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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.

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Chapter Fifteen--In Cold Blood

            "And you think this is going to work?"

            Harry shrugged and kept his gaze focused on the house in front of him. Small, he thought. Unassuming. Rather like the ambitions of her parents. "I only know what I think, yes," he answered. "And what I've read in the Ministry's files."

            Malfoy hissed behind him, but said nothing. Harry cast one more charm that would polish his dragonhide boots to a glossy shine and smooth back his hair. After a moment's thought, he also cast one that made his Auror robes look like they were newly-stitched. He couldn't do anything about the expression on his face with magic; that would have to come from his real sympathy and his real outrage.

            "Stay here for now, unless you feel me about to do something stupid," he added over his shoulder to Malfoy.

            Malfoy's hand landed on his back in response. Harry turned to look at him. A fire seemed to burn beneath that hand, but he wasn't sure if it came from him or from the way Malfoy pressed harder than needed in his own anger.

            "You would have me stay out of sight because you believe I would frighten the girl's parents." Malfoy barely moved his lips as he spoke the words. A wind whirled along the small alley in which they stood and tossed up his hair, as if in lively contradiction of how still he wanted to be.

            Harry spent a moment's fleeting wish on the idea that he could have a potion that let him read Malfoy's impulses in turn. It would let him know when he had really irritated the bloke and when he was merely doing something Malfoy found troublesome. The first he cared about, if only for the integrity of their alliance. The second, not at all.

            "Are we going or not?" Ron whispered beside him, shifting his weight from one boot to another.

            "We are," Harry said. "In a second." He felt Ron draw in a breath to object, then let it out again. Harry didn't look at him, though. All his focus was on Malfoy, and his lack of understanding of something Harry had explained. If he could fail to grasp that, he might also fail at grasping other things that were far more essential.

            "I don't think you might frighten them," he said. "But you don't look like an Auror, and you told me the potion you gave me works best when you can concentrate on it, when you're not involved in a fight or a conversation. This is a situation where I might lose my temper and do something stupid despite my best efforts not to. Besides, everyone knows or thinks they know that Aurors work in pairs and not teams of three."

            Malfoy flicked a glance at him. "And you think me incapable of casting a glamour that would guard me from the sight of these precious parents you're so worried about?"

            Harry looked back at the house. Small, insignificant, but with the equivalent of an iron fence in wards around it. Not surprising, when their daughter had been taken once. "I think that the glamour might fade when you get close enough, and then it's possible that they won't trust Ron and me enough to tell us anything."

            Malfoy waited a moment, so still that Harry wondered what new argument he was coming up with. Then he inclined his head, slow and gentle. "Very well," he said. "I will wait here, and I will listen closely to your impulses."

            Harry nodded back. He didn't know what in his words had convinced Malfoy, and he didn't intend to care. He turned his back and nodded to Ron. "Let's do this. And hope the Steeles are still willing to talk to us."

            Ron's face was nearly as blank as Malfoy's, but he nodded back and took the lead without asking. Harry was the protector, the comforter, the one they relied on to talk hostages nearly comatose with fear back around or terrify a Dark wizard into confession. Ron was the one who could project reassurance and confidence and persuade those who needed logic, not emotion, to talk to them.

            Harry followed him, wondering for a moment why it had never occurred to him to resent that fact. He was fairly sure Malfoy would have.

            Then again, it was much more important to Malfoy to see himself as someone logical and indispensable in every situation than it was for Harry.

            I can do what I'm best at, and I really shouldn't worry about anyone else.

            He hung back as Ron knocked on the door, and watched the tall, elegant woman with neatly-braided hair who answered, and the way her hand relaxed on the door as she saw Ron's Auror robes. "Mrs. Steele?" Ron began, and the nod was out of her almost immediately. "We were wondering if we could talk to you about your daughter Emily..."

*

            Draco closed his eyes, and listened.

            Not to the sounds around him, which, in this small alley near the outskirts of Hogsmeade, were not worthy of being listened to. Birds skirring and chirping, insects worrying one another, the small sounds of a normal night's hunting, a normal night's deaths. The scrape of someone's shoes as they hurried home. His own heartbeat and the sound of the wind playing with a Prophet someone had dropped.

            But to the song of the impulses in his head, the music that was not his own, and played more merry havoc with him than Potter's blood had the ability to play with potions.

            Escape routes, whispered the thoughts. See. Hear. Listen. Two of them in the room, husband has his wand in his sleeve, realize it, be ready to Disarm him if necessary.

            Draco shook his head. Potter had insisted the Steeles were absolutely safe as far as people to question went, but the murmured undertone of his mind insisted otherwise.

            Of course, he had already realized that Potter had a more-than-healthy dose of paranoia. He need not utterly give in to it. Draco straightened his back against the wall and continued listening, trying to imagine the way things were going in the house from the flicker and dance of Potter's responses to it.

            Smile. Friendly. Smile back? No harm. Settle down. Pick the chair that's hardest, launch yourself from the edge if necessary.

            Draco snorted, and then muffled the sound with one hand. He had been careless not to cast charms that would hide him from the sight and hearing of people passing in the street. It would do them little good and probably alarm the Steeles if they thought someone lurked outside, watching them. A few flicks of his wand, and a skilled Disillusionment Charm and Disaudibility Charm covered him. Then he went back to listening, though this time he watched the house out of half-closed eyes instead of shutting them completely.

            Alert, but friendly. Wary now. Leave it up to Ron, he'll explain. Settle back. Smile if you can. No, the husband looks upset when you do. Too many teeth. Keep your face neutral. Stay still.

            Draco shook his head. Considering how many times Potter had to repeat instructions to himself to avoid frightening people, perhaps he should have chosen some career where he had to interact less often with the public. The Hit Wizards would have been a good choice, Draco thought, since they spent most of their time nowadays bodyguarding the important members of the Wizengamot.

            Then he thought of the ways Potter could have upset wizarding politics in a position like that, and shuddered. Perhaps he made the right decision after all.

            Suddenness!

            Draco started up. That particular word wasn't one he'd heard before from Potter's mind, and its, well, sudden appearance made him think that something had happened which could cause the couple to distrust Potter.

            When he listened, though, he could make nothing out. The sounds around him hadn't changed. The wards hadn't flared around the house. (He could sense them now that he was looking, and although he had potions that could have fooled them, he had to agree with Potter that there was no reason to make the attempt). He could feel the waves of Potter's mind agitating down towards the middle of his thoughts, and in a moment the usual course of the stream resumed.

            Cute kid. Deserves to be protected. Who could hurt her? Scars on her arm. Fury! Disgust! Put on the smile. Show her the scar. Discuss. Nod and make sympathetic noises. Show.

            Draco let out a careful breath. Apparently, Potter had only reacted to the child entering the room. As long as it was that and nothing more--and as long as he wasn't about to risk the investigation by cursing the very witch they'd come to interview--then Draco didn't think he needed to intervene.



            Listen. Look. Hear. See. Remember.

            Draco lifted his head at that and gently rolled his neck back and forth against the wall behind him, wondering. The “tone” of Potter’s internal responses had changed. That was the only way he could classify it. It “sounded” as though he had decided to drum whatever he was talking about more deeply into his mind.

            And now it was worse than a storm, or a flood, at least at the very bottom of the dark stream flowing through Draco’s head. Now it was the sound of someone deliberately making himself angry because he thought he had to, because otherwise someone else would suffer, and he was determined that that wouldn’t happen.

            Draco shivered and let his hands rest on his arms for a moment, above the gooseflesh. I don’t want to make Potter angry.

            He continued to listen, but heard nothing more remarkable until the end of the interview, when he saw the door of the house open and spill light across the cobblestones, followed by Weasley’s cheerful voice. “Thank you for talking to us, Mr. and Mrs. Steele. It could be that you’ll help capture the people who did this to your daughter.”

            “And thank you for speaking with us, Miss Steele.” Potter’s voice was low, as though he thought enemies lurked outside the house who he didn’t want to overhear his conversation with the seven-year-old. There’s only me, Draco thought. “Yours was the hardest part.”

            Draco opened his mouth, nearly ready to comment, if only to himself as a relief for his feelings, that she couldn’t be expected to understand what Potter was talking about, or why it meant so much to him—

            When the voice in the back of his head spoke a single word that gave him a splitting headache on the instant.

            Kill.

            Draco leaped out of the alley and started trotting towards the house. He knew he couldn’t get there physically before Potter did something that hurt either the couple or the girl, or perhaps Weasley, but his magic could cover the distance—

            But Potter shook hands gravely with the family and started down the path that led towards Draco’s hiding place, his face gentle and his stride easy and relaxed. The storm in the back of Draco’s head sang again.

            When I catch them.

            Draco shook his head. So his intervention wouldn’t be required for the Steeles, but potentially for Moonstone and Schroeder, or whichever wizards they had hired to do the dirty work.

            He could not promise himself to be so quick to intervene the next time, no matter who it hurt.

*

            “What are we doing here?”

            Harry had to smile as he leaned against the wall of the corridor outside his office and watched Ron shuffle through the papers on his desk, looking for the particular file that covered the Steele case. Malfoy, beside him, and under a Disillusionment Charm as well as several spells that would fool the wards, as Harry was, could convey disgruntled without turning either a hair on his head or a cool shade from his voice.

            “The usual thing,” Harry responded. “Looking for the files that could help us in a case. We don’t keep them with us at all times.”

            Malfoy’s hand touched his elbow. Harry tilted his head towards it before he thought about that. Then again, thanks to the charms, any outsiders would see only a blurred, muffled shape. The effect of the combined spells was nearly as good at defeating sight as an Invisibility Cloak, and considerably better on the sound front. “But why did you have to come? Why not send Weasley by himself, or me with him, if you thought that he needed a guard?”

            “Because of this,” Harry said, and reached out with his wand. Malfoy tensed, but he thought Malfoy had been doing that every time Harry cast, whether the impulses at the back of his mind urged him to do Dark Arts or not. Well, he could deal with it, this time. Harry brushed his wand against the side of the office door and chanted the nonverbal incantation he had come up with. He trusted Malfoy with his mind and his life, but not the secret of his wards, not when they had to protect Ron and the privacy of their former investigations as well as himself. Aranea argenta.

            The door flared in a dazzling web of silver lines, though Malfoy flinched back from them and cast a look down the corridor unnecessarily; they were only bright at a range of a foot. Harry watched as two small spirals puffed to life in the corners of the web, indicating that two people had entered the room at widely differing times. The web had to be read like a sundial. One in the morning, one in the afternoon, then, Harry translated. He touched the web with his wand and added in the privacy of his mind, Da.

            The spirals blew towards him, one settling on the end of his wand, and blew up into a full-size image. Harry nodded. It made sense that Grinder would have entered while they were gone and tried to cause any trouble he could.

            The image showed Grinder reaching out for Ron’s desk and then swaying dizzily, catching himself only with an effort. Harry smiled. Yes, he would, wouldn’t he, with the magical remnants of this web draping his head and shoulders?

            Harry watched as he stumbled towards the door, rebounded off the doorway, and landed in a heap on the floor outside, roughly where Malfoy stood now. He sat there for a few seconds, head hanging, and then pushed himself to his feet and lumbered off. Now and then he lifted a hand to feel out his tongue, as though it was numbed by eating ice cream and he wanted to make sure he still had one.

            Harry smiled. The spell had worked as he expected it would, then. That was good to know. He pulled his wand back and turned to the web again, humming under his breath as he did.

            “What was that?”

            Oh, yes, Malfoy. Harry turned to glance at him. “I set up a web that would mark anyone who tried to come into the office,” he said. “It functions as a tracking device, as proof that they were here, and tangles their minds to make sure that they won’t do anything else to cause trouble while I’m deciding what to do about them.”

            Malfoy tucked one strand of hair behind a ear, which Harry had noticed he did sometimes while trying to come up with words that would fit around his emotions. Harry waited for him, wand hovering above the second spiral. He was curious as to who it would be, but he could control his curiosity for the sake of a man who had helped them as much as Malfoy had.

            “You did this?” Malfoy asked finally. “Although you knew what being caught practicing Dark Arts could do to you?”

            Harry snorted. “I made up this spell, and it’s not related closely to any of the wards or compulsion spells that I’ve already studied. I used a different base. They can’t classify it as Dark Arts if no one else has ever used it before.”

*

            Draco stared at Potter in silence. The undertone of the stream in his head was as quiet as it ever got, so he didn’t think Potter was about to attack him for his disbelief.

            And it was very little else at the moment.

            Potter is capable of creating new spells? Executing them at such a level that they won’t show a close relationship to other spells that serve much the same function, and without calling on Dark magic as a function of their nature?

            That did not fit with the portrait of a man Draco would have needed to use either the original potion or the latest one on.

            “Tell me,” he said, when he saw Potter’s eyes turning back towards the spiral that still waited in the web. “Why did that make the man we saw retreat from the office? Surely the best object would be to prevent him from entering in the first place.”

            Potter showed lion’s teeth and settled back against the wall. Debate, said the murmur in the back of Draco’s mind.

            “Do you want to argue spell theory with me, then?” Potter asked. “Because we can. I thought that wasn’t our priority, though.” He glanced back into the office as if he thought Weasley might be coming out with the files they needed. Draco did not think so—for all Weasley’s virtues, being quick to identify small things did not appear to be among them—and he made a soft sound. Potter turned back to him. “A spell that prevented someone from entering would either have to take the form of a barrier or of the charms that some people use on their houses, to make Muggles forget that a building exists. Both have disadvantages. A barrier is too obvious. A charm that makes them forget they wanted to enter in the first place is actually more noticeable than a barrier in the end, unless it only works on people who have no real business near the place, because sooner or later they’ll wonder what you want to protect so badly. Besides, using charms like that on wizards is technically forbidden by law.”

            “You do know the laws, then,” Draco said, letting the words slip from their leash before he considered them.

            Potter bared his teeth again. “Of course. I am an Auror, after all.”

            Draco shook his head. “Then why do you persist in casting spells such as the Retrovoyance curse? It could cost you your job, and you know the theory behind it—you must.” He gestured to the web shimmering in front of them. “If you could create something like this, you could create a safer alternative to the Retrovoyance curse.”

            “It would have taken years to develop,” Potter said, shrugging. “And until you proved it to me, the ill effects I received from it were never important enough to me to stop.” He paused, as if waiting for Draco to ask other questions, and then turned back to the web and called the other spiral to him.

            Draco touched a potions vial waiting in the pocket of his robe, and then, with difficulty, forced his hand away. He had already given Potter more than enough potions that made him easier to work with. Depending on too many of them was vulgar, not to mention expensive and hard on his brewing time and ingredients budget.

            He didn’t need another potion, not as long as he had the one that connected him to the deepest level of Potter’s mind and taught him what this stranger with familiar eyes beside him could do and want.

            This time, the spiral opened out into an image of two Aurors Draco had reason to recognize, considering they had been the ones who arrested him. He stiffened before he thought about it, and Potter leaned forwards. Draco canted his head to the side so that Potter’s hair was no longer obscuring the image.

            They stepped through the web without pausing, though the taller one lifted his head as though sensing a scent in the air, the way Schroeder had when he first grasped the thread of Potter’s blood. Then they leaned on the desks and began a desultory conversation. Draco heard only a soft murmur, not enough to make out any words, and for a moment viciously wished that Potter’s web worked better than it did.

            Then he snorted to himself. Yes, wish the miracle more miraculous.

            A moment later, both Aurors left Potter and Weasley’s office and strode away in opposite directions. Draco watched them go, watched the vision dissolve, and listened to the wordless laughter of the stream in his mind before he gave in and asked, “What did that do?”

            “Hmmm?” Potter was staring at nothing with a faint smile, but he turned around, blinked, and realigned himself with reality when he heard Draco’s question. “Ah. The same thing it did to Grinder.”

            Which wasn’t an answer. Draco smiled and reached for his wand, and Potter seemed to realize that he hadn’t provided that answer a moment before Draco would have been socially and morally obligated to hex him.

            “The web confines their thoughts, and makes them run on several precise patterns,” Potter said, sounding as though Draco had required a tooth of him for each word. “Mostly copied from the web. They can’t think about anything except whatever brought them into the office in the first place—either orders from someone else, as it seems for Wilding and Kinzie, or the malice that made them intent on trying to find secrets to ruin us, like Grinder. They’ll obsess over it, make loud and inappropriate noises in the wrong places, and probably end up getting arrested.”

            “The Ministry would arrest you for mind control if they knew,” Draco said quietly.

            “This fits under an obscure art called mind-shaping instead,” Potter said, and let one shoulder rise and fall. “It’s not my fault that it’s not often practiced now, and then usually by people who know as much about the laws of the Ministry and what they can require and what they can’t as I do. Not to mention that it’s always been legal for private use. Some wizards who were involved in consensual relationships based on slavery or arranged marriages objected when the Ministry tried to ban them.”

            “You have the knowledge,” Draco said. “The power. The inherent skill to create spells, which is the thing that most people who want to do it never acquire, even if they can find the knowledge by study.” He leaned towards Potter, who stared back at him. “Why don’t you do something else? Why this?”

            “Why don’t you do something besides brewing Potions?” Potter asked.

            Draco felt as though he teetered on the edge of a precipice in more ways than one, which must be why he answered as he did. “That’s where my talents lie, and it’s what makes me most joyful and most convinced of my own brilliance.”

            Potter smiled back at him, a smile that softened the hard edges to his eyes. “Well said.”

            Draco opened his mouth, then closed it again, and then they waited in silence until Weasley came out of the office, the Steele file clutched in his hands. He was the one who looked back and forth between them as though to make a comment, and then shook his head.

            And if neither Weasley nor Potter can find the words, Draco thought, his mockery twisted back to sting at himself like a scorpion’s tail, who am I to think I can?

*

            Yami Bakura: Thank you! Draco doesn’t always lose the effects of the potion, but he does feel more confident about Harry now that he’s using it.

            SP777: It only works one way, and yes, it only makes Draco aware of Harry’s impulses. Things like the magical theory for the spell he created, or the nonverbal incantations, are impossible for Draco to sense.

            unneeded: Harry’s a little wrong about having no reserve. If it’s something he doesn’t care about, like Ministry politics, he can lie and play along for now. But in the important things, he gives himself wholeheartedly.

            polka dot: If Malfoy tried that, Harry would fight back so hard that Draco probably couldn’t defend himself.
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