Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Sanctum Sanctorum	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 28254 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Eleven—In Pain

            “What did you want to talk about, Sir Schroeder?”

            Schroeder winced a bit, but showed no other sign of how much the Muggle title irritated him as he closed his office door behind Harry. Harry watched his back with a faint smile that concealed the much greater emotions swirling behind his mask. He could have used the proper title for a male Wizengamot official, which was “Member,” but rumors had circulated lately that some of them thought that title had unfortunate implications. Well, so be it. Harry would be unfortunate in other directions, while all glittering, shining politeness on the surface. That had fooled most of the Ministry so far, because they couldn’t believe the notoriously honest Harry Potter could do such things.

            Being the notoriously honest Harry Potter had been good for a lot of things. Most of the time, Harry had to admit, he liked himself.

            Except when you have restrictions on you because of a stupid schoolboy grudge.

            It would do no good to think of the potion that Malfoy had used on him and the fact he couldn’t counteract it, though, so Harry simply inclined his head to Schroeder and murmured, “My apologies if the title was unfavorable.”

            Schroeder glanced at him once, and then nodded. “Yes. You arrested my nephew because of an unfortunate misunderstanding. The crime he confessed to involved delusions of grandeur because of a potion that some of his associates fed him.”

            Harry let his smile become tinged with ruefulness. “Undesirable associates?”

            “You hit on the very word I would have used to describe them, had you not been so obliging as to procure it for me.” Schroeder’s expression changed, too. Harry was reminded of a prowling lion.

            “That’s good to hear,” Harry said calmly. “I would have hated to hear anyone was involved with kidnapping Muggle children.”

            Schroeder tilted his head and blinked in a good parody of surprise. “That’s what he told you?”

            “He used different words,” Harry said. “But that was the implication, yes.”

            He watched as the bait trailed on the dark water inside Schroeder’s mind, which probably gleamed with less light than his eyes did. He had thrown out the insinuation—well, the truth—on purpose. For one thing, Schroeder would learn the truth himself if he talked to Campion, and for another, he would learn quickly that way that Ron knew it, as well, so it was of no use trying to silence only Harry. For a third, Harry didn’t like the way Schroeder—and perhaps Moonstone—had proceeded so far, moving with speed and in secrecy to arrest Malfoy even though they had no proof he knew anything about Campion’s confession or had anything to do with his arrest.

            Harry distrusted enemies that hid in the shadows. It gave him an irresistible impulse to flush them out and make them run.

            Schroeder considered him in silence for a time, and then nodded, as though Harry had spoken to him on some level that had nothing to do with the voice. “Very well, Auror Potter. I had hoped—well. I had hoped my nephew would do better the first time he met his future colleagues.”

            Harry nodded with that same faint smile fixed on his face. “I wasn’t aware he would join the Auror program, sir.”

            Schroeder tensed, as though thinking his name would follow the title, and then relaxed when it didn’t. “Oh, in a few years,” he said. “When he’s had a chance to think about himself and what he really wants out of life.”

            “I thought he wanted a Potions mastery,” Harry said, with the air of someone making small talk.

            Schroeder shook his head. “I put him there because I had nowhere else to put him, in truth,” he said, and leaned back in his chair. “I thought the discipline would be good for him, as well as the experience brewing, which every wizard should have.” He paused long enough to allow the words to hang in the air, then added, “Excuse me, Auror Potter. I meant no offense.”

            Harry leveled another smile at him. It wasn’t as though his lack of Potions talent was a secret, but he found it beyond interesting that Schroeder had chosen to bring it up now. “Of course not, sir,” he said, slick as slick, sweet as sweet. “But it’s also good to know where our talents lie, and I’m afraid, after observing him, that Campion’s talents don’t lie in Auror work.”

            “You have a biased, and, ah, partial view of him,” Schroeder said, and gave him one of those magnificent nods Harry had seen him use more than once to indicate that a whole case should simply be dismissed or dropped because he personally knew the offender. The infuriating thing was how often it worked. Harry shifted his weight so he could bring his wand up more easily. “Permit me to say. I think he will make a good Auror once he gets these youthful kinks worked out.”

            “Such as dosing himself on illegal potions?” Harry asked quietly. “By the laws, sir, he should be arrested for that as well.”

            “He didn’t mean any harm,” Schroeder said, and waved one hand as though batting away smoke. “And I should say that the ordeal he went through has more than ensured he won’t do something so stupid again.”

            Harry nodded. If Schroeder wanted to play it that way, he would push it to the limits. “What potions, sir?”

            “What?” Schroeder twisted his head at him like a curious goat. Then Harry shook the comparison away. It dragged goats down to a level he didn’t mean to associate them with.

            “Which potions was he on?” Harry repeated patiently. “I arrested him in the middle of the day. It seems that few illegal potions would take that long to fade from his blood and breath, let alone still control his actions.”

            Schroeder let out a sigh that continued much longer than necessary. “His delusions about Muggle children were part of the potion,” he said patiently. “By the time that you arrested him, the effects, of course, had faded, but his convictions of what he had seen and heard had not.”

            Harry nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I understand now. And a few crimes in the last few years become more comprehensible.”

            Schroeder snorted. “I assure you, Campion was not behind all of them.” He had a sapphire ring lying on his desk, and he picked up a jeweler’s glass as if to examine it. Harry glanced at it, and away. He had seen no trace of the glittering flaws that always marked a sapphire if someone attempted to introduce Dark magic into it. That meant Schroeder couldn’t intend to use it as a weapon, unless he wanted to throw it at Harry’s head or ask him politely to wait the ten hours it would take to brew a battle potion using crushed sapphire as the base.

            “I meant,” Harry said gently, “that the names of the potions would be useful. Who knows how many other stories we would uncover as delusions?”

            Schroeder glanced at him, and then put down the jeweler’s glass and pushed it and the ring away. “Shall we get to the point, Potter?” he asked. “I thought the direct approach would work, but the moment we reached my office, I slid back into my old ways. Careless of me. This is the message I wish to give you: you’ll leave Campion alone, or I’ll know why not.”

            “Will I?” Harry whispered. He could feel a tingling excitement rising rapidly along his breastbone. His chest shook with its breaths. Spells danced through his mind, and he had to dismiss them because they were Dark Arts, but he doubted Malfoy’s potion forbade spells exactly on the thin edge. He lifted his wand a fraction. “That almost sounded like a threat, Sir Schroeder.”

            “You might as well not try to irritate me,” Schroeder said with iron patience. “I will respond with appropriate force.”

            “Will you?” Harry danced a step forwards. He knew Schroeder’s desk might have traps embedded in it, that there was a reason Schroeder was keeping it between them, but that only made him all the more eager to close, to engage. They could not be faster than he was. They could not be more dangerous. He was panting, and his chest ached, and his leg muscles twitched. He wanted to be doing something. He could feign that he was good at political meetings when he had to, but at bottom, he was something different, a creature of action, made to fight. His hands ached with the pressure he was putting on his wand, but it didn’t matter. His mouth dripped with saliva that he kept behind his teeth.

            Schroeder didn’t move, instead watching him with an inflexible expression on his face. Harry wondered why, wondered what secrets he had, and then almost smiled to himself. It wouldn’t really matter what secrets he had, once Harry got to work on him. He would have to confess them, or suffer unbearable pain.

            “Last chance,” Harry said quietly. “You tell me why you want Campion left alone when you think that he’s so innocent. I shouldn’t have to leave him alone, should I, if he never does anything wrong? Or you tell me what the potions were that he supposedly swallowed and that caused the delusions.”

            “I have done nothing to you, Mr. Potter,” Schroeder said. He kept his hands on the desk in front of him, not reaching for his wand. Harry wondered why, and then remembered the booby traps he probably had in his desk. Right, but they wouldn’t be quick enough to protect him if Harry decided to strike. Did he realize that? “What right do you have to question me like this ,to threaten me?”

            “You’re interfering in the execution of my duty,” Harry said. “And depriving me of my rightful title as Auror, to boot.”

            “Of course,” Schroeder said, and his mouth twisted. “A heinous crime, nothing like the ones you have committed against Campion by arresting him for no reason and doubting my word about what he had been up to.”

            That was it. Harry felt the words crack past a barrier in him that he hadn’t known existed, and he went forwards gladly. His wand jabbed into Schroeder’s throat and forced his head backwards. Schroeder let it happen, his eyes on Harry so full of contempt that they looked like polished stone. Harry shook his head and laughed. The sound had all the shakiness his body didn’t; he was holding his wand absolutely steady for a reason.

            “You fool,” Harry whispered. “You should have realized who you were dealing with. I’m not someone you can bribe and force to ignore the terrible things you do.”

            “What evidence do you have that I was involved in something terrible?” Schroeder still stared at him with the boredom of someone who had to go through an interview for a position they knew wasn’t important. “Your own suspicions. Nothing else. Mr. Potter, you should let me go, or it will end badly for you.”

            Harry sank his wand deeper instead. He could feel the desire to strike panting in him, in the darkness, like a beast. He thought he’d felt that at least since Malfoy dosed him with that potion. He was restricted in a way he usually never was, confined, and that made the beast savage. If Malfoy had trusted him to act on his own, then there would be no problem, and Schroeder would have long since yielded the truth, and Campion would be safely behind bars, and there would be no problem with the children still being kidnapped and killed and having their faces scraped off, and—

            He became aware that he was panting aloud instead of only in his head at the same moment someone knocked on the door.

            Harry turned his head, and Schroeder moved. His hand clamped down over Harry’s wand and he called out, “Come in!”

            Two Aurors surged through the door. Wilding and Kinzie, the Aurors who had been holding Malfoy when Harry enchanted Wilding into letting him go, and with their eyes fixed on Harry as if they knew what he had done, as if—

            As if they had seen him in the middle of a Wizengamot member’s office with his wand to that Wizengamot member’s throat.

            His own stupidity overwhelmed Harry then, and he didn’t try to fight as they took his wand from him and yelled into his face that he was under arrest and chained his wrists in front of him and marched him towards the door. He was disgusted. Of course that was the reason Schroeder had brought him back here, and it wasn’t to have privacy to discuss his nephew’s crimes at all. He ought to know he never could have talked Harry out of punishing Campion based on his reputation.

            Instead, Schroeder had lured him into a trap where he could get Harry arrested and held for reasons that had nothing to do with Harry interfering in Schroeder’s own illegal activities.

            He didn’t have to hold him for long, although he could if he wanted to. He just had to hold him for long enough.

            And Harry’s temper and desire to punish criminals, the traits that made him a good Auror and a danger to good Aurors at the same time—as Ron had told him more than once—had ensured he fell right into that trap.

            He shouldn’t have done that. They would have to do something different now, and the Pensieve memories of the incident—because of course that was why Schroeder hadn’t struggled, apart from wanting to make sure that Wilding and Kinzie would intervene before Harry could tug his wand away—would prove him guilty. Ron and Malfoy would have to do their investigating without him, since he was unlikely to see the inside of more than a prison cell for the next month.

            Harry closed his eyes and let himself be dragged. There were a few ways he could get messages out if he needed to, but he doubted he needed to. Ron would find out what had happened soon enough, since someone like Grinder would delight in telling him, and then Ron would tell Malfoy.

            I’m sorry, mate. I fucked up.

*

            Draco dropped the last crumbled bit of essence of rose into the potion and leaned back, sighing and shaking his head. He understood why the potion required such delicate and careful brewing, but it was hard on him. His back muscles were cramped from leaning over the cauldron, and his hand cramped with writing. He stretched and writhed his fingers in and out, cursing softly under his breath.

            Someone knocked on the door of his flat.

            Draco turned his head and stared in silence. It was the door that opened at the bottom of his stairs and onto the street, the door he had brought Potter in by when the git came to visit him the first time, not the door that led from his shop. That was the one most people knew about. He rose, frowning, and made his way towards it.

            Of course, he tested his wards before he opened the door. Stupid to have enemies and let himself be caught by one of them because he hadn’t been cautious enough. The ward showed him an image of the door at the bottom of the steps, rather like the spell that showed him the interior of the “private” room in his shop.

            A flash of red hair, freckles, desperation. Weasley. Draco had to believe it was him, since there would be few people with taste bad enough to Polyjuice themselves into Potter’s best friend. He set about unlocking the door even as he made mental notes to himself about what could have caused Potter to send Weasley instead of sending an owl or coming himself. Perhaps he was too disgusted about the potion for even that level of contact with Draco.

            “They’ve arrested Harry,” Weasley said, the instant he opened the door.

            Draco took a moment to close his eyes and shake his head. “Not for use of Dark Arts, surely?” he asked, as he shut the door behind him and motioned Weasley up the stairs. Weasley took them two at a time and then stood there with folded arms until Draco could come up and open the door that led into his flat proper. At least he was smart enough to know he shouldn’t trust a door that was potentially warded, Draco thought.

            “I don’t know,” Weasley said. “Grinder—that’s someone you don’t know, it doesn’t matter—said he’d been arrested for drawing his wand on Schroeder.”

            “The idiot,” Draco said precisely, enjoying the shape of the words in his mouth, like cut glass. “I told him not to go anywhere near Schroeder until I had the potion ready that would let us track his thoughts.” He glanced at his cauldron. A whole day’s work of testing ingredients and their purity wasted, then.

            “Schroeder sought him out,” Weasley said, and flung himself into a chair hard enough to make the room shake. Draco winced. Weasley stared straight ahead at the empty fireplace and didn’t seem to notice. “He came and said he wanted to talk to him. I didn’t want Harry to go, but Harry seemed confident that he could handle it.”

            “Potter always does,” Draco said, and restrained the urge to put a hand over his face. Potter. You idiot. Why can you not appreciate that, sometimes, the rules people make for you are for your protection, and not because someone specifically wants to ban you from doing what you think best?

            When he got his hands on him, then Draco would shake him until his teeth rattled. He thought of using another potion, but that would only make Potter more sullen. Draco needed him more clear-headed, so that they could think through the consequences of their actions together.

            “What is your plan?” he asked Weasley abruptly, and stood to call in cups and butterbeer. He felt the need of mild alcohol, but drinking strongly before their inevitable quick action would be a stupid move.

            “Plan?” Weasley accepted a cup and drank over half of it, then leaned back against the chair, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I planned to come here and tell you, because I thought you should know, but that doesn’t mean I know what to do next.”

            Draco saw him glance away as if to hide his grimace, and returned it with a thin smile. “We must remove Potter from the cells, of course,” he said. “There is no point in delay now that Schroeder has forced the plan this far. He must have done it to hobble Potter, and thus your investigation.”

            Weasley dropped his cup. Draco tsked and Vanished the shards, then paused to cast a more difficult cleaning charm on the splashed butterbeer. It had to be taken care of in just the right way, or it would remain as a sticky patch that could shed fumes, which would get into the air and mingle with the potions he tried to brew in the future.

            “You can’t—you can’t mean it,” Weasley whispered. “That would hobble our investigation even further. Malfoy, what you’re proposing to do is illegal.”

            “It’s not as though I’m suggesting we break him out of Azkaban,” Draco said, glancing at the way Weasley’s hands shook and wondering if he would be such a useful ally after all. “I had thought it was talking to Potter about the Dark Arts that you were afraid of, not everything else.”

            That made Weasley’s face turn such a purple color Draco leaned back and smiled as he watched him. Weasley got it under control a moment later, and even managed a credible sneer. “That would be the end of Harry’s career, and the end of anything we could do to keep him under control,” he said. “You really think the Ministry would let him come back after that?”

            “And you’re so sure that this isn’t the end of his career?” Draco asked, sipping from his cup so he could show Weasley how it was done. “That the Ministry will let him continue on after this, when they think, or will be persuaded to think, that he attacked a Wizengamot member? Careers are broken every day for less.”

            Weasley hesitated. “He’s the Chosen One,” he said at last. “They’ll forgive him, eventually, if we give it time.”

            “We don’t have time,” Draco reminded him. “And he has as many enemies as friends, thanks to his title. He’ll be in prison for years if they get their way. How many of them are going to seize on the excuse that Schroeder’s given them and come forwards to testify that, oh yes, Mr. Potter, the former Auror, so dangerous, but they didn’t want to say anything about it when he was doing things for the good of the wizarding world? And, well, yes, if they must they’ll appear in front of the Wizengamot and mention it, but only if you think so, Member Schroeder. Well, if you’re sure.”

            Weasley slumped in the chair and closed his eyes. “Fuck,” he said at last.

            Draco nodded. “I have potions that will let us create a solid simulacrum of Potter to put in the cell. I’m not talking about taking him out and leaving nothing in his place, of course. That would indeed create notice, the way you talked about, and we don’t need that.” He stood up and moved across the flat to the cupboards on the far wall, which held the more valuable potions he had ever brewed, the ones he would want to take with him in the case of a fire. He was already calculating how much it would cost him to replace them, and grimacing, but it would be worth it if the insult to him could be addressed.

            “Wait, Malfoy.”

            Draco paused and glanced over his shoulder, even though most people could have said that without affecting his behavior in any way. Weasley had spoken with a certain tone in his voice that…commanded attention. No, he wasn’t afraid of everything the way he was of Potter and the Dark Arts. “What?” he asked.

            “I want to know why you’re helping.” Weasley’s eyes glittered, and his fingers twitched as though he would make his wand appear between them at any moment. “It’s not as though you really need to. The Wizengamot will probably leave you alone now.”

            “Are you willing to bet on that?” Draco asked softly. “Because I’m not.”

            Weasley shook his head. “But they might. And you could do something less time-consuming and expensive than rescuing Harry. But you want to do that. Why?”

            “Because he’s an ally,” Draco said simply. “Because they could examine him and discover my potion, and trace it back to me because they know of only one competent Potions master whom he’s visited lately. Because they arrested and insulted me.”

            Those were all the public reasons. Weasley didn’t deserve the private ones, such as the way his stomach pulsed when Potter glared at him, or the Divination vision, or the debt he owed Potter for rescuing him from the clutches of the Aurors.

            Weasley still frowned as he studied him. Draco sighed and banged the door of the cupboard back and forth. “Can I get on with choosing the right potion now, Weasley?” he snapped.

            “What? Oh, yeah.” Weasley blushed a little as he stood up, and then stood in the middle of the floor, his hands flailing about as if he thought he would break another cup if he moved too fast or far.

            Draco took the proper combination of potions from the shelves, and smiled a little. They needed to dose someone with them for that person to become a simulacrum of Potter.

            Luckily, Draco had the perfect candidate in mind.

*

            SP777: Well, I don’t think you can count on Harry putting Draco in a headlock any time soon, at least not if he owes Draco the debt of freeing him.

            Glad you’re liking the story, though. I don’t know yet when I’ll update my profile—probably when ItS is finished.

            And I don’t know about the Fox and Wolf series, no.
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Sanctum Sanctorum