Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Intoxicate the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 18051 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 17
- 18
- 19
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Eighteen—Ring the Changes

            Hermione felt her mind shudder and fracture. It was an odd sensation. One part of her still stood on her feet in front of the Minister, nodding and smiling, her hands locked at her waist as if she was holding air at Clearwater’s insistence. The other part of her retreated to the very back of her thoughts, gathering in ideas as it went, hunkering down like someone—or something—prepared to resist a long siege.

            What? was all she had time to think before her sense of the fracturing drowned in the insistent pressure of two voices. One was her own, speaking in a harsh whisper, as if that would make what had happened less drastic. The other was Minister Clearwater’s, sweeping over her like a tide and drowning her instinctive protests.

            Remember that you thought someone might cast the Imperius Curse on you. This is the result of a spell you cast.

            “I wish you to tell me at once whether you are still in touch with Harry Potter and the means which you use to reach him.”

            The first voice stopped speaking and simply pulled on the back of her mind with silent strength, forcing her to rearrange certain thoughts. She had to speak, she had to satisfy the curse’s imperative to do as Clearwater said, but that didn’t mean she had to speak the truth. Her voice had a certain flat dreaminess to it that Hermione didn’t like, but at least what came out was less damaging than what she might have said. “I wanted to. Harry said he didn’t trust me and I’d have to work for a long time to get his trust again. I suggested I stay here as a spy, but he didn’t leave me any means of contacting him. Every owl sent to him is turned away.”

            Clearwater’s mouth flattened. “And yet, someone passed the pictures of the Inferi to him. Who was it, if not you?”

            The free part of Hermione’s mind shrank a little more, as though the question was a threat. Hermione couldn’t remember why that was at the moment. Her mind was a strange place to be, ricocheting back and forth between freedom and the demands of the spell. She answered with a quietude in her voice that she noticed seemed to please Clearwater, although she wasn’t entirely sure why. “I don’t know, madam. Possibly Auror Desang.”

            Clearwater snorted and leaned against the desk. “That is what someone wanted us to think. But there was no sign that she had been near the place.”

            “Harry said something about the place,” Hermione offered innocently. “Oh, not to me, you understand, but Ron still writes to me sometimes; he just doesn’t always do it in a way that leaves me some way to track him back.”

            “But you could track him back some of the time?” Clearwater came to attention like a statue, staring at her across the desk.

            “I’m not entirely sure,” Hermione admitted. It was a bad thing to admit, she thought, but didn’t remember why. There was so much that she didn’t remember, and she wondered if she would get into trouble, knowing some things and not others. “The spells on the letters are meant to confuse me. But you could look at them. They might not confuse you.”

            “Bloody Imperius Curse, it always does this,” Clearwater muttered, for no reason that Hermione could see, and leaned back against the desk, frowning at nothing. Then she shook her head and seemed to reorient on part of the conversation Hermione had thought was past. “What did Potter say about this place? The caves where we kept the Inferi?”

            “Nothing much,” Hermione said, and hoped she sounded as vague as she felt. She didn’t want to disappoint the Minister. “There was someone who would find out the truth and help him there. But the person might have to leave for her own good. She was a real spy. Not like me,” she added mournfully.

            Clearwater sucked in a sharp breath, and Hermione wondered if she had said something to really startle her. Maybe not. She had the hazy impression that the Minister would sometimes make sounds like that to fool people who were spying on her.

            Not like me.

            Like me.

            The thoughts collided in the middle of her head, the impulse to obey warring with something else, something that seemed buried in the center of her and welling up like thick water. Hermione twitched her head back and forth, trying to understand, far from certain that she did.

            “Did he say that?” Clearwater whispered. “Would he happen to know why Auror Desang has disappeared the way she has?”

            “I don’t know that he told me,” Hermione said. The words seemed to pop and flow and bubble naturally to her lips, like the reverse of drinking champagne, and it was becoming harder and harder for her to say if she had ever known or thought them before that moment. But then, she thought she remembered reading somewhere that language, at least a language you spoke well, interacted with thoughts at such a basic level that you didn’t really plan the words before you said them. “But she could be the spy. I know that he said he trusted her more than me.”

            Didn’t he say that? There was no memory to back the words up, but the words were floating in the air anyway, and they sounded calm and certain, and Clearwater was nodding as if she had no doubt of them.

            “I see,” she said, staring into the distance. “That would alter the complexion of things. We will change the focus of our search for Auror Desang.” She turned back and regarded Hermione speculatively. “And we will not have to change the role that you are going to fit into.”

            “That’s good,” Hermione said. At least, she had the impression that it was good. Once again, she had no real idea what was going on beyond the immediate moment. But Clearwater sounded happy about it, and that meant, Hermione thought, that she could smile.

            Clearwater ignored the smile. It probably wasn’t the wrong thing to do. She leaned forwards. “Hermione, dear,” she said, and Hermione had the strangest impulse to tell the woman not to address her by her first name, “you should know that, from this day forwards, you are in charge of sending our rumors about Harry Potter.”

            “Rumors?” Hermione asked. “Not the truth?”

            “Of course, truth,” Clearwater said. “It is all and absolutely the truth. But it must spread like rumors. Our enemies must hear it and be shocked.” She bared her teeth; Hermione wondered what enemy she was baring them at. Hermione didn’t think she was an enemy, though the small, guarded corner at the back of her mind might be. “Do you think you can do that, Hermione? If you cannot, then I will give you more detailed orders.”

            “You need to tell me what facts you want spread that way,” Hermione said, and was relieved, with part of herself, to hear that her voice was calm and not fussy. She didn’t know what she would have done if that had happened.

            “Yes, of course I do,” Clearwater said, and laughed, long and low. Hermione stood there, unworried by it. She thought that most of her, dazedly obedient, had expected something like that, and the guarded corner of her mind didn’t care. It was busy thinking about other things, such as the spell she had cast that allowed part of her to be free of the Imperius Curse.

            What spell?

            Before she could think more about that, Clearwater stood up and handed her a folder full of parchment. “This is your first assignment. You are to sift through them, choose the rumors that will make Potter look the worst, and set about dispensing them. Your new office is to the left of my door.”

            Hermione looked up. “I thought that was your secretary’s office, Minister.”

            “It was,” said Clearwater, and smiled at her, as if she thought that Hermione would fall at her feet for the chance of a new office. “But she’s been told to move elsewhere. Of course our new Director of Public Relations will need a bigger place than the one she’s been accustomed to, and she can’t remain in the Department she’s been in! It would be cruel.”

            Hermione gave her a big smile back, and then turned and walked towards the office. Clearwater caught her and held her back long enough to hand her a key. Hermione balanced the key thoughtfully in her hand. Most of her mind was occupied in wondering how big the office was and how long it would take her to complete the task that Clearwater had set her.

            The guarded corner of her mind was busy coming up with plans that would allow her to seem as if she were under the Imperius Curse completely, while really benefiting Harry and Ron and the rebellion with this new position that had been handed to her.

            Hermione had lain awake for the past several nights wondering about Harry and if there could be any truth to the rumors that he had tortured people in Azkaban. But she had wondered about other things, too, and one of them was whether the Minister would hesitate to use Unforgivables if she suspected people of treachery.

            She was glad now that she had decided the Minister would be that ruthless if she had to, and that she had risen from bed in the middle of the night, padded into the library, and found a book that talked about splitting one’s mind to resist the Imperius Curse as well as lesser methods of control.

            It remained to be seen whether she could keep the division going. It remained to be seen whether Clearwater would notice something was wrong with her spell and take measures that would strengthen it.

            But for now, she had a start.

*

            “I don’t see why we need to be outside to watch you use this.”

            Catchers, complaining, as usual. Harry smiled and tilted back his head, letting the clean wind rush across him. He wondered with one corner of his mind where that wind had come from. Romania? The Hebrides? South America? How far did a wind travel before it got picked up by other winds or faltered and couldn’t be called the original wind anymore?

            It was the sort of question he could have asked Hermione if she was with them. But she wasn’t, and he didn’t think they had done too badly with her to pass them information rather than be part of their every move.

            “Did you hear me, Potter?”

            “Yes, I did,” Harry murmured, and tipped his head back further. The breeze blew away from him, but it felt as though it had soothed some of the sweat that had sprung out on his forehead. It was a bright, clear night, the stars peering down from around a half-full moon. Harry nodded. They would never get a better chance to use the wheel, given the weather and the chance that the Ministry would learn of the raid soon from any spies they had in his ranks.

            Ron would say that those spies included Draco, but Harry wasn’t sure about that. He thought he could probably give Draco more than the Ministry could, and that Draco was wise enough to know it.

            He couldn’t help catching Draco’s gaze as he held up the wheel and laid his finger on the jade eye in the center, the one that would issue the call. Draco’s face was pale. He was the only one bundled up against the cold of what was really a mild night, his hands tucked into his robe pockets and a scarf swathing his throat.

            Harry nodded. Whether he knew it or not, Draco was more prepared than most of them. Harry suspected the rest would have to cast Warming Charms.

            He didn’t know if he would or not. His fire hummed quietly beneath his skin, provided by his magic, ready to leap forth and defend him if it needed to, but content to remain where it was for the moment.

            He pressed down on the eye and reached out with his will. As if everyone around him could feel the vibration of powerful magic pouring from the wheel, they turned to face him and stopped talking.

            So the air between them was calm and still enough to hear George’s laugh of delight.

            Harry knew at once that the wheel had worked. For one thing, it began to turn in his hand with a steady click-click sound which Harry had done nothing to cause. Catchers actually leaped backwards when it did that, and Harry bit down firmly on his lip to keep a smile from appearing. He didn’t want Catchers to think he was mocking him.

            For another, the wind around them suddenly turned hot, and Harry heard a bellow that resounded both inside his head and out.

            He looked instinctively, briefly, at George, who gave him a fierce grin in return and bobbed his head. “You always knew this would be difficult, Harry,” he said. “You’re going to have to hold them, and that’s something no one’s ever managed to do. But no one’s ever managed to craft an artifact like this, either, and no one’s ever been as determined to do it as you are.”

            “What are you on about?” Catchers began.

            George reached out casually, and slapped him.

            Harry gave George a stern look, but it was hard to be as upset as he needed to be, especially when both Draco and Ron were snickering quietly and then giving each other wary looks that said they hadn’t expected the other to be amused by that. “You really should leave him alone,” he said. “He’ll see the truth in a few minutes, and I might not have minded explaining before the fact.”

            “I would have minded if you’d done it,” George said, and for a moment four eyes instead of two seemed to look out of his face.

            Harry shrugged. Ultimately, George was more important to the revolution than Catchers was, and Harry would put up with that kind of behavior from him. And so would most of the rebels, he thought, darting a quick look around and not seeing the mass outrage he’d expected. George was the scary one, the one who invented artifacts that could kill you and—seemingly, though they hadn’t seen the wheel’s results yet—summon help. He was the one to be wary of pissing off, rather than Catchers.

            Catchers withdrew to nurse his wounded dignity in peace, and Harry kept his head tilted back, his gaze fastened on the heavens. There should be help coming soon, if he…

            Yes. There it was.

            Something huge wheeled across the moon, and the hot breeze that was blowing down to Harry stank abruptly of fire, sulfur and brimstone and warmer smells. He moved forwards with one hand up, so that they would focus on him first instead of all the other vulnerable people crowded into the meadow before the Manor. He would have preferred to be alone, or perhaps with just George and Ron and Draco, when their allies came, but then no one else would have believed that he’d actually summoned them, and Harry had tested their patience enough.

            The dragon screamed above him, and the night exploded with fire. Harry felt the beast’s will bucking against his, sheer wildness testing the strength of the bonds that the wheel and Harry together had laid on it.

            Harry closed his eyes, and his own fire burst free of his skin and rose in answer.

            The world was full of burning. The flames danced around him, caressed his hair and his cheeks, bowed their heads now and then to nestle and nuzzle alongside him. Harry smiled. Fire was with him. Fire was the form his wild magic took, for reasons best known to itself.

            Fire could not hurt him.

            The lance of the dragon’s breath struck him, and Harry only laughed. He felt it as a mild, tickling heat outside the protective cocoon of his own flames. He walked out of it and smiled at the Hebridean Black who was coming down, wings fanning the fire and sending it racing out in a growing circle.

            The dragon stared at him, and its will danced opposite his again, like a second fire burning from the inside. Harry held out one hand and concentrated. The fire shot upwards from his palm, and joined with it were strands of bright blue and gold, the endless, reaching colors that Harry thought he could see in the sky on a bright day even with his eyes closed.

            This was the image of the dragon’s soul and will, Harry thought, the wildness that George had warned him about. No one had ever been able to domesticate dragons, although many people had tried.

            And Harry wasn’t about to try. He didn’t know that George had really understood him, although he had made the wheel to Harry’s specifications. He wasn’t going to show the dragon tameness; he was going to show it the wildness of his own soul, and see if it responded in such a way that would allow him to ride it.

            The Hebridean was still circling. The scales from below, lit by the fire that was only barely burning because it had been aimed at Harry and hadn’t caught much grass, gleamed purple rather than black. Harry smiled up at it and moved his hands in a complex pattern that he didn’t know and hadn’t practiced. It came to him the same way that flames often formed pictures, not empty of content but mostly guided by the imagination of the person watching them.

            The image of his own soul unfolded beside the dragon’s, red streaked with bright coruscating green like the Northern Lights. Harry saw purple in there, too, and he turned the image over in his hands, trying to show that to the dragon. It might be calmer with a color that was so near its own.

            The dragon slowed, hanging over him. Harry hadn’t known they could hover like that. It was impressive. He stood there, looking up at it, his feet rooted in the center of the calmness, bound to the earth by his magic, while on either side of him leaves and sticks and clods of dirt and stones flew, torn free by the dragon’s mighty wings. He didn’t know how close he came to meeting the dragon’s eyes, but he had met its soul and its fire, which was more impressive.

            And more important, at least for the dragon.

            Harry didn’t understand the communion he underwent then. He didn’t think he could put it into words. He didn’t need to. The important thing was that the dragon jerked its head to the side, nostrils flaring, and then dropped to the ground with a crack that seemed to compact stone beneath it. Its body filled the field despite the field, Harry knew rationally, being many times bigger than the dragon. He smiled at it and glanced around to make sure that the wards around the manor, which both protected it from the dragon’s attention and would keep it safe from fire, were still operating.

            “Potter!”

            That was Draco crying out from the side. Harry looked back at the dragon just as the Hebridean lowered its head and opened its jaws, neck slewing sideways, towards him.

            Harry could see the teeth, the way the fangs, too, shone in the firelight, the dragon’s muscles tensing along its sides as if it would fling itself down and crush him instead of biting him. Harry didn’t move, and didn’t flinch. He held up his hands instead, with the image of his soul still strung between them, and showed it to the dragon. Then he called to his magic, and it pulled up the dragon’s soul, that shining, lovely violence, and arrayed them side by side.

            The dragon stopped moving. The chin rested on the ground less than three inches from Harry. He could look up and see fangs above his head that were longer than his neck; he could glance down and see fangs by his feet longer than his legs. He could look ahead and down the tunnel of the dragon’s throat, the glinting shadows and the small red place at the dark where the fire would come from. Its breath stank of swamps and bones and rotting flesh.

            Harry held still. He didn’t see that he had anything to gain by running at this point. He was so close that the dragon could catch him by simply snapping its jaws, and probably cut him in half. And running might trigger the dragon’s instincts and make it think that he was willing to play prey for it, which he wasn’t.

            Long moments throbbed and ticked past, in his pulse. Harry wished he could see the dragon’s eyes, although he knew that wouldn’t have helped. It was the fire that reflected its inner being and would guide any attempt at communication, not the eyes.

            Then the dragon pulled its head back, jaws clapping to, and extended a wing towards him. Harry could see its eyes now, and they glinted with the same small, red, mad points as the back of the throat. Harry nodded to it and then touched the jade eye in the center of the wheel again. George had come up with a way to make more direct communication work, although it would have been impossible if Harry hadn’t been a Parselmouth.

            “I want you to carry us,” Harry told the jade eye, and it glowed as it translated the language of snakes into the collection of impulses, sounds, smells, and gestures that a dragon would understand. “To bear us to a place and burn it.”

            The dragon extended the wing again, but this time, it wasn’t to touch an imaginary wing of his own. It was an invitation to mount.

            Harry took a shaky step back, a deep breath, and then lifted his eyes to the sky as another dragon approached, ready to begin the struggle again.

*

            Draco had his hands clasped in front of him, he had had for some time, and by the time he noticed them, he wasn’t sure that he could separate his fingers.

            His body was vibrating with tension, and he wanted to vomit. He wanted to flee. He wanted to stand there and never move, because the spectacle of Potter taming dragons was incredible. He wanted to touch Potter, half-convinced as he was that the man would fall to ash in a few minutes because the dragon had burned him.

            Potter could walk out of dragonfire.

            He could show the dragon a pattern of fire between his hands and it would seem to understand.

            He could stand in front of a dragon’s jaws and not show fear.

            Draco knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he would have thought differently about these events if he had merely been told about them instead of experienced them. There was—something wrong in the way Potter stood up to the dragon. Something mental, and perhaps far more dangerous to the revolution than even a few angry dragons getting out of control. They might be able to retreat behind the strengthened wards around the manor if that happened.

            (Strengthened against fire. Draco had noticed that earlier. He should have made the connection when Potter talked about indiscriminate allies).

            But instead, he had seen it, and behind his incredulity and his fear was a kind of intense, greedy wonder. To see Potter stand his ground, look into the face of death, and then make it bow down and serve him was…

            Draco didn’t have words for what it was.

            But he knew he needed to be close to it, and when Potter had settled two dragons and then turned around and asked for volunteers to ride them to the raid, Draco was the first to step forwards.

*

            Review responses can be found at http://lomonaaerenrr.livejournal.com/28781.html
- 17
- 18
- 19
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

Intoxicate the Sun