The Pendulum
If one is not startled by the physical display of torment, go down to Draco’s room, where he tirelessly fought against his merciless disease as it threatened to subdue him.
Draco’s mind slumbered as deeply as his body, now completely void of the vital spark of energy that fueled her state of being, and it was difficult to construct again after so drastic a plunge had been taken. As empirical evidence suggested, health and consciousness would return after two weeks of catatonia, and full recovery after a month at the earliest. But his father was right; his mind, having fallen victim to deceit, terror, genuine bliss, and veracity, strengthened under the influence of naked and ugly affairs. Unexpectedly, the catatonia had lasted, this time, for only three days, and he was awake and mobile following despite having succumbed to a dreadful illness.
A high fever stole his breath; it was shallow and rapid against the beating of his heart. He was half senseless, drifting in and out of consciousness, unsure whether he was terribly cold or drenched in sweat. He could recall his violent shivering, so severe it appeared like epileptic convulsions, and Severus prying open his jaws to pour the bitter remedies down his throat. What that did, he could not tell, but he would suffer terrible nausea and had even regurgitated the thick, blackish liquid more than once. And at some point he had even begun to hallucinate: six mangled soldiers bowing over his bed, whispering to each other crude threats.
"There the heir lay before us," started one. "Let us resort to a cold steel against his throat. He shivers, but what better to warm him than his own blood?"
"Ah, how ironic indeed! Might I suggest we prolong his suffering?" Another began.
“Ha! A pretty young man! Dare we sodomize him?”
“The fag would enjoy it!”
“Ha ha! A Veiled fag!”
And Draco wished to move, to turn away or at least scream. But he had no strength and merely fainted with fright. His onlookers would have observed absolutely nothing, save for Harry, who would take his hand, possessed by a clairvoyant notion that he desperately needed him. The blurred sight of his parents towering over him offered him some comfort; he had desperately longed and yearned for their company. But all he could do was wheeze as he held his eyes open with great difficulty. Draco vaguely recalled a stranger's voice whispering and Harry’s agitated questioning; his face was covered by a cold cloth; his garments were lifted; icy sensations pressed against his chest and all over his abdomen. The mysterious guest retreated with Draco’s perception. Draco’s heavy head was placed on Harry’s chest, his strong arms firm around him. His shivering finally dwindled down.
Three eternities passed, cruelly costumed as a meager thirty-six hours, and Draco finally fully regained his head, though his body was still weak with illness. He looked toward the open window from which came a warm breeze, cool against his damp face. The room was vibrantly illuminated by the afternoon sun; the light enchanted and gladdened his failing temper. It grew pleasantly warm. Clarity graced itself on his brow, and his mind was clear.
To perceive his eyes opened, Harry rushed to his side and grabbed his hands and pressed them to his lips. A remedy for this sight proved to be to be again ingratiated with the tender affection so rich in character that his feeble imagination could never poeticize it as suitably as his memory could. Draco smiled gratefully.
"The doctor said you'd be under for another day or two," Harry whispered. "How do you feel? Are you in pain? You are still feverish."
He tried to respond, but days of his jaw-clenching and shivering glued his mouth shut, and all he could produce was a pathetic whimper. Harry smiled and patted his head.
"Your parents are here. They are downstairs now speaking with the group; do not think too much about those affairs. But they will be so glad to hear you are awake. Shall I let them know for you?"
Draco shook his head.
"Why not?"
"He..." Draco managed; Harry moved closer as his voice reduced to a whisper. "He does not like to be interrupted."
"Oh, your father? Good call. He's not too fond of me anyway, I can tell."
"He is."
"No; he thinks I'm dumb."
"You are."
Harry laughed and kissed his hands once again. "Ah, so you truly are feeling well again if you're being snarky."
The sight and sound of his laugh resurrected a terrible thought, one he’d remembered happening before his memory had begun to fail him when he’d been standing on the remains of those six men. The fright and horror in Harry were as if he were afraid for having become entangled with Draco and that his fate would match the six. This belief, that somewhere deep down, Harry’s horror rid him of his affections, for they were had for a boy not complete in Draco’s image, had become a debilitating one. An onslaught of nausea overtook him, and his mouth tasted like that wretched syrup his godfather had been supplying. Draco retched, but nothing came of it.
"Are you alright?" Harry began tending to him carefully. He is afraid; if he continues his act, he may live another day in one piece.
Another heave.
"It's that stuff Sev has been giving you," said Harry as he placed a washing bowl in his lap, ready for him should he be sick. "You've hardly been able to keep it down. I don't know what the stuff is, and I'm not sure I want to."
"Stop," he croaked. Harry looked so peacefully puzzled. He has already proved himself to be a phenomenal performer, he thought. Why would it not come to him easier now as he pretends to adore me just the same? Is there no intellectual exhaustion, or does man not feel it in the face of death? And here he will be, faithfully ignorant of my conduct, decorating me with 'darling' and 'love' as if he is not completely void of affections.
"If you have any deliberate regard for my health, stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"As if I'd done nothing wrong. As if I am completely innocent." His voice trembled as tears emerged in his eyes. "As if you still love me."
Harry set the bowl on the side table and moved onto her bed, lifting him from the mattress so he could embrace him entirely. "Do you sincerely believe that, Draco? I'm half insulted that you think my love for you could be so easily checked by something like that."
"That something was murder."
"That something was self-defense. I won't pretend the nature wasn't gruesome; it was. But their intentions were to threaten you with death, and if you did not comply, Draco... No, it was not murder."
"You're afraid."
"I am not afraid of you. Have I not made that clear already?"
Draco pressed his face into his chest, shuddering and short of breath. Harry did not say anything more on the topic; Draco's apprehension still lingered, but he soon lost himself in his exhaustion and presently fell into a comfortable slumber as Harry soothingly stroked his hair.
When Draco woke again, the sun was setting now; he could clearly distinguish the hand-worked framing of the window and the poor linen curtains that swayed in the late afternoon wind, casting liquid shadows on the threadbare rug. Harry was no longer there. In his stead, his mother was preoccupied with an embroidery hoop.
"Mama," Draco whispered.
At once, she stood at attention and tossed the hoop aside. How lovely she looked just now! Her face was so genteel, unchanged from when he was a little boy whose sole object was this smile. Draco sometimes wondered if he possessed this glow. His mother took his hands and pressed them into her cheeks.
"Sweet darling, Draco," whispered she. "How are you feeling?"
"I am tired."
"Indeed you must be, mon chere. Comme vous le savez trop bien."
"But I am glad that I am awake now," he whispered. "As these things go, I would infinitely prefer to be dreadfully ill but conscious than in catatonia. Mother, do not cry. There's no earthly reason to cry. You ought to stop lest you worry anyone."
She dried her eyes against her satin sleeve. "Forgive me; my heart aches to see you so weak. It has never been easy to see you like this."
"Mother, it's not your fault. You always think it is. I suppose you have not seen me as of late; I have been exceptionally happy dans la force de l'âge. I'd gone swimming too. It's a shame for you to be reunited with me while I am ill. I promise every version of myself preceding had been remarkably happy..."
Her mother kissed his hand. "Good, good. There is nothing I wish for more than your happiness, ma gentille. Do not think of anything but your recovery. Recueillement et temps."
"Yes, but I'm afraid I don't have any time. Mother, what did you speak of with the group?"
"Please, the affairs of men are no concern of ours. We wear the veil, do not forget; their discourse is none of our business."
"But it is not yours, but mine. I don't want to wear the veil."
The hands around him tightened at once; he watched the glowing warmth of his mother give way to a phenomenal terror. Draco watched as she tried to conceal her unease; her eyebrows wavering with the corners of her unsmiling mouth. "Let us not discuss this right now," she whispered. "You are delirious. Such a statement must be contemplated."
"My contemplation is deadly."
"Your contemplation is important. I cannot risk you performing this psychological surgery alone. Let us not speak of it now, Draco. You are feverish. I will hear your statement when you are able, but pray do not say another word on the matter."
Draco nodded slowly. "Mother?"
"Yes?"
"I love you."
His mother's visage softened, and she kissed his forehead gently.
Draco learned the group was still in deliberation downstairs, and he was anxious to know what could possibly occupy them for so long. In the meantime, he returned to the innocent age of five as his mother helped him into the bath and washed his hair with hands long retired from their duties. Draco, pampered and clean, leaned back against his pillows while his mother dressed him in his cotton gown.
"That Harry," she began, slipping on one sock. "He is a fine gentleman."
Draco blushed.
"Naturally, I was very apprehensive about letting you run off into the arms of a boy I have never met. Your judgment thus far had been premature and childish in nature. But I dare say you've inherited my luck when it comes to suitors. My first impression of him, when I'd first seen him at your school, was very dreadful. He really has no regard for outward appearance; it is evident how widely you both are separated by caste and rank. But clothing aside, his handsomeness is so easily detected. Primitive eyes, a rugged sort of look that suggests a semi-concealed expertise in amorous exercise. Isn't that your fancy?"
Draco covered his face to hide his color; how positively humiliating! To have one's mother precisely understand what about one's lover is particularly attractive. His mother was laughing now as she pulled up the second sock up to Draco’s pink knee.
"Mais je divague, I will stop my teasing. My days of giggling over suitors are over, I'm afraid. Don't you see it was a secret wish of mine to bear daughters for this very reason? I was often discouraged from talking about the opposite sex with my sisters. Such was improper for a lady. Cruelly unfair, for men speak of us tenfold. You know, don't you?"
"I am hardly aware; I sooner lost interest in such colloquy."
"Ah, that is right. My diaphanous son was so clearly vexed when the conversation switched from Harry to their girls."
"They were unreservedly tormenting."
"And you were unreservedly in love."
Draco turned onto his stomach to conceal his face once again. He felt the mattress sink right beside her. "Mother, can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Are you at all disappointed in how I've turned out?"
She looked at him, and with her slightly pruned hands, she ran her fingers through his blonde hair. “I hold no blame for you, my dearest son. I detest our circumstances. I wish that the Veil would accept it so that we may continue as we are. Disappointed in you? Never. Are you disappointed in yourself, mon cher?”
“Yes.”
“How could you be disappointed when your love has granted you a man so unwaveringly loyal to you? A man who loves you with ache and passion, who fears its grandeur. I dare say a woman could not feel such a way toward you, Draco. This is how things have turned out. And if you’re happy, Draco, then I cannot be disappointed.”
Draco nodded and rested his head in her lap. And his heart in another’s.
Harry returned after a while; Draco’s mother had left a little earlier after having wished him a good night. Still plagued by nausea and fatigue, Draco lay awake to see him enter. As his sickness came in waves, the evening worsened his condition, so he, mind befogged, confused Harry’s exhausted expression with that same one he’d worn when he confessed his deceit that dreadful summer night.
He’s here to end it, thought Draco. And immediately, his eyes welled up with tears.
“What’s wrong?” Harry rushed to his side. “Are you in pain?”
“You don’t love me anymore, do you? You’re too scared to tell me?” Oh, how pathetically his voice wavered, its delivery hasty and cowardly!
“No,” Harry gasped. “Draco, stop. Look at me.” With his hands he held Draco’s face firmly and upright. Poor Draco had nothing to conceal; feverish and half delirious, every self-made semblance of health and confidence left him entirely. “I love you. I know I cannot put it into a poem or a grand gesture, but I really do. My life depends entirely on you. And that sort of stuff doesn’t disappear. Look, I know you’re shocked about what happened, so am I, but it happened. And my feelings for you surpassed that of a teenage crush ages ago. I’m ready to stand by you through anything. Alright?”
“What if—“
“What if it were the Order?”
Draco nodded.
“If the Order had threatened you like that, then they were asking for it. Nobody hurts you. Thank God you can protect yourself, because I’d have had to get my hands dirty.” Harry pressed a passionate kiss into his forehead. “Not a soul condemns you for a thing.”
“Will you stay with me, Harry?” Draco asked," He nodded and slipped into the bed beside him. Draco rests his head on his chest, shivering against his body. He felt himself oppressed by the facetious doubts that plagued him still; such would not stray overnight after having lived his life burdened with consequence and labels manufactured by himself and then excessively by his peers at Hogwarts.
Murderous basilisk!
But under Harry’s guidance, he developed a hesitant ease, though not at all powerful enough in the presence of his self-hatred. All of his progress is an artificial product made to pacify and stifle his depression temporarily. Draco placed his trembling hand on Harry’s chest, pressing the pad of his fingers into the sternum bone, feeling the thud of his heartbeat.
“Harry… I don’t want to wear the Veil anymore,” he whispered. His eyes were on his own hands, but he felt Harry’s body tense against his own. “I want to be with you without consequence.”
“I want that too,” he whispered after a silence. “I want that more than anything.” Harry’s two fingers pressed his chin up, guiding Draco’s gaze to meet his own. He marveled in the depths of his defiant soul: brave and courageous was he. How quickly someone could plunge into the pleasures of life! “You’re stuck with me, Malfoy. I’m not going anywhere. Even if you decide to remain Veiled, I’ll follow you like a dog. You take it off, and I’d be a dog that gets to see your pretty face. Either way, I’m going to crawl after you no matter what you choose.”
“And if something happens to me?”
Harry paused, his face now void of his playful humor. Draco became almost ashamed to have rid him of it. “Then I cease to exist. So you can’t go anywhere, okay?”
“Okay.”
Harry, as if plagued by an onslaught of anxiety, pressed kisses aggressively onto his face, neck, and shoulders. Draco could hear vaguely the dull clunk of the pendulum swinging rhythmically in the grandfather clock, but his own breathy moans—he trembled under the heat of his lover, weak, half awake, but deliriously ecstatic.
“Don’t leave me now, alright?” Harry whispered in between his kisses. “Don’t you even think about it.”
“I wouldn’t leave you willingly, Harry. But sometimes I feel like something might happen to me. Would you hate me if they Cleansed me?”
“Stop talking,” Harry demanded, pressing the heat of his mouth into his own. Draco gasped at the boldness of his action, but with a sudden intake of breath he eventually melted into his arms. The pendulum still swung, the seconds clicked away; Draco moaned, and their mouths created a wet symphonic rhythm against the percussion of time. Harry’s hands are on his waist, and Draco’s consciousness is on a thread. He is smiling; he thinks he’s dreaming when Harry touches his thigh again.
And somehow, the moment faded indistinguishably into a dream. Draco had fallen unconscious, exhaustion and severe emotion the culprit. And Harry was rather stunned by the suddenness of this immobility; frightened for a moment and then frightened for the future. He, too, began to weep out of sheer terror that there be even a chance of a Draco-less life. Harry cradled his lover, kissing him and whispering his “I love you’s” until he, too, fell asleep.