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Easy as Falling	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 31246 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Five—Dark and Dangerous

            “And so you don’t really think Minister Tillipop is all that dangerous?” Harry leaned forwards to pour brandy into the glass that Draco had standing ready. At Draco’s glance, he shrugged and shook his head. “Briseis brought it and said it was tribute. I have no idea if she was joking or not. I didn’t want to ask.”

            “I can see why,” Draco murmured, holding the glass to his mouth as if to conceal a laugh. Harry leaned back this time, to more properly appreciate the expression on his face. Draco’s mouth was wonderfully mobile and pliant. “That woman terrifies me.”

            “More than I terrify you?” The question slipped out without Harry meaning it to. He winced and scrubbed a hand across his mouth. The chair he sat in promptly slipped around behind him and embraced him, rubbing against him as though that could make things better. Harry let his hands rest on the arms, not taking his gaze off Draco. He had asked the question, and that must mean that he wanted to hear the answer at some level.

            I could never be with someone as more than casual friends who was afraid of me. Maybe that’s why I want to know.

            Draco set the brandy glass down on the desk and leaned in himself, until his hair was brushing a few of the papers on Harry’s desk. “You think I fear you?” he whispered.

            “Yes,” Harry said. “Or that you could.” He thought of the way Blackthorne had knelt to him and the way Tillipop’s face had turned pale yesterday afternoon. Or was it the day before yesterday now? Harry was almost sure it was after midnight, but he hadn’t kept very good track of time ever since Draco showed up. “Lots of people have strange reactions to me.”

            “You haven’t hurt me,” Draco said. “You’ve allowed to me to watch things no one else was invited to witness. You’ve kissed me.” That was the smile Harry liked best, without the benefit of hiding from the wineglass, flashing out sweetly for a moment before dimming to a promising ember. “I’m not afraid of you.”

            Harry shut his eyes. “That was the answer I wanted to hear,” he murmured, not realizing until he said it how true that was.

            “Why?”

            Harry started, and his eyes popped open. Draco had stood up and circled around the desk. He stood in front of Harry’s chair, and reached past Harry’s head to rest his arms on the back. The chair helped, curving up like a serpent in two distinct places, letting Harry be caged. Harry swallowed, and something not like danger but as sweet as it was ran up his spine.

            “I wouldn’t want to kiss someone who was afraid of me,” Harry said, being utterly honest, even if it wasn’t the basis of every answer he could give. “It would turn my stomach. I could never be sure if they were with me because they wanted me, or because they were afraid of what would happen to them if they tried to walk away.”

            Draco laughed and swayed nearer, the chair rocking with the way he supported his weight. “Anyone who walked away from you, who gave up the chance to be near you, would be a fool,” he murmured, lips brushing near Harry’s throat. “Don’t let me be a fool.”

            “How can I stop you, if you’re determined?” Harry slid a hand up into Draco’s hair, along his neck, and Draco’s eyes fluttered dangerously as he tilted in.

            “You could stop me,” Draco said. “And not with your magic. By crooking a finger, by opening your mouth, by asking me.” He looked at Harry, eyes opening as slowly as though Harry had actually enchanted him.

            Harry’s breath caught at what he saw in those eyes. He had been sure that Draco wanted him, but he had thought it was more in the nature of wanting to bind him to their alliance. If things didn’t work out, Draco could back away and walk off without much regret, Harry thought. Harry wanted him, too, but it wasn’t like he would try and dictate the terms on which Draco would stay with him.

            But the savage desire in Draco’s eyes had nothing to do with the cool emotion he’d imagined.

            Harry reached up, hesitantly, further still, and let one hand encircle Draco’s throat as the other lay along his ear. “You really want me, don’t you?” he whispered.

            “Yes,” Draco said.

            “And it doesn’t feel dangerous to you?” Harry moved up a little in the chair. It practically forced him to move that way, and all the while, in Harry’s ear, came a sound like something purring approvingly. That was a little unnerving. He hadn’t realized how intimately involved Hogwarts was going to be in every decision he made.

            “It feels exciting,” Draco said. His voice was breathless, and caught at the end of the words, and he looked at Harry with eyes like falling stars.

            Given that, what could Harry do but kiss him?

*

            Draco closed his eyes, not because he wanted to, but because the relief and appreciation and desire and joy were overwhelming and he had to experience them as well as the sensation of Harry’s lips sliding against his and tongue gently probing.

            Yes.

            Then Draco let himself give way and fall down into Harry’s lap, and he kissed back, his tongue darting out and probing at Harry’s in turn before withdrawing into his mouth so that Harry could kiss him thoroughly.

            It was ridiculous and slick and warm and throbbing, and soon Draco was shifting to ease the sensations in his groin, thrusting down a little. Harry lifted his hips and thrust back as though he had only just now discovered he could. For a few seconds, Draco thought they might slide out of the chair, but then he felt it shifting and transforming around them, holding them together.

            Hogwarts wouldn’t let them fall.

            Harry thrust back up again, capturing Draco’s attention, and Draco no longer cared if all the portraits in Hogwarts were watching them. He forced Harry’s head back a little and grasped and tugged some of those gorgeous black strands. Harry yielded, staring up at him with glazed eyes and biting his lip. That just made Draco want to bite it for him, and he bent down and started to do that, sharply enough that Harry shuddered and clawed at his hips.

            Then something rang. Draco’s first thought was that he had knocked the brandy decanter or glasses to the floor, and how much he absolutely didn’t fucking care about that.

            But then Harry hissed, and a gentle but inexorable force lifted Draco off him. Draco stood on shaky legs, leaning against Harry’s desk, and tucked his hand against his face, staring as Harry popped to his feet.

            “You weren’t enjoying it?” Draco asked. Despite the ringing sound that he was beginning to suspect wasn’t anything as harmless as either broken glass or his blood in his ears, he had to ask.

            Harry looked at him, and his face softened in a way that made Draco want to preen. He would bet that no one else had got to see this since Harry became a Dark Lord. At least, no one else had better have got to see it.

            “It isn’t that I don’t want you,” Harry said quietly. “But that ward makes it clear that someone is attacking the grounds of Hogwarts, and I’ve got to go.”

            He stood up and extended his hands to the wall, whispering something Draco couldn’t hear. A tunnel opened in the stones, blocks melting and flowing into new positions. The tunnel was perfectly proportioned to Harry’s body, Draco noticed, leaving just enough room above his head that he could be comfortable running down it.

            Harry smiled at him and started to duck out, but Draco took a step forwards and spoke before he could regret it. “Take me with you.”

            Harry blinked at him. “But you don’t have the magic to defend yourself. And it might be some of our political enemies at the wards, and they would see you.”

            Draco clenched his jaw. Yes, that did matter, didn’t it? “Then tell me where I can watch.”

            Harry cocked his head and his eyes went vague. Then another tunnel opened in the stone of the far wall, near the fireplace, leading down in a corkscrew that Draco thought was probably safer than a staircase. “The school will take you to a place,” Harry told him, and then turned and ducked into his own tunnel. It closed behind him before Draco could even think about changing his own mind, and the stones began to tremble and ripple beneath Draco’s feet, urging him with a gentle, tickling sensation towards the other wall.

            Draco scowled at the desk and the spilled brandy and walked down the tunnel, running his fingers through his disheveled hair. I hope that Harry makes the fuckers pay for interrupting us, he thought.

*

            Harry followed the tunnel under stone, beneath earth, and wasn’t really surprised to come up near the shore of the lake. The floor of the tunnel had become damp a short time ago. Once he was on the grass, he turned his head from side to side, focusing his eyes on the shimmering wall of wards that rose just beyond the grounds of Hogwarts, with a few detours to encompass the Forbidden Forest.

            There was a line of wizards there, wearing dark robes so that it was hard to see them from a short distance. It would have been impossible to see them from Hogwarts. Harry smiled grimly. But his chosen stronghold could feel them.

            Harry thought they were probably Aurors, but they all wore long hooded cloaks with their faces covered, so he couldn’t be sure. He walked towards them, flexing and snapping his elbows in front of him, rolling his shoulders to settle himself after the unexpected end of his encounter with Draco. His excitement had already turned into a different kind of excitement, though.

            “Hello,” he called, watching them jerk and start. He wondered if they hadn’t expected him to appear to confront them at all, in which case they were stupid and he didn’t have much to worry about, or if they had only expected to see him after they began flinging spells at the wards. “Did you have a message for me?”

            Silence, for so long that Harry thought he wouldn’t get a response. Then one of the wizards moved up to the wards and reached out to brace his hands on the air where they shimmered. Harry blinked, then shrugged a little. It was his funeral.

            The wizard howled a second later and pulled back smoking palms, staring at them. Harry rolled his head when all the others stared at him. “I have to put up signs telling people not to touch the wards now?” he asked. “I thought that was covered in basic Ministry training.”

            Half the line shuffled, making it clear that they had come from the Ministry. Harry glanced back and forth, estimating the numbers. About forty or fifty, he thought, and some of them probably Unspeakables instead of Aurors, or Hit Wizards, given their lack of reaction to his taunt. That could be bad, particularly if they had some of the artifacts the Unspeakables studied with them.

            Of course, Harry didn’t plan to allow them to get a foothold on Hogwarts soil, and he didn’t plan to let them attack, either. He stood there, smiling, in front of them, but he also dug his power down into the earth. He hadn’t bothered to spread wards beyond the actual perimeters of Hogwarts, which marked the limits of the place where he was bonded as an avatar, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t command the ground there in other ways.

            The wizard who had been burned stepped back and made some sort of gesture to the others. They all drew their wands at once.

            Harry snorted mildly. So that was how it was. They were going to attack the wards with brute force and hope that was enough to bring them down.

            It was possible that a coordinated blow like that could hurt him. Harry wasn’t sure. At the very least, it would hurt Hogwarts, and undo some of the work that Harry had been laboring for.

            And he wasn’t about to let that happen.

            The simplest way was to keep them from ever being coordinated at all, and so Harry dug his fingers down at his sides and worked the tendrils of his power that he had already sunk into the earth beyond the wards. They writhed in response, and as the lips of his opponents started to move in their incantations, Harry brought his hands up in a thunderous clap over his head.

            The earth under the wizards’ feet rippled and shook, furrows opening in it as though enormous tree roots were rising. The wizards fell and rolled, and Harry didn’t think any of them got hurt except maybe by accident, from the falling clods of soil and any rocks that might have been buried there. But it sure as hell disrupted their attempts to stand firm and act all together.

Harry brought his hands back together and clasped them in front of him, his fingers interlocking. His enemies were fighting their way back to their feet, and Harry could see that their hoods had fallen away. There were some familiar faces there, people who wouldn’t be deterred by falling down, who would only be enraged and strike at him harder.

Harry smiled and whirled his hands out, unlocking them hard enough for him to feel the sting of slight scratches on his skin.

            The earth erupted again, this time with the tendrils of his magic opening out like a mass of rearing snakes. The wizards who had stood up went flying again, and this time, Harry raised his hands and fluttered his fingers, moving in a precise pattern that he hadn’t planned out. His magic knew what to do, and that was enough for him.

            The dirt that had flown up came raining back down, clumping and gathering together, forming into piles. Each one buried a wizard at the center of a nice little heap, their heads sticking out but their hands imprisoned, and their legs thrust further down into the earth, into the furrows that Harry’s magic had already opened. Harry snapped his fingers, and the ground stirred as their wands came flying out and rolled towards him. Harry opened a single, guarded hole in the wards, and the wands rolled under it and collected into a tiny pile of their own at his feet.

            Harry stepped aside as the grounds of Hogwarts opened into a pit and sucked the wands down like Dudley when he’d had a lolly. He smiled at the wizards watching him, who gaped and struggled against the dirt. It wasn’t meant to hold them for long, and already a lot of them were shedding it in thick drifts.

            “Thank you,” Harry said. “For telling me the lengths that the Ministry will go to to destroy me, if nothing else. I’ll be keeping your wands until the time at which you either join me as loyal adherents—and anyone who wants to can become part of my court, it’s dead simple—or swear an Unbreakable Vow not to fight against me. I don’t really feel like letting you hurt my friends and my students and anyone else who’s under my charge. Have a nice evening.” He smiled at them again and turned around to walk away.

            “Wait!”

            It was the wizard who had burned his hands on the wards, an Auror Harry had seen around but hadn’t identified by name. He faced him again. “Yes?” he asked.

            “You can’t just keep our wands.” The wizard had the sense to keep back from the wards this time, but he glared at Harry as if he could get through them. “That’s illegal.”

            “So is attacking me in the middle of the night, but you didn’t have any concerns about that.” Harry held his hands out when the wizard gaped at him. “Look, I’m a Dark Lord. What part of the name don’t you understand?”

            “But you haven’t hurt anyone…” Someone said it from the back, and got hushed by several people. The wizard facing Harry took a step forwards.

            “This is the beginning of trouble,” he said quietly. “The Minister doesn’t want a war with you, but that’s what you’ll have if you don’t give those back.”

            “I am shaking behind my extensive wards,” Harry said gravely.

            The wizard shook his head. “You don’t know what powers he’ll unleash. Look, I’m not proud to serve him, all right? But I understand him, and I know that he’s going to spook when he realizes how strong you are. You could save us a lot of trouble if you gave us back our wands and came along quietly under arrest.”

            “Sure I could,” Harry said. “But it would be trouble for you, not me.” He smiled at the baffled frown on the wizard’s face. “There is nothing you can do to touch me.”

            “The artifacts from the Department of Mysteries…”

            Harry flexed his power beneath the earth again, and the man took a hasty step back. “Well,” he said softly, “if they want to bring Dark magic to bear against me, then I suppose we’ll see who’s really better at it.”

            The wizard retreated after that, and so did everyone else. Harry sighed, a little disappointed that no one wanted their wand back. But he had plenty of time to convince them that his way was the best way.

            He turned back to Hogwarts and looked up, locating Draco easily in Ravenclaw Tower. He waved and bowed, then walked back towards the castle, grinning. It was late, the mood broken, but he was glad that Draco had been here to see this, at least.

*

            Draco closed his eyes and slumped against the windowsill in front of him, shivering. His hands played along the stone until he forced them to still.

            The sheer power Harry wielded…

            It won’t convince them. They’ll come back.

            But Draco had to admit that his smile as he stood back up and watched Harry walking into the school was almost as broad as Harry’s.

            Let them. It’ll be fun to watch.

*

            unneeded: Good! I hope the messages are reaching you all right.

            Ron will find a role somewhere. Maybe he’ll take over the Knights of the Lightning Bolt and give them a less stupid name.

            SP777: Some dangerous things, and some things Harry really regrets. But not for a while.

            Exact reflection of me in what way? I’m afraid that I can’t turn things into Invisibility Cloaks. ;)

            delia cerrano: He does understand it better now. But it’s not going to be all smooth sailing for them.

            kain: Exactly. Harry arguably hasn’t gone too far yet, but arguably also has in this chapter, what with taking the wands from the Aurors.

            Meechypoo64: Hopefully she won’t put her students to sleep!

            moodysavage: Harry has very limited goals right now—to open Hogwarts, to support Draco, and to defend himself. Of course, that could change once other people start asking him for things.

            rabias: Thanks! I hope their longer interaction in this chapter satisfied you.

            CareLessLover: She’s going to.
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