Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Auror Method	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 7771 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twelve--In Danger
            “You will understand what we want of you when you pay attention to what is written on the wall.”
            Draco lifted his head slowly. The goblins had removed him from the embrace of the giant bat, but only to plop him down on this chair in a tiny room and bind him. The ropes extended up his neck, and Draco could only lift his head a little. The wall right in front of him was covered with writing. He couldn’t turn his head to see any others.
            Oldridge stood in front of him, too, his smile patient and far too toothy. “Follow along,” he said, and a long pointer leaped out of his hand, dashing Draco a stunning blow across his right eyebrow before it hovered next to the words.
            As much as he could with pain and fear clouding his reactions, Draco read the words. The point gave him another blow, this time on the back of the head, and Oldridge said, “Aloud this time, if you please.”
            “All thieves,” Draco read slowly, “become part of the warding system All thieves show the further glory of Gringotts and the goblins.”
            “Yes,” said Oldridge. “Exactly. And while the curse that attacks those who venture through the front doors uninvited is very effective, occasionally we choose someone to make a point in a different way.” His grin broadened around his face, making the top of his head look as though it was going to fall off. “I think that the news will spread through the right kind of people, as I believe you tend to call yourselves? And they will understand what happens when someone tries to steal from us.”
            Draco breathed slowly through his nose. He couldn’t give in and panic. That wouldn’t help anybody.
            But with the hungry stare Oldridge was giving him, it was also hard not to panic.
            “I suppose that you’ve saved a different fate for Jared?” Draco was impressed with himself when he managed to speak so calmly and coldly. And it was the first time in the hour since the goblins had captured him that he thought he had the right to be impressed with himself. Oldridge’s head tilted to the side like a curious puppy’s.
“Yes, of course. Even wayward and disappointing children are still part of the clan.” Oldridge made a dismissive little gesture with one claw. “You don’t need to worry about him, Mr. Malfoy. Worry far more about yourself, and the ward that we’re in the process of perfecting.”
“Ward,” Draco repeated, blankly. Jared had told him about plenty of spells and traps and tricks the goblins had perfected, but Draco couldn’t remember any specific mention of a ward. And he thought Jared really was the simple idiot he seemed. That meant he was less likely to be lying and trying to trick Draco, as had been Draco’s first thought after he had been caught by the bat.
“Yes. A blood ward of a special kind.” Oldridge chuckled. “A ward built on blood, run on blood. Powered by magic. Able to react more quickly than the kind of magic we use, which I’m sure your Auror friend told you is powered by spells that last hours.”
Draco blinked once, twice. There was only one way to keep himself from contemplating the truly terrifying vision that the goblin suggested, and that was by filling the silence with chatter. “People like me don’t have any friends among the Aurors.”
Oldridge sighed with his lip stuck out. “You won’t, I hope, expect me to believe that when everyone knows Harry Potter is staying with you. And he must have been the one to save you from our spells. He’s the only one we know who has the necessary learning.”
“He’s my protector. Not my friend.” Draco wondered for a brief second if the goblins could possibly know that he and Potter had made love, and dismissed the notion as irrelevant a second later. Why would it affect their punishment of Draco?
It might affect the way they treated Potter, though.
Draco was a little stunned at how much he didn’t want Potter suffering because of choices he had made.
“As you say,” said Oldridge, though with a sly glance at him. “We stalked you with spells, not him, and he saved you each time. But he won’t be able to do it now, I’m afraid.” He patted Draco’s arm with mock sympathy and turned to look behind him. Draco still couldn’t turn his head, so he didn’t know what Oldridge was doing until he added, “Greyglass, Shadowsbane, I trust that the weapons you were readying are prepared?”
“Yes, Oldridge,” said a horrible, rasping voice that would have made all of Draco’s hair stand straight up and try to climb off his body if it wasn’t already in that state. “We have swords, wands, and enchanted daggers waiting.”
“Good,” said Oldridge, and nodded a little as if reciting poetry to himself. “I think we’ll slay our friend with an enchanted dagger. It won’t be the first choice of anyone coming through the ward he’ll make, but it’s convenient, and it will respond with an elegant flash of light to those thieves who might think Gringotts is unguarded against the spells in their knives.”
The reality crashed home on Draco then. They were going to use his blood and his magic to create a ward. He was going to be made into a defense for the bank.
And if they used the kind of enchanted dagger that Draco was sure they would, a goblin-made one...well, Draco might not have done enough research on goblins to know why the Shatterstone clan was dangerous, but he had done enough to know that a goblin-made dagger could trap a victim’s living essence, aware of what was going on outside the blade and suffering, in pain. Draco was sure they would bind his essence into the ward.
He began to struggle against the ropes, and Oldridge reached out and laid a horny hand on his shoulder, cackling a bit.
“It won’t hurt as much as you’re thinking. And you can know that you made a sacrifice, restored a bit of balance to the bank and to the treasures you tried to steal. What measure of atonement could be better?”
    Draco stared, and said nothing. He wanted to spit in Oldridge’s face, but he doubted that would change the situation, and the lies that had served him for so long were worth nothing here. He didn’t know what to do.
That simple thought shook him. He didn’t know what to do, and he had no tricks or magical items left on him that would soften this or take him out of here. He was going to die, and while Oldridge was probably right that word of his fate would spread through the darkness and warn some of the people he knew about what happened to thieves in Gringotts, it wasn’t the sort of memorial that Draco would prefer to have.
He was going to die.
He opened his mouth. He didn’t actually know what he was going to say. He had sometimes pictured a scene like this, but he had thought he would have light quips, famous last words that would make his enemies look bad. He hadn’t anticipated being turned into a kind of magical defense by utterly ruthless enemies.
“Clan Leader!”
Draco jumped, straining against his ropes out of surprise this time. Oldridge’s eyes looked as if they would pinch shut. He whirled away from Draco and strode towards the door that Draco assumed was behind him, snapping to the goblins Draco couldn’t see, “Carry on preparing him for the ward ritual.”
Greyglass and Shadowsbane were chanting, long droning chants that Draco would ordinarily have been tempted to listen to, so he could figure out how goblin ritual magic worked and in particular why Shatterstone magic was so feared. This time, though, he made himself bow his head and listen beyond them, for the instructions or information Oldridge was receiving.
He must have missed something. The first thing he heard was Oldridge’s incredulous voice demanding, “He’s where?”
“He got beyond the front of the bank, Clan Leader.” The other goblin sounded nervous, and Draco heard a sound he thought was hard feet shuffling back and forth on the stone. “And there’s no trace of the curse on him.”
Oldridge gave a low, vicious sound that Draco would have said was a snarl, except that was a disgrace to snarls. “It must have lost power when this thief confronted it with those crystal lions.”
They know exactly what I did, Draco realized with a little sigh. Yes, I was a fool to come here, and Killian and Potter both tried to tell me so.
“No, Clan Leader,” said the other goblin, and he sounded as if he wanted to be out of there. He had Draco’s sympathies. “He—there’s no trace on him. He walked right through and towards the tunnels that you captured the thief in, shouting that he’d come for what’s his.”
“There’s no,” said Oldridge, and then went silent in the way Draco did when his own thoughts interrupted him.
            Draco had to listen even harder to get past the chanting in front of him, but while he thought he might have lost one of Oldridge’s words when the goblin spoke again, there was no mistaking that tone of urgency. “I want you to tell me exactly what he said. Repeat everything.”
            Draco heard what, this time, sounded like a throat cleared nervously, and then the other goblin muttered, “I come for what’s mine. I claim what is mine from the place where possession is all. Release the debt!”
            Oldridge began to speak in the harsh, sharp tongue of goblins, and Draco knew he had lost his chance of hearing whatever came after that. He was a little surprised that they had spoken in English so long. Probably Oldridge was just used to thinking in it after speaking to Draco, and the other goblin had gone along with him out of nervousness.
            Draco closed his eyes and concentrated. Who would have come to rescue him? A blood relation would have the right of claim, but…
            Then Draco wanted to sneer at himself. Of course not. It was Potter, it had to be.
            And while Draco would have felt irritated at Potter acting all possessive like that any other time, he was prepared to crawl at Potter’s feet for it now.
            The goblins respected the right of possession, the right of ownership. They would hesitate about keeping money away from a wizard who owned it, even if that wizard had committed a legal wrong and was hunted by the Ministry. Draco ought to know. It was one reason his father had been able to spend Galleons freely for so long.
            Draco had never thought to turn that idea and that respect for a claim against the goblins’ own magic, but perhaps he should have.
            And perhaps that would mean…
            Draco opened his mouth, took a deep breath, and thought as hard as he could of the way he and Potter had made love, the way Potter’s arm had felt flung over him, the way Potter had stared at him with hazed eyes full of conflict and devotion, so he could respond in the way that the magic probably required.
            “I wish to go to what’s mine!”
            There was a loud spluttering sound, and Draco knew he had at least effectively disrupted the two goblins’ chant to turn him into a ward. Which might only be the effect of surprise, but then Draco opened his eyes and looked down at himself.
            His bound limbs were edged in a pale blue fire that looked like burning shadows more than it did light. As Draco watched with a slightly open mouth, they came over and danced on the ropes, burning them to ashes. He stood up, and the fire followed him, crawling up his arms to his shoulders.
            The goblins immediately rushed him, but while Draco didn’t have his wand or any artifacts left—they’d taken those immediately, of course—he was still taller and stronger and had the advantage of surprise. He kicked out with his left foot, surprising the goblin he thought was Greyglass, and caught him in the forehead, sending him to the floor. The other one slowed down and fumbled at his side for a dagger, maybe the one they had been going to use to cut Draco’s throat.
            Draco took great pleasure in rushing him and twisting away the dagger. The goblin tried to bite him, but again Draco had the advantage in reach, and it wasn’t like he wanted to stay and grapple with people trying to kill him. He rushed away again, dagger firmly in hand.
            He felt a pulse traveling up his arm immediately. It was the dagger’s magic reaching out, seeking to know him and enact his will.
            Oldridge stepped towards him, one hand stretched out and fingers cocked. Draco felt a pull on the dagger, one that seemed internal as much as external. He thought Oldridge might be draining the dagger’s magic even more than he was trying to get it away from Draco.
            Draco used the only distraction he could think of. He yelled, a stream of nonsense mingled with curse words, and felt Oldridge jerk and his concentration break. Then Draco ran straight at him.
            Oldridge crouched as if he planned to grasp Draco and hold him in his claws. Draco leaped over him, a desperate maneuver that made his legs and lungs burn, and then he was running straight at the doorway with no one to stop him. The goblin Oldridge had been talking to had already fled.
            Yes, run, Draco thought, heart hammering exultantly as he sped out into the passage and took the path that slanted upwards, and he couldn’t even tell whether it was the goblin or himself he was speaking to.
            He heard immediate shouts and what sounded oddly like the calls of horns behind him, and then steady cries that weren’t either human or goblin. Draco grimaced. He reckoned the goblins had called out some animal defenses that wouldn’t be affected by the magic Draco and Potter had wielded against the others.
            Draco couldn’t care about that, though. He was dressed in rags and holding a dagger that might be his only weapon until he could get out of here, and he was running for his life.
            Up the tunnel he hurtled, his breath coming so fast that it burned, his muscles doing the same thing at the same time, his legs trembling and nearly giving out beneath him. He could hear noise from ahead now that didn’t sound like an organized defense, and he headed for that, hoping Potter would be at the center of it.
*
            He was.
            Draco wanted to freeze when he saw him. Only the insanity of the calls and yells from behind him, the yelping that sounded like hounds, kept him running instead of stopping to admire the sheer jaw-dropping spectacle that was Harry Potter fighting goblin magic.
            The goblins were standing around him, chanting and flicking out long white strands from their fingers, and silver daggers, and things that looked like swords but kept disappearing when Draco tried to stare at them for too long. It seemed like the white strands should have writhed around Potter and stopped him, the daggers should have pierced him, and the swords should have cut off his limbs or his head.
            Instead, Potter was dancing in the middle of the strands, and his spells cut them. He kept casting other spells that stole the swords and daggers from the goblins, and a huge pile of discarded weapons was growing at his feet. Draco also thought he would probably trip over them, but he didn’t. His means of flowing, of dancing, were solid and tireless.
            This is the way that someone fighting a battle should look, Draco thought, with an odd sensation of tightening in his throat and a peculiar longing in his heart. Not the way that I look, sneaking through the corridors…
            Then Potter turned his head and saw Draco, and his means of fighting changed.
            He leaped abruptly into the air, and cast a spell that bore him up on wings of fiery red cloud. Draco had never seen it before, and the burning in his chest altered and intensified. He wanted to learn it. This was some of the unique Auror magic that Potter had never shown him, probably.
            Potter came down wheeling, and landed on the other side of the goblins and the mess of metal he’d made, reaching for Draco’s hand. Draco let him take it without protest, staring at him. Potter glowed with the same blue fire that Draco had invoked to burn the ropes off him, and he nodded to Draco.
            “Come on, then,” he said. “But leave any wealth that you’ve got from here behind, or this escape won’t work.”
            Draco didn’t move. “They have my wand.”
            Potter turned around to face the goblins. “By right of possession, we call Draco Malfoy’s wand!” he said, his voice like a bugle, and Draco looked around, thinking the wand really would fly to them. Potter’s voice was that strong, that rich and unchallenged.

            But instead, Oldridge came around the corner, walking carefully. He held Draco’s wand in one hand and a black sphere in the other, and Draco felt Potter go very still.
            “Did you think it would be that easy?” Oldridge whispered, halting. “You should fear the power of the Shatterstone clan for a reason, you know.”
            Potter tensed beside him, but Draco had no idea why, until Oldridge hurled the sphere and Potter shoved Draco aside, getting in the way of the sphere himself.
            Sprawled on the floor, Draco stared at the unknown and deadly magic hurtling straight at Potter, and couldn’t think of a thing he could do to help.
*
MoonlightVampiress: I think that people who start acting out of pride and to salve their pride are generally being idiots, yes.
There are two more chapters after this one.
moodysavage: They were trying to make Draco back off and then kill him, but as long as he’s here, they’re going to use him.
SP777: He thought the goblins would just recharge their ritual and attack him again if he stayed home.
- 11
- 12
- 13
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Auror Method