Chapter Text
Draco looms above the astronomy tower, swaying with everything running through his head. The wind blairs, sharp. The hair on his neck standing. He can see Bellatrix in the corner of his eyes, breathing into his neck. Few other death eaters nearby, watching him. He doesn't acknowledge them.
Because all he sees is Dumbledore. He feels too dark, inside out.
That old man is telling him something, offering him help. Too late to turn back now.
‘Do it Draco’, he can hear the faint sound of Bellatrix near his ear. Soft, poisonous.
He clutches the wand tighter in place, raised at Dumbledore.
He wants to. He should. But he can't. His body doesn't obey. The thought of the green flash making him spin.
He shudders at the thought. But of course Snape is here. Already in the action. He hears it– Avada kadavra. And Dumbledore falls off the tower. He can't see or think anymore. Everyone is screaming and running now. So he follows. Or someone pushes him. He doesn't know.
Bellatrix's high pitched screeching voice is ringing through the corridors. He can't make out any other voices at that moment, until that too familiar grating voice plunges in his ears.
Potter is calling after Snape. ‘Fuck! What does he want? Did he see me? Did he.. fuck’. Harry whirls around a corner and grabs on to Draco. “You filth!” he screams, pushing Draco, his skull hitting the wall. The wand nearly slipped off his hand. He struggles pointing it at Harry and screams protego. Potter isn't far with his expelliarmus.
Their bodies go rigid with the force of something unknown to both the boys, so does the air around them. It spins, the curses colliding together, blue and green fusing together in front of them. Something pulls at them all at once then Draco doesn't remember anything afterwards.
When he wakes up someone is near him. His chest aching as he clutches it. He doesn't say anything and he can't work his mouth. Potter has no such problems –the person near him– “what.. What did you do to me?”, the voice has nothing but fury in it. Confusion swarms through him. He doesn't know. He didn't do anything. “I didn't… no.. nothing.”, he gasps out at last. Potter's eyes are boring into his own. And he glares back reciprocating the same emotion.
There is a faint sound of footsteps coming their way. The dark figure looms above them, their cloak moving with wind. “You pathetic fools”, –Snape.
Of course Snape. Potter nearly jumps at him, but he falls back clutching his chest. Good, he has the pain too. Draco could feel something was off. A difference in his magical self. “Sir… i think we …”, he was trying to voice his thoughts but potter had other plans. He screams expelliarmus at the top of his lungs at Snape, that moron! with no working brain. Snape merely flicks it away. Then stunning him once he was unbearable.
But that's where everything changed. Not only was Potter stunned, Draco too. He was trying to get up but couldn't. He was stunned like Potter. That seemed to make all the sense into Draco. They were bound. Cursed more like it. By themselves?! Well nothing goes well with potter around.
Snape seems to have taken notice too, as he quickly runs a recognition charm over them. He takes off the stunning charm and opens his mouth but Potter intervenes, “what the hell is this? How dare you!”. Snape sighs. “Calm it for a second Potter”. But Potter is unrelenting.
“Follow me now you two.”, he says at last and walks away. Potter is fuming and moving about without coming along.
Draco is already 10 feet away when a scorching pain pulls him down. He falls to the ground and twists in pain. Potter a few feet away looked the very same.
He blacks out.
When he woke up again he was in the headmaster's room. McGonagall’s voice nearby. Snape too. Potter sitting in the seat unmoving and too silent. Snape motions Draco to the seat across Potter and he sits down, chugging the water snape conjured for him.
“You two have been bonded. Bound by souls to be precise”. Snape states plainly as if reading out the front page of the daily prophet.
Potter looks horrified, his mouth hanging open. Wide eyed, and pale. Draco had worked out they were bonded, he wasn't an imbecile as Potter. But soul bound? How would that even happen?
“How come professor, how would we be soul bound without any curse? We were in the middle of a fight for sure but..”, he asks. “Yes you were merely fighting, but the magic you unleashed out of fury and despair and shame collided. It had no place to dissipate to, so it fused and bound you for life.”, he finished as if that explains everything.
The room was silent. Potter is silent again as he processes the news. McGonagall was pacing the room, the first time he had ever seen the lady in such distress. “We must act quickly. What do you think, Severus? Mr Malfoy can't stay at Hogwarts now. The news will spread. And the body…Dumbledore. The aurors will be here soon. You two have to go”. Snape stares at McGonagall with no emotion but the question visible in his eyes. “I know Severus, I'm not a fool. You and Dumbledore have had many of your own secrets, I'll reside by that for now. Now you must take these boys and keep them safe. I'm trusting you with this Severus. I'm trusting you with him”.
Draco knew she was talking about the kill. They all did. But to trust Snape with Potter's life is …a far stretch. Snape also seems to agree. But he continues on with the situation. Until Potter is finally awakened from his slumber. And he lashes out. “Undo this now!” He screams. “He is a murderer professor. I'm not trusting my life or anybody's at his hands.” He is throwing his hands around. The chair backing up and scratching the wooden floor. He stands and stalks right in front of Snape. “I'm not agreeing to anything you say.” Draco is tired; he just wants to go home –the manor, not home anymore.
Potter's agitating loud and obnoxious noise is stirring up his whole being's ability to control itself.
This time it's McGonagall who speaks up. “Potter you don't understand. The bond can't be undone now, we have to study it first. It's fluctuations and growth and the effect it has on you before we can even think of undoing it. So for the meantime you and Mr Malfoy have to stay together, you can't even stay 10 feet away from each other, as you may have noticed.”
Potter simply gapes and starts moving his hands around at a loss for words. Finally admitting defeat he plops down his head in his hands.
Bound to Potter for life, there is nothing more tragic.
“Professor… How soon can you undo it?” Potter asks, Draco himself was dying to know. He looks at Snape expectantly. If this goes sideways he is better off dead than having to live with Potter. This will get worse. Half the people want to kill Potter, the other half want to kill Draco when the events of tonight are spread.
“We can't know for sure, for now I suggest you two stay at Malfoy manor.” What?! Potter whirls around so fast he trips over the chair.
“Excuse me?!” he pants into Snape's face. Even McGonagall looks like she is going to regret all that talking. “Severus, what are you thinking? handing Potter over to him directly is less awful”, “Professor you cannot be serious! Potter at manor?”, he can't help but make his own remark. “I mean potter! He will be dead in no time. If that didn't affect me, we could've thought through but…” he only meant a joke but the glare from potter is enough to burn a man alive. “And father he won't..” his voice cracks as he tries to finish the sentence. Lucius would bring out Potter to the dark lord even if it meant killing his own son. His pride is all that he cares for. “Professor, father won't let this go the way we think. Unless we plan to hide it, it's still reckless.”
Snape sighs, finally opting to sit down. “Your mother will help. She will let us in. Then we only have a few things to worry about.” Mother will help out. But that's putting her in danger.
He can't do that. “I refuse”, he says as coolly as possible. “We find somewhere else. I could just stay here. Isn't that the best? Aurors will look for me but you can hide me here. And Potter can also, without him going missing and the whole Britain causing ruckus after his sudden absence.”
“Hogwarts will be infiltrated by death eaters, students won't be safe.”
“Then Grimmauld Place—”, McGonagall cuts in. “The wards would reject Draco”, snaps Snape sharply without letting her finish. “Malfoy Manor’s wards were built for blood magic. Its foundations can keep them unknown until I find a way to break it. It is the safest place I can think of for this situation. Also I can work beside them.”
There is a long uncomfortable silence.
Potter rethinking his life choices, if he has the ability to think. He is paced out.
A few feet away McGonagall, pursing her lips frowning as she thought it over.
“It really is one place he won't look for Potter”, that seems to have done the job. She nods curtly once. “Fuck”, potter mutters under his breath and plops down. It doesn't even cover the beginning of this. The shithole they were pulled into.