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The Serenity of His Rage	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16981 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Twenty-Six—The Real Beginning of His Rebellion

            “Let me into your mind, Potter.”

            That was about the third time Snape had said that. Harry gritted his teeth and tilted his head back, feeling sweat streaking his brow where Draco touched it. He was trying. He was honestly trying. But no matter how much Snape kept trying to get into his mind, it was like there was a solid Occlumency barrier there, of the kind that Harry had wanted to use during his actual training.

            Why am I so useless when it actually matters?

            Draco stroked his sweaty hair back from his forehead and murmured, “I think that proves the Horcrux is sitting in Harry’s mind, Professor. I don’t think he could do this on his own.”

            “He certainly could not,” said Snape in a disgusted voice, and Harry heard a clink as he set some bottles down. He’d given Harry the Headache Draught right away, but he’d had Ron and Hermione go for other potions later. “All right. Then I must do something else.”

            Harry continued to lie with his head in Draco’s lap, eyes closed, as he listened to them shifting around. Snape was snapping commands to Ron and Hermione in a low voice. Once Ron said something indignant, but Hermione hushed him, and they went back to whatever they were doing.

            Finally, Snape said, “Very well, Potter. Come here. Draco, help him.”

            Harry staggered to his feet with Draco’s help. His head felt better, but still stuffed full, with a sickening kind of fullness he didn’t think really belonged to him. The Ravenclaw diadem was still streaking around in its net and bumping against the sides constantly.

            Harry looked at it, then away. He wondered for a second why it didn’t just lie still, but after all, they knew what it was, and it wouldn’t get away with looking harmless. And it probably didn’t get tired the way humans did.

            “Here, Potter.” Snape gestured impatiently in front of him.

            Harry saw that Ron and Hermione had arranged some of the tapestries and chairs and blankets into a sort of bed. Draco helped him lie down on it, and then sat behind Harry on the wobbly seat of one of the chairs, still stroking his hair away from his forehead. Snape knelt in front of Harry, frowning with concentration.

            “Part of it is that the object continues to draw on your fears,” said Snape. “We must stop that from happening. In particular, I must ask you to look into my eyes and trust me.”

            Harry swallowed. He trusted Snape a little more after the conversation they’d had in Grimmauld Place than he had before, but Snape was still asking for something that felt impossible.

            “I know,” said Snape, and Harry started until he realized Snape had read that thought out of the top of his mind. He reached out and moved his hand slowly over Harry’s chest, as though sensing vibrations that told him where he should put it, until it came to rest a little below Harry’s heart. “I can read your mind clearing now. Good.”

            Harry tried not to glance at the diadem, and Snape nodded, eyes glittering so violently that they looked like jewels lit by fire.

            “Good. Concentrate on the people around you rather than the Horcrux you are afraid has taken over your mind. In particular, concentrate on your bond with Draco.”

            “Like that’s hard for him,” Draco scoffed, and Harry laughed a little. He turned his head and found Draco smiling down at him with desperate love. His hand had stilled in Harry’s hair, but it still rested there, and Harry reached up and clasped Draco’s wrist.

            “It might be hard in another way,” Harry murmured, so softly that he didn’t think Ron and Hermione could hear him. Snape seemed to, if the appalled look on his face was any indication.

            Draco laughed very softly, and his eyes didn’t stir from Harry’s face. “Keep thinking like that. Humor and trust. Relaxation. Gentleness.” He lowered his voice and slid his hand over Harry’s forehead again, soothing the scar that had got inflamed. “God, I wish we could talk to each other mind-to-mind. Emotions are nice, but there are times I really want to know what you’re thinking.”

            Harry concentrated on the bond as well as he could without closing his eyes. Snape would need eye contact for the Legilimency to actually do anything. “I hope you know how much I love you.”

            And he poured golden emotions, thick and stirring as honey, through the bond when Draco’s eyes widened. He flavored them with memories of flying with Draco and making love to him, and Draco’s hand trembled where it lay.

            “Good,” Snape whispered. “I can feel the barrier dissolving.” He took hold of Harry’s head and began to turn it towards him. Harry let him pull it. He didn’t need eye contact with Draco to concentrate on the bond, even though it was nice. “Good. Now—”

            And there it was, the same sensation of openness that Harry had felt before when Snape was trying to teach him Occlumency, except this time he could welcome that openness instead of despising it. Snape nodded without looking away, and then said, in a whisper as soft as the wings of a bee, “Legilimens.”

*

            This time, the barrier was gone, and Severus dropped into the usual churning morass that was Potter’s mind. Potter’s mind was easy to read because it was undefended and Severus was a master at Legilimency, but still, memories flashed and sped past him in an undisciplined chaos.

            Severus’s purpose was different now, though. He envisioned himself spinning in one place to look around for the Horcrux.

            For long moments, he sensed nothing. Then a pulse of darkness caught his attention from what he regarded as the left at the moment, and he sped towards it like a swimmer cleaving thick water.

            The darkness felt old and deeply-rooted. Severus grimaced as he surveyed it and saw the threads snaking away from it into the chaos of Potter’s mind. How had the diadem managed to establish itself this quickly?

            Then he followed one of those roots, and felt as though someone had slammed something sticky into his throat and was forcing him to swallow it. Those were far too old to have come from the mere swift possession by the Horcrux that Weasley and Granger had described to him.

            It must be from the shard of soul that Potter had carried in himself for most of his life.

            When Severus pulled back and hovered, he saw that he was right. The canker sore, the cancer, of the Horcrux within Potter had grown to the point that it was stirring and rippling darkly down most of the pathways in his mind.

            But how? Severus had been inside that mind last year, and for all that Potter had never been very smart, Severus knew he would have felt something so obviously malignant. The Horcrux had not been growing like this for long.

            Looking around, for as long as it took him to sift through memories, led to another answer. There were paths cut through Potter’s mind like lightning strokes on the bark of trees. The two strongest ran in different directions. One was connected to the glittering bond that tied his soul to Draco’s. Severus nodded grimly. That would make sense. The bond had not worked as Albus wanted, hadn’t freed Potter completely from the Dark Lord’s soul, but it had awakened that Horcrux from sleep.

            The second wound was so recent that it could only come from the diadem’s possession of Potter.

            Severus closed his eyes and shut out the analogues and half-imagined sights of Potter’s mind in front of him, in preparation for resurfacing. As he did, he wondered what in the world he could tell them. If he tried to conceal the truth, it might let the Dark Lord win, but he hated the thought of what the news would do to Draco.

            And Potter, even. The new Potter, the one I know.

            Severus grimaced as he popped back into his body and broke the intense eye contact he’d held with Potter. In the end, he could only tell them the truth, at least if he did not want to be another Dumbledore—distrusted because he concealed secrets, and ultimately left behind as Draco and Potter made their own decisions.

            “Professor Snape?”

            It was Granger, holding out the second Headache Draught he’d sent her to fetch once he sensed what was needed. Severus nodded to her and sipped from it, which gave it more time to work on the subtler kind of headache he had now. “The Horcrux inside you is alive,” he told Potter bluntly. “Disturbed from its sleep by the traumas of bonding and possession. I do not know how to make it go back to sleep.”

            Potter shut his eyes once. His friends were the ones who gave terrified little squeals of dismay, not very different, Severus had to admit, from the swearing that followed from Draco a little later.

            “Do you think that means we have to destroy the Horcrux faster than even Dumbledore wanted to?” Potter finally whispered, and give his friends credit, they shut up to listen to the boy. Draco had already fallen silent, one hand clutching Potter’s hand and the other his forehead as if he could obliterate Potter’s scar by sheer force of will. “I mean, we don’t have any choice now? Because it’s awake?”

            “I am not sure how much speed was a factor in Dumbledore’s plans,” Severus admitted. “I do not know enough about them. He might have wanted you to die right away. He might have wanted you to help with the hunt for the other Horcruxes and die only when they had been found and destroyed.”

            He faced the diadem hovering in its conjured silver net. Granger’s work, almost certainly, Severus thought. As though it was impatient with his notice, or thought he should help it because of the Dark Mark on his arm, the quiescent object came to life again, buzzing around and slamming against the meshes.

            “The other disturbance to your Horcrux should go away when we destroy the object that possessed you,” he continued.

            “How can we do that without basilisk poison?” Weasley folded his arms and looked a little mutinous. Probably had more than his daily modicum of politeness required from him, Severus thought acidly.

            “There are other ways,” Severus said. “Other spells that destroy objects completely.”

            He saw Draco nod, but Granger was the one who stepped forwards and whispered, “Are you talking about Fiendfyre, sir?”

            “I am.” Granger was more deep-minded than Severus had given her credit for. He had almost always thought of her knowledge as broad but of the kind that needed books to spark it. She would be brilliant at modifying spells, but would jump too hastily to conclusions instead of inferring them.

            “I thought Fiendfyre couldn’t be controlled,” said Draco slowly. “At least, that was the reason my father gave for never wanting me to conjure it.”

            “Your father is wise,” Severus said. “In truth, few have the will to conquer it. Or the hatred.”

            “Why does a spell need hatred to end it?” Potter was sitting up, although he leaned back against Draco and frowned at Severus. “I thought you would only need hatred to cast it, the way you do with the Cruciatus Curse.”

            Severus opened his mouth to ask how Potter knew that little tidbit, then closed it again. No reason to ask, when he knew the probable source.

            “Because the spell will only end when it meets a stronger force of hatred than is required to create it,” Severus said, and ignored Potter’s flinch as he stood. He was going to destroy this Horcrux today. It only made sense for Albus never to find out, but in that respect, their present surroundings were perfect. There were no portraits here to spy for Albus, and Severus himself could not have found this sanctuary without Weasley and Granger’s help. “I can provide that hatred.”

            “What do you hate?”

            This time, Severus sneered at Granger, who backed up an instant later and looked abashed. “You ought to be able to figure that out on your own,” Severus snapped at her, and stepped past her to confront the silver net.

            The Horcrux inside it promptly dropped back to the floor. That confirmed Severus’s intuition that it was not intelligent as such. It had defenses and formidable magic, but it was not “smart” enough to realize that lying low after demonstrating such strength would not fool its captors.

            Severus regarded the Horcrux in silence for a few moments, while his memories gathered and pumped hatred into his mind, like a reverse of the process of calling up a Patronus. He remembered the moments when he had turned away from Lily or she had turned away from him, and the moments when he had crouched before the Dark Lord and damned himself for his choices, and the long, long years of self-loathing.

            When he finally whispered the incantation for the Fiendfyre, he had long since ceased to be aware of the presence of the children in the room.

            But the swift leap of the fire along the old artifacts made him aware of them, if only because Granger let out a ringing cry of dismay. Severus whirled and saw that some flames licked teasingly at the edge of the bed he had them make for Potter. Potter—of course—was late stumbling out of it.

            Severus stalked towards the Fiendfyre, and watched some of the faces in the flames turn into lions with mutilated snakes dangling from around their necks. They eased back from the flammable tapestries Potter had lain on and focused on him. Fiendfyre was always more interested in its caster than anyone else, at least until it actually touched those people and made them into flammable material.

            The caster was the one who had called it, the one it wanted to consume in the end, the only one who had the power to dismiss it. Severus held up his wand in utter disdain, and the flames roared cheerfully and surged towards him.

            Severus turned in the center of a wide circle and glared back at the diadem, now thumping madly in the center of the net again. Those silver meshes Granger had conjured were beginning to melt now from the heat, but so was the metal that made up the diadem. None of the protections Severus thought of as common for Horcruxes could stand against sentient fire powered by hatred.

            “That is what I wish you to eat,” said Severus softly, and swung his arm forwards.

            The flames, now looking like dragons with dangling intestines, flew up and came down, breathing still more flames through their pointed red jaws. The Horcrux shrieked in a human voice as it began to perish. Severus stood, his arms folded, ignoring the curious tongues of fire licking at the hem of his robes. He had to make sure no shard of soul escaped this trap.

            None did. The Fiendfyre closed in on it, and there was a moment when there was a tiny dark dot trapped within a circle of teeth. Severus, if he had looked closely enough, thought he might have been able to see the Dark Lord’s face staring out at him.

            He did not look closely.

            The jaws snapped shut. The dot vanished, and the Fiendfyre turned and flowed towards him.

            Severus held up his wand. He thought again of the way he had felt after Lily abandoned him, of the way that he had felt when Albus commanded him to enact the soul-bond between Potter and Draco, how he had stood in front of Potter to tell him about his mother and didn’t think he would find the courage to defy Albus.

            He hated himself more than he had ever hated anyone else, even the Dark Lord for destroying Lily. His had been the words that made the Dark Lord decide on that course, after all.

            The Fiendfyre halted and wavered back and forth a moment. One voice, that sounded composed of crackling noises like the kind logs made as they crisped to ash in the fireplace, began to speak. It suggested that he could let the flames eat him, and then he wouldn’t have to endure the hatred anymore.

            But Severus answered with wave after wave of dark emotion. No, because then he wouldn’t be alive to suffer for his crimes. And if the Fiendfyre went mad, out of his control, and consumed Draco and Potter and the others, then he would suffer more. His spirit would be a tormented ghost.

            He hated everything in those moments, those breathless moments when he fought for control back of the Fiendfyre and was not entirely sure he would get it.

            Then the moment passed, and the sudden reeling motion left Severus standing in the middle of a charred pile of broken objects. He blinked and turned his head to find Granger sheltering Weasley, Potter, and Draco behind a strong Shield Charm. It wouldn’t have done much more than give them the time to Summon brooms, but Severus nodded.

            “It is gone,” he said, and winced when he heard how hoarse his voice was. Of course, it always sounded like that when he called Fiendfyre. Severus assumed it came from either breathing in the smoke or the effort of not screaming aloud.

            “Pro-Professor Snape?” Granger’s eyes were wide. She didn’t drop the shield yet.

            “Yes.” Severus waved his wand and banished a trail of the smoke that was curling up from some of the embers at his feet. “The flames are gone.”

            “And the Horcrux?” Draco knelt with his eyes fixed on Severus, even when his hands remained occupied with Potter.

            Trust a Slytherin to ask the important questions, Severus thought, pride surging. He nodded. “I saw it snuffed out of life.”

            “Then…” Draco moved his head a little towards Potter, his eyes wide.

            Severus nodded and knelt down in front of Potter, although he took a moment to compose himself. The last thing he wanted was to blast Potter with the force of the accumulated hatred in his mind.

            But Potter let his head fall back and his eyes open trustingly, more than he had when Severus was actually taking precautions to make him comfortable, and Severus delved into his mind with another murmured, “Legilimens.”

            The lightning-like track of the possession had already begun to scab over, and Potter’s Horcrux had drifted back towards silence. Severus sighed. That wound was at least on its way to healing.

            But the soul-bond between Potter and Draco remained, and as long as it did, then the other wound would remain open and the Horcrux tugged towards awareness. Severus shivered. The diadem possessing Potter might not be the worst result that would happen, should the bond remain in place.

            He opened his eyes and murmured, “Perhaps if the soul-bond were to be severed…”

            “No.”

            Draco had the same wide-eyed, stubborn look he’d got in first year when Severus had tried to suggest that he stop tormenting Gryffindors if he wanted to appear to best advantage in Professor McGonagall’s eyes. Severus looked at him and grunted sourly, turning away. He knew after that glimpse that he wouldn’t convince Draco.

            Potter was his best choice. The boy had already proven that he would do anything to protect Draco. Severus spoke directly to him. “The soul-bond is moving the Horcrux in you to new life. It might try to possess you or Draco if the bond is left in place. Do you want that to happen?”

            “No.” Potter’s word was a breath. He reached up and clasped Draco’s hand on his shoulder, holding it still, while he watched Severus with wide eyes.

            Severus nodded, delighted to discover Potter could be sensible even without Granger prodding him to be so. “Then we need to find some way to end it.”

*

            “Harry. No.”

            Harry only tilted his head in response, but Draco could feel the weight that had settled into the bond. Harry was considering it. Not because he wanted Draco to feel as bad as he did when they were separated, but because he wanted to save Draco’s life.

            And he always, always believed the bad news someone told him, rather than looking for ways that good news might be true.

            Draco turned to Professor Snape and ignored, as best as he could, the vibrations of the bond that were steadily darkening and turning colder. “I want to know if you think the Horcrux is going to wake up soon.”

            “Not as soon as it would if we had not destroyed the diadem,” said Professor Snape, and looked at Draco calmly. He kept his eyes away from Harry, at least. That was an indication of decency Draco hadn’t expected him to show. “But yes, it is waking. There will be nothing you can do to contain it when it does. It will be free to move.”

            “What?” Draco demanded. “How do you know that?”

            Professor Snape hesitated for the first time. “The bond that you have appears in Potter’s mind as a wound leading back to the Horcrux. It will provide the shard of soul with a clear road.”

            “But could it possess us both at once?”

            Professor Snape shook his head with a faint frown. “But it would only need one of you to use as a weapon against the other.”

            “What if we split it between us?” Draco asked, the idea coming to him just before the words. “Would that weaken it? It couldn’t possess us both, could it?”

            “Draco,” Harry whispered, and the bond tensed and tightened. Draco didn’t care, because it also turned lighter. That told him Harry was touched by what Draco wanted to do for him, and at the very least, longed for someone to stand up for him.

            “I don’t know.” Professor Snape stood as still as he did when in front of an overflowing cauldron, only staring. “No one has ever proposed such an action before.”

            “Well, I am now.” Draco tightened his hold on Harry’s hand and shook his head when Harry might have opened his mouth. “Not now, Harry. Be quiet. Just because you’re not used to people fighting for you doesn’t mean someone should.”

            “Maybe that person shouldn’t be you—”

            “Do shut up,” Draco told him wearily, and faced Professor Snape again. “I’d like you to look into that again. Please.”

            “Professor Snape,” said Granger, voice low. “There’s another possible solution. I proposed it to Professor Dumbledore a few days ago—”

            “If that was honestly a solution in your mind and not a clever diversionary tactic for the Headmaster as I had assumed, Miss Granger, then I retract the respect I had for you.”

            Granger flinched. Draco wished he knew what Professor Snape was talking about, but right now, he couldn’t afford to lose the eye contact. “Will you look into it?”

            After what seemed far too long, the professor slowly nodded. “But do not expect me to find much.”

            “I wouldn’t have thought of the soul-bond before we had one,” Draco said, and managed to smile at the professor. “We’ll do this somehow. Thanks.”

            Professor Snape nodded, still looking disturbed, and swept out. Draco turned back to Harry. He had comforting to do.

            “Draco, I can’t let you take on a burden that should belong to me.”

            And some talking, it looked like. Draco settled down to do the convincing, grateful that there was at least a Harry to talk to.
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The Serenity of His Rage