Chapter 10
It was finally the evening of the bonding ceremony and Harcourt looked awful. He had circles under his eyes that were so black that he looked like a humanoid raccoon. He twitched and jerked almost constantly, his eyes shifting all around as if looking for whatever nightmare seemed to pursue him into his waking life. He jumped at shadows and noises and frequently had to stare at someone’s face before he realized they were a friend. Draco was panicked; his beloved looked to be on the ragged edge of sanity and nothing he’d done had prevented it. Not even Harry’s parents were able to soothe the teen away from the nightmarish images that flitted at the back of his mind. “It’s all right, Harry,” the blond soothed quietly as he helped his fiancé into the bonding robes. “We’ll get through this, and once the ceremony is complete we’ll work doubly hard to free you from the magic that has you in its thrall.”
“Draco?” the eighteen year old whimpered pitifully. “Is it really you?”
“Yes, love,” the grey eyed young man whispered, voice choked with emotion. “It’s me, and we’re going to get married now. Do you want to come with me?”
“Yes, please,” Harry replied, sounding like a little child, which made the blond wince and fight back angry tears as he carefully guided his husband-to-be out of their bedroom, down to the sun room and out the patio doors to their waiting family and friends. Many of the guests stared at Harcourt in shock and sorrow, stunned to see how much the young man had been suffering since just after his birthday. They made their slow way up the aisle between the rows of chairs, Harry leaning heavily on Draco and stumbling every now and then with exhaustion and terror.
They made it up to the altar behind which practicing Druid Mousesack Levy from Scotland stood. Draco waited patiently for the officiant to begin, holding his mate tightly against his side to keep him upright. Harry’s knees would give out every now and then as the bone-deep weariness began to slide over the young man. “Is there anyone who feels that this bonding should not take place?” the priest asked, hard blue eyes scanning over the seated guests as he waited the few moments necessary for anyone to voice an objection. Silence met his request and he nodded with a small smile. “I will now invoke the ceremony in the Old tongue.”
He turned his attentions to the young men in front of him and began. “Tha sinn air ar cruinneachadh an seo gus a dhol còmhla ris an dithis fhireannach seo ann an ceangal companach anam. Ceanglaichidh iad anns na seann dòighean agus bidh iad dha chèile nan creag air an tuit tonnan na beatha. Leig leis an luchd-dìon coimhead thairis orra agus dìon iad an aghaidh draoidheachd nàmhaid.” Minerva McGonagall understood the ceremonial words, being a Scotswoman, and she smiled happily as the silver ribbons of magic began to rise from the plinth and surround the pair standing before the cleric.
The magic entered the boys and they shivered at the loving protection they were receiving from the guardians of the watchtowers, but a small sliver seemed to be concentrated around Harcourt’s engagement ring. With a loud crack and the flash of dark power fracturing, the strong protective magic shattered the curse that had kept Harry under its thrall, and with a shuddering gasp, the brunet stood tall as he took in his first breath of freedom since August fifth, when the oppressive weight of the black curse enshrouded him. “Harry?” Draco murmured as he stared at his bond mate. “Are you all right?”
“I’m free,” the raven haired young man whispered, emerald eyes shimmering with grateful tears. “Thank you, Mother. Thank you Father,” he whispered in parseltongue without even realizing it. An extra burst of the guardians’ magic surrounded the tops of the blond’s and brunet’s heads, leaving behind a circlet of beaten silver, embedded with sapphires, opals and onyx stones. A platinum bonding cuff encircled Draco’s left wrist, mirroring his engagement ring. A bonding collar surrounded Harcourt’s throat, also mirroring his engagement ring with a single addition. At the center of the two inch wide platinum torque, above the gems, was the Malfoy family crest done in jade with a silver snake overlaid by the gold capital ‘M’ in the center of the stone.
“Well,” Fred quipped loudly, startling many of the guests, “at least we know who the submissive is going to be.”
The remark jarred everyone out of their shock and they stood as Levy announced, “May I present Harcourt and Draconis Snape-Malfoy.” Cheers and clapping erupted from the crowd as they surged forward to congratulate the happy couple.
James and Lucius met with the officiant and paid him, giving Mousesack quite a bit more than the agreed-upon price. When the priest demurred, Lucius told the man succinctly, “Had you not used the Olde ways and rid my son-in-law of that virulent curse, he most likely would have been dead by the end of the month. Not only is the gratuity given for your excellent service, it’s also to reward you for saving our son. Please accept it with our overwhelming gratitude and know that, if you ever need anything, for yourself or your community, you only need ask, and if it’s within our power to grant, you will have it.”
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“I think we should just sleep until we’re ready to wake up,” Draco suggested softly. They were nearing the end of the celebrations, and many of their friends were sprawled out all over the downstairs of Malfoy Manor, passed out drunk. The older attendees were congregated in the kitchen, nibbling at what was left of the wedding cake and reminiscing about the days when both Harry and Draco were children and tearing through the halls of Hogwarts, before Dumbledore and his sycophants had forced the teens from the school for their own protection.
“Yeah,” Harcourt agreed with a massive yawn. Once the curse had been broken, the exhaustion that the brunet had fought against for over a month had finally swamped the youth, and he could barely keep his eyes open. Chuckling softly, Draco cast a feather light charm on his husband and carried him up to their bedroom, where he stripped the brunet and tucked him into the bed wearing only boxers. The blond then did the same and curled up around his mate, sighing in both relief and tiredness. As his eyes drifted closed, he heard his soulmate whisper, “I love you, Draco.”
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“It’s been four days,” Lily whined softly. The Malfoys had invited the Potters to stay in the manor with them after the ceremony, so that they could be close enough to their son to be there if and when he needed them. House elves kept a close eye on the bonded pair upstairs, providing light food and drink when they surfaced long enough to eat and take care of calls of nature, before sinking back into slumber. “When are they going to wake up?”
“Harcourt has been running on nothing but fumes for the last three weeks,” Severus told his wife gently. “He’s got a lot of sleep on which to catch up. Draco has been with him nearly the whole time, and in the last two weeks, Harcourt has been sleeping with my godson, in hopes that having Draco near would help with the nightmares. No doubt both boys spent most of that time fighting off sleep; Harcourt to avoid the nightmares and Draco to keep his betrothed sane. This hasn’t been easy for either one of them.”
“I know,” the redhead sighed, disappointed. “I just want to make sure that Harry’s okay.”
“The fact that he’s been sleeping for four days without waking up in the middle of the night, or the middle of the day for that matter, screaming indicates that he is, in fact, fine,” Lucius pointed out logically, which earned a scowl from Lily and a chuckle from James. “I, too, am worried about how they are, but until they wake up on their own, I’m fine with waiting.”
“Um...hi,” said a shy voice from the kitchen doorway, which startled the adults rather badly. “I’m sorry if I worried you, but I really needed that sleep.”
“Of course you did, Harry,” Draco told his husband gently. He stood with his arm wrapped around the brunet’s waist and didn’t look as if he was going to let go any time soon. The blond turned snapping silver eyes on their parents and told them, “Harry’s still a bit weak and still very tired, so I’ll thank you to keep the interrogations to a minimum.”
“Now wait a minute,” Lily yelped loudly, making James and Severus flinch at the strident tone, “Harry is my son, and I’ll do with him as I please.”
“He’s my husband,” Draco barked harshly, instantly shutting the redhead up. “We have a soul bond, which takes precedence over the parent-child bond. You willingly gave his life over to me to protect and cherish, and you’ll not make him feel like he’s somehow disappointed you, or that he’s made the wrong choice in marrying me. I understand that you’re worried about him, but it’s now my job to take care of him, and I intend to do that to the best of my abilities.”
“I love you, Mum, and I understand that I’ll always be your baby, but I’m married now, and an adult according to wizarding and muggle law,” Harry told Lily carefully. “I’ll always need you, and I’ll come to you when I have a problem that I can’t work out with my husband. I agree with Draco; you no longer have a right to my personal life, but I’ll be willing to share with you what I can. Just don’t expect to be told everything, and if you interfere with the way my life goes from now on, I won’t hesitate to cut you out.”
“Before you get upset,” Severus said as he laid a hand on her arm; he could tell she was gearing up for an argument, “think about what Harcourt’s saying. He’s not turning his back on us, and he willingly had their home built on Malfoy land so that they could stay close to us. He loves us and always will, but it’s time to let him go and be an adult now.”
“Think of this, Lily,” James chimed in. “Would you have included your parents in every aspect of our relationship? Would you have told them how you handle two men at once?” The redheaded woman flushed with embarrassment at the thought of her parents learning about their sexual dynamics. “Would you have let them tell you how to run the house; how to raise Harry?”
“Of course not,” she snapped angrily. “It’s none of their business how we live our life…” She trailed off as she realized exactly what everyone was trying to tell her. “I’m sorry,” she told Draco sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to imply that I would overstep my bounds. He’s been my baby for nineteen years; that’s a bit hard to let go of him all of a sudden.”
“I understand that, Mum,” the blond told the woman, smiling at the pleasure that lit eyes so much like his mate’s. “We’re not asking you to let go, per se; we’re just asking you to step away and allow us to make our own mistakes and figure out how to fix them. We’ll always need all of you, and we’ll come to you if we run into something that we just can’t figure out, but you need to let us learn how to adult on our own.”
“I think we can do that, darling,” Narcissa told the pair with a grin. “Now, your home is nearly complete; all it needs is a woman’s touch. Is there anything that you absolutely do not want in there.”
“Weeeellll,” Harcourt said as Draco and he sat down at the table and grabbed some tea and scones, a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, “I don’t want any posters of Dumbledore and his Order of the Dragon. Anything else is acceptable.”
“As if we’d ever put any sort of money in that bastard’s pocket,” Lucius mock snarled, then laughed. “Can you believe that there are posters, comic books and coloring books about that man?”
“He’s considered a hero for what he did to Grindelwald,” Severus said reasonably. “No one has ever looked closely at the man, or they would have run screaming in the opposite direction. He has them all fooled, and it started with shredding the reputation of a decent man; a man who had broken Albus’ heart when he refused to agree with Dumbledore’s plans for our world.”
“Hopefully, once that man and his ‘club’ are gone, we’ll be able to correct the history books,” Harry growled, emerald eyes narrowed. “I’m sure that he has a lot of secrets tucked away somewhere. If we could find and expose them, it would go a long way toward turning his fans against him.”
“We’re working on that, sport,” James told his son softly. “We’re close; we’re just waiting for the right circumstance to move in.”