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An Image of Lethe	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21751 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
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Chapter List
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Chapter Twenty—A Formless Ocean
            Harry knew that, one moment, he had been standing in front of Lethe. The magic that surged around him was his own, but it felt distant and soft, not connected to him at all. He had Summoned it out of pure frustration, not able to stand the disjointed feeling for another instant. It had touched him, and for one moment, he had laughed in delight.
            Now he knew that he was in the middle of a dark grey, formless spiral of softness. He could feel the magic flowing into him, but also flowing out of him. Harry gritted his teeth. It was as if he had merely put himself into the middle of the cloud drifting around Lethe instead of destroying it.
            He tried to lift his wand and speak another spell, but he felt nothing. No wand between his fingers. When he looked down, he saw that was for the excellent reason that he didn’t have fingers anymore. Come to think of it, he couldn’t really feel or hear his teeth grinding against each other, either.
            Harry tried to scream. No voice came out of his throat, since his throat didn’t seem to exist anymore.
            His thoughts flickered and danced, reaching wildly around him. He had Summoned the magic; had he destroyed himself when he did that? Or destroyed Lethe? What about Malfoy? Had he survived? Or his friends outside the Ministry? Harry didn’t know what he had done, and that was worse than the thought that he might have exiled some of his magic outside his body forever.
            He turned, or tried to imagine himself turning. It was probably the same thing here. And he didn’t really expect to see anything behind himself except more formlessness, and that would mean he would go mad.
            But to his astonishment, there was something solid there, a dark wooden door that loomed out of what Harry supposed could be a floor while the grey swirled all around it. Harry swam in its direction. As soon as he came near, there was suddenly weight, and he could see and feel the hand that reached out and clutched the edge of the door.
            Harry wanted to close his eyes and weep for relief. But he was a little busy, still. He wrenched at the door, and it trembled, but didn’t open. He tried to crane his head around it and see if there was anything except grey on the other side, but the instant he did that, he started to cease to exist again. The fingers that he extended into space melted back into fog and mist. Harry shuddered and tightened his grip on the door.
            He finally realized what it reminded him of. The door that led into Lethe, the wooden one that covered the front of the machine.
            And that let him know what he had done. He had somehow put himself inside Lethe.
            But the machine wasn’t finished yet, and probably couldn’t do anything to him. Harry told himself that to calm his pounding heart—the only bad consequence about being so close to a door that made him exist was the surge of emotions he got as a result—and tucked his legs close to his chest, floating towards the door.
            When he landed right in front of it, he could see that it was shut. And blowing through the edges of it, through the crack under the door, was a fresh breeze that made Harry want to cry again. There was also a glimpse of normal light.
            If he could force the door open, then he should be able to get through it and back into the real world.
            Harry closed his eyes to think. He didn’t know how he was going to do this. He couldn’t use magic, or at least his wand hadn’t come back with the rest of him, and he doubted he could use pure strength when parts of his body didn’t exist at any given time. With how strange Lethe was inside, it might not be open to either method like that, anyway.
            But he had got himself into this situation by wanting something so fiercely that probably more magic than there should be had got dragged into him. Or it had pulled him here.
            And that meant…
            He called up his will as much as he could, a weapon that he smashed like a whip against the door of Lethe, and felt the world around him tremble.
            The grey fog stopped. Harry had hardly noticed the small motion running through it before, like a stream flowing under the surface, but it steadied, stabilized now, and there was no more motion. And then the motion turned and oriented on him, and began to run towards him and the door.
            Harry gritted his teeth, which existed again, and clung to the door. Nothing was going to knock him away from it, and if he had to endure the pounding from the ocean, then that was what he would do. For once, his stubbornness was going to serve and protect him instead of simply get him into further trouble.
            The force of the current hit him, and Harry had to clamp his teeth down to keep from screaming aloud, it was that painful. But then the force tore past him, and through the gap under and around the door, and the door creaked and groaned and began to swing back.
            Harry let go with one hand, stuck his other one into the gap, and then thrust himself forwards as fast as he could.
            There was a complicated, sickening second when he was tumbling through space that existed and didn’t exist at the same time, when his head swam and there was a suffocating sense of magic imploding into his head, exploding out his ears, and propelling the soles of his feet all at once. Harry screamed again, both because it would give him strength and because he might as well, and tore at the sides of Lethe.
            It worked. Or part of the desperate combination he’d been trying to pull off worked; he didn’t really know which one. A second later, he was sprawled on the floor of the room in the bowels of the Ministry where they kept Lethe, panting and bending his head down so that his chin rested on his hands.
            “Potter?”
            Malfoy’s voice was sharp, as if he hadn’t expected to see Harry again. Harry couldn’t blame him, he thought as he rolled over. He hadn’t expected to get out of that formless grey ocean and back into the real world again, not really.
            Malfoy was standing over him, staring down with an intensity that would have made Harry squirm if he hadn’t got distracted. The distraction was the bleeding scratch on the side of Malfoy’s face. Harry made some incoherent sound and reached up, and Malfoy reached up, too, smearing the blood with his fingers and then looking at it as if bewildered.
            “I got that when you slammed me into the wall,” he said.
            Harry closed his eyes and began to struggle to his feet. His chest ached as if he’d been breathing cold air for hours, and maybe he had. But his wand was in his hand in a second, Malfoy giving it to him, and Harry sighed and nodded. “Sorry. That was what happened when I cast the Summoning Charm?”
            “Something like that.” Malfoy reached out and hauled him the rest of the way to his feet with an easy hand. Harry turned around and looked at Lethe, vaguely aware that Malfoy had continued to clutch his arm.
            Lethe was—leaning. The wooden door that had been the center of it from the other side was gaping wide, although in the real world, all it showed was the wall on the other side, instead of the grey ocean. The chains were snapped and lying on the platform. Harry looked around and realized the runes on the walls, the ones he hadn’t really understood, were no longer glowing.
            “You broke it,” said Malfoy dryly. “Congratulations.”
            “I wanted to break it,” Harry said, staring at it. “I wanted to at one point. But I didn’t think I would manage.”
            “Well done, then.” Malfoy’s hand was heavy on his shoulder the way it had been on his arm, and Harry shook his head a little and let Malfoy pull him along, away from Lethe and towards the exit from the room. “We’ve only got a little time before they come to find out why their alarms are going crazy, you realize.”
            “Have we destroyed both Lethe and the Lightfinder in the same day?” Harry did pause once in the doorway to look back at Lethe, but Malfoy grabbed at his arm and hauled him along again. The door shut behind them, and they started running up towards the stairs that Harry knew would lead them out of here. It didn’t feel like the same wondrous floating sensation that had filled his head when he came down this way. It felt like the ache of pain in his chest, the pain that came from bursting through Lethe’s door and from seeing what he’d accidentally done to Malfoy.
            “Don’t know about the Lightfinder,” said Malfoy, and his hand was still tugging Harry relentlessly along, even though Harry had long since started running under his own power. Harry thought about planting his feet just to see what would happen, but he knew Malfoy would resent him for that, and rightly. The least he could do was be a good sport now. “But Lethe looks pretty dead.”
            Harry would have answered, but then they came around a corner and saw two Unspeakables in front of them. Or, Harry thought as they turned cloudy, swirling masses of light towards him and Malfoy instead of faces, Unseen.
            Harry might have hesitated, but Malfoy, running on fear or bravery or something else, lowered his shoulder and bowled straight forwards. The Unseen had their mouths open, or slits in the light and shadows that might have been mouths, but Malfoy obviously wasn’t about to wait until he found out whether they wanted to cast. He simply crashed into them and bore them to the floor, and the Unseen he hadn’t hit as hard stopped struggling to get up when Harry planted his wand at its throat.
            “Come on, Potter,” Malfoy said, dancing up and down in the corridor beyond where the Unseen lay. Harry bit his tongue on the impulse to say that Malfoy looked a little kid who needed to use the loo—both untrue and unfair—and leaped over the Unseen and ran after him.
            It was like the flight he had tried to take out of the Ministry after he’d woken from Splinter’s blow, in so many ways, but this time, Harry had more hope. And all his hope was centered in the companion running beside him, the companion who had dared to come with him into danger, and whom he had already failed, in one way, by hurting when he Summoned the magic.
            I’m not going to fail him again. He’s already been braver than any other Slytherin or Dark wizard I know.
            They clattered up the stairs towards freedom, and Harry made sure that he was beside Malfoy all the way. Trying to stay behind was impossible for his own courage and his sense of the fitness of things, trying to step in front of Malfoy would irritate him, but this—this was where he belonged.
*
            Draco was astounded they had actually made it. He supposed they would have had a much harder time, but for the fact that all the Aurors and Unspeakables who should have been guarding the Ministry would have run to the site of the Lightfinder. The Minister was there, after all, and so was the source of what they would see as a threat.
            He only hoped that Blaise had got away.
            He and Potter slipped out of the Ministry, and Potter stood there a second as if he wanted to breathe bloody clean air or something. Draco squeezed on his arm, which had had a good effect so far. They had to Apparate out of here and get back to Grimmauld Place as soon as possible, preparing to hide and run.
            “We’re going,” said Draco sharply, when he tugged again and Potter just stood there. Draco was prepared to Side-Along Apparate Potter if he had to, but he would really rather that Potter do it. Draco’s head ached abominably and he was afraid of getting the Apparition coordinates wrong if he had to do it himself.
            “It’s too late now,” Potter said, almost conversationally.
            Draco stared at him, wondering if Potter had gone mad, or despairing now, when they had got cleanly out. Then he followed Potter’s gaze.
            He had thought he would see an army of Aurors marching towards them, or maybe that plus the Minister. Instead, he saw a clutch of Death Eaters, Greyback and undoubtedly two or three of the others who had knelt to Potter in the drawing room of Grimmauld Place, staring at them and holding their masks in their hands.
            “Follow my lead,” said Potter to him, and Draco barely had time to nod before Potter was turning and boldly walking up to the Death Eaters.
            “My loyal followers.” It was the same cold, distant voice Potter had adopted with the Death Eaters before, and it seemed to work as well as before, to Draco’s relief. Greyback bowed; the others knelt. “You have come for the raid on the Department of Mysteries that I commanded?” For a moment, his gaze swept across them.
            “Yes, my lord,” said Greyback. “When they took your shell up to the Lightfinder, we thought, all at once, like, we should get on with it…”
            Potter nodded, so absently that Draco was impressed. Of course, he knew the amulet around Potter’s neck was adding to the deception, but it was one thing to lie with words and another with the very slant of your neck. Draco hadn’t thought Potter had that arrogance in him.
            No, wait. I used to think he did.
            Draco was still wrestling with the idea that he had changed his mind thoroughly about Potter’s need for a thrashing when Potter said, “And in the meantime, you will abort that mission and take us with you.” His voice was as sharp as a whip, and the ones kneeling gaped at him. Greyback, on the other hand, cowered back.
            “My Lord…it’s not…we don’t have…”
            Greyback’s voice fell away in the face of Potter’s withering stare. That was almost all Potter, Draco judged, without the amulet helping him a lot.
            “Did you think to fool me?” Potter hissed at him, and his words were edged with real Parseltongue. It took everything Draco had, all the courage he could summon, to make him walk up and stand at Potter’s side like he belonged there, and he didn’t know how well he was succeeding in looking bored and obedient, the way he wanted to look. “Did you think that I would believe you had run around by yourself and yet kept away from the sight of the Ministry, Greyback? I know someone stands behind you. I have a good notion of who.”
            There was a smoldering silence, while Draco looked straight at the bridge of Greyback’s nose and tried to conceal the fact that he at least had no idea. Maybe Potter didn’t, either. But he could play it off well.
            “All right,” said Greyback, with what was almost a whimper. “Someone’s helping! Someone’s leading! But we haven’t listened to him as much since we found you, my Lord, I swear. We would listen to the real ruddy Dark Lord, always!” He dropped to his knees now, too, and looked up at Potter in pleading.
            Draco took a single glance sideways himself, and immediately shuddered. It was wrong for Potter’s green eyes to look that glazed and cold.
            It was probably saving their lives right now, he reminded himself. But it was still wrong.
            “Of course you will obey me,” Potter drawled a second later, sounding almost uninterested. He reached out and patted Greyback on the head. Greyback flinched and cowered, whimpered as though the pat had been a blow.
            Draco stood there dazed and wondering. He knew that the amulet was coming up with these lies, or at least it was letting the Death Eaters believe the lies when they heard them, and arguably Draco and Pansy were the ones who had led Potter to pretend he was the Dark Lord in the first place, but he was silently awed at the courage Potter had to pat a dangerous werewolf on the head and get away with it. That was nothing but sheer Potter.
            “Of course, my lord,” Greyback whispered. “Of course.”
            Potter turned around and looked with those glazed eyes at Draco. Draco stood up and tried to look as pleased and obedient and robotic as he could.
            “You are to go with Malfoy to bring out our other faithful followers,” Potter said, and pointed at a blond Death Eater Draco was sure he didn’t know. “You will not betray them. If you do…” Potter hissed abruptly, and moved his wand. A shadowy serpent arose from beside Draco’s feet—he really couldn’t tell if Potter had cast an illusion or Serpensortia—and entwined around the Death Eater’s ankles. The Death Eater stood still, with the look of someone who remembered the Dark Lord’s Nagini on his face.
            “You will bring them,” said Potter. “To the same place that our most faithful followers, no doubt, await.” He gave a glance at Greyback that was thick with meaning, and made the stupid werewolf bob his head and whine like a puppy. “And soon.”
            The blond nodded and waited, almost holding his breath, it sounded like, until Potter dissipated the shadowy snake. Then he moved up beside Draco and tried to say something with papery lips. Draco didn’t bother listening. He knew the sort of babble it would be.
            He watched Potter’s back, willing him to turn around. He didn’t like this idea of separating, even if it was only for a while, and inevitable, because the Ministry would search Grimmauld Place.
            Potter did turn, but he maintained that same cold, blank look in his eyes, and the gaze he gave Draco wouldn’t have done justice to a stranger. He held Draco’s look briefly, then jerked his head.
            “Bring anything from your ancestors’ house that might be useful, little Malfoy,” he said, and turned and walked towards Greyback.
            Draco held his breath for a moment, so he wouldn’t scream, and then nodded. He had no other choice. That had been true from the moment he ran away from the Aurors in Astoria’s house.
            It was just, this was a particularly horrible kind of not having a choice, and one he hoped he’d left behind him with the Dark Lord’s fall.
            “Yes, my lord,” he said, and if Potter felt the bite in those words, he didn’t turn. He just kept walking, and Draco turned to Apparate with the Death Eater in tow, swallowing again and again, and trying to decide if he wanted to bring one of Aster’s portraits with them or not.
*
            Harry wasn’t surprised when they appeared in front of a large pair of iron gates. It made sense that the Death Eaters would have some Unplottable pure-blood house somewhere. If they were hiding out in the wilderness, the Aurors would probably have caught them by now, with the massive hunt. And imagining them in the Muggle world was laughable.
            Harry had a suspicion. He had tried to convey that suspicion to Malfoy with his words, but he doubted Malfoy had caught it. He’d looked as if he was trying to deal with being smacked in the face.
            Harry was sorry for that, but, well, he had work to do. He waited in silent disdain—that was one emotion he didn’t have to pretend to feel, around Death Eaters—until Greyback leaned forwards and showed his Dark Mark to the gates, and they swung open.
            They walked up a path that seemed to be made of crushed marble, or something. Harry only knew that the rock was soft and crumbly under his feet, and it was also softly white. He tried to walk as straight-backed as he could, imagining how disgusted Voldemort would have been with everything around him.
            It also helped that Harry felt his own disgust, and never more so than when they swung around a bend in the path and saw the actual house. It was a large one, but apparently only had one floor, so that it sprawled across its land in a welter of grey stone streaked with white. Harry stared at it and thought of all the wealth in it, the kind of wealth that the Death Eaters would put to work supporting killing Muggles and torturing people for no reason.
            He had been in dangerous situations before, and survived them. Even horrible situations before, and survived them. So he kept walking, and kept the same look or lack of it on his face, and Greyback scurried ahead of him and opened the door with a bow, like a house-elf.
            Harry had to sneer so as not to think of Dobby.
            They moved into a wide corridor, and several other Death Eaters surrounded them, staring. Harry’s little escort started to explain what was going on. Harry looked around as if calculating the exact width of the windows he wanted to shed light upon his royal presence and pretended to ignore the conversation, while listening as hard as he could.
            “…really has the shard of the Dark Lord in his soul,” Greyback was saying, with a little strut that Harry thought came from being able to tell the stay-at-homes something they didn’t know. “And there’s no doubt that he’s in control now.”
            “Why?” demanded a woman with a thin, unpleasant face. Harry thought he had sometimes seen her through his visions during the war, but he didn’t know her name. She had stood behind Malfoy and prodded him on to greater tortures, though, which meant Harry already disliked her.
            “Because he can speak to snakes,” Greyback said.
            He didn’t need to lower his voice impressively, but he did anyway. And that made more people than ever look at Harry. He stood taller and narrowed his eyes and hissed a little, for effect, enjoying the way they swayed back from him.
            Then he nodded and said, “Which of my faithful followers has been employing you for me? Was it—”
            “Me, my Lord,” said the smooth voice from behind him. “Had I suspected you still survived, I should have hastened to your side, joyously.”
            Harry turned around and watched the tall man coming around the corner, who knelt to him. Harry’s heart slammed a little against his ribcage. His suspicions had been confirmed.
            “Ah, Lucius,” he said, and reached out, putting his hand on Lucius’s brow in a gesture which he was free to call blessing if he wanted. “Old friend.”
*
Severus1snape: Thank you!
moodysavage: Well, now Harry has a different kind of audience, but at least they escaped that much.
CareLessLover: Thank you!
SP777: Broke things!
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An Image of Lethe