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Black Phoenix	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21568 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
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 Thirty—Flare
            The white fire came from the side, out of one of the Manor’s windows, moving so fast and so smoothly that there wasn’t anything anyone could do against it. It reached straight for Draco, and enfolded arms of fire almost lovingly around him.
            Correction, Harry thought as he reached out with his own power to meet the fire. There wouldn’t have been anything anyone could do against it, if I wasn’t here.
            The rage behind his magic made it soar, moving faster than the fire, faster than Harry had ever seen his own magic move when he wasn’t on the grounds of Hogwarts. The two different powers crashed together, white fire from one side and a different, golden flickering on the other. Harry surrounded and cradled Draco and laid him on the ground, then began to raise shields around the crowd.
            He heard some people’s hair catch on fire, but they shrieked and drew their wands. They weren’t unconscious, the way a few people on the fringes who had been knocked off their feet by the first explosion were. They could take care of themselves.
            He was there to protect the people who couldn’t.
            Touching the white fire with his own magic was like being kicked in the teeth. It was Dark magic, and it raged and twisted and twitched and whirled up in different shapes, like the leaping beasts of Fiendfyre. Harry shuddered with the weight of it. He would have liked to stop walking and concentrate on that particular fight.
            Would have liked to. But Draco was still down, even if he was under a cocoon-like awning of Harry’s protection now, and Harry had to be with him, by his side, where he had always promised he would be.
            So Harry set up a rippling shield wall to deal with the white fire as it poured towards them, and made his way, in the flesh, to Draco’s side. He bent over him and lifted him carefully to his feet. The fire had seared away some of the hair on the right side of his head, and caused a deep burn near his right eye. Harry stroked that, withdrawing some of his magic from the fight with the artifact to touch the burn. It shimmered and began to heal. Harry didn’t think he would be able to make it disappear completely, in the limited amount of time and with the limited amount of power he had, but it should be well on the path to not scarring.
            “Harry?” Draco whispered.
            Harry bowed his head over Draco’s face and cradled him close as he nodded. “Yes.” He saw no point in hiding. Anyone who could concentrate enough to think beyond the obvious and immediate in the wake of this assassination attempt would already know Harry was here. “Are you feeling all right?”
            “My head is ringing.”
            Harry reached up and felt delicately around his skull, looking into his eyes, meanwhile, as Draco opened them. “I think you may have a concussion,” Harry mumbled, and worked to make his hold gentle. He knew what he wanted to do, to lash out, but being too angry and loud right now would only hurt Draco, instead of their enemies. “Can you walk?”
            Draco nodded, and Harry helped him down from the platform, rescuing the list of names on the way and sticking it into his pocket.
            Near the bottom of the platform, Harry met Rosenthal, who seemed to be among those who hadn’t been thrown from their feet by the first explosion and also sane enough to realize that something was holding the fire back, so they didn’t need to all run screaming from it now. Her eyes were all for Draco. Harry relinquished him to her, if only for the moment. He had to do something about the rage growing in him, and he trusted Rosenthal because she was bound to him by oath.
            “Get him to a safe distance,” he said. “He has a concussion. He’ll have to go to St. Mungo’s, but I don’t think he should be Apparated yet.”
            Rosenthal nodded, and retreated. Harry looked around once. There were still people nearby on the ground, but all of them were either safe enough behind the shield he had raised, or beyond help. Harry turned to face the Manor, and the unnatural spikes of white flame still striking from the window. It really looked more like there was a sun shining through the window, rather than a fire burning.
            Well, Harry was going to take care of that. Right now.
            His hands rose, and he began to call in all of the magic that wasn’t powering the immediate shield. Some he couldn’t withdraw from his bond with Hogwarts, but it wouldn’t have been possible to reach across the distance, anyway. He took what he could, and it was still more than enough power, swirling in a lazy way in front of his chest.
            Harry took in that power, and he took it in, until his lungs were aching with the heat and his head was light with it. Then he held his hands a few inches apart and breathed through them, directly at the fire.
            The magic roared out of him, into a single straight beam, concentrated between his fingers. The beam’s color went from yellow to blue to white so fast that Harry found it hard to look at.
            But he wouldn’t turn away. He would see what his magic did to the last of Gorenson’s pathetic assassination attempt.
            The beam cut across the nearest flame, and sliced it in two. Motionless sparks fell to the grass, and stopped burning the moment they were cut off from the larger fire. Harry smiled grimly. He had thought that would happen. The artifact was unnatural in every way, and its great power was the way its flames were linked together, radiating from a single source. Cut them off, and they couldn’t continue burning.
            Harry moved forwards, fingers extended, magic shooting and sprouting from every tip now. He raked them like claws across the side of the flames.
            The white fire spat and hissed, harder than any conflagration born of natural kindling, but it simply didn’t succeed. It was being forced back, it was sinking, and Harry could see now that it was coming from the window on the side of the Manor that marked Draco’s study. He hoped that not too much of what Draco loved had been in there.
            Because he was going to have to do more destruction than the artifact had so far to contain it.
            He waited until the flames had shrunk to the size of pieces of hair, and then swept his hands up and slammed them together. His magic promptly cascaded up and fell, like a fountain, down to a little shimmering pool.
            It bore the fire with it, and swallowed the last of the inferno. In a few seconds, Harry stood in front of a smoking window, his hands held together, containing the last writhing impulses of the artifact’s power.
            Harry smashed them down and down, his magic and the magic it contained, until it was a single, dense little pearl of coruscating light. Then he tossed it in the air, fully aware that some of the reporters and other spectators had scrambled back to their feet and were watching him. Well, he would give them a show.
            The pearl of light rose, and seemed as if it would expand into fire once again when it was beyond the protective influence of his shield. Harry held his hands up, and again breathed between them, though this time with his fingers wider-spread.
            His own flames turned the pearl of magic to a darker shadow in the intense noon of their light, and vaporized it.
            Harry turned back around and gave the smallest bow in the direction of those who were gaping at him, the reporters and the other watchers. He didn’t know if his half-goblin disguise was still on him, but he also knew that it didn’t matter. There weren’t that many people who could do something like he had just done. The rumors that he was Harry Potter would have spread all over the conference in moments, whether or not they had personally seen through his disguise.
            He turned around to study the Manor once more. It didn’t tell him anything new, though. The smoking window was still slightly smoking, not unusual when so much fire had come through it. The stones of the wall were torn and broken, little more than rubble now. Harry cocked his head to the side, wondering if Draco had been foolish enough to allow someone inside his wards to deliver the artifact.
            Then he paused. No, he didn’t think so. He thought he would have felt the magic the moment he stepped onto the grounds, if it had been recently placed inside the wards.
            But if Gorenson had sent the artifact, and Draco had thought it was a taunt or something similar, and had neglected to do anything but lock the artifact up…
            Yes, that might do it.
            Harry turned away from the Manor with his face tight. He needed to seek Draco out, and he needed to make sure that he was all right, and he needed to have a word with him about artifacts that he might have locked in his desk instead of getting rid of them the way he should have.
            And he needed to walk slowly across the gardens of Malfoy Manor, making it into something that other people would take for an arrogant parade. If anyone sensed how deep his weakness and exhaustion from contending against the magic went, if they thought that they might be able to attack him with impunity, then Harry would have another battle on his hands.
            Contrary to the people who thought of him as an all-conquering Dark Lord, that was the last thing he wanted.
*
            “Are you all right?”
            Draco knew they had both asked the question at the same time, and he could sense Rosenthal curling her lip beside him. But he didn’t care. He thought his question was the more urgent one, much more urgent than Harry’s, and more important than Rosenthal’s opinion of whether they were being ridiculous.
            Because Harry must have thought Draco was fine, or why would he have left him alone as long as he had? And Harry was grey in the face, and his hands were shaking, and he limped all the time, as if he were leaning on a bar that ran invisibly alongside him. And he was taking great gulps of air.
            “I’m fine,” Harry said, and sank down beside the chair that Rosenthal had placed Draco in, reaching out to take his hand. “Tell me, did you have an artifact of some kind in your house? That was where the fire came from. Inside the Manor.”
            Draco jerked as he remembered the ring. Of course he had thought that it couldn’t be what Gorenson had said it was, but never once had he considered that it might hide a secret like this one.
            “He sent me a ring I thought I was a taunt,” Draco said. “There was nothing magical about it that I could sense, but Gorenson claimed that it had wish magic. I could supposedly use it to make any wish come true that I wanted, but it would take away what I most loved in return.”
            “And you kept it,” Harry said, his voice mild, but his hands gripping the arms of the chair hard enough that Draco hated to envision what those fingers would do if they were gripping his skin instead. “Even though you knew that it couldn’t possibly do what he said it did, or there was no way that he would have given it to you.”
            Draco had to snort at that, no matter how uncomfortable he was with the expression on Harry’s face. “I would never use it. But he wanted to tempt me, to taunt me. I thought it was real, and that was why he sent it.”
            Harry turned his head and stared at the still gently-burning side of the Manor.
            Draco coughed a little, feeling his face heat up. “Well, I was wrong,” he said. “But I swear that I cast all sorts of spells on the ring that should have told me if it was magical, and I didn’t sense anything! Certainly nothing that was capable of doing this.” He waved his hand at the ruin of his study.
            Harry frowned a little, but then shook his head. “If it’s an artifact, it wouldn’t necessarily have its magic right on the surface. I couldn’t sense anything special about some of the artifacts the Unspeakables used when I was an Auror, but I saw their effects.” He glanced sideways at Draco. “Did he tell you that it was an Unspeakable artifact?”
            “Um,” said Draco.
            Harry bowed his head and rested his forehead on the arm of Draco’s chair this time, shaking it slowly, sadly back and forth. His lightning bolt scar pressed right on the wood. Draco thought how uncomfortable that must be, and stretched out a hand to keep Harry from injuring himself, but Harry was already lifting his head with the light of battle in his eyes.
            “I would never have done something like that,” Harry announced. “Accepted a gift from the enemy.”
            “Yeah, but you got captured by him,” Draco muttered, driven to defend himself for some absurd reason.
            Harry smiled at him. “Yes, and that wasn’t my proudest moment either.” He trailed his fingers gently along Draco’s arm. “I’m glad you’re all right. But please, if Gorenson tries to do something like this again, know better than to accept it, all right?”
            Draco leaned forwards and rested his forehead against Harry’s shoulder. “I promise.”
            He would have said something more, but paused. Harry’s shoulder was shaking, and Draco didn’t think it was with any sobs or laughter that Harry hadn’t shown him. He pulled away and frowned down at Harry. “Is something wrong with you?”
            “Always.” Harry looked briefly across the gardens, probably to gauge the reaction of their audience, and then nodded. “I have to go back to Hogwarts.”
            “What? Now?” Draco couldn’t help the way his voice soared. This was a much more serious assassination attempt than the one where Gorenson had flung lightning at him from the top of the Manor, and it had caused a lot more damage, perhaps some deaths. Harry was going to leave him now, when Draco needed reassurance and backup to feel better?
            “I have to,” Harry said quietly. “For one thing, the longer I stay here, and at your side, the more people start wondering exactly what our relationship is. They already know who I am. The little show I put on couldn’t help but confirm that.”
            That “show” is probably the reason that Skeeter isn’t already over here asking questions, Draco thought. Even she would be wary to approach someone who had as much sheer power flowing from his fingertips as Harry did. He nodded and asked, “But what if I said that I didn’t care about that? What if I want to be openly at your side?” In truth, he thought the way Harry had reacted when he was hurt had already ruined their chances for keeping it secret, anyway.
            He heard Rosenthal and Harry both catch their breaths sharply. But Harry’s was the sharper, and for a moment, his eyes, searching Draco’s face, shone like the moon.
            But then Harry shook his head and climbed to his feet. “You might want that right now, but it wouldn’t be good for your campaign. And I think that you really, really need to continue your campaign,” he added, even as Draco opened his mouth to dispute with that. “As a fuck you to Gorenson, if nothing else. He wanted to kill you, or make you back down, and you aren’t going to.”
            Draco hesitated, then nodded. He could see the good sense of that advice, and from the pressure of Rosenthal’s hand on his shoulder, she saw the same. He was inclined to trust what Rosenthal thought was a good idea.
            “But then what excuse are you going to give for showing up here?” he asked.
            Harry smiled tiredly at him. He was more strained than Draco had thought. Even his hands were shaking openly now. “I’m going to say that I received a message calling me to this spot, and telling me that I could settle things with Gorenson if I came. To show what a conciliating fellow I am, I turned up. I should have known that it would only be another trap from the people who think that I’m worthless and they can’t bargain with me.”
            “Will anyone believe that you were stupid enough to leave Hogwarts without protection a second time?”
            Harry opened his mouth to speak, and then abruptly stilled and turned his head. Draco followed the direction of his gaze, but could see nothing. He supposed that Harry could be looking towards Hogwarts. Draco wouldn’t know, not from this distance, but Harry had his bond that would tell him.
            “Shit,” Harry said softly. “Oh, shit.”
            It was more frightening that he had said it that way instead of emphasizing the words. Draco surged to his feet to grab Harry’s arm, ignoring the pressure of Rosenthal’s hand on his shoulder as she tried to make him sit down. “What is it?” he demanded.
            “Persephone,” Harry whispered. “He may not have been controlling her, but he’s doing something to her…I have to go now.”
            And he vanished from under Draco’s touch, through the wards and other defenses that Draco could still feel humming around the Manor. Dazed, Draco took his hand back and shook his head.
            He lifted his head, not sure whether he would speak to Rosenthal or try to manage a reassuring comment for the reporters, only to find Skeeter in front of him. She had singed hair, a half-burnt quill, and a deadly grin.
            “Tell me, Ministerial Candidate Malfoy,” she said, pronouncing every syllable separately, “was the Dark Lord apologizing for his attack on the press conference?”
*
Ciara_D: Yes, it did. And you’re welcome!
BAFan: I’m afraid this chapter is not much less evil. Sorry about that!
CareLessLover: Yes, it is. And Gorenson didn’t actually plan for Harry to be there, so he didn’t know that Harry would be able to stop it.
SP777: An evil ending. Like this one.
slmncpm: Here you are!
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Black Phoenix