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Seasons of War	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 9694 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter List
- 10
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Chapter Eleven�The
Comitatus In Spring

�� This is
the first prototype of our new weapon.�

�� Draco kept
his eyes fixed firmly forwards, so that he couldn�t look around and embarrass
himself by seeking out the expressions on people�s faces. Most of them were
likely hopeful, anyway, without the admiration or wonder that would have fed
his ego.

�� Look at it
carefully,� Holder went on, pacing in front of their ranks. She held up the
blue-black, compact thing�it was so shiny that it was hard to make out its
shape, but it looked like the butt of a whip to Draco�and then tossed it into
the air. A few people cried out anxiously, but Holder caught the weapon and
looked at them with a smug smile.

�� She did that on purpose, Draco thought,
his heart still hammering with the belief that the weapon he�d helped to create
would be destroyed. Bitch.

�� Holder held
the thing out towards them. Draco squinted. It was still hard to focus his eyes
on it even though he knew what he was looking for, and he could hear similar
discontented murmurs from the others.

�� Each
partnership will be given one to wield,� Holder said, and her voice was deadly
serious now. Her eyes bored into Draco and Harry as if she thought they would
be the ones to disregard her instructions and kill themselves. Draco put his
chin up and wondered how much she knew of the part they�d played in the
development of the weapon. Not much, likely; Portillo Lopez and Gregory had
presented the weapon as their accomplishment. Draco and Harry had agreed that
they should, so as to get Robards and Holder to actually listen, but it still
stung. �You must use them carefully.
If you lose them, they will not be replaced. Wield them only on the living dead
or on the people or creatures you suspect to have been taken over by Nihil.
Others will not be hurt by them, and can still hurt you with spells.�

�� Heads
bobbed all around him; Draco could hear the rustling of hair against robe
collars. He nodded with the rest. What else could he do? He understood the
limitations of the weapon better than Holder did, but he was at her mercy for
the present.

�� Harry
tucked an elbow against his side. Draco smiled, and knew it was a tight smile,
but he wanted to show Harry that he understood and appreciated the reassurance.
He made the smile vanish when Holder glanced at him again.

�� To wield
the weapon,� Holder said, �you will clasp it in one hand and aim either end at
the creature you wish to destroy. Or to test,� she added, with a small, mean
smile that Draco thought she had used just to make other people gulp. �If you
suspect that someone is a servant of Nihil, this will provide the proof that
they are not. Or are.�

�� She turned
and aimed the thing high. Draco glanced up. Two Aurors, Ketchum and Jones, were
dragging something that struggled and snarled and hissed into the middle of the
clearing where the trainees stood. This was their new camp, the one they had
come to with the end of winter, and the grass wasn�t completely churned into
mud yet. It was enough so to make drops of it fly from the struggling
creature�s feet, though.

�� Harry
stiffened next to him. Draco glanced at him but could make nothing out of the
expression on his face, so he turned back to the thing.

�� It had
shriveled skin like a dried prune, and it lunged and snapped at its captors
with oversize teeth. Otherwise, it looked normal, a boy who might have been
sixteen or so, but Draco knew at once that it was one of the living dead.

�� A murmur of
revulsion ran through the students. Holder grinned over her shoulder, clearly
loving that, and then took aim with the weapon at the boy. He went still in a
moment, staring at her. Or, no, Draco thought, not at her. At the weapon in her
hand. His overlarge teeth clapped down again, and he looked as wary as a mouse
in front of a hawk.

�� Now,�
Holder said, in a detached voice that made Draco�s jaws ache. �When you have
the weapon aimed, you will squeeze down with both hands at once, on opposite
sides. And then you must stand still. If you aim it elsewhere or wander in
front of it, you may disrupt the weapon�s working and allow your prey to attack
you.�

�� The weapon
trembled and spat. The air between Holder and the living corpse turned
blue-black. Draco blinked and blinked again. He kept thinking that he should be
able to make out some pattern in the color, like a lightning bolt or a sheet of
mist, and it kept eluding him.

�� There was
no doubt about its effect on the living dead boy, though.

�� His arms
flailed at the air so hard that Jones had trouble holding onto him. His mouth
opened, and then kept opening. The darkness from it traveled down the front of
his face and then over the back of his head and kept expanding, while his teeth
ripped loose of his jaw and zipped through the air. The trainees ducked them
with cries of disgust. Draco didn�t, but that was because he�d had the sense to
raise a Shield Charm around himself the moment he saw the weapon take effect.

�� The boy�s
mouth kept opening, and his dried flesh tore in front of it. Then something
swirled up from the mouth, something soft and smoky and clinging like wool.
Draco thought it would have felt like wool if he had put out his hand to touch
it, too.

�� The smoky
thing dived beneath the earth and faded. At the same moment, the blue-black
light ceased and the body collapsed into mucky piles of skin and bone. The
demonstration was done. Jones and Ketchum stepped back, both wringing their
hands to remove the last bits of grey flesh. Ketchum was smiling. Jones simply
looked revolted.

�� That is
the way to use them,� Holder went on, turning back to the trainees. �Does
anyone need any more instruction?� She looked like she would be happy to
provide it to anyone who asked, and Draco knew why. It would give her more
chances to destroy the living dead that it seemed the Aurors had finally
managed to capture, and she was happiest when she was destroying things.

�� Granger
raised her hand and asked a question that she already knew the answer to,
considering how intensively she had worked with Gregory and Portillo Lopez, as
well as Harry and Draco, to produce the weapon. But Draco knew that she would
say she was doing this for the sake of people too shy to ask questions if he
teased her about it. �What was that smoky thing that escaped his mouth?�

�� We don�t
know, exactly,� Holder said. �The weapon can�t touch it. We like to think that
it was his spirit fleeing control, going home, but of course we cannot be
sure.�

�� A few
people looked more revolted than before. Draco rolled his eyes. There were some
who wouldn�t be contented until someone had gentled the whole world for them,
wrapped all the nasty dangers in protective glass and then smoothed the paths
so that they wouldn�t trip as they wandered through and gaped.

�� I see,� Granger
said, and fell silent, frowning heavily. It was the same objection she had
raised during the weapon�s development, Draco remembered. He didn�t think she
was honestly worried about hurting the spirits of the dead; she must know (at
least, if she was rational, and Draco thought she was, most of the time) that
being dead would hurt the spirits less than whatever Nihil had done to them
while he possessed them. But she didn�t like not knowing the answers to things.

�� Now,�
Holder said, and raised her hand with a grand, sweeping motion that made Draco
think she could have been a good actress. Better an actress than the
second-in-command of the Aurors, at any rate. Weston and Lowell came forwards
holding an armful each of the shiny blue-black objects. �Here are your weapons.
You will both train to use them, and do nothing else, for the next two days.�

�� Draco
sighed. He and Harry already knew how to use them, thanks to being part of the
testing. That meant he would suffer a lot of boredom in the next two days.

�� Look at it
this way,� Harry said, in a whisper that actually managed to be a whisper
instead of a half-shout. �That just means that we can spend the next few days
working on something else, and Holder doesn�t have an excuse to punish us.�

�� Draco bit his
lip to muffle his chuckle. Unfortunately, Holder turned around at that same
moment and saw him.

�� Did you
have something to say, Trainee Malfoy?� she asked, stalking towards him with
her robes flowing and snapping behind her. She could still have taken pointers
on it from Professor Snape, Draco thought.

�� Not as
such, Auror Holder,� he said. �I was just thinking that we might have an
advantage in using this weapon because we�ve been partners for a longer time
than others.� It was the best excuse he could offer, since Holder and Robards
were both determined not to let anyone else among the trainees know about Harry
and Draco�s ability to enter Nihil�s world, or Harry�s necromancy.

�� Holder
stared into his eyes as if she assumed that her gaze was Veritaserum. Draco
looked back calmly. My father did this
better, bitch.

�� Holder
finally shrugged and turned away. �You and Trainee Potter will give the first
demonstration on Wednesday,� she said over her shoulder.

�� Draco
sneered at her back. If she thought that an opportunity to gain adulation and
glory would intimidate him, then she hadn�t understood his psychology at all.

�� Of course,
he thought understanding his psychology was low on her list of priorities,
while he wanted to know more about her so that he could determine how much he
should hurt her for hurting Harry.

�� Harry
reached out a hand and accepted the blue-black weapon that Weston was handing
them at that moment. Weston raised an eyebrow, whispered, �Only remember that
you should not rely on this exclusively as a substitute for your compatible
magic,� and was gone before Draco could retort that that was a stupid thing to
think they�d do.

�� Harry
turned the object over, and shivered. Draco reached out gingerly. He had helped
a lot in the stages that this went through, yes, but he hadn�t touched the
finished project, which had needed strong doses of Portillo Lopez�s magic and
which she had therefore worked on alone.

�� The butt of
the weapon was smooth and slick beneath his fingers; it was like touching wet
ice. Draco shook his fingers out and drew them away. When he glanced up, he
found that Harry had his head bowed and was frowning at the weapon.

�� What?�
Draco whispered.

�� There�s
this�thrumming running through it,� Harry whispered back. �I didn�t realize
that would be there.�

�� Draco
frowned and touched the weapon again. He couldn�t feel anything but silence and
solidity. �Well, I don�t feel that, but what about the cold?�

�� It�s not
cold,� Harry said, giving him a sharp look. �It�s warm.�

�� Draco
shivered a bit himself. Bringing weapons back from beyond death was not at all
a simple thing to do, as he knew from venturing into Nihil�s realm twice more
to grab pieces of the void. But he had somehow thought, without even thinking
about why, that making the pieces into solid things that one could touch and
hold would eliminate their strangeness.

�� There were
unhappy murmurs all around them that said other partnerships were finding that
out. Draco glanced over at Granger and Weasley. They both hovered above the
weapon, which lay in Weasley�s hands, and apparently Granger was taking notes
on a parchment draped across her arm.

�� Draco
turned to Ventus and Herricks. He regarded the thing with dread, while Ventus
spun it in her hands with a small smile, getting used to the weight. Draco was
sure that she would be comfortable with it long before anyone else was.

��

�� Draco
sighed. He knew that they would have to incorporate Herricks into the
comitatus, because he was Ventus�s partner and she had worked well with him so
far, and they had been trying to expose him to the information they�d
accumulated and the experiences they�d had outside the structure of the Auror
hierarchy. He had accepted it with horrified glances and timidity so far, as
well as horrified fascination. He was more rule-bound than Granger, and prone
to underplay his own talents much like Harry.

�� Herricks
glanced up as if he could tell that Draco was thinking of him and scowled in
his direction. Draco noted that he switched his attention back to Ventus and
the weapon a moment later, as if he thought she shouldn�t be left alone with
it.

�� Draco
sighed again. If we want her�and we
do�then we have to have him there. I can only hope that his timidity is a good
thing and will make him submit to my leadership a bit more.

*

�� No. Why
should you be the leader? You despise the Aurors, and I�ll be astonished if you
make a good one.�

�� Harry
winced. He had thought that they might have trouble with Herricks, but not this
particular kind of trouble.

�� Draco
watched Herricks with glittering eyes. They were in the middle of Harry and
Draco�s tent, which Draco had taken the chance to enlarge with wizardspace when
they moved camps. There were chairs for everyone, but only Hermione was
actually sitting down. Ron stood behind her chair warily, as if he assumed that
he would have to defend her from something, Ventus was on her feet and facing
Draco, and Herricks was on his feet
with his arms folded.

�� Everyone
else in the comitatus has accepted me,� Draco said. �Including your partner.
Don�t you trust her judgment?�

�� Not
always,� Herricks said.

�� Harry
snorted, and then tried to turn it into a muffled cough when Draco scowled at
him. He had to agree, though. Ventus was an excellent fighter, but she had
little concern for her own safety, and she revered Draco to the point that it
could hurt her sometimes.

�� Draco shook
his head. �You can accept my leadership, or you can leave the comitatus. They
have even less reason to follow someone like you, who�s new to most of them and
has only worked in-depth with Ventus. You haven�t shared what we have. If you
want to challenge me, you�d have to give a better reason than your being uneasy
with it.�

�� Herricks
shook his head. He hadn�t moved, and Harry thought that Draco had probably
overestimated his vulnerability. �I don�t want to take the leadership myself,
but I object to obeying you when you might order me to do something stupid.�

�� Draco
closed his eyes in the way that Harry recognized as coming right before his
tension headaches. He reached over Draco�s shoulder and started massaging his
temples, making as many soothing noises as he could.

�� Draco
tilted his head back so that he rubbed against Harry�s fingers, and spoke
without opening his eyes. �Listen to me, Herricks. I�ll explain my decisions as
much as I can. You can question them. Granger certainly does.�

�� Of course
I do,� Hermione muttered. �I always questioned the decisions Harry made, too.
We might not be here if I hadn�t.�

�� Harry
smiled at her. Hermione, for some reason, flushed and looked away. Ron put a
hand on her shoulder to reassure her in much the same way that Harry was trying
to reassure Draco. Or, at least, Harry thought it was the same. He didn�t
always identify the emotions his best friends were feelings as well as he could
identify Draco�s.

�� On the other hand, to do that, I�d probably
have to sleep with them. Harry shuddered from the thought and dropped his
hands as Draco opened his eyes and stepped forwards again.

�� But if I
say something in the midst of battle, then I want you to listen,� Draco said.
�And we�ll probably be fighting plenty of battles that we won�t have time to
make detailed plans for, and which the Aurors wouldn�t let us fight if they
knew.�

�� I don�t
know why you oppose everything your comitatus does to what the �Aurors� know
and do and like,� Herricks said, frowning. �Aren�t you training to become
Aurors yourselves? Why do you assume that you�re something different or
opposite from them? You speak as if you were.�

�� Draco
paused and frowned. Harry had to smile. He thought that Hermione would have
used bigger words to make the point, but otherwise it was something she might
have brought up.

�� Yes,
exactly!� Hermione was sitting up in her chair, cheeks on fire with emotion,
eyes shining. �Why do we act as
though we can�t go to the Aurors for help, or as if all of them would hate us
fighting our own battles? They want people to work together. That�s why they�ve
pushed together so many new partners.� She looked meaningfully at Ventus and
Herricks, though Harry didn�t think either one noticed. �They would be proud
and happy when we tell them that we�ve formed the comitatus. They might adopt
the form to use in other situations.�

�� No, they
wouldn�t,� Ventus said. �I told you about the comitatus. Our primary loyalty is
to each other. We can fight apart in partnerships, but we also bring new
strengths into the comitatus. The Aurors would either waste a lot of time
trying to make everyone into groups like ours�when they have to happen
naturally�or they would assume it was bad because we were the ones who did it and force us apart.� She didn�t sound
upset, Harry thought, but as if she were simply speaking a fact.

�� But that
would be stupid of them.� Hermione was frowning and tapping her fingers on her
elbow.

�� You
assumed the Aurors were paragons of intelligence?� Draco raised his eyebrows.
�Oh, dear, Granger.�

�� Hermione
had the good grace to smile at that. �But we should still approach them,� she
said. �Portillo Lopez and Gregory helped us with this weapon. I don�t think
trying to act without them will get us anywhere.� She paused and scowled at
Draco as though she had suddenly realized something. �What were you planning on doing without them, anyway? What�s the next
task that you�re envisioning for the comitatus?�

�� Harry
leaned back against the wall and watched Draco with some interest. He had to
admit that he didn�t know what secrets Draco was keeping, either. He hadn�t
seen fit to spill them this time.

�� Draco
remained still, turning his head from side to side so that he could survey them
all individually. Harry stayed where he was, but Draco still glanced at him for
long, quiet moments. Harry became aware, when Draco turned away, that he was
standing up straighter than normal and drawing in his stomach. He slumped again
and scowled.

�� Nihil
hasn�t attacked us for months,� Draco said. �Long enough for us to assemble
that weapon, enough for winter to start passing. Why? What could be more important
than killing people who killed one of his people and who are developing weapons
against him?�

�� He might
not know about the weapon,� Ron said. �How could he?�

�� He has
spies.� Draco flicked his fingers as though he accepted the possibility and
found it not worth worrying about. �I know that. The most important thing is
that he might not know of a way to counter it yet. But he�ll invent it in
time.� He began pacing back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back. �But
he hasn�t visibly come into camp to test it yet. Why not? What�s he doing
instead? We should find out what that is and disrupt it.�

�� That makes
sense,� Herricks said slowly. He seemed to have forgotten to be upset about
Draco being the leader. �But how can we learn what he�s doing? We can�t send
any spies after him. We don�t know where he is.�

�� We have
the means of finding out,� Draco said, and turned to Harry.

�� Harry
winced. He�d told Draco more about his visions of Nihil�the rare ones he�d had,
anyway�in the last few days. He�d thought Draco was asking out of idle
curiosity. He should have remembered that wasn�t one of Draco�s motives.

�� I don�t
know how to control the things I see,� he said flatly, before Draco could say
anything. �And the visions I�ve had seemed to focus on Catherine Arrowshot. I
haven�t had one in a long time, so she might be dead.�

�� Who�s
Catherine Arrowshot?� Herricks demanded. �The one who disappeared? The
traitor?�

�� Hermione
explained to him while Draco met Harry eye to eye and seemed to exude an aura
of calm. Harry shook his head. �You�re not getting your way this time,� he
said. �I don�t even know why I have visions. How could you expect me to use
them for the good of the comitatus if I don�t know why?�

�� We know
more about Nihil than we did when you had the last vision,� Draco said. �I
think that you can use the imbalance of the forces of life and death to take a
good look at him. At least, if my theory is correct,� he added.

�� What
theory?� Harry folded his arms. Ron was paying close attention to them,
frowning. Harry hoped that he could at least count on Ron�s support not to do
this mad thing if it came to that. Ventus watched with bright eyes, which meant
she would be no help, with her faith in everything Draco did.

�� The theory
that says that you and Nihil are connected because both of you have special
connections to life and death,� Draco said. He was utterly serene, and Harry
had to admit that that was calming him down, although it still wouldn�t make
him do things against his will. �He�s the one who disrupted the world so much
by raising armies of the living dead, and you�re the last bit of the Dark Lord
remaining in the world.�

�� Harry
blinked. �An interesting way to look at it,� he said finally.

�� I�m right,
though?� Draco said. Only someone who knew him as well as Harry did would have
known that he was asking a question. �Portillo Lopez did say that your art of necromancy was probably there because you
had a connection to the Dark Lord?�

�� Harry
shrugged. �That wouldn�t help me all that much if I�m supposed to make the
connection to Nihil. And remember that our attempts to invade his mind have
never gone very well.�

�� This
theory that I have is based on resonance similarity,� Draco said. Harry rolled
his eyes�Draco knew he didn�t do well with magical theory�and Draco hurried to
explain. At least he did it better than Portillo Lopez. �When two magical
objects in the world are extremely similar, they set up a conduit between
themselves. Not consciously; Dark artifacts and books can do it too. They have
to be more than identical copies of each other, though, so it wouldn�t work
with, say, two copies of the same book. The conduit is a tunnel that results in
an exchange of magic, and any magic that�s used by or on them set up
sympathetic changes in the other. If you ripped out a page of one book, you
might find the page with the same number in the similar book damaged. I know of
a case where two magical swords both melted although both of them were only
heated a bit. The fire was magical, so that made the conduit vibrate between
them, and the exchange of magic went on and on, amplifying each time, until it
triggered the melting process.�

�� All
right,� Harry said, mind reeling with images of invisible tunnels and magical
vibrations stretching through space. �But how does that help with a vision,
instead of damage?�

�� Draco
smiled. �The connection between you and the Dark Lord was based on similar
pieces of soul. Shape a piece of your mind so that it�s similar to Nihil�s, and
I think you can get through.�

�� No wonder he doesn�t see anything wrong with
this plan, thought Harry after a stunned moment. He�s already mental himself.

*

�� SP777:
Change is motion, in this weird version of death, and so an emotion changing
can be the same thing as a limb moving.

�� Dragons
Breath: Thanks! Sex won�t be the answer all the time, but it sure did save
Harry and Draco.

�� polka dot: Huh.
That�s interesting.
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Seasons of War