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Starfall	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 32486 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Twelve—May It Burn
            Draco sat staring into the fire. Now and then, he reached out for Moonstar’s letter and lifted it back to his eyes, and stared at that instead.
            It was nothing except a short explanation of how they had investigated Ethan’s letter, and what it had told them about the magical signatures of the people who had touched it. Based on the strength of those signatures and one of the Dark rituals that warlocks used and most other people didn’t, they could come up with names.
            And then, below the explanation, were the names.
            There was Draco’s name. The name of someone who Moonstar had confirmed was merely the wizard who sold parchment in Diagon Alley. And then, beneath that…
            Harry Potter.
            Draco looked back into the fire. He could feel the slow, mechanical turns of his neck ticking along, contrasting with the flames in the back of his mind. The flames wanted to spring out and burn everything.
            But Draco hadn’t yet decided what the best way for them to do that was. Burn in the back of his mind until he had succeeded in subduing them somewhat, and then he could unleash them against Potter? Or should he send Moonstar and his fellows after Harry Potter? Draco had no doubt that Moonstar would be willing to do that, if Draco made the fee high enough. And perhaps mad warlocks were better suited to handle a mad Auror.
            Potter had to be mad. Why else would he have written to him as Ethan Starfall when Draco had done nothing to him since the war?
            I should have known when I saw the names he chose for his children.
            But Draco had still believed that Ethan had children, and didn’t have war experience, that the names were the only fake things he had put in his letter. He had never believed that Ethan didn’t exist, only that he didn’t exist the way he had been presented on paper to Draco.
            And in a way, he was right. Someone had to use the quill and ink. That someone was Potter.
            Draco stood. He could feel his hand trembling, and he knew he was probably going to fling the drink he held. He had managed to sit there sipping so far and not do that, but he knew himself. He knew the fire, the signs that he was going to explode. It hadn’t happened in a long time, but it was going to happen now.
            And there was really only one solution for the flames that burned in the back of his mind. That solution was to let them burn themselves. He might have been content to send Moonstar and the rest to punish Potter if he was someone else. But this was personal. It had to be, for Potter to make up such elaborate lies about children and a wife and the rest.
            Did he send me bad advice on purpose? What if the advice only worked by coincidence, or because of the way I applied it? What if he intended to ruin my son, or my relationship with my son?
            Draco’s hands sank into the arms of his chair. Oh, yes, he wanted answers almost more than he wanted Potter to pay. And he would be sure to ask him those things, before he attacked him.
            Then he paused again, and there was a new color among the flames in his mind, cold-looking blue. But blue fire was among the hottest flames of all, and it could change and damage quite a bit.
            The times that I fought against Potter in the past, I lost. Even if I come in with surprise on my side, I might not win.
            That decided, Draco reached for a quill and began to write the letter to Moonstar after all. Moonstar would know both the best place to attack Potter and the best method of getting away with it.
            And if Draco had to give up more than ravensblood to secure the services of the warlocks, he would. Where Malfoy honor was at stake, no price could be too high.
*
            Harry grimaced at the silence of the Ministry around him as the lift slowly rose from the Department of Mysteries. He had known it was late, but the silence told him so in an unpleasant way. He’d been supposed to have dinner with Ron and Hermione, and although the summons from the Unspeakables had come in time for him to firecall Ron and warn him that he was likely to be late, he doubted the food was even edible now. He hoped they’d gone ahead and eaten without him.
            He walked out of the lift and hastily towards the entrance from the Ministry. Some of the time, he would Floo, but Ron and Hermione’s Floo network connection was having problems and still hadn’t been repaired. Faster just to Apparate.
            He came out of the entrance into the small alley that shielded it from prying Muggle eyes, and took one step forwards.
            The Net Curse sprang around him, fluttering down with rocks attached to the meshes that would bind him to the ground, but Harry was already moving, Auror instinct spurring him into a roll, and he came up with all his instincts screaming at him and his wand in his hand.
            Three dark shapes emerged out of the alley.
            Harry breathed out a soft curse as the Suggestion Charm on his mind flicked and feathered apart at the same time. Ron and Hermione’s Floo connection wasn’t having a problem. Someone had put that idea into his mind to ensure that he would come out here tonight and pose an easier target for attackers.
            He had to admire their planning, if not the fact that he was its victim.
            They probably cast the Suggestion Charm on me in the Department of Mysteries, he thought, as he rolled to his feet and raised a shield. I wouldn’t notice one more cloaked figure down there—
            Then he had to shove such thoughts firmly out of his mind, if he was going to survive.
            There were already illusions springing to life out of the corner of his eye, illusions that were bursts of color and bursts of sound, meant to distract him and hold him down, make him focus on those instead of his attackers. Harry impatiently raised the Blinder Charm. It would dismiss from his attention anything with them in the alley that didn’t have a physical body.
            The warlocks in front of him paused. They seemed to have really expected their illusions to work, which was stupid of them. They came in more slowly this time, and Harry took the chance to raise even more shields around himself.
            The lead warlock stopped a few meters from Harry and nodded as though in respect to a strong opponent. “We weren’t instructed to kill you,” he called. “You might as well surrender and spare yourself a little pain. You can’t strike at us from within those shields, anyway.”
            Instructed? Harry knew some warlocks worked as mercenaries for hire, or what essentially amounted to the same thing; they would collect information or beat people up if the payment was high enough. Most of the time, though, they were as likely to betray their employers as to carry through on their contracts. They wanted valuable information or magic the employers had more than they wanted to inflict pain.
            But the warlock’s comment revealed more interesting things than just that they were working for someone else. They didn’t seem all that experienced in the ways of battle.
            With a non-verbal curse, Harry burst his shields and turned them into razor-sharp, flying fragment weapons. One of the warlocks behind the lead one went down with a cry, scratching at his face. Harry hoped he’d got one right in the eyes.
            The other two managed to dodge, and grimly raised their weapons. They knew the contest was serious, now. They would be less inclined to give or receive mercy. And warlocks sometimes knew Dark spells that not many people had studied.
            But they don’t often engage with a fully-trained Auror, either, Harry thought, and went grimly into combat.
*
            Draco, standing under a Disillusionment Charm in the side of the alley, and behind a bubble shield that would protect him from flying weapons, found himself frozen to the spot as he watched Potter take on Moonstar and Velvetmask. Shadowskill lay motionless on the ground. Draco had intended to look and see if he was dead or alive, because surely Moonstar would charge him more if he was dead.
            But he couldn’t take his eyes from Potter.
            Potter was the center of a whirling, flying barrage of spells. He never held still long enough for Moonstar or Velvetmask to take good aim. Instead, he danced and turned, and ribbons of fire and fingers of ice and gusts of wind snapped out from him, aiming at limbs to break them, wands to snap them, robes to scatter them and trip up the warlocks.
            Already, Velvetmask had tripped twice, and there was blood flowing from what looked like a broken nose as well as a shallow cut above his eyes. Moonstar had been more cautious or better or luckier, but he did have a limp. He could match Potter whirl for whirl, though, and he had spells that quenched the fire or melted the ice or blocked the wind.
            It hadn’t escaped Draco’s notice, however, that he was fighting entirely on the defensive.
            So much for the great warlocks I hired, Draco thought in scorn, and touched his own wand. What had been unthinkable before might become necessary now. He might need to go into battle on his own against Potter.
            The flames in the back of his mind sprang up and began burning eagerly at the thought.
            There was a snap and a shriek. Potter had used another gust of wind to fling Velvetmask back into a wall, and had broken his arm, and then Summoned his wand away from him when he tried to retaliate. There could be no doubt that Velvetmask was out of the fight.
            Moonstar immediately turned his back on his own fellow warlock and raised his wand against Potter. There was a long stream of something coming out of the wand, something that wavered back and forth. Draco had no idea what it was, and no time to wait. Potter was watching Moonstar carefully, searching for some sign that the spell was about to strike. It was probably a serious one.
            Draco broke from his concealment, charging forwards, and launched the hardest curse he could think of, the Blasting Curse, right at the middle of Potter’s back.
            Potter, damn him, dropped to his knees and let his head fall back. The curse sped above him and smashed into Moonstar. His wavering yellow spell seemed to take the brunt of some of it, but it was still enough to stagger him back and spin him around.
            Potter leaped to his feet and whirled to face Draco.
            He seemed to pause for a moment, perhaps fooled by the way that the Disillusionment Charm blended in with its surroundings, and this time Draco tried a spell that would turn the stone beneath Potter’s feet to ice and make him slide. Potter countered it with a charm that Draco had never heard before; he only knew it was the countercharm because he could feel the magic seize hold of his and throw it backwards, and the ground remained cobblestones and not ice. Then Potter charged.
            Draco tried to skip out of the way. The alley was too narrow. Potter’s shoulder caught him in the gut and hurled him to the ground. Draco writhed there, trying to get his breath, while Potter dropped to a neat kneel on his chest and cast a Finite on the Disillusionment Charm.
            “Malfoy?” Potter whispered the word in what sounded like disbelief.
            Draco opened his eyes to glare at him, and saw Moonstar looming beyond Potter’s shoulder. He tried to keep his face perfectly still, so that Moonstar could strike.
            He wasn’t successful, or Potter was too well-trained. He spun on the spot, making Draco grunt as his knees pressed into all sorts of delicate places. Potter’s wand snapped out, and not even Moonstar could evade a Stunner that close. His eyes crossed, and he fell.
            Draco tried to get his breath and gasp in outrage, but Potter spun back around, and now he was kneeling in place, his wand resting above Draco’s pulse and his expression still bewildered.
            “What the fuck are you doing?” Potter breathed.
            “I know you’re Ethan Starfall.”
            Draco swung the words without thinking about them, as a blunt tool, and had the satisfaction of seeing Potter’s face pale as he swayed in place. Draco tried to rise against him, to push him off. Potter looked weaker now than he had since he’d first attacked Draco. Draco knew exactly where his wand was, and how to take it.
            But Potter slammed his shoulders back into the stone, and there was a terrifying wildness in his face now that made Draco cower instinctively. He was furious and ashamed a moment later, but the time when he could have pretended not to be afraid was past.
            “What do you know?” Potter gave him a single contemptuous look, his eyes so furious that Draco held still just from that. “You have no idea what I’ve said—what I sacrificed—”
            “I know that you don’t have a wife and children,” Draco said, determined to salvage something out of this. He obviously wasn’t going to get to hold Potter helpless and make him listen to Draco like he’d planned, but he could inflict mental pain for some of the like pain that Potter had inflicted on him. “I know that you don’t have any experience raising children. I know that you wrote to me under false pretenses, and that’s worse than a false name. Do you have any idea how could you have harmed Scorpius? Do you have any idea how you could have harmed me?”
            Potter stared at him, and then laughed, once. The sound was as wild as his eyes. “You sit there and pretend to be rational? You were the one who hired three warlocks to attack me in a darkened alley!”
            That didn’t work out the way I hoped. But now anger was rising to drive back Draco’s fear, and he at least had an answer for that. “I wanted you to pay. I refuse to be the butt of your joke—”
            “Is that what you think it was?” Abruptly, Potter let him go.
            Draco didn’t try to stand up. He had taken a pretty hard fall, and he didn’t know if Potter, who was obviously mental, would change his mind and lunge at him in a second.
            But Potter didn’t seem interested in doing that. Instead, he stood up and paced back and forth, shaking his head and swearing to himself.
            Draco propped himself up on one elbow and stared. He didn’t know what was going on. He wondered if anyone did, or if he could have walked around the world and found nothing except people who would agree that Potter was mental.
            Potter abruptly turned back towards him and gave a complicated motion that seemed to involve not only his arms but the rest of his body. “It wasn’t a joke,” he said. “It was a misguided attempt to help you. I see now that I shouldn’t have bothered. You’re still the same self-centered berk that you always were. The minute you found something you didn’t like in what I’d wrote, you dedicated yourself to revenge, didn’t you?” Potter’s voice was low and passionate, his arms folded as if he was cold. “You’re the same you always were, and I feel sorry for your son. That’s all.”
            He turned his back. Draco waited to see what kind of curse he would come up with next; if there was anyone who would know the kinds of curses that could be fired over your shoulder without looking back at your enemy, it was Potter.
            But he kept walking, waving his wand over the stunned warlocks that Draco had hired, and the truth hit Draco like a broken wall. Potter was walking away. He would leave Draco here, and he expected Draco not to strike back. To accept it.
            Rage like nothing Draco had known, hot and dark as rushing poison, welled up in him.
            He thinks I’m a venomous serpent and no good, does he? He ought to know that a snake strikes again and again until you kill it.
            More silently than he had done anything in his life, Draco rose to his feet. His stomach and head still hurt, but the rage was giving him strength now, pouring through him like a painkilling potion.
            When he was in the right position, he lunged and grabbed his wand from the ground, and then he was going straight at Potter’s back in a long rush, beautiful and free, as hard as the stones beneath him.
            And he aimed his curse at the base of Potter’s spine, and his rage made him choose the right one. “Frango dorsum!”
*
            Harry was swimming in confusion and misery, so much emotion filling him that he felt ill. This wasn’t ever the way that he would have chosen to have Malfoy find out the truth, if he was going to find out at all. Obviously, since Malfoy was insane, Harry would have preferred that he didn’t find out, but there were good ways and bad ways.
            I hurt him. And yeah, some of it wasn’t my fault, because he would have taken it badly no matter what, but I could have passed the letter on to someone else. I chose to interfere. I chose to approach him.
            Then he heard the Back-Breaking Curse flying at him.
            Lightning consumed his sympathy, his weariness, his uncertainty. This was battle, and that was an enemy. He dropped to his knees and let the curse fly over him and detonate harmlessly against the opposite wall. Then he stood and turned.
            Malfoy was in the middle of the alley with a faint frown on his face and nowhere to hide.
            “Aranea,” said Harry, flipping his wand up and spinning out a curse he would never normally use, his mind running on wildness, on battle instinct, not thinking at all.
            Malfoy flew backwards, the wand ripped from his hand, dangling in thick, sticky strands of spiders’ web against the alley wall. Harry stalked after him. Malfoy’s wand had dropped next to the wall, beneath the lowest strand of the web. Harry gave it an indifferent glance, considered stepping on it, and then looked away. He didn’t need to be that petty.
            Instead, he leaned in until his nose was an inch away from Malfoy’s, nearly becoming stuck in the web himself.
            “Do you know what could have happened tonight?” he whispered. “The warlocks you chose could have killed me. You could have hurt me. You could have committed murder, and for nothing but your stupid pride. You could have paralyzed me with that curse. Is that worth it, Malfoy, for the sake of your pride? Your stubbornness? Your idiocy?”
            Malfoy blinked a few times, and then even that stopped, as the web gripped his eyelids. Harry laughed harshly, watching Malfoy twitch. He wanted to flinch away, probably now more than ever that he could no longer see Harry clearly. Harry wouldn’t let him.
            “How does it feel to be helpless, then?” Harry asked. “The way you were trying to make me? This isn’t about your son or even about your indignation that I tricked you. This is pure and simple rage.” He lifted his wand and touched it as near to Malfoy’s right ear as he could without actually touching the web. “Addicting, isn’t it? It makes you feel like you’re the one on the top of the world and everyone else should be begging your permission. Doesn’t it?”
            Malfoy, of course, said nothing. His mouth was held partially open; the web was stuck to his tongue. Harry pulled back, to the place where he judged those caught and slit eyes would probably see him the best.
            “You have no idea what you almost did,” Harry said. “Even if you believed it was a prank, you were going to murder me.” He discovered he was shaking, the way he hadn’t once done in his battle with the warlocks. “What the fuck is wrong with you? What the fuck? Being taunted—even if I didn’t mean to do that—is worth killing to you now, when nothing used to be worth that?”
            Malfoy gave a muffled kick. Maybe a muffled scream, too.
            “If you’d ended my life,” Harry said softly, “it would have been the end of your life, too. Did you consider that? It wouldn’t have been hard to find out who you were. I kept your letters. When they went through my effects, they’d find them, and it wouldn’t have been hard to think that you might hate me enough to kill me. Ron would lead that hunt with particular vengeance. Then you’d be in Azkaban, and your son would have no father. Did you ever think of that?”
            Malfoy started blindly at him, and Harry paused and sighed. “Of course you didn’t. Because you didn’t think of anything but your anger and the best way to pay me back. That was more important to you than Scorpius.”
            Malfoy gagged and lashed his feet, but that wound the web around a few parts of his legs it hadn’t touched yet, and left him even more a prisoner. Harry snorted at him. His rage had mostly gone, as if it had bled out of him and clung to Malfoy along with the web.
“You’re an idiot,” said Harry. “I think that you’ve been acting mental, whether or not you actually are. Someone had to tell you that. They haven’t, or you haven’t listened.” He swallowed. “I regret the time I put in trying to help you, but not the time I put in trying to help Scorpius. I hope that I’ve saved his father for him. I hope so.”
He hesitated one more time, but there was no more to say, no more words between them. In the end, he cast the charm that would dissolve the web, but placed a Timer Charm on it, so it would only let the web fade when he was safely away. Then he turned to collect the warlocks.
Malfoy made another muffled sound. Deriding himself for doing it even as he did so, Harry turned around.
Malfoy was staring at him with lowered eyelids and hanging feet. As Harry watched, his throat bobbed, but whether he was going to say something or spit something, Harry didn’t know. The web blocked all clear sight of his movements.
Shaking his head, Harry turned and walked the floating warlocks back into the Ministry. He would deal with them and omit mention of Malfoy from the attack, unless someone came out here and found him before the Dissolving Charm worked. For the hurt he had done him, Harry thought, he owed Malfoy that one more chance.
Other than that, no, nothing.
I hope that he’s smart enough to walk away and just let this go. I hope so.
*
SP777: Maybe, but also a crazy-acting one.
moodysavage: He’s only more confirmed in that opinion now, I’m afraid.
Jester: Draco thinks that everything will be okay if he can only repay Harry. Quite obviously, that’s not the case, but it is the way he feels.
Jan: Sorry it was a little longer than normal. I had a few commitments that took a lot more time than I thought they would.
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Starfall