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The Serenity of His Rage	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16981 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
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Chapter Two—Plans A-Changing
            “You have no reason to doubt Mr. Crabbe’s word, then?”
            Dumbledore’s voice was low and dejected. Draco, sitting in the chair in front of his desk where he had sat less than twelve hours earlier and staring down at his wand clutched in his hands, shook his head.
            “I only have my father left now,” he said, and lifted his head. His head and heart still felt as if they were filled with cold, black, sparkling dust—coal dust, maybe. “Can you move faster to rescue him?”
            Dumbledore peered at Draco over his glasses for a little while. Then he sighed and said, “I asked you the question not because I really doubt that your mother is dead, my boy. And for that, I am sorry.”
            Draco just nodded without letting his face move. He had a question that was important, and Dumbledore hadn’t answered it. “Can you move faster to get my father out?”
            Dumbledore shook his head. “The main obstacle in finding Order of the Phoenix members to guard you and guide your family to safety is your father, Mr. Malfoy. I doubt they would have minded helping you or your mother that much.”
            If their last name is Weasley, they probably would. But Draco said nothing about that. He only let his mask slip a little. “He’s the only member of my family I have left.”
            And the only tether you have on me. If Dumbledore didn’t get his father out, then Draco had no reason to stay with him or ask for the “sanctuary” that hadn’t done a single bloody thing to help his family so far. He would go independent and find a way to free Father himself.
            He could do it. He knew Malfoy Manor better than anyone here would, and he was in the state of mind where he would use Dark magic on anyone and everyone now. And he would, if Dumbledore didn’t move soon.
            “You may think that you have no reason to live right now, Mr. Malfoy,” Dumbledore began, and Draco looked at him. “But I promise you do.”
            “I have a reason to live,” Draco said, his voice gaining in strength. He couldn’t believe Dumbledore had misinterpreted his behavior so badly. “I just don’t have a reason to cooperate with you if you don’t bring him to me soon.”
            Dumbledore sat back behind his desk and regarded Draco with a faint frown. Draco stared back. He wondered for a moment what Dumbledore had thought he would do. Simply give up? Go along with Dumbledore’s side because it was the right thing to do?
            I expected him to learn at least that much from the Dark Lord. Threatening the people I care about it is the only way to get me to do something. I’ll only be loyal to the people who can protect them or help me.
            It pleased Draco, in a hard, cold way, to know this much about himself. He still didn’t know if he and his father would survive. But he did know what he wanted, and what lengths he was willing to go to to get it.
            It was knowledge he’d never had before.
            “You must realize,” Dumbledore murmured, “that these things take time. Besides the guards we have to arrange, we have to plan a raid on Malfoy Manor—no small thing, even with the notes you gave us. If Voldemort is in residence—”
            Draco flinched, and then tensed. He was going to train himself out of reacting to that name. People would probably run around saying it all the time, if only to test him.
            “I know they take time. But you already took enough time that my mother died of it. If my father dies too, I might as well run away on my own, and see if there’s some way to take down the Dark Lord outside your Order of the Phoenix.”
            Dumbledore stroked his beard and looked at his phoenix as if he held the answers. Draco looked with him. Fawkes sat on his perch staring at Draco with bright eyes, but he didn’t make a sound.
            “Very well,” said Dumbledore, something like a sigh in the back of his voice. “We will make getting your father out of the Dark Lord’s custody a top priority, Mr. Malfoy. In the meantime, I ask that you be open to meeting with me at any time, in order to ask questions that we may have about your home.”
            Draco nodded and stood up. “What’s going to happen to Crabbe?” he asked. He was wondering if he would have to deal with consequences from the other Marked students he suspected were in Slytherin, and how openly Crabbe got arrested or expelled would alter their behavior.
            “He will be arrested and taken by the Aurors to be interrogated. Indeed, he should be in the Ministry already.” Dumbledore paused as if he wanted to see what Draco would say to that, but Draco had nothing to say, at least right now. “He’s of age, which means they may try him for conspiring with a Dark Lord. They can certainly try him for Dark magic.”
            “And me?”
            Dumbledore gave him a chiding look. “It would certainly help your cause if you didn’t reach for Dark Arts so readily in the future, my boy.”
            Draco said nothing to that. He wasn’t Dumbledore’s boy, but he didn’t need to go around making that point constantly. He stood there meeting Dumbledore’s eyes, and again the Headmaster sighed in a little aggravation. He prefers it when everyone plays his games.
            “Your roommates are willing to vouch both for your extreme agitation and that you used spells that were—less harsh than the reality.”
            I’ll need to make sure I let both Blaise and Theo know they have my gratitude. What Draco could do for them was limited, and the way they’d moved didn’t automatically mean they weren’t loyal to the Dark Lord. It could be that they had some kind of rivalry with Vince in the Death Eater ranks and saw this as the best way to get rid of him, or even that they thought the Dark Lord was better shed of such tediously stupid servants.
            But it did mean that Draco didn’t have to worry about them as much. And he would take any lessening of his burden right now.
            Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix wouldn’t take as much of his burden as Draco had first hoped. It only made sense to try and spread it around to others.
*
            Severus bent his head over Albus’s wrist. The dark stain of the curse hadn’t advanced past the place it had been three days ago. Severus was cautiously pleased.
            Not in hope of Albus living. There was, ultimately, no hope for that. But it might mean he could live as much as two or three months past Severus’s initial prognosis.
            “We must do something to bring the Malfoy boy under control.”
            Severus felt his muscles tense, but he only grunted. There was little enough he could do. Albus knew all about Severus’s efforts to argue Draco into sanctuary, which Severus had done because he could not bear to see someone else make a stupid mistake of the same magnitude as his had been.
            Severus had convinced Draco to ask for it at last. But with Narcissa Malfoy dead, Draco was going to change. There was little enough Severus could do to stop that, and it might be irresponsible to Draco’s future survival if he tried.
            “I had hoped the offer of rescuing his parents would be enough, but with Narcissa,” said Albus, and then simply let his glance rest on his fingers. Severus remained stubbornly silent. Assisting Albus in the decisions he wanted to make, that he was determined to make, could also be irresponsible.
            “I am afraid he might decide to risk a suicide charge. Or he might decide to root out every other student who is a Death Eater. Or simply take his father and flee.”
            Those decisions would make sense from his point of view. But Severus knew he also wouldn’t gain anything, and wouldn’t help Draco, by saying that. So he was quiet.
            Albus sighed and said, “There is something else I need to tell you, my boy.” Severus felt his back go up as it always did at that form of address, but he only grunted again. “About what I hinted before, concerning the way I was injured.” He waved his hand. “About Horcruxes.”
            Severus’s back tensed so much that he knew he was near to triggering another spasm, like the kind he got when he bent over his cauldrons for too long. Once, he hadn’t thought he would ever live long enough to grow this old.
            He stepped back and surrendered to asking. “What about them?”
            “Voldemort has several,” Albus said, more eager as he always was before an audience, “although two of them have been destroyed. And I know where one of them is that I did not know before.” He paused. “Inside Harry’s scar.”
            Severus felt his eyes widen before he could hold it back, little though he liked playing to Albus’s sense of drama. Then it was too late to go back on his startled reaction anyway, and he simply folded his arms, and stared, and asked, “Why does this matter to me?”
            “Because I think there may be a way to draw the Horcrux out and benefit young Mr. Malfoy at the same time.”
            Albus’s eyes bored knowingly into him. And because of Lily, Severus thought, with a resigned glare back. Always.
            “How, then?” Severus had to react, but he could at least make sure that his answers were as small and sparing as he could make them.
            “There is a bond between Harry and Voldemort because of the Horcrux. A soul-bond, I suppose you could call it.” Albus chuckled, but Severus remained unmoving, and at least this time it earned him an explanation. “That was the cause of the dreams and visions that you attempted to train out of Harry with Occlumency last year.”
            “Such a cause would require more than Occlumency to abate it.”
            “Exactly. And if I forge a soul-bond between Harry and young Mr. Malfoy, I believe we may be able to do that.”
            Severus felt as though someone had slammed a fist into his stomach. He wheezed a moment, then snapped, “Have you forgotten that Mr. Malfoy came to you for protection?”
            “Of course not.” Albus was either actually ignorant or pretending to be, and Severus had never been able to tell the difference. “This will protect him. Harry would feel compelled to protect anyone who was bound to him with his life, and his friends and Order members will be much more willing to accept that Mr. Malfoy is worthy of protection, as well. And the bond should draw Harry’s soul away from the Horcrux. Difficulty in separating them is the main problem with the Horcrux having remained in Harry for so long. I would try to remove it and put it into a different object that we could destroy, but it is intertwined with Harry’s own soul now. If his soul has another bond, however, and a whole and much purer one at that, it should start to leave Voldemort's shard behind.”
            Severus shook his head. He wanted to speak through the thick betrayal clogging his throat, although he suspected that Albus wouldn’t understand the source of Severus’s objections even if he could actually voice them.
            But he wanted to say: Draco is not a tool. Not a thing to be used in the saving of Potter. I chose to give you a vow to protect Lily’s son and place myself into your hands; use me as you will. But you will not use Draco in the same way.
            He could not say it. Albus would ignore his objections and go ahead and do it anyway. If he had come this far in his consideration of it, he probably already knew exactly how he would establish the soul-bond, which of the several complicated rituals he would use and how to make sure that neither Potter nor Draco died from the shock.
            Severus said only, “And will the bond afford any benefit to Mr. Malfoy beyond the extra protection that Potter and his defenders might feel compelled to give him?”
            “I think it will, Severus. I think it will cure what I have long found Mr. Malfoy’s most appalling fault. He cares only about his family, and perhaps a little about his friends in Slytherin—but he was certainly quick enough to curse one of them when he found out that that friend might have betrayed him to Voldemort. Contact with a pure soul like Harry’s can heal Mr. Malfoy as much as it will teach Harry’s soul what an untainted one looks like.”
            Severus looked at the wall. He was thinking of another man called Peter Pettigrew, and how Albus certainly had felt Sirius Black’s drive for vengeance on him—a drive sustained through twelve years of captivity and possible insanity—was understandable after Pettigrew betrayed him. Yet somehow, Draco should have spared Vincent Crabbe and done nothing.
            It isn’t even what Gryffindors would do. It is because Draco was Sorted into the wrong house and has the wrong sort of family, and Albus will never look past that.
            Severus said only, “I shall leave you to explain it to them. I have no desire to be there.”
            “I thought, Severus, that you might approach Mr. Malfoy and—”
            “No.”
            Albus paused. Severus wondered for a moment whether he had actually broken through to the man, whether he would see that this was making Draco a tool and a sacrifice for the sake of Potter.
            But Albus said only, “If that is the way you feel, Severus. Of course.”
            Severus turned and stalked silently out of the room. As he went down the stairs, his mind returned to another memory. This time, it was of the owl that had come to him last summer, from Narcissa Malfoy, saying she had a favor to ask of him.
            But there was another owl a day later, saying that she couldn’t come to Spinner’s End now, because the Dark Lord watched her too closely. And that had been the last Severus had heard of Narcissa Malfoy.
            For Draco’s sake, he wished she could have had the chance to come.
*
            “What?”
            Harry felt as if his mouth was made of paper. No matter how he tried, all he could get to come out was that little croaking word.
            Dumbledore folded his hands on his desk and watched Harry with dim eyes. On his perch, Fawkes was preening endlessly, making little fire-colored feathers drift down to the floor. Harry thought that maybe Fawkes was just as upset as he was.
            “I understand it’s a lot to ask of you, Harry. But young Mr. Malfoy knows Occlumency, and he can shut off his own emotions so you won’t feel them. The soul-bond will basically be identical to the one you share with Voldemort. You will feel Mr. Malfoy’s emotions—when his side of the link is open—and you can catch visions of where he is at the moment. But that is all. There will be no voices in your head, no ability to control your body or compel you to do something.”
            Harry stared at his hands. He wanted to say it wasn’t even the bond that bothered him.
            Well, all right, no, that was a lie, sharing his soul with Malfoy bothered him a whole hell of a lot. But far worse was the news that he had apparently done it with Voldemort for years.
            “When did you figure out I was a Horcrux, sir?” he whispered.
            “I started to have my suspicions third year. I had time, then, to investigate the diary, and realize it was a far more powerful artifact than I had thought it was. Nothing ordinary could have contained the shade of the young Tom Riddle and also drained the life from young Ginevra.”
            Harry just nodded. He wondered for a minute why Dumbledore called people “young” all the time. Maybe he just didn’t know what else to call them. Or maybe from his perspective, everyone else was young.
            You’re stalling. You have to think about this. You have to think about having part of Voldemort’s soul.
            “And the discussion I had with you, about why you could speak Parseltongue?” Dumbledore looked directly into Harry’s eyes, and Harry felt his panic calm down. “I told you Voldemort had transferred some of his powers to you. Of course, what I did not know at the time—I was under the power of an unfortunate experience in my youth, when I trusted someone who told me it was possible—was that that could not have happened. Voldemort would have had to perform an extremely complicated ritual using his own blood.”
            “So the powers come from me being a Horcrux.”
            “They do.” said Dumbledore, with a slow nod.
            “Is that also why the Hat wanted to place me in Slytherin?”
            “That I cannot answer, Harry,” said Dumbledore with infinite gentleness. “What I do know is that you have made the choices that placed you in Gryffindor consciously, with your eyes wide open.”
            Harry nodded, a little unwillingly. He wondered if he would have known what to choose if he’d come to Hogwarts like a Muggleborn, not knowing anything about the Houses.
            Well, That’s still not a good comparison. Hermione’s Muggleborn, and she’d read all about the Houses before she came into the school.
            “All right.” Harry licked his lips a little and tried to remember what he’d read about soul magic, which wasn’t very much. The idea of Horcruxes was still new, and the thought that he had one in himself was just…
            Harry’s mind reeled. His vision darkened. He found himself leaning over without remembering that he’d decided to, his elbows braced on the arms of his chair while his terrified breath rasped in and out of his lungs.
            “I’m sorry, Harry. I’m so sorry. I should never have placed such a burden on your young shoulders.”
            Harry shook his head blankly as he felt Dumbledore’s hand on his shoulder. A second later, Fawkes was perched on the other one, trilling softly, his tail spread as though he was holding off danger. Harry turned his head and buried his face in Fawkes’s soft breast feathers.
            “Ask all the questions you need to, Harry.”
            Hoping Dumbledore could understand him without him moving his face, Harry asked, “Will we have to have sex?”
            “That I should have given you that impression.” Dumbledore’s voice was soft and mournful. “No.”
            “Will we—be able to talk in each other’s heads? Will one of us die if the other one dies? Will we have to spend a bunch of time with each other?” Harry rushed the questions out, and Fawkes crowded closer and closer to him, wings spread and drooping.
            “The answer to all of those is no,” said Dumbledore. “Actually, I would not have chosen a bond that required you to spend a large amount of time together, as you will need to return to your relatives’ for the summer and Mr. Malfoy will be going into hiding with his father as soon as I can arrange for suitable guards.”
            Harry nodded, and finally pulled his face away from Fawkes. Dumbledore was looking at him with bright sorrow in his eyes. Harry swallowed. “Fine. Then—it’s a lot like the bond I have with Voldemort, just—not Horcrux-like.”
            Dumbledore shook his head calmly. “And these bonds, or ones like them, have been used in the past in times of war. It is useful to be able to tell from emotions when a comrade is in danger and where they are, if necessary.”
            Harry could see that. He listened to Dumbledore talk soothingly about it, and some of his fears dissolved.
            Besides, there was only one big fear now, one that he had to give everything else up to if he was going to avoid it. He didn’t want to be a Horcrux for Voldemort anymore. If this was a way to get him to stop being one, he would do anything.
            It’s probably going to suck for Malfoy more than me. Harry couldn’t imagine he would take the news calmly.
*
            The phoenix took off with a squawk as Draco shattered its perch beneath it.
            Dumbledore sat in the middle of a shimmering shield that Draco hadn’t noticed before, bouncing off the splinters. He only blinked patiently when Draco turned his wand on him, but the twinkle in his eyes was more like the light shining off steel.
            “Do you think you can defeat me and stop this, Mr. Malfoy? Tell me the truth now.”
            Draco said nothing. He had to arrange his words in the right order and stop the bile from burning down his throat. But once he had them ready, he opened his mouth and spat them out at the man who just sat there and watched him.
            “You pretended you really wanted to give me and my parents shelter. You pretended you really cared what happened to us. But you don’t, do you? This is just a way to spare Potter from having to deal with the Horcrux and fight the war. If I’d just come to you and asked for shelter, then you wouldn’t have granted it. I have to have some strategic importance in the war or I’m useless.”
            “The soul-bond will provide protection for you as well. The Order of the Phoenix members I mentioned are all eager for Harry’s victory and will be more than happy to protect his bondmate. And Harry risks his all for those people he cares for…”
            Draco opened his mouth to vomit forth some more words that Dumbledore deserved, and then paused and closed it. He could feel his throat still thrumming with the desire to spit, but he did have to think about something else.
            Harry risks his all for those people he cares for.
            More than likely, Dumbledore was only spewing what he thought would convince Draco, what he thought Draco needed to hear before he would surrender. But what if part of it was true? Draco had certainly seen how stubbornly Potter held to his friends’ sides, and there were both rumors and solid stories about the risks he had taken for that insane godfather of his, and he’d even challenged Draco on a broom in their first year for a nobody like Longbottom. Just because he saw them threatened.
            Draco breathed out. He met Dumbledore’s gaze a little off-center, to prevent Legilimency, and said, “I’ll go along with this.”
            He didn’t need to reveal all his convictions and plans right away, did he? Not like a Gryffindor.
            He had already decided he was only going to do what the people who mattered to him needed. Dumbledore didn’t have to know that. And Draco had never heard of a soul-bond exactly the same as the one Dumbledore was proposing, but he had read about others like it.
            He knew soul-bonds created friendships and comradeships, because they had to. Souls were pulled closer to each other. Sharing emotions taught people more about each other. It was one tool used to make arranged marriages succeed. If the people in the soul-bond didn’t know each other before the marriage, they would learn each other afterwards.
            That meant Draco would inevitably come to care a little for Potter, which was probably another thing Dumbledore intended, so his favorite would have another layer of protection.
            But it also meant Potter could—would—come to care at least a little for Draco. And Potter protected what was his to protect fiercely.
            Draco bowed his head and listened to some more rambling about purity of souls and how brave Draco was, while he thought.
            He needed weapons to save his father. He would have a formidable protector on his side once the bond was performed. He would have someone who would probably give Draco a lot of sympathy even if Draco couldn’t exactly pay back the debt, the way Potter had with Longbottom.
            And if souls drew each other towards them, and Dumbledore thought Potter’s would separate from the Horcrux shard in him…
            Well. As Potter came closer to Draco, he would drift further from Dumbledore, as well. Which would be an excellent means of revenge.
            You’re forging your own doom, old man. And you don’t even know it.
*
moon: Well, this chapter is typical of the level of manipulation in this fic. Draco is only plotting to use people who use him back.
BAFan: Well, most of the other characters who die won’t be of this level of importance, if that’s what’s putting you off. But Draco’s mindset and the angst level change only gradually.
SP777: Thanks!
Aqua_Star: Thank you!
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The Serenity of His Rage