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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.

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Chapter Two--The Only Way Out Is Through

            The Aurors that entered the room were Taliesin Graywood and Jennifer Morgan. Harry had worked with both of them and respected them, although Graywood had a bit too much of a stuffed head on him when it came to his Defensive spells.

            Now, the only thing Harry was thinking about was what kind of curses they would cast. He didn't intend to leave them a chance to find their feet, and so the first curse he cast was an Oblivious Mirror. Graywood reeled to a stop, lifting his hand, as though he wondered why he could see only his own eyes.

            Morgan had either avoided the curse altogether or was more experienced at dealing with it than Harry had expected. She dropped to one knee and cast a Leglocker Jinx at Harry--not very powerful, but inconvenient as hell if it did manage to land.

            Harry jumped and spun as he moved, dragging Hermione with him so that she wasn't hit by it, either. God only knew what would happen to her if he left her here; he wasn't interested in finding out. He dropped to the floor himself, beneath the layer of smoke that the smoldering contents of Duplais's office were producing, and used a Stunner. He didn't want to hurt anyone if he could avoid it.

            But Morgan came towards him in a crabwise scuttle, avoiding the Stupefy, too, and he realized grimly that he wouldn't be able to avoid hurting someone for much longer. Although Morgan had certainly seen his Auror robes, she wasn't hesitating. Harry wondered if she had already received the news of his sacking from the Aurors.

            Harry flung himself forwards and kicked Morgan in the elbow, sending her wand flying. He heard a faint sound that might have been Hermione grabbing it, but he couldn't tell for sure and he didn't dare take the time to check. He disabled Morgan's left hand, her wand hand, with another kick, and then grabbed her hair and slammed her head against Duplais's burning desk a few times.

            Dazed, Morgan fixed her eyes on him. Harry leaned close and hissed, "Legilimens."

            He was astonished when it actually worked, his mind diving into hers as though he was plunging into a lake of icy razors. But then memories were flashing past him, and he realized he had no idea how to isolate the one he actually wanted.

            He snatched at one near the surface that had a color, deep green, like his own eyes and hair mingled, and it turned out to be the right one. Morgan was standing in front of a large desk that looked like the one in the office of Gillian Clearwater, the current Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Clearwater had an expression of distaste on her face, but the words she spoke were firm.

            "Potter's been sacked. He's been making--strange--comments. The Minister wants you to fetch him and escort him to St. Mungo's. Don't talk to him along the way, even if he tries to talk to you. Especially if he tries to talk to you," she added, and then turned her back and walked over to the window of her office, which showed a calm scene of autumn trees standing above a meadow where children played. "I hate this, but it's what we have to do," she said, as if to herself, her auburn hair shining faintly as she shook her head.

            Harry broke himself from the memory, sick and shaking. So, they were going to try to claim that he was mad even before he destroyed the Minister's office and attacked the Minister?

            Well, fine then. Harry surged to his feet, grim and driven by the thought that at least he didn't have much to lose in what he intended to do next.

            Morgan stared up at him, panting. Harry took a swift glance over his shoulder for Graywood, only now thinking about how stupid it had been to read someone's mind when her partner was still free behind him, but found him lying on the floor, unconscious. Hermione stood over him, coughing from the smoke, wand in her hand.

            Harry nodded fiercely to her, and then looked back at Morgan as she said, "Do you think they'll let you live?"

            "That's not the important question right now," Harry said, and Stunned her. He and Hermione dragged the bodies into the corridor, and then Harry turned to face the smoke and held up his hands.

            He had always had trouble controlling his temper since the war, but it was only since he had entered Auror training that this wild magic had started manifesting. His trainers theorized that he'd always had the potential; before the war, though, Voldemort had existed for him to direct the anger at. Harry didn't know if he could control a conflagration like this.

            He had to, though. There would be enough alarms ringing now: alarms attuned to the Minister's office, to his life, to the paperwork that some of the more obsessive clerks and secretaries put special warding spells on. If he cut off the alarms suddenly, it was possible that not as many people would crowd into their path and stop them, because some of them would assume that the proper authorities had taken care of the situation.

            This preference to be safe and ignorant is going to work for me instead of against me for once, Harry thought, and then reached out, shaped his palms around the twisting spirals of smoke, and told them that they were going to calm and return to him. He envisioned them as lightning bolts that had extended from the scar on his forehead, and had to come back to it to serve him.

            The fire wavered, struggling, and Harry understood why. He was still angry at Duplais and the Ministry in general, and it was his temper that gave birth to the flames. As long as he continued to feel that emotion, then they would exist.

            But Harry had a tactic to beat that, too. He closed his eyes and thought about the people probably clustered outside the office right now, the ones who would stay in the corridors and block their escape, and the ones who would blame the Weasleys, Hermione, and everyone else close to him for his behavior.

            The skin at the hollow of his throat warmed, and the heat in the office dropped significantly. Harry opened his eyes, saw that only smoke was left, and turned, coughing, to where Hermione waited for him.

            "We'll have to travel fast and hit them hard," he said, lowering his voice until she bowed her head towards his mouth. "We can't risk anyone stopping us, because the moment they do, we'll be arrested."

            Hermione's eyes reflected the flames still, he thought, although they'd gone. "Harry," she whispered. "Why--how can you do this? How can you hope to get away with this? You know they'll stop you."

            Harry shook his head brusquely. "I looked at Morgan's mind. They were planning to declare me mad, Hermione. Clearwater told Morgan and Graywood not to listen to anything I said. I'm not about to surrender to people like that, when they would probably lock me away and never let me see the sunlight again." He felt a familiar crawling up his spine at the thought. The Dursleys had locked him away. He wasn't going to let it happen now. The Ministry probably couldn't match the Dursleys in sheer hatred of him, but they had a lot more methods to make him stay put.

            Hermione looked as if she wanted to cry in anger. "But they can't do that. It can't happen."

            "The way that people can't be thrown in Azkaban for minor crimes and the way that pure-bloods can't get away with murder?" Harry asked harshly. He understood what Hermione was saying, but there was no way he could give in to it. They had to move. Already, Harry could hear murmurs from beyond the door, although no one was brave enough to poke his head in it. "The way that people are flooding the Ministry right now with protests against what's been happening?"

            Hermione bowed her head and said nothing. Harry squeezed her hand, hard. "I don't like it, either," he whispered, "but we have to. We have to move. Come on." And he led her to the door, braced his body for a low count of three that he shared only with Hermione, and then flung himself outwards.

*

            There had to be a better way.

            Hermione's mind spun as she and Harry pounded down the corridor, ducking and dodging between frightened and bewildered people who yelled after them, sometimes with hostility in their voices, sometimes with wonder. Harry kept them moving under a breeze that transported some of the smoke from Duplais's office with them, and Hermione bumped into people and squeezed past others who, she knew, had no idea who she was.

            But this couldn't go on. Harry couldn't just be declared a criminal and then run. Nothing would change, except that one of Hermione's best friends would go to prison and their enemies would become stronger. Harry thought he was changing things, but it wouldn't be a real, new beginning without more planning.

            They reached a corner. Harry checked around it and then had to duck a curse from an Auror. Hermione dropped down beside him, already weaving a sleeping enchantment on her wand and tongue that she cast on the three Aurors running towards them. Harry seemed surprised when they just folded up and slumped to the floor, but accepted it, grabbing her wrist in a grip that hurt to make her run after him.

            There had to be a way.

            Around the corner were the lifts, but Hermione didn't know how they were going to gain them, even with the traveling smoke enchantment. They would be full of people, most of them heading in the direction of the Minister's office. At least some, like the Aurors who had tackled Harry, would know about the Ministry's intention to sack him and outlaw him. But Harry bulled straight ahead as if he didn't know that.

            Or wasn't thinking about it, which Hermione had to admit was more likely.

            There had to be a way.

            As they came into sight of the lifts, Hermione found it.

            She gripped Harry's wrist and swung herself close to him, hissing in his ear, "No matter what, I want you to follow my lead. All right? Just do as I say. I'm not betraying you, I'm not turning against you, but you might think I am. Just do it."

            There was what seemed to be an endless moment before Harry nodded, but Hermione knew it wasn't, really. He did trust her. He did think he knew best in dangerous situations, though, and must be surprised at her taking the lead.

            Hermione turned so that her back was to him and waved her wand, dissipating the smoke enchantment. For this part, everyone had to see them both and know who they were. Heads turned in their direction, and surprised cries started up. From the way many people leveled their wands, Hermione could see how far the rumor of Harry's madness had spread.

            Further than I'd hoped, she thought, and then shouted, "Help me! He's got me! He's taking me along!"

            Harry, as Hermione had fervently hoped, grasped the essence of her plan right away, if not the why. His hand locked on her arm, dragging her back towards him realistically enough that Hermione gasped in pain. Harry laid his wand against her throat and said in credibly deadly tones, "If anyone moves against me, I kill her first."

            Everyone froze and stared. Hermione saw a few people on the fringes of the crowd who still blinked. Give them long enough and they might start thinking.

            Although probably not, with how many people have failed to object to these ridiculous accusations so far.

            Hermione shivered and whispered, "He'll do it. He will." She fixed her eyes on a woman at the fringes of the crowd whom she thought she might be able to impress, and thought of what would have happened if Morgan and Graywood had succeeded in locking Harry up. That made an expression come across her face that caused the woman to step back a little. "Please," Hermione whispered to the rest of the crowd, turning her head slightly and then gasping as Harry wrenched at her arm. "Don't make him hurt me."

            Everyone backed away, even the Aurors. They, at least, looked intensely frustrated. Hermione knew from listening to Ron and Harry that they received training in dealing with criminals who held hostages, but it usually involved the criminal not having Auror training himself.

            "I have no reason to hurt you," Harry muttered to her, into her ear but loud enough to be heard, "as long as you cooperate." He started drawing her towards the lift, watching everyone in sight.

            He made a good criminal, Hermione admitted. There were too many people who knew about his wild magic, too, and would find it easy to believe that he'd gone mad and had to be treated like a feral beast.

            As they reached the lift and Harry pushed the button that would take them to the Atrium, one of the Aurors on the far side of the crowd moved. It was a small shifting of his weight, and it might not have been the prelude to an attack, but Harry snarled beside Hermione's hair, "Procellamentis."

            The Auror fell, clawing at his head, his body spasming. Hermione shuddered. She had seen that particular incantation, the Mindstorm Curse, written down on parchments that listed the ways owners commonly punished house-elves. It caused an epileptic seizure in someone who didn't normally have them, and kept it going until mind and body alike were so disordered that the person it was cast on lost all sense of their original intentions.

            The crowd pulled further back, until it clung to the walls. Some people whimpered. Harry glared at them and stepped neatly into the lift as the door opened, still dragging Hermione with him.

            "I'll kill her," he whispered. "I swear I will."

            The door shut. The lift started down. Harry loosed an explosive breath, swore, and then cast Muffliato. Hermione winced, even though she knew why he'd chosen that spell; it would bypass any eavesdropping charms that someone might try to use on them. "Mind explaining what your brilliant idea is?" he asked, without as much heat as she'd expected.

            Hermione glanced at him, rubbing her wrist. Harry leaned back against the wall of the lift, already shuddering as though he was at the end of a race. The corners of his mouth drooped. As she watched, he dug one hand deep into his hair and yanked it up, clenching it as though pain would give him the answers to his problems.

            "You can't be that tired yet," Hermione said softly. "You'll have to keep going until you're out of the Ministry. Once you're free, Apparate to our house. Tell Ron what's going on. He'll have to make a decision."

            One of Harry's eyes popped open. "What's he doing at home? I thought he would have been at the Ministry."

            Hermione shook her head impatiently. Time was passing, and she had to tell Harry everything. "He begged off for being sick this morning, but I doubt that he really was. Just--go to him. Take him with you if he'll go. I'll stay here and be your spy in the Ministry ranks. Everyone will be more eager to believe that I turned against you after you took me prisoner. Meanwhile, I can pass information around, listen for rumors, and explode the rumors about you being mad." She eyed the numbers on the lift. They were almost to the Atrium. She tried to remember if there was anything else she needed to say to him. She couldn't think of it. This situation was exploding around them, changing too fast to be ridden, really, like a wave of heat and light. She would have to hope that they could have a secure method to communicate soon.

            "But why don't you come with me?" Harry blinked at her. "Do you think a spy is really that important?"

            "Yes," Hermione said, startling herself with the echoes of that cry. "If this is going to change things, and be more than just you trying to avoid being caught and condemned for burning Duplais." She gave Harry a steady look that she hoped would convey both her displeasure at the fact that he'd done that and understanding of why. "If it's going to be a revolution."

            Watching hope return to Harry's face was a beautiful thing. He caught and squeezed her hand so hard that Hermione blushed. "Thank you," he whispered. "I knew you'd be with me."

            The absolute faith in his voice made Hermione want to hug him, but they'd reached the Atrium and the lift was beginning to open. Hermione cast a quick spell to jam the doors for a minute and whispered, "Take Ron with you if he'll go. I think he'll do better on the run than with me. He wouldn't be happy; he's too honest. And take everyone with you who'll come. Use some test to find out if they're loyal, of course. Don't lose sight of what you're fighting for. I'll contact the Quibbler as soon as I can." She paused, and doubt fell on her like a heavy blanket. "Oh, Harry, where will you go?"

            "I have somewhere in mind," Harry said, and then wrenched open the doors and wrenched her forwards at the same time.

            Once again, Aurors were waiting for them, and once again they didn't seem to know what to do with someone who had their training. Then Hermione smelled smoke, and glanced over her shoulder.

            She tried to recoil despite herself. Flames danced around Harry, burning steadily without burning him. His head was crowned with fire, his shoulders were mantled with it, and his eyes shone with a green flame that made her stumble. Harry gripped her harder and gave her a raking look.

            "Stay still," he said. "Didn't I tell you that?"

            Hermione let her eyes shut and her head loll forwards, as if she was on the verge of fainting. Harry shoved her further and further into the Atrium, and cast a nonverbal curse that made one Auror start screaming and clawing at his skin. Hermione swallowed. She didn't recognize that one.

            "I've already killed one person," Harry said. "I have no problem making it two. Or ten." There were nine Aurors facing them. "Now. Let me get through the Floo, and I'll release her. Don't do it, and I won't be responsible for what happens."

            "Why should we trust you to keep your word?" That was from a short Auror with mousy brown hair, who eased closer to them both with her wand out as if it were a dog's seeking nose. "You've already committed murder. You could do it again. It's obvious that Madam Granger-Weasley doesn't matter to you."

            Harry only sneered at her. "You'd like to think that, wouldn't you, Desang?" he asked. There was a nasty, personal tone in his voice that Hermione vowed to remember. It might be important. "But the fact is that you can only watch me do it, unless--" And his wand jabbed a bit harder into Hermione's throat.

            Desang froze, holding up her hands. Hermione made sure to keep her head drooping. Unlike most of the people in the Atrium, Desang was watching them with the eyes of someone who thought and reasoned about what was in front of her. "Just making conversation, Auror Potter."

            "I know better than to fall for that sort of shite, now," Harry said, and then whirled and kicked off in a complicated movement that Hermione wasn't able to follow even when she thought about it later. It shoved her into the arms of the nearest, startled Auror and propelled him towards the nearest fireplace. Curses spat past her, but by the time Hermione turned her head, Harry was gone in a burst of green flames.

            She closed her eyes in relief.

            "Madam?" Desang was beside her, hovering with an anxious gaze at her face. "Is it all right if I speak to you now, about what you witnessed while you were Auror Potter's hostage? It could be important."

            Hermione forced a smile and an earnest nod. "Of course," she murmured. "It happened so suddenly, you know? One minute everything was all right, and then..."

            So she babbled on, while Desang nodded sympathetically and more eyes than she could count watched her.

            This is the way a spy begins.

*

            "It'll be hard, leaving Hermione." Ron's face was pale, and he needed the support of the table. "But yeah, mate, of course I'll come with you. Hermione has a plan, doesn't she? And you do, too. You're going to make this more than just someone running from the law and maybe killing a few Aurors before they slow him down."

            Harry nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. He was glad that Ron understood and wanted to come with him, where before he had seemed just as angry as Harry about what the Ministry was doing but more resigned to putting up with it.

            And it wasn't a lie that Harry intended to make this more than just him running around while the Ministry followed, until, inevitably, he was caught or had to leave for the Muggle world. He didn't have a plan yet, but he would.

            He and Ron packed the best of their plain robes, enough food under Preserving Charms that they wouldn't have to risk stopping or stealing from anybody for at least a week, several useful potions, and a tent with wizardspace in it that was left over from the Horcrux hunt. Ron kept staring narrowly at the door, as if he expected to hear someone pounding there and declaring they were from the Ministry at any moment, but the peace wasn't broken; Harry had Flooed to several different places and cast Confundus Charms on the people at each one, rather than going directly to the house. Finally, Harry swung his pack over his shoulder and held out an arm to Side-Along Apparate Ron.

            Ron took it, though he frowned. "You know a place where the Muggles won't see us coming in, mate?"

            Harry shook his head and used his free hand to cast a glamour on his face that softened his features and made his eyes blue. He'd used it several times when traveling undercover, and it was remarkable how just a tiny change would make people unsure about someone they had seen dozens of times in photographs only. "No. We're not going to the Muggle world. At least, not at first."

            "Where?" Ron demanded, but the question was swallowed up as they Apparated.

            They landed in Diagon Alley. Ron darkened his hair with another wave of his wand and then looked up at the building in front of him. He paled.

            "Harry," he whispered. "Please, mate. You know he's mourning."

            "We need him, and I think he needs us," Harry said firmly, and then rapped on the door and lifted his voice. "George!"

*

            Just that morning, George had woken up thinking that he heard Fred speaking to him--not as a memory, not in dreams, but in the same low, urgent tone he had used when he thought they might be in trouble they couldn't laugh off.

            Something's coming, little brother. Something that will change you. You need to be ready.

            It was strange, George thought when he opened his eyes, how, for the first time since the death, he didn't feel alone.

            And when Harry knocked on the door and called his name, George didn't need the memory of the warning prodding at him to know what else knocked along with him.

            Opportunity.

*

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Intoxicate the Sun