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A Reign of Silence	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3889 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Ten—Walls of Flesh

            The bones almost turned beneath their feet several times, but they made it to the house without a broken ankle or leg among the lot of Aurors. Harry had to admit he was almost sorry for that. If Elder had broken a leg, it could have been the perfect excuse to leave him behind, or at least have Rudie Apparate him out.

            But no, instead they arrived at the skull-house, and Warren reached out and traced one of her more complicated-looking spells in the air with her lips barely moving and eyes shut. When she opened them again, she looked bleaker than Harry had seen her at any time in Cuthbert’s Corner.

            “He’s put spells on the threshold that will trigger as soon as we cross it,” she said. “But I don’t know what kind they are. I can’t figure out their effect,” she added, probably because she had seen Harry’s mouth opening.

            “Then we should do the stone test,” Jenkins said, and stooped down to scoop up a stone before Harry could ask her what she meant.

            The stone arched up from her hand, and came down in the middle of the threshold. Immediately, burning and deafening light burst in the darkness of the clearing like a storm.

            Harry flinched back, his arms rising despite himself, to hold back the blinding effects of that light, the concussion of the thunder. Draco touched his shoulder, and Harry lowered them again. Yes, this wasn’t dangerous, only unexpected. The consequences of the spells might be, though, and Harry needed his eyes and hands free to defend against them.

            “It looks like it would have fried anyone who crossed,” Jenkins said, and nodded her chin at the blackened, wobbling, and considerably smaller stone. “Are there any still left?”

            Again Warren performed her detection spell that Harry didn’t recognize, and this time she grunted and nodded. “Yes. There’s at least one ward that I don’t know, and it looks like a new layer of defensive spells under the first.”

            “Are they necromantic?”

            It took Harry, and probably the others, too, a moment to realize that Rudie had spoken, her voice was so soft and hoarse. Warren turned to look at her with a pitying expression that Harry wanted to tell her to drop. Rudie would never put up with pity. But Rudie might not have noticed, from the way she was staring at the house.

            “I don’t know,” Warren said. “For a variety of good reasons, I’m unfamiliar with necromancy and the way it feels.”

            “Nicolette was exercising her flaw when she investigated necromancy,” Rudie said to no one as she took a slow step towards the house’s door. She reached out and ran her hands up and down in the air in front of the house, as though that would tell her as much as Warren’s wand told Warren. “And you’ve investigated and used your own flaws to survive. I don’t want to hear criticism of her on that front.”

            “You have a lot to learn about criticism,” Jenkins said, shaking her head.

            “This is what happens when you use Dark magic,” Elder said, looking from face to face as though he wanted someone to notice him. Harry immediately turned his head away in case he inadvertently gave the idiot the audience he was looking for. “You turn evil and unable to trust the other people in your group.”

            Jenkins and Draco were considering Elder with identical expressions. Harry would have categorized Jenkins’s expression as plotting Elder’s murder, which meant…

            Harry swallowed. Draco could kill, of course, but Harry would prefer that he not have to kill a fellow Auror. The Ministry would forgive many things, but not a murder, not like this, not now. He would have to preserve Draco’s soul as well as his life, it seemed.

            Harry shifted a little to the side, and Draco focused on him instead. Harry smiled at him and shook his head. Draco raised his eyebrows, but smiled when Harry laid a hand on his shoulder, and then leaned against him. So that was all right.

            Elder opened his mouth to make some other stupid remark, doubtless, because what came out of his mouth that wasn’t stupid? But Rudie interrupted him by saying simply, “The wards are necromantic. Here.”

            There was a clicking, hissing sound that Harry could only characterize as Parseltongue in reverse, and then some of the tension Harry had sensed in the air fell away. He turned and saw that Rudie was moving calmly forwards, past the stone, as though no wards had ever barred their entrance at all. She paused inside the house and turned her head back towards them. “Well? Are you coming?”

            “Did you just use Dark magic, Isla?” Elder had the expression of someone gently chiding a child as he followed her. Harry rolled his eyes.

            “I just used what I remembered from Nicolette’s books,” Rudie said, and then put out a hand to the wall. She walked into the darkness that waited beyond like that, letting the wall guide her as the side of a labyrinth probably would.

            Harry didn’t miss the quick flick of Jenkins’s wand, or the way that Warren shut her mouth and gave a minute shake of her head. It seemed that Jenkins had wondered if they would need to put Rudie down, but Warren disapproved.

            You don’t know they were thinking that. And anyway, there’s no way that someone can become a twisted just from studying what another twisted was studying. Macgeorge’s flaw was necromancy. It was inherent. Rudie can’t become a necromancer the same way.

            But lurking in the back of Harry’s mind was the old definition of a twisted, the one that said someone could become that way from studying too much Dark magic. At least one twisted he and Draco had hunted, the first, Larkin, had indeed turned out that way. And how many nights had Rudie spent poring over Macgeorge’s books, looking for some clue as to how to rescue her partner?

            “Let’s go,” Draco said into his ear, and Harry realized they were in danger of being left behind. He sighed and stepped over the threshold.

*

            Draco’s left arm was burning, and he had to work hard to keep his expression neutral. Look any other way, and he would probably get scolded by Elder, or at least someone might ask what the problem was. The only one Draco wanted to know was Harry, who was already moving close to him, and who would defend him without question.

            The wall beneath Draco’s touch was soft and yielding, rippling. He kept his hand on it as Rudie did anyway. He might lose his way in the house if he let it go, and that was intolerable, given the way the atmosphere bore down on him.

            The first corridor they’d entered led them straight ahead for longer than Draco would have thought it would, then abruptly bent to the side and twisted off into the distance. Draco halted and narrowed his eyes. He could see, he realized, and that wasn’t the combined effect of everyone’s Lumos Charms. He looked up.

            Large worms crawled slowly overhead, the light of their bodies blue-green and making the faces of his companions look like corpses. Draco looked away quickly. He didn’t want to know what they were feeding on.

            “This house was once alive.”

            Draco turned to watch Rudie. She was still in front, but she had come to a halt, and her head was tilted back, her nostrils working as though the foul miasma of odors rising up from the house was purest wine.

            “Once?” Warren asked. She stood between Rudie and Draco, against the wall. Her arms were tucked down, her voice calm, but Draco recognized the feel of an Auror ready to spring into battle. She would attack Rudie if she gave enough wrong answers, Draco was fairly certain.

            “Yes,” Rudie said, and smiled at Warren in a way that made Warren shake her head. “Not now, of course. Nicolette’s magic can’t work with things that are still alive. This house is a corpse, and—” She turned her head to the side, and abruptly she moved, her wand springing up in front of her, forsaking the light it had shed until that moment so that she could illuminate the corridor in front of them with a harsher glow.

            There were shapes there, vaguely human, moving towards them with squelching noises. Draco didn’t know why they hadn’t noticed them earlier, they were so noisy, but then, the darkness of the house was worse than was natural. Possibly it had shielded the approaching Inferi until they came near.

            Rudie made that sound like a sibilant hiss that she had at the wards. This time, it didn’t appear to have any effect. One hand dripping with slimy flesh reached for Rudie’s arm, claws yearning for her skin.

            Not her wand, Draco saw, and his breathing eased a little. At least that suggested that the creatures, hungry or not, weren’t intelligent enough to disarm their enemies. They just wanted to eat, whether or not that was dangerous for them.

            Rudie’s first spell tore the arm reaching for her off the body, but the body didn’t stop. Of course it didn’t, Draco thought, and readied his own wand for a spell that would burn them. Fire was one of the few effective ways of dealing with an Inferius.

            Then Harry spoke, an incantation that Draco didn’t recognize and found hard to hear under the sounds of all the other battle-ready Aurors springing into battle, and the Inferi disintegrated. For a moment, Draco could see whirling clouds of dust and dried blood where they had been, held together by what looked like an eddy of wind. Then those blew apart, too, and they were suddenly and simply gone.

            Draco stared at Harry. “What did you do?”

            “A Destruction Incantation,” Harry said, shrugging with one shoulder in a way that made Draco want to grab that shoulder and force Harry to look at him. But he couldn’t, so he simply stood back with his arms folded and waited for Harry to speak. Harry was peering further into the house, though, searching for the next enemy.

            “And what is a Destruction Incantation?” Jenkins asked, in the cool tone that Draco couldn’t bring himself to use.

            “A spell that destroys anything in front of you, no matter what it is or what it’s normally vulnerable to,” Harry said. “I think I see the corridor bending again up ahead. We should be careful. Something could be waiting around the corner.”

            He started to move, and Elder said, in a bleat, “You invented a spell this powerful, and never thought to register yourself as a Dark spell creator with the Ministry? Don’t you know there are penalties for that?”

            Harry’s shoulders tensed. Draco started to turn around. The last thing they needed now was Elder distracting Harry from the task in front of them.

            He was in time to see Jenkins step up behind Elder, plant her wand in his back, and lean in to murmur into his ear. Draco wasn’t sure what she was saying; unfortunately, Elder’s hair blocked the shapes her lips were making. But Elder’s face turned steadily more pale, and he finally pulled away from Jenkins and stared at her as though she was a scorpion.

            Jenkins flipped him a jaunty little salute and walked away up the corridor, taking her place beside Warren. Draco nodded, satisfied that Elder had been handled, and hurried to catch up with Harry. Rudie was no longer in the lead, but bent over, searching through the remains of the Inferi as though she would find something there that would lead her to Macgeorge. Hell, for all Draco knew, she would.

            He caught up with Harry and murmured into his ear, the way Jenkins had with Elder, “Where did you find that spell?”

            Harry took a long, slow breath, while his hands worked in front of him as though he was wringing out a rag. Then he admitted, “I invented it.”

            “Did you?” Draco ran his fingers lightly over Harry’s back, and said nothing, while gazing over his shoulder for signs of approaching Inferi. The walls around them at least looked ordinary now, though now and then they gleamed in the light of their wands with the slickness of revealed muscle.

            “Yes,” Harry said. “It was—I don’t remember it very well. Shouldn’t we concentrate on what we’re going to do when we come up to this corner?”

            “Warren and Jenkins are going to handle that,” Draco said, which was true, since they were in front and already fanning out to make sure that nothing waited beyond the corner that could surprise them. “I’m more interested in hearing about this Destruction Incantation.” He pressed his fingers gently into the nape of Harry’s neck, trying to show him that he was fine with whatever Harry said to him. “What do you mean, you don’t remember coming up with it? I would remember inventing that powerful and useful a spell.”

            Harry’s chuckle was rusty. “Is it really that useful a spell? It only has one purpose, to destroy. I thought Slytherins liked spells that did more than one thing.”

            Draco smiled against the back of his neck. “That’s plans.” Yes, joking with Harry wasn’t the smartest thing to do right now, maybe, but on the other hand, Draco didn’t want to bolt for the first time since they had walked into this house, which was worth something.

            “Right.” Harry finally relaxed enough to speak normally, or so Draco thought. “I invented it during one of those cases where Lionel and I were probably facing a twisted, although we didn’t know they were called that at the time. This witch just wouldn’t stop coming, or casting spells, or cursing Lionel. So I called on all the desire I had to save him, and shaped it into an incantation that seemed to fit. After the case, I realized I remembered the incantation and I could probably use it other times, too.”

            Draco was silent for a few seconds, because he knew what that sounded like, but he wasn’t sure Harry would accept it.

            “It sounds like you drew on your magical core,” he said. “That’s—important, Harry, and special. It might indicate that you’re powerful, that you could be a spell creator if you wanted.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. “Yes, tell me that I’m special,” he said. “Because I’ve never heard that before.”

            Draco would have said something about how at least Harry had used that spell to protect their lives this time and not that waste of time Lionel Vane’s life, but Warren went still in front of them, and Draco put a hand on Harry’s shoulder instead, holding them both ready to respond to whatever was coming.

            Warren dropped to one knee, and Jenkins stepped forwards, leaning over her shoulder. Draco saw both of them nodding, but he had missed whatever words they might have exchanged before that to explain the nods.

            Then golden, almost delicate circles of light left their wands and flew down the corridor. They looked like smoke rings, or ripples of the sun on water, and Draco was tempted to watch them out of sight. But Harry had covered his eyes and was lifting his hand towards Draco’s, so Draco took the hint and did the same thing.

            The next minute, a gentle draft of heat and wind lifted him from his feet and sent him flying into Harry.

            Harry turned sideways, casting what Draco thought was a Sticking Charm on the wall and binding himself there as he caught Draco’s arms. Draco braced his own feet, having no desire to blow further down the corridor, and turned his head in the direction of the explosion, wondering whether it was the doing of Jenkins and Warren’s spell or something that spell had met further down the corridor.

            A pained roar came to their ears and answered at least part of the question. When Draco could see through the afterimages, Warren had drawn back to cast another spell, and Jenkins had bounded around the corner.

            Rudie, on the other hand, was standing in front of what looked like a motionless part of the wall, examining it with her fingertips. When she saw Draco looking at her, she sniffed. “We aren’t going to find Nicolette by rushing around the house,” she said. “She’s nearby, behind this wall. I can feel it.”

            “Don’t tell Malfoy anything that you want to keep hidden, Isla,” Elder said, with a slow, magisterial shake of his head. “Unless it’s the kind of thing that would damage lives by keeping it hidden. Then he’ll hold onto the secret.”

            Draco didn’t bother answering the accusation, because as far as he could tell, Rudie hadn’t paid the slightest bit of attention to Elder. She pressed her fingers in and down, and then hooked them up, and a door opened in the wall.

            Draco glanced in Warren’s direction, but she was casting spells down the corridor to help her partner, and Jenkins was calling spells in a steady voice, and whatever they had roused from sleep was still screaming and waving its tentacles, or whatever else it had that could cause the strangely-moving group of shadows on the floor. Draco didn’t dare interrupt them. Harry was trembling on one foot, poised to rush forwards into that battle.

            Draco was the one who had to make the decision, as much as it would probably involve having to work with Elder. He took Harry’s elbow in two fingers and jerked his head at the door Rudie had opened, which she had already mostly vanished through.

            “Someone ought to get their attention,” Harry said, nodding at Warren’s back.

            “We’ll leave the door open,” Draco said, and plunged into the new corridor with Harry right between him. At least if Harry was between him and Elder, there was less chance of a fatal accident.

            For either me or Elder.

*

            Harry blinked when he stepped through the door that Rudie had opened into a small, dark corridor with the same soft gleam of muscle and flesh in its walls. Here, though, lit torches gleamed, and if Harry ignored how red-pink their light was and how much their sconces looked like curled tongues, it was almost pleasant.

            “Tell me when you prepare to betray us, so I can curse you first,” Elder said from behind Draco.

            “If you don’t stop speaking right now,” Harry said, in a gentle voice, “I’ll use a Destruction Incantation on you, and there’ll be nothing left for whatever grieving family you have to bury.”

            “What family?” Draco muttered, but he hushed when Harry put his hand on his shoulder. Elder, unable to learn from experience, was still blinking at Harry as if stunned, and Harry thought that was enough to keep him quiet right now.

            “This is the way to Nicolette,” Rudie said, so abruptly that Harry jumped, and he turned back to see her trotting further into the house, through the red-pink shadows on the floor. Harry shook his head and followed her, with Draco strung out behind him, and then Elder. After a few seconds of that, Harry dropped back so that Draco was safely by his side.

            Elder made a soft, complaining, huffing noise, which Harry chose to ignore. He felt the deepest sympathy for Draco at having to work with Elder even for the duration of one case.

            Let’s hope he doesn’t get us killed on this one.

            The corridor began to bend in front of them, and narrow down, until Harry was afraid they might have to crawl on their bellies through it as if it was a tunnel. Before that could happen, though, it just ended, in a wall that looked more solid than the rest of them, or at least less likely to quiver.

            Rudie halted and reached out in front of her, tracing her hands up and down like a blind woman. Draco drew his breath to say something, but Elder brushed past them before he could, and Harry saw him crouch down beside Rudie, staring intently into her face as if he would find her secrets written on her skin.

            Then Harry shuddered and wished he hadn’t thought that, because it reminded him way too much of their last case. So he missed some of Elder’s words to Rudie, although when he began to listen again, it was perfectly obvious what the bastard was talking about.

            “…how do you know that this is the way to Nicolette, Isla? I understand that you shared a special connection with her since she was your partner, but she hasn’t been your partner for weeks now. The thing that she carries in her head could influence her to act in any way it wants. Are you sure that this is the best way to go?”

            And that’s a question that I suppose the rest of us should have asked Rudie a while ago, Harry thought, leaning back with his arms folded and shaking his head. Perhaps there’s some good in Elder after all.

            If there was, Rudie was like Draco in not being able to see it. She simply gave Elder a glance from the corner of her eyes that dismissed him quite as easily as if she’d spoken, and then kept working on the wall. This time, she was touching it, and Harry heard the squelching sound that it made. He concealed a shudder.

            “I know something that may help,” Draco said, and forced his way past Harry when Harry instinctively tried to block him, walking towards the wall that Elder and Rudie paused in front of.

            Elder looked at him with pity in his eyes, and Harry really didn’t want to know the reason. Before he could say anything, however, Rudie turned around and asked Draco, “Something that might allow me to reach Nicolette?”

            “How sure are you that she’s behind this wall?” Draco pointed out, and laid his wand along his arm, in a position that told Harry what he was going to do. Harry backed up a step, then reminded himself of the need to support his partner and stood still.

            “Sure,” Rudie said, and her face burned with the clean fire of fanaticism, her eyes alight. “Sure.”

            Draco nodded, and then spoke a liquid-sounding incantation of the kind that Harry had never liked. The wall in front of him writhed, shimmered, twisted, and disappeared. Harry winced once from the sound, and once from watching it retract like that. The Dark spell Draco had used was one that forced a living object to move out of the way by twisting its body until it did. It made sense to use on a house that seemed partially alive, like this one did, but still never pleasant to see or listen to.

            Elder opened his mouth, no doubt to blame Draco for the Dark curse—

            And then Ernhardt attacked, so what Elder would have had to say became more or less irrelevant.

*

            SP777: How did you think Harry was channeling Hermione?

            delia cerrano: Kind of hard for there to be as they’re approaching a haunted house across a clearing of bones.

            Rina: Believe me, both Harry and Draco agree entirely with you. Although Draco would prefer to kill Elder himself.
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A Reign of Silence