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Seasons of War	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 9694 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Thirty-Two�On
Strings of Bone

�� What
exactly are we going to do about Nemo?�

�� Gregory
launched the question at Draco like a dart as she stepped into the middle of
their tent. Draco started. He hadn�t noticed her coming in, probably because he
was involved in the book of tactics essays that Ketchum had given him. It was
still unforgivable that he hadn�t noticed, he thought as he laid the tome down,
and the ability of his eye to see the wild purple and green magic that coruscated
around her didn�t make up for the lapse.

�� How much
information have you got out of him?� he asked.

�� Gregory
shook her head. �I don�t believe he�s numb to the torture, but there�s a point
past which he simply starts babbling whatever he thinks will make me leave him
alone,� she said with professional disgust. Draco nodded. That had been
Granger�s one objection against torture which actually sounded valid to him. �I
frighten him too much. All he has to do now is see me, and he closes his eyes.
And I believe that what he knows is limited. While Nihil might not be willing
to destroy him, he must realize by now where he is and what we�ve learned from
him.�

�� Draco
nodded, leaning back in his chair. �But I wonder why he�s not willing to
destroy him,� he murmured. �He�s certainly done it to other servants of his
without hesitation. It would be good if we could find out.�

�� There
might be a way.� Gregory was wearing a shark�s grin. Draco waited for her to
finish the sentence, but she simply stood by his chair, waiting. Draco gave in
finally and asked.

�� Well? What
is it?�

�� If we take
him apart,� Gregory said. �Break him down to the essentials. We already know
that most of the others Nihil took over or created weren�t really bodies. They were empty sacks filled
with the grief magic or Nihil�s will. We didn�t get the chance to do the same
with Nusquam, not truly, since she was already dead by the time we thought to
try. Nemo might be our only chance.�

�� Draco could
see why she had come to him. He didn�t think there was any other member of the
comitatus, or the Aurors who supported them, who would have considered such a
thing instead of crying out in horror. He leaned back
and thought it over carefully. Gregory stood as motionless as a statue beside
him.

�� I don�t
think we can do it,� he said at last. �Nihil would destroy Nemo when he found
out that we were destroying him, rather than allow us to discover any secrets.
Maybe that�s the reason he hasn�t done so already, because he still thinks that
we haven�t learned anything very important.�

�� Gregory
scowled. Draco knew she had a personal grudge against Nihil, who, when he was
still posing as Daffyd Dearborn, had framed her and
forced her into temporary exile from the Aurors. �What do you suggest, then?�

�� The perfect
solution occurred to Draco, and he climbed to his feet, his face covered with a
small smile. �Let me see to him.� He tapped the skin beneath his magical eye.

�� Gregory
didn�t look as happy about that as she had been about the prospect of torture,
but she nodded and led the way.

*

�� I want to
know when we�ll go into battle again.�

�� Harry shook
his head. Ventus had been more silent than usual in Lowell and Weston�s class,
and hadn�t spoken at all in Ketchum�s, although she usually asked questions that
would force him to clarify minor matters. His class was mostly about defense,
and Harry knew she was bad at that. But today, she simply stood there with her
eyes on the ground, and now she was staring at Harry as though he could do
something about her question.

�� I�m not
the battle leader of the comitatus,� he pointed out. �Why don�t you ask the man
who is?�

�� I did go
to your tent first,� Ventus said, tossing her head forwards, as though it was a
minor matter to have run from the outskirts of camp where Ketchum trained them
all the way to the center and then back again, to join the more slowly walking
Harry. �He�s not there.� She fixed her stare on Harry again.

�� Harry
halted, wondering where Draco could be, but then he shrugged and kept walking.
After all, Draco had business of his own, and homework for the classes, and the
deep pondering that he seemed intent on doing over the vision in the Mirror of Secifircas, as if it were incumbent on him to come up with
the answer to the problem of Nihil and the balls of nothingness. �Well, then
wait until he comes back.�

�� I want to
act now.�

�� Harry
looked at her again. Ventus had a tight set to her face that made Harry
cautious. Her skin looked as if it was pulled taut over her cheekbones, for
that matter, and her hands clutched and swished her wand with unnecessary
emphasis. Harry narrowed his eyes in concern and touched her arm, making her
stop and stare at him.

�� Are you
all right?� he asked. He wondered if she was having disturbing dreams the way
Hermione had, or a row with Herricks.

�� Ventus
laughed. A few people walking by stopped to stare, and then hurried on as
Ventus met their eyes with some scorn. �Yes, of course I am. But I want to
fight. It feels like there�s a fire burning in me that I need fodder for. If it
goes out�� She pinched her fingers together like someone snuffing a candle.

�� Harry
grunted. He recognized the sensation. It was the way he had felt right after
Draco lost his eye, the emotion that had driven him to confront Holder and bargain
for an alliance instead of antagonism.

�� He wasn�t
sure what to suggest, though, except the obvious. �We need to solve the problem
of what to do about Nihil before we can decide when and where and how we�re
going to fight him,� he said as gently as he could.

�� Ventus
pulled herself to attention and stared up at him. �Of course,� she said. �I
should have thought of that. I should
have thought of that.� And she turned and marched away from Harry, her head up
and her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Her stride was eager, though,
so Harry thought she was happy instead of frustrated.

�� Ventus?�
he called after her. �What are you doing?�

�� Ventus
bobbed her head at him. �Going to solve the problem, of course!� she responded,
and then vanished. More people shook their heads and hurried on. Harry snorted.
He appreciated Ventus for the way she had supported Draco into leadership when
Ron and Hermione and even Draco himself were uncertain that he had any skills
in that direction, but the rest of the time, she lacked certain safeguards.

�� Mental,
mate,� was the way Ron summed it up when Harry went to join him for dinner.
Draco still hadn�t reappeared, and Hermione was doing lessons with Raverat at
the moment, trying to learn the delicate mental operations that were as much as
anyone knew about being a Seer.

�� Harry
nodded and applied himself to the thick, blazing beef soup that the Aurors had
provided for them.

*

�� Draco
walked around the bound and sitting Nemo. Nemo stared at him with hatred, but
it was a weary hatred, Draco thought. He looked close to breaking, either from
the torture or the fact that his creator hadn�t rescued him yet.

�� When he
first walked into the tent, Draco had caught a glimpse of the colors that
swarmed around Nemo, but he hadn�t understood them. He had needed these longer
looks to be sure of what he was seeing and how the pieces fit together. Now,
after a few hours of study and several acerbic comments from Gregory, he
thought he did know.

�� Well?�
Gregory asked, the way that Draco had when she wanted him to ask what she�d
thought of for Nemo�s torture.

�� Draco
raised a hand for silence and took a step back, focusing his magical eye while
he shut the normal one. He had noticed that doing that made the magic he was
seeing spring more fully into being, enhanced its colors, and isolated the
sometimes strange shapes that he was trying to comprehend.

�� The colors
here scythed back and forth, and then settled down. They shone red and black,
and in the middle of them, there was a central, calm balancing point where
Draco could see only a hole, rather than a color. Or perhaps
not. He concentrated harder, and a sullen black spark shone out of the
hole, too.

�� Magically,
he�s not human,� he said. �You and Harry and anyone else I�ve looked at have
colors that dance all around them. They never slow down, although some of them
move less wildly than others.� He was starting to think that the movement of
the magic he saw had something to do with personality�Harry�s magic and
Gregory�s were wilder than the controlled power he and Portillo Lopez
shared�but he didn�t see any reason to say that right now and either bore or
insult Gregory. �But he has a hole in the middle. I think it shows the
nothingness that created him.�

�� Nemo turned
his head and stared at that. But he turned it away again when Draco tried to
make eye contact with him.

�� What does
that mean, then?� Gregory was tapping her foot against the floor. �Can we use
it?�

�� I�ll have
to see,� Draco said. He didn�t want to confess all his plans in front of their
prisoner, and he wasn�t sure that he wanted Gregory knowing all about them,
either. Gregory was too prone to think that she had a better idea and implement
it without consulting anyone else. �But I think so, yes.�

�� He said
that more to worry Nemo than for any other reason. Nemo shuddered once, but he
kept his head bowed, and Draco was satisfied that they wouldn�t have got much
out of him even if he had let Gregory go ahead with her torture plans. He moved
towards the flap of the tent, and Gregory joined him after pausing briefly to
check the wards and confining spells around Nemo.

�� That
magical eye of yours is good for something after all, Malfoy.� Gregory gave the
air in front of her a fierce grin, and then jerked her head at Draco. �You
should come to my lessons sometime soon. You have to build your battle prowess
up again.�

�� And she was
gone, striding away with her cloak swirling behind her. Draco rolled his eyes
and turned for the tent. He hoped that Harry was back so that he could eat.

�� Of course
he wasn�t, and Draco ended up eating alone, a cold meal of bread and cheese,
since he couldn�t be bothered to cook and didn�t want to go to the common
tents. That was all right. He thought he would have found the conversation a
distraction, anyway. His mind was busy with the hole that he had seen in the
center of Nemo�s aura and what it could mean.

�� The place
where the different pieces of the grief magic came together? The
empty place in the center of reality which Nihil left behind when he scooped
out the magic to make his creations in the first place? And what were
they going to do about it if it was a hole? Or if it was a
nothingness, rather than something in itself? Draco didn�t yet know. He
thought they could use it to damage Nihil.

�� Perhaps. He wished irritably that the vision in the Mirror
of Secifircas had shown them something about that, too.

�� The tent
flap tugged back, and Harry came in. Draco looked up and nodded at him. His
mouth and mind were both full, and he didn�t feel much like starting a
conversation right now.

�� Ventus was
looking for you,� Harry said, sitting down in the center of the tent and
turning his face towards the fire. Draco glanced swiftly at him, but it was
hard to tell from his voice and his expression in profile what he was feeling. �She
wanted to know when the battle would start. I told her that we couldn�t be
certain of that until we knew how to fight Nihil, and she bounced off saying
that she would figure out a way.�

�� Draco
laughed, causing crumbs of bread and cheese to spray against the opposite wall
of the tent. He shook his head and immediately banished them with a flick of
his wand. He never did things like
that.

�� Harry
seemed to realize that, too, but after one glance and one quick curl of his
lip, he demurely returned his gaze to his lap.

�� Her and
everyone else in our little alliance,� Draco murmured, as he put down the last
bite of his sandwich. He would rather not eat it; watching his own mess had
rather killed his appetite. �I wouldn�t look for the answer to come from that
direction.�

�� Harry
hooked his shoulder up in a little shrug, to indicate that he neither agreed
nor disagreed. �I don�t know. She looked the way I feel when I know that I�m not
going to be able to rest unless I do something productive�the night I hunted
down Holder, for example. So long as she doesn�t endanger the rest of us, maybe
she�ll really find something.�

�� I have no
faith in her judgment,� Draco said, and leaned back in his chair, stretching
his feet out ahead of him. He was more eager to tell Harry what he had found in
Nemo�s aura than listen to stories about Ventus.

�� She was
the one who first judged that you would be a fine leader,� Harry said, quirking
his lips at Draco. �So does not trusting her include that side of her
judgment?�

�� Draco
crumpled up his napkin and threw it at Harry. Harry ducked it, laughing, and
ended up on his back in the middle of the tent, grinning at Draco. Draco took a
moment to absorb the sight of him, and then sighed. He would have to disturb
Harry�s amusement. If nothing else, Harry would be unsure of what to make of
the hole in Nemo.

�� I went
with Gregory to look at Nemo�s magic,� he said. �We should kill him or get rid
of him soon, but I wanted to see what my magical eye would make of his magic
and his power before that happened.�

�� Harry sat
up immediately, his face becoming gratifyingly sober. �And what did your eye
tell you?�

�� Draco
sighed. �That there�s a hole there, or perhaps a place where the magic simply
ceases to exist. I wonder if Nusquam had something like the same thing? But of course, it�s impossible to know that now.�

�� Could we
reach into that hole and pull something out of it?� Harry asked. �Use it as a
back door into the void where Nihil lives?�

�� Exists,�
Draco corrected. The more he thought about it, the more he was certain that
Nihil didn�t live in any traditional sense of the word, no matter how many
times he could resurrect himself. �And I don�t know. That would depend on what
it is, whether it�s dangerous to touch, whether magic exists there or ceases to
exist� I don�t know.�

�� Harry
nodded his understanding. �Well, perhaps Ventus will find something.�

�� Draco
looked around, but he didn�t have another napkin to throw.

*

�� Harry woke
in the night to a thrumming that traveled all the way through his bones. He sat
up and stared around, but he wasn�t sure what it was, only that it was there, indisputably there, hammering at him and making him wince. He glanced to the
side, to see if it was an earthquake, but Draco lay sleeping peacefully in the
bed beside him, and no objects shook.

�� He slid
slowly out of bed, placing one hand on his wand. No one appeared at the
entrance to his tent, and no one was making a sound in the camp that he could
hear. Of course, no one else appeared to be feeling that thrumming in their
bones, either, which made Harry start to worry about all the unheard sounds.

�� He reached
over and shook Draco, but Draco only sighed and mumbled, opened his magical
eye, said, "Go back to sleep, Harry," and went back to sleep himself.

�� Harry
stared at him for a second. That wasn't supposed to happen, was it? He had
woken Draco because he had thought that Draco would want to know that something
was strange rather than Harry going adventuring by himself.
Draco should be interested and concerned, not more invested in sleep.

�� Well, Harry
might not have made the worrying aspect of the situation sufficiently clear. He
shook Draco harder, and this time Draco flopped and snored and didn't even open
his eyes.

�� Harry shook
again, clamping his hands on Draco's shoulders and putting some strength into
it. And still nothing happened, other than Draco's mouth opening and a slow
line of drool sliding down his chin.

�� Harry
swallowed and stood. The thrumming in his bones was worse now, bearing down,
acting as if it would grind the marrow to pieces. Yes, he did believe that
reality had shifted again or Nihil was about to attack the camp or�something.
But he seemed to be the only one who could sense it or stay awake during it.

�� He stepped
out of the tent and cast a spell that flared a slender beam of light straight
ahead, reaching much further but also casting much less radiance than a Lumos Charm. Harry used it to sweep the
guard positions that he knew were near the tent. The guards were slumped asleep
at their posts, chins resting on their chests the same way as had happened with
Draco.

�� Harry
shuddered with what he didn�t even try to pretend was an emotion other than
fear and wheeled to run back inside. He had to shelter Draco from any storm,
attack, or earthquake that hit them.

�� Then
someone near him hissed, and Harry nearly took her head off with an ill-placed
Blasting Curse. Portillo Lopez formed out of the darkness, staring at him in a
way that suggested she would have come back from the dead and haunted him about
the Blasting Curse if he had managed to succeed.

�� What is
it?� Harry whispered. �What�s happening? Why are we the only ones awake?�

�� A pale face
loomed at Portillo Lopez�s shoulder, and Raverat�s voice said, �I�m awake, too.
But no one else, I think, unless there�s a member of the Order in camp that I
don�t know about. Maryam?�

�� Portillo
Lopez shook her head, keeping her nose uplifted as if she would scent the
danger coming towards her rather than feel it. �This is Nihil�s work,� she
said. �He has finally noticed that the forces of life and death are out of
balance, or perhaps he has finally learned how to use them. Sleep and death are
closely related, in some ways. It makes sense that he would strike through
sleep.� She touched the middle of her back, where Harry thought one of her
marks swearing her to her Order rested. �Our vows protect us.�

�� What about
me, then?� Harry demanded. �Does my scar do something?�

�� The scars
on your soul,� Raverat whispered, �from your encounter with Nihil. We told you
that your magic had been affected and changed by that.�

�� Harry
grimaced. This was the kind of distinction he could have done without, despite the opportunity it gave him to protect
Draco and others. The thrumming in his bones kept him awake, but told him nothing. �What do we have to do
to defeat him?�

�� We cannot
be certain until we see the shape of his attack,� said Portillo Lopez, reaching
out one hand. Raverat clasped it. To Harry�s astonishment, she extended the
other to him, and then stared at Harry until he took it. �But we can ready a defense that we can aim in any one of several
different directions once we gain enough information.�

�� Harry
licked lips that had gone dry. �I don�t know the same things you do. And what about Draco?�

�� He will
remain asleep, no matter what you do,� Portillo Lopez said. �And you waste time
and lives by running to him, when we need you to help us defend the camp.� She
closed her eyes and seemed to balance on a tightwire,
from the expression she adopted. Raverat was looking much the same way.

�� Tell me
what to do,� Harry demanded in a whisper, but they didn�t listen to him. When
he tried to pull his hand away, Portillo Lopez clamped her fingers down. Her
grip was as strong and icy as that of any of the corpses Nihil could summon.
Harry grimaced and stood still instead, trying to listen and divine the nature
of the threat that way. He still couldn�t hear anything, and he wondered why Portillo
Lopez and Raverat were whispering.

�� Perhaps because Nihil can hear us, he
thought then, and winced.

�� The
thrumming grew worse, to a pitch that made Harry�s teeth chatter. He thought
Portillo Lopez would snap at him about that, but she didn�t. She remained
still, and so did Raverat, other than her grip on Harry�s hand growing firmer.

�� Then she
cried aloud, �Leonard, it�s up through the circle, up through the center!� and
slammed her arm down. Harry�s hand was pulled with hers by force, and he
yelped, a sound that no one paid any attention to. Both Portillo Lopez and
Raverat were chanting as though their lives depended on it, and of course Harry couldn�t help, because of course he didn�t have any idea what they
were doing or how he could be involved in it.

�� But the
thrumming was still there, shaking his teeth, and he discovered that he had to
close his eyes. And a separate line of the thrumming ran up his arm from
Portillo Lopez�s hand, making Harry wonder for one instant if she was really in
the service of Nihil instead of opposed to him. Draco, with his ability to see
magic, would know.

�� The
thrumming burst apart.

�� Harry found
himself in the center of an enormous ring of black and red, the red raining
down from above as flames, the black opening beneath him as a void. He did the
first thing that came to mind and snatched at the sides of the abyss, trying to
draw them back together so that he would have somewhere to stand.

�� Living
snakes shot out of his arms, brilliant silver-white serpents that grabbed the
sides of the void and held it steady. Harry glanced up at the falling flames,
and another snake curled out of his forehead, a cobra with wide-spread hood
that shielded him like an umbrella against the deadly rain.

�� Harry licked
his lips. This was good, right? He knew that his not-really-necromancy, the
magic that Portillo Lopez seemed to think he could use against Nihil, was based
on illusions of snakes. So he must be doing something right.

�� But the air
in front of him congealed, and nothingness came to life there. It turned to
face him, and Harry screamed, because it felt like tar flowing in at his
eyelids, hooks tearing his brain, earth smothering his mouth.

�� This, he
knew for the one instant he still had clarity of thought, was Nihil�s true
face.

�� Then Nihil
hit him, and Harry found himself trying desperately to stay alive.��

*

�� Review
responses are at http://lomonaaerenrr.livejournal.com/6215.html
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Seasons of War