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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 Forty—The Speed of a Stone

            Hermione sat down and blinked at the sheet of parchment in front of her. Noble had assured her that she would be left alone to write it, that she didn’t need to fear interruptions from the other allies. It would be sent from Noble’s office with an owl that the Minister would never know existed, and so no one would intercept her message before it got to Ron and Harry. She didn’t have to worry about that, not anymore. She knew the truth about Harry’s leadership, too, and how things had changed in the revolution. She understood that one of her best friends might be going mad, and that her husband might not stand a chance of stopping it.

            She knew all that, and she knew the obstacles that existed that she had to tell them about, too. About the Minister and the way that she had imprisoned Hermione, about the alliance that stood behind her now, about the way they should coordinate their efforts…

            She knew all that, and still it was hard to write.

            In the end, she swallowed and forced hand and quill to move across the paper. They might not be the right words, but they were the only ones she had.

*

            Dear Ron and Harry,

            I hope you’ve figured out from the prophecy I sent that I’m not under the Imperius Curse anymore, but I can’t be sure of that. What you need to know is that I still have Minister Clearwater’s trust, and she still has me in charge of the anti-revolutionary propaganda that the Ministry is publishing. I can do something to jolt her and throw her off-track, but that’s only going to work once.

            I have allies with me: a Wizengamot member, a Mind-Healer who broke the Curse on me and can testify that it was there in the first place, two people who work close to the Minister. I don’t want to tell you their names just in case this is intercepted, but please believe that they exist and they can support me.

            What is the revolution doing? Has everyone accepted Ron’s leadership? What do they think of you, Harry? I hope that they’re still amenable to fighting the Ministry, or will you try to negotiate?

            All of this is important information for my allies, especially since they aren’t sure yet whether the best thing is to help the revolution or not. Please answer as soon as you can, and with as much detail as you can.

            Ron, I’ve put in another letter for you, one that I only want you to look at when you’re in private. Sorry, Harry.

            All my love, and loyalty,

            Hermione.

*

            Harry grinned at Ron as Ron finished reading the last lines of the letter. “That’s wonderful news, mate. I never should have doubted her. Of course she was going to find some way to fight free of the Curse and show everyone exactly what she’s made of.”

            Ron gave him a smile. He was flushed, though, and distracted, touching the second letter that Hermione had enclosed in the first one and turning little longing glances on it. Once he looked at Harry and opened his mouth, then closed it again and cleared his throat with what he probably imagined was a manly sound.

            Harry snorted and waved one hand at him. “I don’t know why you’re asking my permission, anyway, when you’re the leader of the revolution now and can just send me away if you want to.” Ron just looked more distressed at that, though, so Harry softened and smiled at him. “Go read it if you want to.”

            Ron practically ran into the bathroom attached to his bedroom. Harry leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling, his heart beating fast.

            Hermione was free, and she had the power to influence the Minister at least once. But, like she said, the minute she used the power, or at least the minute the consequences of the move fell out, Clearwater would figure out what had happened and use that to turn against her. So it had to be something that Hermione and her allies could do quickly, or with such force that it wouldn’t matter if Clearwater figured out what had happened later, because Hermione would be away and free, and Clearwater utterly defeated.

            Harry licked his lips. He still wasn’t sure if George could build the machine that Harry had asked him to build, and he still wasn’t sure if he could master the magical theories that his books had hinted at. Not that quickly, anyway, not quickly enough to bring about the Minister’s defeat as fast as it probably had to happen.

            We need plans. Ron and I. Or I do. We need to make plans for what’s going to happen on the surface, and I have to make my own, to fulfill the prophecy and content the lightning stag and still satisfy myself and stay here with Draco. And—anyone else who still wants to be close to me.

            Harry opened his eyes, closed them again, and then opened them once more. The first seeds of such a plan began to blossom in his head.

*

            Private entry from the diary of Minister Gillian Clearwater:

            The revolution has changed, to hear the rumors that circulate through the air around me. Harry Potter has fallen, betrayed and exposed as mad, and Ron Weasley leads them now. On the one hand, this is a good thing. Fewer people will join them now, and Weasley does not have Potter’s frightening magic.

            But on the other hand, Weasley may be sane, and there were always rumors that he and Granger did more of the actual work in the war than Potter did. Potter was the hero, who walked into the Forest and did—what he had to do. But Weasley was the strategist, and Granger was the one who came up with the clever spells and innovations that his fans would have preferred to attribute to Potter.

            I do not know if this will be a good change for us.

            But I do know that we must take advantage of it. I have identified the writing on some of the letters I have been receiving. I should have seen it before. I will contact her, and demand that she appear before me and explain what she means by the prophecies that she has been plaguing me with.

*

            What do you think this machine is meant to do, anyway?

            George shook his head, and ran his hand over the gleaming curves that had begun to rise from the plan they had sketched out, based on the picture that Harry had given them. As it turned out, they couldn’t use the whole of the original sketch, but Fred had suggested some alterations that George was sure Harry would approve. He didn’t understand all the things about stress and tension and what kind of weight metal would bear that Fred and George did. They would ask before they tested the device, of course. Since they didn’t know what it was meant to do, doing otherwise was madness.

            And they were not mad, not truly. Or else it was the madness that Harry shared, the madness where one was so comfortable with one’s own mind and magic that they did not care what others said of them.

            I think we could figure it out, Fred persisted. If we stepped back and took a good look at it, instead of just pretending that we knew and then acting surprised later.

            George sighed, but stepped back and relaxed the busy activity of his thoughts as much as possible. His twin always said that it was harder to use his eyes when George persisted in thinking too much. Followed by other choice remarks that George had seen no need to commit to memory.

            You’re still thinking too hard.

            George hummed tunelessly under his breath and stared at the machine with his eyes unfocused and his mind trying to see nothing but it. He didn’t know how much it helped. Fred made little noises behind his eyes as if it did, but Fred would do the same thing if he had no idea what the machine did, because God forbid that he confess his lack of knowledge and let them try to figure it out together.

            I heard that. You’re still thinking too hard.

            This time, George didn’t even look at the machine, although he made sure that his eyes stayed open except for occasional blinks; he tried to focus on the blandest pictures his mind could imagine, grey landscapes and pools of still, lapping water and wheeling birds with light striking their feathers.

            Better.

            George didn’t roll his eyes, but that was really because he was good at controlling himself, not because Fred had got more sensible.

            When he finally looked back at the machine for himself, as Fred’s presence retreated to the back of his mind, he had to admit that he didn’t know what Harry intended to use it for, either. They were building three great loops of silver and platinum, which sprang as delicately as rib cages from the main part of the machine, a great, flat platform. The platform could be of iron, Harry had said dismissively; George definitely got the impression that the loops were the important parts, not the platform. The loops themselves curved out in elliptical shapes, as if tracing the orbits of the planets.

            There were no places for braziers to smoke, as in their last invention, so George didn’t think it was meant to contact the lightning. But he had no idea what Harry intended to do with it, only that it was dangerous.

            I don’t like this, little brother.

            “Do you think I do?” George grumbled, and went back to working. They were loyal enough to Harry to create it, and ask what it did later. He had done too much for them—including the way he treated Fred—for it to be otherwise.

*

            Leading article in the Daily Prophet on the day after Hermione Granger’s letter:

            <b>REVOLUTION COMING TO AN END?</b>

            Our loyal readers may finally be able to breathe a sigh of relief and cease living in a war-torn world like the one we’ve inhabited for the past two months. A delegation from Potter’s ragged band came to the Ministry yesterday, led by the experienced negotiator Veronica Dover, and suing for peace.

            “We’re tired of living in fear,” said Dover, who has a resonant speaking voice and a great sense of presence, more even than Potter did when he was working as an Auror for the Ministry. “We want to negotiate terms of surrender and mercy. Of course we expect the Ministry to be generous, but we are prepared to be generous as well. We have people among us who we agree should go to prison. And we want to be sure that we will have our lives. But we may not have even those if we continue to rebel. We accept that.”

            Minister Clearwater met with the rebels in the Atrium of the Ministry. A few of the rebels showed reluctance to enter the building, and were asked to wait outside. Your writer marked that Dover showed no fear, as if she had been here many times before.

            After several hours of negotiations, Dover and Clearwater came to a provision that appeared to please everyone, at least if the smiles seen on the faces of those exiting the Atrium were real.

            “It’s not often that a revolution can end with as little bloodshed as this one has produced,” Minister Clearwater said in an interview after the negotiation. “Other than Minister Duplais, the first and most prominent victim of the tragedy, whom we can never forget, very few have died.”

            Asked whether those few would include former Auror Harry Potter, the Minister paused and was silent for several minutes. Then she shook her head sadly.

            “I do not think an execution in order,” she said. “But we certainly cannot allow him to roam as freely as he did in the past.”

            The positions under discussion seem to involve placing Potter in the prison that will replace Azkaban and ensuring that he has guards who cannot be bribed. Minister Clearwater acknowledged that this might mean a return of the Dementors, who have not been used in such situations since the war.

            “We would be reluctant to do such a thing,” she said. “But it is the only one that can prevent Potter either from causing trouble for us—trouble that he might not even mean to cause—or being used as a rallying point for those who will.”

*

            The mood in the corridors of the manor was different.

            Draco had known it would be, when the diplomatic delegation left and it seemed like they might have a chance of convincing the Minister that they were sincere about going home now, but he hadn’t expected the number of smug and satisfied glances in his general direction. No one seemed interested in attacking him now. Instead, they murmured behind his back and fell silent when he entered a room.

            It took him another day to understand. They assumed that, if Dover really did convince the Minister to make them an offer of peace—and that was by no means certain, since Dover and her merry band hadn’t returned yet—Harry would surrender, and Draco and his parents would have no choice but to go with him. All Draco’s efforts to free and protect his parents would be for naught, and there was a certain kind of person in the revolution who looked forward to seeing that happen.

            That particular fact came to Draco in the middle of a meal. When it did, he dropped his spoon in his cornflakes and laughed for a full minute, to the increasingly hard and scandalized stares of most of the other people in the eating hall. In the end, Draco had to stand and leave. He felt hungry later, but it was worth it.

            They don’t understand. Even now.

            Draco leaned against the wall of his room and closed his eyes, shaking his head. No, it was hopeless. They watched Potter murder the woman who had kidnapped Draco and warn anyone off doing it again, and still they thought Potter would have no choice but to roll over and accept their decisions.

            They thought they had some power over Potter, they thought they could control him, while also believing him dangerous, wild, uncontrollable, and wanting Weasley to take over so that they could have someone sane in charge.

            Potter will never go along with them.

            Draco ran one hand down his own flank. He could feel the purple bruises he was looking for, the hand-shaped ones where Harry had gripped him as they fucked.

            He was possessor and possessed, now, and finally comfortable with the fact. Perhaps it was not true love in the way that Weasley would undoubtedly hold out for, but Draco knew that Harry would die to protect him, and his parents.

            Whatever is going to happen, it won’t be the tame surrender that I suspect many of the people around us would prefer.

*

            From the private diary of Minister Gillian Clearwater:

            As suspected, the letter-writer sending me vague warnings of the prophecies was Auror Andrea Desang. She vanished from the Ministry because she felt she was no longer trusted—and she was not, after her apparent appearance in the caves that had housed the Inferi—but she has sworn to me that she had no part in that, and I believe her.

            She stole the artifacts and vanished to continue to have an active part in fighting the revolution. I accept her arguments as far as they go, though the thefts from the Unspeakables cross the line of behavior that I am willing to allow in my Aurors. There will be a different set-up if she survives this and returns.

            And this leaves me with a dilemma. Desang demands revenge on the person she suspects impersonated her, my newest young ally. Since I have reasons to be assured of that ally’s unbreakable loyalty now, I had planned to forgive what she did before she came to work with me. But Desang was wise enough not to bring the artifacts she had stolen to our meeting, and will only return them conditional on her being able to punish my ally.

            I must consider this, as well as the plan that Desang recommends to take Potter. He may be surrendered by those who have come from the revolution to negotiate a peace settlement, but I doubt it. Can mice draw a dragon in captive?

            I must think.

*

            Harry stepped out into the starry night and shut the manor door behind him.

            He had known it would make the guards nervous to see him leaving the manor when it was dark, so he had made sure that they hadn’t seen. Filaments of thin flame bound about his body turned the light and made everyone see no more than a heat shimmer, or nothing at all. Harry had discovered that few people, even those who didn’t have to wear glasses, had night vision as good as they had claimed.

            He wandered across the vast expanse of burned grass where he had called and tamed the dragons. The earth still contained heat, if one reached for it. Harry held out his palm, flat and parallel to the ground, and watched the distant waves of dangerous magic struggle towards him.

            He could do almost anything now, go almost anywhere. He had awakened the other night floating above the bed on flat bends of flame that looked like a flying carpet. He could do almost anything he wanted.

            Except lead the revolution, and guarantee that Draco and his parents will be safe after that.

            With a grumbling sigh, Harry folded his legs beneath him and stared up at the stars. They formed constellations above him that he couldn’t remember learning from Astronomy. Of course, in this state, Hogwarts seemed so long ago and far away that it was hard to remember things he had learned in Transfiguration or Care of Magical Creatures, both of which had been more interesting to him than Astronomy.

            So he drew his own, new constellations by snapping his fingers and linking the stars with lines of fire. There was the one he could call Hermione, for her curly hair. And a dragon, of course, soaring with wings spread across distant space. And the Lovers, two faces close, lips pouting out for a kiss.

            Him and Draco.

            Of course.

            Harry glanced down and found that he was shimmering slightly with fire. He smiled and lay back, floating just above the grass, or the earth where the grass had been, so that he wouldn’t burn it again. He felt the ghost of the warmth there reach up, searching for companionship. It touched him and then leaped back. Harry laughed softly and stretched out an arm so that his fingers could stroke the air.

            He could do anything. He could go anywhere.

            Except the things that he had no head for, like leadership.

            Harry closed his eyes. He knew how it would be, as though he could also read the details of the future, rather than just a dark road or a lightning road, in the stag’s eyes. The Ministry would make some plea for reconciliation. The revolution would go to them in a big, staged meeting. Harry would have to be there because otherwise the surrender wouldn’t mean much, and the revolution could continue in many people’s minds.

            And the Minister would strike.

            Of course she would. Harry never thought for an instant that she meant to accept them. They had injured her pride and made her look like an incompetent for the first few months of her rule in front of the wizarding world. There was no other way for her to handle them. If she didn’t put them down strongly, anyone would think they could get away with a revolution as long as they had sufficient inspiration. And she wasn’t about to tolerate that.

            Harry would be with them. But not of them.

            He held out his hand and watched fire soar up from the palm to touch the lines he had drawn between the stars. The tongues flickered, and the fire came streaming back into him, hitting hard enough to make him grunt. Harry shook his head and sighed. He didn’t know, not anymore, whether he would ever have stood a chance of succeeding with the original purpose of the revolution, to make the Ministry do something about the large numbers of innocent Muggleborns they were failing.

            But he did resent that he had never had the chance to find out, because of the magic that had once again chosen him for something great and grand and ill-defined. In this case, leaving the world. He reckoned it could sound romantic to someone else, but he didn’t have much idea of what it meant when it applied to him.

            He sat outside a while longer, watching the stars, and eventually his thoughts turned to the machine that he had asked George to build. Three loops. One for the illusion, of course. When he had first come up with this plan, he had known the illusion would be necessary, and he had refined the idea but not changed it when he began making the first sketches for the machine.

            One loop for the surrender. There was no other way to phrase it, and after some grimacing and grumbling to himself, Harry had stopped trying.

            One loop for…

            Harry swallowed. One loop for the transport, for the protection. It was the part that he most needed to work, since it would be for the protection of Draco and his parents, and it was the part Harry was most uncertain about. How could he guarantee that they would be safe when he was changing the situation with unknown, untested magic?

            The fire sang abruptly around him, rising up in shimmering flames that cloaked his sight and made him smile despite himself. His magic was trying to reassure him that it would do whatever he needed it to do, down to the most complex parts of magical theory.

            For as long as I’m here, at least.

*

            Dear Hermione,

            I’m returning the favor and telling you what we mean to do, me and Ron, now that we’ve discussed it. And I’m also doing something else similar to you and sending back an enclosed letter from Ron that, I promise, he wrote. I haven’t looked at it or read it. It’s private, just between the two of you.

            It’s great that you have allies, and I think we can reassure you that, yes, we actually did send that delegation of people to negotiate with the Minister. Any plan we come up with will have to take place at the moment when the revolution meets with her to “surrender,” I think. There’ll never be a better time.

            I gave the leadership over to Ron—and he accepted it—because I wasn’t doing a good job and no one trusted me. I did kill Pedlar because she had attacked Draco, and for no other reason. Otherwise, I would have been content to stay away from her if she had stayed away from me.

            I don’t feel mad. But of course, that means nothing, since no one else is inside my head with me. What I will say is that I’ve come up with a solution to this problem, and one that I don’t believe will hurt anyone else. It offers choices to a few people. You and Ron will know the truth, in the end, although I’ll have to hide for a while.

            I will say this, though. I’ve never been fond of surrendering. If it has to happen, then it’s bloody well going to be on my terms.

            Love,

            Harry.

*

            semaphore: Well, hi! I did want to respond to you here the first time, and thank you for reviewing the story.

            Thank you for the praise. ItS is, pretty much, meant to be an epic, and it got even more epic than I’d planned it to be at first. Would you believe that the raid on Azkaban was originally planned for Chapter 11? I really thought it would move that fast.

            This is the first story I’ve tried to explore the other characters in such depth in, but it definitely won’t be the last. I’m glad that you liked the portrayal of Ron. He’s a hard character to write for me.

            Harry isn’t really thinking that he will die. The lightning seems to be telling him that he’ll just go to another plane of existence, which might or might not be the afterlife.

            Yeah, in this case, I think Draco’s lack of relationships in general and Harry’s lack of long-lasting relationships means there’s not much reason for them to question their sexuality, as well as the pressure of the politics.

            As for the women, I’ve written some stories where I did bash female characters, and others where they just didn’t play much of a role. This story, I thought I’d change that around, just like I’d change the depiction of Ron. ;)

            Thanks again for commenting.

            SP777: Well, Harry’s plan to avoid doing what the lightning wants is certainly complicated.

            anonanon: Thanks! I think it helps that Harry accepts and works with the magic in this story, but not in Flare, so I can keep their attitudes distinct.
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Intoxicate the Sun