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I Give You a Wondrous Mirror	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 17806 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Eighteen�Flashpoint

�� There�s
more information on Salazar�s Snakes here than we�ve ever been able to gather
before,� said Hermione briskly, pushing the sheaf of parchment across the
library table to Harry. �And even then, it�s not much.�

�� It was
Harry�s usual day to take charge of Teddy, but he was sick with a slight cold
this morning, and Andromeda had decided to keep him at home. Harry wondered
idly how she�d keep him in his bed.
Perhaps by telling him that if he got sick often enough, he wouldn�t be able to
attend Hogwarts next autumn. Hogwarts was the source of most of Teddy�s hope and anxiety

�� Why not?�
he said, when Hermione coughed to remind him that there was a conversation in
front of him and he was expected to pay attention to it. He checked the
monitoring spells on his children�light loops of magic on his wrist that would
pull taut when his intervention was needed�and found Lily still peacefully
sleeping in her cot, and James and Al, in the corridor, still playing at
wizards� duel with a pair of sticks that Harry had found in the yard and
Transfigured into play wands. A solemn warning that he would take them away the
moment James hit his brother with the stick had so far prevented any incidents.

�� Because
they�re better at covering their tracks than we suspected,� said Hermione in a
tone of disgust, shoving her hair out of her eyes. �I think they must put all
their efforts into hiding. Certainly their actual attempt at torturing you
didn�t work that well.�

�� It would
have, if their information was as complete as they thought it was,� Harry said
quietly. A drawing of a typical Salazar�s Snake, in green mask and black cloak,
stared up at him. He shook his head and shoved it aside, searching for more relevant
information. �Or if they captured Draco alone.�

�� Yes,� said
Hermione, plainly not interested in thinking about what Draco�s fate would have
been if Harry wasn�t there. �But, Harry, the whole thing is odd. As you pointed out, they� received a warning that you were in Diagon
Alley, but why did they wait three whole hours to capture you? And then they
seized a lucky chance��

�� Or
unlucky��

�� Yes, or
unlucky,� said Hermione, with a little roll of her eyes to say that she didn�t
care much about what name he chose to use, �when they might have waited all day
and never found it. It�s just odd.
What were they waiting for?�

�� What did you learn?�

�� There was
a letter,� said Hermione, becoming animated again as she dived through the
paper. Harry checked the monitoring spells; the faint whisper of a nightmare
had passed through Lily�s head, since she was breathing a little harder than
usual, and Al and James were arguing about what exactly a Body-Bind did. �We
got a copy of it before it dissolved, luckily.�

�� Harry
stared at her. �Dissolved?�

�� Yes.�
Hermione gave him an even look as she handed the copy over. �That was another
odd thing. There were sophisticated charms protecting that letter, even though
it�s simple. And when we tried to penetrate them and find out who the real
writer was, the ink just turned watery and ran off the paper.� She shook her
head. �I don�t know what to make of it. They have high-level magic backing
them�the glamours on their hideout were impressive�but then they act stupid
about it.�

�� The Death
Eaters were like that, too,� Harry reminded her absently as he read the letter.
The entire thing consisted of two lines, and a strange signature.

�� To the ones who would help us protect our
world, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are now in Diagon Alley, and should remain
there for some time.

�� The Chaired Lady.

�� Yes,�
Hermione said again, �but that was a function of their leader, and Voldemort�s
insane ambitions. If we could figure out who the leader of Salazar�s Snakes
was, we�d know a lot more, of course. But at the moment, I�d settle for
figuring out what they want.�

�� Harry
traced the lines of the copied letter with one finger. Something besides the
signature was bothering him. Perhaps it would come to him, as the revelation
about the scar on Draco�s forehead had, if he was just quiet and let his mind
stew for a moment. �I suppose you never learned how they obtained my
signature?�

�� He looked
up in time to see Hermione smirk a bit. �Actually, we did,� she said. �We did discover a stock of Polyjuice Potion
in the house��

�� You
couldn�t learn who owned the house?� Harry asked, distracted by that sudden
passing thought. �That ought to lead us straight to the Snakes� backer.�

�� Hermione
gave him a disgusted look. �Ten years in the Blood Reparations Department, and
you still haven�t learned how many
pure-bloods own houses under assumed names and through a tangle of paperwork
accounts that all lead back to each other?�

�� Harry
shrugged. The thought in his mind struggled and bubbled like a baby bird trying
to knock through its shell. Lily stirred and mumbled, but fell asleep before
Harry could rise from the chair. Al was now arguing that he had blocked James�s
latest attempt at a Body-Bind with a Shield Charm, and that he had so done it. Harry drew back from the
monitoring spells a bit so that he could avoid the inevitable chorus of, �Did
not!� �Did so!� that followed. �Sorry. Go on.�

�� There was
a stock of Polyjuice Potion,� Hermione said, returning with a bit of a
ruffled-feathers stare to her original statement, �and I was able to track down
the owners of some of the hairs they used. It wasn�t hard; they were generally
plucking it from the heads of apothecaries when they bought the ingredients for
the potion. Have you seen a woman who looked like this before?� She waved her
wand, murmuring a complex charm Harry didn�t know, and the sudden image of a
small, gray-haired woman spun out of the tip and into the air in front of him.

�� Harry sat
up with an exclamation. �I did!� he said. �She was the one who came up to me
the day that I took Teddy for ice cream. Said she wanted my signature for her
daughter who�d been crippled in the war.�

�� Hermione
nodded. �And she really does have a
daughter who was crippled in the war�but she wasn�t the one who asked for your
signature. It was someone Polyjuiced as her. That�s how they managed to put
your genuine signature on that letter about Malfoy.�

�� Harry bit
his lip thoughtfully. The suspicion he�d entertained was a bit closer to the
surface than before, but still not ripe yet. �Once again,� he said, �there�s a
level of intelligence there, but their execution�� He shook his head.

�� Of course,
some of that can be explained by caution,� Hermione said knowledgeably. �They
aren�t ready to move yet, so they tried to crouch low and do things that would
escape the knowledge of the Blood Reparations Department.�

�� But
kidnapping us was fairly stupid, if that�s what they really want.� Harry tapped
his fingertips together.

�� I know.�
Hermione spread her hands helplessly. �But I think�well, they didn�t torture
you physically. It was only because that woman slapped you that I managed to
find you at all. I think they meant that box to break you.�

�� But��

�� Mentally,�
Hermione said. �If they could break your wills, they might have been able to
convince you to do what they wanted more easily.�

�� Harry
nodded slowly. �Get Draco to confess that he really had murdered Esther
Goldstein, for example. And maybe even his wife.�

�� Exactly.
And what couldn�t they do with a Savior of the Wizarding World who was tame to
their will? They might even have done it because they know that you can throw
off the Imperius.� Hermione looked grim. �But most people know that by now, so
that doesn�t narrow our pool of suspects by much.�

�� Harry looked
at the lines in front of him. They stared blandly back. Of course, since this
was just a copy of the original letter, maybe he shouldn�t expect it to look
all that threatening, Harry thought.

�� To the ones who would help us protect our
world, Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are now in Diagon Alley�

�� Abruptly,
Harry sat up, staring at the letter. And the idea swelled and burst in his head
as unstoppably as the conviction that Draco had been up to something dastardly
during their sixth year.

�� To the ones who would help us protect our
world�

�� That�s
it,� he said quietly. �It�s two. At least
two.�

�� What?�
Hermione demanded, leaning forwards like a hunting hound.

�� The
groups,� Harry said, looking up, knowing that his eyes must be on fire. He�d
sometimes uncovered insights like this in his work with the Blood Reparations
Department, and his eyes always looked like that when he did. �We say that
Salazar�s Snakes are making some brilliant moves and some dumb ones, but what
if they�re not making all the moves?
What if they�re making the majority of the dumb mistakes, and the people
warning them and brewing the Polyjuice and controlling the manor where they
were headquartered are part of a different group? A smarter one?�

�� Hermione
closed her eyes and shook her head for long moments.

�� What?�
Harry asked, unable to keep his voice from sharpening a little. He�d used
Dreamless Sleep for the last two nights, and his temper seemed worse each time,
as if the dreams of Draco contained some essential mineral that he needed to
keep calm. But Ginny had gone off to practice with a happy smile this morning,
which made him somewhat regretful that this was one of the nights when he�d
have to sleep without the potion. �What did I miss?�

�� I�m
scolding myself,� Hermione whispered. �Harry, of course that�s it. I�m stupid not to have seen it at once,
especially given the current political climate.� She opened her eyes and beamed
at him.

�� Well?�
Harry nearly wanted to spring across the table and choke the breath from her. �Tell me.�

�� Pure-bloods
and Muggleborns are at each other�s throats all over,� Hermione began quietly,
steepling her fingers. �It�s not just the extremist groups anymore. We can
hardly speak to the Muggleborns who left the wizarding world; we�re kept so
busy fighting rumors of laws that are going to favor pure-bloods, or actual
legislation passed by wizards who are mad enough to want Muggleborn children Obliviated of the memory of ever having
magic instead of sent to Hogwarts. The rumors are coming from disparate
sources, which puzzled us, because we�re much better about tracking them to
their roots, usually.�

�� Harry
nodded. He understood. He felt a brief pang that he hadn�t been able to do his
work for the Department lately, or he would have known about this burgeoning
political firestorm himself, but his family and Draco had been more important.
When this current mess was over, Quidditch season might be over, too, and then
Ginny could stay home with the children more often while Harry returned to
helping out with Blood Reparations.

�� But if
there are a few groups working together�� Hermione stopped suddenly, and her
lips became bloodless.

�� What is
it?� Harry asked quietly. He knew no single supremacist group had the kind of
reputation that could make her look like that. The most violent ones also
tended to be the smallest, since they regularly fell out with each other.

�� Harry,�
Hermione said, and her voice was so fragile that Harry stood, rounded the
table, and embraced her. �Oh, Harry. I think�I think it�s pure-blood and
Muggleborn supremacist groups working together.�
She tilted her head back so that she could look up at him through watery eyes.

�� What?�
Harry said. �Hermione, that�s�that�s ridiculous. They never agree on anything, so
what could they both want that would persuade them to work together instead of
killing each other?�

�� A war,�
said Hermione. �They want another war, Harry. They might agree to work together
for a little while if they knew that at the end of that time, they�d get to kill each other. That�s what
we�ll never give them, of course.� Already she was sitting up, gathering her
strength and becoming the strong woman Harry knew and adored, though she made
no move to leave the circle of his arms as yet. �So long as the Blood Reparations
Department exists, they can�t do what they want with impunity. And they�ll try
to eliminate us. And you, since they know that you�re sure a big proponent of
tolerance, and there are a lot of people who�d back you just because you�re
Harry Potter. And Malfoy��

�� Got caught
up in one stray tendril of this massive thing,� Harry finished, quiet himself
now as the vision of devastation that had reached Hermione struck him. �They�re
probably hoping that his arrest for the murder of Esther Goldstein would outrage
the pure-bloods enough to do something.�

�� Or they�re
hoping that the immense brutality of the murder would outrage the Muggleborn
community.� Hermione wiped at her eyes with her robe sleeve. �Or both.� She
sucked in her breath. �Oh, Harry! They�re probably planting and planning
incidents like this all over, hoping that one will become a flashpoint of
violence. They might have expended so effort on Malfoy just because it�s a good
setup and because you�re involved.�

�� Harry
opened his mouth to say that Draco was quite worth a herculean effort all by
himself, but Hermione was already rising and saying, �I�ve got to get back to
the Ministry and contact Shacklebolt right away. He needs to know��

�� The world
went white and gold.

�� Harry felt
an immense wind pulling him, tugging, rippling him forwards. The library floor
was going from beneath him. The tunnel of light that he had seen the other
times he held Draco�s hand and turned his wounds into scars spiraled before
him, a lazy maelstrom about to suck him down.

�� Harry tried
to think of his children, but the whirlwind did not stop pulling him when Al
and James flashed through his head. He tried to imagine the pressure of Lily�s
small fists against his neck, and thought he felt the wind slow a bit.

�� But he was
still going.

�� Desperate,
he pictured Hermione, felt the weight and warmth of her in his arms again,
heard her concerned voice, and felt humbled before the strength of the
dedication she had sunk into the Blood Reparations Department. She was his
friend, one of his best friends, and if he went somewhere else, he would never
see her again.

�� The light
ripped open in front of him. For just a moment, Harry caught a glimpse of
himself, a faint and shadowy version of him, on the other side of what seemed
to be a thick pane of glass. He was hugging a taller figure whose face Harry
couldn�t see, since it was buried in that Harry�s shoulder, but from the
white-blond hair, it was unmistakably Draco. On Harry�s other shoulder, ruffled
and hopping from foot to foot to keep her balance, was a snowy owl who looked
just like Hedwig. An open cage on the ground beside the other Harry�s foot said
that she was a new gift.

�� Harry
closed his eyes, not acknowledging what looked like the story he�d been
dreaming, and ripped backwards with all his might, clutching the image of
Hermione in front of his heart like a talisman. Softness beat against his face.
He refused to look. He turned his head aside.

�� I am not in you, he told the mirror
image in his head. I am not of you. I do not
want you. Leave me alone!

�� The force
pulling him ceased, and he sagged to his knees, and then stumbled sideways and
hit the library table a stunning blow with the side of his head. He swore, not
at all softly, and raised a hand to his temple as pounding footsteps told him
his sons were approaching.

�� Daddy?�
Al�s frightened and concerned voice asked.

�� Dad!�
James echoed, but with a reproachful tone to the word, as though Harry had
played a shameful trick by getting down on the floor.

�� I�m all
right,� Harry said quietly, opening his eyes, and reaching out to gather his
sons against him. Hermione�s wand flicked in the corner of his eye, and he felt
the pain on the side of his head ease. She had probably removed the wound
before James or Al could catch sight of it, and Harry was grateful.

�� He hugged
his children for a long moment, and then something soft whirled against his
hair.

�� White owl
feathers.

�� The same
kind that had covered his face and hands the night that Draco had taken the
wounds from the mirror, and Harry had healed them.

�� Harry
turned his head away from them, and looked up at Hermione. Her face was paler
than it had gone when she figured out what the supremacist groups working
together might mean.

�� I think
you should figure out the curse as soon as possible, Harry,� she said. �For
everyone�s sake.� She paused for a long moment, then added, �And maybe you
should stop seeing Malfoy. Just for a little while.�

�� Not
possible,� Harry said, and spat out a feather that had lodged in the corner of
his mouth. �As you saw, it can attack me anywhere, so there�s really no point
in trying to escape it by avoiding him. Besides, I need to tell Draco what we
learned about the supremacist groups.�

�� Hermione
sighed at him, but nodded. �Fine. You and Ginny are still coming over to dinner
tonight?�

�� Yes,�
Harry said at once. He could hear Lily crying, and Al was giving quiet little
sobs, too. His body thrummed with the ancient instinct to comfort them. �I�ll
be fine, Hermione.� He ignored her incredulous snort. �I will,� he insisted.

�� In the end,
she helped him settle Lily down with a bottle before she left, and gave him an
intensely skeptical glance as she went out the door.

�� Harry
ignored it, and bowed his head to smell Lily�s hair and watch the motions of
her tiny fingers on the enchanted, floating bottle as he rubbed Al�s back
soothingly. The best thing to be done with those aspects of his life he
couldn�t change was to ignore them.

�� He and
Draco would defeat the curse, and he would learn whatever it was that Ginny
wanted him to learn in those sessions with the therapist, and he and Hermione
would fight this war, and he would take care of his children. That was normal.
All of it was normal. And he would be all right because he had to be.

�� And the Harry
and Draco of that other story would not be real, because he refused to allow
them to be. Besides, if there were two of them in their story, and they both
existed and were happy with one another, what the fuck did they need him for?

*

�� Draco had a
small smile on his face as he paced around his mother�s rose garden. The
peacocks kept away from this part of the house; Draco was entirely alone except
for the roses and a few lazy bees buzzing around them, and the sparkling pool
nearby, which produced its own water and was always a placid green no matter
what the color of the sky.

�� Draco was
proud of himself. He had finally the taken the initiative and reached out to
those offers of help that had always been there and which he could have
accepted earlier, after ten years of doing nothing. He had contacted Blaise
Zabini.

�� Blaise�s
face had been cautiously pleased when he stared through the green-tinted flames
and saw Draco peering back. �Draco! To what do we owe the pleasure?�

�� We?� Draco
asked curiously. He�d known that Blaise had bonded�casually, the kind of bond
that could be dissolved as easily as any Muggle marriage�but he�d never known
who it was with, since he�d torn up the invitation to the wedding when it
arrived.

�� Blaise
grinned at him, and made a gesture to someone beyond the fireplace. Millicent
Bulstrode moved into view, leaning against the mantle as she regarded him with
cool, considering eyes. Draco blinked. He hadn�t expected that Blaise would
marry Millicent, whom he�d ignored or taunted for her ugliness in school.

�� Congratulations,�
he said awkwardly. �I suppose that your bonding must have been�er, fruitful.�
He knew the wedding invitation had come more than five years ago, which meant
that Blaise and Millicent had lasted longer than he would have thought.

�� Blaise
tossed back his head and laughed. �Oh, I married and parted from Emily a long
time ago,� he said. �I didn�t mind her fucking other people, but I insisted
that she be clean while she did it, and she could never keep that part of the
bargain.�

�� Draco
shivered in disgust.

�� Blaise and
I aren�t married,� Millicent observed calmly, in that voice of hers that had
always been too deep for a woman�s. �Just living together.� She gave Blaise a
faint smile that Draco could sense had a thousand undertones he didn�t know and
might never know.

�� Suddenly,
he wished he knew them. He had ignored these people who had been his friends in
school for far too long.

�� He
wondered, just as suddenly, if Blaise could be part of some supremacist pure-blood
group. It wasn�t like he�d know. And Blaise had always despised blood traitors
like the Weasleys; he never would have fucked Ginny Weasley no matter how
attractive he thought she was.

�� Well?�
Blaise asked. �What is your pointy little face darkening about now?�

�� Licking his
lips cautiously, Draco told them as much of the truth as he dared. And he felt
it begin to come back to him as he spoke�the duck and play, cut and dodge, of
speaking with Slytherins. Blaise and Millicent might be active in politics, and
they might have their secrets, but so did he. They really had no more idea what
his life had been like in the past ten years than he had about theirs.

�� As he
described the situation, Blaise grew more and more quiet, Millicent more and
more intense and interested. She asked rapid-fire questions about the murder
and Salazar�s Snakes that showed a great deal of intelligence, and by the end
she looked like some nundu on the hunt.

�� We can
help,� she said. �I have�well, contacts that the Ministry wouldn�t know
anything about. And I�m fairly certain that I can find out who owned that manor
they imprisoned you in.� She grinned faintly. �I�ve done a bit of trade in
hidden sanctuaries and shuffling the paperwork of ownership myself.�

�� Draco
nodded. �What will you want in return?�

�� For now?
Don�t be a stranger,� Millicent retorted. �After that, I�ve got a few projects
that it would look good if Harry Bloody Potter showed approval for.�

�� Draco
nodded again. He was not sure that he trusted Millicent, but he had to begin
somewhere. And he really didn�t think that she or Blaise would have drawn him
in like this only to sell him out later. There would have been polite hints
that his politics and theirs were too far apart, and there the conversation would
have ended.

�� Still, as
he prepared to withdraw from the Floo connection, he couldn�t help but ask,
�Why are you suddenly so interested in helping me?�

�� Millicent
cocked her head. �You mean you never knew?�

�� Never knew
what?�

�� I�m a
half-blood.� Millicent rolled her eyes at his stunned shock. �Not about to join
the people who think, not to put too fine a point on it, that I shouldn�t
exist. And Blaise does what I tell him to.�

�� And then the conversation ended.

�� Draco
grinned a bit and pushed himself to a faster walk. He�d once done his best
thinking when he moved around outdoors. And it was better for him to spend a
little time in the sunshine every day than brood uselessly in the Manor the way
he often did.

�� He was
thinking what other old friends he could contact�he�d once had Crabbe�s Floo
directions somewhere, and he thought his mother still did�when the wind began
to blow around him, and the air turned thickly golden.

�� Draco flung
himself to his knees, grabbing one of the rosebushes. The thorns scratched
wildly at his hands, but he didn�t care. He wasn�t going down any tunnel. Now, just when his life had begun to go
well again and he had the hope of its going better still, he was not about to
vanish into another world.

�� He lifted
his head, eyes squinting against the light, and saw it parting like a storm to
reveal a vision beyond curtains of rain. He saw himself lying on the ground in
this very garden, his head in Harry�s lap. Harry was carding his fingers
through his hair, smoothing Draco�s brow over and over again. His voice was
deep and soothing; Draco knew instinctively that it would be, though he
couldn�t actually hear it. Around them twisted tumbled rose petals, as though
they�d been fighting among the flowers before this quiet scene.

�� Draco
thought his double looked shadowy and stretched thin, as though he were bereft
of substance somehow.

�� But the
wind was not going to snatch him into
that world to make the other whole.

�� He bowed
his head and thought with all his might of Millicent, of her dark brown eyes,
of the sudden way her face had cleared when she saw a way to both help Draco
and turn the situation to her own advantage�

�� And the
wind stopped. The light was gone. Draco lifted his head and stared down at his hands.
They bore scratches from the roses, of course, but it was the petals on the
ground and splayed across his legs that caught his attention.

�� They
smelled�rotted. They smelled like the scent Harry had described the night
Draco�s arm had been scarred by the exploding mirror glass.

�� What is
happening to us?� Draco whispered, and, healing or not, he badly wished Harry
was there at that moment.

�� The next
moment, he wished it even more. Something snatched him from behind, and bore
him into the air. Twisting, scrabbling wildly for his wand, Draco managed to
see what it was.

�� A fist of
water had formed itself out of the pool. Everywhere Draco looked, he took the
reflection of his own face from the glassy wave. And then it snapped to around
him and hauled him beneath the surface.

�� The wounds
on his hands from the roses stung and burned. Draco thought that, combined with
the surge from the water, marked the advent of the fourth scar and the third
violent attack from a reflective surface.

�� But this
time, Harry wasn�t here to save him.

�� He battered
uselessly against the water, his legs striking nothing, and his desperately
held breath leaked through his lips in tiny bubbles of air, and his ears were
ringing, and behind his eyelids the darkness was red, red as roses, dark as
roses, as he drowned and drowned and drowned.

*

�� Chris:
Thank you! Harry certainly is trying to be true to himself, though that�s
getting harder.

�� Soria:
Well, I have that in mind, but talking about where/how Ginny goes would rather
ruin the story.

�� Ramandu: I
can understand, though I also hope that you�re able to understand Ginny�s
motives, and sympathize with her that far.

�� Daft Fear:
Eaglethorpe doesn�t intend to do anything horrible. Right now, he�s still
collecting data about Harry and hasn�t made up his mind yet.

�� Harry�s
honesty is causing him to make still more progress�but it will also make it
harder for him to hide from himself later.

�� Mangacat:
In this universe, all wizarding marriage vows itch; Draco�s did the same thing
if he tried to bring lovers home. It�s only the terms of the vow that are
different between Harry and Draco.

�� And, well,
I think Harry is the kind of person who really would believe, when he married,
that he�d never want someone else.

�� Leave me
wanting more: Thank you! I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and that the ending
does indeed leave you wanting more.

�� Thrnbrooke,
Myra: Thanks for reviewing!
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I Give You a Wondrous Mirror