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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-One—Blazing In the Night

            “That is hardly reassuring.”

            Hermione grimaced and nodded. She had shared the letter Harry had sent her with the others, of course. Ron’s letter was for her and her alone, but if Harry hadn’t wanted her allies to know what he wrote, then he would have put some indication of that in the letter itself.

            “I do wonder if he has gone mad in a gentle way,” said Greta, sucking on a sweet that Hermione thought was a lemon sherbet and staring broodingly at the letter, which lay in the center of the table. “You hear about that, in old stories. People who are mad but just wander about and pat dogs on the head, until they die heroically saving the day.”

            Hermione saw the glances exchanged between Smithson and Raggleworth, and knew that they would say something more cutting than she would to Greta, so she hurried to speak first. “I doubt that that’s it. After all, he did kill Pedlar. Those doesn’t sound like the tactics of someone who’s gone mad in a gentle way.”

            Greta turned earnestly towards her. “No, but he might leave us alone, as long as we don’t try to take this Malfoy of his away.”

            That caused the others to start arguing again, and Hermione leaned against the back of her chair and closed her eyes, letting their words wash over her. She had something that she was more worried about, something that wouldn’t stop worrying her no matter how many times she told herself it was a silly, insignificant concern next to the potential threat of Harry’s madness and Minister Clearwater finding out about their plans.

            She didn’t know what Harry would do to save Malfoy. He had burned a woman to death. What would he do if they won the war, or at least stopped the Minister from taking advantage of a surrendering revolution, and then they had to put Malfoy’s parents away again because there was nothing else to do with them?



            She didn’t know if Harry would let them do it, which was a testimony to how far gone he was, and how little she knew him anymore.

            She sighed. She wasn’t there, part of the revolution itself, and she had chosen that from the beginning. She would have to rely on Ron’s perceptions instead, and trust that he would let them know if Harry became so erratic that they had no choice but to put Malfoy away. She still loved Ron, she still trusted his common sense, and she knew that he wouldn’t let concern for Malfoy overpower him.

            Even if some of the things he had hinted at in his letter made her think that he was contemplating a friendship with Malfoy, something she wouldn’t ever have thought was possible.

            Truly, they had all changed.

*

            “We wanted to ask you what this machine is for, mate.”

            Harry looked up from where he’d been leaning against the wall, studying their work so far. George thought they’d done well with building the three big loops, but that didn’t mean they were exactly what Harry wanted.

            Harry gave him a small smile in return, and said, “Resisting fate. Escaping from the bloody future that the prophecy wants me to embrace.” His eyes snapped, and the magic that slept within him, stirring, rose up and became visible as small streamers of transparent flame cascading around his shoulders. George didn’t think he knew he was doing it, and luckily, they hadn’t left anything that was flammable near him. “Making decisions about my own life. Everything that I’ve wanted to do since I battled Voldemort and which so many people denied me the chance to do.”

            George raised his eyebrows. Fred was murmuring confusion in the back of his mind, and George had to admit that he was mightily confused himself. “Er, mate,” he said. “I don’t see how that’s true. After all, you wanted to be an Auror, and you are one. Were one, until you burned the Minister to death. And you wanted to start a revolution, and you did. You wanted to become Malfoy’s lover, and you did. You wanted to kill Pedlar for what she did to Malfoy, and she’s dead. You defeated the Dark Lord and saved the world. What have you been denied that you’ve wanted?”

            “The lover of my choice,” Harry said, speaking softly, dreamily. The flames flickered around him and dashed down to the floor in front of him, burning there, soft and bright and as real as Fred, forming a fire for Harry to stare into. “There are too many people who think I shouldn’t have him. They want me to be an ideal leader. The prophecy and the lightning stag and the future and whatever else exists in that group or you want to call it insist that I leave the world. The Ministry wanted me to be the perfect Auror and ignore the injustices visited on Muggleborns. All those people haven’t wanted or have grown disgusted with the person I actually am.”

            “Yes, but, well, fate is the only one in a position to do something about it,” George pointed out. “You have Malfoy, and you could probably be an Auror again, and I thought you didn’t want to be a leader anyway.”

            Harry abruptly blinked and focused on him again, bright as the fire, more real than it was. “Sorry, you’re right. I’m wording this badly. But this scar marked me out for a certain path. I fulfilled that one, because Voldemort wouldn’t have given me any peace if I didn’t, and I couldn’t stand to see people die. But I’m going to bloody well make the prophecy and the future leave me in peace, and I’m going to make sure that no one dies as I’m doing it. Or dies afterwards, the way they’d like to put Draco and his parents to death. You’ll see.”

            “I think we will,” George breathed. The fire was no brighter or less transparent, but the sense of magic was heavier, pressing down on his shoulders. In the back of his head, Fred shivered and muttered. George tried to lift his head and exhale carefully. “And you—you’ll be doing something that frees you from every attempt fate could make to take you back?”

            “Yes,” Harry said. His voice had dropped back down again. “If the machine works. If the magic works. If the prophecy doesn’t do something I don’t anticipate that could end up taking me down.” He paused and gave a half-smile that George thought looked like the kind of expression shared by the dead. “It seems strange to talk about the prophecy as if it was a separate being with its own kind of will, instead of just words, but this one does seem to be that kind.”

            George wasn’t sure, but on the other hand, he and Fred had both seen the lightning stag and felt the powerful forces dancing up and down when Harry summoned the dragons. He doubted that anyone other than Harry knew more about it. He contented himself with nodding. “What’s going to happen to Malfoy and his parents?”

            “They’ll be safe.”

            Less than reassuring. But then again, Harry hadn’t given them a straight answer about the machine, either. George was growing resigned to that. He didn’t think Harry would deliberately to do something to hurt someone who didn’t try to hurt him or those under his protection, and as for the thought that he might hurt someone accidentally, well, the idiots who had decided to challenge Harry were just as likely to get themselves killed negotiating with the Minister. “Fine,” he said. “Then could you clear out and let us work on this?”

            Harry moved off without protest, vanishing out the door with a silence that disturbed Fred, although George could see the sense in it. Harry seemed less and less connected to the world every day, less inclined to communicate, wrapped in that kind of aloofness that made him a dangerous opponent.

            I don’t really know how he’s going to keep from being consumed by the prophecy.

*

            “Have you made up your mind yet?”

            Draco made sure to speak mildly, and to keep the door behind him firmly locked with a warding spell, so that his parents stood no chance of breaking free even if they did get past him. His mother lowered her head, and Draco shook his. If she reacted like that merely to someone looking at her, then he wondered she had the strength to defend her choices at all.

            On the other hand, perhaps it wasn’t strength. She seemed to have weak arguments at best for her choice of Lucius over Draco. Perhaps Azkaban had worn her down so much that she was incapable of changing her mind, and simply followed Lucius because it was what she had done for the last few years that she was in the prison.

            He was tired of wondering, though. He didn’t think his mother would change unless his father changed and made her. He turned back to face Lucius and waited until his father’s cold eyes met his own.

            Cold, but with so little passion behind them. That was the most surprising change, the one that Draco almost wished had been reversed. Lucius’s face had shone with desperation, not rage, when he was fighting to make Draco let them out. He had wanted to break free, but he had no clear plan to get a wand or flee the manor or avoid the dangers inherent in being an escaped Azkaban prisoner.

            One way or another, Draco had to accept, whether he had changed in prison or never existed in the first place, the cherished and revered father he had known, the clever man who would never let himself be broken by his enemies or seized without a plan, was dead.

            “You have no right to speak that way to me,” Lucius murmured, but his voice fumbled and dripped in slow drops, and Draco knew that he wasn’t putting strength behind the words because he couldn’t. “You don’t know—you have no right—”

            “Of course I do,” Draco said calmly. “I’m the one who holds you captive here, the one who swore the oath as to your good behavior, and the one who’ll answer for it if you leave.” He saw his father’s head lift at that, and snorted. “I promise, you won’t survive to enjoy the way they would break me.”

            “Don’t talk of breaking,” Narcissa said, her voice so breathless that Draco doubted he would have heard her if someone had been talking in the next room. “Please.”

            Though never foolish enough to remove his gaze entirely from his father—they could have planned this together, after all—Draco did turn to her and try to make his voice softer. “Why not, Mother? What happened to you in that foul place, that you hate the word?”

            Narcissa simply lowered her head again and didn’t answer. Draco sighed. That was the worst of this. He knew that he could reach his mother if they could speak more, but she retreated into silence and he had no recourse unless he wished to coerce her. And he didn’t.

            “We could make it,” Lucius said. “You think that we would not survive this—this mob outside our doors. But a Malfoy is more than a match for any mob. Unless he is a Malfoy who has betrayed the family’s legacy, of course.”

            His eyes were so heavy with contempt, and his expression was so distant from reality, that Draco didn’t feel it worth his while to argue with him. He simply shook his head and stood up. “Believe that if you like, but I’m the only one who stands a chance of giving you back what you’ve lost. And so far, you’ve chosen to cling to your present misery instead of the promise of the future.”

            Lucius watched him with slow, dull hatred. Narcissa stared between them, her lips white and trembling with apprehension.

            Just like yesterday. And just like tomorrow, most likely.

            Draco bowed to both of them, and then stood and departed again. He thought he was wearing them down, but into what, he was not quite certain. Into hatred of him, into contempt, into acceptance? His mother might get that far. But he was beginning to accept that Lucius never would.

            He sighed as he paced towards the bathroom. He felt like taking a shower to wash off the complicated legacy his parents always left him with, pity and boredom and irritation and relief at being out of their presence.

            “Malfoy.”

            Draco froze and stood a moment staring at the far wall. He recognized the voice behind him, but he didn’t know what it meant that its owner was seeking him out now. He turned around and nodded warily at Weasley, the one, the only, the original, Harry’s best friend and the new leader of the revolution.

            “Weasley.” In case anyone was listening, he kept his voice absolutely neutral. Both friendliness and sniping could result in an attack.

            Weasley considered him with narrowed eyes for a moment. Then he raised his wand and waved it up and down once. A sharp pop invaded Draco’s ears, and he felt as though a noise he had barely noticed, below the level of his hearing, had stopped. He stared at Weasley, who shrugged.

            “One of the privacy charms that they only teach Aurors.” Weasley surged towards him, then visibly stopped himself. “I want to know whether Harry’s told you anything of what he plans to do when the delegation goes to surrender to the Minister.”

            “Shouldn’t that be when you go to surrender to the Minister?” Draco asked, because he had to. “I was under the impression that they acted with your approval.”

            Weasley grimaced as though he’d bitten into a sour apple. “Technically, they do,” he admitted. “But I thought Minister Clearwater would refuse their demands and hold herself apart from them long enough to give me time to consider. She hasn’t, which means that I need to come up with a plan soon. And Harry won’t tell me what his is, so I thought I would ask whether he’s hinted anything about it to you.”

            “Have you actually asked him?” Draco was no expert on how Gryffindor relationships in general worked, much less friendships that had endured for years, but he was beginning to be one on the way that people reacted to Harry. “Or did you assume he wouldn’t tell you and watch him for hints that you haven’t seen instead?”

            Weasley flushed this time. Then he sighed and leaned back against the wall, folding his arms in front of him. “I’m worried,” he admitted. “He doesn’t tell anyone what he’s thinking or feeling anymore, except maybe you. He seems devoted to you and your parents, and to my brother and me to a lesser extent. I know that he still cares about some people outside the revolution, too. But I can’t tell if he cares about anyone else inside it anymore. He might let them die just to spite them.”

            Draco rolled his eyes. “I haven’t known him as long as you, but it seems I know him better,” he said. “He wouldn’t do that.”

            “How can you be sure?” Weasley stared at him with eyes that had a sour light in them. “You—I don’t mean to accuse, Malfoy, but your perspective is biased. He killed someone for you. That means that you’re going to be predisposed to liking him.”

            Draco shook his head. “It’s not that. Or not that alone. He gave Pedlar plenty of warnings, and he even gave her what she claimed she wanted, a public duel where she could use her strength against him. If that doesn’t satisfy the people who watched her die, that’s only because nothing will ever satisfy them.”

            “But he’s changed,” Weasley said. “He’s changed so much that I don’t recognize him anymore.”

            How did I come to this point? Draco silently asked the universe. The point where I’m Harry Potter’s lover, and reassuring Harry Potter’s friend, while behind me are my parents, who I can barely speak to civilly anymore and no longer share ideals with?

            The universe wouldn’t answer him, of course. If it hadn’t done so when his parents went to prison, then he couldn’t count on it now. Draco did his best to speak calmly and rationally, when he thought that Weasley had stopped staring at nothingness and might listen to Draco instead of his own worries. “He’s changed, yes. The old Potter would never be in love with me. On the other hand, he didn’t have this kind of magic, either, and he wasn’t despised by the people he led.” Then he paused. “Or not directly,” Draco added slowly, thinking about Hogwarts. People had changed their attitudes towards Potter there whenever some new crisis came along, hailing him as hero or villain depending on their moods and whatever “evidence” the Prophet chose to report that day. Draco should know, when he’d manipulated that attitude himself during fourth year.

            “He’s changed, yes,” he went on, when he noticed Weasley’s fingers tapping impatiently against his wand. “But that doesn’t mean he’s abandoned everything that used to be important to him. As you noted, he still cares for you and the people he’s sworn to protect. No, he hasn’t told me what he intends. I still think that you could ask him and get a straight answer.”

            Weasley chewed his lip, then sighed. “It’s something to consider at any rate,” he muttered, and pushed himself away from the wall with a little nod. “Thanks, Malfoy. You helped more than I reckoned you could.”

            He walked away down the corridor, leaving Draco to watch his back and wait for someone to spring out on him and accuse him of corrupting the revolution’s new leader.

            No one did, though, so ultimately Draco was alone with his thoughts.

            He wanted—

            What did he want?

            Maybe only the reassurance that Draco sometimes wished someone had handed him during all those years when he labored under the mistaken impression that he had to find a way to get his parents out of Azkaban and then everything would be all right again. Potter had made Draco realize that life went on after that. Draco had made Weasley realize that it might be better to talk to his friend instead of assuming the worst.

            As far as the revelations went, Draco thought, turning away slowly, they weren’t of comparable strength. But maybe they could feel that way to Weasley.

*

            This time, the lightning stag came to him in his dreams.

            It was an odd dream. Harry could still feel the sheets beneath him, the pillow under his head, his arm where it curved around Draco, and the drying wetness here and there on both their bodies that came from a good bout of fucking. A flickering flame danced in front of him, the way it always did when he closed his eyes, representing Draco’s heartbeat. Harry wasn’t sure that he could have got rid of it if he tried at this point. The magic was always with him.

            And growing stronger, though Harry thought he might have been the only one who noticed that.

            The stag stood in front of all of those sensations, somehow, pushing them determinedly to the back of Harry’s mind. It scraped one hoof up and down in a slow, senseless motion and stared at him. Again it carried roads in its eyes, but this time they were fainter than before. Harry stared for long moments before he understood.

            And began to smile.

            “You don’t know any more, do you?” he asked, softly, but caustically enough that the stag danced back from him. “You aren’t sure that the future you wanted for me will happen. You have to question, and doubt, and think about it in new ways.”

            The stag’s head slewed around, sharp, restless, and it looked at something over its shoulder. Harry lifted his head and saw the lightning road shining there already, a real thing, and beautiful beyond imagining.

            The magic in him strained towards it, even the faint flame he used to read Draco’s state of being. It was ready. He could join that road now if he wanted, without waiting for the grand, catastrophic explosion that it seemed the prophecy had predicted.

            The stag looked at Harry with eyes so huge and hopeful that Harry snorted. He was making a representation of the future feel bad. It probably hoped that would be enough to get him to surrender.

            But the realization that he could go now had told Harry something else, instead. He lay back in the bed and started to laugh. The stag promptly stopped the scraping and focused on him, ears and nose intent. The eyes had closed, as though it wanted to block the sight of the roads he could take from Harry.

            “You’re frightened,” Harry managed to say, when he could stop gasping. “And you just told me the truth, that the prophecy can be bent, that the important thing isn’t the timing of what happens as much as what I do. That was fatal information to give me if you really wanted me to respect the bounds of the prophecy and believe exactly as you do.” He gave the stag a lazy smile, lying back and reaching for Draco. The sensation of the warm shoulder blade under his hand, and the naked back, grew brighter, more present, than the sight of the stag. “It means that my plan should work.”

            The stag tossed its head again, then closed one eye and opened the other. Now the only one Harry could see was the dark road, and he understood the wordless message more than he had expected to.

            “You think that I’ll destroy the world, or destroy myself, or destroy the magic,” Harry said, and watched the flinch that traveled through its body when he spoke the last. “Ah. That’s the important thing, isn’t it? The power that I have. You want it free of the world somehow, because it can change too many things here.” He thought of something he hadn’t thought of in years, and pursed his lips. “What would have happened if the Hat had Sorted me into Slytherin, I wonder? It’s good for you that I’m not ambitious, or I would want to stay here just to use the magic to achieve something, not waste it on this journey.”

            The stag danced in agitation, and for the first time in this conversation, its voice appeared in Harry’s mind. It is not a waste. You do not understand.

            “Is it death?” Harry asked bluntly, and the stag showed him the dark road in its eye again. He shook his head. “Not that road, the lightning one.”

            No.

            “Then that means that I would never see my parents or Sirius, which might have been the only thing you could offer me that would tempt me away from staying here,” Harry stated calmly. “And I’ll probably never see anyone alive again. I might find grand things, but I never wanted grand things. I wanted someone to love me, and a family, and a place to live that was a home.”

            The stag shuddered as if such talk offended it. You were a hero.

            Harry blinked. “Wow,” he said at last. “You have the same delusion as they did. Pedlar and the rest who wanted me to be the perfect leader. I was a hero because circumstances forced me to be, not because I loved it. If you wanted to give the magic to a traditional hero, you should have picked one who didn’t grow up with abusive relatives and without friends and then have to fight the monster time and again before he killed him. That’s not the kind of life or existence I want.”

            The stag vanished without a word. Harry half-expected his magic to go with it—which would solve one problem while creating a whole host of others—but the flame remained curled, warm, around him. Harry lay down again and reached back to feel for Draco.

            Still there.

            And as long as he wants to be, he will be.

*

            SP777: I think “somewhat good” is a good term for it.
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Intoxicate the Sun