Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Secondhand Heroes	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 6782 -:- 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.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Three�Anger

�� I do know
what�s making everyone act this way, Potter.�

�� Harry, his
attention on the sandwich he was making, jumped, but didn�t give Malfoy the
satisfaction of turning around. He simply nodded and tucked a slice of bread on
top of the cheese. �Yes. Fear and paranoia and the desire to pay the Death
Eaters back for what they suffered, or think they suffered, during the war.� He
slammed the bread down with a flourish and turned, finally. Malfoy was leaning
against the doorway of the kitchen, his eyes still holding the feverish
intensity Harry had seen in them when he�d touched his scars. But he had on a
shirt now.

�� Harry was
glad. Already he was starting to feel embarrassed about what he�d said to Malfoy
in his bedroom, and the way he�d touched the scars without even asking permission. Malfoy had probably had
enough of people putting their hands all over his body without giving him the
chance to defend himself.

�� And he was
losing the high intensity of that moment, even though Malfoy seemed to have
retained it. His days of being a hero were past. He had felt strong and
powerful with his hand on Malfoy�s heart, as if he could change the whole
course of the Ministry, but Malfoy only wanted vengeance on his captors, who
were probably Death Eaters anyway. That was all Harry had promised to help him
with.

�� More than
that.� Malfoy came further into the room, on silent feet. He looked infinitely
alien in Harry�s kitchen, throwing the patched tile and half-painted cupboards
into sharp relief. �You never wondered why everyone suddenly seemed to fall in
love with terror after the war? You never wondered why everyone you know joined in, with not one person protesting or
holding back, if only for the notoriety of it?�

�� I didn�t
wonder that,� Harry said. He became aware that he was holding the plate in such
a way that the sandwich would probably slide off it and splatter on the floor
in a minute, and so he slid it back onto the counter, using that as an excuse to
break Malfoy�s hypnotic gaze. �I wondered if something was wrong with me, for noticing and trying to protest
in the first place.�

�� Malfoy
halted behind him, and then his hands came to rest on Harry�s shoulders. Harry
held himself rigid. Malfoy�s fingers were hooked, as if he would rip flesh from
Harry�s back to match the scars on his own. His breath in Harry�s ear was as
hot as air shut up inside a tomb.

�� I know
why,� Malfoy whispered. �That�s the knowledge my captors didn�t want me to
have, the thing they were laughing over. Every now and then, a Dark magical
artifact with the power to sway the minds of many people at once gets loose. It
encourages a common delusion, feeds on and fosters it until it spreads from
mind to mind like a plague. The only people who escape are the ones persecuted
by the infected�always a minority. This artifact was behind the centaur
persecutions in the fourteenth century, and some of the witch-hunts, and even
one or two of the worse Muggle revolutions. The moment my captors mentioned it
by name, I was stunned that I hadn�t recognized its effects myself.�

�� Harry
forced himself to straighten and move out from under Malfoy�s touch, down the
counter to where he�d put a glass of butterbeer. He sipped from it, staring
determinedly at the window in the opposite wall. That showed him a blurred
reflection of Malfoy. He lowered his eyes and coughed. �Your theory has one
problem,� he said. �I�m not part of the persecuted minority, and I didn�t have
my mind infected by someone else.�

�� This
particular artifact,� said Malfoy, his tone so low he might have been speaking
to a lover, �takes a charisma focus.�

�� Harry
raised an eyebrow and stared at the reflection in the window again.
�Congratulations,� he said. �I have no idea what the bloody fuck that means.�

�� Malfoy took
two strides towards him and whipped him around. Harry found himself far too
close to that presence that thrilled him and shamed him and dragged him out of
the blinding darkness and towards the blinding light. He would have loved to
close one hand into a fist, but that would result in him breaking the glass or
punching Malfoy, one of the two.

�� You should
have studied better,� Malfoy whispered. He
doesn�t have to bloody whisper all
the time, Harry thought, uneasy emotions racing through him and colliding
and falling back like waves clashing around a rock. �A charisma focus means
that the artifact latches on to one particular person and convinces the people
under its spell that they�re doing everything they do in his name. A leader�a
priest�a hero. The focus himself isn�t affected by the spell, but since it�s
usually his principles the victims are touting, he often goes along with it to
some extent.� His gaze speared Harry.

�� Harry
couldn�t even growl under his breath, the way he would have liked to, because
Malfoy was partially right. �Who cast the spell? If it was the Death Eaters,
that was stupid of them��

�� No,�
Malfoy said. �No one had to cast it. The artifact is sentient, Potter. Once
someone digs it up, it begins to exert its influence on that person, and from
there it can spread as I told you.�

�� What is it
called, then?� Harry managed to wrench his eyes away at last and wiped his
mouth free of a film of butterbeer with the back of his hand. He was disgusted
to see that his fingers were shaking.

�� The
Troublestone. It�s a huge sapphire, with the propensity to teleport itself.
When its hold is broken, either because its focus dies or because someone
outside the range of its influence notices what�s happening and tries to
destroy it, it takes itself somewhere else, into a hidden vault or crypt. Then
it waits for someone to find it, and to begin the cycle again.� Malfoy�s eyes
flashed. �I won�t be content with sending it somewhere else. I want to smash
it.�

�� Harry eyed
him. �And you overheard how to do that, as well?�

�� Don�t be
ridiculous. They would have destroyed it themselves if they knew how.� Draco�s
lips drew back to show his teeth. �They were Death Eaters, yes, as you might
have reckoned by now from my mention of the pure-blood manor and what they did
to me. Your side hasn�t gone quite that far. Not yet.�

�� Then how
will you smash it?� Harry asked, determined not to be side-tracked for the
moment, though he did wonder exactly what Malfoy�s quest was. Smash the Troublestone,
take revenge on the people who had tortured him, break the power of the
Ministry so he didn�t have to live in fear anymore�that was all a bit much for
one man who could barely walk and one broken-down hero to do by themselves.

�� How will we smash it?� Malfoy leaned forwards,
staring deeply into his eyes, and that was unnerving.

�� I asked
you the question first,� Harry countered, staring back.

�� Malfoy gave
a sharp bark of laughter and stepped away from the counter, letting Harry have
room to move and breathe again. �Good,� he said. �Simply making sure you�ll
keep your promises.� One of his hands wandered out and closed on Harry�s arm,
squeezing, until Harry winced. Malfoy didn�t seem to notice. �Now. I need to
get a look at the Troublestone, if at all possible.�

�� There�s
wards on the Ministry to track anyone with interdicted blood who appears
there,� Harry said quietly.

�� Interdicted
blood?� Malfoy swung back in close
again, and wasn�t torture supposed to give people a fear of that? �I thought
your side was always saying there was no different between pure blood and
Muggle blood. Such a spell ought to be impossible.�

�� It�s tied
to specific bloodlines,� Harry said. �Genetic codes.� He looked at Malfoy and
found his blank expression satisfying. At least there was one arena of life in
which the smarmy git�s experience was not equal to Harry�s and Hermione�s. �It
would identify you because you were a Malfoy, not because you were a
pure-blood,� he explained. �There�s no way you can go into the Ministry.�

�� How kind
of them,� Malfoy muttered, but didn�t explain what he meant, or give Harry a
chance to demand an explanation. �I know I can�t go into the Ministry. You�re
to go yourself. You�ll bring back Pensieve memories for me to look at.�

�� I don�t
have a Pensieve.�

�� You�re
telling me the Chosen One can�t acquire whatever he wants, whenever he asks for
it?�

�� Harry
flushed. People had offered him all sorts of things in the last year, from
powerful magical artifacts (including the Sword of Gryffindor) to their
children and their naked bodies. But he hadn�t felt right asking for anything, not when he saw that he couldn�t get
everyone�s bizarre behavior to stop. His conscience said it wasn�t right to
demand personal favors when he couldn�t demand the one thing that would be best
for the wizarding world.

�� Yes, all
right, I�ll ask for a Pensieve,� he said.

�� Not so
easy to be a hero when someone�s clamoring at your heels ordering you to do it,
is it?� For a moment, Malfoy�s eyes were far away, and Harry wondered if he was
seeing their sixth year at Hogwarts or something that had happened since,
something Harry hadn�t a clue about.

�� He took a
deep breath to blow away the sudden curiosity clogging his throat, and said, �I
still don�t know where the Troublestone would be likely to be.�

�� Malfoy
tilted his head, eyes shut as he bit so fiercely at his bottom lip that he drew
blood. Harry raised a hand instinctively to catch his jaw and try to stop the
motion, and then dropped it again, flushing. Bloody hell, he had strange reactions around Malfoy. He
couldn�t remember swinging so wildly from one mood to another since he broke up
with Ginny, for one thing.

�� Based on
its history,� Malfoy muttered, �it will seek a center of power, a room or place
that symbolizes ownership. It prefers to influence legal authorities, so it
would be more likely to appear in, say, a council chamber than the house of a
Dark Lord. And it would have to be somewhere out of the common way, or it would
have to deal with people not under the spell seeing it.� He opened his eyes.
�It also prefers to choose a place which matters to its charisma focus, but I
don�t know if that applies in this case, or you�d think it would have chosen
somewhere in Hogwarts.�

�� Harry
caught his breath as if a punch had driven it out of him. He�d been eliminating
possibilities in his mind as Malfoy spoke, and that last sentence had cut the
choices down to one.

�� I know
where the Troublestone is,� he said.

�� Malfoy
didn�t question him, but once again caught and squeezed his arm until the
tendon pressed to bone and Harry winced. He didn�t apologize, either.

*

�� Harry put
his chin up and strode down the corridor, trying to look as if he had business
in this part of the Ministry. He realized a moment later that he needn�t have
worried. Everyone looked at him as if he did
have business in this part of the Ministry, and faded quietly out of the
way. Some of them even called soft good-luck wishes after him.

�� God, they don�t know what I�m doing, it
could have been anything, Harry thought in disgust, and then shook his
head. That was the whole point of the Troublestone�s charisma focus, as Malfoy
had pointed out to him a few hours ago. The leader whose �wishes� the stone�s
victims fulfilled had to go unquestioned, or it was possible that some people
would resist the spell or manage to awaken from it once infected.

�� Harry took
a deep breath and laid a hand on the door of the Wizengamot courtroom where he
had been tried five years ago for underage magic. He paused, but he could only
feel the general glow of magic that seemed to infest the Ministry lately, from
Apparition-detecting spells to countercurses against obscure Dark Arts no Death
Eater had ever tried to employ. He opened the door and stepped inside.

�� The
difference of magic when the door was open was immense, and he could only guess
it had something to do with the spells already wound into the Ministry�s walls,
or perhaps an innate protective measure from the stone itself. Waves of rushing
power poured across him, making every hair on his body rise and his legs
tremble as if they couldn�t hold him any longer. Harry pushed his back against
the door and fought to take, and keep taking, long breaths. He wasn�t about to
let a stone defeat him.

�� Even if it
was a dark blue sapphire the size of Voldemort seated on a throne, with
gleaming facets that looked as sharp as obsidian.

�� When he
thought he could keep his feet instead of groveling before the stone, Harry
took a single step forwards. The stone vibrated and quivered. Harry froze
before he realized that only the dance of light along its facets had changed;
if it was aware of his intrusion, he didn�t see any sign of it. Malfoy had said
it was sentient, yes, but that didn�t mean it was intelligent on the same level
as humans.

�� Well. There it is.

�� Harry
stared at the sapphire, and once again a wave of weariness washed over him.
What was this going to prove? Malfoy could show the Pensieve images to any
number of people, and if they were under the thrall of the Troublestone, they
wouldn�t react. Or, well, they wouldn�t react at best. At worst, the sapphire would marshal them to defend
itself, and Malfoy would be tortured again. And if it was former Death Eaters
who had inflicted all those scars on him, Harry didn�t think the other side
united enough to make an effective stand against the Troublestone.

�� But Malfoy
had told him to get a good look at the Troublestone, and so Harry wandered in
circles around the Wizengamot courtroom, obediently peering into corners so
that he would be able to put a detailed plan of the room into the Pensieve. The
sapphire rested near the chair in which he�d once sat to face Umbridge and
Fudge and all the other people who hated him for telling the truth about
Voledemort, and probably for being alive.

�� Harry
shivered with the force of his anger for a moment, and then sighed. What did it
matter? Fudge was dead, killed by Fenrir Greyback after the war in futile
revenge�that had been what started the intense persecution of werewolves�and
Umbridge sent to Azkaban long ago.

�� What did anything matter?

�� The
sapphire sparkled and trembled before him, shining with its own internal light.
So keen were the vibrations that it could have risen from the ground, and Harry
wouldn�t have been surprised.

�� He wasn�t
going to be able to achieve what he wanted. He should go back and turn Malfoy
in, really. He couldn�t make a difference in the world in the way he thought
was morally right, so why take on the extra bother of protecting a fugitive who
had done plenty of horrible things in his time? Who had almost killed both
Katie Bell and Harry�s best friend in their sixth year at Hogwarts, and had
made things harder than they had to be in the Room of Requirement during the
war?

�� Harry
froze. He couldn�t remember when he had shut his eyes, but he stood now without
trying to open them, listening to his own breathing, calm and cool.

�� What�s happening to me?

�� He had
given in to despair in the past, but never despair that would hurt someone
else. When he had thought Ron or Hermione showed signs of coming out of the
trance of revenge that consumed them and the rest of the wizarding world, he
had stood by them, protected them from people who disparaged their ideas, and
tried to encourage them.

�� The
encouragements had always failed.

�� But he had
not abandoned them. Not for any reason would he abandon someone who needed him,
since there seemed to so few people in the wizarding world who actually did. These
thoughts about abandoning Draco were foreign ones, being pressed into his mind
like fingers into a snowbank.

�� Harry
backed up, his breathing coming faster now, his eyes open and fixed on the
stone. The light flickered over its surface like darting fairies at Christmas,
and then calmed. Now the Troublestone was quiescent as it had ever been.

�� Nevertheless,
Harry was sure it had tried to clutch at his mind. Why, he didn�t know, because
Draco had told him that the charisma focus was the one person not affected by
the spell. But it had happened anyway. And he could feel the sensation better
now, sharper and colder than he had realized, slicing his own thoughts to
pieces. It felt like Legilimency.

�� A new,
deeper rage bloomed in him. After he had finally managed to push Voldemort out
of his head for good by dying and losing the bit of soul that made him a
Horcrux, he had sworn he would never allow anyone to invade his mind again.
That vow had gone by the way in the last few months, as had everything else,
mostly because no one had tried to
invade his mind. But now�

�� Now it was personal, and now he no longer wanted to
get rid of the Troublestone merely to help Malfoy or free his friends.

�� He glared
at the stone, stepped out of the courtroom, and walked back to the Auror
Office. Some of the people who saw him pass were the same ones who must have
heard by now that he�d planned to take a few days off, but even they never
questioned him. Gazes full of wide-eyed respect and adoration followed him, and
one witch actually fainted when she caught the edge of his scowl.

�� But now
Harry knew they didn�t have a choice about feeling those emotions. The
Troublestone had chosen to make them feel them, because that was its way of
fucking up the wizarding world in general and Harry�s life in particular.

�� Harry
snarled and walked faster.

*

�� Harry had
asked Kingsley for a Pensieve, and of course he�d been granted one. He�d put
the memories in it for Malfoy. Malfoy bent his head over the silvery liquid
without a word when Harry gave the Pensieve to him and submerged himself in it.
So Harry went into another room to pace and fume and try to work out his anger.

�� He wasn�t
succeeding.

�� God,
couldn�t he get any peace? Couldn�t the people who had fought so hard during
the war get any peace? Harry imagined Ron and Hermione waking up in a month, or
a week, or however long it would take him and Malfoy to make the Troublestone
move on�despite Malfoy�s optimism, Harry didn�t think they�d manage to destroy
it�and looking with clear eyes at what they�d done. They�d despise themselves. Hermione in particular; she had encouraged the
registration of werewolves and the �management� of house-elves who�d served
some of the accused. That should have been his first clue that something was
deeply wrong.

�� Harry paced
faster and faster through his drawing room, then whipped around and hurled a
curse at an ivory music box on a delicate carved table, both of them accepted
in the days when the expression of disappointment on the face of one of his
admirers still cut him too deeply to let him refuse gifts. The music box blasted
into shards. The table, cut neatly into three pieces, tumbled to the floor and
lay there smoking. Harry snapped, �Stop,� at the small blaze that was spreading
onto the carpet, and it did. He barely realized he�d used wandless magic to
prevent the fire from spreading.

�� He was furious.

�� He�d
forgotten how it felt to have an emotion this strong and clean roaring through
him. Or maybe not clean, because it was carrying the accumulated muck of the
last year, the pain and horror he�d felt when he first began to realize what
was happening. But it filled him with energy again, and he no longer fought to
control the trembling of his muscles and the jumping of his magic�or only
enough to ensure that he didn�t destroy his flat�but rejoiced in the fact that
he had power enough to punish his enemies.

�� If he
could. He hoped that Malfoy really did know a way to destroy the Troublestone.
If he didn�t, then Harry would have to find out what pure-blood family was
likely to have basilisks carved into the walls of its dungeons. He had to take
revenge on someone, and Malfoy�s
scars ignited his rage as much as the memory of his mind being tampered with.

�� Potter.�

�� Harry swung
around, every muscle tense, ready to lash out on general principles. But it was
Malfoy standing in the entrance of his bedroom, regarding him with a steady,
unflickering gaze, and something like approval.

�� I�ve
studied the defenses on the stone,� said Malfoy. �I�m sure we can get to it.
And then we can destroy it.� A manic smile lit his face. Harry thought he might
have found it disturbing four hours ago. Now he felt a thrill of heat stab down
from his throat to his groin.

�� Good,�
Harry said. �But how are we going to do that?�

�� Malfoy
laughed softly. �If I were to tell you right now, you would probably charge off
and try to do it on your own,� he said. �It�ll need to wait until I�m recovered
first, so I can go with you.� His smile widened, and he stared over Harry�s
shoulder at the wall, his fingers flexing open and shut.

�� The wards
on the Ministry that detect the Malfoy bloodline��

�� We�ll find
some way around them.� Malfoy�s voice was too casual for Harry�s liking, but he
had a different question to ask.

�� The stone
managed to make me consider giving you up.� At the moment, nothing was more unthinkable
than that, with the way Malfoy had a faint, eager flush working its way up over
his cheeks, but Harry didn�t see that that last observation had to be shared
with the object of it. �I thought you said it couldn�t affect its charisma
focus.�

�� Not in the
same way it influences everyone else, with that spell that drives them mad,�
Malfoy said calmly. �And it doesn�t want to kill you, because its power ends if
you�re dead. But it can make you consider not fighting it. It can try to drown
your horror in apathy, your rage in despair.� He arched an eyebrow. �Sound
familiar?�

�� Harry began
to steadily swear, words he had learned from Snape and words that he�d heard
Dudley use when his parents were away. Saying this many crude words in a row
wasn�t something he�d ever done before; Hermione would intervene with pleas for
him to stop before he got that far. But it felt good, and Malfoy stood
listening to him with evident pleasure.

�� I�m so
angry,� Harry whispered at last, when the last curse had escaped from his lips,
leaving them raw and his throat aching and his emotions only a little subdued.

�� Good.�
Malfoy�s voice was thick and low. �I like you angry.�

�� Harry
snapped his head up. There was something�off�about the intensity in Malfoy�s
voice, and about the greedy way in which he surveyed Harry now. No, the proprietary way, Harry thought.

�� That will
make it easier to destroy the stone,� Malfoy explained, not seeming to notice
Harry�s increased scrutiny.

�� Harry
licked his lips. He had no plans to be suspicious of Malfoy at this point,
because he had correctly predicted the involvement of the Troublestone and he
was the only person Harry knew who was willing to destroy it.

�� But it
might not hurt to keep an eye on him.

�� Yes,� he
said.

�� Malfoy�s
eyes shone with that fever-like heat again, and Harry wondered if he would so
resent it if Malfoy had ulterior motives.

�� He lowered
his eyes and frowned a moment later. Some new emotion was stirring in him,
thick and complex and many-edged as the light that had flickered around the
Troublestone. He couldn�t tell what it was, and that worried him.

�� But at least it�s new.

��

*

�� Lullaby to
Rita: Thank you! It�ll be just Harry�s POV. There are some mysteries from Draco�s
POV that need to be unresolved until the end.

�� Jilliane:
Thank you! Here is Draco�s knowledge.

�� cleo: Thank
you! Harry doesn�t really understand what he�s feeling yet, but he does know
that Draco is extraordinary and he feels something.

�� Paigeey07:
Thanks!

�� Anon: It�s
a fairly happy ending. No major character death.

�� Amiyom:
Thank you!

�� SP777:
Thank you! And hey, I did write one eight-chaptered story before, and even a
six-chaptered one! This one�s plot is fairly self-contained, so it�ll be much
easier.

�� linagabriev:
Thank you! I think it�s fairly easy for Harry to succumb to bitterness. If he doesn�t
have a support network, all he can do is just try to survive the best he can.

�� Mangacat:
Thank you! I�m really working hard here to create a believable situation, along
with believable reactions from Harry and Draco.
- 2
- 3
- 4
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

Secondhand Heroes