Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Sanctum Sanctorum	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 28253 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
- 26
- 27
- 28
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Seven--In Conversation

            "Harry? Thank fuck you're there."

            Harry blinked at the Floo, where Ron's face hovered. It was sheer coincidence that he had woken up early because Adam had a nightmare and spent some time comforting him before he came down to the drawing room in Grimmauld Place. Of course, if Ron had tried to Floo him last night, then he wouldn't have been there because he was...busy with Draco.

            Harry cleared his throat, his face flushing, and made himself stop caring about the fact that Ron might be able to see his embarrassment. So what if he could? Harry doubted he would point it out. "Yeah, Ron. What is it? Do Schroeder and Moonstone know I've escaped, or that the person in the cells isn't me?"

            "Nothing like that," Ron said, and grimaced. "But Moonstone has vanished, and Schroeder has started a public hunt with the Aurors. We're supposed to curse first when we see someone who might have a clue to Moonstone's whereabouts, and ask questions later."

            Harry barely refrained from slapping a hand over his eyes and groaning aloud. "I...see," he said, because he did but wished he had talked to Ron last night. "Well, if you're worried about having to search in earnest, don't be. Draco and I captured Moonstone and brought him here yesterday."

            Ron paused, his eyes bright for a moment. Then he shook his head. "And you never thought to tell me that?" he asked quietly.

            "I tried to leave a message for you," Harry said. "At least, I think I did." He couldn't remember that much about his frantic preparations for controlling Moonstone and comforting Adam and settling Draco, and suspected that his brain had been going so fast that he was lucky to get out of it possessing any coherent thoughts at all. "Sorry. Fuck. I don't think I did."

            Ron nodded, but there was no expression on his face at all. "And you wouldn't happen to know why Malfoy's shop is shut down and there's a notice on his front door saying that he won't be there for the foreseeable future?"

            "Because he's with me," Harry said, grateful that he could give an answer to a question that didn't make him want to look away from Ron. "He decided that, since Moonstone and Schroeder know his name, there was no reason for him to stay behind in safety. It wouldn't be real safety. And he was the one Moonstone threatened, because he sensed my magical signature while I was in the room trying to read his."

            Ron's jaw clenched. "In other words, the same way he found you out last time," he snapped. "You haven't come up with a way yet to guard against his ability to do that?"

            "Draco says there's no way to disguise someone's magical signature, and Moonstone is really, really sensitive to them." Harry sat down in one of the chairs before the hearth and swung his legs idly, having to hide a smile when one of them cramped. He and Draco had used the floor yesterday, sure, but also the bed, and the wall at one point when the shower had grown more interesting than either of them had imagined it could. "We mostly hoped to give him something else to focus on that wouldn't alert him to what I was doing. We didn't completely succeed. But I do have a list of names and places where he's holding the children."

            Ron seemed to catch his breath and hold it for a long minute. "And you'll give me this information?" he asked when he breathed out.

            "Of course," Harry said. "It--may be up to you to do what you can for them, because I've captured Moonstone, and interrogated him, and I have traps around him that will kill him if he breaks out. I think I've done it, Ron. Finally done something that means I can't be an Auror anymore."

            Ron's eyes widened, and for a moment, there was complete silence between them except for the crackling of the flames. Then he shook his head. "Mate," he whispered.

            "I really do think so, Ron," Harry had to repeat stubbornly when he saw the way his friend looked at him. "What can we do with Moonstone? We probably have most of the information we need from him. Kill him, and the news will come out eventually, and Schroeder will turn the world upside-down trying to find his murderer. Release him with a Memory Charm, and someone will dig beneath it and discover me and Draco--and Adam, too. I couldn't stand that. We can't threaten him or bargain with him. What he wants is increased magical power, and we can't offer him that."

            Ron closed his eyes, then opened them. "Hermione will come up with something," he said, like a prayer. "Hermione will know what to do."

            "I don't know," Harry said quietly. "I hope she does. But I know that I might need to disappear, and I know that you probably don't want to."

            "How can you think that we wouldn't do anything for you?" Ron thrust his head forwards so far that Harry was afraid for a second he would hit his chin on the hearth. "After all you've done for us? Because we're friends? Honestly, Harry, do you think before you open your mouth at all sometimes?"

            Harry smiled in spite of himself. "Do you realize how much you sound like Hermione?"

            Ron scowled at him, but said nothing, waiting for Harry to answer his larger point. Harry sighed and flexed his fingers, which hurt with how hard he'd been gripping the chair. He had to phrase this exactly right, or it would sound like he was rejecting his friends where he was happy to have Draco come with him. And that wasn't the way he wanted it to sound, not at all.

            "You want to give up your jobs, your lives, your other friends, because I was stupid enough to assault Moonstone and now I might have to kill him?" he asked. "You want to give up your hopes of having children and letting them see their grandparents to take care of Adam?"

            "We could still have children if we went with you," Ron said, but he was blinking and uncertain.

            Harry nodded. "Of course you could. But they would be in danger in a way that Adam can't be, because he's already been hurt and he's already being hunted. Someone might find you, and--Ron, I'm sorry, but that red hair is pretty distinctive. And you can't hide everything you are under a glamour forever. Especially if we let Moonstone live. He can recognize magical signatures, and there might be other people with that talent."

            Ron shook his head. "Then what's the alternative, Harry? Let you go into exile with only Malfoy for company?"

            "He's Draco now," Harry corrected. "And he seems to want to come. For him, I think it matters that he's not married and the Potions masters still won't give him proper apprentices. And he can probably set up his brewing elsewhere more easily than you could be an Auror elsewhere, or Hermione can fight for the political causes she loves in a different country."

            Of all the things he'd just said, Ron picked the most unexpected one to argue with. His nose wrinkled, and he looked on the verge of being either stunned or appalled. "Harry," he breathed. "You--really? With Draco Malfoy?"

            "What?" Harry asked, spreading his hands, but he knew better than to think that innocent act would fool Ron forever.

            Or at all, as it turned out. Ron pointed one trembling hand at him, as if his finger would lunge out of the fire and pin Harry to his chair. "You fucked him!"

            Harry blinked. Ron had caught on faster than he had thought he would have, but at least Harry could keep the ball spinning and defuse some of the tension by going further than Ron might have liked. "Other way around, actually. But yeah."

            Ron made a noise like a cat choking to death on a hairball, and banged his head against the hearth on his side. "Oh, God," he moaned. "I'm going to have that image in my head forever, and you just had to go and make it worse, didn't you--"

            "Yeah," Harry said, and gave Ron a faint smile. "Well, if you didn't know that, you'd think it was really strange that he wanted to come into exile with me, wouldn't you? So you would have figured it out eventually. At least it's now, so you're not firecalling me in the middle of the night and moaning into my ear."

            Ron didn't seem to take that as consolation. He clenched his hands into his hair and barked, "Have you gone completely mad? Adopting a kid, capturing Moonstone, sleeping with someone who doesn't care about you, who can't--the only reason he joined us was for revenge, for Merlin's sake!"

            "That was the only reason. Not anymore."

            Harry blinked and glanced over his shoulder. He had had the thought, but he was sure that he couldn't have said those words with such calm confidence in his voice. And Draco stood behind him, one eyebrow raised, his attention on Ron to all appearances but his arms winding securely around Harry's waist. Harry sagged back against him and closed his eyes.

            "So you're here," Ron said, eyeing Draco as if he still thought it was a surprise to find him with Harry, despite everything. "Fine. Then maybe you can tell me what the fuck you're thinking, and why you think running away with Harry would solve everything?"

            Draco gave an unpleasant smile and rested his chin on Harry's shoulder. It dug in, and aggravated a bite he'd given Harry last night, but Harry couldn't find it in himself to complain. "I chose to come because of what Harry owes me, and what I wanted from him," he said. "That should be reason enough for you, unless you interrogate every lover Harry takes like this." He cocked his head then, and his eyes cut sideways. "Does he?"

            "He hasn't made this bad a choice in a long time, that's why I haven't done this before!" Ron yelled, waving his hands. "Harry, really, I want to know. In what universe did this seem like a good idea? You have so much happening already, and--"

            "Harry?"

            Harry knew he was the only one in the room to whom that sounded like a word and not a meaningless hiss, but that made it all the more important for him to respond to it. He turned around and knelt down, holding out his arms to Adam. Adam trotted into them, giving both Ron and Draco suspicious glances, as though he assumed they would change into the wizards who had abused him at any moment.

            "I woke up, and you weren't there," Adam said, his fingers curling deep, into places Draco's fingers had rested only a few moments before. "You said you would be there."

            "Sorry, I did say that," Harry murmured into his hair, and ruffled it. He could feel Draco and Ron staring at his back, and flushed. Neither of them had children, either, but at least Ron planned to, and maybe Draco did, if he was going to have someone to inherit the Malfoy estates, and Harry was probably doing everything wrong. But he had promised to keep Adam safe until they cured the Parseltongue affliction he had, at least, and he was going to. "Come on, do you want something to eat?" He stood up with his hand extended to Adam and met the eyes of his friend and his lover defiantly.

            After a moment, Draco gave him the smallest smile and rested a hand on Harry's arm. "Can you tell him that I'm someone else who might want to help him?" he murmured to Harry.

            "I want cereal," Adam said at the same time.

            Harry spent a moment making sure he was giving the right response in the right language to the right person, and made Draco's comment a little more enthusiastic when he translated it for Adam. Adam gave Draco a skeptical look anyway, and then looked at Harry and said, "I don't know. What happens if he wants to take you away? What happens if he goes into the fire?" He glanced at Ron in turn. Harry couldn't blame him for the hasty way he turned away, though. He wouldn't be that comfortable with magic, right now.

            And might not ever be. What the fuck was Harry going to do, if he did raise him? He could leave the wizarding world, but he couldn't give up his own magic, he thought, not even for the sake of making Adam more comfortable.

            You adapt. You teach him that not all wizards are arseholes, and you show him that you can help him. You teach him to revel in the magic he has.

            Harry relaxed at the thought. That was a lot of work, but it sounded more doable when he remembered that he had time to do it, all the time that Adam might be with him, instead of right away. So he wasn't a good parent immediately. He doubted anyone except the occasional miraculous person like Mrs. Weasley was.

            "He's not going to take me away," he told Adam, and nodded at the grip Draco had on his arm. "See? He wants to hold onto me, but he's not pulling me away from you, and he could. He's staying right here, with us."

            Adam considered that for a minute, and then said, "Sometimes they can pull you away like that. Sometimes they can pull you apart like that." His face went grey, and for a second he squirmed as if he would dart away from Harry and into another room. Then he ended up clinging tighter, and looked as if he didn't know whether to be unhappy about that or not.

            Harry took a deep breath and reminded himself that at least the Healers who had tormented the boy were dead, and Moonstone's and Schroeder's turns were coming. "Sorry," he whispered to Adam, caressing his hair. "I promise, no one is going to take me away, because I won't let myself be taken away."

            "I thought that," Adam said, and his fingers dug in until Harry could feel skin flaking away under the boy's nails. "I told myself I was brave and strong and I was going to fight them when they took me. It didn't work." His nails dipped down, and down, and Harry heard Draco mutter an oath. From the corner of his eye, he saw one pale hand reach out, probably to separate him and Adam.

            "No," he said sharply, and stooped down so that he was in front of Adam. Draco stopped moving. Whether or not Harry had said the word in English, he obviously understood the tone. Harry was glad of that. He took Adam's hands in his and massaged them a little until Adam let go of the death-grip he had and looked at Harry, blinking.

            "No one is ever going to take me away from you, because I won't let it happen," Harry said, and made it as solemn as an oath. "You can trust me or not, but I'm going to keep the promise."

            Adam paused. Then he said, "What if you fight them, and you don't come back?"

            "Then there's someone else who will take care of you," Harry said, privately vowing to make sure of that before he went anywhere on a dangerous mission. And they had the information from Moonstone now that he didn't know they had. They could make an informed decision. They could set the traps. At least, if they acted quickly. If Harry thought there was a chance that he would die and get separated from Adam, then he wouldn't go. "I promise."

            Adam watched his face, and his eyes, looking at invisible signals that Harry didn't understand. He wondered if he would have understood better when he was a child himself, and at the Dursleys', but he didn't think so, not really. Adam had suffered a lot, and all at once. Harry had suffered a bit day by day.

            "All right," Adam said. "Then I want cereal."

            Harry smiled in spite of himself, and rose to his feet, glancing at Ron and Draco. "If you want to plan something, then I don't mind," he said. He had ended up putting his memories of the information he'd drawn from Moonstone in Draco's Pensieve last night, so Draco could examine them at his leisure, during one of the times they'd actually managed to be productive. Well, productive of something other than pleasure, anyway. "I'm going to be in the kitchen with Adam."

            Adam led the way. Draco watched Harry go with a complex expression, and Ron with a baffled one. Harry knew he would have to talk to both of them later, to explain, to order his impressions and the confusing things he'd probably done.

            But, for the first time in a long time, he felt at peace anyway. He was going to be with Draco until the point Draco lost patience with him, which Ron couldn't change. He was going to be Adam's caretaker, because he had promised, which Draco couldn't change. Both of them would accept that or argue in a way that would lead Harry to think about it. That was all that was going to happen in the distant future, at least on those two topics.

            For the near future, there was cereal.

*

            Draco turned back towards Weasley, and decided he could be the mature one. It would gain him an advantage with Harry. Besides, he had worked with Weasley in the recent past and knew him to be competent and admirable at what he did when not in the middle of a raging temper tantrum.

            "What I want is Harry's complete attention," he said. "This is the way to get it."

            "To fuck him?" Weasley stared at him as if trying to see the attraction. Draco sneered back. He would try to get along with Weasley, but he had no interest in showing him half the things about himself that Harry got to see.

            "Yes," Draco said. "It wasn't a solution I had considered at first, but it's the one I want now."

            Weasley shook his head like a dog shaking off water, and pursed his lips as though he was fighting his way through a fog. The first gesture might not be usual for him, but Draco thought the second was. "Fine," he said at last, words clipped. "And when you scar Harry, then I'll make it my business to hunt you down and destroy you. Fair enough warning?"

            Draco smiled with all his teeth. "I'm sure Harry is capable of doing that for himself, if he really wants to. He seems to make a habit of it with the criminals he chases as an Auror."

            Weasley surveyed him one more time, than grunted and reached backwards for something. When he turned around again, he was holding parchment and ink. "Are you going to give me the information that Harry said you had, or continue to tease me?" he asked.

            Draco could have pounced on the "teasing" line with both feet, but he was content to consider it a gift from the gods for the moment and do something else instead. "I'll need to enter the Pensieve for that," he said, and Summoned it to him with a nonverbal Accio. Weasley narrowed his eyes as the Pensieve swooped into the room, but didn't say anything about the precious liquid of Harry's memories spilling, the way that Draco was sure he might have.

            Draco plunged his head beneath the surface, and listened to the cold voice whispering to Harry, and the golden words unscrolling. He sighed when he realized they came too fast for him to remember easily, and that he would have to pull his head out and cast a Copying Spell on some parchment first.

            He raised his head out of the memory, and found Weasley staring at him. Of course, he tried to conceal it when Draco caught him, but he wasn't good enough to do that. Draco cocked his head and gave him a whimsical smile. "What?"

            "You--" Weasley cleared his throat. "You may think that you're good enough to fool Harry, but you can't fool me."

            Draco opened his mouth to retort, and then shook his head. Why should he? They were here to gain information and then to stop the way that Moonstone and Schroeder were misusing Galen's notes, and if they were doing it for utterly different motives and reasons, well, it wasn't as though Draco hadn't known that already.

            "The information came too fast for me to remember it all," he said calmly. "What I'm going to do is cast a Copying Spell on the parchment--" he Summoned it with a wave of his wand that made Weasley start in a satisfactory manner "--so that I can simply look at it when I'm done with the memory and it will appear. You might as well put away the parchment that you were going to write on. It won't be needed."

            Weasley turned red and opened his mouth, but the parchment had come, and so had the ink that Draco would like to have on hand to touch up the sometimes badly-written words of the Copying Spell. Draco turned and put his head back into the memory.

            While of course he listened to the words recited in the cold voice like the Dark Lord's and watched the spiraling golden letters, most of his attention remained on the way Harry acted. Harry moved--one could see the shimmer of the Cloak if one was looking for it--when Moonstone put his wand to Draco's throat, but didn't immediately attack. And the movement seemed towards the door of the room where he had put the child.

            And then, in the memory in the room upstairs, Harry held himself more in check than Draco had believed. Seen from the front, even more quivers and tremors raced through his muscles and over his face.

            Perhaps Draco need not always act as a chain on Harry. Perhaps he could sometimes be the partner he had claimed to be last night in truth.

            He leaned back when he was done and cast the spell, staring at the parchment with unblinking eyes. Whatever he looked at would become branded with the memory of the words, and the only other target in the room he would have enjoyed covering was Weasley's face. Alas, the spell might not work through a Floo connection.

            The words appeared, and Draco continued to stare until his eyes watered fiercely and he was sure the list had completed itself. Then he spent a few moments correcting some words, mostly names, that might be illegible. Finally, he turned and gravely proffered the document to Weasley.

            Weasley stared at him, and gnashed his teeth together. Then he took it and said curtly, "I'll contact you when I've studied this and come up with a plan."

            "Be careful what other Aurors you pull in on this," Draco said, both because Weasley needed the caution and because it would allow him to have the last word. "Two worked with Moonstone and Schroeder at the last site, or at least two people who had Auror training. There's no telling who might have been compromised."

            "I haven't," Weasley said sharply. "Harry hasn't."

            Draco smiled.

            Weasley vanished from the fire in a burst of green, and Draco stood up and stretched in a leisurely fashion before he proceeded into the kitchen to join Harry and Adam.

            It did occur to him, as he went, that they might be coming close to the original vision Harry had come to warn him about, the one where he and Harry seemed comfortable in each other's company and appeared to have several adopted children.

            Draco gave a loose, rippling shrug and moved forwards to meet, if necessary, his destiny.

*

            SP777: If he thinks Harry easy to persuade, he'll be wrong. And Harry's already surprised him with how protective he is of Adam.

            ChaosLady: They will in the next few chapters.

            unneeded: Why do you think Draco is insecure?

            Fullmoons_wings: Draco is more than wiling to call Harry by his first name around Ron, and he is starting to think of him that way, as well. He'll probably propose the potions bond if Harry insists on getting in the middle of any more action involving Moonstone and Schroeder.

            I do try to eliminate most words and phrases that are repeated close together, but obviously don't get them all. Some, like "shoved," were definitely deliberate, and others I let stand because I can't think of a better substitute.

            Thank you for the compliments!
- 26
- 27
- 28
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Sanctum Sanctorum