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Ceremonies of Strife	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16218 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this writing.

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Chapter Two�Greater
Problems

�� I wish to
see your letter of resignation.�

�� Draco
looked up and stared out the window of the library for a moment. The enchanted
window showed snow falling, though nothing could be further from the truth; it
was a hazy but still sunny day, and Draco had spent most of the afternoon
flying above his family�s private Quidditch pitch and practicing. But the snow
was appropriate to the chill that had settled on him the moment he heard his
father�s voice.

�� My letter
resigning from the Auror program, you mean?� he asked at last, and turned to
face the doorway where he knew his father stood.

�� Lucius gave
him a narrow smile and folded his arms across his chest. �Yes, that,� he said,
in a voice that was a better match for the snow than Draco�s mood. �What other
letters of resignation do you have to write, Draco?�

�� From the Malfoy family, perhaps, Draco
thought, as he leaned back in his chair. He had suspected this moment was
coming, but had not realized that it would arrive so soon. His heart was
hammering, and he had to take several deep breaths before he could focus his
eyes on his father�s face.

�� And that
confirmed the course he was going to take, if anything did. Once, he knew, he
would have obeyed his father without thought or hesitation. Once, he would have
obeyed after much grumbling, the way he had when Pansy�s father gave him an Abraxan for his thirteenth birthday and Lucius had declared
that he couldn�t keep it. Once he would have obeyed and kept silent out of
sheer fear.

�� But this
time, there was no thought of obedience in his mind, and rebellion seemed much
less terrifying than it ever had.

�� Have you
not written the letter yet?� Lucius�s voice was soft, forgiving, sympathetic,
offering a way out of his troubles. �I understand that this may be hard. This
was the first independent decision that you ever made, and it is natural to
regret that it was a mistake.� He tilted his head to the side, and his eyes
were as cruel as moonlight. �Or even to have a hard time noticing that it was
one.�

�� That
decided Draco. His father was pressing for a confrontation, he realized. What
kind of confrontation he wanted it to be or why he wanted it to be now, Draco
didn�t know, but he did know that he
was more than willing to oblige Lucius.

�� It wasn�t
a mistake, Father,� he said. �We still need a pair of eyes in the lawful world
that can report on what our enemies are doing. It makes sense for me to stay in
the Aurors until such time as we can settle your position with the
authorities.�

�� Lucius
stiffened. The effect wouldn�t have been noticeable to anyone who didn�t know
him as well as Draco did, but it was there. He bared his teeth, and there was
nothing subtle about that. �There is no position to settle,� he said. �They
have condemned me to Azkaban, and they will return me there if they catch me.�

�� And that
told Draco what direction to take. He muffled a smile as he rose to his feet.
He almost felt like thanking his father for all the gifts that he was handing
him, which would, of course, be a foolish thing to do.

�� Are you
satisfied with that?� he asked, with gentleness that might well fool Lucius.
�Cowering in your house for the rest of your life, terrified of what they�ll do
if they receive a hint that you�re still alive?�

�� Will you
give them that hint, my son?� Lucius�s hand hung loosely by his side, but that
didn�t mean anything. Draco had seen him grip a wand faster from that position
than from any other. �Is this your announcement that you chafe under my wisdom
and would like to be released to explore your own stupidity?�

�� It means
that I see now what you�re doing,� Draco answered, and shifted to the side. He
had his wand. He had one pair of very expensive robes. He could easily gather
up Politesse, who was sleeping on top of the desk with his scorpion tail curled
over his nose, from his present position. He could do this. �Your domain gets
smaller and smaller, Father. Once you controlled the Ministry. Then you lost
ground because you were suspected of willingly collaborating with the Dark
Lord. It took you years to make up that lost ground. Then he came back, and you could only do what he wished you to. Now you
only have control of your house.� And not
all the people within it. �Why should I wish to imitate you, when I can
have the freedom of the British wizarding world?�

�� Lucius was
watching him with narrow eyes. �There would be some wisdom in what you say,� he
said, �if you had chosen some other Department in the Ministry than the Aurors.�

�� But what
other Department would afford me such freedom?� Draco asked. �What other
Department would make me so respected? This way, I win the trust of people who
ostracized you. Perhaps, someday, enough trust to convince the Wizengamot that
they should reconsider your sentencing.�

�� Lucius
shook his head. �That day will never come.�

�� Because of
your mistakes, not mine,� Draco said, lifting his head, �and I don�t see why I
should be required to pay for those.�

�� Lucius
stood very still then, and Draco saw he had actually shocked and hurt him for
the first time. He swallowed several times before he whispered, �And so you
betray your family.�

�� Would it
be betrayal if you felt that Grandfather Abraxas did
something wrong and you didn�t want to pay for his mistakes?� Draco asked. �I�m
trying to help you, Father. I�m
trying to make the family stronger. I never thought of abandoning my last name
or demanding that people treat me as something other than a Malfoy. I fully
intend to embrace the tradition I descend from. What I won�t do is surrender everything I�ve achieved or wanted for the
sake of that tradition.�

�� Strangely,
Lucius relaxed. �I know the source of this defiance,� he said.

�� Draco
watched him, and waited. On the desk, he could see that Politesse had opened
one eye, but hadn�t moved yet. The little scorpion-dog responded to threats
based on Draco�s reactions to them, and Draco still loved Lucius and was mostly
calm about him.

�� Your
relationship with Potter,� Lucius said, with a small nod of his head. �You fear
losing his companionship. Well, there are things that can take care of that,
including a promised betrothal to Astoria Greengrass.� He raised his wand, the
tip of which was glowing golden now.

�� Draco was
immediately sure of what spell that was, though he had only read of it before
instead of seeing it. The Marriage Contract Spell, it would bind the person it
was cast on to someone else of the caster�s choosing, and make him interested
in concluding the marriage as soon as possible. It would also induce disgust
towards any former lover.

�� Draco flung
himself backwards, over the desk and down behind it. He had learned the
movement in the Hand-to-Hand Combat Class under first Gregory and then
Morningstar, and hadn�t been sure it would work. It was meant to escape a blow,
not a spell, and at much shorter distances. But he only realized his doubts
when he was crouching on the carpet and the spell had sizzled over his head in
a useless beam of yellow light.

�� He heard a
tiny growl, and then Lucius cried out. Draco peered over the desk. Yes,
Politesse had leaped off the desk, grabbed his father�s robes in his claws, and
was trying to sting with his tail. So far, Lucius�s robes, enchanted to resist
most minor threats, hadn�t let him.

�� Draco was
still not entirely sure of what Politesse�s poison did to people, and he didn�t
want to find out, any more than he wanted to fight his father�or give up his
career in the Aurors or his relationship with Harry. Many ways that he could
move would be a betrayal of what he was, of his family if not himself. He had
to find a way out. Luckily, he�d already identified one.

�� He boiled
around the edge of the desk, grabbed Politesse, and rolled to the doorway.
Another spell went over him at head height, proving the wisdom of his choice.
Then he was out of the library and stumbling madly down the corridor, gasping
as he heard his father�s footsteps behind him.

�� He passed a
sitting room where his mother sat with a scroll in her hands. She exclaimed
when she saw him and rose to her feet. �Draco��

�� Father
tried to bind me and take away my freedom,� Draco said briefly, and then
continued to run. Narcissa had to make her own decisions. He didn�t want to
force her to choose between her husband and son, which was why his plans, from
the beginning, had never involved her.

�� He knew the
house better than anyone except Lucius, and so he could skid easily down the
staircases, holding onto Politesse and his wand with one hand and the banister
with the other. When he reached the foot of the main staircase, he waved his
wand in several precise spells that would pack some of his clothes and books
into a trunk and make sure it followed him. He would have called on a
house-elf, but his father could countermand those orders easily, and since he
was the head of the family, the elves had to obey him.

�� He heard
the footsteps behind him, and felt the snarl that vibrated Politesse�s body in
his hands, and knew that he couldn�t wait any longer. Praying that the last of
the spells had taken, he flung himself out the front doors and began to run
madly across the front lawns. He had to get beyond the anti-Apparition wards.
He had never thought he would hate their presence.

�� Auror
classes had been better to him than he realized. He was running full-out, his head
bowed to present a smaller target, his hair flapping behind him, and he wasn�t
even breathing hard. The iron gates grew closer and closer, and he began to
allow himself to hope, instead of think, that he would make it beyond them.

�� Then the
gates glowed and slammed shut, and the spiked fence began to grow in such a way
that Draco didn�t think he would get over it.

�� Politesse
growled and leaped out of Draco�s hands, racing over to the fence. He jumped,
his small legs powering him a much longer way up than Draco would have thought
they could have, his jaws closing on one of the top spikes of the fence.

�� As he
soared, his tail lengthened, extending down in loops of chitin-covered rope
until it landed at Draco�s feet. Draco hesitated only once, looking at the
stinger that dripped small, clear drops of venom onto the ground, and then
began to climb. The tail wasn�t all stinger,
and he knew an escape route when he saw one.

�� Politesse
was on the other side of the fence by now, swinging his tail back and forth
with apparently no effort. Draco knew magical strength when he saw it, too. He
and the tail were dragged up the fence together, and over the spikes at the
top, and then he was breathing air uncontaminated by his father�s control.

�� Despite
everything, he had to stop and stare for long moments at Politesse, wondering
what else he was capable of and why Draco hadn�t noticed it until now.
Politesse stared up at him in silence and then barked once and looked back at
the house.

�� Draco
picked him up, and concentrated carefully on the name that Harry had told him.
He had said his house used to be under Fidelius, and
though that was no longer the case, it was still difficult to arrive there
unless you were using all the care that you could muster.

�� Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Draco
thought, and spun in place before he vanished.

�� The last
thing he saw before he did was his father�s frustrated face.

*

�� Harry
licked his lips and stepped back. He thought
things were going well, but since this was the first time he�d done this or
anything like this, it was hard to say for certain.

�� The book
had said that a circle used to summon a vision of the dead�the only thing Harry
was going to try and do at the moment�had to be perfect. Harry thought his was.
He�d drawn it with salt by hand, the way the book had said he had to, but then
used magic to smooth out the inconsistencies. The book had also approved of
that. The circle was to contain the visions so they couldn�t emerge into the
real world and haunt his nightmares. Harry highly approved of that.

�� The candles
at the head and foot of the circle (well, head and foot relative to where he
stood) were made of black beeswax. He�d had to venture into Knockturn
Alley to find them, but once he showed that he knew the proper spells to
determine their materials, no one had tried to cheat him. And they burned with
a clear blue flame, the way the book said they were supposed to.

�� Harry
focused on the circle and raised his hands. His wand was in his left hand,
instead of his right. He had wondered about that, but the book said that
someone who was left-handed would have needed to switch to the right.
Necromancy required many things that were backwards from the traditional way of
doing magic.

�� Harry
wondered if he should be worried about that, and then shook his head. Hadn�t he
come too far to have doubts? If anything, having doubts was selfish. He would
be depriving people he loved of a second chance at life if he stood around
hemming and hawing and certain that he was being stupid.

�� He
whispered the name of the one he wanted to see backwards, as the book had said
he had to do. �Kcalb Suiris.�

�� The candles
snapped and sparked, and then an arch of delicate, glowing blue flame rose up
and crossed over the circle. Two more arches grew out to the sides of the
circle that didn�t have any candles, though Harry didn�t know why. He was too
occupied in watching the sheer beauty of that arch, and the way that it stabbed
down into the middle of the circle, and the vision that began to form within
it.

�� The vision
of an emaciated, haunted man with dark hair and grey eyes.

�� Sirius
raised his hands and began to turn in a circle, the way that Harry had seen
some of Hestia�s illusions spin when she was
demonstrating them in Auror Conduct Class. He wondered if this was supposed to
happen, and then felt his throat and eyes burn and realized that he didn�t
care. He started to step forwards.

�� His foot
crossed the line of salt.

�� At the same
moment, he heard loud banging from the front door downstairs, and Draco�s voice
calling him.

�� Harry flung
himself to the floor as the blue arch and the vision exploded into devouring
fire, black in color. He scooped up a handful of salt and flung it at the
explosion. The book had said to do that, too. Salt was a means of protection,
his mind babbled, and it should work now�

�� It did. The
vision froze and then collapsed in on itself, like a pillar of dust. The
candles went out. Harry lay in the darkness, on a freezing attic floor, and
breathed quietly to himself.

�� But Draco
was still knocking and calling.

�� Harry
heaved himself back to his feet and banished the circle of salt with a flicker
of his wand. After a moment�s hesitation, he banished the black candles, too.
He didn�t know how he could explain them if Draco saw them, and he could always
buy more now that he knew where to go.

�� He
clattered down the stairs to the front door, rolling his sleeves up and trying
to sniff himself to make sure that he didn�t smell too obviously of smoke and
salt and Dark magic. He wondered as he went if it was worth it to hide this
magic from Draco if he then felt too nervous and embarrassed to meet him, but
the question became less important when he thought again of the way Sirius had
looked in that brief vision. Harry might have the power to bring people back to
life. How could he set that aside?

�� Wasn�t it
almost a moral imperative for him to do it?

�� He opened
the door, opened his mouth to welcome Draco, and then paused and stared. Draco
held Politesse in one arm, with his tail longer than Harry had ever seen it and
swinging around so that Harry had to duck. A trunk was hovering behind Draco,
and he clutched his wand. The hair on the left side of his head was singed, and
soot marks blackened his face.

�� What
happened?� Harry whispered, motioning Draco inside. �You look like you�ve been
burned.�

�� Draco raised
one hand and touched his head, blinking as blackened hairs dropped away from
his fingers. �Did that happen?� he asked in a distracted tone. �I didn�t
realize. It must have happened when my father cast a curse at me.� He shook his
head and stepped into the house, checking over his shoulder.

�� Harry shut
the door, still staring at him. �Your father?�

�� Draco
paused, as if he was reconsidering telling Harry the truth, and then nodded and
turned around. �My father managed to escape from Azkaban,� he said, �in such a
way that the Ministry doesn�t know about it. And then he decided that he should
be able to control my life. He wanted me to stop being an Auror, and stop
seeing you.�

�� Harry came
to him and wrapped his arms around Draco, bowing his head so that his face was
hidden in Draco�s hair, even burned and smoke-damaged as it was. At the moment,
the thought of the dead was nothing next to the thought of losing Draco. To
know that Draco was still alive and divided from him because Lucius Malfoy
wanted it that way was worse than knowing Sirius was dead.

�� What
happened?� he whispered. �Why did he think�I mean, why did you disobey him?� It
had just occurred to him that it was stranger for Draco to not want what his father wanted than it was for him to go along
with it.

�� Draco
tensed in his arms for a minute, and Politesse growled. Harry felt the rattle
of chitin against his arm as the scorpion tail swung back and forth. �Did you
think I would give you up that easily?� Draco hissed into his ear, tightening
his fingers cruelly on Harry�s arms.

�� Harry
forced himself to hold still and think about it from Draco�s perspective, not
his own. Draco was probably touchy because of his father�s escape in the first
place, and now he�d run away with only his trunk and his own father casting
spells at him. Harry made sure that, when he spoke, it was calmly.

�� Family�s
always been important to you,� he said. �Blood purity�s always been important to
you. I assumed that I had an important place in your life, but I would never
have wanted you to choose between me and your family. If someone else forced
you to make a choice, then I wasn�t sure where you�d go.�

�� Draco
clutched him for a minute longer, then broke away and put Politesse on the
floor. Politesse trotted off to sniff in a corner, giving Harry a distrustful
look as he went. Draco began pacing back and forth, one hand locked on the back
of his neck as though he could massage the pain of his decision away.

�� My father
wanted me to give up being an Auror because he assumed that I should be under
his dominion,� Draco said. �And, I think now, because he was nervous that I
would betray him somehow to the Ministry after he went through so much trouble
to keep that from happening.� Harry felt a deep, warm glow. Draco had told him the secret without any fuss, as if
he assumed that Harry would naturally keep it�or as if he naturally trusted
Harry. Harry wanted to be worthy of that trust. �At first he told me that I had
to give it up. I thought I could lie to him and put it off. Today, he came and
asked me for the letter of resignation, and also told me that I wouldn�t be
allowed to see you anymore and tried to bind me to a marriage contract with
Astoria Greengrass.� Draco sneered and lifted his head. �I�m not sure why he
thought I�d still be an obedient little boy, waiting passively for him to come
in and take control of my life.�

�� I think
Azkaban freezes time for people,� Harry murmured, thinking of the way that
Sirius had sometimes treated him like James. �They don�t realize that the rest
of the world�s moved on.�

�� Draco
stopped and stared at him for so long that Harry started to feel uncomfortable.
Then Draco nodded, said, �You may have something there,� and started pacing
again. �I hadn�t thought�I didn�t want to break with him. But I won�t let him
make me into a slave, or a servant, or a mindless Malfoy. I�m more than that.�

�� He turned
around and stared hard at Harry, eyes searching. �You said I was interested in
family and blood purity. Well, yes, but I�m also interested in fighting beside
you, and in friendship. You were the one who taught me that. Was I wrong?�

�� Harry, his
heartbeat so fast that he thought he�d have to lean against the wall for support
in a minute, shook his head. �So long as you do remember that I want to be your lover, too,� he couldn�t help
muttering. On the one hand, Draco had left when his father wanted him to marry
someone else, but on the other hand, that could have happened just because
Draco was sick of being told what to do.

�� Draco�s
nostrils flared, the only sign of how nervous the statement made him. �I want
to be yours, too,� he said. �But I told you that I wasn�t completely
comfortable with it yet.�

�� Harry
nodded again. He thought he could even understand why Draco might not be
comfortable with it now. Draco was very aware of how much power other people
had over him, and he had fought free of his father�s control when it became too
overwhelming. Might he not fear what Harry, or any other lover, could do to him
if he became really attached?

�� And I came
here,� Draco finished, �because I thought it was the only place in Britain I�d be
really welcome.� The tilt of his head was proud, and lonely, and vulnerable.

�� Harry
stepped up and wrapped his arms around him again. �You�re welcome for as long
as you care to stay,� he whispered. �Did you really think that I�d make you go
back to the Manor?�

�� Draco
leaned against him and shut his eyes. �No,� he murmured. �But I thought that
you might not want to have someone invading your privacy.�

�� Shit. The ritual.

�� But Harry
said again, �You�re welcome for as long as you care to stay,� because the
ignoble truth, when it came down to things, was that the living were really
more important to him than the dead, and Draco more important than anyone else.

�� Most of the time.

*

�� paigeey07:
Thanks!

�� Polka dot:
Harry has a tendency to convince himself that things he really wants to do are
right, no matter what.

�� hieisdragoness18:
Yes, sometimes.

�� Thrnbrooke: Here it is.

�� mariahs_fantasy: Thanks! There will be less UST in this
one, since Harry and Draco have acknowledged their feelings for each other now.

�� Of course,
to pull Harry back, Draco has to know that he�s doing necromancy in the first
place.

�� Mr Spears: Thank you!

�� SP777: You
were saying?

�� Well, I
think Lucius is around for a discernible reason: he didn�t want to stay in
Azkaban.

�� And there
are many influences on this story, but The Monkey�s Paw isn�t one I was really
thinking of.
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Ceremonies of Strife