31Title: Gilded Heart
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters; I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco pre-slash
Content Notes: Angst, brief violence, Hogwarts "eighth year"
Wordcount: This part 3800
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Harry finds yet another locket that's been made into a Horcrux—except that this one is accidental and belongs to Draco Malfoy, who was in such pain after the war that he wished his heart away. Now Harry is left unsure what to do when Malfoy refuses to take his heart back.
Author's Notes: Another of my "From Samhain to the Solstice" fics, for a request about what would happen if Draco accidentally hid his heart. This will have two parts, the second to be posted tomorrow.
Gilded Heart
Harry shook his head as he stepped into the Room of Requirement. As annoying as it was, it seemed that each time he came into the Room now, something buzzed and nagged at the edge of his attention. It was especially irritating since Harry came here to get some peace from the stares that followed him around the castle.
But the Room looked the same as it always did when he conjured this particular iteration of it: softly lit and filled with a single gigantic squashy sofa, a blazing fireplace, a table covered with Harry's favorite foods, and blankets that were red with the Gryffindor lion on them in gold. Harry took the sofa and sprawled out on it, eating a piece of treacle tart that the table shifted towards him to offer his fingers. He leaned back.
His elbow rammed into something cold and hard.
"Shit!" Harry snapped, sitting up and whipping the blanket back. A locket stared up at him from beneath the pillow. It was small and a brilliant gold, with a swan on the front. The swan might have been made of diamond or quartz for all Harry knew. He wasn't good at jewels.
Harry sighed and picked up the locket. The Room of Requirement had been damaged in the Battle of Hogwarts, what with all the Fiendfyre blazing around inside it. He supposed he was lucky he hadn't had more malfunctions before now.
The minute his fingers touched the locket's chain, though, they buzzed, and Harry snatched his hand back with his eyes narrowed. That particular buzz made an old ache appear in his scar.
This locket was…
Harry tentatively touched the chain again, and hissed. It didn't make him hurt the way Voldemort's possessions had, but there was no mistaking that twinge in his forehead. This locket was a Horcrux.
Harry floated the thing into the air with magic and studied it skeptically. No way to tell who that swan crest belonged to, no way to tell whose it was. Maybe it was even a student who had left Hogwarts a long time ago and was now drifting around as a bodiless wraith somewhere, waiting for rescue that wasn't ever going to come.
But how did it survive the Fiendfyre if it was?
Harry frowned. He couldn't be sure that the Fiendfyre had touched all corners of the Room of Requirement. It might only have affected the one where everything was hidden.
After some thought, he asked, "Could I get a safe place to store a Horcrux?"
A space opened immediately in the wall nearest him. Harry studied it, then added, "I would like steel to sheathe the inside instead of stone."
The Room shut the door of the safe and opened it again when it had been rearranged. Harry cast the Horcrux into the space, asked the Room to make the safe inaccessible to everyone except him, and watched in satisfaction as the door clanged shut on it.
That should hold it until he decided what to do about the bloody thing, and prevent it from possessing anyone if it was capable of that.
Deciding what to do about a Horcrux. Just exactly what I wanted to do after the war.
"Has Malfoy always acted that strangely?"
Harry thought his question would get at least a little interest, since Malfoy had acted really strange today: distracted and staring off into the distance, snapping at Parkinson when she tried to interact with him, and not eating. But Hermione didn't raise her head from her book, and Ron waved a lazy hand from where he sat in front of the fire.
"Who knows why Malfoy does anything?" Ron flipped a card and then laughed as the ones in front of Seamus ignited. "I win!"
"Damn it!" Seamus threw his cards across the room. Hermione shifted so that the sparking one coming towards her didn't scorch the pages of her book.
"Oi! That's my girlfriend, mate!"
"Maybe you shouldn't win all the Exploding Snap games, then!"
Harry rolled his eyes. "No, I mean it. He acted like he'd got a giant shock or something. His father hasn't died in Azkaban, has he?"
"You care too much about Malfoy, Harry," Ginny muttered, leaning her head back on Dean's lap. She and Harry had broken up without too much fuss after the war, and Harry could watch her like this and just hope she was happy. Well, happy and awake enough to answer his Malfoy question. "Don't stalk him like you did in sixth year, that's all I ask."
"I turned out to be right—"
Ginny faked a snore. Harry tried to keep talking, and Dean put a finger to his lips and scowled at Harry.
Harry rolled his eyes. "I think that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."
"Your standards for ridiculous are low, Harry." Hermione finally popped her head up from the book. "Who cares why he does anything now? You don't have to worry about him. He'll find redemption or he won't."
"I just think there might be something wrong with him." I think he might have created a Horcrux wouldn't go over well.
"Then ask him about it." Ron leaned back and yawned enormously. "If you really want to go down that road of caring about what Malfoys and Slytherins think anymore. You helped his family in plenty of ways after the war. Not your fault if he's stupidly squandering the second chance you gave him."
Harry closed his eyes and said nothing. There was nothing to be said.
Except that, somehow, he had to find out if Malfoy had a connection to that locket Horcrux.
Harry sighed and made sure that the silken cloth the Room of Requirement had given him was wrapped tightly around the locket. Then he stepped out of the corridor he'd been waiting in into Malfoy's path.
Malfoy stepped walking at once and stared at Harry with blank, glazed eyes. Harry wanted to snort to himself. Of course something was wrong with Malfoy. It shouldn't have taken him this long to notice that. Malfoy's hand waved back and forth vaguely, as if he was reaching out to clutch a wall that wasn't there. He pressed his other hand against his heart and then took it away again when he realized Harry was watching him.
"What are you doing here, Potter?" His voice was thin.
"I want to know if this is yours." Harry unwrapped the locket and held it out to him.
Malfoy merely stared at the locket much the same way that he'd stared at Harry or the corridor. It was the locket which came to life; Harry actually thought he saw the swan's pale wings beat. It rose so that it strained Harry's arm to hold onto it, pointing straight at Malfoy.
"All right, this is yours," Harry said. "Why in the world did you make one? You stupid arsehole."
Malfoy looked at him in turn. Even with the locket doing its best to get back to him, his eyes hadn't changed. "I don't know what you're talking about, Potter."
"You made a Horcrux!" Harry still kept his voice low, and saw Malfoy react for the first time. He took a step back and shook his head. For a second, his eyes flickered and revealed some hint of his personality.
"I did not!"
"I know what they feel like, and this one feels like one." Harry shook the locket, which made a chiming sound as the chain rattled. "And look at the way it's dying to reunite with you. Why in the world would you—"
"I didn't cut a piece off my soul. I didn't commit a murder."
Harry paused. He didn't have any way of being certain Malfoy was telling the truth, of course, but he remembered how reluctant Malfoy had been to hurt Dumbledore when they met on the top of the Astronomy Tower. He would have to have changed a lot before he could murder someone to create a Horcrux.
"What did you do, then?"
"I just read in a book that you can wish pain away if you concentrate on it long enough. That's what I did. I wished the pain away." Malfoy shrugged, his hands, as pale as spiders, moving so that they hung down at his sides again. "And then things were fine."
"But you can't do that!" Harry said, and glanced at the locket again. It was still pointing at Malfoy, and Harry thought it would fly straight to him if he let go of the chain.
In fact, why not try that?
Malfoy was opening his mouth to answer when Harry let go of the locket's chain. It soared like an enthusiastic bird and hit Malfoy in the jaw. He fell back, cursing, and Harry ran over to pick up the locket, wincing.
"What the hell did you do to me, Potter?"
Harry had to pause, because Malfoy's voice was more normal than he'd heard it in a while. The change hadn't been sudden, despite what he'd thought, now that he could acknowledge it. Malfoy hadn't reacted to much of anything this year, staring at everyone with glazed eyes and only talking to those who made an effort to talk to him. Harry had just thought that it was a defense mechanism to keep people from taunting him about standing trial and having his father sentenced to a year in Azkaban.
"I let the locket go, and it went to you. You created it. You made it. You should do something about it." In truth, Harry would be relieved to have Malfoy do something about it so he didn't have to.
"You hit me with a locket. I'm going to tell this to the Headmistress." Malfoy glared at Harry and, reaching out, closed his hand around the locket's chain.
It rumbled and then it sang. Harry stared, his mouth open. The swan on the front of the locket had its beak open, too. The sound seemed to reverberate in the walls and down the stones all the way to his toes.
Malfoy jerked his hand back as if it was on fire. The locket tumbled to his feet and tried to curl its chain around his feet like a puppy.
"You created this and enchanted it to follow me around? How childish are you, Potter?"
"You created this, Malfoy! You wished your heart away and it became something indistinguishable from a Horcrux, which, let me tell you—"
"I'm nothing like him!"
Malfoy spat the words with fury, and then stormed past Harry towards McGonagall's office. The locket tried to follow him, and Malfoy spun away and kicked it. It rolled to Harry's feet and lay there. Harry picked it up gingerly. He thought he could probably touch the chain now. It wasn't exactly a traditional Horcrux.
The locket rang like it had just been dropped and radiated an emotion that Harry could actually feel. It was baffled. And hurt. It had thought Malfoy would pick it up and treasure it, and take back whatever of his emotions he'd managed to wish into it.
Harry shook his head. "I should have known that it's not going to be that easy," he told the locket. "No Horcrux situation I ever handled was."
Then he realized he was talking to a locket, of all things, and sighed. He would have to carry it until he met Malfoy again. He would see if the change had been lasting when Malfoy came to dinner in the Great Hall that night.
"I am very disappointed in you for following other students around and hitting them in the jaw, Mr. Potter."
Harry rested his head in his hands. He was up in McGonagall's office, and she was regarding him with the sort of stern disapproval that had always meant something terrible was about to happen to him back when he was a normal Gryffindor.
"I already told you that I didn't, Headmistress McGonagall," Harry repeated for the fifth time. "Malfoy did this stupid thing and wished his pain away. It took form as a jeweled locket in the Room of Requirement. I actually thought it was a Horcrux at first. I let it go and it flew to him and hit him in the jaw."
"There is no spell to wish one's pain away, Mr. Potter."
Harry glanced up and shook his head. "I don't think it was a spell. I think it was really a wish. And Malfoy just wished hard enough that his magic actually obeyed him."
McGonagall studied him skeptically. She had a knitted shawl around her shoulders, and looked as though she wanted another one against the cold. It struck Harry for the first time that McGonagall was really pretty old, and she might die soon, the way Dumbledore had. He hid his own shiver by leaning back in his chair.
"Even if you found a locket that belonged to Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall finally said, her voice kind, "and he claimed that he wished his pain away, why would his pain take the form of a locket?"
"I don't know. But Headmistress, I swear—"
"I understand that you are a bit tired from studying for your NEWTS, Mr. Potter," McGonagall interrupted him. "And you appear to have thought this—locket really belonged to Mr. Malfoy. So you will not receive detention for hitting him with it, and I will only take five points from Gryffindor. But I do require that you listen to my advice."
"Yes, Headmistress?"
"Rest, Mr. Potter. Do your best to move on past your memories of the war. Perhaps you should speak with a Mind-Healer at St. Mungo's. I think you may have required something of the Room without realizing what you were doing. Perhaps a new mystery to investigate, a new intrigue to chase after? And so it gave you the locket."
Harry found himself scowling. "Headmistress, I really don't—"
"All I ask is that you consider the possibility. And please leave Mr. Malfoy alone. Even if he really believes that he has wished his pain away, such a thing is none of your business."
Harry stared at her. "But haven't you noticed how different he's been acting, Professor? The way he stares through everyone and doesn't really seem like he's there? If wishing his heart away affected him that way, how can it not be my business? Someone should do something!"
Professor McGonagall regarded him coolly. Harry replayed his words in his head and winced a little, but he didn't look down and he didn't look away. "Someone should do something," he repeated.
"You may have been right two years ago about Mr. Malfoy needing help," McGonagall said finally, her voice gentle. "But You-Know-Who is gone, and his parents are no longer in danger. It is up to him to approach you if he wants your help. In the meantime, Mr. Potter, stay out of it."
But Harry couldn't.
Malfoy's change to someone more active and actually capable of noticing things didn't last. He had glazed eyes by the afternoon of the day Harry hit him with the locket; he stared past people when they talked, barely ate, and didn't complete any of the assignments. The professors had already been treating him more coolly than they had in the past, but now they shot him harsh glances every time they asked for an essay and Malfoy didn't have it.
It was driving Harry mental.
He tried to talk to Slughorn, who he thought might have an interest in Malfoy now that his name had been cleared, but Slughorn only shook his head until his chins wobbled and said, "Eh, what? Sometimes they take the loss of their prestige hard, these pure-bloods. Nothing to be done but wait for better days."
He tried to talk to the Auror called Dawlish, who was their Defense professor this year. Dawlish only snorted and asked how Harry was telling the way Malfoy behaved from Death Eater behavior.
He asked Hermione, presenting it as Malfoy needing to do well this year so he could pass his NEWTS and have a life, and also adding the mystery about the locket because he thought it would intrigue her. Hermione told him that he should worry about his own NEWTS, the way she was doing.
Malfoy sat through one entire dinner doing nothing but staring at the wall, and Harry snapped.
Once again, Harry was waiting for Malfoy with the locket, but this time he was just around the corner from the Slytherin common room, under his Invisibility Cloak. He'd heard one pair of students mention Malfoy, but they were laughing and he wasn't with them.
And every Slytherin in existence seemed to think the corner Harry had to stand to see the common room door was the perfect place to snog.
Harry had just dodged his fourth couple when Malfoy walked slowly about the corridor. He was looking at his feet as if he had to watch where he was going on the perfectly smooth stone—no, wait, as if he had never seen them before and wanted to see them walk. Harry reached out, grabbed his arm, and dragged him towards the corner.
Malfoy turned his head slowly, like someone in a dream. Harry pressed the locket to his chest.
Malfoy gave a deep gasp, which sounded like he was in pain, and then bent over at the waist. Harry followed him down, keeping the locket pressed to his skin. Well, his shirt. He thought the skin might have been even better, but then he would have to move Malfoy's robes, and then—
He didn't want to think about it. His face was burning enough as it was. Everyone was going to say he was stupid and it was Malfoy's own choice if he wanted to sacrifice his life, or his pain, or his heart.
Harry just thought he should have the chance to see what he was giving up.
The locket hummed and sang in Harry's hands, and as far as Harry could pick up emotions from it, it was happy. It was back where it belonged. It wanted to sink into Malfoy's skin and actually become part of him again, but Harry didn't know how to make that happen, and it seemed the locket didn't, either.
Maybe it can only happen when Malfoy wants it, too. When he reverses whatever the wish was that made his pain into a Horcrux in the first place—
But Malfoy got his strength back then, and threw out a few wild punches. Harry ducked all of them, but he fell backwards, and that took the locket away from Malfoy's chest, and it also meant Harry sprawled on the floor and the Invisibility Cloak slid off him.
Malfoy promptly aimed a kick at his ribs. Harry rolled aside. He might be concerned about the git, but nothing about that was congruent with letting Malfoy kick him in the ribs.
"Potter, leave me alone. I finally have the life I want and you're trying to ruin it?"
Harry blinked and stood up, the locket dangling from his hand. This was Malfoy the way he was supposed to be, Harry was fairly sure, but nothing he was saying made sense. "How do you have the life you want?"
"My parents aren't in danger. I'm not in danger from You-Know-Who anymore. I'm not suffering every hour of the day. My pain is gone. And you want me to put it back?" Malfoy shook his head, and his hair made a little flopping noise where it struck his ears. "Leave me alone. Don't try to reverse the wish."
"Do you really have a life when you forget to eat half the time and you're going to fail all your NEWTS because you don't care enough?"
"I am not going to fail all my NEWTS!"
"Really, Malfoy? You don't do any of your essays or homework. Are you really going to care enough to study the way you have to to get good marks?"
Malfoy stared at him. "Harry Potter. Caring about my marks. That's an unexpected result of the stalking last year."
"I would do it for anyone who was stupid enough to make a fucking Horcrux!" Harry yelled, and waved the locket around.
"That is not a Horcrux." Malfoy tilted his nose back to the ceiling. "That is the answer to my wish."
"I'm sorry, Malfoy, I didn't know the greatest wish of your life was to be a clueless berk."
Malfoy hissed like an offended snake, although no words were coming to Harry's ears. Then he said, "You don't need to concern yourself with me at all. The war is done. You did your part. Go away now." He flicked his fingers at Harry as if commanding an insect to leave him alone.
"Fucking fine!" Harry dropped the locket on the floor, not caring at this point what Malfoy did with it, and turned around. He'd done his best. The git was determined to be a git and drift through life, and he could do no more.
Malfoy gasped so hard that Harry whipped back around. If the locket had hit him in the face again and he was going to complain to McGonagall—
But instead, Malfoy was holding the locket in one hand, away from his chest, and his face was contorted, his eyes shut. Harry thought he could actually see the emotions, or the pain, or whatever was really trapped in that locket, flowing from the cold metal into Malfoy. His skin had a sheen Harry hadn't realized it was missing. His fingers curled tighter and tighter around the locket, and Harry found himself holding his breath, hoping that—
Malfoy abruptly opened his eyes and tossed the locket away from him, frantically shaking his head. It struck the wall and rolled back towards him with a sad little metallic sound.
"No! No! I'm not going back to the nightmares and all the rest of it!" Malfoy shouted, and then turned and ran in the direction of the dungeons.
Harry stared at his back. Then he looked down at the locket. The sheen of the swan on the front seemed dulled; this time, all the light that came along with it seemed to have flowed into Malfoy's skin. Harry bent down and slowly picked it up. The chain wrapped his fingers as securely as he remembered Petunia wrapping Dudley's gifts.
"Well," Harry muttered, speaking to the locket because he had no one else to say it to, "I suppose we have some work ahead of us."
