Harry Potter and the Bonds of the Fathers

Ch. 3 Harry's Confusion

(Harry's POV)

"Happy Birthday Harry..."

The words were so shocking and contradicting it had taken a moment for him to swallow their meaning. Then he had laughed. He knew it was a terrible laugh, and that it hurt as much to let it out as it did to hear it. He could see it in their eyes as they shuddered when the sound reached their ears. A few of them had actually taken a step back. Let them. Right now he was having a hard enough time dealing with the terrible pain nestled right under his breastbone.

If he thought he had suffered at the Dursleys' then seeing Malfoys retreating back was pure and undiluted hell. He closed his eyes, blocking out the image of a pitying Dumbledore and equally un-understanding Aurors and Order members. He didn't know many of them and he wanted to block out the image of those he did. He must have seemed so weak and pitiful to them. Were they reconsidering this very second whether they really expected him to get rid of Voldemort? Most likely they were finally seeing him for what he was- just a boy. A tear leaked out from his eye and fell down the side of his face. He heard a whisper that sounded vaguely like his name, but decided to ignore it. He was having a hard enough time trying to figure out why he was having such a hard time breathing.

"Chest hurts. Can't breathe," he whimpered, wishing he could turn his voice into something other than the quavering muddle it had become. He heard fabric rustle as someone moved near him.

"Just like before... no damage. I think it might be emotional trauma, Harry," the voice procured. He opened his eyes to find Neville's own brown ones stare back at him with their usual innocence. There was something more though, something more real and sure in his gaze. He should have been the one. He could do it. Harry couldn't do it.

Harry stumbled out of the bed and exited the room as fast as his fumbling feet could carry him, away from those damning eyes. Once out the door and away he walked more slowly, getting his legs to work after such an intense healing. He stumbled blindly, going only where instincts led him. He didn't remember the hallway he was walking in from his previous visit, but then he hadn't gone this direction before either.

It was dusty and dirty, so he didn't think that Mrs. Weasley had been here recently. Or at all, because she would have kept things up like the marvelous housekeeper she was. Even though he had no clue where in the house he was going, he kept on walking, the uneven patches of flooring tripping him. Something pulled at him now, a sense of anguish quite like his own- but clearly discernable as being not his own- called at him, demanding his attention. He followed the feeling like a dog follows a scent, and stopped by a door. He felt the emotion stronger now, it was practically pouring out of the wood grain. He wondered if there was only a room and not another corridor behind the door and if this was Malfoy's torment he felt. The door opened at his light touch, and he stepped inside.

The room was dark and musty. It smelled heavily of mould and Harry's nose twitched in the reek. There were no furnishings and no windows. There was nothing but the four walls, which puzzled him greatly. What was the purpose of an empty room? He heard a pounding sound, and he ventured farther in to see all the corners of the room. He was startled and disturbed to see Malfoy taking his rage out on the wall. A thud resounded with every punch the blonde threw, and Harry's thoughts were at a shocked halt. Malfoy's face and clothes were dusty, so even this far away he could see the tear tracks on his face. Briefly he wondered if he should worry about seeing without glasses but his thoughts quickly returned to Malfoy. Had he fallen down? There was nothing to trip him though, maybe he collapsed? Looking at the erratic state Malfoy was in Harry decided that collapsing was the more likely cause. But what would shatter the icy boy's calm so much that he would just simply fall under the weight of it? He thought back to when the boy had last been at his side, and let the vision play behind his closed eyelids like a movie.

**

Harry opened up his eyes as much as the painful light allowed him. He heard shouting, but his vision was fuzzy and his head swirled with the pain it was sensing all throughout his body. It seemed obvious to him that when he passed out his hold on his thoughts had broken free of his delicate control, but he couldn't understand why he felt twice the amount of pain he remembered pushing aside. Was his brain sending him flashbacks of the pain he had ignored for a while? Or had he damaged himself more in his effort to make it here and falling down? His foggy psyche registered that it was most likely the second scenario.

His vision cleared just enough to see... was that Draco Malfoy? He nearly whimpered when he saw him, thinking his dreams were leaking into his reality as well... but then the already nearby boy closed the distance between them, proving himself real. Harry remembered being faintly surprised as soft lips pressed against his, but not by much. It felt like his body was exploding, throwing off all his injuries, but without the pain one would usually associate with exploding. He felt his arm wrap around the other boy's neck to keep him where he was, but didn't remember moving it there, or that it was supposed to be broken. A song of joy flowed through him when Malfoy didn't even try to back away.

It was a struggle to stay awake and hold onto the boy over him as the soundlessness wrapped around him once more, but his over-worked mind had decided it had had enough for the moment. When he opened his eyes again he smiled happily at the white haired boy who appeared instantly by his side, remembering the warmth that flooded his shivering limbs when he had been kissed. He wondered how he had managed to get his hair so light when he remembered it being blonde, and he also wondered how he had managed to change his face so much. He observed that the boy's face didn't look half as pointy anymore, and that his chin and jaw had squared out and his brow had become more pronounced. Even his eyes seemed to be a more silvery color than the slate grey he was used to seeing. He vaguely heard a familiar voice utter something in the background, and watched as Malfoy's face mutated into shock, depression, acceptance... and then anger.

"This changes nothing, Potter," he had spat, and left immediately. Harry's heart went with him, and he began suffering his own despondency at the loss of his warmth beside him. 'This changes everything,' he thought.

**

Harry's eyes widened as his thoughts turned back to his present surroundings. For a second he thought he was going to faint again, but he managed to stay on his feet. He wondered how he could have forgotten that sequence of events when it had just happened. Maybe it was the shock of Tonks' words... he had missed them before but now they were there. Hastily he made his way over to the self-destructive form that was Malfoy, and spun him around. Pinning his arms to his sides to keep him from harming himself again, Harry kept his gaze riveted on the pale face before him, ignoring the blood on the wall for the crazed look in the shining silver eyes. The body under him stilled and glared up at him. For the first time Harry began thinking that the emotions he felt coming from other people might not be normal.

The emotions forcing themselves into Harry through his hold on the boy nearly made him scream. The magnitude of the heartbreak he felt made him remember waking up after his dreams over the summer. Everything was there, the hopelessness, the despair, even the rejection, swamping his senses and nearly overloading his poor brain again.

"Malfoy..." Harry sputtered, trying to keep hold of his sanity. The glare was slipping from Malfoy's face; the effort from keeping an expression that was so far from his feelings was wearing on him.

Harry brought the now limp Slytherin's hands before him, running his fingertips over the bloody knuckles. Under his touch new skin began to close over the wound and the damage underneath faded. Draco let out a choked sob just looking at his hands in Harry's.

"What is this?!" he demanded. "What the hell is going on?!"

"What... I don't..." Harry was at a loss for words. The rejection swamped him yet again.

"Yes," Malfoy hissed, his ugly mask of scorn sliding back into place. "You don't." He tore free, and ran from the room to find a better place to hide. Harry slumped to his knees, hands coming into contact with the cold floor in front of him, relieved to be free of those terrible emotions. His chest heaved and his shoulders shook with his harsh breathing and dry sobs. He was so confused, clinging desperately to his consciousness, and to any thought that might tell him what had gone wrong. This was the second time that Malfoy had run from him, and again he felt as if his heart was leaving his chest to follow after the boy.

He rose slowly still fighting the dark for control of his conscience. He stumbled back through the halls, finding his way back into familiar ground. Realizing he was outside of the room that he had previously been brought into, he turned towards the door to go back into the room. As he fell, the last thought he remembered was how the pale arms that caught him up were much stronger than they looked.

(Draco's POV)

Draco had run out of the room, but once outside, he didn't know where to go. It was so uncharacteristic for him, for a Malfoy!, to have such strong pain lacing through and it left him clueless as what to do next.

He didn't know what was going on... if Potter was a Healer he would have been at the summer program but if he wasn't then how had his touch healed his wounds? How had he changed so much over the summer? 'How, how, how,' he kept repeating. It all seemed so familiar to him, it rang a thousand bells in his head but he couldn't make the connection to whatever the answer was.

Hearing unsteady footsteps inside the room he darted into a nearby niche to survey the boy who had managed to reject him twice. His heart was already sufficiently broken and then the damned boy had the audacity to come after him and do it again. It was all just too much to take... He was about to go and start a row with Potter to bleed off some of his emotions when he saw him stumble out of the room. His heart caught in his chest and he bit his lip. He looked like shit. Under closer scrutiny, Draco admitted to himself that Potter looked more like shit that's had been run over twice, used as a punch ball, then eaten and shat out again.

All urges to make the boy feel worse on top of what he looked like he was feeling physically died off, and a small amount of his own emotional pain was squelched by his concern. Watching Potter hobble, nearly falling twice, Draco knew he wasn't going to make it back in time to lie down. He stealthily followed the oblivious Gryffindor until the boy finally collapsed.

Gathering him in his arms, Draco carried him over to the bed to watch him until he woke up. He pulled a chair over from the nearby desk and placed it beside the bed before sitting on it. He sighed, a quavering thoroughly pitiful release of breath, and stroked the unconscious boy's cheek. He set about to rubbing off the flakes of blood still on his face, the reminder that he had failed all summer to protect his mate. He let his thumb run over the bridge of Potter's nose and up to the slight frown wrinkle between his eyebrows. He didn't pay any attention to the scar riding like a monarch on his forehead; he completely forgot about it.

This boy was Harry. For Draco, no past could ever be as great as the fact that this was just Harry. He held onto that thought for dear life and let Harry's first name take over for his surname in his thoughts. He liked Harry better than Potter anyway. He was grateful that everyone had cleared from the room and he began reveling again in the one way he could be close to his mate, this time paying attention to his ebony unwashed hair.