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Deconversion	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 23338 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 9
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Chapter Twenty-One—Darkness Like a Hollow Belly

            Harry halted the minute they stepped onto the Dark paths and turned his head back and forth. He could hear the others ahead of him, since he had been the last one through the portal, and there was the shimmering trail of light in front of them that was safe to walk, Draco guiding them along at the tip of it.

            But still, something was different. Something was wrong enough to bring the white serpent on his shoulder hissing into alertness. He sniffed the air with his tongue darting back and forth so fast that Harry wondered if he was actually smelling anything or only trying to intimidate potential enemies that might be watching them.

            Then he said, Something is wrong, brother.

            Harry turned his head, but could still see nothing, only the darkness stretching away on all sides, and the light ahead of them, and Bulstrode’s and Parkinson’s backs as they crowded along after Draco. Can you tell what?

            Ahead of him, Parkinson stiffened as though just hearing him speak Parseltongue was a problem for her, but didn’t turn her head.

            No. The snake sniffed and sniffed again, then rested his head against Harry’s ear as if to whisper. Only that something has changed from the last time we passed this way. As though someone had left a rotting corpse in a field of flowers.

            Harry had stopped being surprised about what the snake knew; he could draw on Harry’s emotions and memories for the metaphors he came up with, and almost certainly was. He broke into a trot, ducking between Parkinson and Bulstrode with barely a murmur of apology, and came up beside Draco. “The white serpent thinks something is wrong,” he said quietly.

            “In what way?” Draco didn’t turn and didn’t stop walking. Harry bristled for a moment, then remembered the things that were probably watching them from the shadows and made himself relax.

            “He doesn’t really know.” Looking at the side of Draco’s face made it easier for Harry to concentrate on speaking English instead of Parseltongue, and not just because Draco was human. “A change in the scent marks it, though.”

            Draco nodded, and at that moment, the patch of light in which they stood and which flowed ahead of them went out. Draco stopped immediately, arms spread for balance and to prevent anyone getting past, and Harry took up the same posture, grunting only a little when Bulstrode and then Parkinson slammed into his back.

            “What is going on?” Bulstrode hissed, and poked Harry. He thought Parkinson would have done the same thing, except she probably didn’t want to touch him.

            “A trap,” Draco said, his voice a solemn echo from what sounded like walls closing in. “The Unspeakables must have been able to pinpoint which of the Dark paths I took into the Department. I didn’t really think they could do that.”

            “I told you that attacking this way was a stupid idea,” Parkinson began.

            Draco cut her off with nothing more than a cough, but Parkinson must be more attuned to his body language than Harry was. She shut up. “You should have objected harder, then,” Draco said. “We’re here now, and we need to figure out what they did and fight it, not bicker among ourselves.”

            Thick silence, and then Bulstrode said, “He’s right, Pansy. Listen. I’ll try a spell that’s supposed to amplify our hearing in case a patient cries out.” She murmured something Harry didn’t know.

            Harry heard a pulsing heartbeat in the next second, and then two others, and then a fourth. He winced a little, hoping that Bulstrode wouldn’t need to maintain the spell for long. At this rate, he would hear the thoughts crackling through Parkinson’s brain and get in an argument with her that, as Draco had told her, they couldn’t afford.

            The white serpent swing his head back and forth—Harry could feel him moving although not see him—and then said, The left. It’s coming from the left.

            Of the path? Harry asked, since he couldn’t tell a difference in the sound one way or the other.

            Yes.

            Harry repeated that aloud to the others, and when Parkinson asked how the snake could know, since snakes didn’t have ears, Harry felt able to only shrug and say, “He used mine. He uses my memories to communicate and my magic to exist. I trust him if he says that something is off in that particular direction.”

            “He may not know for certain,” Draco said, his voice echoing until Harry winced, “but it’s the best lead we have.” Harry heard him shuffling until he faced in the right direction, and then he did something quick and powerful with his magic, something Harry felt as a breeze along his skin, a taste of metal in his mouth, a flickering odor in his nose.

            A pinpoint of light appeared ahead of him. No, that wasn’t right, Harry thought, squinting. A pinpoint of darker darkness, one that turned the blackness around them into radiant shadows because they couldn’t compete with it. Floating, it darted from side to side, and revealed the country that lay beyond the path.

            It was nothing Harry could cope with or remember in its entirety later. There was a sweep of dark downs, he thought, black grass tumbling down to a black glass river, and there was jet and obsidian panting off to the side, and there was the pair of enormous eyes that focused on him and memories of a thousand years passing in a second—

            But it let them see the far more ordinary shape of a ward stretching off to the side, and the way that it coiled on the path in front of Draco’s feet. One more step, and he might have fallen into it. The vanishing of the light had probably been more a warning than anything else, Harry thought. He stroked the white serpent’s neck and hissed reassurance and praise, and the snake swayed gently back and forth.

            Of course I am wonderful. I am a snake.

            Draco nodded. “They located the path, and they knew we had to pass along it.” He turned to Harry. “Of course, they didn’t know that we had already found other paths that lead to and from the Department of Mysteries. Take us to the one that you conquered in snake form.”

            Harry stared for a moment at Draco, waiting for him to say that he was joking. But Draco’s gaze was steady, and he reached out a moment later and put his hand on Harry’s arm, rubbing back and forth.

            So it was up to Harry to open his mouth, and speak.

            “I don’t know how to get there from here,” he said. “I know that you can rip open the air between the paths, but I don’t know how to do that.”

            Draco gestured, and the little ball of darkness that had made it possible for them to see by way of enhanced shadow disappeared. Then he moved towards Harry. Harry turned to face him, wondering if he wanted to avoid having Bulstrode and Parkinson see what he was going to do.

            Hands came to rest on either side of Harry’s face. Draco leaned forwards until Harry could feel his breath directly on his collarbone, and shook Harry’s head gently back and forth.

            “The first time I did it, I didn’t know, either,” Draco whispered. “The point is not what you know, but what you can do.”

            Harry shoved irritably at him. “Don’t give me platitudes,” he hissed, knowing all the while that two pairs of eager ears were listening. “You have to realize that I don’t have the experience you do. Yes, that thing in your lab showed me that I could have the talent to find new paths, but I don’t know how to exercise it.”

            “This is in your blood,” Draco said. “Like the Parseltongue. Or at least the potential is there. Being a Dark wizard isn’t so much about knowledge, or so much about talent, or so much about intelligence. It’s about will.”

            “So I should just take the step over the cliff and the air will magically rearrange itself so that I can fly?” Harry snapped.

            “Yes.”

            Harry shut his eyes and spent a moment reminding himself what Draco was: a Dark wizard who was utterly convinced that the risks he took were justified, or could be justified, and who could absorb the losses he took from those risks without blinking. Harry knew he wasn’t that kind of person. He worried for his snakes, he worried for his friends, and now he worried for Draco.

            What about yourself? asked the white snake in hissing silence, sliding around Harry’s throat and coiling his head thoughtfully until Harry felt the scales on the snake’s chin against his ear. Do you not consider that the largest risk would be to you?

            Yes, of course, Harry said, reaching up and touching his back. But if I died, what would happen to you? What would happen to Draco and his friends?

            Trust him. He thinks you can do this. Do it.

            The advice was the kind that Harry had thought the white serpent would give, and he wanted to sigh at the unfairness of it. Unfairness, because in the end he knew there was nothing else to do and he was going to do it.

            He opened his eyes and stepped forwards, clenching his hands around Draco’s arms. Draco caught his gaze—Harry felt that even though he couldn’t see it in the darkness—and clutched back.

            “I’ll try,” Harry said quietly. “If I don’t come back in five minutes, though, I want you to retreat.” He hesitated, then said, “Promise me that you’ll try to rescue Ron and Hermione if I die?”

            “Of course,” Draco said, the sound of his voice telling Harry what a wide grin his mouth had split into. “It’s not just about rescuing them because they’re your friends, you know. The Unspeakables have made this personal with their threats and their attempts to keep us out. We’ll deprive them of something they want for the sheer joy of doing it.” He paused, then added, “But you won’t die.”

            Harry squeezed Draco’s hands, struggled with saying something more, and in the end released his wrists and backed away. He couldn’t say that he loved him, not yet, and Draco already knew Harry wanted him and depended on him. That would have to be enough.

            Humans, said the white snake, with a sigh that probably began at the tip of his tail.

            “Thank you,” Harry said, snapped, to Draco, and then turned around and closed his eyes, reaching towards the path and the memory of what had happened to him there. He felt again the scales flowing across his body, saw the swaying heads of the Runespoor-basilisk, and felt the crushing coils he had employed to get his way.

            None of that was the same as actually seeing the path stretching across the darkness, of course, or knowing the destination, and the longer he stood there with his face prickling with the sweat of effort and the darkness sitting unresponsive in front of him, the more Harry wondered if he would just die of embarrassment instead.

            You’re a Parselmouth, the white serpent whispered. You can make snakes to guard and befriend you and fly you down stairs. What else can you do?

            Harry extended one hand in front of him, fighting to hold it steady, because abruptly all the magic and power in his body were rushing along that limb. He snapped his fingers out, and felt the snake grow and drip from them, made of magic like flowing water.

            The soft light that emerged with the snake’s scales made Parkinson gasp. Harry opened his eyes and saw the gold-green serpent in front of him, scales as dark as jade, the threads of gold glowing on its sides. It looked back at Harry and extended an obedient tongue.

            Lead me to the path, Harry hissed at it, and wondered if it would know what he was talking about merely from hearing the words. But it should, when the white serpent understood him. Why not this one?

            He shoved a little more magic into it, aiming for comprehension and obedience, just in case.

            The snake paused as though listening to words Harry hadn’t spoken, and then turned and began to draw a complicated loop with its body in the air. Parkinson was saying something, but Harry didn’t listen, not when he could watch the snake create a pattern as lovely as this. His eyes trailed the swirls of light, the afterimages, not the living animal.

            And those patterns were a map. Harry reached out, and his free hand lingered over them and opened them. There were long skirts of darkness falling away from them, and the skirts became steps as Harry watched. The light carved and opened the darkness, and Harry moved forwards.

            The snake still sketched in front of him, and this time Harry could see the three shadows that would become the three heads of the Runespoor-basilisk. He called out a greeting, and the snake turned towards him with a hiss that sounded resigned. I knew you would come back.

            Harry smiled, and leaped through time and space and darkness to get to the path he had conquered, a new pulse beating in the back of his throat. This was where Draco’s love of risk came from.

            A place that Harry could join him in, if he wanted to.

*

            Draco stood there even when Harry and his snake made of light disappeared and Millicent and Pansy were snapping questions at him, because he wasn’t afraid and because he wanted to savor that last sight of Harry.

            He’d stepped, he’d leaped, and then he’d flown, green-gold lights orbiting him and the snake still stretching out as steadily from his hand as the northern star, pointing the way. Draco rubbed the back of his head and smiled.

            “Draco. Are you paying attention?”

            Draco turned back towards Pansy. “I am,” he said. “And you know what you promised. That you would try to get along with Harry if he had to shapeshift to save our lives. Well, he had to the last time he went on this path. That means that I’m not going to listen to your fears now.”

            Harry had taken the light with him, and Draco wanted to conserve his strength in case he needed it, so he didn’t conjure another dark ball. That didn’t matter, though, not when he could hear Pansy’s jaw clamping shut.

            Millicent said, a moment later, calm and neutral, “You do expect him to overcome this snake and come back, then?”

            Draco nodded in her direction, realized the inadequacy of that before Millicent could remind him, and said, “Yes, I do. He conquered the path once before, and his gift is the finding and identification of new Dark paths. There’s no reason that it should fail him now, one of the first times he’s used it.”

            Millicent sighed. “But the first time one does something is fraught with risks of its own, Draco. Do you remember that?”

            Draco smiled wryly. “I keep myself in touch with new risks and try to learn new things for a reason, Millicent. Yes, I remember being a novice. And I assure you that there is no reason for me to distrust Harry or think he’ll weaken.” He turned to face the direction Harry had disappeared again. Shimmering afterimages and floating balls of light still cut his eyes there, so deep was the surrounding darkness; he couldn’t forget the direction even if he tried.

            Pansy said something else about how much she hated waiting for rescue. Draco didn’t turn a hair.

            He had come for Harry in St. Mungo’s and he had taught him the basics of Dark magic. And then they had saved each other in the Department of Mysteries. He was convinced that this was just a case of Harry repaying the favor.

*

            You don’t know where you’re going.

            I know where the path leads, Harry said, and set his feet on the back of the Runespoor-basilisk. He was convinced that he could make it without changing this time, but that would still mean riding the creature, since he didn’t know the exact nature of the path through walking it.

            The snake hissed, and the three heads swayed back and forth like stalks of grain. You don’t know where you’re going in the physical sense. And you want to bring someone else with you, someone who is not part of you in the way that snakes are. That is not permitted.

            Harry smiled. Do you wish to debate with me on power, then? Since I don’t play by the rules. He stepped back and concentrated as hard as he could, while his arms grew thinner, some of the flesh melting into scales and muscle.

            Two more snakes grew there, swaying from his forearms, the spot where he would have taken the Dark Mark if he was ever a Death Eater, and reached towards the Runespoor. The three necks tucked down, and the central one sketched a hasty pattern of submission, turning its head upside-down and towards the ground. Yes, yes, I know, I understand! You can come with me.

            Harry pulled back with a smile. He had infused the fangs of those particular vipers with a venom that would kill even a creature as large as the Runespoor-basilisk, and it had smelled that, so sharp was its tongue.

            When he concentrated, the snakes disappeared, but he stepped onto the back with a direct stare to remind the Runespoor-basilisk that they could come back. He received a sullen hiss for it, but the creature didn’t move, either.

            Now he only had to bring his friends here.

            Allies? Perhaps best to call them that, said the white serpent, who had wrapped around Harry’s neck and forehead and was now draping casual coils onto his arms. He was longer than Harry remembered, but he didn’t have the time to worry about that right now.

            Perhaps it’s best, Harry agreed, and then reached out and envisioned a long snake that rolled away from his feet like a carpet, flat scales and limp tongue and skinned head, and across all the non-miles of darkness and the paths that he hadn’t walked and the ones that no one had mastered, and into the tiny slice of the path where Draco and the rest stood.

            Come! he called in Parseltongue, and repeated it in English, though with hissing cadences that he thought would probably frighten Parkinson. “Come! We don’t have much time.” The Unspeakables would realize that their trap hadn’t worked soon and try to capture them on Draco’s path some other way, Harry thought.

*

            Draco tossed one glance over his shoulder as the air in front of them began to glow and rip, and the purple light revealed the way that Pansy’s face had gone pale. He touched her arm. “These are not werewolves,” he whispered. “And if Harry can speak English, at least part of him must still be human.”

            Pansy snorted weakly. “How reassuring,” she said, but moved through the gap with him. Millicent had already gone ahead, and Draco wondered idly what Harry’s reaction would be when he saw her. Hurt that Draco hadn’t come first?

            But when he saw the carpet they walked on, Draco decided that he didn’t care about that. He had to keep up light, casual chatter with Pansy about how many artifacts they would steal from the Department of Mysteries and what they would sell them for, and guide her when she nearly stumbled from keeping her eyes shut.

            “How can you stand it?” she asked him in his ear just before they rounded the last, rumpled scale corner and saw Harry and his snakes standing ahead. “He’s not human, and surely even someone like you must balk at sleeping with someone who can twine around you and crush you in bed.”

            “It’s exciting,” Draco said simply.

            Pansy pulled back and stared at him, then snorted. “I believe it, when you say it,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that I would believe it if anyone else said it.”

            “Luckily, no one else has the same rights to Harry,” Draco said, and then they stepped around the corner and he saw Harry waiting for them.

            Draco’s tongue promptly clung to the roof of his mouth, and he couldn’t have said whether that was desire or surprise or simply the shock of seeing Harry like that, snakes twined around him, sparks falling from his hair and his eyes, the white snake dancing, fully comfortable with himself and his Dark magic.

            “You can have him,” Pansy said into Draco’s ear, and shoved past him, climbing rapidly up the flattened snake and onto the back of the large one. She kept her back turned, but Draco could see the shudders that worked through it.

            Not even for Pansy’s sake—and they had been friends for a long time—could Draco make himself hurry this moment, though. He let his eyes take in everything, the black-silver scales Harry wore and the way he moved and swayed, and then smiled and came up the snake-carpet in a few easy bounds.

            “I told you that you could find your way to this path,” he said softly, taking Harry’s hand.

            Harry smiled at him. “I know. You always had more faith in me than I had in myself.” Then he paused and tilted his head to the side. “Well. More faith in me since my Parseltongue started developing, anyway.”

            He sounded as if he wanted to forget about what had happened between them when they were still children, and Draco was more than happy to gratify that whim. He kissed Harry, leaning towards him, and Harry sighed and opened his mouth.

            “We should move.” Millicent, near the front of the giant snake and its swaying heads. “I only agreed to give you a distraction, Draco, not come with you into the Department of Mysteries. Are you going to get on with it and let me use this distraction, or not? It doesn’t get the less dangerous for waiting.”

            Draco pulled away from Harry with a little sigh, and spent a moment smoothing Harry’s hair down. He looked up at Draco with panting, parted lips and a dazed face, the slits in his eyes widening until Draco thought he could see the abyss where the original Darkness came from.

            “Coming,” he said, and then bent down to whisper into Harry’s ear. “But not the way I wish I was.”

            Harry laughed, and touched his shoulder, and then turned around and gestured sharply towards the giant snake’s mouths, his hands moving as if he were picking up reins. The snake started and moved hard to the side, and then they were gliding around the twists and turns of a path Draco could barely glimpse but found impressive.

            He’s laughing. At something I said. Draco leaned his head on top of Harry’s and put his arms around him and stood there, body automatically adjusting to the way the giant snake looped and twisted, feeling the slight, cool brush of the white serpent against his chin.

            This is a life I could be happy to have, without risk. If only it was like this all the time.

            But it wouldn’t be, which meant they had to go out there and win the battle for such moments again, and again, and again.

            I can do that. I can happily do that.

*

            moodysavage: Thank you! Yes, Draco’s friends might not understand it, but Draco and Harry really do care for each other, strangeness and all.

            Talltree-san: Thanks! Yes, that’s exactly it. The Ministry also thinks that they can lure Harry in using his friends.

            SP777: Yes, it’s meant to be a bit freaky.

            Seiren: Thank you! I appreciate it, and I’m glad you liked it.

            TaintedSensibly: Thank you! This relationship has been a ton of fun to write about, really.
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