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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 Eleven�Open Doors

�� Lie still,
Trainee Potter.�

�� Harry
rolled his eyes when he was sure Portillo Lopez�s back was turned. He no longer
had her in class, sure, but she was as bossy as she had ever been. She had
already run several scanning and diagnostic charms on him, even though Harry
had used them himself and they�d told him nothing was wrong with him. His arms
ached a bit from holding his muscles constantly bunched with tension, and his
leg where the tentacles had grabbed him and yanked him through the hole in the
wall, but that was all. He would live. Well, maybe a pain potion and then he
would live.

�� I saw
that, Trainee Potter.�

�� Trying to
fight the impulse to fold his arms and sulk like a child, Harry leaned back
against the pillows on the bed and looked around. Now that he knew what the tattoo
on Portillo Lopez�s back meant, he was wondering if anything in her office
would look different. It didn�t, though. There were still racks of potions he
didn�t understand, and closed cabinets with the slight shimmer that told of
powerful locking spells, and the bed that he had spent far too much time in,
both this year and last.

�� Portillo
Lopez had even driven Draco out of the room, and she�d never done that before.
Harry bit his lip and wondered if there was
something wrong with him, something severe she hadn�t told him about.

�� But they�d
been alone for twenty minutes. Why not tell him now?

�� Then he
grimaced and shook his head. Maybe it was so bad she needed to prepare for the
telling.

�� Trainee
Potter.�

�� He looked
up. Portillo Lopez leaned against one of the cabinets, staring at him. Harry
blinked at her in confusion. The scarf she usually wore over her hair was
present, as usual. Her robes were neatly pressed and without a crease or spot
of dust. Her eyes were direct. The main difference was her cold expression,
which he had never seen before.

�� Battle
Healer?� he asked, since he didn�t think he should call her assassin, even if that was what the
tattoo on her skin meant.

�� Portillo
Lopez came a step nearer. Her wand was in her hand. Harry wondered if it had
always been there, or if she had drawn it since he last looked. Her voice was
so quiet it took him long moments to sort out the words. �Would you mind
telling me how long you have been practicing necromancy?�

�� Harry dug
his fingers into the blankets of the bed to keep from panicking, and reminded himself
fiercely that she probably had some kind of special sense or spell that would
let her find these things out. She hadn�t told anyone else. That was the
important thing. Harry thought he could avoid regular contact with Portillo
Lopez, but it would be horrible if Draco, Hermione, or Ron found out.

�� I don�t
know what you mean,� he said. �I�ve been reading about it, but that�s not the
same thing.�

�� No one
stinks of Dark and Dead magic like you do who hasn�t done at least one ritual,�
Portillo Lopez said. She didn�t raise her voice. She didn�t seem to feel the
need to. Harry did wish she would
look away, because until she did, he didn�t think he could move his eyes. �Tell
me. What do you hope to accomplish with it? There are better ways to challenge
Nihil.�

�� Harry
wanted to lick his lips, but he wondered if that would make him look weak to
her. Then he wondered why he was worrying about looking weak, when he had so
many other things to worry about, and gathered the courage to say, �I want to
bring the dead back to life. Why else would you do necromancy?�

�� To gather
power,� Portillo Lopez said. Still no change in her voice or her stance. Harry
thought there were some of the dead around who were probably livelier than she
was. �That is one of the major reasons that wizards practice the Dark Arts, and
make no mistake, necromancy is among those.� She paused, then added, �This is
something like the Cruciatus Curse, Trainee Potter, do you understand? There is
no way to adapt it to goodness or the
purposes of goodness. The dead are always wrenched from their rest unwillingly,
and brought back to life as, at the very best, slaves who know they are slaves
and resent it. I am not sure who told you that you could accomplish good things
this way, but��

�� Nobody did
that,� Harry snapped, because the last thing he wanted was for one of his
friends or Draco to get in trouble. �I thought of it on my own.�

�� Portillo
Lopez watched him and said nothing.

�� So many
people died during the war,� Harry said. He had to at least try to explain. And he wanted to do that
for more than one reason. He�d been falling behind in his necromancy studies lately,
with so many other things to do for his classes. Maybe he could inspire himself
to take it up again if he reminded his mind of what he was fighting for. �They
didn�t get a chance to live. They left orphans behind. Or they suffered while
they were alive, and their deaths were only the last thing that happened to
them, not the worst. I want to give them that second chance. They should have
had it, and no one else is going to give it to them.�

�� Portillo
Lopez smiled. The smile had old sadness in it, and Harry thought he could have
asked what she knew about necromancy, and why she dedicated herself to fighting
it so strongly. But he didn�t really want to. He knew exactly what kind of
speech she was going to make, and he had to concentrate on stuffing his ears
with straw.

�� Many
people have that fantasy,� she said. �But it is only a fantasy. One cannot
manage anything like that, Trainee Potter. The people who come back from the
dead would be bound to you, and they
would do only as you liked them to. If that was a parody of life, that is what
would happen, but they would not be able to make any real choices. They would
only make the ones that you chose for them.�

�� Harry shook
his head. �I wouldn�t ever want them to suffer,� he said. �I would choose for
them to live free and independent lives, apart from me.�

�� But that
is the one choice you cannot make,� Portillo Lopez said.

�� Harry
glared at her. �You just said they would do whatever I ordered them to.�

�� But you
cannot order someone to be free,� Portillo Lopez said, with iron patience, �just
as you cannot make someone live by killing him. That is the point I am trying
to put across to you, and which you seem to be ignoring. You would achieve
parody, and that only, not truth.�

�� You say that,� Harry said. �But most
people want to be necromancers because they like the power. Going into it with
different intentions ought to make a difference.�

�� Portillo
Lopez�s mouth twitched. �It does not,� she said. �That only makes it worse in
some senses, because the person is so convinced that they are doing right that
they will not listen to reason.� She looked pointedly at Harry.

�� Harry shook
his head. �There isn�t any other choice,�
he said. �Don�t you see? Without me, they aren�t going to get to live another
life, because no one else will try to give them one.�

�� Perhaps,�
Portillo Lopez whispered, �you should accept the verdict of time and fate and
nature, and concentrate on living your own life in a way that will make them
proud of you.�

�� Harry
snorted. �They didn�t die so I could make them proud. They died for other
reasons. And I wouldn�t care if they hated me when they were alive again. At
least that means they would have a chance to feel something.�

�� I believe
it does not matter what I say,� Portillo Lopez said. �You have made up your
mind, and you have chosen the view of things that places me on a villain�s side
of the line. Very well. Then I have no choice but to tell the truth to those I
think can restrain you.�

�� Harry
lifted his head. �Even if I was kicked out of the Aurors, that wouldn�t keep me
from practicing necromancy.� The back of his throat was dry, and his head was
buzzing. He felt as though he was detached from everything happening around
him. He could make grand pronouncements and mean them, because that was better
than thinking about what would happen if he gave up his promise to bring people
back from the dead.

�� Portillo
Lopez gave him another quietly amused glance. �I did not teach you for a year
without learning how little you care for official authority. I meant your friends
and your partner. I hardly think they will stand for this.�

�� Harry felt
as though someone had reached into his chest, grasped his heart, and begun to
rend off pieces of it. Yes, Draco would be angry at him. And so would Hermione,
and Ron. They might not yell at him, but they would do something worse. They
would search his books until they found the one about necromancy and take it
away. And then they would keep a sharp eye out for the black candles, the salt,
and other things Harry needed to buy to do the rituals, and take them away when
they found them. Harry had been able to do that first ritual only because no
one knew he was doing it.

�� If someone
found out�

�� Portillo
Lopez was using knowledge to force him into doing what she wanted. The only
thing Harry could do was use knowledge back, so that she would do what he wanted.

�� I know
what you really are,� he said.

�� Portillo
Lopez paused and glanced back at him in puzzlement. �What do you mean? If you
are going to call me a bitch or any other name, I quite assure you, Trainee
Potter, I have heard the insult before and can resist it.�

�� I mean,�
Harry said, and clenched his hands together to stop them from shaking, �I know
that you have a symbol on your skin like a wheel covered with deadly
nightshade, and I know that that means you�re an assassin who hunts
necromancers and the living dead. And you must want to hide it, or you would
wear the tattoo openly. So I�ll tell people if you tell them about my
necromancy.�

�� Portillo
Lopez�s face turned grey. Then she said, �You stupid child. You have not the least idea of what harm you might
cause by releasing that information.�

�� I think I
do,� Harry countered. He felt a little calmer, now that he saw her responding
to the threat. If she hadn�t, or had laughed, he wasn�t sure what he would have
done. �As much idea as you have of what you�ll do if you stop me from bringing
back the dead.�

�� I�ve seen
a hundred of you,� Portillo Lopez said with cool contempt. �You always think
your necromancy is somehow different, as though you�ve learned something new,
unprecedented in thousands of years of experiments. But you know nothing about
me, and nothing about what oaths you transgress in exposing me.�

�� They�re
not my oaths,� Harry said. �And that�s all I care about.�

�� Portillo
Lopez closed her eyes and stood there as if in silent communion with someone or
something. Harry hoped she was contacting
her superiors, whoever they were, and asking for help. They would probably tell
her to leave him alone, that someone who had performed one necromantic ritual
was too small to be worth bothering about.

�� She has to think that, Harry thought,
jamming his hands together. I�m not
important. I�m not really the Boy-Who-Lived anymore, just one Auror trainee
among the rest. Why should she care if I condemn myself to death or whatever
she thinks will happen as a result of this?

�� When she
looked at him again, her eyes were black with hatred, and Harry shrank back
against the pillows, but her words were what he wanted to hear. �My oaths are
more important than the damage you might do to yourself,� she said, and her
voice cracked like blocks of stone that someone was breaking with a hammer. �Very
well. Drown yourself in darkness, and reach out too late to save your life or
sanity.�

�� She whirled
away and stalked to the door. When it opened, Harry saw Draco on the other
side. He smiled and held out his arms. Draco hurried across the floor and
hugged him without glancing once at Portillo Lopez.

�� She stood there and gave Harry one more
burning glance before she disappeared down the corridor. Harry snorted and
squeezed Draco tight. �Have they got any information out of Nemo? And is that
really Nemo?�

�� Draco�s
smile was sly. �Let me take you to where you can hear it for yourself.�

*

�� Harry had a
dazed expression when he came out of the Pensieve that Pushkin, who had
questioned Nemo, had stored his memories of the interrogation in. He leaned
back against the table that the Fellowship�all of them except Portillo Lopez,
who had taken herself out of this for some reason�had crowded around and stared
at Draco. �Is that true?� he demanded.

�� I was right
there when he said it,� Draco murmured, a bit smugly. He had been worried about
Harry and the way that Portillo Lopez was holding him in her office, but when a
chance to attend the questioning had popped up, he had to take it.

�� Harry shook
his head in wonder. �So that is him.
And he�s spilling all these details about the caches and the places that Nihil�s
soldiers are waiting and�� He looked at Pushkin as if he wanted him to
continue.

�� Yes,�
Pushkin said in a high voice, tapping his fingers together. His expression
barely ever changed, but Draco had learned enough in his Observation class to
tell that he was pleased. �He says that he does not know enough about Nihil�s
plan to give us the complete details, but I am rather inclined to distrust that.
And I think I have a much better idea of what that plan was than I did before.�

�� Well, what
is it?� Granger asked. Draco was completely unsurprised that the first question
had belonged to her.

�� We should
have seen it sooner,� said Pushkin, and Draco decided that the Observations
instructor had a previously unsuspected streak of sadism in his nature that
made him put off the announcement for as long as possible. �The names that
these people have chosen for themselves. The way that they can apparently die
and then return.� He paused reflectively. �That is the key to the whole thing,
truly.�

�� What?� Granger was bouncing in her
chair, Harry holding his breath. Even Weasley looked as if he might explode
from impatience. Draco took the time to note smugly that he was holding up much
better under the suspense than they were, and then realized his hands were
clenched so tightly that his fingers ached. He hastily tucked them out of sight
under the table.

�� They have
discovered a way to truly pass through death,� Pushkin said, �and come out on
the other side. That is why I do not believe Nihil died when he confronted
Auror Dearborn, any more than Nusquam died when we thought you had killed her.�
He nodded to Draco and Harry. �They have transformed
themselves, and made death one more change, not the limit of their
existence. If they are the living dead themselves, no longer the person or
people they were born as, that would make sense.�

�� Draco
half-shut his eyes, remembering the information that Harry had received from a
nonexistent pure-blood at the Christmas party they had attended. Harry had let
him look at a Pensieve memory of that conversation, eventually, and the words
echoed in Draco�s head like bells now. He wondered that he hadn�t noticed them
more at the time.

�� But if you can ensure that part of you goes
through death and survives, so that death is just another kind of
transformation, like falling in love or being born or growing up, then it�s not
terrifying. And if you can control that
transformation, and where the changed part of you ends up�

�� Draco shook
his head. He had assumed without thinking that that way of speaking was poetic
or a metaphor, not the literal truth.

�� But how?�
Ketchum asked urgently. �And if we can�t kill them, then how in the world can
we fight them?�

�� And what
do they want?� Granger asked
plaintively. �They haven�t tried to sell this secret or set themselves up as
people who are superior because of it. They�ve just attacked and corrupted and
raised armies. What are they doing with it?�

�� I should
have seen and heard it before,� Pushkin said, �every time we pronounced their
names. Nothing. Nowhere. No one.� He turned his hand palm up on the table. �This
is only a theory, unsubstantiated by the direct information that I believe I
have received from Nemo on the subject. He did not want to tell me anything, of
course, but he could not resist bragging and throwing out hints, and so I am
more certain of the idea that they have created a way to transform themselves through
death. This is speculation.�

�� We
understand that,� said Hestia Jones, sounding more impatient than Draco had
ever heard her do. �Just get on with it.�

�� Pushkin gave
her a long, cool look, but nodded and finally continued. �They have chosen
names made of nothingness,� he said. �I wish they believe to reduce the world
to the same thing. A rag of nothingness, drifting in space.�

�� Draco
frowned. �But that doesn�t make sense,� he said.

�� Other
people were arguing at the same time. �That�s ridiculous,� Ketchum said,
blunter than Draco would have been to someone he respected as much as the
Observations professor. Draco rolled his eyes. That�s Mudbloods for you. �You can�t take one fact and turn it into
a whole theory.�

�� They�re
still creating things,� Jones said, pushing her hair out of one eye and looking
skeptically at Pushkin. �Soldiers, grief magic, new ways of coming through
death if you�re right. That would imply they don�t want to destroy the whole
world.�

�� Yes, Nihil
seems outraged,� Granger said, �but outraged enough to destroy the whole world?
Really?�

�� Harry
looked thoughtful, and stayed silent. Weasley looked stupid, but he didn�t add his
voice to the discussion, either, which Draco considered a small mercy.

�� I can only
tell you what I suspect,� Pushkin said calmly. �This is an intuitive theory; I
cannot point to the evidence the way I could if it was logical. But I will
maintain it in the back of my mind, and search out evidence that might support
it.�

�� Which
means that you�ll let your conclusion predetermine what you see.� Ketchum raised
his eyebrows at Pushkin. �We�ll investigate this together, and the next
interrogation of Nemo should produce more.�

�� Draco
nodded in agreement. He hoped he would be able to attend the next interrogation
in person as well. Nemo�s face and manner hadn�t provided him with anything
more than what Pushkin had noted, but maybe, now that he knew the profundity of
the secrets the man was probably protecting, they would.

�� Someone
hammered on the door. Granger and Jones snatched up their wands, but Ketchum
shook his head. �I told some of my trainees where we were meeting,� he
explained, standing up and moving to the door. �In case they needed to fetch
me. They don�t know what the meeting is about.�

�� Draco
scowled and let his raised hand drop back to his side, but he decided that he
would remember Ketchum�s tendency to give out information like that without
discussing it with the rest of the Fellowship.

�� Ketchum
blocked their vision with his body as he opened the door�though Draco had to
admit that could be partially because he didn�t want his trainee to see who was
there�but they could all hear her voice. It was a sobbing, bleating mess, and
Draco thought about that in detail before he heard her words and forgot about
other things.

�� Sir, Nemo�s
been murdered in his cell!�

�� Ketchum
cursed and sprinted out the door. He still managed to let it fall shut so that
it would block their view, Draco noted. And then the rest of them were on their
feet and following, and could hopefully blend with the crowd in the corridors,
so it didn�t matter.

�� The crowd
was there, shifting back and forth and raising confused voices. Ketchum,
Pushkin, and Jones formed into a wedge and cut through the trainees, who fell
back automatically when they saw full-fledged Aurors commanding them to do so.
Draco ran after them, and hoped that no one would think he was anything other
than an interested spectator. God knew what they would think of Weasley,
though.

�� It was two
turns and a flight of stairs down to the holding cell, and Draco was panting by
the time he got there. He grimaced and put a hand over the place in his side
that was aching. Perhaps I should be
training harder, as Morningstar suggested. That little run shouldn�t have tired
me out.

�� Stand
back!� Ketchum�s voice rang out, and the people milling around the holding cell
door, who seemed to include few if any Aurors, fell back in automatic
obedience. Harry dogged Ketchum�s heels, and Draco stayed close to him. The
door stood open, and he could see a long stream of thick, dark blood running
out from under it.

�� That should
have prepared him for the sight of the room, but it didn�t.

�� Someone had
cut Nemo, or the body Nemo was using, in half, and then scooped out each half
like a grapefruit. Draco saw that much, though how he made his mind understand
it, he didn�t know, given the tangle of organs, flesh, and bones everywhere. He
had to turn away then, because the explosions of red on the walls and the sheer
thickness of everything made him want
to vomit, or simply weep from shock.

�� Harry
wrapped his arms around Draco and held him. He was standing curiously still, as
if the sight of Nemo dead didn�t move him. Or maybe he�d seen enough horrible
things during the war that it didn�t affect him as much anymore, Draco thought,
leaning his head against Harry�s shoulder. He would gladly think about the war
rather than this, if it was the only way to banish the sight from his mind.

�� Shouted questions
traveled back and forth, and Draco gradually learned what everyone else knew:
that no one had seen the person who came into the cell, that Nemo had had no
visitors since the official interrogation, and that the monitoring charms that
should have detected any change in him hadn�t flickered. They wouldn�t have known
he was dead so soon if the trainee who was supposed to take in food hadn�t
opened the door.

�� Draco
shuddered. He had to wonder if someone had deliberately come in and killed Nemo
so that he could fly to another body, one they wouldn�t know the look of.
Perhaps Nihil had been angry about his subordinate�s failure and his easy
capture and had come himself.

�� Or perhaps we have another enemy, one even
worse, that we don�t know about.

*

�� Harry held
Draco, glad that he didn�t ask for anything but an embrace right now. Harry�s
mind was racing so fast that he didn�t think he could have replied even if
Draco had been asking him questions about the murder.

�� He was
thinking about the fact that, if what Pushkin said was true, Nemo could
possibly be classified as one of the living dead.

�� And that
Portillo Lopez�s order was sworn to destroy them.

�� And that
Portillo Lopez had been absent from the Fellowship�s meeting.

*

�� paigeey07:
Thank you!

�� Mehla
Seraphim: Yes, but at the moment, they have other things to learn, and Draco
probably would have trouble raising enough happiness for a Patronus anyway.

�� rafiq: Some
clues, and in the right direction, but not the whole picture.

�� polka dot:
Thanks!

�� anciie:
Wow! It�s like I wrote this chapter just to dismay you! (Honestly, that was
just the way it worked out).

�� Dragons
Breath: Thank you! The tentacles were not part of Nemo, but of his beasts, and
they should at least still have those if not Nemo. They can examine them.
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Ceremonies of Strife