Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

The Image of You	By : Andreas Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 1606 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 3
- 4
- 5
Chapter 4: Point of Penetration

Clearly, entering an alternate reality involved a whole lot of climbing. Or, at least, struggling up a very steep hillside with a dead guy complaining about sweat in your shirt pocket. Harry wished he had the breath to sigh properly. They were moving through another patch of trees, out of the blazing sun, but the air remained as warm and still as ever, stirred into motion only by their passing and the millions of flies buzzing all around them. They were still avoiding Apparition for fear of detection and for once, Harry really despised doing things the Muggle way. Unlike Malfoy, who for once found it highly amusing. That is, before the sweat. Fortunately, he had stopped chanting 'Potter stinks!' after the first half hour.
'Can't you move any faster, you plebe of profuse perspiration?'
'Can't you think up lame things like that any faster? I _wondered_ what kept you quiet for the last sixty seconds.'
'I was busy drowning.'
'You're a drawing.'
'I was _blurring_!'
'Well, keep doing that then. In silence. You're making my friends avoid me.'
'They're just faster than you. Even the fat cat is faster than you!'
'Bill asked for a _separate room_!'
'So, you _were_ planning to seduce him now that you finally got him away from that mate of his? How tawdry.'
'What? Are you crazy? He's married! And a _man_!'
'Interesting priority there, Potter. As interesting as your heaving pectoral. You're all flustered aren't you? Oh, deary me, little Potty fancies his best friend's older _brother_! How sensational!'
They were out in the open again. The heat made it hard to think. Harry glared, pointlessly, at his shirt pocket as he hurried towards the next clump of trees. 'I don't fancy _him_!'
'Being stressed out makes you stress your sentences oddly, doesn't it?' Malfoy sniggered. 'So, you fancy _someone_, huh? It's the cat, isn't it?'
'Shut,' said Harry, walking into both the shade and Ron's back. He staggered backwards into sunlight, blinked and peered into the darkness. He had to take a few steps forward to make out what Ron and Hermione were staring at. 'Up.'
'Are we there yet?'
'I. Think so.'
The ruin towering above them seemed to grow out of the cliff, and Harry got the feeling it would have broken free and flown away if it weren't for the vines holding it back. It was of mostly Roman design, except for some distinctly gothic decorations, but the sanguine colour of its columns made it look so much more alive than any ruin of its kind Harry had ever seen. Of course, he had only seen them in photos, but he could still tell that this was different. It seemed to announce, with blood-red ferocity, 'The Roman Empire is Not Dead.'
Well, at least it helped him cool down quickly.
***
'Oh, honestly, Ron, it's just a corpse! It won't kill you!'
Hermione poked at the crusted gash in the dead man's throat using two hairpins, muttering something under her breath. Somewhere outside, Ron threw up, again.
The ruin, its interior better preserved than its exterior, was as red inside as outside, though the colour seemed as much a result of dried blood as of paint. Sprayed in all directions from different points throughout the large, column-filled room, the blood had created subtle, radial patterns of shifting hues and ridges.
'It's hardly just _one_ corpse though,' said Bill, moving in and out of view behind the columns as he scanned the walls for legible writing.
'The rest are just skeletons,' said Hermione, apparently losing interest in the corpse spread across central sacrificial altar and moving towards others stacked against one of the columns. 'Though this one is a bit more recent. Don't lick, Crookshanks!'
'So,' said Harry, standing perfectly still close to the exit, 'this is what you wouldn't tell us about?'
'Partly,' said Malfoy who had said hardly anything since their arrival.
'And the other parts would be?'
A pause. 'Granger's probably poking it.'
The chill deepened. 'What?'
'Entering the Lost Lands requires a sacrifice,' said Malfoy, his voice almost a whisper. 'If you haven't . . . murdered before, you must do it here. And the Killing Curses doesn't count. It's too . . . _clean_.'
Hermione and Bill were discussing some partially concealed writing on the wall, but Harry couldn't hear them. 'You mean--'
'I had to do it. As will you, if you're serious about killing the Dark Lord. He'll be too powerful next time he leaves the Lost Lands. You know that.'
Harry knew, of course, that Malfoy was, or had been, a Death Eater. But for some reason the fact that Malfoy hadn't been able to kill Dumbledore had given Harry the idea that he had never killed at all. How stupid. 'So, you murdered someone.'
'Yes.'
'And you think I would . . . _could_ do the same?' asked Harry, trying to keep his voice low.
'There is no other way into the Lost Lands. That's why I didn't tell you before. It's easier to give up when you aren't so very, very close. Isn't it?'
Harry wanted to tear Malfoy to shreds. 'You bastard.'
'Still, if there _is_ another way, I'm sure Miss Superbrain will figure it out. And there are potions. Potions that could make a rabbit tear into a lion. Potions that remove all your inhibitions.'
'We call them drugs.'
'They work.'
If there was one thing Harry had learned over the course of their journey, it was how to decipher Draco Malfoy. 'They drugged you.'
There was no answer, nor really a question, only silence and two shaking sighs.
***
'It doesn't make _sense_ that you can only get in through _killing_ someone,' said Hermione, accidentally smacking an errant spider into Ron's face, which was a relief since it stopped him staring a hole in Harry's shirt pocket. 'I mean, yes, the blood might be important for the opening of some sort of passage, and maybe it has to be human blood, but to suggest that the one seeking entrance has to _murder_ someone else - that's just absurd! That may be how they did things in the Middle Ages, but I think we've advanced a bit _beyond_ that! Honestly, it's just to scare people off, I'm sure!'
Bill put a hand on her shoulder. 'Calm down, Hermione. We'll figure it out, _without_ killing anyone.'
Harry wasn't at all sure he liked the look Bill shot him, or the way his jaw set after he had finished speaking. It implied things Harry would rather not think about. It suggested a bond between them, of grim determination and desperation. It further separated him from Ron and Hermione, who both appeared to subconsciously think this war would be settled by solving puzzles and riddles the way they had so often before.
'But, Malfoy,' said Hermione, somewhat calmer, 'what happened _after_ the . . . sacrifice?'
'I got into the Lost Lands.'
'But _how_?'
'I don't know.'
'What? You have to know _something_!'
'I . . . blacked out, okay?'
Harry thought it was probably just as well that shirt pockets couldn't show emotions very well.
Ron snorted. 'Fainted at the sight of all that blood, eh?'
'At least I didn't throw up.'
Malfoy hadn't mentioned the drugs to the others. Harry hadn't either. Perhaps it would sound too much like an excuse. After all, against all expectation, Ron's and Hermione's dislike for Malfoy was greater than Harry's these days. Or, maybe not their dislike, because Harry still despised the bigoted little bastard, but their _prejudice_. They would just think Malfoy was trying to cover up his dastardly Death Eater deeds, and Bill was so distant these days he would most likely not give a damn either way.
'Well, that's not particularly helpful,' Hermione sighed.
'Ever _so_ sorry.'
'_I'm_ not,' snapped Hermione. 'It would have _helped_ if you'd told us about this sooner!'
'Why? So you could have dragged a helpful book up the mountain?'
'Well . . . _yes_!'
'At least now you'll have a good long while going back to the village to figure out what to do about those human sacrifices.'
'You . . . you beastly little manipulative . . .'
'Uhm. Hermione.' Ron tapped her shoulder. He looked more worried than angry. Harry could see that clearly. Too clearly.
'. . . Death Eater!'
'It's getting lighter,' said Ron, and it was. The walls were glowing as if lit by invisible torches.
'That's odd,' said Bill, moving towards the nearest wall.
Hermione looked completely at a loss. 'I don't under--'
'What's going on?' asked Malfoy, a distinct note of urgency in his tone.
'I don't know,' muttered Harry, moving towards the sacrificial table. Was it just the light, or was the corpse moving? And if it was, why on Earth was he moving towards it?
'There's something moving behind the columns!' exclaimed Ron, pointing in a directionless sort of way at the flickering lights.
Harry could see nothing moving. It was only the light. It set everything in false motion, even the on closer inspection still unmoving corpse. Harry sighed and looked up from the gruesome sight to find his gaze stuck on something potentially even more disturbing. Patches of brighter light were moving _away_ from the far wall, coming closer. They were starting to take on shape, starting to _walk_.
Harry's hand moved almost on its own to his shirt pocket and pulled up the parchment. 'What the hell are those?' he asked, still staring straight ahead.
'They're,' stuttered Malfoy, 'they're . . . not supposed to come _yet_! They're-- There's been no sacrifice!'
'But, what _are_ they?' asked Hermione from somewhere behind Harry.
There were four shapes. No, wait, five. Four large and one smaller. Two of the man-sized ones were still very indistinct, unlike their movement pattern as they split from the other two. They were prowling, Harry realised, and yet he remained glued to the spot, his eyes fixed not on the shape with shimmering hair both flowing from its female head and bristling across its body, but on the being heading straight towards _him_. For each second that passed it looked more and more like a young man, fair-haired, slender yet toned, and attractive in a way that chilled Harry to the very bone. Malfoy's shouted warning barely registered at first.
'THEY'RE GUARDIANS! RUN! RUN _NOW_! BLOODY MOVE!' It amazed Harry that there could be so much voice in such a tiny piece of parchment. Then he spun around, with every intention of running.
To his left, an implausible, lurching arrangement of tentacles, claws, fangs and fur was assaulting a screeching Hermione. In front of him, Ron struggled towards Hermione while a giant spider plunged its stingers into his back. To his right, Bill was being attacked, or perhaps violently fondled, by a golden female werewolf. From behind him, strong arms encircled his waist and a warm tongue slid up the side of his neck.
Harry broke free, took one step forward, and tripped. A hand grabbed his thigh, hauling him backwards. Dust blinded him. There was screaming everywhere. His left hand searched for something to hold onto. His right hand clung tighter to Malfoy than ever before, even when his assailant flipped him over and Harry's elbow slammed against the stone floor.
His vision cleared, enough for him to see the young man, stark naked, straddling him and leaning close, closer, closer. The kiss was ferocious. Harry's head slammed against the floor.
Disoriented, Harry pushed the man away, rolled over and started to scramble away across the floor. He felt something tugging at his trousers. Malfoy was shouting something incoherent from inside Harry's cramped fist.
Too late, Harry realized that his holding onto the sacrificial table only made it easier for the young manbeast to tear off his trousers. His t-shirt, already torn against the table's foundation, was next. Hot, sweaty skin, hands, nails, tongue, teeth replaced the discarded clothes. Sand scraped against Harry's naked back. He was sure he would black out any second.
Black out.
Malfoy!
No.
No, no, no!
The beast, the beautiful monster, was too strong. Malfoy kept shouting, shouting, screaming. Harry held on. Hanging on to Malfoy was all that made _him_ hang on, hang in there, stay semi-conscious.
There was roaring, bellowing, fire, and smoke behind him. When the cacophony died down, there were no more screams, only whimpers from inside Harry's fist, grunting and whimpering to his left, and sounds from himself that he did his very best to block out.
His mind clouded by pain and repressed sensations, Harry noticed other sounds, growing stronger. Heavy breathing, swishing, claws against stone.
Then there was a moment of stillness, blankness, and when the world stopped spinning, there was a dinosaur peering down at him. Like something out of Jurassic Park, though the fire that exploded from its nostrils suggested it was more dragon than dinosaur.
When his detached thoughts caught up with events, Harry was already on fire. He screamed, staggered to his feet and tried to somehow spin off the flames licking his skin.
It didn't make sense. He was naked, and yet the flames danced across his sweat-soaked skin without harming it at all. The pain, however, was excruciating.
Running out of air, Harry could scream no longer, and yet the scream went on. Despite the raging flames, Harry stilled, turned his head and stared at his fist. The edges of the parchment were on fire. Malfoy was burning, and shouting something. Harry drew his fist up to his face.
'I CAN'T SEE! CAN'T SEE IT! IT'S NOT THERE!' shouted Malfoy, and Harry could see and feel that the fire was eating its way into the parchment still inside his hand. 'MY PAINTING! IT'S NOT _THERE_!'
The realisation that Malfoy was trapped and burning came as such a shock that Harry barely registered the bipedal dragon herding him backwards until he stepped into cold, white light. The fire immediately began to die down everywhere except where it still had the parchment to feed on. Harry felt as if he'd been thrown into an icy lake, down to the sensation of fluid against his skin and a feeling of weightlessness.
The last thing he heard before blacking out was Malfoy's piercing howl of terror.
The last thing he saw was his fist slackening and the parchment going up in flames.
The last thing he felt was neither pain nor cold, but sorrow.
***
For a brief moment, before a stinging raindrop hit his left eye, Harry stared into a dark and cloudy sky. He shivered and felt long, wet grass rub against his back and brush against his arms, legs, and neck. Slowly, painfully he sat up and surveyed his surroundings.
Straight ahead, a short way up the gently sloping hillside, there was a massive wall of what looked like dirty ice, a slowly melting glacier. How far it extended in either direction, Harry couldn't tell. Beyond the small clearing where he sat, there were massive, looming fir trees all around.
To his left lay Bill, still unconscious. The older man was, like Harry, completely naked. He also had not a hair left on his body, anywhere. Harry felt his own forehead, and further up. Hiding the scar would undoubtedly be a problem, but he found himself not caring much, about anything.
Then he felt an odd roughness against his scalp, and realised he was using his right hand. There were streams of sooty rain running down his arm, and his palm, when he finally managed to force it in front of his face, was the colour of mourning. Malfoy was gone.
The intense feeling of loss deepened as Harry, now reminded of those who were not there, frantically scanned the clearing for any sign of Hermione or Ron. Though he already knew he had lost them too. He just knew. There had been no more screams.
Two had entered the Lost Lands, and two had not. Two for two. No, it couldn't be. Had there been blood? He didn't know.
Staying conscious was painful. Remembering was painful. _Sitting_ was painful. Harry sank back into the cold grass, quivered and curled up in a fetal position. Thunder rolled, as did the tears down his cheeks.
***
- 3
- 4
- 5
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

The Image of You