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Intoxicate the Sun	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 18051 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Thirty-Five--Vengeance Moving

            "Hermione! I have more reports that I want you to file."

            You don't get to call me Hermione, bitch. But she couldn't say that. She had to pretend to bow and scrape and be under the Imperius Curse a bit longer, until Noble could spread the news, quietly and in a way that made it seem as though she wasn't connected to Hermione, among people who would matter and who would see this as an outrage. Given how many people were afraid of Clearwater, Hermione knew that it would take a while.

            "Yes, of course, Minister," she said, and reached out to take the stack of reports, looking over them. They all seemed to be about the hunt for Harry, and to contain information that related to supposed sightings of him and the activities of the revolution. Hermione gave a mental shrug. She could read through these and send the information on, but to her it didn't look like anything she didn't already know.

            "You've been very quiet."

            Harry looked up to find Clearwater studying her with fierce concern, with hawk-eyes. Hermione sighed, but to herself. She had probably missed some cue that her brain-twisted self would have given, such as not cringing enough.

            "I'm still thinking about what I did in the past," she admitted, letting her head droop. "I was so stupid, Minister, to think that Potter was ever a worthy leader. I don't know why I followed him for so long."

            Clearwater blinked at her. Then she gave a clumsy little smile and reached out to pat Hermione's hand. "It's understandable, my dear," she said, obviously not noticing the way that Hermione's fingers twitched with the desire to get away from hers. "You started following him when you were very young. You didn't have the distance or the experience to realize what made him a poor choice."

            Hermione gave a loud sigh this time and let her head hang down, fringe obscuring the light in her eyes. "Do you think," she whispered, and her voice faltered and fell silent.

            "Do go on." Clearwater was leaning forwards now, her voice friendly.

            "Do you think that anyone in the Ministry besides you will ever trust me?" Hermione looked up and tried to make her eyes glitter with tears. She wasn't sure that she succeeded, because it took a lot to make her cry, but from the way Clearwater's face softened, she must have done better than she thought. "Or will they always see me as Potter's minion, someone who was mistaken and knew it?"

            "They'll see you as more than that if you try hard enough to redeem yourself," Clearwater said firmly, and got up and came around the desk to put her arm on Hermione's shoulders. Hermione's skin shuddered, but she tried her best to keep on the calm mask that wanted to break when she felt Clearwater touch her. "But it will take time and effort, I won't lie to you about that. Do you still want to try?"

            "Yes," Hermione said, and her lip quivered before she cleared her throat and tried for a harder tone. "Yes, I do."

            "Good girl," Clearwater said, with, Hermione couldn't help noticing, exactly the same tone in her voice that she would use to a dog who'd performed an interesting trick, and let Hermione go with a fond little smile. "Now, I would like you to take those reports away and file them, then report to me for other duties."

            Hermione bowed to her and stepped out of her office, giving herself a quick shake when she was out in the corridor. At the moment, she might have exchanged places with the dog Clearwater had praised, if only because that would mean that she stood some chance of shaking the dirt off.

            Clearwater was fouler than she had reckoned, and she was glad that Noble had broken her free of the curse for purely aesthetic reasons, at the moment. That much corruption would have corrupted her eventually.

            She made her way to her office, where she found a sealed letter on the desk. From the offices of the Ministry's Mind-Healers, outside and officially, but Hermione knew what she would find inside.

            Noble worked fast when she was outraged. There was a list of names.

            People who might believe Hermione. People who might help to bring the Ministry down from the inside.

            Hermione smiled and went back to her work with a will, mind alert for the facts that she could pick out and send to Ron and Harry.

*

            "George? Are you in here?"

            George lifted his head from the latest diagram of their machine to shut up stupid people, blinking. Ron stood in the doorway of the lab, and as far as he knew, Ron had never willingly visited them except when Harry was with him, as if Harry's strangeness dulled the impact of theirs. "Little brother," George said, and came around the desk to give him a hug. His arms would have to do double duty for Fred's, too, but since that was usual, George didn't mind. "How are you? What do you want?"

            Ron pulled back and gave him a glance keen with misery. "You have to see it, too," he said.

            "See what?" George escorted him over to a chair and started searching for some tea that hadn't been coated by the drifting dust and possible metal fragments of the lab.

            "That Harry is destroying the revolution around him." Ron brought his hand down sharply into his lap, and then looked surprised at himself. "I mean, he just can't go on like this. Not--not acting as though he can destroy and intimidate everyone he likes, and then still lead."

            I know we should have worked on that machine to save his sanity first, Fred whispered.

            George let his words do double duty, too, and answer Fred as well as Ron. "What looks like insanity to someone else is probably going to be fine for someone who's touched by prophecy and lightning and trying to lead a revolution at the same time. That's just the way it is."

            Ron jerked his head up. "Touched by prophecy? What does that mean?"

            "Well," George said, trying to figure out how slow his brother was, "when a big prophecy and a hero love each other very, very much--"

            Ron shook his head jerkily. "No, I mean, I know about the prophecy that said he and Voldemort had to fight. But what about this new one? There's a new one?"

            Harry hasn't told him? Interesting. Or at least hadn't told him all the details, obviously. George considered how much they should say, and finally decided that the broad outlines of the truth weren't a problem. "Harry has been seeing this stag made out of lightning that looks like his Patronus dancing around."

            "Except his Patronus isn't made of lightning," Ron muttered.

            "Do you want to listen to this or not?" George demanded, and knew that he was speaking for Fred just then. He would never have been so insensitive to ickle Ronniekins.

            Ron cleared his throat. "Sorry."

            "Anyway," George said, "we thought we could feel some strong powers shifting around when Harry used his wild magic, but we couldn't tell what it was or why it mattered. So we invented a machine we thought would help Harry to control the lightning. But it didn't work the way we intended. Harry got put in contact with the lightning, but it told him there was a prophecy and that it was the future and he would have to leave everyone behind."

            Ron's face got so pale it was kind of funny. "That's impossible," he whispered. "I think maybe he should step down as leader of the revolution, but I never wanted him to leave. Or does it mean that he's going to die?"

            "We don't know," George had to admit. "But I don't think death is part of the equation. Just--leaving? Going to a higher plane of existence, maybe? It was kind of hard to tell, since Harry was so exasperated with the lightning when he was talking about it. He doesn't want to leave, either, if you want that consolation."

            "That's something that can't happen," Ron said. "At least, not before we do something to really change things. Or the revolution will just fall apart, and there'll be no change." He looked on the verge of burying his head in his hands, which George never wanted to see and Fred found boring, so they had to think of something else to say.

            "Well, but you've said the revolution is already falling apart," George said. "There are some of us who can keep on fighting even if a lot of people leave. Why don't you talk to Harry about you taking over the leadership? Lots of people trust you and would follow you. At least, they would if the way they're always talking about you is any indication."

            Ron snorted, but he did at least look more intrigued than George had thought he would. "I'm a strategist," he said. "But I don't think I could use magic to impress and frighten them the way Harry does."

            "He's relying on that magic too much, I think." Pure Fred as well, and George wondered if Ron noticed the way George's voice had turned slower and sadder. Probably not. Harry was the only one who seemed to notice and understand something like that. Other people just thought it was weird and they were mad. "That would be a good reason for you to concentrate on being a leader, wouldn't it?"

            Ron bit his lip. Then he said, "I don't want him to think that I'm betraying him, too, after everything that he's suffered through and worked for."

            George shrugged. "You've always been his best mate. I'd ask him and tell him what your fears are. If you just turned your back on him and walked away, that would be bad, yeah--"

            "I'd never do that!" Ron interrupted, but his face was that brilliant red that he only got when he was lying. George, who knew a little more about the war and the hunt for the Horcruxes than Ron probably suspected he did, gave him a glance and waited for Ron to look away.

            "Just talk to him," George said. "We've tried, but we only know so much about what's going on. We have to stay away from the rest of the revolution so that their stupidity doesn't infect us." Ron gave him a wan smile, which disappointed George. He'd thought that was worth a laugh. His jokes were so much better than Fred's. "I think what he needs now is someone who'll talk to him instead of backing away or lying or just attacking him to his face."

            Ron nodded, slowly at first, then with more conviction. "And there's something else," he said, after a moment of hesitation. "Did you know that he's dating Malfoy?"

            "If you can call fucking dating," George said. "Sure."

            Ron winced and put his hand over his eyes. "I was trying not to think about that," he whined. "It was bad enough seeing that grin on Harry's face and knowing what he was doing the night before."

            George rolled his eyes. He had never had much sympathy with Ron's whining even when he thought that it was justified, and this wasn't. "Malfoy makes him a little saner, a little more stable, a little more determined not to leave with the lightning. What does it matter if he did evil things in the past? I think most of us were evil little shits at Hogwarts." Sometimes he lay awake at night and shared memories with Fred that had a certain awe. Did they really do that much damage when they were just seventeen? Future generations of prank-playing students would have a lot to look up to.

            "It's not that," Ron said. He said it slowly, like he was actually thinking instead of just reacting, so George remained silent and listened. "I think that Malfoy cares more about his parents than anything else, and I wish Harry could see that. Harry gets in the way, and Malfoy is going to sacrifice him. If Harry survives that, then he'll be in no kind of mood to be stable."

            George thought about that. It was true that neither of them had had the opportunity to talk to Malfoy at close quarters, and so they couldn't just say that Ron's concerns were nonsense. "Bring me to talk to him, and I think that we can judge," he said.

            Ron blinked at him. "Why don't you just go and talk to him yourself?"

            "Because you've spent more time with him," George said.

            Ron blushed, of all things. "That was just to help him get his parents off the island," he said defensively. "And when I went and talked to him about leaving Harry alone. And when I went and reassured him that not everyone hated his parents. I mean, it's not like any of that stuff actually matters."

            George smiled at him. It was one of those sublime moments when he didn't even have to say anything; remain silent and Ron would eventually have to listen to the silence and figure out that what he had been saying was stupid.

            "I don't like this," Ron said, his last protest against an unfair universe.

            "How fortunate that we don't care about that," George told him cheerfully. "Now, come on, let's go talk to the Destroyer of Hearts and see what he thinks." We can always invent a machine to stop him if it looks like he's going to betray Harry.

*

            Draco stepped back from the piece of bread that his father tried to lob at him. Part of him, the part that he felt was breaking free of his parents' influence day by day, noted it was pitiful that the great Lucius Malfoy had been reduced to the throwing of such ineffective weapons.

            The rest of him was just as glad that that was the case, and that Lucius would never have the power to affect him again, at least not if Draco acted like a normal person instead of someone obsessed with rescuing his parents.

            "I do not like this." It was his mother who spoke, as it had been during the last two times that Draco visited, her eyes darting back and forth between him and Lucius as if she thought both of them would hurt her and it was only a matter of which direction the pain would come from this time. Probably true, Draco had to admit. "There is so much better food that you could bring us, Draco."

            Draco shook his head. "This is what I eat myself, except for the cutlery," he said. He hadn't thought it a good idea to give his mother and father knives and forks. "And if I stole food for you, then that would mean someone would find out and I'd probably be prevented from bringing any food to you."

            "You could do better," his mother said, and crept forwards and laid a hand on his arm, gently, confidingly, as if she assumed that he would shake off a harder touch. He might, Draco thought. His heart was beating in new ways, his body was flooded with new sensations and his mind with new thoughts. It was entirely possible that he might revolt against his parents and not realize that that was what he'd done until he'd done it. "You could help us escape, the way I talked to you about before."

            "Where would you go, that no one would recognize you?" Draco asked quietly. His mother didn't bear the Dark Mark, but his father did. There was no one in any of the countries surrounding England who wouldn't recognize it and send them straight back to the Ministry. And whether they cared for him in the same way he did for them or not, whether seven years of prison had changed them beyond recognition or not, Draco still didn't intend to lose them to prison again when he'd fought so hard to get them out. "There's no way that I could provide you the kind of protection that you're going to need. Please, Mother, just wait. It's possible that I can help you if you'll be patient."

            "So you have been promising. That is not the case."

            His father's voice, harsh, hoarse, confident. His mother backed off and fluttered her hands helplessly. She was still stronger than Lucius in some ways, Draco thought, staring at her, but she so feared displeasing him, feared what he might yell if she did, that she worked her own weakness.

            "How would you know, Father?" Draco asked. "How much do you know of life outside Azkaban, even life here? You don't get to leave your rooms and walk up and down the corridors asking others' opinions. The only one you speak with here is me. And you don't trust me."

            His father's eyes shone for an instant before he turned them away, but not with the light of any cleverness, Draco thought. It was the way the eyes of a rat would glitter when they caught a lit torch. "You have no access to the powers and the allies that I do, as a Malfoy," he whispered. "You have not been using them."

            "They aren't there any more to be used." Maybe his father would hear and understand him if he kept his voice calm enough, Draco thought. That did seem to infuriate him more with some hint of the truth creeping through. "Your friends deserted our cause when you went to prison. And some of the people who might have helped us were frightened away by the revelation that you could save the life of the Boy-Who-Lived and still be put away." He glanced at his mother, wondering again why accompanying his father, to the point of refusing to talk about her own saving of Potter, was so much more important to her than staying free.

            "The contacts would be there if you had maintained them."

            Draco bared his teeth. Yes, his father wasn't listening to him, and no, it wouldn't change if he stayed and made more of the effort, at least right now. He thought that leaving might be the best decision he could make. He would come back when he was calmer. He turned towards the door.

            His mother started to say something, and then cut it off with a hard puff of breath. That was the only warning Draco received, but it might well have saved his life.

            His father didn't have weapons, except the ones that no one could take away without torture: his fists and his teeth. He leaped at Draco, and Draco found himself taking a step away and turning sideways before he thought about it consciously. The shadow, his mother's breath, the sound of a body passing through the air, combined to throw him into high alert. He drew his wand and also found himself kicking out before he consciously knew what he was doing, knocking his father to the floor and kneeling on his chest as he stared into his eyes.

            His father's hands balled, his eyes flashed, his whole face seemed to contract. He said nothing.

            "Why?" Draco whispered. "What do you have to gain, when I'm your only ally in a house full of your enemies?"

            "You would let us go," his mother said, although Draco didn't think she was responding to his question as much as the whole situation. "You could. You could give us wands. You could get us beyond the wards. But you won't. Do you understand how frustrating that is, to know your only child has turned against you?" Her words were low and scratchy and toneless, and Draco found himself wrinkling his nose in response.

            "I've been trying to tell you the truth," Draco said. "That you won't survive without me, that you can't escape on your own, that the world as you know it has changed. Did you think that it would stay still while you rotted in Azkaban?"

            Narcissa stared at him, and Draco caught a glimpse of the truth in her eyes before she turned her head to hide it. Facing the idea that things had changed was more terrifying, at least for her, than facing the enemies he was telling her about. And the possibility that she might have made the wrong choice when she refused to testify in her own defense and went to Azkaban...

            She couldn't face that, at all.

            Draco closed his eyes and shook his head, then jabbed his wand warningly into his father's throat when Lucius tried to move. This was impossible. He couldn't keep watching his back around his parents, and he couldn't let them escape and be killed, and he couldn't watch them be dragged back to whatever equivalent of Azkaban the wizarding world would come up with next. There was nothing he could do, or that was what it felt like, and he was aching and hurt and tired.

            Potter. I want to be with Potter. He's the only one who cares when I feel things like this.

            But to admit that, especially in front of Lucius, would be a weakness. Draco rose to his feet, locked eyes with his father, and hoped that his words carried the conviction of a threat, that his parents didn't realize how impossible it was that he would really carry out what he was saying now. "If you attack me again, then I'll turn you over to the more fanatic of Potter's followers."

            "You would not," his mother said, but in such a low voice that Draco decided he could ignore her. His father simply lay still and watched him, eyes burning with more hatred than he had shown any of the Muggleborns he tormented.

            Of course he feels that way. They hadn't personally betrayed his legacy.

            "It's the only thing I can do," Draco said. "I have to protect myself, to make sure that I can continue to act no matter what you might do to stop me. That's the lesson you taught me, isn't it, Father? That only the strong deserve to survive, that the ones who let sentiment slow them down are sacrificed?" He paused, then added, "Of course, I see now that family loyalty you tried to implant in me is a personal chain to hook around my neck and pull me into line. You never intended to cling to it, not if it would be inconvenient for you. But one of the reasons it maddens you that I'm acting the way I am is that I don't drop everything and run to your side when you tell me it's for family."

            This time, his father looked as if he'd been punched in the gut, and Draco reckoned some of his words had finally got through. He made his way out the door, and when he looked back, his mother had crept over to his father and was clutching his hand. But neither of them looked at him, or made any move to stop him.

            Draco closed the door hard behind him and shut his eyes as he leaned against it. He was shaking.

            That was harder than he had thought it would be, to sever the ties of family, even knowing that they had chosen each other instead of him. Or his mother had chosen his father. His father might not be capable of choosing anything anymore.

            I want Potter.

            It was typical of his luck that when he opened his eyes, he got Weasleys instead.

*

            SP777: Some other people are planning solutions, as Harry can’t seem to. But Harry doesn’t want to either go with the lightning or let people intimidate and threaten him out of his position.

            Mehla_Seraphim: Thank you!

            No, I don’t think I’ve really written Draco with wild magic. The closest is probably my one-shot ‘Persephone’s Folly.’
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Intoxicate the Sun