Work Text:
The First Cut Is The Deepest
“Welcome, Mr. Potter, Have a seat.” Mindhealer Robinson’s freckled face beamed expectantly at him.
“Please, call me Harry.” He picked at a bit of rough skin on his thumb and looked round the office. It was more like a nook at the Weasley burrow than a room at St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. Perhaps it was charmed to resemble a space the client would find comforting. Instead of antiseptic and spell residue it smelled of furniture polish and old books, and the tea cups arranged on the low table were mismatched the way Harry liked. He settled into a squishy armchair and sighed as the cushions supported his back just right. This wasn’t what he’d expected when Hermione insisted he see a Mindhealer.
Mindhealer Robinson wasn’t what he’d expected either. Bit like a friendly owl, Harry thought, with hooded eyes peering at him through spectacles. He’d expected disgust or pity in that steady gaze but saw neither and he wondered if Mindhealers were trained not to show their feelings.
“So Harry, tell me about boggarts.” Mindhealer Robinson poured out the tea and then sat hands folded, the picture of patience.
“My boggart, you mean?” Harry asked, shifting to press his spine further into the chair.
Robinson waved a hand. “Or boggarts in general.”
“I hardly know where to begin.” Harry glanced at the door and considered making a run for it but he imagined Hermione’s disapproving face and summoned his courage. He’d known this day would come.
Harry was an Auror in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement with a stellar arrest record and two commendations for his work with Magical Creatures, but it was his non-work hours that had taught him about boggarts. Not much was known about them as a species. Newt Scamander’s classic, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, didn’t even include them. If Scamander hadn’t considered them fantastic or desirable to find, Harry disagreed.
Hideous Things by Miranda Culpepper noted that boggarts occupied dark damp spaces, took the form of one’s greatest fear, and could be repelled by the Riddikulus charm. On her first point Culpepper was only partially correct. Boggarts, Harry knew, could go out in the sun if sufficiently motivated; he’d been swimming with his on the North Yorkshire coast.
Harry supposed he was one of the few wizards who’d seen a boggart in its natural form, which was smooth and blobby like black treacle. Harry hadn’t seen it often but he liked it. And while boggarts usually took the appearance of your greatest fear, they were capable of myriad shape-shifting feats. His, for example, spent an inordinate amount of time in the form of Draco Malfoy.
He’d first encountered his boggart whilst cleaning out a bedroom at Grimmauld Place. Troubled by insomnia after the war, Harry used his nights to clean and organize. A childhood of being treated as Aunt Petunia’s house elf had left its mark on his coping mechanisms, he supposed. One evening in October he’d opened a wardrobe intending to separate Sirius’ old clothes into piles to keep, donate, and bin. Inside he met the boggart. Ron or Hermione would’ve cast a Riddikulus and been done with it but the boggart had lived at Grimmauld Place longer than Harry and it seemed unfair to evict him.
The first time he’d encountered a boggart it took the form of a dementor but Harry had done a lot of growing up since Hogwarts so this boggart mimicked Ginny Weasley. They’d broken up before the war and he’d been avoiding her since. She loved the hero he was supposed to be, not the man he’d become since. Ignoring boggart-Ginny’s accusations that he was emotionally stunted and afraid of intimacy, he sorted clothes and then shut the door on her.
The boggart didn’t mimic Ginny again and Harry braced himself for a new effort from it whenever he wanted a fresh shirt.
After a few weeks of regular boggart encounters Harry realized he liked not feeling alone in the house. His friends had thrown themselves into their post-war lives; Ron and Hermione were living together in Ottery St. Catchpole, Luna and Neville were conducting a surprisingly traditional courtship, and Seamus and Dean were buying a flat together. His own life was rather lonely by comparison.
Sharing quarters with a boggart was unexpectedly therapeutic. Harry had a liberating row with boggart-Snape, gave heartfelt apologies to boggart versions of Fred Weasley and Cedric Diggory, and shared a few choice words about his childhood with a boggart-Dumbledore. When the creature took the form of his deceased Godfather, Sirius, Harry spent an hour crying into its musty vest.
When he still hadn’t banished it by All Hallow’s Eve the boggart emerged from the wardrobe and followed him about the house. It watched telly with him in the evenings mimicking the forms it saw onscreen. As Anne Robinson it trailed him to the kitchen to say, “Harry, you leave with nothing” then proceeded to eat all his biscuits. As Michael Aspel it assessed the Black family heirlooms. “That’s worth four to six hundred galleons,” it declared, pointing to an ornate mirror. “But this….” It lifted the troll’s foot umbrella stand and pulled a face. “An historical curiosity, but no real value.”
Harry had a delightful piss-up with the boggart after they caught a few episodes of Black Books. Harry had been worried about watching a comedy, recalling that boggarts didn’t enjoy laughter. But his did all right with the pre-recorded stuff, perhaps because it wasn’t accompanied by a repelling charm.
“I will drink heavily and shout at you!” boggart-Bernard-Black slurred, taking a heavy pull from a box of cheap Merlot, its messy dark hair rivaling Harry’s own. Eventually they lay on the rug together, too drunk to move.
“I don’t mean this in a bad way,” boggart-Bernard confided around a fag, “but genetically, you are a cul-de-sac.” Harry fell asleep with a smile on his face, the stress of failed relationships far from his mind.
Things changed the week he was paired with Draco Malfoy for a case at work. French Death Eaters were making inroads into the UK and Malfoy was consulting on behalf of the Department of Mysteries. Getting past the animosity between them wasn’t easy. Malfoy was as beautiful as a marble statue and just as warm.
When his boggart first imitated Malfoy they fell into a heated row.
“You’ve such a freak, Potter!” boggart-Malfoy shouted, pushing Harry away from the wardrobe as he attempted to grab a pair of flannels. “No wonder I have to be paid by the Ministry before I’ll condescend to speak to you.”
“Shut it, Malfoy!” Harry let out the anger he’d been holding in all week. “I never wanted to be your friend anyway.”
Boggart-Malfoy closed the distance between them quickly.
“Oh you‘ve made that abundantly clear,” the boggart snapped. “Hope you enjoyed breaking an eleven-year-old’s heart after he’d waited his entire life to meet you.”
Harry’s gut lurched. Still, it was Malfoy’s own fault for insulting Hagrid and Ron. When Harry focused on the boggart again it was mid-complaint.
“—and sent my Father to Azkaban. You have no idea what it’s like to have to be the head of your family at sixteen.”
“Your father deserved Azkaban,” Harry cut in. “He tried to kill me. More than once!” He wouldn’t even get into what Tom Riddle’s diary had done to Ginny Weasley. But Harry supposed Lucius Malfoy’s guilt didn’t lessen the loss to his family.
“Nothing I did was good enough for you,” boggart-Malfoy cut into Harry’s thoughts. “I risk my life by lying to save yours and you leave me wandless in a Manor filled with Death Eaters. Not much of a hero, are you?”
“You were one of them!”
“I was a terrified child!”
That cut Harry deeper than he expected. They’d all been too young and pushed beyond their physical, emotional, and mental resources. He felt guilt squirm inside him but was unwilling to let go of the anger making him feel so alive.
“You were a marked Death Eater,” he shot back, “who willingly joined a group of murdering bastards.” His chest heaved. Having a boggart was very cathartic.
“You’d know more about murder than I would,” boggart-Malfoy whispered into Harry’s ear. “Septumsempra? Ought to be an unforgivable. Left me bleeding out on the floor—”
Harry looked the boggart dead in the eye. “Oh please! You tried to Crucio me.”
The boggart tore his shirt open, buttons pinging across the floor, and stood there topless and accusing. “Might as well have carved your name in me.”
Merlin’s balls! Harry stared, transfixed by the jagged welts that cut across Malfoy’s torso. Did the real Malfoy had scars like this? He traced the scars with his fingertips then sat heavily on his bed, hiding his face in his hands.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know what the spell did. I never meant…this.”
The boggart pushed Harry to the mattress and towered over him. “Thought it would tickle, did you?”
Harry looked away. “I didn’t know it would slice you open.”
“Maybe you did,” boggart-Malfoy purred into his ear. “Maybe you marked me up so no one would want me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Even if Malfoy had these scars it wouldn’t stop him from pulling, surely. He was attractive, Harry supposed, if you looked past his personality. He wondered if Malfoy had Veela blood despite all his pureblood rhetoric.
“Or were you just jealous that Voldemort put his claim on me before you could?” The boggart was using his full weight to pin Harry down now. It was nice. Or maybe that was the booze talking. Malfoy’s breath was hot on his neck and his body was heavy between Harry’s legs. They’d started off fighting, but this didn’t feel like a fight anymore.
Harry looked up at the boggart and his drink-fuzzy gaze shifted between his stormy eyes and soft, smirking lips.
He wasn’t sure how they started kissing but suddenly he had nudging against those lips with his own. The kiss tasted of coffee with too much sugar, the way Malfoy drank it during their late-evening sessions pouring over reports from the French Ministry. Harry hummed his approval and the sweet lips parted, allowing him inside.
Harry arched up, desperate for friction and then they were rocking against each other hard, then harder still. Malfoy’s mouth was soft and his strong thigh rubbed against him just so. It was too much and perfect all at once. He didn’t want it to stop. Merlin please, not yet.
The blonde tensed and clung to him, gasping with surprise as wetness seeped into the clothes between them. Harry glanced down at Malfoy’s wet trouser front and was lost, groaning as he sucked a mark onto boggart-Malfoy’s neck. As he came down from the fog of pleasure it occurred to him that orgasm might be a new experience for the boggart.
“It’s okay,” he assured the shivering blonde. “Everything’s fine. I’ve got you.” He cradled Malfoy’s body against him and ran a soothing hand over his bare back. It seemed to work for the boggart snuggled against him looking exhausted but happy.
Harry closed his eyes. Sex was better than a dose of Dreamless Sleep; he got four hours of refreshing unconsciousness that night.
His boggart spent most of its time as Malfoy after that, greeting him with a snog when he got home, sitting with him while he ate dinner, snuggling up to watch telly or read and slipping into bed with him at night. The mark on boggart-Malfoy’s neck took a week to fade, giving Harry a warm possessive feeling every time he saw it.
Previously, working with Malfoy had put Harry on the back foot but now he merely smirked at the man’s cool demeanor, remembering how his double had whimpered the first time Harry took him in his mouth and sucked him until he came calling Harry’s name and gripping his hair.
Judging from the suspicious glances at work, the real Malfoy knew something had changed but couldn’t put it into words. Harry floo’d home with a bounce in his step and threw himself into the sexual exploration he’d missed out on during the war.
Over lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, Ron accused Harry of being in love and demanded to know why he hadn’t been told as best friend protocol required. Harry didn’t deny Ron’s accusation. He definitely felt something but whether it was love and how mutual it was, Harry wasn’t sure. It was difficult to communicate with a boggart. His didn’t answer direct questions but replies could be inferred from the form he took or things he said. He was sure that “I see The Grim in your tea leaves,” indicated anger, especially as it came on the heels of making a work trip to Scotland without owling to say he’d be late. Harry made it up by relinquishing the clicker and not complaining when his boggart chose to watch Eastenders.
Harry enjoyed the warm physicality of their relationship. Boggart-Malfoy was easy on the eyes and fit nicely under Harry’s right arm as they basked in the glow of the telly. And the sex was brilliant.
Harry stopped inviting his friends over, unwilling to explain why he lived with a boggart or why it spent much of its time as Malfoy. He stopped trying to date and rebuffed his friends’ attempts to set him up, reasoning that he was in a relationship already even if it was cross-species.
Ron delivered a dating pep talk over drinks at the Leaky but Harry bought himself time by explaining he’d only just sussed out that he was into men too.
“Mum’s the word” Ron assured him, then predictably cracked, as evidenced by Hermione sending him a copy of Gay Sex & The Single Wizard. Ron had blabbed but the book certainly spiced things up in the bedroom. If by bedroom he meant anywhere one might snog a boggart in the form of one’s childhood rival.
Despite the lean seekers body and platinum hair, Harry knew his boggart wasn’t Malfoy. The real man would never want him. Harry pushed his unexpectedly hurt feelings down and concentrated on pleasing the being he was with. He kept note of his boggart’s likes and dislikes, repeating activities that elicited a positive response. His boggart liked horror films, BBC News, biscuits, and squealed with delight whenever a howler arrived. He disliked Graham Norton, the smell of lemons and the roar of the Hoover.
Although affectionate, his boggart hadn’t lost its ability to scare the bollocks off him. Getting into the shower his boggart had smiled and run a hand down its front.
“You look pleased,” Harry said, hoping that his efforts to understand boggart sexual response were paying off.
“Pregnancy glow. I’m far enough along now it’s safe to share.”
“S-seriously?” Harry envisioned a litter of blobby babies with unruly hair and green eyes.
The boggart rolled its beautiful Malfoy eyes. “As if I’d birth your offspring, Potter. You’re not even in the Sacred Twenty-Eight!”
Stung, Harry sulked until his boggart apologized. At least, it kissed his neck the way he liked, which Harry took as an apology.
He supposed he should tell his friends about his relationship before the press got wind of it. He could imagine the headlines:
'Potter Beds Boggart!'
'Shirtlifting Saviour’s Secret Sex Slave!'
'Creature Companion Mimics Malfoy!'
But there was never a good time to interject with, "So I’m seeing a boggart," and he was anxious about how they would take the news. He expected Ron would be horrified and intrigued in equal measure. Seamus and Dean were hard to shock but even they had limits. Neville blushed at the hint of sex, but nothing fazed Luna. Anticipating a lecture on consent from Hermione, Harry did some research.
Under Ministry law boggarts were classified as nonbeings and had no legal rights. Harry would gladly have spoken on behalf of boggart equality if he could do so without sounding like a raving pervert.
If his boggart was comfortable leaving the house, he reasoned, its freedom to choose a partner would be evident. He enticed the boggart into the back garden where it enjoyed scaring the snot out of gnomes but when he suggested they go further afield Boggart-Malfoy had shuddered.
“Muggle London? You must be confounded. I’d rather tongue-kiss a Weasley.”
“Just promise you’ll consider it. For me?” Harry ran his fingers through Malfoy’s fine hair. “We could holiday together. Somewhere secluded and romantic.”
Boggart-Malfoy pouted but leaned into Harry’s caress. That was a yes.
Harry rented an expensive cottage in Sandsend and transported his boggart in a battered thestral-hide valise. They held hands on the foggy beach, fed gulls, went swimming, and had sex by a bonfire. Yet Harry returned unsure if his boggart felt more independent now than before they’d gone.
It was hard to tell with boggarts.
Mindhealer Robinson cast a warming charm on their tea, which had gone tepid.
“What I hear you saying, Harry, is that you made efforts to form a consensual relationship with the boggart and were genuinely concerned about its welfare.”
“Of course I was.” Harry frowned. “We were dating.”
“It sounds like it was in many ways a relationship that met your needs.”
“It was, yeah.”
“Tell me about those needs.”
“We hung out a lot. So, companionship, I guess. Feeling accepted for just being me.”
“And these needs were not met in your working relationship with Mr. Malfoy.”
Harry laughed. Accepted or liked was not how he felt around the real Malfoy. “No. He’s civil, but that’s about it really.”
“And you wanted to be closer.”
Harry frowned but didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure what to say.
“You must know many wizards and witches,” the Mindhealer continued. “Why do you suppose the boggart mimicked Mr. Malfoy?”
“Well, boggarts do like fear,” Harry admitted.
Mindhealer Robinson’s bushy eyebrows rose. “You’re afraid of Mr. Malfoy?”
“Of being attracted to him, maybe.”
Robinson nodded. “Was this your first same-sex attraction? That might make anyone a bit nervous.”
“I’m fine being gay,” Harry said, “But gay for Malfoy’s a different thing.” He shifted in his chair. “First bloke I fancy and it has to be the one who insulted my friends, broke my nose, tried to Crucio me, and became a Death Eater? Seems a bit mental.”
Mindhealer Robinson looked thoughtful. “Tell me about the sexual aspect of your relationship with the boggart.”
Harry scratched the back of his head, leaving a scraggy bit of hair sticking up. Merlin only knew what Hermione must’ve said when she made the appointment. They probably thought Harry kept his boggart tethered to the bed.
“I don’t have much experience to compare,” he began. “I mean, I did a bit of snogging at school.” He cleared his throat. “But there was a war on. I had other priorities.”
And the Order of Merlin for understatement goes to Harry Potter.
Robinson nodded. “What changed?”
“Living alone, I guess. Nobody trying to kill me. Well, no Voldemort, anyhow.” Harry noted Robinson didn’t flinch at the name. “And having someone interested and willing.” And he was firm on that score, no matter what Hermione or Mindhealer Robinson might think.
“Tell me about that.”
The first time they’d gone further than a bit of frotting had been nerve-wracking, with Harry worried he’d do something to hurt his boggart and make him unhappy. He asked the same questions so many times they were like a mantra in his head. “Is this okay?” and “Can I touch you there?” and “Do you want me to stop?” The boggart enjoyed himself by all indications. And the second and third times they’d gotten close his boggart initiated it himself.
At work Malfoy’s unruffled politeness continued unabated. Harry wanted to hex him every time he commented on the weather, enquired after Harry’s friends, or asked how his weekend had been. After a day of simmering frustration Harry loved coming home to the warm affection of his boggart. But his doubts stirred up a cauldron of guilt. He wondered if his boggart understood the significance of sex and he’d wondered about positive reinforcement. Did his boggart imitate Malfoy because it liked the intimacy? Had he unintentionally trained his boggart to be Malfoy more often?
As they cuddled up to watch Masterchef, Harry addressed the issue head-on.
“The stuff we do together,” he’d ventured, “the uh, sex stuff. You know you don’t have to do that.” He chewed his lip. “I mean, you could say no and it’d be fine. We’re friends. You can be honest with me.”
Boggart-Malfoy looked at him with darkened eyes. “Making friends with the wrong sort again?”
Harry ran a hand through his hair. “Do you actually like it or do you like that I like it?”
Boggart-Malfoy set their bowl of popcorn on the floor and straddled him, nuzzling his neck. “Wonderful Potter with his scar and his broomstick.”
Harry supposed this was as clear an answer as he was going to get.
Robinson’s index fingers touched, forming a little steeple. “The impression I’m getting is that you had doubts about consent when it came to the sexual aspect of your relationship.”
“Not at first.” It was a bit late to worry about sounding like a deviant yet Harry worried all the same. “But as things got more serious, yeah. I wondered if he understood what our relationship meant to me.”
“What did it mean to you?”
“A lot. We were living together.” He had no words for how it felt to share breakfasts, kisses, dinners, sofa space and bedcovers, so how could he explain what it meant to be inside someone or have them inside you, gasping their name as you moved together and then to fall asleep looking forward to doing it all again tomorrow?
“Were you in love?”
“As much as I could be. I think of love as really knowing someone and with us there were limits on what I could know.”
Or what he could share.
Harry wasn’t always a great boyfriend. He’d had moments where he wished it were the real Malfoy breaking him apart so energetically, which wasn’t fair to his boggart. He tried to make it up with a slew of horror flicks rented from the corner shop. Harry’d never seen him so happy.
“What do you imagine your relationship meant to the boggart?” Mindhealer Robinson asked.
Harry smiled fondly. “It meant something. He got jealous.”
“Indeed?” Robinson leaned forward. “Tell me about jealousy.”
They’d been snogging heavily, legs tangled and chesterfield creaking. Harry was considering moving things to the carpet when the doorbell rang. He bolted upright, hair and clothes askew, and his boggart made a dash for the writing desk where it hid in a drawer.
Pulling his wand, Harry stomped to the door. He didn’t get many visitors since installing reporter-repelling wards. He cast a Video charm to reveal a rigid-backed Draco Malfoy on his stoop, vibrating with impatience. Harry wished he’d picked Ron as his secret keeper; he wouldn’t have sent the ferret to his place unless it was a matter of life and death but to Hermione anything work related counted as an emergency. Harry opened the door.
“Unspeakable Malfoy. What brings you here?”
The Slytherin coasted past him. “Merlin, Potter. You look a fright. Are you ill?”
Malfoy looked elegant as always. Unspeakables didn’t have a uniform so Malfoy wore muggle suits at work and the one he wore now was so dark Harry suspected it was charmed to absorb light. It contrasted beautifully where the collar met his neck. By contrast, Boggart-Malfoy tended to manifest a Slytherin Hogwarts uniform and on one memorable occasion, quidditch leathers.
“Sorry,” Harry muttered. “I wasn’t expecting company.” He closed the door and leaned against it.
Malfoy frowned at Harry’s tangled locks and rumpled clothes. “Sorry to interrupt.” From the look on his face he may as well have added, ‘your evening of wanking.’
“S’okay. We can talk in the kitchen.” Harry led the way. “Coffee?” he asked, desperate for something to do with his hands.
“Yes, thanks. Three sugars, no dairy.” Malfoy pulled a sheaf of parchment from a dragonhide satchel. “I analyzed the post we intercepted between the French Death Eaters and their confederates in London and Glasgow.”
“Oh yeah.” Harry put the coffee on, a complicated process using a charmed espresso machine Sirius had bought. Harry opened a package of chocolate digestives that Boggart-Malfoy liked and set on the table between them. “What‘d you find?”
“They reference a prophecy about you. Seems they owled you about it but received no reply. They’re rather cross about that. ‘Disregarding your role in the great upheaval’ or some such. Fanatics are so self-absorbed.”
“I get loads of crazy mail,” Harry said. “Mione made me hire someone to deal with it. Remember Lisa Turpin? She was in our year but sorted Ravenclaw. She replies to the well-wishers, donates any gifts to the War Orphans Auction, reports threats to the DMLE and forwards me anything important.”
Malfoy’s forehead creased in frustration and Harry resisted the urge to soothe him as he would have with his boggart. Malfoy’s opinion of Harry was low enough without adding sexual rejection to the mix.
“I hope she keeps the letters,” Malfoy said. “They may contain important information or magical signatures. Where can I find her?”
Harry swore under his breath as he realized that Turpin’s address was in the drawer of the writing desk now occupied by his boggart.
“I’ll get her address,” he said. “Best know what they’re on about, right? Even if it’s a load of rubbish” Harry edged toward the sitting room as Malfoy rose.
Sirius’ coffee maker had begun a kind of shimmy and was expelling steam from multiple openings.
“Coffee’s done,” Harry said. “Help yourself. I’ll just be a moment.” He realized things had gone sideways when Malfoy’s eyes widened to saucers.
“Ten points from Gryffindor!” With a flurry of green and black robes, his boggart slapped Turpin’s address on the table and scowled at real Malfoy, who pulled his wand.
Harry stepped between them, palms up. “Relax. It’s just my boggart. He came with the house.”
Malfoy’s face hardened. “You fought bloody Voldemort and I’m your boggart?”
His boggart ran a hand possessively across Harry’s shoulders before leaning in and kissing his neck, much to Harry’s embarrassment.
“Riddikulus!”
There was a loud crack as Malfoy cast, but Harry moved, taking the spell in the chest. Despite this his boggart collapsed behind him.
“Ah! He’s killed me!” his boggart cried, hands to his heart. Or where a heart would be on a human.
Harry’s chest stung where the spell had hit but he pulled the boggart into his arms and curled around him protectively.
“There there,” he soothed. “You’re all right. I won’t let him hurt you.”
Malfoy stalked forward to cast again and Harry pulled his wand.
“Leave off, Malfoy! I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.”
Several expressions crossed Malfoy’s face in quick succession: shock, confusion, and unexpectedly, pain.
“Right.” Malfoy pointed his wand at the door. “Get it out of my sight before I hex the bollocks off the both of you. If that thing even has bollocks.”
Wand still up, Harry led his boggart out of the kitchen.
“Ugly fellow,” boggart-Malfoy whispered, breath hot against Harry’s ear. “Tell him to piss off.”
Harry stifled a laugh, despite his humiliation. “I’d love to. Can you hang about upstairs ‘til he’s gone?”
Boggart-Malfoy kissed him on the cheek before leaving. Harry waited until he heard the bedroom door squeak closed before he returned to the kitchen.
Malfoy’s face was a placid mask again. “You should clear your house unless you want that thing feeding on you.”
Harry crossed his arms. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not, but that’s beside the point.” Malfoy’s mask slipped and for a moment Harry could tell he was unhappy. “Why am I your greatest fear? I thought we were getting on.”
“Getting on?” Harry didn’t bother to hide his annoyance. “You act as if we’ve just met!”
“I’ve been amiable and polite. Collegial, even. Would you rather I acted a prat like in school?”
“That was an act, was it?” Harry rubbed his chest. “Anyhow, he’s not always you. He mimics other people too.”
“Rotates through me, Snape, and Voldemort I suppose? Anything to keep you anxious so it can feed off your energy.”
“It’s not like that. We hang out. Watch telly. Play Xbox.”
Have incredible sex.
“Wow. Just….wow.” Draco let out a long huff of air. “It’s a wonder you’re still alive, Potter. Anyone else would’ve been a squib by now.”
“You should go.” Harry gestured to the parchment with Lisa Turpin’s contact details. “Take that. Owl me if you find anything.”
Malfoy pocketed the address. “Talk to Granger about the boggart. Or have her owl me when your magical core collapses and I’ll help move your things into the Janus Thicky Ward.”
Harry leaned against the front door after Malfoy left. The Unspeakable Git was having him on. His boggart wouldn’t hurt him.
Would it?
The next day, Harry travelled to Hogwarts after work and found the hospital ward exactly as he remembered it. Two boys exchanged glares as they regurgitated slugs into identical buckets and a corner bed was occupied by an unhappy girl whose lower half was a mess of tentacles. Madam Pomfrey waved him into her examining room. Her hair was whiter now and her face more lined. Technically, since he was no longer a student, Harry shouldn’t have come but Pomfrey was the healer he trusted most.
“Welcome back, Mister Potter. What’ve you done to yourself now? Gender switching hex? Creature inheritance?”
“Long-term boggart exposure.”
She cast a diagnostic spell and tut-tutted at the results. “Oh yes. Rather serious, too. This is what comes of not sitting your NEWTs, young man. You can defeat Dark Wizards but can’t banish a single boggart.”
My boggart isn’t single, Harry thought, somewhat defensively.
Pomfrey bustled off, returning with a jug of yellow sludge. “There now. Drink it all down.”
Harry gulped the chalky potion and tried not to pull a face over it. “Am I dying?”
“Hardly. Blood pressure’s higher than it ought to be and your magical core’s very brittle. Very brittle indeed.”
“Which means what exactly?”
“Adrenal exhaustion. Boggart exposure’ll do that quick as you please. Sit there while the potion takes effect.”
“Any way to prevent this?” He asked. “If casting Ridikulus isn’t an option, I mean?”
Pomfrey sniffed. “You could take a potion every day for the rest of your life.” She looked grim. “Can’t say what it would do to your liver and kidneys. Fry them, most likely.”
Harry lay on a bed, mouth chalky, stomach queasy, and heart sinking. He needed to break up with his boggart.
“How did you feel about Madam Pomfrey’s diagnosis?” Mindhealer Robinson asked.
“How would you feel if you were allergic to the person you were dating?”
Robinson ignored the question. “You didn’t see your condition as a betrayal?”
Harry dug his nails into his palms. “He never meant to hurt me.”
“You sound certain about that.”
Harry’s head felt too heavy for his neck to support so he rested it on his palm. “Try looking at it from his point of view. I just kept feeding him. He didn’t ask for it.”
“So you don’t attribute malice to it.”
“He couldn’t help it. Strong emotions engage their feeding instinct, I think.”
“So the boggart fed on your fear at first then later on your arousal and affection.”
“We had a connection.” Tears prickled at the corners of Harrys eyes. “Maybe it wasn’t healthy but it was real.”
“Your friends are worried about you,” Robinson said.
“I know.” Harry buried his face in his hands. “They think I’ve lost my mind.”
“Tell me how they found out.”
Harry sighed. That was Malfoy’s fault too.
After his appointment with Madam Pomfrey Harry had floo’d to Grimmauld Place to find two Draco Malfoys in his sitting room. Boggart-Malfoy greeted him with a warm smile and the original perched tensely on the edge of the green settee.
“You look like an Azkaban breakfast, Potter,” real Malfoy said.
“Azkaban.” His boggart agreed, passing him a cup of tea.
“Thanks.” Harry sank into a chair and turned to their guest. “Why are you here, Malfoy?”
“I came with Granger. I was consulting her about those letters I got from Turpin, then we got talking about your boggart situation.” He gave his double the side-eye.
“Brilliant!” Harry stared imploringly at the ceiling. The only scenario worse than his friends learning about his relationship from The Prophet was them learning about it from Malfoy. “Where’s she now then?”
“Fetching Weasley and Longbottom while I chat with your…friend.” Malfoy made an effort not to sneer. “I’d sue for slander if non-beings had assets.”
“He’s not mocking you,” Harry said. “All he has to go on are my memories.” Given that, Harry was surprised the boggart portrayed Malfoy as positively as he did.
The boggart slipped into the kitchen.
“It’s represented my arse accurately enough,” Malfoy spat, watching it go. “But then you've been putting that to use, haven’t you?”
Harry’s heart lurched into his throat. “Beg your pardon?”
“I should hope so. Sex with a boggart? It’s practically bestiality.“
“You’d say the same if I were dating a muggleborn,” Harry snapped, “so excuse me if I don’t take your opinion seriously.”
Malfoy’s face fell. “You think that?” When Harry didn’t reply the blond went on. “Granger and I collaborated all last year to change Werewolf Registry legislation. I’m not the bigot you make me out to be.” He bared his teeth at his imitation as it returned from the kitchen with a plate of chocolate digestives. “Certainly not the way your boggart’s been playing me.”
Harry smiled as the boggart offered him a biscuit. “His version of you is nicer than you are in real life.”
“Obviously,” Malfoy said voice low and angry. “ I’m only saving your life from Death Eaters. How could that possibly compare with bringing you cookies and shagging you?”
Harry swallowed a bit of biscuit. “Unlike you, he actually likes me.”
The line creasing Malfoy’s forehead read worry rather than disgust. “Are you insane?” he asked gently.
“Probably.” Harry looked toward the stairs. It wouldn’t take Hermione long to round up all their friends. “Suppose I should pack a bag for that trip to Janus Thickey.”
“Scared, Potter?” His boggart cupped Harry’s cheek with a palm.
“Very,” Harry admitted. Since there was no point in pretence he leaned into the embrace.
The boggart sat on the rug, removed Harry’s shoes and began to massage his feet.
Malfoy wrinkled his nose. “I don’t get it. You’re the Saviour of the Wizarding world. You could literally have anyone and you choose a boggart. I…I can’t even… You have an Order of Merlin!”
Harry smiled sadly at the boggart. “He doesn’t care about that rubbish. He likes me for me.” And probably for the constant stream of magical energy he’d been inadvertently feeding it.
“Pfft! It’s a boggart,” Malfoy said, flipping a hand. “You may as well date that chair. It isn’t impressed by your fame either.”
Harry ground his teeth. “You wouldn’t understand. I tried dating. It was all, ‘Tell me about defeating Voldemort,’ and ‘You’re so brave!’ and ‘Why don’t you choke me while we snog?’ I gave up after a bit.”
Malfoy goggled at him. “You think it’s easy being ‘Former Death Eater Draco Malfoy’? It’s ‘Please don’t hurt me’ over the appetizer, or they want to lick my Dark Mark.”
Harry snorted. “I’ll see your mark-lickers and raise you a handful of scar-kissers.”
“I wish I had scar kissers! Half the men I date think I’m the next Dark Lord and the other half think I’m an innocent lamb led astray.”
“Oh please! You tried being a Death Eater, you were just total shite at it.”
“I was. Thanks for noticing.”
Harry’s brain caught up. “You date men?”
Malfoy’s eyes narrowed. “I won’t abide criticism from someone who’s been copulating with a boggart, Potter.”
Harry shook his head. “Not criticizing. I figured out I was bent—well half-bent, whatever—but I didn’t realize you were. There’s been nothing about it in the papers.”
Malfoy’s mouth quirked. “Perk of being an Unspeakable. The press is banned from reporting about us.”
“Really? I’d have joined up in second year if I’d known that.” Harry sat up. “Hang on. You didn’t say ‘wizards I dated.’ Does that mean you dated muggles too?”
“Fit blokes who don’t know the name Malfoy? How could I not?” He crossed one elegant leg over the other. “But it was worse. They had no idea.”
“About the war, you mean?”
“The war, magic, Malfoys. I couldn’t get close to anyone. It wasn’t their fault, I had too many secrets.”
“I get that.”
Malfoy glanced at the boggart now leaning against Harry’s legs drinking tea and eating biscuits. “Did you ask it to mimic me?”
“No. At first it was only people who died in the war. Dumbledore, Snape, Sirius.”
Malfoy grimaced. “You weren’t shagging it as Snape or Dumbledore, I hope.”
“God no. Sex was a recent development.”
“And it lets you…” Malfoy stared at the two of them. “Well, obviously.” He sighed. “Guess I ought to feel flattered.”
“You are quite striking,” Harry admitted. “If I’d known you were bent I’d have—“ He was cut off by a green flare from the fireplace as Hermione, Ron, Neville, and Luna entered the room.
Startled by the arrival of so many people, his boggart flew into the teapot. Harry stood gripping the rattling porcelain to his chest and hoping nobody wanted tea.
Hermione started in on him immediately. “Good God, Harry! Sex with a boggart? What were you thinking?”
Well, that answered his question about how much his friends knew. Thanks, Malfoy.
“The war’s warped your sense of morality,” she paced the room, gesturing with her hands. “This stops, immediately. It’s sexual exploitation. It’s abuse. It’s…”
“It’s bloody weird, mate,” Ron cut in.
“Where is it?” Neville’s eyes darted about the room and Malfoy nodded toward the teapot.
Luna ghosted fingertips across the warm porcelain. “Does he always live in there?”
“No.” Harry steadied the lid, wondering what sort of sex Luna imagined he could have with a boggart that stayed in a teapot.
“Have you seen his natural form?” she asked, peering into the spout. “I’ve often wondered what they look like when they’re not being dreadful.”
“More to the point, have you seen a Healer?” Hermione demanded.
“Yeah. Madam Pomfrey, just today.”
“And?” Malfoy’s eyebrows raised.
“Yes, okay? My magical core is brittle, possibly due to boggart exposure.” Harry stroked the teapot. “He wouldn’t hurt me on purpose. It’s like being allergic to kneasels.”
“If you’ve been shagging the kneasel.” Ron quashed a laugh when Hermione elbowed him in the stomach.
“It’s not funny, Ronald!”
“Hear hear,” Malfoy muttered, more to himself than the others.
“Stop calling him it,” Harry snapped. “He is a person!” Harry turned to Hermione. “I thought you’d understand with all your work on elf rights.”
Ron cut in before Hermione could finish spluttering her outrage. “Hey, she was never into elves that way.”
“I can’t believe you’d do this,” she said, “with all you have going for you.”
Malfoy laughed. “That’s what I said!”
“Perhaps he's aroused by fear,” Luna offered.
“It’s not about sex!” Harry shouted. “We have a relationship.” He looked at Neville. “You get it, don’t you Nev?”
Neville winced. “Not really. I mean, I love plants but I don’t love plants.”
“Ron?”
“Sorry,” Ron snickered. “You’re bonkers for boggarts.”
A smile tugged at Harry’s lips. “Been hanging onto that one, have you?”
Ron grinned. “Since ‘Mione told me this afternoon.”
“You need help, Potter,” Malfoy opined. “Whatever drove you to that,” he flicked a hand at the teapot, “you need to work it out, preferably with a Mindhealer.” He stood. “Are we done? I have places to be.”
“Nobody’s keeping you,” Ron groused.
“One of you is keeping me in a teapot but perhaps that’s none of my business.” Malfoy left the room and Harry soon heard the front door slam. So much for exploring their mutual disappointments in love.
“Draco’s right, Harry. You’re going to a Mindhealer on Monday.” Hermione thrust a pink St. Mungos appointment slip at him. “And so help me, if you try to skiv off I’ll come round and blast your door in.”
“Best do as she says,” Ron advised. “She’s a bit scary like this.”
“I’ll go, I’ll go.” Harry needed to figure out how to break things off with his boggart and seeing a Mindhealer was as good a step as any.
“Good. That’s settled, then. In the meantime, I’ll take that with me.” Hermione reached for the teapot.
“No!” Harry pulled away. “I’ll see whoever you want but leave him alone!” He edged back toward the hall.
“Give it over,” Hermione insisted. “You can’t heal if you’re still interacting with it.” Hermione and Ron converged on him with Neville and Luna close behind.
Harry pulled his wand before they could. “I’ll keep him upstairs, honest. Just leave him be.”
His friends exchanged glances planning to rush him. He’d need to incapacitate them long enough to get his boggart to a safe—
“Petrificus totalus.” Malfoy’s voice came from behind and Harry froze as the spell hit. The sneaky bugger hadn’t really left. How Slytherin.
Malfoy pried the teapot from Harry’s fingers as his friends debated whether to move him upstairs or to the couch.
Malfoy put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Relax, Potter,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt your boyfriend. Owl me once you’ve seen a Mindhealer.”
“So that’s it,” Harry said, noticing that he’d picked his thumb bloody. “I get that my friends were worried, but I could’ve handled it on my own.”
Eventually. Maybe.
Mindhealer Robinson looked thoughtful. “Would the relationship have progressed as it did if the boggart hadn’t imitated Mr. Malfoy?”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean, if the boggart had taken another form—Miss Weasley, perhaps—would you have invested as heavily in the relationship?”
“No I wouldn’t.” The answer came quickly, making Harry feel rather a berk. He’d never have initiated a relationship with a Ginny boggart. In fact, he’d shut the wardrobe on her.
“Then the issue you have—psychologically speaking—is with Mr. Malfoy.”
Harry considered this. His friends thought his problem was attraction to boggarts but he hadn’t felt attracted to the boggart before he imitated Malfoy.
“What do I do about that?” he asked.
Robinson smiled. “What would you like to do?”
Malfoy strode inside when Harry answered the door at Grimmauld Place, and handed over his teapot.
“So,” he asked, “how crazy are you? On a scale from one to my Aunt Bella.”
Harry shrugged. “A four?”
Malfoy pondered a craziness level of four. “Workable. I’m gagging for a drink. Anything but tea.”
Harry gestured to a table housing a collection of half-filled bottles. “Help yourself. Avoid Luna’s plum wine, though. It’s a bit…hallucinogenic.”
Leaving Malfoy to frown at the bottles, Harry took the teapot upstairs and released the boggart into the attic. He emerged black and blobby before settling into a very cross version of Malfoy.
“Bloody Gryffindors!” he spat. “My Father’s going to hear about this.”
Harry sighed. “I expect he will.” He set the teapot on a chair. “Sorry ‘bout all the fuss. Turns out I’ve been ill. Magical core problems.” He searched the boggart’s face, looking for guilt, regret, or anger but saw only concern and affection.
The boggart took Harry’s hand. “Lucky you’re famous, Potter. If you relied on your brains or looks you’d starve to death.”
Looking now, Harry could see the differences between the boggart and the man downstairs. It felt like waking from a dream to realize he’d been making out with his pillow, if his pillow were a peckish but friendly non-being.
“It’s because we spend so much time together,” Harry explained, wondering if the boggart could understand or even care about adrenal exhaustion. “I don’t blame you. You didn’t hurt me on purpose.” He gave the boggart’s hands a squeeze. “But we need to break up. I’m sorry.” He released his grip and let their hands separate.
The boggart’s form shifted, going blobby before settling into the form of Sirius Black.
“Oh pup!” Harry was pulled into a tight embrace, his cheek against the boggart’s purple velvet jacket. “The ones who love us never really leave.”
“You can still live here,” Harry assured him. “This is your home.” He noticed how dank and dim the attic was. Perfect environment for boggarts, really. “Room here if you like. I’ll get some decent furniture in. Maybe a humidifier?”
Boggart-Sirius crossed his arms, a mischievous twinkle playing about his crinkled eyes. “Scream. The Ring. Eastenders. Dr. Who. ”
“Okay, fine! Your own telly.”
This elicited a smile. The boggart rested a hand on Harry’s shoulder. It felt like a farewell. “And the clicker.”
Tears ran down Harry’s face. “And a clicker.”
Harry trod downstairs, wiping his face on his sleeve, half-hoping to find Malfoy gone, but there he was, martini in hand. He must have transfigured a tumbler.
“Boggart all tucked in?” Malfoy asked.
“More or less. Thanks for bringing him back safely. I put him in the attic. Think he’ll live up there from now on.”
“How Jane Eyre of you.”
“How what?”
Malfoy shrugged. “A muggle novel. It’s of no importance.” He stared at the fireplace. “Still, it’s not the weirdest relationship I’ve seen. Greg Goyle cultivated a prize-winning marrow and named it after Vincent Crabbe.”
“That’s not so weird.”
“It is when he puts it in Vince’s jumpers and takes it to a Falcons game.” He gulped the remains of his drink. “Shall we have our chat now?”
“Brought Veritaserum I suppose?” Harry poured a whisky then eased into a chair, his limbs heavy and weak.
“Ah Veritaserum! Brings back memories of Truth of Dare in the common room. Pansy was brilliant at it. Merlin’s arse, I miss her. International portkeys are such a drag.” He paced, speaking to his empty glass. “So, attracted to boggarts are you?”
“Not as such, no.”
“So it’s that specific boggart? Lets you snog him as all your fav celebs?”
“It’s not like that. We only did anything when he was…” Harry paused then Gryffindor’d ahead, “…when he was being you.”
“Backhanded compliment.” Malfoy consoled himself with another drink.
Harry frowned. “Backhanded how?”
“You think I’m pretty enough to shag—and ta for that. Chuffed to be your sex toy—but pity about my personality.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “You’re right. I’ve been dating your duplicate because I’m so repulsed by you as a person.”
Malfoy turned, eyes narrow. “You never asked me out.”
“You were as welcoming as a three-headed dog. I spared myself the humiliation.”
“Did you?” Malfoy’s grey eyes flicking to the ceiling as if seeing the boggart through two storeys.
“Point taken.” Harry’s stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten in hours. “Look, I’m famished. If you want anything other than booze, I know some good takeaway places.”
“It takes more than cheap food to get into my trousers, Potter.”
“That a no?”
Malfoy moved to examine a bookshelf. “If you’re getting Thai, I like spicy shrimp soup.”
“Brilliant.” Harry grabbed a jacket. “Amuse yourself while I pop out. I’ve got music, movies, books, and the cupboard in the corner has board games.”
“I shan’t do anything you’ve been doing with that boggart” Malfoy said, mouth tight. “Not ‘til I trust you can tell us apart properly.”
“Board games it is then.” Harry paused at the door. “You’ll be here when I get back, yeah?”
“Of course, Potter. I intend to drown you in Thai soup for your sins.”
“Call me Harry, would you?” Harry liked Malfoy snarky. “May I call you Draco when I’m begging for my life?”
A smile flitted across the Malfoy mask. “We’ll see.”
Harry stepped outside feeling lighter than he had in ages.
Mindhealer Robinson’s eyes crinkled at Harry as he entered the office. “Welcome back, Harry. You’re looking well.”
Harry settled himself into the comfy chair. “Thanks. I feel loads better.” It was true. He’d slept nearly seven hours each night that week and eaten regularly—including a dinner at Ron and Hermione’s. He’d checked on the boggart twice and while pleased to see Harry he’d been eager to return to some foreign horror series he’d been watching.
“So last time we met you had feelings for your coworker. How’s that been going?”
“Surprisingly well,” Harry said. “We’re dating. I think. I mean, we haven’t talked about labels, but we’ve been seeing each other on the regular. Dinners, evenings out. That sort of thing.”
“I see.” Mindhealer Robinson removed the big spectacles and cast a cleaning spell over them. “And how is that going?”
“It’s loads different than dating a boggart.”
“How so?”
Harry barely knew where to begin. Draco was feisty, demanding, moody, and the most exciting thing that had happened to Harry since he’d discovered the joy of flying. He didn’t have to guess what Draco was thinking; he told him readily in no uncertain terms.
“Well, the boggart’s friends didn’t scold me for playing fast and loose with his feelings, for one.” Of course the boggart hadn’t had friends, unlike Malfoy, who had kept every friend he’d made since he was in nappies.
“Mr. Malfoy’s friends have been protective of him?”
Harry nodded. “I think they took turns. Zabini cornered me at the Ministry for a man-to-man chat, Goyle and Nott stopped me in the Leaky to check that I was being respectful of Draco’s feelings, and Parkinson jabbed her wand into my ribcage in Diagon Alley and threatened to hex me into a grotty spot on the cobblestones if I upset him again.”
“Sounds like there’s some hurt feelings.”
“I have a lot to apologize for, I guess.”
Mindhealer Robinson’s fingertips bounced against each other. “Tell me about apologies.”
As Harry exited St. Mungo’s by way of the muggle street entrance he heard a noise behind him.
“Nice peripheral awareness. I could have AK’d you thrice by now,” Draco assured him, pushing off from the wall against which he’d been leaning. “Your Auror training must have been abysmal.”
Harry could have told Draco that he’d spotted his Notice-Me-Not charm the second he exited, but thought better of it.
“Waved me through, actually,” he said. “They were riding high on my whole ‘killing Voldemort’ thing.”
Draco snorted a laugh. “Of course they did, Golden Boy. Whereas my Ministry interviewer did everything but dissect me.”
“They hired you anyhow.” Harry smiled. “To know you is to love you.”
Draco smirked. “Tell that to the Death Eaters we arrested this morning.”
Harry smiled. “You got them? Nice work! We should celebrate.”
“Indeed.” Malfoy took him by the hand. “I thought we might swing by Granger’s office. We’ve drafted a piece of legislation I think you’ll like. Recognizes the beinghood of boggarts.”
“You’re joking.”
“Do I look like I’m joking or do I look like a man who spent eleven of his precious leisure hours drafting a bill to convince the Wizengamot that my boyfriend’s ex deserves the same rights accorded to Thestrals and Mountain Trolls?”
“Boyfriend, huh? I like the sound of that.”
“Do you? I hope you realize the position comes with a fidelity requirement.” He narrowed his eyes. “No pulling Dementors or Merpeople or Veela into your bed.”
Harry allowed Draco to lead him down the street. “Does that agreement go both ways?” Harry asked. “I won’t be competing with Acromantula or Centaurs or someone?”
Draco let out a long-suffering sigh. “No, Harry. It’s just you. Although if you’re into giant webs I could oblige with a bit of bondage.”
“Could you wear an Acromantula suit?” Harry teased. “A big hairy one with pincers and lots of eyes?”
“Don’t even joke about it.” Draco pushed him into the phone box entrance to the Ministry and squeezed in on top of him.
“Too soon?” Harry asked, smiling up at him.
“Yes, but only just.” He paused. “Try again this weekend.” With that, Draco entered the number to take them to the Atrium.
The boggart was pleased. This was the life. His moist dark room was perfect, his favourite chair was comfortable, and the emotions in this film series tasted divine.
He’d been concerned when The Man moved in. Wizards meant banishment. The Man interrupted his nap in the 17th Century Italian oakwood cabinet and the boggart had lashed out in self-defense. Unexpectedly, The Man ignored him.
Subsequent forms elicited anger, regret, sadness, and even heartbreak. It was a buffet of sentiment and when The Man still made no move to banish him, the boggart began to relax. This wizard was different; interesting.
Wizards were a tactile species. Each night they sat close on the 19th century leather Chesterfield and watched the glowing box of emotions until it was time to curl together in the imitation Tudor four-poster bed. The Man radiated happiness and the boggart enjoyed the light barking sound The Man made when it was pleased.
Communicating with a wizard was difficult. His wizard talked constantly but rarely about what it was feeling. It fixated on insignificant issues. The Man’s deepest feelings centred on a shiny peer with whom he’d clashed as a youth. The boggart took the form of this wizard, expecting The Man’s tasty anger to flow, but this did not go as expected.
For a time The Man attempted to reproduce with him, which was pleasant but misguided since their species were not compatible that way. Still, he welcomed the opportunity to examine a wizard so closely. He’d become rather an expert. His wizard was soft, warm, and strong, and the emotions he produced during mating were rare and delicious. The boggart was proud to have developed such a sophisticated palate.
Of course it wasn’t all snuggles and snacking. Wizards were a lot of work. The Man worried himself sick and needed constant reassurance. He made odd demands, such as when he'd dragged them both to some coastal town for reasons that were still unclear. The boggart did his best but The Man ricocheted quickly from excitement and happiness to shame and anxiety. It was more responsibility than most boggarts wanted to carry.
The Man was wooing the shiny wizard now, and retained positive but increasingly non-sexual feelings toward the boggart, which was for the best. Love was tasty, but not as tasty as fear. The boggart grabbed the clicker and opened a bag of biscuits. These Japanese horror films weren’t going to watch themselves.