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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.

Chapter List
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Chapter Twenty�From a
Distance

�� Harry stood
staring into the mirror, and told himself he was a fool to fear seeing the
shadows of Nihil. He hadn�t appeared again after the first time, and Harry
hadn�t seen Arrowshot, either. He�d flinched instinctively from reflective
surfaces for a while after that, and Hermione had cast a detection spell that
would let her and Ron know in a moment if he was in any danger, but no, nothing
had happened.

�� It isn�t Nihil you�re afraid of, said a
wise voice in the back of his head.

�� Harry took
a deep breath and shut his eyes. No, it wasn�t, but he didn�t see what
admitting that aloud would gain him.

�� Perhaps it would help you to be more honest.
That was what Draco objected to, the lack of honesty. And if you could show him
that you�re committed to living without lies now, do you think he would take
you back?

�� Harry shook
his head, not opening his eyes to see what his reflection did in return. No, of
course not. Draco had said in his tirade that he didn�t want to partner with
Harry again, and that hadn�t happened, but only because of outside
circumstances. Harry could still try to give him part of what he wanted, and his major longing seemed to be for
freedom from Harry.

�� I want to give him what he wants. I still
care for him.

�� Of course
he did. Harry knew he was the one who had caused the breach between them, and
he didn�t blame Draco for his reaction. He would have liked to come nearer, to speak to Draco more often, to apologize
all the time, to ask him how else he could make up for this, but he didn�t
deserve that, and Draco didn�t want him to do it.

�� Did Draco
still care for him?

�� Harry
opened his eyes to face the stupid mirror again and shrugged stiffly. He
couldn�t run his life on the hope that Draco did. He had every right not to, he
wasn�t about to make some move that would betray the true state of his
feelings�how could Harry ask him to do that, when Draco had given him so much
trust that went unreciprocated?�and probably his anger would hold him away even
if his love for Harry was still strong.

�� It hurt. It
hurt all the time, like a broken limb that no Healer could set. But even to
feel that pain was sort of dishonorable, Harry felt, because it prioritized his
feelings over Draco�s. He would just have to live with what he had done, what
he had brought on both of them.

�� Even so,
his heart quickened as he stepped out of the bathroom and joined Ron and
Hermione. They were going to meet in Ron�s rooms and try to use compatible magic
to read Nihil�s thoughts from a distance.

�� He didn�t
deserve it, but he would be close enough to see and touch Draco again. It was
all he wanted.

*

�� A closed
door should not have been so intimidating.

�� Draco
folded his fingers into a loose fist and leaned against the wall next to the
door. He wanted to take his eyes off it; he wanted to look casual, so that
anyone who was walking down the corridor wouldn�t find it strange that he was
visiting the Weasel. But he knew the tense lines of his body gave him away.

�� He had had
a letter from his mother last night, another apparent plea for him to listen to
Lucius and obey with a second message tucked in between the lines. She had told
him that the potion she�d administered had little effect so far, but for as
short as a time as Lucius had consumed it, that was not unusual. She warned
Draco not to return for Christmas holidays if she could not get Lucius under
control by that time.

�� She said it
so casually, as if she expected Draco to be blind to the implications of such a
statement.

�� Draco shut
his eyes, and used that means to cut himself off from the sight of the door. He
thought purely about his mother for a few moments, and then nodded. They were
both doing their part to uphold the dignity and honor of the Malfoy family. His
part was harder than his mother realized, but still not as difficult as hers.

�� He knew
what she would look like if she could hear him speak those words: pale and
upright, dropping her eyes slightly in false modesty, although her cheeks would
flush in the pleasure she couldn�t hide. I
am only doing what I must, she would murmur in the cold voice he had never
tired of hearing when he was young and had watched his mother insult people in
public who had thought they were receiving compliments from her. What anyone must who wishes to live well.

�� Draco
waited until that vision filled his mind and changed it, altered all the
emotions he was feeling so that he didn�t wallow so deep in self-pity anymore.
Then he raised his hand and rapped on the door.

�� He could
hear Weasley complaining as Granger opened it. �How do we know that it�s him, Hermione? He could be someone else,
even one of the instructors trying to catch us. We should have had him announce
his name.�

�� It is me,
Weasley, so stop whinging,� Draco said, and stepped into the room with a cool
nod to Granger. As much as his mind was changed, though, he couldn�t stop the
impatient sweep of his eyes, looking for Harry.

�� The
bathroom door opened, and Harry came out.

�� He halted,
as though he hadn�t expected Draco to be there already. He blinked and stared,
as shy as a young unicorn in the presence of a hunter. Draco felt his mouth
begin to water. He had seen that look several times right before Harry�s eyes
turned dark and determined and he moved to�

�� Then Draco
realized that staring so long could be taken as some sign of caring or
forgiveness. He turned his head away and said coldly, �What do we need to do?�

�� This way.�
Granger swept through them like a comet and pointed to a circle she had drawn
already in the middle of the main room. Draco examined the circle minutely to
be sure that it wasn�t made of blood, like the one he had seen in Harry�s
necromantic ritual, and was relieved to recognize the white flakes of salt.
Granger bent down, studied the circle for a moment, and then adjusted the
perimeter with some conjured salt from her wand. Then she stepped delicately
over the line and into the center.

�� We need
four people for the ritual,� she said, her face radiant. Probably because she has people to boss around, Draco thought, and
studiously avoided looking at Harry to share a roll of his eyes, as he would
have done before. �Five would be better, but I don�t think there�s anyone
outside of this group that we can trust.� She moved her gaze solemnly around
the room, collecting all of theirs, as if she wanted to impress the importance
of the moment on them.

�� Draco
couldn�t resist. �And some within it that we can�t trust much, either,� he
muttered.

�� Harry�s
face flamed. Draco knew it did, even though he wasn�t looking at him right now.
It seemed as though the sensitivity that Lowell and Weston had encouraged them
to develop in compatible magic training was good at picking up things like
that. Draco kept his face turned forwards, and rejoiced.

�� Granger
stared at him, her happy smile vanishing as suddenly as it had come. �If you do
that again,� she said, �then I�m throwing you out, and we�ll find some other
way to do this.�

�� Draco
stared at her. After what she said to him the other day, about being angry with
Harry and thinking his actions were stupid, he had thought she was the one most
likely to be on his side. �What do you mean? You need compatible magic to do
this. We could replace you and Weasley, but not me.�

�� Not both of you,� Granger said. �And if you
think that insulting Harry will make him easier to work with, then I can only
wonder whether you actually have those vaunted manipulation skills you claim to
have.�

�� Is
speaking the truth insulting, now?� Draco mused. He could sense Harry�s mood shifting,
but again he wasn�t looking, so he couldn�t give in to the temptation to yell
into Harry�s face until he broke down and gave Draco a sincere apology.

�� I mean it,
Malfoy.�

�� Draco
frowned at Granger, decided she did, and nodded. �So tell us how this ritual is
supposed to work, then.�

�� After a few
more glares, Granger gave in to the desire to explain that Draco could see
sparkling in her eyes. �All right. The ritual is meant to reach across the
distance to Nihil�or anyone else, really�and establish a link to his mind.
Ideally without him suspecting that we�re doing so. The pair with the
compatible magic have to power the link, since no one else is strong enough.
The other people keep them from collapsing with the effort and bring the
memories and thoughts out of the target�s mind into the middle of the circle,�
and she moved her hand around in a neat line that indicated the salt, �where
they become visible, like memories in a Pensieve.�

�� Draco
raised an eyebrow. �And why is this Dark?� It sounded like an ordinary
procedure to him, if complicated.

�� For the
same reason that Legilimency is considered a Dark art, one that you can�t use
without prior approval from the Ministry,� Granger said. �It�s the rape of the
mind.� She sounded entirely unconcerned, and Draco wondered if that was because
she was so convinced that Legilimency wasn�t
Dark, or because she had no compassion for Nihil.

�� Do we need
to speak an incantation?� Harry asked, and his voice could still cause Draco�s
shoulders to tighten and his breath to speed up. Humiliating, really, Draco thought as he fought the reaction away.
�Or will you do that?�

�� Ron and I
will do it.� Granger gave Weasley a sweet smile, a complacent one, the kind
that Draco had once imagined he would always share with Harry�

�� No. I am not thinking of that right now. Draco
ripped the thought out of his head with an almost physical effort and threw it
away.

�� Granger
gave him a curious glance, as though she wondered what his heaving chest meant,
but continued to answer Harry. �Ron and I will conduct the ritual, too. It�s
meant to join our power to yours, at least enough to bring along the memories
from Nihil�s mind and make them visible. You don�t have to do anything but
stand there, and reach out when we tell you to.�

�� How are we
going to locate Nihil�s mind?� Harry asked, rendering Draco stiff with
annoyance. He had been about to ask
that.

�� The ritual
creates the beginnings of a link,� Granger said. �You can�t use this spell on
someone you haven�t met before, but all of us have been close to Nihil�at
least, close enough for the spell to work,� she added quickly, probably because
she saw Draco starting to open his mouth in objection. �I think you�ll
recognize the feel of his mind when you get inside it.�

�� She waited,
but none of them had any other questions, since Harry had swallowed up what
would have been Draco�s only remaining one. Granger nodded to Weasley, and he
stepped inside the circle of salt to join her. They linked hands and began to
chant in unison, a long, rambling incantation that Draco lost the sense of
almost as soon as it began.

�� Feeling the
pressure to do so like a hand on the back of his neck, he finally gave in and
looked at Harry.

�� Harry
wasn�t looking at him, the prat, but staring straight ahead with his hands
clasped in front of him. His desperation to avoid Draco�s eyes was palpable.
Draco sneered and started to open his mouth to give another insult. Granger was
too deep in the magic to notice by now, and it would make him feel better.

�� Before he
could do so, the magic grabbed them both and yanked them into the middle of a
new state of being.

*

�� Harry found
himself taking deliberate breaths, as though he had been snatched underwater.
The world around them was a dark, heaving blue, the way Harry thought the ocean
might appear when you were a meter or two down from the surface, and he
couldn�t feel anything under his feet or around his hands. He was justified for
thinking that he was afloat.

�� But he
calmed down when he realized that he knew exactly how to move in this world.
Through the blue-black darkness, a cord stretched, shimmering with faint yellow
light like the kind that Nihil wore as part of the glamours over his face.
Harry only had to follow the cord, and he would find Nihil at the other end.

�� And Draco
was with him.

�� There was
no sulky holding back here the way there was in their bodies�although there was
no talking, either, so maybe that was part of it. Draco rose and fell along a
cord of his own that intertwined with the one Harry followed, and Harry thought
they sometimes switched places and walked in each other�s paths. They didn�t
have bodies, here, but senses of warmth and darting thoughts like schools of
fish, which scattered if they tried to focus on anything for long other than
their goal.

�� It was the
first time Harry had been free of the constant pressure of his guilt, sorrow
for hurting Draco, and self-loathing since their fight had actually happened.
He laughed aloud and threw the laughter to Draco as they curved down, up, and
sideways, following the cords past shimmers of magic that Harry dimly perceived
were wards intended to guard Nihil�s mind from any outside access.

�� He could be
as free as a seal here, and there was no way that Draco could hold back from
him. Harry briefly wondered if this was
the kind of constant communion that Lowell and Weston had described to them and
urged them to attain.

�� Draco
grumbled at him and tried to push dislike into the warmth. It scattered. He
tried to send Harry a picture of the room where Harry had done the necromantic
ritual�or at least Harry thought that was what he was doing, since it only
half-formed before it dissolved. He tried not to take pleasure in their
effortless companionship.

�� He failed.

�� They rose
and soared and dipped through this endless sea-sky, and the �water� danced
around them, and Harry had never been more content. He knew that he shouldn�t
put too much stock in it; Draco was only tolerating him at all because this
place was so different. But this was what he had wanted without knowing it, the
thing the compatible magic seemed to promise when it whispered and sparked
between them.

�� The cords
narrowed. Harry knew they were reaching their destination, and he almost didn�t
want to. He would have liked to stay like this forever.

�� A moment
later, he wished he had.

�� Hermione
had warned them there would be a barrier between the mind they sought and the
world around it. Harry was prepared for the strange, soft squeeze that
enveloped them and turned the blue-black to utter night. Then, Hermione said,
they should emerge into a whirling tunnel of memories like the ones Harry had
been exposed to the one time he�d pushed into Snape�s mind, and they would have
to hunt carefully to find the ones they wanted.

�� Except it
didn�t happen like that at all.

�� The
blackness did not end. The soft squeeze became a hard one, so that Harry had a
momentary impression of himself imprisoned in a mold of marble. He thrashed
around, looking for the memories, and could see nothing.

�� Nothing�

�� The
nothingness came for them like a flood, bathed in the cold that Harry had
experienced when he called Sirius back in his ritual. Frost crisped around
them, and then ice. Harry could feel it, cold and blackness and silence.

�� He reached
out, and there was no sense of Draco anymore.

�� Laughter
rang in his head, laughter with no sound,
like the laughter he heard in dreams. Harry whirled around and lashed out, and
hit nothing. Nothing danced back and forth in front of him, taunting. Nothing
wound about him and crushed him like the coils of a great snake, but when Harry
hissed in Parseltongue, just in case, there was no response.

�� The
laughter changed into words, as silent as the laughter. Oh, this one? I know this one. But there is a limitation in the spells
that your little friend�I am sure it is your researcher friend who found this
for you�would not have noticed, because she had no reason to suspect it.

�� Nothing
whirled in circles, unable to contain its joy, which scratched across Harry�s
mind like bloody claws across flesh.

�� The spell only works on minds that are
human.

�� Coldness
flowed in, flooded in. Harry was surrounded by it, and there was no room to
turn or to swim, now. He struggled, but it was as useless as struggling with a
blizzard. Nothing was everywhere, there was too much of it, and not even the
thought of Draco could rouse him when his mind was slowing to a stop.

�� Then light
shone out from the side.

*

�� Draco had
lost track of Harry the moment the coldness touched him, but he could still move
and think, because he had the wit to
keep swimming in circles, something he didn�t think Harry had managed. Harry
had stopped and listened to the words that Draco could feel skittering around
the edges of his thoughts.

�� Probably promising to teach him more
necromancy techniques, Draco thought sourly, and if he knew he wasn�t being
fair, it wasn�t enough to stop him from having the thought.

�� Then he
felt something waver and stretch and break next to him, and he knew without
asking that he was losing his sense of Harry�s presence, that the cords that
had brought them here were snapping.

�� Draco
whirled and flung himself against the black walls that separated them like a
dolphin dashing its nose against a cliff. Nothing happened, and nothing
changed. The cliffs continued to exist, and Draco began to lose not just his
sense of Harry but the memory of that
sense, as though someone were going through his mind and casting a thorough Obliviate on a few very specific
experiences he�d had.

�� Harry might
have panicked, when he felt that. Draco was more accustomed to thinking
strategically, and he decided at once that if Nihil wanted Draco to lose those
memories, there must be something in those memories that could harm him.

�� Draco
closed his eyes and wheeled into his dazzling thoughts, thinking about the
experience they had just had, swimming here, and the other day in their
training when he had learned to point straight at Harry even when he wasn�t
listening for him. He descended further, and recalled moments of fighting
together, when the compatible magic had first flared, when Harry had smiled at
him for the first time, when Harry had said he loved him and Draco was sure he
meant it�

�� Nothing
screamed. Draco snapped his eyes open and saw light spreading around him, so
bright and against such thick darkness it was painful to look at. He squinted
and coughed, then realized that he had no lungs here to be stung by smoke; it
was merely an automatic reaction, because he had assumed that any fire that
brilliant would produce a lot of heavy smoke.

�� Then
another voice called to him from behind the thick walls, in the place where
he�d been attacking before, and Draco sped and curved towards it. Nothing
crowded in, trying to hide Harry again, but Draco knew where he was now, and he
clung to that knowledge and used it to ignore the panicked signals from his
eyes and his magical core that said he couldn�t find Harry again. Harry was
here, he was here, and Draco coiled
his magic into a rope and threw it to him, shouting out soundlessly for him to
take it�

�� Harry
grasped it at the same moment as Nihil descended like a sword, trying to sever
the connection between them.

�� Draco felt
it as a knife plunging into his chest. From the way Harry cried out, he felt
something worse than that.

*

�� Harry
arched when Nihil cut him. And he screamed, the way he had screamed in the
graveyard when Pettigrew sliced his arm open so that he could take the blood
that he needed to heal Voldemort, the way he had screamed in his soul when
Sirius had fallen through the Veil and when he had seen Cedric lying dead.

�� This was
more than pain. This was destruction. Harry
could feel bits of himself whirling away and being lost, cast into the darkness
that made Nihil up and that he carried with him, the darkness that Harry would
have raised if he had succeeded in doing necromancy and oh, he understood why it was evil now�

�� Then Nihil
touched something else, something that seemed to lurk under Harry�s heart.

�� He screamed, a harder sound than Harry
had given, and flung his power back and away from it, scuttling like a
cockroach startled by the light. Harry stared around, and found he could see.
Nothing was gone, and he floated once more in a blue-black sea, though it was
murkier than it had been.

�� And Draco
shone from the side, calling to him, loving him.

�� Harry swam
to meet him. They didn�t speak, and Harry found it hard to imagine what they
would have said in any case. But he took Draco�s hand, and they followed the
spiraling cords back towards the place where Hermione and Ron waited, and they
flew in perfect companionship all the way.

�� Draco spoke
only once, as they hammered out of the sea on a long upsweep that would carry
them back to the surface and breathable air at last. �What did you do that made
him leave you alone?�

�� Harry shook
his head. �I have no idea,� he said honestly. �It seemed to be something in me
that made him flinch away�something deep, that I didn�t know was there.� He
tried to smile, although he already knew that had been the wrong answer because
Draco was drawing back from him. �Maybe my mother�s sacrifice? It was the same
thing that made it impossible for Voldemort to kill me.�

�� Draco
snatched his hand back and shot for the surface.

�� Harry
followed, shaking his head in misery. He had been whole, for a few minutes, and
then it had been broken, taken away. Maybe that was all he deserved, and he
should just concentrate on the joyful news that they had a weapon�of some
kind�against Nihil, and not worry about anything else.

�� Then he
remembered the dreadful darkness of Nihil�s mind again, and drew himself up.

�� No. He had done wrong, yes. He had
almost summoned that darkness into the world.

But he hadn�t known. If he had once had any idea of what the price would have
been, he would have turned his back on the dead and clung to the living.

He needed the living�he needed
Draco�far more than he needed redemption. That meant he would do whatever he
had to do to make it up to Draco, including abasement and constant apologies
and open questions and gestures and gifts, if Draco would like that sort of
thing.

It occurred to Harry that, for all
he loved Draco, he knew very little about him.

But
I am going to fight for him. And make him fight for me.

�� Then they
broke out into the light, where Hermione and Ron and the rest of their lives
were waiting for them.

*

�� Dragons
Breath: Thanks! Draco does partially forgive Harry, and wants to hear the
apologies even as he struggles against it.

�� Well, there�s
one more secret, since Draco doesn�t know about the fits.

�� anciie: I�ve
had a lot of responses that do feel sorry for Harry. But I don�t think Harry�s
self-pity can last that long now that he has a plan. There will be more fights
with Draco, but at least they would be a sign that they were moving forward.

�� I�ll take
your request under advisement.

�� SP777: I
think a lot of people feel that way about Harry�s predicament.

�� And yes,
partially based on your suggestion.
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Ceremonies of Strife