55Chapter 36: R 2: She Is Back
Rape, part two: She Is Back
"Harry, I need to speak with you—in private."
Harry furrowed his brow when he saw the stern expression on Draco's face. Timothy and Jonas, whom had been walking right behind him, stopped as well. They had come to visit them again, just a social call this time, to see that everything was all right and moving in the direction they desired. The blonde had obviously not expected them there, so his mouth fell open in surprise at the sight of their guests.
"It's okay, we were just about to leave anyway," Timothy said, bowing his head slightly before opening the portal before himself and his soul mate. They stepped inside before Draco could object.
Once he was alone with Harry, he did not know what to say. How should he break the news to him? He remembered Harry's words all too well: We shouldn't have any more children since I'm already so stacked up in work, it wouldn't be fair to them. Nor would it be fair to the ones we already have, because they would no longer get my full attention.
The raven-haired man regarded him with guarded curiosity. It was amazing how he looked not a day older than twenty. That Infinity Potion sure did work as it should! Piper had administered the potion to every adult witch and wizard willing to take it, and the Ministry was said to be working on some sort of law that would make it compulsory to take the potion at the age of twenty—which, by the way, was the age limit. But Dark witches and wizards were not granted the potion, of course.
The raven-haired man studied him quizzically, patiently waiting for him to go on. But when he did not tell him what was on his mind, he sighed and sat down in a chair. He slapped his hands down in his lap and looked at the blonde expectantly. "Do you think it will be easier for you to lighten your heart if you sit in my lap?" he wondered lightly.
Draco went over to him and sat down as instructed, with his head resting against Harry's shoulder and neck. He could smell the scents of Harry's natural, unperfumed hair and skin products.
"I … something's happened," he began uncertainly, not knowing quite how to continue. He felt Harry stiffen beneath him and knew he had to convey that it was not anything bad that had happened. "It should be a good thing, really. I mean, I see it as a good thing, but … But you said we shouldn't have any more … With your work and you being sworn to the Order and everything … And Piper didn't even scheme this time," he found himself finishing off with, and he even confused himself with that odd monologue.
Harry shifted slightly in his seat. "Er, okaaay … and what exactly does all that mean?"
"That I'm … I'm … pregnant."
He waited for the reprimand that was sure to come. Already he saw Harry's furious, reddish face in his mind's eye, and it was screaming that he was a stupid, ignorant git who never listened to a word he said—
"—happy to assist you."
He realised that Harry had been saying something and that he had not been listening very well. Frowning, he said, "I'm sorry, my mind wandered there for a bit. What did you say, baby?"
"I said it doesn't surprise me that Piper should lure the Priberty Potion into you at a time like this, because she has no regard for other people's lives whatsoever, but I don't blame her for it. It's all right. It's already been done, and job or no job, I would love to become a father again, you know that. I love our family, and I love it every time it grows bigger, save for her monster children …
"But that's another story, really. Anyway, I will do my best to be a part of it this time, and not just during the last three months; I will be there for you this time. And I know that during the times I won't be able to help you, Ron and Jonathan will be happy to assist you."
Wow. He said all that while my mind was drifting? Draco thought, impressed. But then he shook his head to clear it of daydreams and suchlike.
"No, Harry, you haven't been listening to what I've told you. Piper had nothing to do with this …"
Harry stiffened slightly. His face became stern, and his cheeks were turning pink with anger. "You did this? When I specifically asked you not to plot any more children behind my back?"
Draco flinched. "Since when have I been plotting children behind your back? Do you have any idea how ruddy insensitive and incredibly selfish you sounded just now? I have not been plotting behind your back, Harry, and I haven't taken any potion, either. I haven't done anything. Now do you understand why I'm so hesitant about discussing this with you? I knew you'd react like this. You've turned into some sort of overachieving workaholic, and you won't let anything get in the way of your career. I knew you'd yell at me if I told you I was pregnant … I knew you wouldn't listen …"
He got up and began to walk away, feeling beat and broken.
He hated Dumbledore then. The old fart had stolen his husband from him. Harry had changed since he accepted the job at Hogwarts, and it saddened Draco. He was no longer sure that their life would ever go back to what it once was. Before, they had spent every day together, and they had shared every night with joyous enthusiasm. Now Harry could only spare his weekends, and hardly even that anymore. Sure, he was home at the Manor between Friday afternoon and Sunday night, but he was often immersed in work, correcting essays or such. Planning the lessons for the following week. And at night, he was often too weary to bother with sex.
Draco was starting to feel put aside, as if he did not matter to Harry anymore. And he was starting to feel unhappy with himself, because if he could not even turn on his husband anymore there certainly must be something wrong with him.
It was a miracle he had even got close enough to Harry to get pregnant again to begin with, and the saddest thing was that he could pinpoint the exact moment when it must have happened. Three weeks and two days back, a Thursday night, 7.34, and it had been raining. When had he ever been able to remember one particular night like that? Their nights had always been a nice repetition of the night before, filled with intimacy and love.
But now …
"Draco."
He forced himself to keep going. He did not want to hear it.
"Draco, please wait just one minute."
Draco stopped, but he did not turn around. If Harry could not even get up from the chair it was not worth turning around to look at him. He did not deserve that kind of attention.
"Do you mean to tell me that we've … that you got pregnant without the help of the Priberty Potion?" he asked in astonishment.
Draco sighed. Was that all he had heard?
"Yes, I am. But since you changed your mind so quickly after learning I was the villain in this pathetic drama of yours, I guess I should make an appointment at St Mungo's first thing in the morning. You won't have to return to your precious work with the awful knowledge of having another baby on the way; I'll take care of everything for you. Quietly, mind. Wouldn't want to alert the press, would we?"
Sighing anew, he left the room and fled to the third floor library. Something died in him when Harry did not even come after him. Did he really care that little for Draco nowadays? That he could not even bring himself to row with him anymore? Maybe all was lost, then.
Harry would return to Hogwarts early tomorrow night, and Draco was surprised to find that he was actually relieved that he was going. But then the tears began to stream down his cheeks, spotting his robes. Defeated, and feeling incredibly small, he crawled into a corner and curled up in the foetal position, desperately hugging himself.
A frightening thought crossed his mind.
I'm losing him …
"Why didn't you go after him?"
Harry started and swirled around in his seat. Timothy was towering over him, and the expression on his face was grave and accusatory. The burning anger was apparent in his features. He looked so much like Draco that it was eerie.
Harry did not know what to say.
The boy suddenly leant in closer and loomed just above Harry's head. Harry jerked involuntarily.
Timothy took hold of his lower arms. "Listen, you idiot!" he hissed in a voice so contorted by wrath and contempt that Harry began to fear that his son had for some reason swapped places with Bond.
"I am trying to save you from the ultimate loss, and you are not even appreciating my efforts! Do you know how straining it is for me to always keep a watch on you whilst tending to all my other duties? Do you? I have worked hard to prevent certain things from happening to you because I couldn't stand seeing you so defeated and bereft of everything that you loved—and you push Draco away as easily as you scrath your nose! Can't you even see what is happening? Huh? Can't you even see that you're hurting him?"
Harry just stared at him in fright. He had no idea what 'certain things' Timothy was referring to, but he knew all too well why he was criticising him. He had let Draco go when he should have comforted him. But he was just so tired …
"Tired?" the boy echoed, as if he had read his mind. "Tired?! How can you be too tired to console your own husband?! Harry, I don't believe you! You have become nothing but a pathetic, self-centred moron who doesn't even see what's happening in his own life! You need to go to him, don't you understand that? He is crying, Harry. Crying. I can feel it, and it's tearing me apart. This wasn't supposed to happen again, I should've prevented it by now … but no, your will to destroy yourself and everyone around you was just that strong."
"What are you talking about?" Harry inquired indignantly. "What is it that wasn't supposed to happen? And what do you mean 'again?'"
The boy let go of him and stood back up, turning his back to him. With a deep sigh, he lifted his right hand to rub his tired eyes. "In the past that I lived through—your future—my parents were slowly drifting apart. It took more than a decade, but eventually they were forced to admit to themselves that they had lost everything that once bound them together. They had let everything deteriorate so much that they didn't even know each other anymore. One day they just realised that they didn't love each other anymore, that they hadn't for many years. Or so they thought.
"The reason for this? Harry chose work over his family. Always. I've spent all my free time trying to prevent this, because I figured that it would indirectly mean that I prevented the end as well … but I failed, didn't I? It's already happening. You're already choosing work over Draco, aren't you?
"Do you know that his heart is slowly growing cold, Harry? Are you aware that you are slowly breaking him down and turning him into an emotionless wreck, unable to feel anything at all? Will you be able to live with yourself if you rob him of everything that ever mattered to him—again? Will you?"
Once again, Harry did not know what to say. He had a feeling this had not been part of the blond boy's original plan. He had not intended to tell them anything about his intentions, or about the future that he was trying to change, but when he saw that his plan was not working, he had changed his strategy.
"Draco …" The name escaped his tongue before he even realised that he had opened his mouth to utter it.
Timothy turned around to face him again. The anger was gone from his face, and now sorrow and misery was reflected in his green eyes. "Harry, you need to contemplate your life—thoroughly. You need to sort out your priorities and decide what is most important to you. And please … do it soon. Before it is too late to take it back. I know the Harry I grew up with didn't want to hurt Draco, or his children, but he took his promise to Dumbledore way too seriously. I'm not sure he should've made that promise in the first place, because ultimately it destroyed his marriage and drove his son to the Dark Lord."
When Timothy saw that Harry flinched at this, he forced a faint smile. Only the shadow of a smile. "Don't take it too personally, father. You are not the Harry that I am talking about. As soon as I made the first intervention in your lives, I created a kind of alternate reality. It is not an alternate reality in the sense that you might think—not at all like the Parallel Universes you have experience of—but a world only existing in the future.
"The life that I have led still exists, and it will until you reach the day on which I began my journeys. If I have succeeded to change anything by then, those events will take the place of the events that I originally experienced, and the Harry that you would've become if I had not ventured into the past will cease to exist and you will take his place. But if I fail … everything will remain just the way it has always been, and all my efforts will have been in vain.
"Please, Harry, don't screw this up for me. You have no idea what will come to pass if you choose the same path as your future self chose. If you …" He fell silent, obviously trying to find the right words. "If you keep choosing your work over Draco, if you don't start spending more time with your family … Draco will die, Harry. This is not something I'm making up just to motivate you; this is the truth. And I don't want him to die."
Harry stared at the boy's tear-filled green eyes and his trembling lower lip. Suddenly weak and trembling himself, he carefully got up from his chair. Taking a step towards his son, he whispered, "Draco's going to die? When? How?" It was too painful to even consider.
The boy lowered his gaze. "I cannot tell you. I'm not even supposed to tell you this much. If I give you too much information about the future, you might go about doing stupid things to change certain events and only winding up making things worse—for everyone. But if you're not careful, you will lose everything that you love, Harry. My father … the Harry that I remember from my childhood … he would always prioritise his school duties, he would always put those kids first, and he forgot about his own children, about his husband …
"Harry and Draco drifted apart, but they never separated. They stayed together for the sake of their children—for us. But not even then did Harry realise the severity of his situation—not until it was too late. It wasn't until he held Draco's body in his arms that he realised how much he had lost by devoting his life to the Order. It wasn't until then he realised that he still loved Draco as much as he ever had, but then it was too late to make up for his mistakes. Draco was already dead.
"Only recently he asked me for a chance to speak to Draco one last time, to ask him if he blamed him for his death and everything that had come between them, but Draco told him that he didn't blame Harry for anything. He still loved him. Nothing had changed between them. It was a small comfort for Harry, but he still couldn't get his husband back, and it had taken him more than two years to even work up the courage to ask me that favour. After that meeting, he made me promise to save him. He has faith in me still, and he believes that I'll be able to change the past and erase all his darkest memories, but you are screwing it up for me."
Hearing the truth so bluntly spoken made Harry's heart break into a million pieces. As the picture of his possible future started to develop in his mind, he realised that he had been a jerk. He was a fool for not seeing what he was doing to his family. And he would put a stop to it before it was too late.
"Where is he?" he asked simply, not willing to accept the possibility that Draco would die just yet. Right now, he needed to focus on the present and make sure that he did not leave the Manor with Draco hating him again.
"The library," Timothy replied with certainty.
Harry found the door closed—they always left it ajar—and entered without knocking. At first glance, the room appeared to be deserted. "Draco?" he called uncertainly.
A tiny sob came from the innermost part of the library.
Harry felt a stab of pain as he hurried through the maze of bookcases until he found the blonde in a shivering heap on the floor. He looked as if he was having a seizure of some kind.
Terrified, Harry ran up to him and knelt beside him. "Draco, baby, I am so sorry," he said desperately as he put his arms around the blonde in a protective embrace. "I'm sorry. I should've come after you the moment you rushed out of the parlour. No. I should've listened to you and discussed the matter with you like an adult instead of driving you away like that. You shouldn't've had to run away crying at all.
"And I'm embarrassed and ashamed to admit that it didn't even cross my mind afterwards … it was Timothy who made me realise that you need me now. Like you've always needed me, and like I've always needed you. I can't believe I actually forgot about that, and I'm glad he made me realise my mistake before it was too late."
He fell silent when he noticed that Draco had stiffened in his grasp. A new fear crept up on him. "It isn't too late, is it?" he now asked Draco.
The blonde could not find his voice for several minutes, but when he did, he managed to soothe Harry like he himself never had. "It's not too late, Harry. You're just on time. Letting it wait until the next weekend you decided to spend with me would've been too late."
The bitterness in his voice effectively killed something within Harry, but he chose to ignore it for the time being. Instead, he held Draco closer, allowing him to continue.
"I was so scared when I found out …" he whispered, tears once again blurring his vision, emotion thickening his voice. "You've been so cold to me lately … I thought our arrangement would work, with you coming home each weekend … but lately you haven't been home much, not even when you've actually been here. Your mind's always been someplace else. And that hurts. I want you to be here with me, I want you to see me and only me when you're here, and I want to be your first priority. Always. I know I should tell you to consider your children your first priority, but … I want them to come second. Is that selfish of me?"
"No, it's not selfish of you," Harry comforted, and smoothed the blonde's hair. "You have all the right in the world to claim me for yourself—I'm your husband, I should always think of you first. I realise now that I've been neglecting you—again. But that will stop now. I won't allow myself to do that anymore, because if I do—" He recalled that he could not tell Draco that he would die. That would only upset him. So, instead, he said, "I will lose you."
Draco snuggled closer into the embrace. "Will you start by promising me one thing?"
"Sure, anything."
"Quit your job."
Harry stiffened. "What?"
"Quit your job. Move back home. It's simple, really. Just come back to me."
Harry withdrew from him a bit. "But I can't do that, they need me—"
"I need you!" the blonde shouted, suddenly furious with him. "I need you, we need you! Doesn't that mean anything to you at all? You just said you'd promise me anything. Were you lying, Harry?"
"N-no, I wasn't lying, I just … I have an obligation to Dumbledore and the Order, and—"
Draco snorted and scrambled up to his feet. "You have an obligation," he said scornfully. "Of course you have an obligation to that old lummox. But what about your obligation to me? I married you, Harry, I married you although I'd promised myself never to marry anyone. I didn't need it. But when you asked me … when you proposed to me …" He did not finish the sentence. Instead, he just shook his head sadly. "Never mind. It doesn't matter to you anyway."
He left the library at a run, but this time Harry did not make the same mistake again. He ran after him, persistently and insistently calling his name. But Draco locked himself in their bedroom and refused to open the door. Harry could not open it with the Alohomora Spell or any other unlocking spell he knew.
"Fuck!"
Why did he always have to screw up? Why could not he just do the right thing for once?
Suddenly, someone grabbed his collar from behind and jerked him towards the wall. He slammed into the wall next to the bedroom door, and an excruciating pain shot through his shoulder and spread to his neck, right arm, back, and chest. A small cry escaped him.
"I thought I told you to make up with him!" a fierce, hoarse voice snarled in his ear.
Harry jerked his head around. "Timothy?" he said, astounded.
"Shut up!" the boy warned, and pressed him harder against the wall. Harry protested in pain. "You don't have any right to call me that if you can't even be good to my Daddy! You're a lousy, lying, cheating, self-absorbed, good-for-nothing arse and you can't do anything right! You're pathetic, a failure! And you've made me a failure, too."
His harsh words cut into Harry like samurai swords.
Timothy pressed his entire body weight against Harry, putting most of the pressure on his neck.
"Timmy, please, I can't breathe—"
"Shut up!"
The bedroom door flung open and Draco came flying out. "What the Hell are you doing?!" He threw himself on Timothy's back and tried to prise him off Harry, but the boy was too strong. Almost superhumanly strong.
Harry did not get it. Why was he attacking him? This was not their son … this was not the mild, melancholy Time Manipulator they had known for so long … This was someone else—or something else. But who? What?
"Let go of him!" Draco demanded, growling deep down in his throat.
"No! Not until he tells you he's sorry!" Timothy shouted.
Harry heard a strange wheezing sound and wondered who had brought in an asthmatic, but then he realised it was his own strained breathing he heard. Small black dots was dancing at the edges of his vision. His lungs were screaming for air, and his head was beginning to feel heavy. His legs were giving out.
"No!" Draco pulled more persistently at Timothy's arms and finally managed to prise him off Harry. The raven-haired man fell to the floor with his hands clasped around his sore neck, desperately gasping for air. Draco forced the boy to back away from him.
"What the Hell are you doing to my Harry?!" he shrieked in the boy's ear. "Are you trying to widow me? Huh? Have you lost your mind just like your sister?"
At the mentioning of Joz, Timothy suddenly became limp in Draco's grasp, as if all his strength had been drained away. He sank to the floor. His forehead almost touched the floor when he said, "What is she doing to me?" It was only a faint whisper, but both Draco and Harry heard him more than clearly.
Draco blinked in confusion. "Who?"
Timothy began to cry. "I thought I had stopped her … I thought I was free of her … but killing her wasn't enough, was it?" he asked, but the question did not seem to be directed at them.
Draco knelt beside him. Hesitantly, trembling, he put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Timothy, what are you talking about? Who have you killed?"
Harry was amazed at the calm in his voice. He would not have managed to ask such a question with so much warmth and love and understanding. The truth was, he was a bit afraid of Timothy at that moment.
The boy took a few deep breaths to collect himself. "In the future, where I come from, I was enslaved," he told them with a raspy, exhausted, and very bitter voice. "You remember how I was, don't you? I did everything for her, everything she asked me …"
Yes, they both remembered. Back when they had first got to know him, he had been a very troubled boy, indifferent and sleepy-looking, almost emotionless. The sadness that was so often reflected in his stunning green eyes was not entirely a product of everything that he had seen as a Time Manipulator during his sixteen years of walking the earth, but also because of 'Her.' 'She' had inflicted it on him. But he had never told them who 'She' was.
Timothy began to shudder badly. "I even killed for her," he admitted pathetically.
Draco jolted. When he looked up at Harry, there was fear and realisation in his silver eyes. But Harry could not see what he had seen, so he just waited for Timothy to continue.
"I … I didn't know what I was doing, because she always had me under her spell. She made me cold and mechanical. Like some kind of robot. Or a puppet. She'd pull my strings and I'd dance for her. Only hers was a preference for a deadly dance that I performed without even questioning the morals in killing one's own kin."
Draco fell back against the wall opposite the one Harry was leaning against. The expression on his face betrayed that he already knew what Timothy would say next. And Harry thought that he was beginning to understand as well.
Tears were silently rolling down the boy's face. Drip, drip. "She made me kill everyone. I think … I think it was after I found out that she'd killed Blaise … I caught her in the act, and I knew she'd kill me, too, to prevent me from telling anyone what she had done to Blaise."
"Blaise?" Harry echoed. "But that's impossible. Draco killed Blaise …"
The blonde gasped in shock. Neither of them had ever said that aloud since Piper had managed to straighten out Draco's multiple personalities.
Harry instantly regretted uttering that statement. "Oh, I'm sorry, Dracums, I didn't mean to say it like that, I was just pointing out that this woman couldn't possibly have killed Blaise since … since we know otherwise. Sorry, babe."
Before Draco could answer him, Timothy continued. "I wasn't talking about Blaise Zabini," he protested. He looked at Draco's still-flat belly with an eerie, confirming look in his eyes. "I was talking about Blaise Malfoy."
Draco looked as if he had just been struck in the face. "Ho-how did you … How did you know that I wanted to name the baby Blaise if it's a boy?" he wondered weakly.
Stupid question. Timothy was from the future, so he would obviously know his baby brother's name. This confirmed something very important to Draco, and he turned to Harry and smiled. That smile witnessed that everything that had been about to destroy their marriage was forgotten and forgiven.
Harry had not forced him to give up the baby.
They turned to Timothy anew, and he reluctantly resumed his recounting of the past that they would eventually know as their future, if nothing was done to prevent it.
"So she began to make me her slave … she created a special ring that would enable her to practice her unusual powers on me. I carried it around my neck for eight years. Two years ago—in my time, that is— when Harry went into war against Lord Pywercaseley, she made me kill them … all of them … First, she just wanted me to kill the small ones, the easy ones, because they were in her way. Touma was first."
Touma, Piper and Yousuke's youngest son, now two years old.
"But why did she call them 'the small ones?'" he pondered aloud. "Touma must've been thirteen, right? He's one year younger than you. And Takashi's the same age as you, and Natsumi is three years older than you …"
Timothy met his eyes with regret. "I know. But you see, Touma was never allowed to grow up."
"What do you mean? Of course he must have grown up, he's—"
"No." Timothy firmly shook his head. "Piper was always very protective of little Touma because he was her youngest, and he was … well, he was simply very cute and very innocent. Always smiling. So she tried her best to always keep a watch on him. That only resulted in him sneaking away more than children usually do, and Touma was very clever. When he was five, he somehow managed to get inside Piper's secret potion storage, and he drank a fair deal of Infinity Potion.
"Since he was too young to take it, and drank such a large quantity of it, he stayed five for the rest of his life. So, you see, he was pretty easy for me to kill … Then came Takashi, as you predicted, then Natsumi, the twins … And so it went on until I had killed them all. Including Piper and Yousuke themselves. She used my powers as a Time Manipulator to get rid of all the people that she thought was standing in her way."
Harry lowered his gaze.
Draco, who had up until then sat quietly, save for his question about baby Blaise, now opened his mouth to utter the words that they had all dreaded acknowledging. "Timothy, this 'She' … It's Joz, isn't it? She's the one who's been controlling you, isn't she?"
The boy nodded.
The silence that settled between them was oppressive.
"I don't know how she did it," Timothy suddenly said, and sounded astonished and bemused.
Harry lifted his gaze once more to look at him quizzically. "What do you mean?"
"She made me attack you. I wasn't aware of her presence within my mind, but she must've found a way to enter it already, even though she is only nine years old. I have no memory of her attempting anything like that until I was eight. She wasn't supposed to use me until then, so this means that the change of events caused a chain reaction that I didn't anticipate. Being at St Mungo's apparently made no difference."
He looked up at them. "You need to tell the Healers that the medicine isn't working anymore, they need to find something else for her. If they don't … she'll continue to use me as a pawn in her game, whatever that may be. I was never able to figure out what she wanted from me."
He left them with much to contemplate that evening. He had intended to warn Harry about the chain of events that would take place if he kept putting his job before Draco and the children, but he had never intended to attempt murder. It was the second time Joz had almost succeeded to use him to kill off their parents. That revelation was rather scary.
Therefore, Sunday morning, Draco went to St Mungo's as planned, but not to get an abortion. He spoke to the Healers that were taking care of Joz for them and told them how she had begun to master mind control. They found it extremely unsettling, as did Harry and Draco, and they immediately set to work trying to find another potion to keep Joz at bay.
If they did not succeed … there would be nothing they could do. And if they could do nothing more for Josephine Fionah Potter-Malfoy, Harry knew that Timothy would find a way to deal with her personally.
He had done it once; he would do it again.
Draco did not make Harry promise to quit his job, but Harry could see that he wanted to. And to be honest … Harry wanted to quit, too. But he kept telling himself that he was doing the right thing.
Therefore, he once again went to Dumbledore first thing he came back to Hogwarts to discuss the conditions of his employment there as teacher.
Somehow, they would make it work.
Somehow …
But Timothy's words kept echoing through Harry's mind, disturbing his sleep and robbing him of his concentration in class.
If you keep choosing your work over Draco, if you don't start spending more time with your family … Draco will die, Harry.
Draco will die.