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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-Three—In at the Death

            Harry whirled around in the middle of their third raid of the night, deflecting Stunners and Binding Hexes and Blasting Curses with numerous, impeccably-placed Shield Charms. He could feel the flame he had told Draco about burning in the back of his mind, although no one would have known it from the way he was fighting.

            Burning down its wick. Burning up its time.

            They had gone to the second site, the other one that was close to the Ministry, and found no children there, either. But there was a glowing cloud of gathered magic, and Healers preparing for something, and another phoenix egg buried beneath the surface of the stone and dirt under the building. And they had found the same things when they attacked here, a cavern like the one Harry had taken Adam from.

            It was coming. Moonstone and Schroeder, or perhaps Schroeder by himself, had planned something, and it was close to fruition. But they still had no idea what it was, or where the other children they had to have somewhere were.

            Harry let that realization burn through him, at the same moment as Draco flung a potion that emitted a kind of negative light. The Healers and Aurors Harry was fighting all shrieked at the same time, and Harry instinctively clamped spells down around himself to guard his sight and his breathing. He was taking no chances, after some of the potions that Draco had used earlier tonight.

            But instead, the flash of light cleared and Harry saw that there was no one where the Healers and Aurors had been. Unless tattered bits of robes and white ashes were what one called “someone” now.

            Draco turned to him, and Harry saw his eyebrows clenched down in what looked like pain. He would have to rely on that to tell him what Draco was feeling at the moment, since he couldn’t hear any of his thoughts. Draco’s thoughts had frozen solid when they entered the cavern and found no children there, either, and now they didn’t let so much as a peep of surprise or anger through.

            “Nothing?” Harry asked, turning towards Ron and Hermione. They had conducted the searches for the children, after asking to be excused from the fighting.

            Hermione stared at the ashes and cloth and said nothing, but Ron shook his head. “No, mate. Sorry.”

            Harry closed his eyes and rubbed one hand up and down on his scar. He could feel the magic in him, straining, burning, longing to be let loose, and he could feel Hermione’s eyes on him, and he wished for both sensations to stop. But the second would only stop when the first did, and he knew it.

            He straightened up with a sigh. “All right. Then we’ll just make sure that no one else is here who could report us to Schroeder when we leave, and we’ll drug Oakum with Veritaserum again so that he can tell us the truth about the next site—”

            “This isn’t working.”

            Hermione’s voice was soft, but it held a weight that Harry had heard many times when she set out not just to make an argument but to win it. He faced her and tried not to look like he was bracing for a physical battle. Draco moved up beside him, his face probably neutral but his thoughts beginning to chatter again. If it came down to a battle between Harry and his friends, Harry knew which side Draco was on.

            But it wouldn’t do that. It couldn’t do that. The thought that it would was just one more legacy of the Dark Arts and the edge Harry had been living on for years, and if he was serious about trying to change, he would have to overcome things like that. He blinked, hard, and then faced Hermione again and nodded. “All right. Why don’t you think so?”

            Hermione blinked at him, then gave him a tentative smile. Ron positively beamed beside her, and some of the tight clench in the middle of Harry’s belly relaxed. It wasn’t perfect, what lay between him and his friends right now, and he didn’t expect it to get all better soon, but at least it was a bloody sight better than what might have been. He wasn’t going to pull away from them and isolate himself if he could avoid it, and he knew that that wouldn’t be the right thing for Adam, either.

            Or for Draco, although Harry doubted Draco would care.

            Draco’s fingers pressed into Harry’s shoulder, and his inaudible voice murmured, You have that right.

            “Because it’s taking too much time,” Hermione said. “And by now, Schroeder will probably have noticed something wrong if he’s tried to communicate with people in any of these places. And the people that you did try to question don’t know anything about the phoenix eggs, either. I think we need to go back to Grimmauld Place and regroup. Think about what we know and what the implications of what we’ve seen tonight are, and then come up with a plan that addresses that.”

            Harry hesitated. The idea was tempting. They hadn’t found any children so far, which meant no one might be in danger tonight—

            Draco shifted beside him, and Harry glanced at him. Draco looked once at Ron and Hermione, but his gaze was for Harry, his voice so gently modulated that Harry could barely hear him at first. “The flame.”

            “What are you talking about?” Hermione demanded, voice low and wary.

            Harry grimaced, and nodded. “I don’t know that I could come this far again, with all the planning and with you at my side,” he told Hermione. “I don’t know if I can keep myself from going crazy in the time that we’ve got left. And we don’t know what Schroeder is planning. Moonstone’s disappearance must have alarmed him by now. He’s probably stepped up things, with the phoenix eggs, because of that. We have to shut this down, tonight, the way we originally planned on, or everyone is going to suffer.”

            Hermione’s jaw clenched. He could see her fighting all the anger that she wanted to bring roaring out, but she finally said, “That isn’t reasonable, Harry. We’ll have other chances. Maybe the children aren’t here because, I don’t know, he doesn’t have any that he wants to torture right now? That could be the reason. But it doesn’t mean that all’s lost that they’re not here.”

            There was the creak and scrape of a door from further on in the caverns. Harry turned his head, and felt a magical signature he had some reason to be familiar with creeping along his spine, making his hair stand on end.

            Making the flame in his mind quiver.

            Schroeder, said all the voices in the back of Draco’s mind, and Harry didn’t bother nodding back.

            There was no time for discussion, but Harry and Draco could hear each other, Harry and Ron had worked together often enough before, and Ron could direct Hermione. They cast spells that freshened the air and made the bits of robes vanish, then covered themselves and the Blood Bubble with Disillusionment Charms and backed into the shadows. Harry found himself pressed against Draco, his back to Draco’s chest, Draco’s arms looped around his waist, and Draco’s breath blowing in his ear.

            Harry gritted his teeth and told his body that there were times and moments for it to react like it was reacting right then, and this was none of them. Draco just held him closer, and laughed softly and sweetly in his ear.

            Then Schroeder and the Healers came into the room—or at least people in the robes of Healers; Harry no longer knew how many of them had been trained at St. Mungo’s—and the laughter blew out of him.

            They carried children with them, slung on stretchers, unconscious or asleep, in some cases with their heads lolling in a way that Harry knew meant they had been Stunned. All of them had black marks on their skin, or bruises, or faint circles that Harry had seen on Adam’s thighs and thought were connected to the way that they put magic into Muggle children. Schroeder showed no sign that he knew anything was wrong; he started directing the Healers to place the children on the floor, ignoring any small marks of the battle that Harry and Draco might have missed cleaning up.

            Harry felt the flame swell in his mind. He wanted to move, but Draco’s arms tightened and he shook his head, hair swishing against Harry’s.

            Not yet, the voice of his thoughts murmured in Harry’s mind, controlled and soft. It has to be at the time when we have the best chance of actually damaging them and taking the children back, and you know we don’t, not yet.

            Harry swallowed, and found bile in his mouth, along with a trembling sickness in the back of his throat. He wanted to vomit even more than he wanted to attack, in some ways. Schroeder was unconcerned about what he had to do to acquire this power, he’d known that, but he’d never seen him working around the children like that, stepping over and around their bodies as if they were furniture.

            And he couldn’t stand back and watch the torture begin, no matter what Draco said. He couldn’t.

            “Should we wait for Lord Cressen, sir?” asked one of the Healers, a woman with hair that traveled nearly down to the back of her knees. Harry looked at her and thought of a spell he knew for people with hair like that.

            Cressen, name of Moonstone, said Draco’s thoughts, and Harry inclined his head. That had to be a pseudonym for Moonstone, though in this case Harry couldn’t work out how he would have chosen it.

            And it didn’t matter, not really, not next to the sweet viciousness swelling in his belly and the flood of saliva in his mouth, the way he wanted to tear and rend. He shifted his weight from side to side, and the spells surged up in his mind.

            “No, I do not believe he will be coming to us anymore,” Schroeder said, and although he was bending over a little boy, apparently checking his pulse, and so Harry couldn’t see his face, he thought he had read his voice right. There was a thick anger and a dull contentment there, at the same time. Schroeder might wonder what had happened to Moonstone, but he didn’t regret the loss of someone he might have had to share the power with.

            Harry nodded. The world would not suffer a loss when he killed Lucas Schroeder.

            And he knew what Hermione, and perhaps even Draco and Ron, would say about killing a member of the Wizengamot. But he had already committed crimes there was no turning back from. He didn’t think this would be any different than the murders, the torture, the destruction he had already committed so far.

            “Should we use the eggs this time, sir?” the Healer asked. She had to be a leader of some sort, because she moved backwards and in a slow circle as the rest of the Healers, or people in green robes, did all the work. Harry watched her, wishing he recognized her face. He would have liked to know who he was going to destroy.

            “Yes.”

            The Healer paused and turned to stare at him. Apparently that was a routine question she asked often, not one she had actually expected a positive answer to. Her eyes flickered warily as she stared at Schroeder, and for a moment her hand twitched as if she was going to fling something. Harry wondered if knowledge about the true purpose of the altered phoenix eggs made her all the more wary, and wondered if there was a way that he could spare her long enough to make her tell them what she knew.

            “Sir,” the Healer said after a moment, “are you sure that—I mean, of course you’re sure, sir, but do you know how many preparations we will have to make in order to use them properly tonight?” She clasped her hands in front of her and swallowed. Harry watched the way that the children’s chests went up and down and felt himself falling into a sort of trance of hatred.

            Draco’s arm pressed sharply against his waist, and Harry reminded himself that he had something to live for now, someone. He had the feeling that he was doing something wrong, or at least using a method most people would frown about, but he wielded the memories of the sex he’d had with Draco as weapons, chasing back the darkness and the flame.

            They went, but boiled just beneath the surface. Harry clenched his teeth. Before, he had been too involved in the emotions themselves to think about feeling anything else, but now, he did. Now, he rather loathed the fact that he was the slave of his own magic, that there were certain spells he had to cast.

            He wondered if that had to do with his addiction to the Dark Arts, or—

            Draco pinched his arm this time. Harry nodded in response and focused on the conversation in front of him again. Schroeder was explaining things to the Healer, and Harry had to know what he was talking about so he would know how to counter it. If they survived, there would always be time to hate himself later.

            “The eggs are containers,” Schroeder said quietly. “To hold the magic so that it does not fly in all directions, but can be channeled. And shared.” He gave the Healer a smile that she returned with a tentative nod.

            Lying, Draco’s thoughts murmured in the back of Harry’s head, and he nodded. Schroeder had had the training to look natural when lying that Harry suspected all members of the Wizengamot received sooner or later, but he wasn’t bothering to control his face as well right now as he would if confronting Aurors. The Healer didn’t seem to pay much attention to the twitching of his right eyelid or the way that his eyes rolled off center and up a little.

            “We must take all the magic from all the children, at once, and use the flame that will hatch the egg at the same time,” Schroeder continued. “We will have no need of the children as vessels once the egg begins to hatch. The container inside will hold it, and we can then harvest it at our leisure.”

            Draco hissed against Harry’s neck, and Harry reached back and clenched a hand on Draco’s forearm, knowing without asking that Draco had figured it out. What? he asked, striving with all his strength to make sure that this was the one thought Draco heard, if he heard only one. Tell me.

            Galen always wanted to figure out a way to affect the magic of creatures as well as humans, Draco whispered. But he couldn’t discover a way to do it. Something like a phoenix is pure magic. It doesn’t have a core like a human does. Its power is blended with the functions of its body and flows through it, like a unicorn’s blood.

            And if this is an altered phoenix—Harry thought, and waited for Draco to finish the thought.

            He did, his mind singing in concert with Harry’s on the levels of rage and fear, which Harry thought was the only reason they were communicating so well at the moment. Then that means that they have found a way to change it so that it might have a magical core. One they can take, and affect. But when it begins hatching, the mixture of power in the air is going to bewilder most of the people who aren’t used to it, and probably cripple them if they do try to draw on it. Schroeder is counting on that to reduce the competition, at least if he knows the real way to gather it.

            Harry nodded shallowly. It wasn’t exactly what Oakum had told them, but he trusted the way that Draco’s brain worked more than Oakum’s, and Oakum had been sufficiently far down the chain that he might not have been told the truth, or ever known it.

            They won’t need the children, he said, Harry pointed out. So we might be able to rescue them when he’s hatching the eggs.

            Do you think we will have the chance? Draco’s hand ran down, fastened on his hip, and tugged hard, pulling Harry back against his body. His chest and Harry’s back aligned, and their thoughts seemed to become even clearer and stronger, as if Harry was listening to the wireless. It will be chaos, and Schroeder will become too powerful to challenge.

            I came here to rescue them, not to kill him—

            You know that he will follow you, if he has that much magic, and kill you, Draco whispered, the thoughts leaping through Harry’s skull in waves. And you cannot leave the children alone. You will not want to. What you want is to come with me. To go to the house we saw in the vision, the prophecy. You know that this is leading up to that, and why fight it? Why try to spare Schroeder’s life? You told me yourself that you know your magic needs to burn.

            Harry swallowed, and then swallowed again. His throat was dry, and he could still hear the words that Schroeder murmured as he directed the Healers to place the children on the ground, could react if necessary, but his mind was swimming in a torrent of magic and flame.

            You weren’t supposed to encourage me, he whispered back at last. Aren’t you the one who used that potion that made sure I couldn’t cast Dark Arts spells—

            Against me, of course not, Draco murmured, and his hand slid up and down Harry’s side, coaxing, caressing. It would be foolish of me to make sure that a mad ally could not hurt me. But I understand you now, and Schroeder is moving here. We do not have the time to search out the other sites as we planned on. We have no time for a plan other than yours, and no one else in the room is powerful enough to ensure that we survive. Do it, Harry. Release your magic. Show me, and save them.

            Harry managed to laugh in the middle of his soul, hard and high and breathless, so that no one other than the two of them could hear. Of course you would place saving anyone, even children, after showing you what I can do.

            Yes, Draco said, and there was a hard challenge in that, too, his mind becoming a rapid blizzard of cold thoughts that tossed scraps of words at Harry. Harry remembered what Draco had said about valuing only some people, and decided that this was another facet of him, another possible gift he had handed Harry to see what he would do with it.

            Harry kissed him with a quick twist of his neck and then stepped forwards, his hands extended. Light burst in his chest, and from his head, and from his forehead where the curse scar still waited, and from deep in his mind and his magical core where the flame burned.

            I am ready.

*

            The first manifestation of Harry’s magic Draco actually saw was a shield made of flame, rippling into being around him, and around the shadowy part of the room where Harry’s Disillusioned friends stood, and around the Blood Bubble. Draco snorted lightly. It was like Harry to make sure that an already invulnerable bubble was protected.

            And it was like him to make sure that no one could interfere. Draco could already imagine the stunned shock that would give way to noise soon inside Weasley and Granger’s shield.

            Draco did not mind his. It was made of flame that constantly coiled and whipped back and forth, leaving gaps through which he could see. And he knew that no one could bear the magic that would be flying unshielded around the room in a moment except Harry and perhaps Schroeder. He reached out a hand, far enough to feel the flame sting his fingers, and watched.

            Schroeder was turning…

            And shields of flame went up around the children, and snatched them out of the stretchers the Healers had brought them in with. Draco made out the edges of immense globes, splitting and spitting apart in fire, and then the children vanished up towards the ceiling. Draco saw the fire coiling around them and was sure that Harry had put them utterly beyond harm’s reach, either from his magic or anything else.

            Schroeder lowered his hand to his wand and opened his mouth to shout something, perhaps a command…

            Harry flicked his hand out again, clenched his fingers tight, and yanked. Every single Healer in the room—not that there were that many, said Draco’s rational mind under the pressure of his awe—fell to the ground, choking and clawing at the collars of flame around their throats.

            Why is he using fire so much? Draco whispered to himself. Simply because that was the form the magic took in his mind? That might be rather dangerous, if he’s fixated on a concept rather than what feels most natural to his power.

            No, said a deeper voice, and who knew? It seemed to originate inside Draco’s own skull, but it might well have come from the bond he shared with Harry. Because the phoenix will come forth in flame, a creature of fire, and it’s better for Harry to begin as he means to go on.

            Schroeder had his wand drawn…

            Harry appeared in front of him, smiled, and held up his hand. Schroeder shrieked as his wand burned, and stood there, wringing his fingers, staring at Harry.

            “Tell me,” Harry said, in a voice whose softness made the ground at Draco’s feet tremble. “How many children are there in the other sites? How many phoenix eggs?”

            Schroeder stared at him some more, and his face drained of color. His hand snapped out again, and this time, Draco thought he could see something in it that was not a wand. He fired a thought off to warn Harry.

            But it was too late. Schroeder had cast it to the ground, and although Harry’s magic rose a moment later, the thing was already diving into the sand and stone beneath them, burrowing down to the phoenix egg buried there as Harry had done in the other building.

            Burrowing down to hatch it.

            Harry brought his hands together. Schroeder’s head bulged, and his body contracted, and he split apart, squeezed into a small space. But something shining leaped out from his head, and Harry caught it and surrounded it with another container of flame.

            Silvery liquid, Draco saw, of the kind that one might get in a Pensieve. Memories.

            Harry whirled around, and more power poured into the shields around Draco, Weasley, Granger, the Blood Bubble, and presumably the children floating near the ceiling of the cavern, strengthening them. Then Harry turned to face the floor.

            It was trembling.

            Draco blinked. He thought he saw giant triangles of red and orange move from the corner of his eyes, flipping up and down, like wings beating from beneath the earth, but he was no longer sure if that was real.

            And then…

            Then the phoenix rose.

            And Harry rode the flame.

*

            unneeded: Well, there are children in the room now…

            Mostly, Hermione is wondering what else Harry will do or dare, if he’s done this much already.

            SP777: Ron and Hermione really would find it pretty easy to accept Draco if the issues that he and Harry were involved in weren’t so morally sticky.

            LeaniaSTL: No, I promise. But something else is going to happen to Harry, something that doesn’t involve being burnt out completely.

            Makoto_Sagara: No, not immortality—just a convenient way of absorbing a lot of power at once. And Harry is going to have be the one to counter that.
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