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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.

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Chapter Thirty-One—In Slaughter

            As they came through the outer line of the wards, the spells reaching for them and then falling back under the combined efforts of Weasley and Granger and Harry’s chanting, Draco felt Harry’s mind spring to life.

            It was unlike the sheer, sleek concentration he had felt before, when Harry was intent on killing someone and that meant all the thoughts in his mind seemed to come together at the same time. This was the water whirling out of its chattering streams and dancing in the air, united by a will that was focused on the battle and went deeper than the will of any single impulse or shallow part of Harry’s mind.

            Left, said Harry’s mind, and a moment later a Stunner, fired by nothing human but what looked more like a gargoyle clinging to the walls, came blasting towards them. Harry whirled to the side and blocked it with a Shield Charm.

            Beneath, said Harry’s mind, and the ground rocked, and then a hole opened directly in front of their running feet. Weasley and Granger jerked to an awkward stop. Harry tensed his legs and flew over it like a bird. Draco, with the warning that his mental link to Harry had given him, cast one of his potions in front of him. The grey smoke flowed and churned, and then became a stone bridge, sturdy enough to bear weight at a gallop. Draco nodded to Weasley and Granger, and they hurried to join him. The Blood Bubble had followed Harry over the chasm without a pause, and Draco saw Adam’s face through the transparent red side, clinging to his bear, his eyes wide and his mouth open.

            Draco lowered his head and ran harder. They dared not let Harry get too far ahead, or it would be easier for their enemies to separate them, and who knew what would happen then?

            A moment later, his head snapped to the right, and he saw someone crouching in the nearest door of the building, aiming at them. He honestly wasn’t sure whether it was his instincts or his peripheral vision or some subconscious message from Harry that had alerted him, and he didn’t care.

            Harry whirled towards the wizard, and he was unconscious in seconds. Draco never saw the spell that took him down. He didn’t have to. He trusted the confidence that rushed through Harry’s mind, and he laughed in the wash of it, in the flood that nearly swept him from his feet.

            “You’re something,” he yelled to Harry, though he didn’t know if Harry would take notice of it, could take notice of it, in their charge.

            Harry half-turned his head back towards Draco, smiling, and then leaped ahead. Draco followed, and Weasley followed, and Granger followed, and after some effort, the rest of them had caught up to Harry and were part of a charging pack once again.

            The wards were springing to life around them now, shining and flashing, and Draco could hear shrieks from inside the house that probably meant the wizards there finally knew what was happening. He smiled, and reached for the first potion hanging on his belt.

            Harry paused and looked back at him, as if picking up on the thought. Well, there was no reason that he wouldn’t, not when the mental bond connected them now at a deep level and Draco had already shown that he could pick up thoughts from Harry when they were both in the middle of battle. He flashed Draco a smile that made Draco wish they were alone, and then leaped back around and countered a curse that spun and spat green light with a Shield Charm. Someone to the side of the Shield Charm cast another curse, one that appeared to Draco as a line of violet light.

            Draco rolled on the ground for a breathless moment and then fought himself back up as he flung the potion down in front of him. The vial rose in a graceful arch and dropped, shattering on a stone. The potion spread out in a thin silver line.

            Harry picked up on his intention from his mind, and a bright bubble of contained air surrounded him and Adam and Weasley and Granger a moment later, shielding them from the effects of the fumes. Draco rose to his feet, cast a spell that would allow him to hold his breath for up to fifteen minutes, and watched.

            He could have cast the same spell that Harry had if he’d wanted to, but that would have impeded his vision, and he did so want to see this.

            The potion’s fumes rose with a slow, reluctant hiss at first, as if they didn’t know what to do and hoped that Draco would give them direction. Draco whispered silent encouragement to them, and imagined that he heard Harry laugh. It had to be imagination, of course, since there were too many other sounds in the air for him to really hear something like that.

            And then the real attack came, wizards pouring out of the building as though out of a disturbed anthill, and they ran straight into the potion.

            The fumes came to life. They directed themselves at nostrils and mouths eagerly; all they needed was an opening to the body, no matter how small. Draco was sure that he saw some of those who had cast insufficient spells take the fumes in through the pores in their skin. He smiled. Unless one shut oneself off from the surrounding air entirely, as Harry had, or used Draco’s particular charm, then one would breathe them in.

            The first scream came from a woman with bright red hair that reminded Draco of Weasley’s. She dropped her wand and stood there wringing her hand as if it was on fire. Ugly blisters were starting to life across her skin, and the next moment, she dropped to her knees and started tearing her robes off.

            Draco strolled slowly forwards. The people he passed were disarming themselves, screaming in pain and panic, and crying, tears as huge as the blisters splashing on the ground. That was what happened when one absorbed a potion that would make one allergic to magic. Their robes, their wands, and anything else they carried that bore an enchantment, such as weapons, would make them react now. The wards, if they brushed past them, might cause burns or heart attacks.

            And, of course…

            Draco saw the red-haired woman tearing at her own skin, crying and vomiting. He smiled. He had no patience for the minions of those, like Schroeder and Moonstone, who would try to snare him and Harry and drag them down, and that meant he could smile at the sight of them allergic to their own magic, which came from inside their bodies. He knew that test subjects had died before trying to cut themselves open to get the magic, and thus the pain, out, and he had modified the potion to make it stronger.

            So much for guards.

            He thought the incantation in Harry’s direction as hard as he could, and a few moments later, saw the bubble of contained air broke apart. Harry ran towards him, not breathing as he did, and behind him came the Blood Bubble, bouncing like a child’s tethered toy on a string. Weasley and Granger followed, staring in disgust at the bodies writhing on the ground.

            Draco ignored them. He met Harry’s eyes, and Harry nodded and brushed a hand across Draco’s elbow.

            No one got away, said his thoughts, and then they faced the building and Harry raised his wand. The doors rocked and tore themselves from their hinges in their haste to get away. Inside was darkness, and a low humming sound that made Draco prick up his ears. He didn’t know what it was, but he thought he might, if he was allowed to stand still and study it for long enough.

            Harry, of course, didn’t allow him that time. He thumped forwards, and Draco ended up rolling his eyes and following him.

*

            Harry could sense it even before he entered the building, the hum in the earth and the ache in his bones that made him feel as if they were going to break through his skin, but he didn’t understand it until he was inside.

            Then he looked up, and above him, clustered in a bubble against the ceiling of the building—which was large and entirely open, like a warehouse—was the impossible color of stolen magic.

            Harry lowered his head. He had no more questions about whether Moonstone and Schroeder had tortured children here. If they had not managed to get magic into Muggle children, like Adam, then they had, at the very least, taken it out of magical children and Obliviated them so that neither they nor their parents would ever know why they had been permanently weakened.

            Harry could feel a rhythm growing within him that played his heart and bones in distinct counterpoint to the magic brewing above him. It sounded like drumming footsteps, the paces of a distant, gigantic beast, getting closer and closer. Harry wondered, for a detached moment, if the beast had paws or hooves, long legs or short ones.

            He knew one thing for sure. It had teeth.

            He looked around, and saw people turning towards them, opening their mouths, surprised by the intrusion. Almost all of them wore the bright robes of Healers. Harry snarled, his mouth opening and his anger soaring as he remembered all those donations Schroeder had supposedly made to St. Mungo’s over the years. Well, here was one fruit of them, and if he was hauled before the Ministry for what he was about to do, Harry would make sure that someone knew about that and could raze the hospital from the inside.

            Harry smiled, watching as those wizards began to choke on the fumes from Draco’s potion, although Draco’s mind had flickered and jumped with the notion that the fumes wouldn’t spread far from the place where the vial had been smashed. That meant these people would only get a small dose, a recoverable one, and any children in here shouldn’t be affected at all—if Muggles—or would recover in the same way.

            Harry intended for them to suffer no pain at all. He thought a spell as hard as he could, without moving his wand, in case someone was still watching them and would be warned, and a steady breeze began to blow from within the warehouse, flinging back the fumes on the heads of those already affected.

            Then he made ready to spring forwards.

            Draco’s hand on his arm halted him, and a moment later, Hermione came up beside him and touched her wand to his temple. She was holding Ron’s hand on the other side, and Harry heard her voice speaking clear and distinct in his head. Hold still, Harry! There’s a trap here of some kind…I don’t know what it is, but it’s thrumming in the earth…under the trapped magic…don’t you feel it?

            Now that he was paying attention, reluctantly, to something other than the fact of his own rage, Harry thought he could feel it, which didn’t slow down his urge to tear apart all the people he could see who might have had some part in this activity. He clenched his fists and fought for distance, sorting through the sounds, trying not to resent Hermione’s presence in his head where only Draco should be, clawing for height away from his emotions.

            And yes, there it was. The magic caught above them had a regular rhythm, like thumping pistons. This was an irregular one, a stuttering heartbeat.

            And it did come from beneath them, rather than above.

            Harry turned his head downwards. The floor they stood on was not stone, as he had thought it would be, but at best loose stone over even looser dirt. He sniffed, and thought he could smell a damp, thick scent from below. He smiled and reached down to tap his wand against his hands.

            Ungulis defodio, he thought, the nonverbal incantation echoing in the others’ heads down along the chain, from the way Draco frowned at him and Hermione dropped his hand in shock.

            Harry shuddered as his fingernails twisted and grew, the magic running into them and digging down to the knuckles before it came running back. The power splashed out the ends, and Harry laughed soundlessly and lifted his hands. He was growing claws, hooked things that were much stronger than their slenderness made them look.

            And he plunged forwards and began to dig, tossing aside stone and then dirt in a shower over his head.

            The exertion was easy, far easier than he had thought it would be, but then again, he had his rage, even more than his magic, guiding his movements. He wanted the stone gone. He wanted the dirt dead. He wanted to find his way to the trap waiting beneath their feet and destroy it, and he was going to do that, and it didn’t matter how long it took.

            “Harry—wait—”

            Harry wondered for a moment how Hermione could speak aloud when there was still the danger of fumes in the air, but reckoned they must have dispersed, or perhaps Draco knew another countercharm. He shook his head and continued digging, marveling at the way his arms rose and fell, at the silence of Draco’s thoughts in his head, as though he simply didn’t know what to do with Harry’s actions.

            “The trap is probably triggered by something more than the mere presence of strangers in this place, or it would have blown up by now,” Draco said, his voice cool as he translated Harry’s thoughts. “But no one would think that someone would Transfigure his hands into claws and dig down like that. Harry’s weight shouldn’t be sufficient to trigger it, either.”

            “But what if you’re wrong?” From the sound of things, Hermione was kneeling right on the edge of the deep, narrow pit Harry was digging, exactly as wide as the rise and fall of his arms. “Harry, stop!”

            “I have to do something with this energy, or it’ll destroy me,” Harry answered, and continued to pound the dirt. Scoop and toss and throw aside, and now his arms were burning, and now he knew that he would pay for those motions later, but for now, this was all for him, this was the way that he wanted to work, and it was working.

            “You need to come back so that we can plan!”

            “We can’t plan anything until we know what we’re facing,” Harry snapped, and dug, and dug, and dug.

            Draco was explaining something to the others, and now his thoughts were alive in Harry’s head again. Can’t believe it, thought they would know him better, don’t realize what he is?

            Harry snorted into the dirt he was flinging. And who was it that Draco thought didn’t know who Harry was? His friends, or Harry himself, or Draco himself perhaps?

            But now the dirt was beginning to change, and Harry knew he was close to whatever was making the thumping noise. He paused, only then aware how much he hurt, and sighed. He couldn’t afford to stop or give into that, and he summoned his magic to flood him until he felt and heard only that pain beneath his skin, the churning, restless energy of a trapped wild beast, eager to come out.

            He listened, and heard the irregular rhythm. It didn’t seem to have changed at all, except that it was closer now. But his digging hadn’t disturbed it. Harry nodded. Draco was right; no one could plan for all eventualities, and the possibility that someone might break in by turning his hands into claws had to have been low on Moonstone and Schroeder’s list.

            More cautiously now, Harry dug around to the side, listening. Still no alteration. And no sense of human magic, either. Harry thought he would probably feel it, with his power straining beneath his skin like a sixth sense, no matter how quiet or still the people down here were taking care to be, or what kinds of wards they had.

            Then he hit what felt like a shallow, rounded ceiling. Harry paused and cocked his head. What was it? His claws tapped a material that wasn’t stone, or wood, or porcelain, though it was as smooth as that and rang when he touched it. It felt like—

            It felt like an eggshell.

            Harry didn’t know what it meant, not immediately. But he did know that it tightened his muscles and drove him on, and if he had to pause in his digging because he had no idea how big the egg was or how to get past it, that didn’t mean that he would pause in his efforts to destroy the thing, or Moonstone and Schroeder’s ambitions.

            “I found an egg!” he shouted up, and then paused. There were noises above the hole he had made, and they didn’t sound like noises that his friends would make.

            He rolled onto his back and held his claws above him moments before the first attacker tried to leap down on top of him.

            Harry maintained rational thought even as his claws drove through cloth and flesh and muscle, into bone, and the man above him screamed and spasmed and died, drenching Harry with blood and fouler things.

            They couldn’t be that worried about breaking the shell of the egg, not if someone had jumped down on top of him here. And it was telling that the man had attacked physically rather than cast any magic into the hole. Or, at least, Harry thought so. It might mean that a magical attack on the egg would have more chance of succeeding.

            Harry pulled his claws from the body and transformed his hands back with a delicate wave of his wand, held in his teeth. Then he cast a spell that filled the hole immediately beneath him with fizzing, spitting air and drove him out in a rush that tumbled him towards the ceiling, and the magic contained there, before he fell back. He landed in a crouch, whipping his head from side to side to take in more at once.

            There was the Blood Bubble, with Adam still safe inside it, hovering near the far wall, almost as distant as it could get from Harry without breaking the tether that bound them. And there were Ron and Hermione, backed up against each other and fighting a new wave of Healers in their green robes.

            On the other side of them was Draco, a potions vial in his hand and cool eyes scanning the battle for a place to throw it. Harry felt the thoughts in the back of Draco’s head dancing up and down, scratching the back of his mind with clicking claws. He still wasn’t used to reading them, or the change in them would have told him that the opposition had arrived. He snorted to himself. He would have to get better, no matter what it took.

            Draco caught his eye and jerked his head towards the back of the warehouse. Harry turned and saw a sleek door there, opening into nothingness. One of the Healers was pelting back towards it.

            Let him go through, and he would almost certainly manage to warn someone. And their plan depended on quick strikes and no way for the conspirators to warn anyone. Harry took off in a smooth run, springing over and under curses, and flinging his wand out to stay the Blood Bubble in place when it would have bobbed after him.

            The Healer flying ahead of him had pale green robes, and a shock of red hair that flapped and danced behind him in a style Harry had seen a few weeks ago, when he and Ron arrested a Hogwarts student casting Dark Arts spells to impress the girls in Hogsmeade. Harry smiled. An apprentice.

            Someone who didn’t know as much magic as the others, though perhaps not as many secrets, either. Someone who could be easily intimidated.

            Harry cast three spells right after each other: Levicorpus, Incarcerous, Sectumsempra. The last curse didn’t touch the apprentice, who had already been jerked into the air and hanged upside-down with ropes on him, but it flew past his nose and carved the rock up next to his face in a huge puff of dust. The little boy wrenched his head to the side and whimpered.

            Harry slowed his steps in a stalk towards him. The boy stared down at him, and Harry smiled.

            “I want to know what you know about magical children being brought here,” he said, “and their magic taken from them. And I want to know what you know about Muggle children being tormented to absorb their magic.”

            “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The boy’s voice was thin and high, and he lashed out with one foot, as though he thought that would make the ropes go away.

            “Of course you don’t,” Harry said. “None of you ever do, when I want you to tell the truth.” He held up his hand in front of him and breathed on it. A faint tongue of fire sprang up, hiding the incantation that he whispered into his palm a moment later. Then Harry extended his hand, and the fireball levitated itself towards the terrified apprentice, coming to a stop—of sorts—right in front of his eyes.

            It couldn’t escape the apprentice’s notice that the fireball jerked closer a moment later, flinging itself along as though it would enjoy doing nothing more than burning his eyeballs out. The man moaned and convulsed.

            Harry smiled. “Anyone would think I was fucking you,” he said casually, and felt the thoughts in the back of his head change course to say Mine. He almost rolled his eyes. It made sense that that was the one set of words Draco would hear him speak, through all the other shouting and noises of battle. “Well. Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll let you go.”

            “You’ll—you’ll let me live?” The apprentice stared at him with big, wet eyes, and then screamed hard enough to shake the walls as the fireball traveled a little nearer still, drying his tears and singeing his lashes.

            “Perhaps,” Harry said. “I want you to tell me everything you know about this place, and I want you to tell me the truth.”

            The apprentice bobbed his head and opened his mouth. Then Harry heard more footsteps, and realized they were coming closer—

            But from the wrong direction to be someone running from the battle.

            He whipped around and dropped into a crouch, only to see flashes of light from inside the black doorway. Instinctively, Harry slashed his wand down, sideways, and up, and roared the spell he wanted in the confines of his mind. Finite Incantatem!

            The magic that was part of the doorway vanished. Harry thought he saw the sides of the doorway ripple—he had never seen something like this before, and had no idea if that was the way it was supposed to work—before it went. He also saw someone’s open mouth and reaching hands, and suspected they might be torn apart by the motions inside the doorway.

            Well. He couldn’t find it in himself to let it matter, any more than Draco felt remorse for using the potion that made the torturers allergic to magic. If they were going to do something like that, then they should pay the price.

            He turned and met the apprentice’s eyes again. The sounds of the battle were dying behind him. Draco must have finally had a chance to use his potion, although Harry wasn’t sure what that one did. “You promise to speak to me truthfully?” he murmured. “You will have to, you know, if you want to live.”

            A hand fell on his shoulder, and Harry might have killed if he hadn’t felt the familiar mind behind the touch as well. “No need for a promise,” Draco murmured. “I have Veritaserum.” He glanced at Harry, and his thoughts shouted, Do you really mean for this one to live?

            I don’t know, Harry said, or thought he did. Since what he and Draco heard were more impulses than anything else, it was hard to form their thoughts into a coherent conversation. He nodded to the boy. “Are you ready to come down and tell the truth?” He held up his hand, and the fireball drifted back a little.

            “Yes, sir!” The boy gasped on tears the fire hadn’t managed to dry, and then bobbed his head several times. “I want to.”

            Harry smiled and closed his fingers, dimming the fire from existence. “Good boy.”

            When he turned, it was to see Ron and Hermione standing in the middle of slumbering bodies, staring between him and Draco. Perhaps they had seen him torturing the apprentice Healer with fire, Harry thought. Perhaps they had heard his last threat and the boy’s response. He couldn’t be sure.

            He only knew that the rage remained, but he hadn’t used Dark Arts spells, he could put it to productive work, and he was going to question this prisoner and let Draco use his Veritaserum. He never would have done that as an Auror, at least on anyone who hadn’t given his permission willingly.

            But he was not an Auror any longer.

            Never look back.

*

            LeaniaSTL: Hermione will be even more unhappy about the actions Harry and Draco take in this chapter.

            unneeded: The main problem Harry has with remaining an Auror is obeying the rules of a corrupt Ministry. And after his attacks on prominent officials, he may not be able to go back to that.

            moodysavage: Would it have been better if it was titled ‘In the Prelude to Battle’? ;)

            Makoto Sagara: I am afraid the delay between this chapter and the last one won’t make you less frustrated, but I hope you enjoy anyway!

            ChaosLady: Thank you!

            SP777: Thanks! I don’t know that I’d call this a humorous chapter, but you will see some movement and action in the next one.
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