovered his chest and pointed to a shiny pink scar over his heart. "It started here," he explained and then he told Harry everything that had happened that first time he met Lord Voldemort.

From there he moved from scar to scar, explaining in a distant voice and without meeting Harry's eyes what each one meant from the first, fading, tentative attempts to cleanse himself of Voldemort's touch to the deep livid scar on his belly when he had considered ending his own life in payment for the one he had taken. Then on to the more confident and planned cuts that like the first few self-inflicted marks would eventually vanish altogether, memories of forced kisses and his skin crawling under caresses he was too frightened to refuse. This one to try and force the sound of his father's hoarse cries of pleasure, overheard through the study door, out of his mind. Then one that probably wouldn't fade away completely, he told Harry about whispered words of endearment on breath that smelt like rotten meat as he stared at nothing. The familiar and despised feel of heavy wooden paneling behind his shoulders as he tried to ignore his body's unwanted reaction to the cold hand that reached where none but his own had ever been. The other hand tight around his neck not to hold him still but simply because it liked to see him fight for breathe a little, liked the way it made him gasp as if he welcomed the attention being given to him. The pain of wanting not to give him the satisfaction but at the same time hoping to come as soon as possible, just so it would be over and he could escape to his room and cut it out of him. The wild, strong smell of his own body on the pale fingers as they touched his face afterwards, smearing his own fluids across his lips. He wondered if Harry had made the connection between that and his reaction just last night, he didn't look to see. There wasn't much to tell after that, he had spent more and more time away from the mansion roaming the countryside. Grew more adept at not being caught alone by Voldemort. Spent time in the local Muggle villages pretending to be one of them to the local teenagers.

Then there was only one scar left. He unwound the old stained bandage that still covered it, unable to conjure new dressings he had simply left it be and cleaned around it. When he uncovered the wound it was still raw looking, a mess of scabs. It oozed a clear fluid where some of the scabs had been pulled off with the dressings.

Harry gasped at the sight of it. "I don't remember it being so bad," he said in shock. "I don't understand, I thought it wasn't that serious. How could I have seen that and thought it wasn't that serious? I should have taken you straight to Madame Pomfrey."

"There's a reason why you didn't," Draco told him. "That's what this mark is for, to remind me of that reason." And then he told him what he had done.

When he had finished he forced his eyes away from the seeping cut on his leg and looked at Harry. "Now you know everything."

"You ... drugged me?"

"Yes."

"To make me forgive you for hexing Ron?"

"Yes."

"Why? How do you know I wouldn't have forgiven you anyway?"

"I thought you might but I didn't have time to find out. My father told me if I couldn't get close to you soon he'd bring me back home."

Harry just stared at him. "I trusted you."

Draco shook his head sadly. "No, you didn't. I made you trust me, you were under the influence of the potion. I told you I was sorry about hexing Weasley, that it had been an accident, and you believed me. I told you I was your friend and that you could trust me and you did. I told you not to blame me for what had happened. I told you that you wanted us to be friends."

"You mean everything I've felt since then has been because you told me to feel it?"

"No! The effects wear off, the dilution you took it at it can't have lasted longer than Friday and even then the effects weaken with time especially if it's something you were strongly opposed to before you took the potion. It's only the first 24 hours that what I say can change your mind and we only spoke twice during that time. I just wanted to make it easier for us to stay friends, I couldn't let what happened with Weasley throw everything off. I really didn't mean to hex him! And you wanted to be friends with me before then didn't you? You fixed my neck. And I never said anything to you about... about... you know. If you'd hated me before you'd taken it you'd hate me again by now." Draco pleaded with Harry to understand that it wasn't so bad even though deep inside he knew it was. How could Harry forgive him when he couldn't forgive himself?

"You told me the cut wasn't serious and I believed you because of the potion," Harry said, staring at Draco's leg.

"Yes, I wouldn't have told you at all otherwise, but I couldn't clean it myself without my wand."

"Why didn't you lie to me about how you'd done it, you said you didn't think I'd realise."

"I wanted to but I couldn't, I couldn't do it anymore. Hearing you parrot back everything I said to you, I hated it. I didn't want to do it, Harry. If there had been more time..."

"How did you make the potion without a wand?" Harry asked. He seemed to be in a form of information overload, he was processing the information but not the emotions that went along with it, thinking but not yet reacting.

"Not all potions need a wand."

At that Harry reached for his wand, lying on the bed beside them.

Draco cringed back slightly wondering what Harry was going to do, he couldn't read the blank face and the downcast eyes.

"I can't think straight with your leg like that, it hurts just looking at it," Harry murmured as he laid his hand on Draco's pale thigh.

Draco shivered at the gentle touch, wondering if this was the last time he would feel it.

"It needs quick-heal salve," Harry said as he examined it. "It's a bit infected too, you should have got the dressings changed. This might sting a little." He pointed his wand at the wound. "Defaeco Contagium."

Draco hissed as a burning shot through the wound on his leg, it lasted for several minutes.

Now that it was cleaner Harry bent his head over it, pulling at the sides a little. "It's not going to heal unless it's forced closed, it's too deep. Shit, Draco, what did you think you were doing?"

"I wanted to make sure it left a scar," Draco answered faintly.

Harry rested his forehead carefully on Draco's leg and drew in a shaky breath, trying to steady himself. His hands were starting to shake. He was shocked and afraid and confused but there didn't seem to be any anger, he thought there probably should be but he couldn't summon any. He was fixing Draco's leg partly cause he didn't know what else to do. Draco had murdered someone, tortured them and then killed them, but it seemed like a bad dream. It was some stranger that Harry had never met and he should be angry for her sake but all he could feel was a deep sorrow that Draco was in so much pain. He didn't know what that girl had looked like but he could see the ugly scar on Draco's stomach, self-inflicted as punishment for his weakness. No, there *was* anger, but not at Draco. He was angry at Voldemort for ruining more lives, angry at Draco's parents for not protecting him. He remembered Draco's anguished words in Dumbledore's office, 'You knew my father was a Death Eater and you let me go home to him, I was just a child, what did I know? What did I know about good and evil? You knew!' and was angry even at Dumbledore and Snape and himself for letting Draco go back to his father's when they knew Voldemort was back. When he had seen for himself what side Lucius Malfoy was on. He could feel tears forming in his eyes and starting to spill over, as his breath began to hitch in his chest he felt Draco's hand tentatively touch down on his hair.

"Are... are you okay?" Draco asked.

"No," choked Harry. "No I'm not." Then he started to cry in earnest, his tears running from his face onto Draco's thigh and spilling down onto the cut he had just cleaned.

Draco felt the burn as the salt in Harry's tears stung the raw flesh but ignored it as he tried to comfort the boy weeping into his lap. "Don't cry," he soothed. "I'm sorry, don't cry."

But Harry couldn't seem to stop.