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The Same Species As Shakespeare	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16108 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Chapter Twenty-Five�Valiant
and So Cunning

�� Draco kept
alert as they Apparated in short, shaky jumps, his body limp and unresisting,
as if the pain curses that the imposter had cast on him had taken all the fight
out of him. It was all he could do for now, at least until they came to a place
he recognized.

�� They didn�t.
For one moment they were on downs, with a stream of clouds blowing over them,
southwest into a brilliant sky; then they were in a green meadow dominated by
an orchard of apple trees; then they were in a shimmering flat land honeycombed
with lanes and ditches. Draco knew that the constant Apparitions would throw
off pursuit. There were spells that could sometimes track the presence of a
single person�s blood or wand, but they needed some time to work uninterrupted
by yet another leap. The main reason that this technique wasn�t used more often
to evade that kind of pursuit was simply that most wizards didn�t have the
magical strength to use it and keep using it.

�� But he does.

�� Letting his
head slump sideways so that the stranger had to take some more of his weight,
Draco let his gaze linger on the other�s face. A perfect copy of his own, the
way he had seen it so often in mirrors and Daily
Prophet photographs announcing the construction of some new house. The
relaxed, contemplative mouth, the shining, restless eyes, and the way the blond
hair curled around the edges of his forehead, over his ears, down almost to his
cheek.

�� He�s taken all that I treasure about myself
and made it into his own. I hate the idea of that.

�� But Draco
paused when they reached another Apparition landing spot, this one hotter than
the rest�so hot that Draco wondered for a moment if the man hadn�t Apparated
them out of Britain altogether�and sweat formed along that perfect brow. The
stranger snarled a little and cast a spell that wiped away the sweat.

�� As they
leaped again, whirling into darkness, Draco frowned slightly. Yes, that was a
spell he would have cast on himself, though generally before he arrived at a party or interview and had to deal with it
marring his forehead. But the attacker had reacted as though he thought the
existence of sweat an imposition.

�� As if he
had really believed the fa�ade that Draco tried to present to the world, the
idea that he never sweated.

�� Slim as the
evidence was to base such a far-ranging conclusion on, Draco absolutely and utterly
believed what he thought of in the next moment.

�� He isn�t really imitating me. He�s not imitating
the way I behave in private moments�and that�s one reason it�s taken him so
long to perfect the imitation. He�s basing his copy on the picture I present to
the world, the perfection that he probably lost his heart to.

�� Draco could
not really blame anyone for losing their heart to the image he tried to
cultivate, though he could have wished the loss would manifest in slavish
devotion like Harry�s original obsession and not lunacy that insisted on
replacing him.

�� But that means I have weaknesses and flaws
and�and strengths, maybe, too�that he doesn�t know about. It required a
heroic effort for Draco to decide that something he�d tried to hide was a
strength, because if it had been surely he would have displayed it to others,
but maybe it could be true if he
looked at it critically. I still might be
able to surprise him.

�� If only because
this meant that his enemy wouldn�t have such a hopelessly great advantage over
him after all, Draco found himself in favor of this insight. And determined not
to show it, as time passed and they leaped rapidly from spot to spot, rapidly
enough to make him seasick.

*

�� Lucius took
a deep breath and released the metal spiral that balanced on one of its ends in
the middle of a red mist conjured from his blood. If he had mastered the spell
that he needed to find Draco and the imposter, the spiral would balance without
prompting and rotate, stirring the mist up into a boiling steam.

�� The metal
shuddered and pivoted twice�and then fell over. The mist at once scattered, the
way that the house-elves did when they knew Lucius was in a mood.

�� Lucius took
a deep breath and clenched his fist, opening the shallow slash that ran across
his palm. Of course, he took care that the blood he shed that way should fall
into the flat dish he had ready for it. No sense in wasting perfectly good
blood.

�� You knew this would be difficult, he
reminded himself. And though you know
Draco better than he knows himself, you don�t know him perfectly. Still less do
you know the man whose mind you�re trying to comprehend absolutely. Add those
difficulties to the problem of trying to shed your own sense of self, and it�s
remarkable that you�ve got as far as you have.

�� He half-shook
his head, then took up his wand and began to conjure. The red blood-mist crept
again out of the dish. The blood would provide the connection between him and
Draco, and, theoretically, if he
could master the spell, it would enable him to hone in on two nearly identical
minds�Draco and the imposter�but then determine that one of them was not his
son, due to the blood connection, so he could focus on the other. Once he knew
that second man perfectly, mind and impulses and emotions and ideas, then he
could find him.

�� But he must
suppress his own sense of self in exactly the right moment, so that he could
seek the pair out�for which he would need his intellect, the sense of Lucius,
to interpret the blood magic�and yet locate the man�by becoming him.

�� If Lucius
had not been confident he knew his son and that the imposter was just a
variation on him, he never would have tried this.

�� He sighed,
and began again.

*

�� If I had not used the hair from
Pettigrew, this might be a good use for it.

�� But Severus
did not listen to his own thoughts as his fingers flew over ladle and stirring
rod, star-shaped crystal and scrapings from the hoof of a white stag, crushed
powder from purple iris and white iris, feathers from a black swan and a
blackbird.

�� These were
the tools of his trade, and he fancied that he wielded them every bit as
effectively as an Auror wielded his wand. And more effectively, if that Auror
was Potter.

�� He was
creating a potion that he would have ruined if he had stopped and hesitated, if
he had thought about it. Instead, he
tossed the ingredients in, and when he might have forgotten what came next, his
muscles remembered. So many things tossed into the potion, so many bubbles
conquered and sent back into the liquid, so many explosions averted, so many
moments passing winged and then leaping over his head and losing their wings as
they fell into the abyss.

�� (Lily would have said something like that.
Maybe he had adopted the image from her, never knowing it. Maybe he had heard
the image from a poem she read him, during those days when they had lain with their
heads together on the grass in the sunshine, and Lily had a book on her lap�she
always had a book, it was the only way in which she and Granger were alike�and read
in a dreamy voice, whilst Severus dozed with his eyes shut).

�� Moments and
moments and moments, and then came the moment when the potion thudded in its
cauldron like a living heart and the magic paused and looked at Severus expectantly,
because this was the addition to the potion that must be made by human heart
and will, and the part where it fell apart for so many brewers.

�� Severus
closed his eyes.

�� And to him
there came the moment when he crouched above the remains of the Potters� house
and realized that the Dark Lord had not kept his word, had not spared Lily in
his hunt for vengeance on the child who was marked to defeat him.

�� (You were a fool to think that he would. What
was a promise to someone such as him? No, do not call him someone. He was not a
person by the end, everything that made him human eaten by one snake or
another, ambition or pride or greed or vanity or hate).

�� He had seen
her, waving red hair as dark as the spilled blood in the moonlight�for though
the Dark Lord might have killed her without a mark, she had been hit and her
arm partially crushed in the backlash of the rebounded Killing Curse, and so
the blood flowed from a wound high on her shoulder. But it could not hurt her,
Severus knew that. She had been dead by the time the wound was inflicted.

�� So he told
himself, and so he had gone on telling himself down the years, so that he would
not have to live with the nightmare of thinking she had suffered before she
died.

�� But now he
forced himself to remember that pain, and to dwell on the anguish that Lily
must have suffered when she stood before her baby, trying to fend off the Dark
Lord with the power of a sacrifice that she could not have known would work,
not for certain. Lily had always
wanted other people to think she was certain, but she doubted often; it was a
great flaw in her character, to lie and pretend to absolute assurance when she
was in an agony of doubt.

�� Severus
thought, and he thought of the woman who was not alive any longer, and he
thought of the part he had played in making that come true, and he bound it up
with the bitter regret and hatred that had come from his killing of his
greatest mentor and the fact that even that
had not been enough to earn him the high place in the world he had always
craved, and he flung all that emotion together into the potion waiting for him
in the cauldron, joining potential and reality.

�� The liquid
roared, and Severus was lifted from his feet by the force of the explosion. He
expected it, this time, and made no effort to dodge as he was flung into the
wall. By the pressure of heat and air against his face and chest, he knew how
strong the potion would be.

�� It was
mighty. He almost lost consciousness, and when he looked again, the potion was
perfect, the shade of a ripe tomato, settled back into a ball of shining liquid
that looked almost solid. Severus felt his lips move in a smile, and his
fingers feathered through his hair, gathering the blood, whilst his tongue collected
blood off his lips in turn.

�� There were
few Potions masters who could boast that they had created a perfect Curse
Potion. Either they didn�t have the right sort of wild abandon during the
creation process, or they couldn�t summon the violent hatred needed to power
it.

�� But Severus
had never doubted his ability. This was one thing, he thought as he floated the
cooled ball of potion out of the cauldron and then surrounded it with a large,
circular glass vial that he kept for such purposes, that leading a life of
self-loathing was good for.

�� The Curse
Potion would cause a fate exactly as bitter for the person it struck as the
emotion that Severus had invested it with.

�� Severus thought
that a fitting fate for the man who had dared to harm Draco, who had wounded
Potter, and who, if he succeeded in killing one or the other, would ensure
Severus was subjected to the endless wailing lamentations of the other for all
eternity.

�� Of course,
he needed to be close to the target to use the Curse Potion. And that meant he
needed to go and find Lucius, who would doubtless be preparing some heroic
measure to locate Draco and his follower.

�� Severus
preferred to leave the heroics to others.

�� (Do you? asked Lily�s voice in his memory.
But you wanted others to honor you for being a hero so badly.)

�� I know better now, Severus answered.

�� (But you wanted to be a hero for me.)

�� And you are dead.

*

�� Harry and
Ron had no trouble gaining access to the Manor. Neither Lucius Malfoy nor Snape
were there to stop them, as if they didn�t care that anyone else entered now
that the imposter had broken the wards for the last time and taken Draco, and
so the Aurors were swarming all over Draco�s bedroom, casting spells that would
identify the magic last used there, discussing different tracking strategies,
and standing in knots and whispering to each other.

�� Of course they are, Harry thought,
bitterly, crouching so that he could put one hand on the edge of the bed. There
was still an indentation in the pillows and blankets; he had known that Draco
slept in the same place every night, but he had never realized that it would
mark the place so permanently. Now that
it�s too late.

�� And then he
shook his head and shook out bitterness with it, because that wouldn�t help him
track Draco, and everything that wouldn�t was useless right now. He turned to
Ron. �Has anyone discovered anything?�

�� Nothing,�
Ron admitted reluctantly. �They still have no idea how he got through the
wards; he seems to have walked straight through, and so they can�t identify any
magic that way.� He spun his wand in his hands and stared at the conjured bed
Harry had slept in as if his carelessness seemed more real to him, now that he
was at the scene of the abduction. Harry hoped it did, allowed himself to
entertain that vicious hope for one moment, and then thrust it as viciously
away, so that he had a chance to concentrate on what really mattered. �Harry�there�s
a good chance that we�ll never see him again. Even the tracking spells are
failing. They think the imposter must have taken him through multiple Apparitions.�

�� He�s
strong enough to do that, yes,� Harry said, distracted. His mind had returned
to the night that he confronted the imposter on the Manor�s grounds. His
breathing slowed as he contemplated it. Almost, almost, the man had perfectly imitated Draco. Harry might even have
succumbed to his seduction, because the image that faced him was so much like what
he wanted from Draco.

�� But he had
known the difference. And how?

�� The same way I knew the difference when the
imposter was committing lesser crimes.

�� He spun to
face the bed and strode up to it. Some of the Aurors fell back in shock,
startled by his decisive motions, and then two of them recognized him and scowled.
Harry heard more than one person ask, �What�s he doing here?� Doubtless they felt that Draco�s former conquest
shouldn�t be the one tracking him.

�� But who did
the saving didn�t matter nearly as much as the saving itself. Harry took a deep
breath and let his hands rest in the indentation Draco�s body had created
again. He had never done this before, and he was no expert in magical theory,
not like Hermione. He didn�t have the ideas to support or explain what he was
doing, only a vague hope.

�� But he had
always been able to sense the wood of Draco�s wood, and use it to differentiate
him from the imposter. No one had said so far that they�d found Draco�s wand in
the bedroom or anywhere else. The imposter had probably seized it, confident that
he�d make the deception faultless by using it after he killed Draco.

�� It remained
to be seen if Harry could track it.

�� Eyes closed,
he cast one of the tracking spells that was supposed to trace an Apparition and
concentrated as hard as he could on the silent song of the hawthorn wand whilst
he did so. Remember what it feels like.
See that pattern of vibrations in your mind. See the wood gleaming. You know
what it looks like. You know what it sounds like. You know the small notch near
the bottom that makes it press unevenly into your palm. You know it as well as
that imposter knows Draco. Come on!

�� But the
spell reached out uncertainly and then faltered, and Harry received no
impressions back from it. He heard someone laugh. He gritted his teeth and concentrated,
this time, on the feel of the wand alone. He had never tried to find it at a
distance, no, but there was no reason he couldn�t.
Ollivander had been vague when he identified the connection between the
woods of wands to Harry; it was less understood than the Priori Incantatem effect that had made his wand and Voldemort�s
brothers, being rarer. It might be capable of nothing, or anything. Harry chose
to believe the latter.

�� You handled this wand. You know it. And it
bonded to you, it was familiar to you, it was the wand you battled Voldemort
with. You can find it anywhere, across distances, the way you always knew when
Draco had entered a room just from the reactions of the other people in it,
just from the prickle of hair along your skin. You know the imposter took it.
You remember the song. You�

�� And there it was, the faintest prickling
from a direction that made no sense until Harry found he had opened his eyes
and whirled around to face it, pointing unhesitatingly with one finger at the
far wall. South and west, was the direction of his finger, and south and west,
the vibrations of the wand beat and sang faintly in his head.

�� The other
Aurors watched him, some of them raising their eyebrows, but for the moment no
one was trying to interrupt him. Harry took a few steps forwards, his nostrils
quivering, his body following the pull of his finger. He waited a moment to see
if the direction would change; if the imposter was undergoing multiple
Apparitions, then Harry�s finger might only indicate his present location.

�� But the
finger stayed firm for a minute, and so did the sense of the hawthorn wand�s
song. Harry took a deep breath and let it out again, his hand dropping and his
fist clenching. That�s it, then. I know I
can follow it, though I�ll have to use multiple Apparitions myself.

�� But it
meant that he would have to give up his plan for Ron to accompany him, because he
wasn�t strong enough to make that many leaps and take someone along.

�� I have to
go,� he told Ron. �Will you tell Kingsley that he should go southwest if he
doesn�t hear from me in a few hours? I�ll try to rescue Draco and bring him
back as soon as possible, but you know what that imposter�s like as a fighter.
I��

�� Are you mad?� Ron�s face was so pale that the
freckles stood out on it like blood on snow. �Hermione and Kingsley would both
never forgive me if I let you put yourself in danger like that! I�ll come with
you, Harry. And we should wait at least some time for Kingsley to be appraised
of the situation��

�� Harry shook
his head stubbornly. �I can�t wait for anyone,� he said. �The longer we wait,
the more likely that he�ll be hurt.� Ron still hesitated, and Harry�s voice
welled towards a shout, though he hadn�t meant to do so. But someone who stood
in the way of his rescuing Draco, even if innocently in the way, had to be
dealt with. �Ron, I have to. I�m the
only one who has enough magic and cares enough for Draco to rescue him��

�� Harry��

�� You are
wrong, Potter.�

�� Harry
snapped around. Snape stood in the doorway, his arms folded and his robes
flaring dramatically about him as always. This time, Harry was certain it had to
be a spell, because he was standing still. Behind him, Lucius Malfoy stood, his
lips set in a thin line that made Harry think he knew what the real source of
the difference between him and his son was, for all that they had such similar
faces. Draco would never let anyone see him looking like that. He was more controlled
than his father, though Lucius had had a longer lifetime of practice.

�� Why are
you here?� Ron snapped at Snape. Harry didn�t think he wanted to know so much
as he was happy to have someone to blame for a problem. �How did you know that
Harry had indentified a way to find the prat?�

�� I felt the
magic go through the wards.� Snape�s eyes sought Harry�s, and Harry could no
more look away from them than he could during those times when he hadn�t
finished his homework in Potions. �You can find him? Draco?�

�� Harry
nodded. �But I was telling Ron that I�d have to go alone, because it�ll be
multiple leaps, and��

�� And by the
time you get there, you�ll be too tired to fight.� Lucius pushed his way into
the room. Behind him was what looked like a large glass ball filled with red
liquid. Harry blinked at it, and then forgot about it as he looked at Lucius�s
face. All notion that he could deny the man a chance to go with them withered
and died when he saw the pinched edges of his expression. �I know the country
around Wiltshire. I know what lies to the southwest. I can give you Apparition coordinates
along that path, and we will go together.� The motion of his hand included
Snape, himself, Harry, and, surprisingly enough, Ron. �No other will I trust,�
he added, and flung a scornful glance at the room full of Aurors.

�� One of them
tried to intervene, but Ron spoke sharply to him and made him shut up. Harry,
his eyes fastened to Lucius�s, said, �And what happens if it turns out that one
of those Apparition points lies out of the main path we need to follow?�

�� Then you�ll
feel it, won�t you?� Lucius�s head came down like a wolf�s; his smile was a
wolf�s, too. �And you�ll be able to tell us to correct our course.�

�� Harry didn�t
pause before he nodded. Yes, this was better than he had hoped for. And it only
made sense to take allies along, and to conserve his strength for the moment
when he faced the imposter, because he was sure he would be the one who needed
to use his magic to defeat the genius madman.

�� He had to
use a lot of common sense, though, to subdue the part of himself that would
have liked to be Draco�s sole rescuer, charging heroically into the evil Dark
Lord�s lair and drawing him back to his feet, and saying�

�� And then he
remembered that he was in a room full of arguing Aurors who would probably try
to stop him if they knew what he was thinking, and his best friend watching him
expectantly, and a man who was concerned for his son.

�� And a man
who watched him mockingly, even now, with his Legilimency telling him exactly
what Harry was thinking.

�� Coughing,
Harry turned to Lucius and lowered his voice. �Can you lower the wards to let
us Apparate out and then raise them again to cage these fools? I don�t want to
take an army. He�ll hear us coming.�

�� For many
reasons,� Lucius murmured, �I would prefer not to take an army. Come, Mr.
Potter, Mr. Weasley, Severus.� And he leaned close to whisper a description of
the first set of Apparition coordinates.

�� Only later,
after they had Apparated twice across Wiltshire, did Harry start thinking about
why Lucius and Snape might not want
to bring an army.

�� And to
start looking suspiciously at the glass ball of red liquid that hovered behind
Snape�s shoulder.

�� And at
Snape�s narrow smile.

*

�� linagabriev:
While Narcissa will come more strongly into the story as it nears its final
chapters, the connection between the imposter and Narcissa is not necessarily
what you think it is.

�� Lucius was
trying to find the imposter, not hurt him.

�� Ron thought
he�d just try again the next day, when Draco might be more reasonable about
having protection.

�� And thanks!
Draco is getting closer to that point, though he�s not there yet.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Draco quite often sees Narcissa�but I can�t reveal more than that for right
now.

�� yun: Thank
you! I�m afraid there aren�t as many hints here as I planned out, but a few
characters have now said outright what their thoughts on the second Draco are,
and those thoughts are essentially correct.

�� Whitmore:
Afraid there will need to be better guesses!
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The Same Species As Shakespeare