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Seasons of War	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 9694 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Four�Beginning
to Understand

�� Your kind
of necromancy needs two things to work,� Portillo Lopez said, pacing around the
edge of the circle that Harry stood in. �Blood and Parseltongue.�

�� Harry
nodded and said nothing, because at least these were words he understood, and
he didn�t want to startle her into another flight of theory. They were out
beyond the camp, standing on a trampled shelf of frozen mud. Harry thought this
was the same place where Gregory�s class had been yesterday, but he couldn�t
spare much time to think about it right now, when his mind had to be on
Portillo Lopez�s instructions.

�� Last night
she had started saying that maybe his kind of necromancy wasn�t necromancy at
all. Harry had ignored that as best he could, and eventually Portillo Lopez had
seen the virtues of doing things rather than talking about them.

�� I want you
to see if you can make it work without blood,� Portillo Lopez said, gesturing
to the circle of salt around Harry.

�� Harry
opened his mouth, but she shook her head. �I know it didn�t work before, but
this is a different situation. Practice only. Think about it.�

�� Harry
closed his eyes and tried to will that dark shimmer in the back of his mind to
move forwards. It eluded him. He hissed a few words in Parseltongue, focusing
on the image of a serpent in his mind, and nothing happened. He imagined blood
dripping from his finger and hissed again, but the power stayed stubbornly
locked away.

�� He opened
his eyes and shook his head. �I don�t know how to make it come out,� he said.

�� We will
learn.� Portillo Lopez, who had settled down on her heels beyond the circle,
smiled at him. �We have time to do this.�

�� Until
Nihil attacks again,� Harry muttered.

�� Even more
than that,� Portillo Lopez said calmly. �After all, your kind of necromancy has
proved to be a weapon against him, but not the only one. As long as he did not
kill you in the battle, we would have the chance to experiment again with your
magic.� She stood rearranged her robes around her, and picked up a jar that
shone red. �Let us try it with the blood of a goat.�

�� Harry
started at her. �I thought you only agreed to this in the first place and
thought my necromancy wasn�t evil because I was using my own blood!�

�� This is
for the sake of experiment, and it�s the blood of an animal, not a human.�
Portillo Lopez waved her wand at the jar�s lid and enchanted it into a kind of
beak that Harry supposed would make her able to pour the blood more easily
instead of wasting it in one place on the circle. �Stand still while I begin.
We will try a mixed circle of blood and salt, and then one without any salt.�
She began to pace the outside of the ring, handling the jar so carefully and
precisely Harry thought she must have done this before, whether she was part of
an Order of necromancer-killing assassins or not.

�� Well, she could have learned by observation,
I suppose, Harry thought, shifting uneasily. Or she could have observed necromancy rituals and picked up the
majority of what she needed to know from them.

�� There.�
Portillo Lopez stepped back, eyed the circle around him critically, and then
nodded. �Now try.�

�� Harry
hissed. The dark shimmer seemed to pour into his mouth and hover there, filling
his mouth with a kind of magical bile. Harry spat, and then took up his wand
and cast a glamour, hardly thinking about what he was doing.

�� The spit
and the illusion met in mid-air. Harry hissed some more, and the words seemed
to twist in his ears. He barely knew what he was saying, like someone babbling
in the middle of a fever dream and hoping that someone else would understand.
But it worked, the illusion pulsing in and out and then becoming a gigantic
rattlesnake with shadowy grey scales. It flicked its tongue at Portillo Lopez,
just on general principles, before it turned its head and looked at Harry.

�� Come here and defend me, hissed Harry,
not sure that it would work. So far, he had used this kind of magic mostly in
battle. Possibly the snakes that he created wouldn�t know anything except how
to attack.

�� But the
rattlesnake slid over to him and climbed his arm, coiling around his shoulders.
Harry flinched a little, but felt nothing except a faint coolness where the
blood-powered illusion pressed against his skin. The rattlesnake turned its
head vigilantly from head to head, tongue continually testing wind currents
invisible to Harry.

�� I was
right,� Portillo Lopez breathed, gazing up at the snake with a rapturous
expression that made Harry instinctively shift to shield it a little from her
gaze. �In what I said yesterday. This is not necromancy.�

�� Really?�
Harry snapped. His nerves were on edge, the magic playing around and through
him as if the rattler was connected to the middle of his soul by an umbilical
cord. He hadn�t felt that before, and he suspected it was because he wasn�t in the middle of battle and was
hanging on to the conjured snake instead of using it. �What makes you say that?
Blood ritual, Dark magic, ancient language that�s not English for the spells�it
sounds like necromancy to me.�

�� Portillo
Lopez turned her head and gave him a brilliant smile. �But you are not in
contact with the realm of the dead, and by definition, that is what necromancy
is.�

�� Harry
rubbed his forehead, which had chosen that moment to ache. The snake hissed and
started to slither down his shoulder, aiming for Portillo Lopez, because it
seemed to think she had caused the headache. Harry curved an arm around its
body and held it still, though he knew even as he moved that one couldn�t do
that with a being of pure magic. But when he ordered it to stay, it did. �I
don�t know what you mean.�

�� You didn�t
get this from Nihil, although it may have appeared for the first time after the
battle with him,� Portillo Lopez said. �Where does your Parseltongue come
from?�

�� Harry
hesitated. Then he said, �Well, I did find out that I�m descended from the
Peverells, who were the same family that Voldemort came from. If he had the
ability to speak to snakes, then I could have it, too.�

�� But there
is another possible explanation,� said Portillo Lopez, and her eyes went to the
scar on his forehead.

�� Harry
swallowed and stroked the snake, mist brushing against his hands. �Yeah. Albus
Dumbledore said that Voldemort could have transferred Parseltongue to me when I
was a baby and he tried to kill me.�

�� Portillo
Lopez nodded. �And then, during the war, you survived the Killing Curse again.
I would not be surprised if that transmuted the previous connection you had
with him, transforming ordinary
Parseltongue into something deeper and darker, something connected with the
forces of life and death that Voldemort helped to knock out of balance.�

�� That
doesn�t explain why I can use this to fight Nihil, though,� Harry said, staring
down at the snake. It looped his fingers, watching Portillo Lopez with a gaze
that Harry thought was unnaturally intent until he remembered that snakes
didn�t have eyelids and of course couldn�t blink.

�� It
doesn�t,� Portillo Lopez agreed calmly. �Not yet. For that, we will need another
theory, or more likely, a development of this one.�

�� Harry
groaned and buried his head in his hands, and then had to grab the snake again
as it tried to reach her.

*

�� What other
means of strangling might be effective, if the first spell you used was a
strangling one?� Gregory murmured, her quill flying over the parchment in front
of her.

�� Draco
smiled and bent forwards to study the drawings she was making�drawings of
nooses, of people choking themselves, of disembodied hands laced together around
necks. �It should be whatever method is most similar to the tortures of the
Death Eaters,� he answered. �Nihil was created from fear of that particulate kind of torment, and we
can tap most effectively into his memories with the use of it.�

�� Gregory nodded.
�But we are far from the Ministry�s records of that particular kind of torture,
and I don�t know that I can easily search for them without being seen.� She
leaned back with a toss of her head. She was in Harry and Draco�s tent, where
she�d come under a Disillusionment Charm, and she made it seem smaller even
while standing still.

�� Draco
smiled and turned, Summoning the object he was thinking of nonverbally, to
increase Gregory�s surprise when it showed up. He�d thought it destroyed along
with most of his and Harry�s other possessions in the barracks at first, but
apparently it had its own protections. It had appeared quietly, sitting on his
table, a few days later.

�� Gregory
cocked an eyebrow. �I doubt that a Pensieve will help us now.�

�� This was
the Pensieve of my old Potions professor, Severus Snape,� Draco said simply,
placing his hands on the edge. �Among other things, it contains memories of
what the Death Eaters did, and it contains the locations of the places they
brought their victims.�

�� Gregory
turned her head to the side and looked down at her drawings again as if bored,
but Draco knew her well enough by now to be sure that it was only a measure to
try and hide her interest. �Well,� she said softly. �You haven�t volunteered
this information before.�

�� I didn�t
see that I needed to,� Draco murmured and then waited. If she was going to
bring this up as a possible barrier to working with him, he would be more
cautious about how much he cooperated in the future.

�� One moment
went past like the tick of an invisible clock, then another, and Gregory
chuckled abruptly, the way she had when Harry had spoken his mind last week.
�Probably wise. Let�s begin.� She turned and picked up a piece of parchment and
a quill.

�� Draco
frowned. �You don�t wish to put your head into the Pensieve and see the
memories for yourself?�

�� I assumed
there was a level of privacy and secrecy there that you would like preserved.�
Gregory peered at him. �But if you don�t mind my seeing things that I might
employ later in other contexts, of course I would be happy to�� She reached
out.

�� No, that�s
all right,� Draco said hastily, and pulled the Pensieve back towards him.
Gregory gave him a superior smile, which Draco conceded was less annoying than
pursuing the Pensieve, and poised her quill again with a flourish.

�� Draco
lowered his head and plunged again into the surface of the Pensieve, wondering
what Professor Snape would say if he knew that his memories were being used to
help Aurors who would have arrested him on sight in life. Perhaps he would be
displeased, and Draco did feel a worm of guilt squirming in his belly when he
thought about it.

�� On the
other hand, Draco also liked to think that he would have enjoyed the irony.

*

�� I swear,
Gregory�s class gets harder every day,� Harry muttered as he limped through the
flap of their tent and let it fall shut behind him, automatically adding the
silencing and locking charms that he and Draco had adopted. It was easy to
forget that the tents weren�t as private as the rooms in the barracks, and that
people might spy on them simply because they were the notorious Draco Malfoy
and Harry Potter. �Where did Windborne learn to kick like that?�

�� You know
that he�s still trying to revenge the humiliation of what you did to him the
first day.� Draco was bent over a flask, staring at the bubbles in it, and
responded only absently. �When he bests you, then he�ll give up the grudge.�

�� But he�s
beaten me several times!� Harry fell into his chair and closed his eyes, then
opened one again. �What are you doing? I thought the Battle Brewing class
wasn�t being taught here because of the difficulty of finding ingredients for
everyone.�

�� This isn�t
Battle Brewing.� Draco took the flask off what Harry saw was a small fire with
a pair of tongs and laid it gently down on the table. �This is an experiment of
my own.�

�� Harry
peered at the potion and tried to look as intelligent as he could, but he still
didn�t know very much about brewing, and this looked like a muddy green potion
of the kind that Portillo Lopez had hundreds of. �What does it do?�

�� If I�m
right, then it will enable us to communicate at a distance, more easily than
the compatible magic does.� Draco gave Harry a smile that might seem vicious to
others, but Harry saw the edge of his excitement in it. �After all, our
compatible magic can only tell us when the other one�s in pain, nothing more
than that.�

�� Harry
blinked. �Like telepathy?� Draco nodded. �Where did you get this idea?�

�� From one
of the Pensieve memories that I reviewed with Gregory yesterday.� Draco ran a
reverent hand down the side of the flask. �There is other information buried in
those memories, and while of course I can�t compensate for all the books that
Nihil destroyed in his attack, it helps to be able to go to the memories of
Professor Snape�s library. Well,� he added reflectively, �it did once I divined
the system of organization he was using.�

�� Harry
hesitated. �How sure are you that this potion will work?� he asked, and he
couldn�t keep the suspicion out of his voice, though he really wanted to, for
Draco�s sake.

�� Draco
glanced up, saw his face, and started laughing. �I�m going to be much surer
before I have you drink it,� he said, wrapping one arm around his chest as
though that would help stifle his chuckles. �I might have brewed something
wrong, after all.� He paused, and his expression shifted so fast that Harry
could almost hear the next words before he spoke them. �Or do you think that
I�m so careless with your life?�

�� Harry shook
his head and stood up, coming around the table to put his hands on Draco�s
shoulders. They were far tenser than Harry would have guessed from his voice.
�Of course not,� he whispered. �But I thought you might be careless with your
own if the potion excited you enough.�

�� Draco
nodded, his hand releasing the flask with a small clink. �At least this time,
you know that I can�t be,� he murmured, turning his head towards Harry,
�because we both have to take the potion at the same time for it to work.�

�� He leaned
forwards, and Harry met him halfway there, so that later it was hard to say
whose idea it had been to kiss. Harry wrapped his arm around Draco�s shoulders
and gave him a furious snog, wondering how in the world they had waited so long
to do this after sleeping together at Malfoy Manor. Of course, they didn�t have
as much privacy in the camp, but that shouldn�t matter.

�� His
thoughts blurred and slowed as Draco pushed him towards the bed, and Harry went
along willingly, making sure to pull Draco�s hair out of order. Draco�s face
was distant and dazed in the way it tended to get when he was aroused, his
cheeks flushed.

�� Harry
reckoned that his looked pretty much the same way, but Draco had never given
him a description, so he didn�t know for sure.

�� Draco
shoved him urgently onto the bed and then tugged ineffectively at his clothes
for a few moments before he gave up and waved his wand. Harry yelped as his
robes, shirt, and the rest tore themselves free of his body, without a concern
for his skin or his hair, and folded themselves neatly up beside the bed.

�� Oi!� he
tried to say, but Draco was already drowning the word with his mouth, running
his hand down Harry�s flank. Harry decided that he could shut up, as Draco so
clearly wanted him to do, and go with it.

�� His hand
went straight to Draco�s cock; he felt as if he knew Draco better since they�d
slept together in Malfoy Manor, and he didn�t have to be as careful with him
anymore. Draco shuddered above him and gasped out Harry�s name wetly into his
shoulder, letting his head fall forwards.

�� Harry shut
his eyes�there was something satisfying about having Draco�s erection in his
hand and not looking at it, just feeling the different shapes and changes in
it�and began to wank him. Draco fumbled once as if he was going to try and give
back to Harry, but then gasped and gave up, just huddling close instead. Harry
curved an arm around his back and kissed his shoulder, wanking him even harder.

�� What a
charming scene this is.�

�� Harry
rolled to the side immediately, shielding Draco with his body as he did so,
which was why the launched spell hit him and not Draco. He shrieked as all the
muscles in his back clenched at once, jerking him sideways and down, and tried
to kick out with his legs or reach his wand, only to find out that he couldn�t.

�� Draco had a
better idea, or maybe he�d had his wand closer to his hand. Harry looked up to
see him casting with a quick, jerking motion, his teeth bared in a snarl.

�� He rolled
over�the spell in his back was fading, or seemed to be�in time to see Nusquam
shudder with the effect of Draco�s spell, her hands flying up to claw at her
throat. And it was Nusquam, wrapped in the same black robe she�d been wearing
the last time Harry had seen her, with long black hair and blue eyes.

�� Blue eyes
that, right now, were bulging as she struggled.

�� Take that, bitch,� Draco snapped, and waved
his wand again. Their clothes sprang up to them and enfolded them in waves of
fabric that Harry had never known could be so intensely comforting. Harry snatched
his wand in his pocket and cast another spell that wound around Nusquam like a
net and might keep her down a bit.

�� He would
have cast something else, but Draco slammed a hand onto his shoulder and shook
his head. �I�m torturing her with the same spell I used on Aran,� he muttered.
�Don�t distract her or do something that could interfere with that.�

�� Harry
blinked and turned his head. Nusquam was on her knees, her face a mess of
terror. Her hands hadn�t stopped scrambling at her throat, although as far as
Harry could see, there was nothing there to choke her.

�� The
muscles are doing it from the inside,� Draco murmured. Despite his face still
being flushed and his hair being disarrayed�and the line of his cock against
the cloth of his pants, Harry had to notice�he was intent on Nusquam, watching
her with a cruel little smile and knowing eyes. �We�ll need to make sure that
she can�t escape, if possible.�

�� How are we
going to do that?� Harry grimaced and adjusted himself, and then tried to
pretend that Draco wasn�t giving him a knowing smile. �The Aurors couldn�t
prevent Nemo from escaping. We couldn�t prevent Aran from dying.�

�� I think I
know something that might work,� Draco said, and then began to chant a long
spell. Harry�s admiration for him at the moment increased. He didn�t think he could have remembered a spell like
that, fresh from an uncompleted wank and straining to think with a dangerous
enemy in the room.

�� The magic
manifested as a coil of smoke that wrapped around Nusquam�s throat and hair and
then settled into her. Harry shot Draco a sideways glance and waited for him to
explain.

�� It�s a
spell that increases fear and makes her think of the thing she dreads most in
preference to all other thoughts.� Draco might have a reason to look like he had
pushed Lowell and Weston flat on their backs in a duel and been praised for it,
Harry thought. �Something Gregory thought of the other day. It�ll keep her
remembering this torture all the time, and actually knock her into reliving it
if gets bad enough. She won�t get far if she keeps writhing on the floor from
the shock whenever she tries to run.�

�� Will it
keep Nihil from reaching out to kill her?� Harry had to ask.

�� No idea,�
Draco said. �But it might be effective, since she�s part of him�if we can trust
Aran�and he�ll be distracted by the same fear when he tries to reach her.
Speaking of which, I think the spell has done part of its work by now. Should
we see what we can learn for her?� He waved his wand, murmured a Finite, and then placed it in his pocket
as he knelt down by Nusquam. His erection seemed to have subsided entirely.
Harry wished his would.

�� Nusquam
opened her eyes slowly. She let her hands fall into her lap, as if she was
embarrassed that she�d been touching her throat at all. Harry would have backed
away at the clarity of the hatred in her eyes, but he felt his own loathing
pulse through him, so strongly that it really didn�t matter what she thought or
felt. He also didn�t care much that Draco had tortured her, because she had
tried to kill both him and Draco in the past, and almost succeeded. Maybe that
made him a bad person. He didn�t really care about that, either.

�� What, no
chains?� Nusquam whispered, voice hoarse and horrible. �You must be
self-confident.�

�� Magic is
its own chain,� Draco said, with an enigmatic smile that Harry knew he must have practiced, and tapped
her neck with his wand. Nusquam flinched, and Draco changed his smile into one
of his more common ones. �Excellent. Why don�t we start with how you were able
to get in here?�

�� Nusquam
remained silent, simply staring at him with a scornful gaze.

�� Oh,
excellent,� Draco said again. �I wanted an excuse to use this one. Legilimens dolens.�

�� Harry had a
minute to think that he almost recognized the Latin of the second word before
Nusquam screamed. This time, her hands flew up to claw at her eyes, which had
turned some odd, weird, melting mixture of her own blue and Draco�s grey. Harry
swallowed.

�� Bind her
hands, would you, Harry?� Draco asked in a calm voice. �They�re getting in the
way.�

�� Harry tied
her arms down with Incarcerous, and
then watched. If Hermione was right and torture was too horrid a thing to use
even on your enemies, he thought he had to duty to watch and not turn away from
it.

�� Draco made
a grabbing motion as though pulling a needle out of Nusquam�s eyes, and then
chuckled. �It�s beautifully simple,� he said. �I�m impressed they came up with
the idea in the first place, though of course constructing and weaving�and
testing�the magic would be the hardest part.�

�� What do
you mean?� Harry asked, and hoped that his voice sounded normal. From the
sidelong glance Draco gave him, Harry suspected it didn�t, though.

�� I mean,�
Draco said, �that their transportation spells focus on specific people they�ve
been in contact with. Make the link strong enough and everything else�wards,
other protections, the immense distance between that person and you�falls by
the wayside. That�s how Nusquam and Nemo managed to appear inside the wards at
the Auror training barracks so often, and now here. They have links to you, to
me, to Weasley and Granger, and to several other people among the Aurors.� He
flashed his teeth in a brilliant, bitter smile. �And now I know exactly who
those people are, and how to break the links.�

�� He turned
back to Nusquam. �I wonder what else I can find out?�

�� Nusquam
whimpered. There seemed to be a sort of hole in her eye when Harry looked more
closely.

�� He
swallowed, reminded himself of what Nihil had done and was doing, and watched.

*

�� Dragons Breath:
Draco still wants the instructors to give him the benefit of personal training,
though. No matter how little time they have. He�s not always reasonable.

�� SP777:
Draco has to move carefully with Holder. Acting too soon could make sure that
she catches on to what he�s doing.

�� Nusquam and
Nemo are considered largely aspects of Nihil, now that Harry and Draco know the
truth about them.

�� polka dot: Thanks.
Harry still has some heroic instincts, as you can see in this chapter, but much
less so than he did.
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Seasons of War