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Ceremonies of Strife	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16218 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this writing.

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Chapter Ten�A
Trembling in the Bones

�� Harry sat
up in bed, feeling as though someone had plucked a bowstring attached to his
feet. He was gasping, and he bent down and rubbed absently at his feet before
his mind caught up with his body.

�� The pinch
had come from his side, from the area where Dearborn had told Draco he would
feel it when Harry was in trouble.

�� Harry flung
back the blankets and leaped to his feet. He would have bolted out the door of
their rooms first thing, but there was the small matter of robes that he had to
put on. He jerked and tugged, and cursed when one of his legs tangled in the
robe and nearly sent him crashing to the ground.

�� After what
seemed like far too long, the buttons were done enough that the robes wouldn�t
fall off him, and Harry dashed to the door, snatching up his wand on the way.
He could feel a stirring, and then Flash was flying after him, wings spread and
neck extended and eyes so brilliant that Harry found it difficult to look at
him.

��

�� Politesse
was already waiting by the door, scratching and whining and swinging his
scorpion tail so fast that Harry leaped to avoid it. He opened the door, and
Politesse at once bounded into the corridor, small legs scrambling as he
turned. Harry followed him. The pinch in his side would lead him to Draco,
sure, but he thought Politesse was more likely to find a safe route.

�� Out in the
corridors, he could hear people shouting and swearing, and a steady, hungry
roar rising like the call of a hunting horn. The walls seemed to vibrate, and
once the floors buckled. Harry, eyes on Politesse, had already jumped;
Politesse had leaped in the air a moment before the wave that rippled the floor
hit.

�� Harry had
once heard that dogs and cats could sense earthquakes. It made sense that a
magical dog could sense a magical change in the environment.

�� Flash
suddenly settled on his shoulder, so heavily that Harry staggered and leaned to
the side. He slid down next to the wall, struggling with the pressure of Flash�s
claws, his turning head, his madly beating wings. �Geroff,� he muttered, pushing at the base of Flash�s tail, then
squeezing it because he thought it might make him fly up.

�� Flash bared
his teeth and didn�t respond. Instead, he growled, a rumble that went through
one of Harry�s ears and came out the other.

�� Harry
froze. Ahead of him, Politesse had paused with one foot in the air and his head
thrust forwards, lips pulled back from his teeth and a tiny snarl working its
way out of his throat. Harry lifted his wand and pointed it at the corner.

�� The thing
that came around it walked softly; Harry would have had no chance of hearing it
if he�d been running. It looked like a large bird at first, or so Harry
thought, but it had no feathers. The brown-red skin was smooth, without hair
either, and its wings were so short and stubby that there was no way it could
have flown. It turned its head towards Harry, and parted its jaws. They were
covered with teeth. It flipped its wings forwards, and Harry saw claws on the
edges of them, and cutting membranes of skin. The large, chicken-like feet it
worked on had long curving toenails, and Harry could imagine what would happen
if they got caught in his belly or his chest all too well.

�� It lunged
at him, moving so lightly that Harry wasn�t ready for it when it landed in
front of him.

�� Luckily,
Politesse and Flash had decided to take over at that point.

�� Politesse
crouched in place as the beast stepped over him, then leaped up and seized the
stubby, featherless tail. His jaws crunched down, and his tail curved over his
head and lashed down to bury the stinger in the middle of the creature�s back.

�� The
creature craned its neck sideways and tried to reach Politesse. All that
happened was that it turned in place.

�� Then Flash
hit it from the other side, digging his fangs and claws into the swan-like
neck. The thing gave a faint, thin cry like a teakettle boiling without much
steam.

�� By then,
Harry was ready.

�� He stood
up, and aimed his wand at the floor beneath the thing�s feet. For all he knew,
it might be immune to magic. He thought it was one of Nemo�s beasts, and
breeding in an immunity to spells was something he would do. �Ramenti!� he shouted.

�� The floor
burst up in a wave of stone and chips of stone, and Harry hastily raised a
shield in front of himself. Politesse was dodging, Flash looping in circles to
avoid the worst of it. The beast was caught in the middle of it, lifted off its
feet, and dashed against the ceiling and then against the far wall. Its neck
broke, and it sagged in place, tail smashed beneath it, wings dangling in front
of it.

�� Harry
grinned briefly, then lifted his arm. Flash landed on his shoulder and coiled
his tail firmly around Harry�s neck. He was chattering, his tongue lashing
hungrily at the air, the spikes around his neck bristling out in a stiff mane.
Harry stroked his tail once and nodded his thanks to Politesse before following
the tug towards Draco again.

*

�� Where�s
Harry?�

�� Still in
bed, for all I know!� Draco pressed his back against Granger�s and flicked out
a few testing spells towards the tiny, purple, bat-like creatures flying
beneath the ceiling. He utterly failed to affect them, as he had expected. The
creatures themselves weren�t much of a problem; they could make people duck and
be annoyed, but they couldn�t score your cheeks or rip your eyes out.

�� It was
their delaying tactics that worried Draco. Almost certainly, the creatures were
working to hold them here so that something worse could find them.

�� He had run
into Granger not long after that initial roar. She had also been out of bed and
on her way to the library, no surprise, and she had told him that she thought
it must be Nemo and the beasts he bred attacking the Ministry. Draco had agreed
with her, but he hadn�t cared much. He wanted to get back to Harry and make
sure that he was all right, not stand around and theorize about enemies who
would show themselves soon enough.

�� Now,
though, they had no choice. They had already driven off a creature that looked
like a white lion with a necklace of human heads around its throat, and there
were the bats, and there was worse to come. Draco checked that Granger was
standing steadily behind him, so that their enemies would find it hard to come
between them, and then turned his head to the corner. For the last two minutes,
he had thought something was lurking around it.

�� Yes.

�� It stepped
out now.

�� Draco found
his eyes aching as he tried to focus on it. It was a sharp, silvery, metallic
color, its sides swimming with shades and images that didn�t actually originate
in its hide. Draco thought that it was mirror-like, and the glimpses he could
catch of his own face in it were among the things it was reflecting.

�� Which
didn�t make it any easier to tell what it was.

�� Dragon-shaped,
Draco decided at last, seeing the long neck, the parted jaws, the flickering
forked tongue. The body, though, was heavier and squat, a horse�s or perhaps a
pig�s, and the tail had a triangle of flesh at the end that Draco watched
warily. The triangle was red, and easier to focus on than the constantly
changing hide.

�� What is it
meant to do?� Granger breathed behind him. Draco rolled his eyes. Naturally, she would want to know something
like that when we should concentrate on staying alive.

�� I don�t
know,� he said. �But since it�s like a dragon, maybe it breathes��

�� The
creature pulled back its head and released a breath of air across them. Draco
found himself raising the Shield Charm instinctively, though he had been wrong
and no fire came with the blast of air.

�� Something
worse did.

�� It was
cold. The cold crept into Draco�s hands, and he watched the skin whiten and
turn wrinkled and than a repulsive-looking purple like the color of the
creatures who had delayed them for this one. He felt his eyelids droop and
become encrusted with ice. His breath froze in his lungs. His body shuddered
once and then stood still.

�� It would
have been painful, but it seemed as though cold consumed the thoughts in his
head, too. They slowed and grew grinding, like the crystal gears of a broken
clock. Draco swayed in place, and he thought he would shatter if he fell, but
the matter didn�t seem urgent. There were people who shattered when they fell,
and others who didn�t, and that was the way it was.

�� Malfoy!�

�� Something
was shaking him, but Draco couldn�t feel the shaking as much more than clumsy
vibrations that worked their way slowly through his body. His shoulder couldn�t
feel the hand. Or was the hand on his shoulder? Perhaps it was the top of his
head, or his foot, or his leg, or his arm, where that hand rested.

�� Malfoy!�

�� Another
yell, but the word was dim and distant. He didn�t know where it was coming
from. He didn�t know what it applied to. And he didn�t feel cold anymore. That
was a great improvement, wasn�t it? He could feel the slumber slowly washing
over him, and he might have welcomed it with open arms if he could have.

�� Then
something hit him and woke him up.

�� Draco
opened his eyes with a gasp as tingling pain flooded his arms and his hands. He
stared, blinking, at the spectacle in front of him, though it took long moments
for his eyes to unstick and his thoughts to unfreeze and make sense of it.

�� Harry was
dueling with the dragon-thing in the middle of the corridor, his eyes
half-shut. That was probably to keep away the dazzle of its mirrored hide,
Draco thought absently. The waving red fin at the end of the tail arched and
curved and stabbed at Harry, but he was always where it wasn�t.

�� Fire
covered the air between him and the dragon, and the dragon flinched every time
the flames brushed it.

�� Around its
head flew a humming blue-green-gold projectile that Draco knew must be Flash.
And a growling shape orbited its feet, the right size and shape to be
Politesse. Draco would have thought that the dog would be protecting him, but perhaps Politesse had assumed
that he was safe for now and his first duty was destroying the thing that had
hurt Draco.

�� Are you
all right, Malfoy?� Granger whispered from behind him.

�� Draco
cleared his throat. It was full of ice, but that melted, if slowly, and he
could move his tongue. �What�what�s happening?�

�� Harry cast
a spell that hit the dragon from behind,� Granger whispered back. Her voice
sounded dazed, at least, so Draco wasn�t the only one in the corridor who was
surprised by this turn of events. �And then I was able to wake you up by
melting the ice instead of trying to defend us both from another blast of that
cold air.� Her voice altered to something very like the scold that Draco�s
mother might have given him in the same situation. �What in the world were you doing, getting in front of me like that?
Don�t you think I know how to protect myself against something dangerous?�

�� Draco
turned his head to stare at her, as fascinating as the battle was. �I wasn�t
protecting you!� he complained. �I happened to be in the way when the dragon
breathed out, that�s all!�

�� Granger
eyed him skeptically, and shook her head. �I�m used to people who think I can�t
do things as well as they can,� she said. �Ron and Harry tended to use me for
homework help in school.� Bitterness curdled in her voice for a moment, and
then was gone. �They know I can cast useful spells. But they think I can�t fly
and I can�t fight. You�re starting to do the same thing.�

�� Because
trying to argue with something so absurd would only make him more absurd, Draco
shut his mouth and turned back to watching the battle. His focus should have
stayed there in the first place, but Granger had a talent for drawing people
into the fall after her.

�� Harry�s
fire, or perhaps the bites that Flash and Politesse had kept delivering, had
worn down the dragon-thing�s defenses. It drooped, its skin seeming to flow
into the walls and floor around it. The red fin of flesh at the end of its tail
flapped once, and then fell still.

�� And then it
was gone, reduced to nothing but a tiny, sad puddle of meltwater on the floor.
Harry blinked and stared at it, then shook his head and seemed to decide that
battling it had wasted enough of his time. He turned around and hurried over to
Draco.

�� Are you
all right?� he asked, reaching a hand out to stroke his cheek. Then he changed
his mind and flung his arms around Draco instead.

�� Draco
leaned against him instead of replying. The cold lingered in his bones despite
Granger�s spell. He could easily have died, and that would have meant leaving
Harry behind. He was beginning to realize just how much he didn�t want to do
that�not for the sake of the War Wizards, not for the sake of power or
specialized magic, not for anything.

�� He�ll
live,� Granger said in a dark voice. �As long as he doesn�t take up the habit
that you and Ron have sometimes of thinking I can�t do anything on my own.�

�� Draco could
feel Harry giving him an inquiring glance. He chose to roll his eyes and not
respond, simply burrowing further into the warmth that Harry represented.

�� What have
you seen?� Granger asked then, brisk, and Draco was glad that she had taken
over the task of asking questions.

�� Not much,�
Harry said. Draco felt his hair rustle against his cheek as Harry shook his head.
�Most of the people I met along the way were taking shelter in their rooms. I
saw a few holes in the walls where some of the beasts must have come through,
and I�ve killed a few.� He said that so casually, as if it was something he
accomplished every day. Draco must have made some small sound, because Harry
stroked the back of his neck absently. �A few people were fighting, but most of
the beasts died without much effort. If Nemo and Nihil are attacking the
Ministry again, I can�t see what the purpose is.�

�� What if
it�s to see whether they can get through the wards?� Granger asked. �That would
make sense.�

�� But then
the Ministry will strengthen the wards again,� Harry said. �So that�s a useless
thing to learn about the present wards.�

�� Granger
fell silent, and Draco wished he could turn around and see the expression on
her face. But Harry�s warmth was essential to him right now, both because he
wanted it and because it seemed to coax the frozen thoughts packed in his head
to move.

�� What if
they wanted to leave something behind?� he muttered. �That fits with the
pattern they�ve established so far. They leave infections in the magical cores
of anyone they can. They sent those false Death Eaters infected with grief
magic and left them in Ministry custody so that they could spread the grief
magic further. Probably,� he added. That was a theory of Ketchum�s, and Draco
didn�t believe it completely. �What if they want to leave something behind this
time?�

�� Harry�s
arms tightened convulsively around him, and Granger gasped. �Of course that�s
it,� she said. �And now I wish we�d paid more attention to where they were
going and where the attack seemed to be aiming.�

�� Harry
ignored Granger�s fretting, which Draco thought was wise, and stepped back,
touching Draco on the shoulder and looking him in the eye. �Are you ready to
fight?� he asked.

�� Draco took
a deep breath and nodded. More than the cold itself, it was the way it had
affected him that had undermined his confidence. He had stood there, and he
would have let the dragon have him if Harry and their pets hadn�t come along.
He hadn�t been able to move, defend himself, or make decisions.

�� He had been
powerless.

�� I hate that feeling so much, he thought,
as he bent down and scooped up Politesse, who was wagging his tail and dancing
in circles in an attempt to get Draco�s notice. Politesse promptly climbed onto
his shoulder and crouched there. Draco wasn�t sure, but he thought he felt a
soothing warmth begin to flow from Politesse�s paws that washed away some of
the cold cramps that remained in his muscles. Is it any wonder that I�ll do almost anything for power?

�� Except betray Harry or leave him behind.

�� Draco found
his gaze focusing on Harry as they started trotting along the corridors,
looking for the beasts� original point of entrance. By now, most of the
trainees had gone to ground, and they no longer saw new creatures roaming the
corridors. Distant cries and roars told Draco that the Aurors had probably
corralled the beasts in a single area and were destroying them one by one.

�� Harry
walked through it all like he was unafraid, though Draco�s suggestion might
have grotesque consequences. He looked at the walls and nodded and answered
questions and asked them when Granger offered her own opinions. He scratched
under Flash�s chin, and reached back every few minutes to brush a hand over
Draco�s shoulder. Maybe that was for his own benefit, too, but it had the
effect of reassuring Draco that Harry was with him and wouldn�t let anything
happen to him.

�� I need him.

�� It was
something Draco had said to himself before, but this felt like the first time
he had believed it.

*

�� We don�t know that�s the first hole they came
through,� Hermione said behind him, almost in a whinging tone.

�� Hush,�
Harry said absently, and bent down to examine the sides of the hole more
thoroughly. He knew Hermione was upset partially because she didn�t have Ron
with her and didn�t know where he was. He was probably safe in his rooms or
with the Aurors, but Harry could understand her concern. He had run through the
corridors until he was united with Draco, after all.

�� But now he
had Draco back, and Flash riding his shoulder with his head turning back and
forth as if he were just waiting for another threat to attack Harry, and an
interesting theory to explore. He would go with Hermione to search for Ron if
she asked him, of course, but she hadn�t asked so far. And there was no reason
that they couldn�t look at the holes in the walls along the way.

�� Harry
couldn�t have said why he was so sure they would find some answer there. But
the holes did look strange. They had
partially melted at the edges, but so far they hadn�t encountered any of the
beasts who breathed fire. And the way they were positioned, it seemed as though
the creatures had come into the trainee barracks from further inside the
Ministry, rather than from the outside.

�� There has to be a reason they entered this
way, and there has to be a reason that the holes look melted even though we
can�t feel heat coming from them.

�� Did you
find anything?� Draco breathed, leaning over his shoulder so that he could peer
at the edges of the hole.

�� Harry
reached back to grip his hand and reassure himself that Draco still existed,
then shook his head. �This one looks the same as all the others,� he said, and
started to straighten.

�� Something
reached through the hole and grabbed him.

�� Harry
hissed in shock and swung his wand around before he thought it, incanting a
Severing Charm. It bounced off the thick tentacle that had encircled his leg.
Harry had time to see that the tentacle was a swirling purple with a green
background before it yanked him straight through the hole.

�� Hermione
and Draco cried out from behind him. Harry tried to respond, but another
tentacle wrapped around his head, and then he was involved in trying not to
have his face ripped off.

�� If he
couldn�t attack them directly, then he would attack what was around them. He
aimed in a direction that he hoped would lead to the floor under his feet or
the walls, and shouted a Blasting Curse.

�� Something
broke, and someone uttered several words that Harry didn�t understand, though
they sounded like swearing in another language. The tentacle around his face
released him. Harry hopped back to his feet and tried to bolt away, but one of
the tentacles was still wrapped around his legs, and he fell.

�� He was in
the smashed wreckage of a room that had probably been part of the trainee
barracks originally. Harry wasn�t sure how far he had traveled, but he could no
longer see the hole he�d come through, and this room was full of slightly
waving tentacles and the bits of stone that his spell might have caused to
fall.

�� Then a
wizard stepped around the tentacles and confronted him.

�� Harry had
never seen this face before, but he thought it must be Nemo. At the moment, he
wore the form of a tall, powerfully-built, dark-haired man, with doubtful grey
eyes that considered Harry as if he was a potion gone wrong.

�� I don�t
know why he wants you,� he mused. �It�s not as though the resources inside you
couldn�t be found in others. I reckon he�s more interested in your body, and
the form you�ll wear after your transformation.� He turned his back, staring
into the writhing mass of tentacles as if he was silently communing with it.

�� Harry
hesitated. Nemo was acting awfully unconcerned for someone in the same room
with Harry; he hadn�t even drawn his wand. Perhaps that meant something
horrible would happen the moment Harry tried a spell.

�� There was a
noise like hot water sizzling, and Flash struck from above, driving all twenty
claws into Nemo�s neck where it joined his shoulder.

�� Nemo fell,
screaming, and the tentacle let go of Harry�s leg and lashed about randomly.
Maybe the creature didn�t know what it was doing without commands, Harry
thought, heart pounding as he scrambled up. He aimed his wand at Nemo�s feet
and spoke the charm that Roger Aran had taught them the other day in his
calmest, clearest voice. �Scaurus!�

�� Nemo cried
out again as his ankles swelled up to large, puffy cartoons of themselves, and
then the spell swept over his legs, effectively disabling him. Harry used a
Stunner on him before he could recover, and Nemo fell with his mouth gaping.

�� The
tentacles went quiet immediately.

�� Harry held
out his arm and said, �Come to me, Flash.�

�� Flash eyed
him sideways, stared at the quiet and bleeding body he still had his claws
embedded in, and then pulled them out and flew to Harry�s shoulder. He rubbed
his head against Harry�s chin, then began to delicately lick his claws. Harry
shook his head and cast the Patronus that would summon help.

�� Then he sat
down, wrapped his arms around his legs, and studied Nemo in silence for a long
time, until Draco was beside him with his arms around him and Hermione was
whispering in his ear and he could make himself realize he�d just captured one
of their major enemies.��

*

�� paigeey07:
Thanks!

�� SP777: In
regards to your first two comments, I shall preserve a dignified silence.

�� I do think
they can be independent, as you see here. But they�re stronger when together.

�� You have
interesting ideas for exercises. I may adopt them.

�� Ceremonies
of Strife� is basically a buildup to the conflict, like the rituals that
sometimes preceded wars.

�� MewMew2:
No, that was one of Nemo�s beasts.

�� polka dot: I
suspect, though, that you won�t despise yourself if you feel that way. Draco
does. He was raised to think Malfoys should be more decisive.

�� mariahs_fantasy:
Thanks! Draco�s obsession is going to be deadly if he doesn�t watch himself, but
that doesn�t make it different from Harry�s, as you rightly noted.

�� And I can�t
really tell you about the necromancy yet, because it would ruin a major plot
point.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Thanks!

�� anciie:
Draco has started thinking he�s above practice, unfortunately, or he would have
realized this by now.

�� qwerty:
Thanks! And Draco might even agree, except at the moment he thinks he has no
power at all. He wants it so he can be secure in/with it.

�� Dragons
Breath: Thank you!
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Ceremonies of Strife