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This Enchanted Life	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 3669 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Eleven—Labyrinths

            “Now that we know what he’s doing, we have to figure out how to stop him.”

            Draco, seated on the edge of his desk in a pose that Harry hadn’t ever seen him adopt before, swung one leg and snorted. “Well, obviously, Potter. But so far, we don’t have any idea of how to do that, do we?”

            Harry stared at him. Draco raised his eyebrows, which meant Harry was being obvious about it, and he looked away with his cheeks flushing.

            He knew it would sound stupid if he said anything, and that the important things to focus on at the moment were Alexander and the case. It was just—since they had come back to the office, he had thought something was off about Draco, as if he had seen something in Harry’s mind that drove his emotions higher. He did things like sit on his desk, and swung his legs when he was usually so still, and stared at Harry with a strange shine in his eyes, as though he had discovered a secret inner Harry made of chocolate.

            And that’s a really stupid idea. You don’t even know if he likes chocolate. Harry turned his attention back to his notes, which he’d written down from Draco’s much better recollection of the conversation with Alexander. “Fine. I think the best thing we can do is offer him the bait he most wants—you, in this case.”

            A pause, and then Draco laughed. “We’ll make a Slytherin of you yet, Harry.”

            And that’s another thing. Harry could be wrong, since he hadn’t really suggested it before, but he’d thought Draco would complain about having to play the part of bait. Instead, Draco gave him another glance that swept him from foot to head, and then a faint, secretive smile. Harry gave up on trying to understand him for the moment and plunged ahead. “He’s obsessed with destroying your flaw as well as mine. Give him a chance to think that he can, and he’ll charge in.”

            “Not if he knows that you’re protecting me,” Draco retorted, and drew his legs up towards himself. “He knows that he can’t face you in open battle, and that using more globes on you now wouldn’t have an effect.”

            “I don’t know if that matters so much to an insane man,” Harry began, and then gave up when he saw the intense glare Draco leveled at him. “But yeah, you’re right, seeing me out in the open would probably tip him off that he might not win the fight. And I don’t know if he would believe that I could possibly have turned my back on you and be agreeing with him or something.”

            “I don’t know of anyone who would ever believe that you’d betrayed me.”

            Harry started and glanced up. Draco was leaning forwards, one hand braced beside himself on the desk, his eyes even more intense now. Harry stifled the urge to ask him if he had something in his eye, and nodded. “Not anyone who knows anything about how our partnership works, at least,” he said. “I know I had a few people at the beginning ask me how I could work with a Death Eater and like it.”

            He would have gone on, but Draco’s eyes were by now shining so fiercely that Harry thought they might fall out of his head. He pulled back his sleeve inch by inch, so that the Dark Mark emerged into the light slowly. Harry’s eyes darted to it, and then back to Draco’s face.

            “Does it disgust you, Harry?” Draco’s voice had descended a note or two, and Harry felt the hair standing up on the back of his neck.

            And the stirring between his legs.

            No. Damnit! This is the part where we should be focusing on the case, not on the fact that I might like to shag him! Harry glanced elsewhere and shook his head. “It’s part of you,” he said. “A reminder of what happened in the days during the war when we couldn’t really control our fates. Just like my scar is part of me, and a reminder of Voldemort.”

            If Draco flinched at the name, Harry couldn’t see it. He remained silent for a few moments, though, and when he spoke his voice was thicker and lower. “I see. You claim that, yet you can’t even look at me.”

            “That’s not true,” Harry snapped, and turned back, resolutely looking at the faded Mark. It didn’t look as faded as he thought it might have, that was true, but it wasn’t like he would ever seriously think Draco was scheming to bring back Voldemort. “I like you a lot, Draco. You’re my friend and my partner.”

            Draco slid down from the desk and took a step towards him. His eyes still had that intense burn that Harry didn’t understand. “You glanced away the minute I revealed it. And the Mark is the source of my flaw. Excuse me for thinking that perhaps you thought I was flawed, too, or less than perfect.”

            Harry curled his lip. “Look me in the eye and say that.”

*

            Draco glanced up and held Harry’s gaze—a gaze that seemed inclined to flinch away from him much more than it should since they had come out of Healer Estillo’s office. Draco didn’t think Harry suspected what he had seen about his crush, or he would have stammered a good deal more and made up any excuse to avoid being alone with Draco.

            Perhaps he’s confused by the way I’m behaving.

            That was understandable. And Draco had no intention of revealing that he knew yet, not when Harry considered his own feelings shallow and untruthful. Draco would prefer to be with someone who actually wanted him instead of a reflection of a dead partner, or someone who was trying to drive him from his mind. He would test Harry a bit and see whether either one was true.

            Looking into those green eyes, now focused steadily and unwaveringly on him, Draco smiled. Harry’s attention blew through him like a clean, bracing wind, and he reached out and laid a hand on Harry’s shoulder in reward and response. “You have no idea what you do to me when you look at me like that,” he murmured.

            Harry started, and then whirled away from Draco, his blush as fierce as his gaze had been, and shuffled through the papers on the desk. “We have to come up with a way to catch Alexander,” he murmured. “You as bait, fine. Where do you think we should set this up, and how?”

            Draco paused. That was an interesting reaction, wasn’t it? Harry didn’t seem to know what to do with a partner who returned his feelings.

            Well. Draco was going to show him, eventually, that he did and Harry need not be ashamed of that. But he would wait and back off if that meant he could have a Harry who was comfortable around him.

            “I think that we should choose ground that he thinks of as home ground, but that we’ve thoroughly investigated and trapped first,” he said, and watched as Harry cocked his head. Draco smiled, enjoying being the one who could reveal the important information for once. “Leah’s shop.”

*

            “There’s nothing else you want to tell us about Alexander?”

            Harry kept his voice vague, a soothing drone, and even stared at the wall behind Leah’s chair as if he wasn’t interested in her answer. She snorted, seemingly not fooled by his antics, and stood up to come to the door of the cell, clutching at the bars in the small window tightly. Harry refocused on her eyes.

            “What I did was my own business,” Leah said quietly. “The twisted I used were compensated for their blood, and I never encouraged Reynard to drink it undiluted. You should let me go.”

            “You know that using human blood in potions is illegal in any case, Ms. Anderson,” Harry said, and then paused. Something about what she had just said was bothering him. If she left him in silence a moment longer, he might figure it out.

            And then he did. He straightened up and stared at her. “How did you find the twisted that you took the blood from?” he demanded. “I don’t think they were actually telling everyone around them about their wandless magic in time for you to hear about it before the Ministry did, and wandless magic doesn’t always indicate a twisted, anyway.”

            Leah’s eyes closed, and she turned her head away. Her hands tightened on the bars, and for a moment, Harry thought she would try to break out of her cell. But no, it was only that her breath came faster and faster, and a moment later, she sagged back into the chair she had risen from.

            Harry watched her in silence, and waited. He could feel some of the same tremors invading his muscles, and his lip curling back in spite of himself. Leah glanced at him once, and then away, and if she was frightened of his half-snarl, then Harry would go on frightening her as much as he could.

            “You don’t understand what it was like,” Leah whispered. “Trying to keep the shop competitive, trying to make sure that our prices were high at some times and low at others—my mother left me the shop, I never had the genius that she did for negotiating, and we paid too much for our supplies—”

            “You have a gift, don’t you,” Harry said. “Or should I use the terminology that I’m sure Alexander would want me to, and say a flaw? You can find other twisted.”

            Leah hunched her shoulders up and said nothing.

            “And that’s one reason why Alexander broke into the shop the way he did,” Harry continued, his voice lowering. “I should have thought of that. Vengeance against someone who made him take the undiluted blood, I thought, when we found out about that. But he seems very focused otherwise, with his goal on destroying twisted. Why come after someone whom he had to know wasn’t a twisted and might get him caught because of what she could tell us about him? Why toss a globe at her? You’re one of us.”

            Leah said utterly nothing, twisting some of her hair into a thick braid in front of her. Harry shook his head.

            He wasn’t sure what made him ask what he did next. Perhaps simply the similarity between Leah and someone else he was thinking about. “Did you ever see someone’s eyes turn blue and a twisted voice address you out of their mouth?”

            Leah turned her head away, and now she was shuddering and pressing one fist into her mouth as if to muffle cries. Harry stood up and took a step back from the bars. Shit. All he needed now was to hurt her and be accused of mistreating a witness, a crime that there was usually no coming back from.

            “You can’t talk about him,” Leah whispered. “Don’t do that. Don’t talk about him. That’s how he finds you.”

            “He showed up possessing someone in the Auror Department when I’d never heard of him,” Harry said grimly. “And he’s showed up in other cases before this, too. Even this one, possessing an Unspeakable. Who is he? What’s his flaw?”

            “You can’t,” Leah whispered. “If he knew—if he knew about me, then do you think he would leave me alive?”

            Harry paused and thought about that, and when he did, he could see the danger she was shuddering over. The blue-eyed twisted could vanish and come back again as much as he wanted as long as nothing could locate his physical body. But Leah, with her gift of finding other twisted, might be able to do so.

            “Fine,” he said. “But in exchange, you are going to tell us everything you know about the shop and the attractions it might still have for Alexander.”

            Whimpering, Leah wiped away her tears. “Fine,” she said. “If you can protect me. Leave me in this cell. It’s safer than anywhere else you might take me, anyway.”

            Harry wasn’t sure about that, but he had already said enough to hurt and frighten her. He set about making a list of all the potential dangerous wards on the shop and the explosive or poisonous ingredients, confident that Draco would know more about what to do with them than he did.

*

            “What do you think?”

            Draco hated the way he turned to Harry on his heel as though seeking approval, but Harry didn’t laugh at him or seem to think it was wrong that he did so. He smiled at Draco, and his smile made Draco flush as if he’d been drinking strong wine.

            Harry didn’t seem to notice that, either, but Draco was growing used to his obliviousness. Harry accepted disapproval and criticism from the Auror Department and guilt from himself over Vane’s death. The idea that his positive attention could be important for someone else on the same level didn’t occur to him.

            So Draco stood back as Harry investigated the wards Draco had wrapped around the shop. Harry did hesitate over the one nearest the door, looking back at Draco. “Do you think we should use this one? It’s Dark, and if word of that gets out…”

            “How would it get out?” Draco asked calmly. “I’ve put enough Repelling Charms on the shop to make the neighbors feel they’re swimming if they get near it, and it’s not as though we’ll tell anyone.”

            Harry frowned at him. “But we’re going to take Alexander alive if we can, and he might tell someone.”

            Draco chuckled and took a step forwards, unable to resist the temptation to reach out and let his hand glance off Harry’s shoulder. “You still don’t understand, do you?” he asked softly. “We’re allowed to use Dark magic in our pursuit because we’re Socrates Aurors. I know that you’ve done the same thing on occasion. And we have permission to kill Alexander. Capturing him is a last resort.”

            He had expected many reactions. He didn’t expect Harry’s mouth to tighten and for him to turn and face the far wall.

            “What is it now?” Draco snapped. He felt the clenching, seething emotion in the center of his belly, and wished that there was some way that he could turn it on and off when he needed it. If Harry resisted giving him the attention he wanted, then it would become a liability, Draco’s craving for it, instead of a pleasure.

            “We’re part of the same group as Alexander,” Harry said, voice so quiet that Draco didn’t know he would have heard him if every part of his being hadn’t been focused on that. “Twisted, just like him. How can we justify killing him when we know what he is—what we are—and that the Ministry’s whole scheme of classifying twisted is flawed? Excuse the pun,” he added, before Draco could take him to task about it.

            Draco reached out and let both his hands rest on Harry’s shoulders. Of all things that might come between them, this was the last he had expected.

            “We’re not the same,” he said. “Yes, we share a few of the same characteristics, but we knew there were variations even in that category, given the differences between people like Alexander, Alto, and Larkin.” Harry reached back and squeezed Draco’s hand when he mentioned Alto, which made Draco half-close his eyes before he could continue. “We haven’t gone after other people in the way that Alexander has. We haven’t tried to kill them simply because they fit the definition of twisted. We have to have a better reason than that. And we’re not insane.”

            “Sometimes I feel that way,” Harry muttered, but he was relaxing under Draco’s touch. Draco increased the weight of his hold, moved closer. Harry half-turned his head back towards him, and Draco had to resist the temptation, now, to caress the side of his throat he could see.

            “But you’re not,” Draco whispered. “And killing or capturing Alexander doesn’t make you evil, doesn’t make you a traitor, if that’s what you fear.” He gave in and slid his thumb down the side of Harry’s throat, after all. Harry’s eyes fluttered shut, but he made no motion to pull away. “We’re not the same.”

            Harry gave a shallow grunt and then stepped away from him, nodding to the ward coiled around the door. “You realize that might end the battle before it begins?”

            Draco paused, then smiled. If Harry wanted to accept that he was right and change the subject without further conversation, then that was all right with him. It was certainly better than the battle that they might have had otherwise. “Yes, I know. But that would be all to the good. We know why Alexander is doing this, and we don’t need to know more.”

            “Other than how to get my flaw back, and how to awaken Retror.”

            Draco shrugged and nodded at the same time. He rather thought the effect of the globes would end with Alexander’s death, and he was more interested in the way that Harry avoided speaking the truth Draco could see burning in his every gesture, now. Why not admit that he fancied Draco? Yes, yes, he might think his emotions were only a crush, but he had found the courage to admit his other crush to Vane.

            “We’ll find out,” he said, and then Harry gave him a warm smile of the kind Draco had been almost unconsciously waiting for, and then they settled down to wait.

*

            He doesn’t understand the twisted in the same way. He doesn’t see himself as one of them.

            Harry stared ahead, through the shop’s broken window, and tried to think about the loud conversation they’d had in the halls of the Ministry instead, involving Draco going to investigate the shop alone while Harry went to dinner at Ron and Hermione’s house. The news should spread fast, if not tonight, to Alexander, and he should hear of it and come hunting. That was the way it should work.

            But his mind kept returning to his inconclusive conversation with Draco, worrying it like a Crup with a Muggle’s leg.

            It had never occurred to him that Draco might not think of himself as a twisted, or as part of a possible category of twisted, and wonder about the Ministry’s stance towards twisted in the same way that Harry was beginning to. But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. Draco had been handed reasons to despise himself, if that was what he wanted, from his family and from the Ministry and from society in general. He couldn’t have survived if he hadn’t decided to listen to his own voice and pride at some point. Rejecting a definition that would have implicated him in something nasty and complicated was probably second nature now.

            But Harry…

            It’s another reason I have to go away. First I read every gesture he makes as sexual instead of innocent, and now I know that I might be the same as the people I’m chasing. I can’t go on killing them without reconsidering what I’m doing.

            And if the Ministry didn’t promote him out of the Socrates Corps or agree to revise its definition of the twisted?

            Harry took a deep breath, and then swallowed. Well. He didn’t know what would happen next, but he knew that it would involve a lot of reconsideration on his part. He had never wanted to leave the Ministry, never wanted all the people who shrieked at him that he was unsuited for Auror work to be right. But if it was a matter of morality instead of stubbornness, then, yes, he would have to think about it.

            It would mean leaving Draco behind.

            No, Harry corrected himself a moment later, thinking about it. It would mean leaving him to get on with his own life.

            He shook his head and then lifted it as he heard the scraping sounds outside the shop. One glance at Draco confirmed what he’d heard. Harry took his wand into his hand, but reminded himself that they should let the wards Draco had established do their work first. If one of them killed Alexander, then there was no need to fight, and certainly no need to reveal their presence.

            There was a sharp sound, as though Alexander had pulled himself to a stop on broken glass. Harry refrained from looking at Draco because he wanted to keep an eye on the shattered window, but the hairs on the back of his neck stood up the way they did when he was speaking to Leah in her cell.

            Then something that moved too fluidly for it to be human came over the windowsill and stepped straight into the ward Draco had set.

            The night flared with light, like magnesium burning in water. The flames were tinged with green and blue on the edges, and they coiled around the creature in bright, sharp loops, like sword blades beaten into the shape of whips. Harry saw them bite deep.

            It didn’t matter. The creature rose up through them and then turned towards Harry, flowing at him.

            Harry’s hand went limp enough that his wand nearly fell to the floor. Mouths filled with teeth on every inch of skin, grey tendrils draped across it, eyeless eyes like small damp hollows in the center of its face…

            It was the creature that had killed Lionel. And even knowing that it was one of Alexander’s nightmare creations didn’t matter, not when it could have all the same powers.

            Draco stepped between it and Harry.

            And that made Harry leap up, because no second slaughter would happen to his second partner, not on his watch. He dodged to the side and then leaped at the creature, making one of its tendrils turn towards him and the mouths snap defensively.

            Harry jabbed his arm at it and roared the beginning of the spell that had taken it down last time. “Ardens—”

            The tendril curled around his arm, and yanked. Harry felt the bones snap, and sagged to his knees, screaming in a high, thin voice he would have kept silent if he could have. Draco didn’t deserve having to worry about him for that. It was a broken bone, it wasn’t like he wouldn’t heal—

            Then the mouth on the end of the tendril turned up and locked onto the skin and flesh around his elbow, and yanked. Harry screamed again as the teeth devoured him, clicking and locking. That savage tongue flickered out after them and touched the wound a moment later, a spear of burning cold.

            Harry knew what would be happening without looking. The monster could make new meat grow, but each time, it would be fainter and paler than it had been before. It kept its victims alive as a renewable food source until they faded into ghosts, forever locked in one form by suffering and pain.

            Draco said something. Harry could only make out that much, not the words, through the pain that whirled and danced in his ears.

            But it made the creature release Harry with a screech and turn towards him. Draco stood tall in front of it, pale and unafraid.

            And vulnerable. He didn’t know as much about fighting the thing as Harry did.

            Harry grunted and forced himself to his feet. It didn’t matter where Alexander was, not at the moment. It didn’t matter if he ever got his flaw back. It didn’t matter about his wounds.

            He was not going to lose Draco. That was all there was to it.

*

            SP777: Do you mean that Alexander is an Auror? No, Harry and Draco definitely would have been informed of that.

            But yes, I think that Draco is trying to act coy the best he knows, although if Harry’s determined not to take the hints he’s giving, that could be a problem.
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This Enchanted Life