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An Image of Lethe	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21751 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Eleven--Drawing Near
            "This would be easier if you would give us clearer instructions," Potter muttered to Aster, taking a step back and shaking his head as though someone had tried to fling a net around his ears.
            "It would be easier if you had ever cast Dark magic before this," said Aster. He had somehow changed his portrait a bit, so that he had a couch in it before the bookshelves instead of a chair. He lounged on the couch, watching Potter with critical eyes as he dragged the leg that Draco had turned to stone behind him. "You have talent, but you're too slow. You hesitate to use offensive spells instead of defensive ones."
            "I was talented in Defense Against the Dark Arts, not Dark Arts," Potter muttered to himself, and he frowned down at the leg. Draco had to turn away with a small cough so he wouldn't burst out laughing. Potter looked so confounded when he stared at the result of a relatively simple spell. "How do I get this back to normal?"
            "The countercurse should be obvious," said Aster. "You'll have learned hexes that turn a whole body to stone, surely. The spell to reverse that and the spell to reverse a spell on a single limb are related." He sighed loudly and shifted his position on the couch. "Do you mean that ridiculous division still prevails at Hogwarts?"
            Potter was engaged in casting fruitless Finites on his leg and didn't answer Aster, so Draco reckoned it was up to him. "What do you mean?"
            "The division between Dark Arts and the defenses against it," said Aster. "How can one separate them? Surely you have to know the curse as well as the countercurse that defends against it."
            Draco shrugged and leaned against the wall beside the portrait, watching in interest as Potter moved on to stronger spells. At least he hadn't insisted on remaining with Light magic once he realized it wouldn't work. "I wouldn't know. My father was on the Board of Governors, but I don't recall him talking about that decision. They must have made it before his time."
            "They were moving in that direction when I was alive," said Aster grimly. "I taught my children Dark Arts at home, of course. That was accepted and respectable for wizards then."
            "No wonder all the Blacks were mad," said Potter, without looking away from his stone leg.
            Aster stood up from the couch, bristling. Draco watched Potter thoughtfully instead of joining in the outrage. Potter had done this several times now: made a remark that seemed calculated to provoke Aster and then stood there and listened to the tirade with what looked like a pretense of indifference. But Draco was no longer sure it was a pretense. Maybe Potter really didn't care about the outrage so much as the information that Aster would let slip when he was ranting like this.
            That meant Aster was telling them, explaining to them, more than he meant to, instead of trickling the information out drop by drop. And it meant Potter was much more manipulative than Draco had thought he was, as well as much more mistrustful of their helpful ancestral portrait.
            Draco would have to think about that.
            "It is your family, too," Aster began. He always started with a similar statement. "You don't have parents. I thought you would at least like to know more about your closest living wizardly relatives."
            "I'd like to know more about them," said Potter, and his wand flicked back and forth, hard, tapping across his leg. As Draco watched, the tone of his flesh began to melt over the stone once more. Potter sighed and turned his head so that he was watching Draco and Aster again. "But most of them aren't alive, either. And they would have hated a person like me."
            "Many of my children and grandchildren would not have been ashamed to marry or father a half-blood," said Aster.
            Potter smiled, but said nothing. Aster turned to Draco. "You understand the importance of family," he said. "And the importance of knowledge. We have to keep certain histories alive, or our descendants won't understand them. You agree that we should teach both Dark Arts and Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts?"
            "I think we should," said Draco, which was only true. "But I don't see what that has to do with the Black family."
            "When I was alive," said Aster, and sat down on the couch again, so he could see both of them at once, "I was the patriarch of a family that wanted to know things. We recorded old spells. We kept alive customs that had been current two centuries ago. And we learned Dark Arts and Healing Arts and Light Arts, the ones who had the power for them, the spells that they wouldn't learn at Hogwarts and the ones they would. I can't believe that I have to rely on only one descendant who has any kind of a passion for this."
            "I would have more of a passion for the Dark Arts if I hadn't had so many people try to kill me or torture me using them," Potter muttered. His leg was entirely flesh again, and he straightened and flexed it. Draco caught himself watching the way that Potter's robe fell back down his leg when he stood up, and wondered how Potter had figured out the counterspell so quickly. Draco didn't know it himself.
            "Dark Arts are a branch of knowledge," said Aster impatiently. "The same spells could be used to either Heal or cause someone pain, depending on how one cast them. That doesn't mean we should ban all Healing magic because someone somewhere might cause their patients pain."
            Potter cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing for a moment. It was Draco who murmured, "Is all the knowledge that your descendents recorded in the libraries upstairs?"
            "Of course not," said Aster. "For some of them, the knowledge was too much, and they did destroy the books when they turned their backs on us or fled to join the Muggle-lovers. And some is recorded in me." He looked as smug as Draco thought only a Black could. "And there are some hidden libraries in other houses that used to belong to our family and don't anymore. But a lot of it is up there."
            "Good," said Draco, and caught Potter's gaze. "Then we should go up and spend some more time looking for it." They still needed effective communication spells that would let them spread the word about the Lightfinder and what a deception it was before the Ministry could shut them down.
            Potter nodded, and moved away from the portrait. Aster watched him all the way across the room, and then moved his head to Draco in a decisive nod, the sort of gesture his parents would use when they wanted him to stay nearby instead of leaving.
            Potter paused in the doorway and glanced back at him. Draco said, "I'm just staying here to converse with Aster a moment," which was true, no matter how much it looked as if it annoyed Aster.
            Potter only shrugged and left the room. Draco studied him a moment to make sure he wasn't limping from his recent transformation of his leg from stone to flesh, decided he wasn't, and faced the portrait. "Yes?"
            "You could tell me whether you think Potter is trustworthy," said Aster, sounding as if he had asked this several times and Draco had refused to answer. "Someone who does not value the Dark Arts, who does not want to be a Dark wizard, who makes no distinction between wizards who tried to kill him and the spells they used? What do you think?"
            Draco shrugged. "He's only been used to thinking of himself as a Dark wizard for a short time now. I wouldn't judge him for that. And he managed to survive the Killing Curse from a point-blank range. I agree that it wouldn't be a good idea to bring up the notion of using Unforgivables around him any time soon."
            "But the rest?"
            "The rest," Draco echoed blankly, not sure what Aster meant.
            "Can we trust him to stay true to our goal of bringing Dark wizards into prominence and power again, saving them, defending them?" Once again, the couch had vanished from Aster's portrait. Instead, the chair was back, and Aster was walking restlessly around it, pausing to drum his hand on the back. "Will he stay true to you, or betray you if his Light allies want him to do it?"
            "I don't know."
            Aster paused and turned his head towards Draco, frowning as if Draco had offered to bring a torch towards his painting and burn it. "What? You're allies with someone you can't trust?"
            "I can't trust him completely because we used to be rivals, and he's new to thinking of himself as a Dark wizard, and he has different principles than I do." Draco folded his arms and gave Aster a faint, nasty smile. "Just like I can't trust you completely because your goals aren't mine. I never said anything about bringing Dark wizards into political prominence."
            "How else do you think that you're going to have the safe and free world to live in that you talked about?" Aster snapped. "You really think that Light wizards are going to guarantee that for you?"
            "I think that they won't do it on their own, but some of them will help," said Draco calmly. It was fine, really, being able to do something that teased and irritated Aster. "And I might not be able to trust them completely, but I can trust them to keep their words. Which means I just need to get some oaths from them."
            "Oaths of secrecy, I assume," said Aster, and he was watching Draco the way he sometimes did when Draco argued with Potter too much for them to be able to use the knowledge Aster wanted to teach them. "Not oaths of loyalty."
            Draco thought about Longbottom, and then about Granger, formidable in her own way, and shook her head. "I wouldn't dare demand those kinds of oaths of them."
            "Dare," Aster repeated, and stalked out of the portrait frame.
            Draco waited a moment for him to come back, then shrugged and made his way up the stairs. He didn't find Potter waiting for him there, or in the narrow passage that made up the back of the bookcase at the top, which was more self-control than Draco would have credited Potter with.
            He was in the library, though, sipping from a bottle of some golden liquid that Kreacher had probably brought him. He looked up when Draco came out, let his lips twitch a little, and asked, "Did you have a good plotting session?"
            "It's not like that," Draco said, and took his seat across from Potter. Kreacher appeared with a similar golden bottle, and Draco accepted it and swallowed absentmindedly. The next second, he bent double from the wave of heat that flashed up his throat. "Sweet Merlin, Potter. You could have said something."
            "I would have, if I had known that you were going to drink it straight off like that." Potter grinned at him. "This is Emberwhisky. Like it?"
            "I've never heard of it." Draco stared at the bottle in his hand for a second, and then took another, more cautious sip. He supposed the flame was less than you would get in Firewhisky, hence the name, and more of a sweet glow in the center of his chest instead of one that felt as if it would burn out the inside of his mouth. Still, the color didn't lead you to suspect you were going to be drinking anything nearly that strong. "Where did you find it?"
            "Kreacher told me that the Blacks had some stores of it." Potter twitched a shoulder. "I reckoned I could use it, as the owner of the Black estate. Although..."
            Draco looked at him. "Yes?"
            "Aster doesn't like that I'm the owner of this house, does he?" Potter leaned forwards. "That's what you were talking about down there."
            "He doesn't like that you were so recently a Light wizard," Draco replied. He was going to tell the truth around Potter, so that he didn't end up with a situation worse than it was already. The last thing he needed was to make enemies out of his allies, as well as the Ministry. "He does wonder where your true allegiance lies."
            Potter's mouth twitched violently for a moment, and then he snorted and applied himself to a long swallow of Emberwhisky. "What does he want?"
            "For me to request oaths of loyalty from the Light wizards working with us."
            Potter nearly choked on his drink, but Draco got no satisfaction from it. "Rest assured, Potter, I'm not going to do it," he said dryly. "Both Granger and Longbottom would laugh in my face, and--"
            "I know you wouldn't do it," Potter said, and shook his head in wonder. "I'm just surprised that he would even think we had to do it. Does he dislike Light wizards in general, or is it that Hermione's Muggleborn and the Longbottoms were enemies of the Blacks, or something?"
            "The Blacks intermarried with them just like they did everyone else," Draco said, a little uneasy. "But sometimes I wonder if Aster left his portrait before I met him and he knows more information than we think he does. Although even then, I don't know what he thinks he can gain by antagonizing us."
            "I don't think it's antagonism he means, exactly," Potter said, as if feeling the outlines of a new idea. "I think it's manipulation. That he's not very good at."
            Draco opened his mouth, then thought through what he had been about to say and shut it again.
            "What?" Potter demanded.
            "I was about to say that no ancestor of mine would fail to be good at manipulation," Draco muttered. "And then I realized how strange a thing that was to feel insulted by. In this case, if Aster is attempting to manipulate us both to finish some sort of plan that he hasn't informed us of, then it's preposterous for me to wish he was better at it."
            Potter laughed aloud, and Draco knew the sensation of being in the charmed circle of that laughter that he thought Potter's friends had always felt. He knew the laughter wasn't at him, and it burned and rang in his ears in a way that suggested Potter was about to make marvelous things happen.
            "No, I know what you mean," said Potter, and propped his chin on his fist. "I felt the same denial the first time I heard that my father had been a bully instead of the hero I wanted to picture. And then I had to make myself calm down and realize, no, that wasn't some lie, and I couldn't expect him to be a hero all his life. Why would he have known when he was fifteen that he would face Voldemort when he was an adult? It was silly to expect it of him."
            Draco found it hard to take his eyes from Potter. Professor Snape had spoken to him a few times of James Potter, and had also said that Potter knew of his father's bullying ways and would never accept them. Potter sounded from his words just now as if he had accepted them, and it wasn't even something Draco had brought up or mentioned.
            It wasn't even about Snape.
            Draco felt a stab as he wondered how Professor Snape would feel, to know that Potter had forgotten him so completely and gone on with his life. Draco shivered the feeling away and asked, "Do you think we can trust Aster enough to take the knowledge from him?"
            Potter nodded. "Whatever he's up to, I doubt that he would really want to sabotage his plans this early on. And his knowledge of spells doesn't necessarily have to be bad for us, provided that we test all the spells he teaches us and ensure that they do work the way he's described. I'm more annoyed that he's decided to test us like this than anything else. It's going to--"
            Draco started as something shrill and blaring screamed in his ear. That was nothing compared to Potter's reaction, though. He was on his feet in seconds, whirling around with his wand in his hand.
            "What's that?" Draco whispered.
            "Someone broke the wards on my Floo to come through," said Potter grimly. "Which means an identical alarm just rang in the Ministry."
            Draco stood up, a hand on his wand, and cast a soft spell that would let him know where Pansy and Astoria were. Neither of them seemed to have moved from the floor below, where they had gone to study a few books taken from a different Black library. Pansy had told Draco excitedly that morning that they were on the track of something big, a spell that might be able to conceal a wizard's affinity from a machine like the Lightfinder. Draco had wondered if they could really use a spell like that. The point was to get the Ministry to stop using the Lightfinder, not to trick it.
            But in the meantime, there was a different point. Draco eased up until he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Potter. Potter gave him a single look out of the corner of his eye, and then seemed to decide that Draco was harmless compared to whatever had come through the Floo. He didn't even flinch when Draco's wand jostled near his back.
            "Kreacher," Potter said, in a voice that reminded Draco of Parseltongue.
            Kreacher appeared, and looked between the two of them in a way that made Potter ease up on the tension, although Draco was perfectly willing to keep it going. "What is masters doing?" Kreacher demanded, with a little frown. "There is being an intruder?"
            "The alarm rang," Potter said. "Are you saying that it's not more Aurors coming back, or an enemy?"
            "Is being Master Harry Potter's Weasley." Kreacher turned to Draco as if he could help the elf understand Potter's absurd behavior. "Is blood traitors no longer being welcome in the Black house?"
            "Ron wouldn't come here unless something was really wrong," said Potter, tensing more at that revelation, and then he was out of the room, blurring down the corridor with a speed that made Draco believe he really had been training for the Aurors before this whole debacle with the Ministry took place. Or maybe he had got really good at running in the last year, on this mysterious quest that he'd decided to drag Weasley and Granger along on.
            Draco had no admonitions or scolds to offer, not right now. He followed silently.
*
            Ron was pacing in the drawing room on the ground floor as though he hated the carpet. He spun around when he saw Harry, and came running over to him. His face was like a sheet of paper, his eyes like black markings on it.
            "They have Fleur."
            Harry controlled his impulse to run out the door, and held Ron's arms in his hands. "You triggered an alarm when you came through the Floo," he said. "We'll probably have Aurors here in a few minutes. You tell me what you think is most important, and then we're going to get you into hiding."
            Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Malfoy at the bottom of the stairs, regarding him and Ron attentively. Harry stared at him. He would have thought Malfoy would seek shelter the instant he realized Ron was in the house. Irritated, Harry motioned with his head at him, but Malfoy only stood there and watched with what looked like fascination. He wouldn't move even when Harry hissed at him, a sound that was pretty close to Parseltongue and had unnerved more than one person.
            Ron glanced distractedly over his shoulder and barely reacted to the sight of Malfoy, something Harry knew would have infuriated him at any other time. "Mate, what the hell--" he said. "When did they start watching your Floo?"
            "Since they started to suspect he had a brain of his own," said Malfoy.
            Harry rolled his eyes and said, "Did they put Fleur through the Lightfinder? Did she attack Kingsley? What?"
            "Neither of those things," Ron said, shaking his head and managing to settle his attention on the matter at hand, which Harry had to admit was impressive of him. "She tried to Apparate to Azkaban and break Bill out."
            Harry closed his eyes and gave a weary curse. That was the sort of thing that would force the Ministry to respond. Sort of like the alarms ringing on his Floo. Kingsley would probably be sorry, the way Harry thought he was sorry about what had happened when they ran Harry through the Lightfinder, but he couldn't prevent it from happening, and by now, events were pushing along, sliding along.
            "This is what we're going to do," he said, and his voice was deliberate. He felt it calm down Ron, because he was touching Ron at the time, and that was sort of unmistakable. On the other hand, Malfoy's hostility was palpable. He never had liked being ordered around, Harry thought, even by people trying to save his life. "You're both going to hide, and so are the other people here, and I'm going to meet the Aurors or the other people they send in. I'm going to say that I know all about Fleur, and I want to meet with her. Maybe I can persuade them to let her go. If not Bill. They have children. There's stories that circulate about how Veela aren't rational when their mates get locked up. I might be able to make them back off on a move that know is going to be unpopular with some people once it gets out."
            "That's bollocks," said Malfoy softly. Harry opened his eyes and saw Malfoy watching him with a hawk's hungry look. "That's not what you're planning on doing, because you know it's not enough to hold back the tide. Some people might not like her imprisonment, but they'll be in the minority. And the Ministry might want to release her, but they wouldn't only on your persuasion, now that you're suspected Dark. What are you really going to do?'
            "No time," Harry snapped, because he could hear the Floo chiming, insistent. The Aurors would probably come in unannounced if they had to, he thought bitterly, but he wasn't ready for that yet, given his new wards. He didn't want those discovered until there was no other choice. "Take Ron and Pansy and Astoria and hide." He thrust Ron so hard at Malfoy that Malfoy had to catch him if he didn't want him to go sprawling on the floor. Luckily, Malfoy did the decent thing for once in his life.
            "Harry," Ron began.
            "Potter," Malfoy began, and his eyes were horribly suspicious.
            "Go," Harry barked, and Malfoy's Slytherin self-preservation instincts finally kicked in. He dragged Ron up the stairs despite his protests.
            Harry went to answer the Floo, and his mind was already moving. Malfoy was right. Very little would persuade the Ministry to let Fleur go, and Harry wasn't about to betray that it was Ron who had brought the news, or Ron would end up in a cell beside Bill.
            That meant he would have to pretend that he had somehow known about the news on his own, and offer the Ministry a bribe that was worth Fleur's freedom. And Bill's, if he was lucky.
            Harry rolled his shoulders and settled them. Well. It's not the first time that I've been a sacrifice.
            He was settled and calm, ready to play the part of the Dark mastermind the Ministry had wanted to arrest for some time, when the first Auror tumbled out of the Floo.
*
            Kain: Thank you! Hermione is a difficult character for me to write, so I appreciate that you tell me when the scenes come out well.
            Harry does not know for sure that Blaise's mother kills her husbands. The problem is, it's pretty much an open secret and the Ministry has never convicted her, which means that Harry will be more disgusted with the Ministry (especially in his current mood) than anything else.
            Minerva might be a possibility, though even she might not test Light enough for the general populace.
            SP777: Well, I'll be posting a short story in a few minutes that has Neville...
            The colors are simply the colors of the rainbow, with red indicating Light and violet deepest Dark. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Green would be the midpoint between Light and Dark.
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An Image of Lethe