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The Serenity of His Rage	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16982 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Thirty-Eight--Mess Him Up
"And you don't think Dumbledore is going to try to interfere?"
"No. As I was saying..."
*
Severus had no trouble wrapping the illusion of the cup he had destroyed around an ordinary rock. He had spent more than one evening brooding over that cup, feeling it stare at him from the shelf where he'd placed it, feeling as if the soul-piece in it could come to life any moment and was hungrily watching him. He had to concentrate harder to imbue the illusion with the sense of menace he'd felt from it, but even that was done at last.
Then he placed it, begrudgingly, in the custody of Weasley and Granger. He understood Harry's reasoning for saying they were the ones who had to have the fake cup. They were the only ones the Dark Lord would believe might destroy it, other than Harry. And Severus was more needed to get them close to the Dark Lord and Nagini.
It didn't lessen Severus's feelings of dread as he watched the illusion disappear into the bag Granger was holding.
"Cheer up, sir," said Granger gently, smiling at him. "I promise that we're going to make as many Death Eaters as possible come after us." She stroked the hilt of the mock basilisk fang Severus had also designed. "And scare Voldemort to death while we're at it."
Severus snorted, but stepped back to give her room to swing the bag over her shoulder. "See that you do what you can to bring him down, Granger." He would have said something else, but had to pause before the fierce light in her eyes.
"Oh, you can count on it, sir," she said softly. Even Weasley looked properly impressed.
Severus stood in the door of his office, watching them, for a long time after they had left the corridor. They were braver than he had thought. Better--well, people than he had thought. It had nothing to do with Gryffindor or Slytherin.
Then he grimaced and turned back to his office, to work on something that did.
*
"Well, I don't understand why I can't pretend to destroy the cup."
"Voldemort would never believe that you were anywhere except right there with me, Draco. And I need to be there when he dies."
"Why?"
"Because I want to make sure that he's dead with my own two eyes..."
*
"There is little likelihood that you will get a second chance to strike. The spell must be perfect the first time."
Harry nodded his understanding, eyes never moving from the target in front of him. Professor Snape had made it of wood that he'd then toughened, so it was approximately the toughness of the scale and muscle he would need to pierce through to destroy Nagini. Harry clutched the basilisk fang in his hand and felt his fingers slip on the hilt with sweat.
Not going to happen. I am going to show that I can do this.
"Time," said Snape, and the mock snake snapped to life, her head rotating to focus on Harry. The hiss that echoed through the room sounded demented, nothing like Parseltongue, but then, Harry didn't even know if he could understand that anymore.
Harry surged forwards, sweeping the basilisk fang in movements that would attract the snake's attention. As he went, he shouted out the words of the spell that Snape had made him practice more than a hundred times before now, focusing his magic as hard as he could through his wand core. "Debello!"
The magic filled the Room of Requirement with sweeping purple stripes of light, glittering white at the edges. All of them closed in on Nagini and wrapped around her, draining, conquering, her muscle and her scales, making them as thin as paper. The snake hissed in what might have been shock, rearing her head back.
Harry sprang at her and stabbed downwards with the basilisk fang as hard as he could.
It struck through enchanted wood, down and down, and came to a jarring stop on the floor of the Room. Harry gasped and staggered back, taking a moment to hope that he hadn't broken the tip of the basilisk fang. That would be a problem.
"Well done."
The words were still unexpected in Snape's voice, and Harry took a moment to adjust to them. He blinked around and found a small pile of--well, it didn't even look like broken wood. More like rotted wood. There was no trace of the semblance of a snake Snape had conjured.
"But it wasn't a real snake," Harry whispered in wonder.
"That does not matter." Snape appeared beside him, studying him intently. "That spell is meant to conquer, to take over the strength of any opponent and turn it against them. The stronger the opponent, the worse the result for them. It is only not used more often in battle because it takes enormous power to cast."
"Oh," Harry said, and swallowed through his aching throat. He had screamed without realizing it. He looked around automatically for Draco, reaching down the bond, and felt him shivering with waves of excitement and fear. Snape had insisted they not be together in the same room while Harry practiced the move that would hopefully destroy Nagini, since Draco might lend him strength and make the feat possible only with that magic. They couldn't count on being together during the battle, Snape had told them over and over, even though they would try their hardest to stay there.
Snape strode to the door to let Draco in, but Harry did have to ask one question that occurred to him as he stared at the shivered pile of rot. "Why didn't you want to kill Nagini the same way you killed the cup, sir? And the diadem?"
"Those were two different methods, Mr. Potter," Snape murmured, opening the door. Draco stepped in and hurried over, hugging Harry, while the bond blazed pink and orange. Snape watched them with what could have been contempt, or not. "Fiendfyre and a basilisk fang."
"You know what I mean."
"It is my job as a professor to teach you to use precision." Snape's eyes glittered.
Harry hugged Draco back but glared at him, and at last Snape answered with a tilt of his head. "Besides the fact that I will have to hold the Dark Lord's attention and get us into his headquarters, and I may or may not be able to do both those things and kill the snake? I am not powerful enough to cast the Conquest Curse."
Harry looked down and swallowed, a little humbled. He'd had no idea it was that difficult. Well, he supposed it had pulled on his power a lot, but that was part of the reason Snape had had him practice and practice and practice. He'd thought it was--well, precise.
"Are you ever going to talk to me, or am I just going to stand here hugging you for hours?" Draco said into his ear.
Harry started and fed more emotion down the bond, promptly. He never wanted Draco to think he wasn't valued, no matter what Harry had to do to make it up to him. "I think you want to stand here hugging me for hours."
"It has its benefits."
Harry looked over Draco's shoulder towards the rotted wood, and turned him when Draco made a discontented noise and tried to get his attention back. "That's what I'm hoping to do to Nagini," he told Draco. "You think you can do your part?"
Draco shivered, but his eyes and the bond were already as hard as lashing waves, in a way Harry knew well. "Nothing's going to keep me from doing it."
*
"But how can we be absolutely sure of where Voldemort is? He might be hiding anywhere, now that he's paranoid about his Horcruxes being destroyed."
"I don't know. I sort of wish I still had the link with him through my scar, that would be enough to tell us--"
"Leave it to me."
*
Severus leaned back and closed his eyes. He was in his office before the Floo, which he had often used to reach a point where he could safely Apparate. It was a symbol of transportation and travel, and symbols would be important in the task he had to perform now.
He still hesitated, focusing his mind and condensing his thoughts down to a single point, before he reached over and laid his right hand on the Mark.
The prompt, pounding pain in his head came as a surprise. He hadn't ever sensed it before, although most of the time the Mark would burn when the Dark Lord was angry. But this was different. This was all through his body, a symphony like a beating drum, and the edge of anger Severus had been accustomed to for years was absent.
After long moments when he drifted in the center of his own mind, practicing Occlumency just enough to maintain his separate identity, Severus discovered the nature of the change. What the Dark Lord felt now was fear.
Severus held back a vicious chuckle as he laid his hand more firmly on the Mark, opening and increasing the connection between them. He had never dared do this before, but then, the stakes had never been so high before. And during the years when the Dark Lord had been a bodiless spirit and the Mark faded, Severus thought he could not have done it anyway. It was the main reason Draco had not joined him, since his Mark was now an ugly scar without the power to reach across the distance.
But Severus had the power of Legilimency at his command. It was advanced enough that he need only look into a student's eyes to know what they were thinking. And while the Dark Lord was no student, he had never been as good at the shielding part of the equation as at the offensive. Severus reached out with an act of sheer will and slipped down the connection between them, under the Dark Lord's Occlumency walls.
There was a fierce struggle, which Severus had anticipated. The Dark Lord wasn’t resisting him consciously, because he didn’t know Severus was there, but fear and rage were strong unconscious defenses. But Severus ducked and wove between harsh drops and edges that tried to cut off pieces of his memories, and found himself standing in front of a door so tightly guarded that he only carefully knocked on it.
The door swayed for a moment. Severus bore down more firmly on the Dark Mark and tried to think of all the times that he had served the Dark Lord, or at least pretended to be faithful. In the end, this buried part of the Dark Lord’s mind recognized his own magic coursing through the Mark and unlocked the door. Severus slipped inside, darting his gaze around.
This was a shadowy place, only a “place” in the vaguest sense of the word. But Severus had long ago learned that many people’s minds reflected their concerns and the rooms they occupied on a daily basis.
He had to smile at seeing the repeated motifs of cup and snake constantly curling around the “walls” of this place. The Dark Lord would know they were the only two Horcruxes left, and probably couldn’t choose which one he worried most about.
The layout of the rooms was familiar, though, and Severus stood quietly until it came to him, relaxing his own mind and memory. The information he needed was more apt to rise on its own than when it was forced out.
And it did, suddenly.
Malfoy Manor. This is a replica of the receiving room at Malfoy Manor.
Severus snorted. He supposed they could have looked there in the first place, but he had been sure the Dark Lord would have moved from his former stronghold. If nothing else, Draco and Lucius could tell them the weak points in the wards, and the Dark Lord’s fear had probably escalated into paranoia by now.
Now, he had to get back out of the Dark Lord’s mind without the monster sensing him.
Oddly enough, it wasn’t that difficult. When Severus had slipped past the guard fears and spells, he found the connection pulling him so strongly back to his body that it was like having to run to keep up. He opened his eyes, gasping, in his own chair in front of his fire, and immediately snatched his hand back from his Mark.
It didn’t burn. Nothing happened despite the careful eye Severus kept on it, and the half-hour he waited before he stood to announce the good news to the others.
The Dark Lord didn’t know they were coming.
*
“You’ve planned this all out so neatly that you’ve practically left nothing for me to do.”
“I don’t want to put you at risk.”
“But Weasley and Granger get to take the cup somewhere, and Severus got to spy on Voldemort, and he’ll be the one who takes us there, and you’ll be the one who gets to destroy Nagini. What do I get to do?”
“Know that you inspired all this in the first place? I never would have tried this if we hadn’t soul-bonded. I probably would have gone hunting the Horcruxes with Ron and Hermione, and then walked out into the Forbidden Forest to let Voldemort kill me the way Dumbledore wanted to happen.”
“…I can accept that, I suppose.”
*
Draco winced a little at the crunch of grass beneath their feet as they landed outside Malfoy Manor’s walls. He gingerly touched the amulet his father had given him, one that would drop the protections of the Manor undetectably and allow them in. It was normally embedded beneath the skin of each Malfoy head of family; Father had had to pry it out with a bloody spell and send it to them.
Draco thought he could still feel a bit of his father’s blood if he rubbed the smooth pendant hard enough, but honestly, that was more of a comfort than not. At least it gave a small bit of someone else who couldn’t be here, to stand with them.
“Ready?”
Harry was speaking the words so close to Draco’s ear that the puff of air tickled it, but Draco only nodded. He knew as well as anyone that they couldn’t risk the Death Eaters overhearing them.
I know the risks. I’m the one who helped Harry break in here once before. Why are they acting like I’m a hopeless child who needs to be protected?
They’d explained it to him, of course. Draco couldn’t go with Weasley and Granger because he and Harry would both do “stupid” things—a Professor Snape word—if they were that far apart. He couldn’t leave Professor Snape and do something else to distract the Death Eaters because they didn’t know how many of them would actually leave the Manor to go after Weasley and Granger and their fake Horcrux. He couldn’t kill Nagini because he didn’t have the power to master the spell that would weaken her.
He had to go with Professor Snape and Harry, and wait and watch.
Draco might understand the reasoning. But he didn’t have to keep silent about it, at least once they were back in Hogwarts with the last Horcrux safely destroyed.
For now, the words boiled in his chest as Professor Snape cast some spells and stood as if communing with a forest spirit, his eyes closed. He finally opened them and nodded. “There are fewer magical signatures and Dark Marks present than there usually are. I would guess that the Dark Lord sent perhaps half of his Death Eaters to retrieve what he thinks is the Horcrux.”
“Excellent,” said Harry, and up the bond came emotions that made Draco shiver, blue and dark black waves constantly lashing. Well, he could hardly blame Harry for feeling triumph at the thought of conquering his enemy. “Draco, can you drop the wards?”
At least they’ve remembered that I’m here and good for something, Draco thought grumpily as he carefully wrapped his fingers around the amulet. He rubbed Father’s blood once more for luck, and ignored the way that the little artifact was trying to squirm under his skin. He rubbed it between both hands after waiting three heartbeats, and recited the proper incantation as he did so.
“Cruor vocat cruorem.”
The magic swelled through him and then broke almost undetectably through his fingers. This was one advantage of the magic that his ancestors had used to construct the amulet, Draco thought, as he watched soft brown ribbons weave out of him and climb up the first of the protective spells encircling the grounds. There was so little space for the magic to leak and alert someone, since it was entirely contained within Malfoy blood and bodies.
“When will it be safe?”
Now Harry was the one who sounded whiny and pouting. Draco shot him a superior look and bent close to speak as softly as he could and still be heard. “When all the protective spells are down.”
“Prat.”
“Git.”
“Silence.”
Trust Professor Snape to interrupt our fun, Draco thought, but he used the bond to poke at Harry a little until Harry gave him a flatly irritated look. Then Draco stood there and tried to appear as innocent as he possibly could. He was tracking the progress of the amulet’s magic more than he was paying attention to the bond at the moment, anyway.
The protective spells finally collapsed, wrapping their power in the Malfoy magic. They would rise out of it again once Draco and his allies were safely across. Draco nodded to Harry, and he immediately surged forwards and vaulted over the fence.
Show-off. Draco let Professor Snape give him a boost over, but he had to admit he enjoyed the way Harry was waiting to catch him on the other side. He leaned his head against Harry’s chest for a second, and sighed into his heartbeat, until Professor Snape cleared his throat and motioned them on.
They didn’t speak now as they walked across grass that had once been as familiar to Draco as his last name. He could see places flowers had been torn from the earth, and once a spot of blood and white feathers proclaimed the slaughter of a peacock. Draco grimaced to himself and kept walking.
The house loomed so close to them at last that Draco winced and lowered his head. That didn’t feel the same, either. There had always been Dark magic here, but it was the effect of some artifacts and books and long-past spells. It had never been so single and overwhelming.
“Now,” said Harry, and nodded to Professor Snape, who nodded back and then whipped his wand in a circle.
“The snake is at the back of the house,” he murmured at last, and looked at Draco.
Draco didn’t have to think. “The library that looks out over the gardens,” he said. “It’s the most protected one in the house because it has all these glass windows we had to keep from shattering or keep someone from coming through.”
Professor Snape turned without a word and led them along the side of the Manor. Draco shivered. He knew there were a lot of Death Eaters here, even if he couldn’t feel them the way Professor Snape could. It was downright eerie to know they existed and he couldn’t hear or see them.
I hope that’s because more of them went after Weasley and Granger than we thought did. But Draco knew they wouldn’t get that lucky.
Finally, Draco caught a gleam of stray moonlight off the large glass doors that meant they were near the library, and tugged on Professor Snape’s sleeve. Snape glanced at him and nodded. Then he raised his wand and closed his eyes, moving his lips. Draco squinted, but there wasn’t enough light to make out what he was saying.
He understood, though, when Professor Snape thrust his wand into the air and at the same moment roared out, “EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
Draco jumped at the shout as much as at the doe that burst forth from Snape’s wand. She wasn’t silver like every other Patronus he’d ever seen (which, admittedly, was pretty much limited to Harry’s). She was ornamented with red and gold flames, and there was a trailing Dark Mark flying behind her. She kicked with her hooves, and crushed it, only for it to form again.
Death Eaters came pouring out of the doors of the Manor. The other doors, not the library ones, Draco thought, and that only confirmed his impression that Voldemort was in there. Probably huddled with his snake, desperately fearing for the safety of his last Horcrux. Draco wrapped his arms around himself and shivered.
He could see it. He could almost hear it, even though the words echoing in his ears were really his own thoughts.
Harry charged forwards, to the doors. Draco followed him, glancing back now and then. Death Eaters were firing all sorts of spells at the Patronus, which let Professor Snape, hiding in the shadows, easily pick them off.
That’s a good distraction. But he’ll need to do another one soon.
Draco no longer regretted that he couldn’t go with Professor Snape to create the distraction, though. He thought the heart of the night would take place here, in the library whose glass Harry was even now smashing through with the Conquest Curse.
Voldemort turned to face them. He was less terrifying than Draco had expected—in fact, only as frightening as he had been in their bond after they’d destroyed the Horcrux in Harry. His hand reeled up, and his lips slid away from his teeth. At his feet coiled the snake.
Harry didn’t wait, tumbling out of the way of the spell that Voldemort cast, which shattered into burning stars on the broken window. Draco did the same thing, feeling the bond so high and brilliant blue with excitement that it seemed to shine in the faint firelight of the room.
“Debello!”
Draco knew immediately that Harry hadn’t ever cast that spell so powerfully. It ripped into Nagini, making her give a hissing noise that was closer to a shriek than Draco had thought a snake could come. And even though she was at Voldemort’s feet, Harry came sliding in, reckless and brilliant, and stabbed the basilisk fang down into her.
There was a murky confusion of mist and blackness, and Nagini simply dissolved. The Horcrux that had left seemed to have taken her body with it, because there was nothing left but a dark splotch on the carpet. Draco stared at it and thought distantly that the house-elves would hate having to clean it up.
Voldemort lifted his wand. Harry looked up at him from his feet, and didn’t even bother to move. He was grinning too hard.
“Avada Kedavra,” said Voldemort.
There was no way he could miss, not when he was that close, not when Harry wasn’t even moving, the horror on his face only starting to overcome the triumph—
But there was no way that Draco could miss, either, as he sped across the distance to Voldemort and leaped between Harry and the curse.
Absolutely no way he could miss.
*
SP777: Well, he is an old man who made a lot of mistakes, and he does see that now.
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The Serenity of His Rage