Title: Mind Disease
Author: Lauren ([email protected])
Author's Website: www.angelfire.com/la3/paradoxical/ly.html Rating: a very strong R
Characters: Harry/Draco; Draco/Lucius
Category: Angst
Disclaimer: They don't belong to me... at least not until that pact with the devil goes through. ;)
Archive: If you want, take it.
Warning: Underage; Incest
Summary: A triptych in which Harry learns of the Malfoy family's sickness.
Feedback: Please feed the artist, she is starving.

A/N: This is the first thing I've written with Draco/Lucius (mostly because I was getting over the initial disgust) and it's also the first truly angsty thing I've done in this fandom. So if you have any comment or criticisms, please feel free. And just so you know, the spell in this is the Latin origin of the words 'malady' and 'reveal'.

***

When Harry stepped into the Room of Requirement, he thought he was alone. The room was dark, the air was still, but as Harry's eyes adjusted to the limited light, he realized Draco had beat him there once again.
Draco sat on the window sill looking wistfully out at the grounds. Moonbeams were making silver of his hair, his face was blank and ponderous.

Harry approached slowly and lifted his hand to lightly brush a few stray hairs away from Draco's face. Harry leaned close and kissed the side of Draco's temple. Draco was usually very frenzied, very energetic, very lively. It wasn't like him to be so still or so quiet. Something was gone awry.

"What's wrong," Harry whispered.

Draco closed his eyes and sighed deeply. He seemed tired and ragged. He tipped his head slightly so that it rested on Harry's chest. Draco reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded and rumpled letter, and handed it to Harry. "From my mother. Just got it this afternoon."

Harry received the letter cautiously and, at Draco's wave, unfolded it to read by moonlight:

Darling Draco,
Last Thursday I was walking past the kitchen when I heard the house elves talking in whispers. I stopped and heard a few words of their conversation. Words like "father and son," "absolutely disgusting," "closed doors" and "once the Misses leaves." I questioned them about their conversation, I had to go so far as to threaten them. They told me the most horrible things and then yesterday, when I got the nerve to ask, your father confirmed them.
Draco, why didn't you tell me! I could have put a stop to it, I could have helped you! I've been sick with it for hours, I couldn't sleep at all. But darling, I can't truly believe a word of it until I hear it from you. What has been going on between you and your father that I don't know about? Please tell me the truth! I'm your mother, I care about you, I love you!
Yours Always,
Mother

Harry simply stared at the letter. "I don't understand this," he said.

Draco took the letter from Harry's hands, glance briefly at its content, folded it up and put it back in his pocket. He was looking detached. Distracted. Elsewhere. He stood up and embraced Harry. He stayed very still, clinging.

"Draco," Harry said as he caressed Draco's back. "What does it mean?"

Draco broke the embrace and, without even a glance toward Harry, walked to the bed in the corner of the room and sat down dejectedly. He swung his legs onto the bed and laid back.

Harry's eyes had adjusted to the dark room completely. The light from the full moon outside the window was enough to illuminate the scene before him. The blank stone walls around him, the few, weathered pieces of furniture on the floor and Draco, a hand over his forehead, as it to alleviate some pain.

Harry walked forward and sat down on the edge of the bed. He put his hand over Draco's and pulled it away from the boy's face. "What is it," Harry asked. "Tell me."

Draco was playing idly with the buttons on Harry's coat. He was so melancholy, so sorrowful.

"Answer me something first, Harry. If everyone believes that an act is disgusting and immoral, does it automatically become so?"

Harry was silent for a moment, watching Draco's eyes move lazily over him. He thought before responding. "No," he decided. "Not automatically."

Draco stopped his fidgeting and looked directly into Harry's eyes. "I've been sleeping with my father, Harry."

Harry sat stunned. He did not know how to respond. Draco had gone back to fingering the buttons on Harry's clothing.

"Why didn't you ever say anything," Harry asked finally.

Draco sniffed and shifted his position. He kept his face blank. "You never asked."

Harry's gaze darted over the floor as if it could tell him what to do next. He lightly pushed Draco's hand away from his buttons whispering, "Stop that."

Draco sat up and touched Harry's shoulder. "It's always been consensual," he was saying softly. "He never hurt me, never forced me, never threatened..." But Harry did not really hear him. "I know it's shocking, Harry." "Well," Harry attempted. "Not really. I mean, I've heard the rumors about pureblooded families. Inbreeding, incest..."
"Between cousins, maybe. The marriage of half-brothers and sisters even, but this is different. Isn't it?" Harry could only nod.

Draco spoke very quietly. "It's not something you need to be upset about. It isn't so foreign a concept once you get used to it."
"I don't understand it, Draco. Why? How did it happen? Why didn't anyone stop it? How long has it..." Draco silenced him by placing a finger over his lips.
"I don't expect you to understand it."
"No," said Harry desperately. "Explain it to me. Make me understand it."
Draco leaned back into a slouched position. "Do you want the story?"
"Yes." Harry felt breathless. "Tell me everything."

Draco sighed deeply and raised his hand to push Harry's glasses closer to his face. They had been slipping. "You have such pretty eyes," he said. Draco shifted his body closer to the wall to give Harry room to lay down beside him.

Harry stretched out on his side, facing Draco, and waited for Draco to speak.
Draco laced his fingers with Harry's and lightly stroked Harry's hand with his thumb as he began. "When I was eight years old," he said evenly, "my mother decided to take up an offer she'd received from a friend of hers. An entire week of shopping and dancing and other such girlie things. About two days had gone by after she'd left when my father had come into room just before bedtime to tuck me in, as was our custom. He looked haggard, like he had had a hard day, and I asked him what I could do to make him feel better. He'd said that touching him, in a special place, in very a special way, would make him very happy. I was more than willing to do anything for him. He undid his trousers and led my hand with his. After he was finished, he kissed me very sweetly on the lips and said 'Father loves you'."

Draco stopped to glance over at Harry, and then continued. "The next day he wouldn't even look at me. I think he was ashamed of what had happened. I was afraid I'd done something wrong, that I'd somehow displeased him. He found me crying in a corner of the living room and that night I slept in his bed with him.

"Before my mother came back home, he told me not to say a word to her about our 'new game' he called it. He said that mother wouldn't understand and that she would be jealous and sad it she found out about it. He said it was our secret and I was to guard it very carefully.
"For roughly three years our couplings were few and far between. I was so little then, he must have felt disgusted by it at times. And at eleven, when I started going to school, it obviously had to stop completely for most of the year. But there were still holidays and summer breaks, and my mother's always leaving for a weekend or an afternoon to visit with friends or family.

"When I came home for winter break my first year (I was twelve years old by then, my birthday being in early December) my mother left for two days to stay at her parents house and see her relatives for the holidays. Up until that point my father and I had only done fairly simple things with each other. Touching, kissing, but never what you could call actual sex. The first night we had the house to ourselves, he crept into my room and slid under the covers with me.

"He told me I was getting older, that things would start changing, that I'd be growing up soon. Then he told me to roll over. I think he must have done something, some kind of spell maybe, to lessen the pain. But I still remember it hurting when he first slid into me. I remember crying a little, because of the pain. He wiped my tears away, told me it would stop hurting when I relaxed and let him have control. He was right."

Draco stopped and looked at Harry. Harry was staring at a crack in the wall but he was not really seeing. All he could see was Lucius Malfoy, tall, angry and powerful, wiping the tears of a young Draco as he continued to cause the pain that made him cry in the first place.

Harry tipped his head to look at Draco. He looked so subdued, so sad, and very unlike himself. Harry was used to the grinning and buoyant Draco, he did not know what to say.
"Later that night," Draco whispered, "I woke up and heard him crying softly to himself. He sounded so sad. It was a deep-rooted, wrenching kind of sadness that was making him weep. When he realized I was awake, he took my face with both his hands and started to kiss me. My forehead, my eyelids, and finally, my lips. I could taste his tears."

Harry was trying to think of words to say, anything to break the silence that settled around him. He could feel his mouth moving, trying vainly to produce some comforting thought.

Draco stopped these attempts with a kiss. Harry wanted to feel the way he usually did when Draco kissed him. He wanted to get lost just feeling Draco's soft lips on his own slightly chapped ones, he wanted to stroke the inside of Draco's warm mouth with his tongue. But his mind wouldn't let him forget who else had kissed those same pretty lips, and he shuddered.

~~~

The next day Harry was useless. He had been yelled at in every one of his classes for not paying attention, his friends repeatedly asked him what was wrong, he simply could not concentrate. He would end up staring at nothing and thinking of what Draco had told him, and what it all meant.
During Potions, he watched Draco the entire time. Staring at him without discretion. Snape was furious with him. The third time he caught Harry 'daydreaming' instead of taking notes, he drew the whole class's attention to it. Draco turned around and saw that Harry had been watching him, he gave Harry a pity-filled look and shook his head. Harry knew he couldn't stare at Draco during class, people would start to suspect, rumors would fly. Harry knew better.
It was all such torture to Harry.

Later, during lunch, Hermione kept asking him questions. Why had he been staring at Draco? Did he suspect Draco was up to something? Does he think Draco's father...

Harry couldn't tolerate it. He stood up quickly and left without saying a word. He felt every eye in the room follow him to the door. He didn't care.

~~~

Harry rushed through the castle that night. He and Draco had set 4 A.M. as when they would meet. It was 3:55.

When he entered the room, he threw his invisibility cloak to the floor and immediately rushed to Draco, who was leaning on the wall by the window, looking out again. He gathered Draco in his arms and let a feeling of comfort wash over him. Harry wished he could stop thinking all together. Draco led him to the bed. This time he pulled back the covers and removed his shoes. He slid between the sheets and watched Harry follow suit. Harry allowed Draco to entangle him. Arms wrapped around him, legs entwined. Their faces so close that kissing was inevitable. Harry let his kisses trail across Draco's cheek, and onto Draco's neck.

"My father gave up all the affairs he'd been having," Draco said suddenly. Harry froze, his lips pressed tightly together. Draco turned to stare up at the ceiling.
"He'd never been faithful to my mother. He had had mistresses and rent boys all through their marriage. But he gave them all up for me. He'd always said he was afraid of giving me something."
"You mean diseases," Harry interrupted.
"Yes," said Draco calmly. "Sexually Transmitted Diseases, I think the muggles call them. Crossed over into the wizarding world back in the '80s. We have cures for a lot of them but not all. Of course, we also have an easy way to tell if someone's sick. Father showed it to me once."

Harry waited a beat. "What is it?"

"A simple detection spell. Here," Draco lurched up to reach for his wand at the foot of the bed. "I'll show you. Hold out your hand."
Harry sat up and held his left hand out, palm up.
Draco lifted his wand and spoke the incantation in a low voice. "Male habitus revelare."

A tiny strand of light seeped from the tip of Draco's wand and wound itself around Harry's middle finger. The light circled for a moment, turned green, and became solid. Harry looked up at Draco.
"Green means you're perfectly healthy, orange means a personal disease, like a non-communicable one, and red means the person has something that you can get." "Do it to yourself," Harry said as he took the tiny ring from his finger. "I want to see yours."
Draco repeated the spell. The light circled Draco's finger, turned orange and solidified. Draco smiled at it. "I've never seen mine before," he whispered. "Why not?"
"I was only eight when father first came to me, what would an eight year old have that could harm an adult? Besides, I'd had constant supervision for most of my life. There was no reason to test me, we already knew."

Harry flinched. Eight, he thought. So young. "What do you have," he asked softly.
Draco took the ring off of his finger and handed it to Harry. "See the pink line around it?" Harry nodded. "That means there's a mind disease." Draco tapped the side of his head. "Psychological sickness. It runs in the family. It becomes hard to control certain impulses and attempting to applying logic or morality to important decisions is generally unsuccessful."
"Oh," Harry whispered.

Draco tossed his wand aside and laid back down. Harry followed him.

"As I got older, it became apparent that the things Father and I did were not widely done. Eventually it was obvious that the bond Father and I shared was not 'natural', was not accepted. But I never desired a stop to it. I had always loved our secret, I always enjoyed it.
"I didn't behave secretively all the time, though. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, with Mother about the house somewhere, I would kiss him or grab at his belt buckle, I would forget myself. These occurrences terrified him. He was so worried that we would be found out. He was adamant that we show the perfect father-son relationship to the world and at night, when we were alone, we could be what we chose."

"If he was so concerned about people finding out, why did he tell your mother that the house elves were telling the truth?"
"She already knew, Harry. How could she not? You can't think that in almost nine years she never once suspected it. We couldn't have been that careful."
"Have you written back to her yet?"
"Yes," Draco said. "I sent the letter a few hours ago. I told her it was all true, the things she'd heard. There's no reason to lie to her, she isn't stupid. Though, now that I've confessed, going home will probably be unendurable. I don't know what she'll do when she sees me next week."

That's right, Harry thought. Next week, winter break.

"I remember the last time Father and I were together so vividly. It was just this past summer, on the night before I was to return to Hogwarts. I think the memory's so vivid because it was the only time I'd been successful in initiating our intimacy. Father was the one who call the shots, my attempts were always discouraged and rejected.
"But I was sixteen, I felt old enough to do what I wished. I knew he wouldn't want to do it. Naturally Mother was in the house, she would see me off in the morning. But Father was in his office, working. She never disturbed him.

"I crept in through a side door, walked around to the other side of his desk and waited for him to acknowledge me. He turned to me and, a tad irritably, asked me what I wanted. I leaned down and kissed him. He was a little stunned and didn't push me immediately away. I unzipped his trousers and was coaxing his flesh into growing when he spoke up, telling me that Mother was in the house, ordering me to stop, but he didn't really want me to stop. I told him Mother wouldn't interrupt him in his office, that I was leaving in the morning and wanted this to be our good-bye. I put his hand between my legs, I kept kissing him. Kisses, then whispers. 'Please, please, please.'
"We made love on the floor of his office. It was beautiful."

Harry wanted to cry. He knew the feeling well. The creeping dread, the heaviness in his chest, the way it hurt to swallow. He resisted it. Harry wanted to cry, but not here.

Draco was looking towards the window. "It'll be light soon, Harry. We should go back, get some sleep."
I'll get no sleep, Harry thought. But he didn't say it. "Meet again tomorrow night," he asked softly.
"Can't," Draco said. "The rest of the week there are parties in the Slytherin dorms. It won't look right if I'm absent."
Harry nodded. "After break?"
"The first night back."

Harry sat up and turned to look down at Draco. "I love you," he said.
Draco rose to wrap his arms around Harry. "I know." He kissed Harry delicately on the cheek, on the mouth, and whispered again, "I know."

~~~

Two and a half weeks without Draco seemed unbearable to Harry. He missed everything. He wanted to feel Draco's hair between his fingers, wanted to hear Draco's laughter when he nibbled on a ticklish spot, wanted to feel Draco's flesh pressed fiercely against his own.

He felt sick. Sick with want and sick with ache and sick with Draco's mind disease, like maybe it was communicable after all.
Harry was aware of how he should feel. He should be disgust and appalled. Repulsed. He should be calling the authorities and getting everyone some counseling. But he wasn't doing any of those things. He had an important decision to make and logic and morality seemed to have taken their leave of him.
Harry was only able to decide on one point: he loved Draco. Unconditionally. He realized that Draco had changed. Harry no longer saw Draco as he used to, as the mischievous Slytherin, the sarcastic aristocrat, the devastatingly beautiful blond. Draco seemed older now. Jaded and bruised.

But Harry still loved him.

~~~

The first day of classes after winter break had been a disaster. The anticipation Harry felt was choking him. He and Draco had set 4 A.M. as when they would meet. It was 3:55.

Draco was pacing expectantly across the floor as Harry entered the room and threw down his invisibility cloak. In an instant he was in Draco's arms.

Draco was smiling his beaming smile. Harry couldn't remember the last time he had seen it. Draco laughed as they embraced and lifted Harry off the ground a bit in his excitement. Harry felt like he was with the old Draco again, the one he first fell in love with.

They fell onto the bed, Draco showering kisses over Harry's face. Harry felt the unmistakable feeling of happiness well up inside of him before it occurred to him why it hadn't been there in the first place. "How's your mother, Draco," he asked soberly.
The smile slipped from Draco's lips, he sniffed sharply, composed himself. The question had caught him off-guard.

"She, uh, she couldn't even look at me," he said, his voice only too eloquent of sorrow. "She tried. But as soon as Father and I walked through the door, she burst into tears and went upstairs to pack her things." Draco threw himself back on the bed, facing the ceiling.
"Are she and your father separating?"
"They won't get a divorce. Wouldn't bode well for the family image, people would ask questions. But she'll be staying with her cousin until she can live with father and I again, if she's ever able to."
"So," Harry began hesitantly. "She was gone during the entire two weeks?"

Draco shot an abrupt glare at Harry, but it melted away quickly and Draco looked back to the ceiling. "Yes," he said.
"And did your father, or did you, I mean..."
"Yes," Draco breathed.
"But why?" Tears were threatening to spill from Harry's eyes, they were burning. "Did he force you?" "Harry, I told you why. And he's never forced me, never made me. Had I showed any resistance he would have stopped. I could have told him 'no'.
"Then why didn't you?"
"Because I wanted it. I've always loved it, I told you that. Harry." Draco sat up and pulled Harry close to him.
Harry couldn't stop the tears that squeezed from his eyes as he kissed Draco over and over again. "I love you," he said.
"I know, Harry."

Harry wiped his tears from his face. "After you graduate," he said with a shaky voice. "Once you turn eighteen, you'll be leaving Malfoy Manor, won't you?"
"Why would I do that? Harry, there's no reason to. I'm my father's only heir, the Manor comes to me, I'll live there all my life."
"And I won't ever be with you again."
"Of course not. Did you really think you would be?"

Harry shook his head. "No, but I still wanted it," he said. Draco was kissing him. Long and tortured kisses. Another stream of tears leaked from Harry's eyes.
"I can't," he said. "Draco, I can't do this anymore."
He stood, Draco remained seated.

As Harry grabbed his invisibility cloak and reached for the door, Draco spoke.
"I love you, Harry."

Harry stopped for just a moment, his head resting on the stone wall. His tears were flowing freely from beneath his closed eyes. "I know," he whispered.

Harry opened the door, and walked out.

~End