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The Serenity of His Rage	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16981 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Draco could feel the Dark Mark on his arm burning from the moment he stepped onto the coals.
That wasn’t surprising, Draco thought, as he kept his face and feet focused forwards. After all, he was thinking of purification, and the magic all around him was meant for that. Dumbledore was wrong, probably, about whether getting rid of the Mark would really eliminate the Horcrux in Harry, but it reacted with the presence of purifying fire anyway.
Draco kept walking even as the dull pain beneath his feet turned into low-smoldering agony. Refining fire. Think of that. Dumbledore’s phoenix. The low fire the house-elves used to leave burning in his room when he was still afraid of the dark, because his parents had never thought to tell the elves they couldn’t. The way his mother’s eyes had lit on fire when she stood up to the Dark Lord in the last moments of her life.
It didn’t help. The pain was building, and Draco was gasping. Even though it seemed like he only had a few meters’ worth of coals to cross, he didn’t see how he was going to do it.
Then the bond quivered, and Harry’s love and strength poured over him like a pail of cool water. Draco found his spine straightening entirely without his permission. He moved forwards carefully and confidently, and there was a harsh sound of peeling skin.
When he glanced to the side, half his Dark Mark’s top layer of skin was dangling from the snake, blackened as though he’d already been burned there.
Draco swallowed. They hadn’t discussed what would happen if Harry interfered in the firewalk through the bond; until this moment, Draco hadn’t had any idea that he could. Or what would happen if the Mark really did burn away.
This was just supposed to be cover for the masking ritual and the power they were going to take from it.
But Draco had to keep going. He couldn’t be in charge of manipulating the power that flowed from the ritual into their mask. He watched the red, dancing flames in front of him and took another step.
*
Harry could see the way that Hermione’s wand moved constantly down by her side, hidden from Dumbledore by the way she was standing, and knew she was siphoning off power from the ritual through the runes Snape had drawn outside. Ron stood behind her, hands on her shoulders. They’d already cast some sort of blessing spell Hermione had found that linked them together, and that meant Ron could give Hermione his strength when she started to falter.
Harry and Draco hadn’t used the same spell. But Harry thought that their bond was going to make a good substitute for it.
This is what I have to do now, Harry thought, and turned his gaze back to Draco as he felt pain down the bond again, sharp spikes that stabbed the tender inner flesh of his mind. Again he sent forth waves of love and support, and Draco’s head came up. Even the shadows that the fire cast on his face seemed to diminish. This is the person I want to save most right now.
He was so close. Even with the ritual oval between them, Harry felt as if Draco was standing right beside him, one hand on his pulse. Or his heart. He could feel the pain from the firewalk lessening, and it only made him want to lessen it more and more. He poured as steadily as he could, and saw Draco’s faint smile as he began to stride instead of simply walk.
Then, and at the same moment, Harry felt a sharp, stabbing anguish in his forehead.
He held himself still. Professor Snape had warned him this might happen as a side-effect. They were using the masking ritual to hide their true intentions from Dumbledore, but also to fuel their own desire, which was to find the cup Horcrux. They had discussed trying to get rid of the Horcrux in Harry right now, but in the end, Snape had decided that wouldn’t be a good idea, given that other Horcruxes still existed. They would destroy the cup first.
It was hard to stand there with his teeth gritted and throw calmness and love and strength at Draco while his own strength danced and rippled like a flag in the wind. But he had to, and that meant he did. He had done things that hurt more than this, things that he didn’t have Draco there for.
And he would not, he would not give up and die the way Dumbledore was expecting him to.
Even when he knew his scar was bleeding and he had to reach up constantly to wipe at the blood dripping down his nose and cheek, he kept looking, he kept throwing love, and he kept avoiding Dumbledore’s knowing eyes.
*
Severus hissed as one of the runes he had woven into the stone outside the Room of Requirement exploded in a shower of blue sparks. It had risen from the floor first and danced back and forth in the air like a questing snake.
Then it was gone.
Severus turned and cast a glance through the half-open door at what Granger was doing. She didn’t seem to have dealt with explosive runes as yet. She was moving her wand constantly, and her chanting was inaudible. She had started to lean more heavily on Weasley, though, and that meant she was losing strength fast.
Severus had no one to give him strength.
Until his eyes fell on Harry, and he saw the way he wiped stoically at the blood on his face, never taking his gaze from Draco.
Severus hissed, and gathered himself. Lily, you birthed a fine son. Someone capable of looking past years of hatred and rivalry. I will do what I can for him.
He had another idea in mind, He turned back to the runes in front of him and watched as another rose from the floor, glowing red.
This would hurt.
But so what?
Severus used the flick of his wand, this time, to cut into his arm instead of trying to work directly with the rune. When the blood welled up, he dipped his wand in it and then flicked the blood into the air, tracing the path of the rune.
This one froze instead of exploding. It hung there, and a steady pulse began to beat from it, echoing Severus’s heartbeat.
Severus stared at the rune and thought again of the self-loathing he’d summoned when he destroyed the diadem Horcrux. But this time, he was doing something different with it than trying to create Fiendfyre.
He thought of the hatred, the abiding hatred, that he would always feel for Sirius Black and James Potter. Just because he had learned better when it came to James Potter’s son did not mean he would ever hate the bastard any less. He would gladly rip his teeth from his head with a spell and feed them to him. Or use them in a potion. It wasn’t easy to come by such high-level ingredients as the teeth of a Gryffindor pureblood who would scream at the destruction of his looks.
He thought of the hatred he felt towards himself, each and every day, for destroying Lily. He should have fought harder against the temptation to surrender to loyalty for the Dark Lord. He should have realized sooner that the prophecy might apply to her. He should have turned to Dumbledore before he had.
But then he thought of the distrust he felt towards Dumbledore now, and laughed darkly. He braided the emotions together, the helpless hatred and the darkness, the grief that would always be there, the core of terror that he was only a blackened and wretched thing no one could ever love.
The red rune was still twisting in front of Severus when he opened his eyes again. He was panting and soaked with sweat, and he didn’t dare glance at Draco to see how near he was to the end of his firewalk, or Granger to see if she was still managing to draw on the power of some of the runes.
Severus reached out, through the rune, which had become one of seeking and finding. He demanded the location of another source of rage and hatred and pain that could match his, something else that contained such a darkened soul.
And he felt it.
The growing throb in the bottom of his stomach, the sudden sick feeling in the center of his head, almost behind his brow, in the place that Harry had his scar...Severus was sure this was it. He turned, staring through the rune, focusing his will and his hatred into a kind of pulsing agreement with the distant Horcrux.
He gazed through the rune, and he saw.
He was looking into a Gringotts vault, crowded with so many treasures and loose coins and wrapped objects of dubious worth that Severus had to prevent his eyes from wandering. Instead, he locked them as hard as he could on the first gleam of a golden cup handle. And yes, there it was, on a high shelf over everything else.
Now he only needed some kind of proof about which vault it was in.
Letting his eyes dart around proved surprisingly easy, once Severus had learned to look through the clutter and the rubbish. And there, there was something significant, a rusty spear that looked as though it had flecks of old blood near the head. The handle was made of ebony wood, and carved into it was the Lestrange coat-of-arms.
Severus wanted to lean his head on his hands and chuckle in exhaustion. Draco had been right after all.
He started to withdraw. They had the information they needed now, and Draco was probably near the end of his firewalk, which, given the size of the ritual oval, honestly hadn't looked that long. Best to pull back and use--
The image of the vault was vibrating. Severus found himself putting his hand to his wand despite the fact that this was an image and couldn't hurt him. Was someone opening the vault right now? Did the Dark Lord have foreknowledge of their plan to destroy the Horcruxes? He might have made the decision to move the cup elsewhere.
The rune twisted in front of him, and made a sharp noise that Severus usually associated only with potions about to boil over. He moved a slow step backwards, and this time, he cut the magic link between himself and the rune.
But he couldn’t so easily cut the link of self-hatred between himself and the Horcrux.
The rune flared red and passed into oblivion, but Severus still saw the image of the golden cup in front of him, even if it had become isolated from the surroundings of the vault. It was flowing as if it was melting, and he thought he could see the handles and the slight sheen on its surface better than ever.
It was coming towards him.
Severus barely had enough time to duck. The cup flew past him and slammed into the wall with a noise like an enemy spear. Severus turned to stare at it, and saw the Horcrux rolling over a few more times than the fall could account for. Shadows that no gold should bear moved on its surface.
It was there.
No image. No fake. Severus was absolutely sure, from the pulsing like an evil heart beneath his forehead, that this was the real thing.
He floated it into the air, shaking his head as his brain passed swiftly over what must have happened. Both he and Granger were working on the runes, and while his desire had only been to find the Horcrux, Granger might have harbored a wish to make it easy on all of them and summon it somehow.
Either that, or we were using different definitions of the word “find.”
Severus sighed. He had to go back into the room in a few moments and face Albus, and he did not want to. At the very least, he would not keep the Horcrux here, where Albus could see it and guess at the nature of the masking ritual.
He cast a spell that wrapped the Horcrux in thick twines of silk, one of the most magically muffling materials he knew, and then flicked his wand in a way that sent the Horcrux flying down the corridor and into one of the most shadowed corners in the castle. The chances that anyone would find it there before he could retrieve it were minimal. Right now, he didn’t have the time or the strength to send it all the way to his quarters.
Severus had just turned back to his guarding position when someone began to scream from inside the Room of Requirement.
*
“Harry!”
There were people screaming the name as Draco walked over the last coals and leaped lightly to the floor, spinning around. He didn’t think much of it at first. He knew Harry was in pain as the Dark Mark began to peel off his arm. But he was in pain, too, and all through the walk, Harry’s love had never faltered. How could he be in that much trouble if he could still sustain Draco like that?
But then he saw Harry on the floor with a pool of black blood spreading around him, and he knew.
Draco sprinted towards the edge of the ritual oval. He didn’t plan to leap over it, only tear across it. Really, he had no plan except to get to Harry as quickly as possible.
But he slammed against a barrier strong enough to daze him, and it rippled in the air and made white sparkles show up around the edges of Draco’s vision for a second. He leaned back and gasped, then stared at Dumbledore, who had his wand up and a look of such sorrow on his face that Draco felt himself go cold.
“I am sorry,” Dumbledore said quietly. “I cannot allow you to go to Harry right now. The ritual is still in progress.” He nodded to the flames that were flickering and dying around the coals. “It will be until the fire is gone.”
“Let me pass.” Draco didn’t know his own voice.
“I cannot. Not unless you want everything that we fought for to be destroyed.”
“What did we accomplish?” Draco screamed. His throat was hoarse with the noise he’d already made. He turned and flung himself against the barrier again.
Now he knew why he hadn’t felt any pain down the bond, which had been so reassuring for a while. The bond was thin and flickering, as close to gone as Draco had felt it at any time since they first began it. Harry was unconscious and sinking.
“The Dark Mark is almost gone, of course,” Dumbledore said, sounding a little surprised. “And the Horcrux in Harry has been affected. It is true that Harry may be dying, but I think he will survive. And you will die if you leave the circle, Mr. Malfoy—”
“It’s an oval, you stupid—”
“I will not sacrifice lives without need.”
“Or maybe it doesn’t matter to you that much because you already think Harry needs to die!” Draco yelled the words as hard as he could, and lifted his fists to slam them into the barrier in front of him. “If you don’t let me go right now—”
The barrier dissolved. “The fire is gone.”
Draco didn’t even look back at the coals to be sure if that was true or not. He simply ran to Harry’s side and rolled him over. Granger was swaying towards them as well, but she looked as pale as cheese and Weasley had to catch her.
“Listen,” Draco breathed, staring at the black blood smeared all over Harry’s face and robes. “You have two choices. You can live or you can die and take me with you. That’s the only set of choices to have.”
Harry twitched a little under his hands. He didn’t say anything. His mouth was open, and looking into it was like looking into an underground sea. Draco reached out and took Harry’s shoulder and shook him as hard as he could.
“Mr. Malfoy!”
Draco paid absolutely no attention. There was only one thing he was interested in, and that was seeing Harry restored to life. He shook him again, and when his head only flopped limply, he closed his eyes and reached out along the bond.
Maybe it was closed to him now. That didn’t matter. Because Draco still had the key to the door on his side of the bond, even if Harry was too out of it to hear him and let him in.
It took some pounding, as if he was trying to breach an Occlumency barrier that was still up, but then he fell through abruptly and found himself tumbling down a long tunnel. At the bottom was something that still moved and breathed, if only a little. It reminded Draco of the time he had gone hunting Harry’s wandering soul, helped to guide it back. If he could do that much, he ought to be able to do this.
And it made him angry. Because, once again, Harry was lost and wandering because he’d tried to take on too much. What level of strength had he given Draco, to make him collapse? And his scar, bleeding like that. Why hadn’t he kept anything for himself?
He knew part of the answer, of course, Draco thought as he stood there shivering in the darkness. Harry’s relatives and Dumbledore had convinced him that he didn’t need that much. And now Dumbledore was pushing it further, with the idea that the only worth Harry had was to die, and so destroy the Horcrux.
The horrible, chill anger surged up, and Draco started speaking words that he couldn’t have imagined speaking to his soul-bonded just an hour ago.
“Why is it always about you? Why do you have to spend yourself so ruthlessly, for such short-term gains? You know what’s going to happen to me if you die. What was the good of keeping me alive in the ritual, if you knew I would just die when your body did?
“You’re selfish. So is Dumbledore, but at least he’s not soul-bonded to someone and he knows he’s going to die anyway from that blackened hand he has, so he’s making plans. You just leap headlong into whatever challenge is in front of you today, and you never think about the future. What if you did? What if someone forced you to think about the future, and you didn’t have any choice?”
And Draco forced Harry to do it, far fiercer than he’d thought he could be. He reached towards the breathing, shifting darkness ahead of him, the part of Harry that he thought he could still feel down the bond, and he yanked.
There was a grunt, and surprisingly heavy resistance, like a boulder was tied to the other end of the soul-bond. Draco didn’t give a fuck. He leaned more and more heavily on the bond, and called again, or pulled again. This time, something came flying towards him.
It slammed into Draco, and bowled him backwards, so that he came nearer the “surface” and heard people exclaiming over him and someone shouting. But he didn’t care. He dived right back down into that darkness and shook Harry good and hard. Harry looked fine here, without any blood pouring from his scar.
“You’re selfish,” Draco spat. “Did you hear me say that?”
“And what was I supposed to do? Stop the ritual?” Harry put on a sickly sweet smile that reminded Draco disturbingly of Umbridge. “Oh, excuse me, let’s stop this extremely important and risky magic, my scar is bleeding and my poor little face can’t handle that!”
"It was more than just your scar!"
Draco yelled the words right into Harry's face, and he folded his arms and glared back. "I'm not suicidal, Draco. I'm not stupid. I did what I thought was best. And it was just my scar at first. It didn't start the deeper bleeding until you were almost all the way across the fire."
"Were you trying to come back to me?" For some reason, Draco found himself almost holding his breath.
"Of course." Harry blinked at him. "I just didn't have the strength, though." He grimaced a little and spent a moment rubbing his shoulder, where Draco had grabbed him. "I reckon that I spent most of it trying to pour more power into the bond those last few minutes, and then I didn't have enough to stay in my body."
Draco swallowed and let out a few harsh breaths. As long as it was that, as long as Harry hadn't deliberately abandoned him over some notion of the "greater good" and what he owed other people...
"Come back now," Draco said, and held out a commanding hand.
Harry hesitated, but stopped Draco from exploding by asking quickly, "Do you have enough strength to pull us both back? Because, if not, I can't see the point of exhausting you. You should go on."
"My life would end here anyway, if the soul-bond did," Draco said, and he prided himself on not huffing through his teeth. "Would you please take my hand so we can start pulling now?"
"All right."
Harry was strangely subdued as he leaned against Draco's shoulder and followed the pull back up into the light, but thinking about it, Draco thought he could understand why. Draco had just showed up and told him in no uncertain terms that he was going to cause someone's death if he stayed here, but Harry wasn't used to being the one rescued. He must have reached the end of his power and thought that was the end.
Draco didn't think so. And even though he was exhausted too, he had the benefit of having drunk in so much of Harry's strength, and an insane determination that not even death could take away.
Step by step, they went back towards the surface, the light and voices Draco had heard once before. And then, suddenly, they were there, and Draco was gasping in pain as the air seared his lungs and he felt blood coating his hands.
When he opened his eyes, Harry was lying still and soaked enough that it scared him, but Professor Snape was kneeling to one side, and he nodded to Draco once.
"He will live."
Draco had nothing else to say; he needed nothing else. He closed his eyes and lay down next to Harry, looping an arm around his waist.
He did hear Professor Snape's next mutter before he drifted off.
"We have to stop him from risking Potter's strength on a whim all the time."
Draco fully agreed with that, but at the moment, it was too much effort to open his eyes and say so. He just drifted into silence and the low, steady flicker of the soul-bond at the back of both their minds, trusting Professor Snape to say what needed to be said.
*
SP777: With everything I wanted to happen during the ritual, I thought it would be too crowded and busy if the last chapter contained it all.
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The Serenity of His Rage