Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Ancient and Noble Houses	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 29877 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Forty-One--The Ordeal Named
            "There. This one."
            Draco's finger tapped on the page. Harry focused, reminding himself that this could be of great importance. He had to concentrate more on the words that Draco was pointing out and less on the arm and body the finger was attached to.
            Of course, when he saw the way Draco moved, and when Draco had told him that he wanted to be private with Harry almost the minute they were out of the house, it was a little harder.
            Then he really saw one of the words, and started paying more attention. The word was cavern. Harry wondered how in the world that was meant to correspond to the little room that Kreacher had showed them, and then warded the door of. And Narcissa had said that it was small, too, even when she was a girl and her cousin chased them out of it.
            No, wait. She'd said it was large, hadn't she? Although she had said that was only because she was a little girl at the time.
            But now...
            The Ordeal of the Dark takes place in a cavern, or any other large space, within walls, away from light. No light must intrude, or the moment is spoiled. The seeker, cleansed and purified as per the rite described on page 87 of this book, steps into the darkness. He must be naked, anointed with nothing but his own determination.
            Harry rolled his eyes. "You're sure?" he asked Draco over his shoulder, but it did sound like the ritual that Kreacher had described. He told himself that he hadn't asked the question merely to feel Draco respond, his breath lifting and ruffling the hair over Harry's ear.
            But when he actually felt that breath, then he wasn't so sure.
            "Yes, of course I'm sure," Draco snapped, and Harry shivered from the touch of warm, moist air on the side of his neck. "I know the book writes about it in a ridiculous way, but most grimoires do. You just have to put up with the ridiculousness if you want to know the content." His voice dipped a little. "And I had the impression that you did."
            "Of course I do," Harry said, and turned back to the book. "I want to survive."
            Hesitation and silence behind him, and Harry turned around then. They were in a dim corner of the library, behind spells that would make even Madam Pince glance away from them. Draco hadn't been able to perform those spells with the restrictions on his wand, but he'd told Harry about them, and Harry could manage them easily enough.
            "What?" Harry demanded now. "You don't believe that I want to survive?"
            "I only wonder who you'll survive as." Draco's eyes were wide and full of the light of the moon that wouldn't shine when Harry went into Grimmauld Place. "As yourself, or the Black heir that the house is trying to turn you into. Maybe neither if you don't pay attention to the bloody book."
            Harry winced back a little, and then remembered what they were here for. Draco wasn't rejecting him, wasn't saying that he was sure Harry would die. Otherwise, he would be certain. Harry turned back to the book.
            In the dark, he will meet his soul.
            The Ordeal of the Dark is named so because only perfect darkness can enable us to meet our souls. Only without light--the distraction, the way to turn away from what it shows because we see other things--can we acknowledge the depths of the beauty and hatred that haunt us. Only without the moon can we see what lies on the moon's dark side, and for that reason, this ordeal must take place on the first night of the new moon.
            Only without the sun can we see what hides in plain sight, made invisible by the sun's beams. Only without the stars can we forget our imaginings and dreams about what lies in them, or beyond them. Only in darkness can we face the truth.
            Our souls are the most pointed weapons of all, but we rarely have the power to set them free of our bodies and contend with them, or use them to wound ourselves or others. In the darkness of this ordeal, we do face them. And we do penance for all the times in the past that we have forgotten them, or turned away from them, or not set them free.
            The passage ended there. Harry turned the page, but it was only on about some sort of other ritual, and so he shoved the book away from him and turned around.
            Draco stared at him, still, face pale. Harry wondered for a second if his soul would look like that, and then put the notion out of his head. For one thing, he didn't mean to go through the ordeal the way Kreacher and the book and the house wanted him to. For another, he doubted that he would see his soul in the darkness if he did. The book seemed very insistent that he wouldn't really know anything about his soul, until he came face-to-face with it.
            "I wonder why we didn't see it before?" Harry asked, for lack of anything else to say.
            Draco shook his head and replied smartly. "Because we weren't looking for anything with that kind of specificity. We barely knew anything." He hesitated, then added, "I did wonder if Kreacher was lying this time. But I don't think so. He wanted you to leave that door alone, and it would be a dark place. And there are too few other ordeals that have to take place on the first night of the new moon and have a purification and a cleansing first."
            "What are they like?" Harry reached for the book, only now remembering that he had never read anything on page 87 the way the book had told him to.
            "I don't know if it would mean anything to you." Draco grimaced a little. "Just--kind of useless, really. A bathing with water that has hyssop in it."
            "Has what?"
            "A kind of herb." Draco rolled his eyes when Harry turned and looked at him again. "I told you that it wouldn't really mean anything to you."
            Harry grunted, sourly, and reached for the book again. He found the right page after some quick flipping; it seemed that someone had spilled something sticky on the pages sometime in the past, and he had trouble getting them apart without tearing the parchment. Draco stood silent beside him, so cold that Harry was tempted to touch him and see if he was really made of marble or not.
            But the pages came apart at last, and Harry bent over to read, mindful of the way that Draco's eyes fastened on his back and neck, and how he wanted to turn around and respond to that.
            The ritual cleansing consists of cold water in which hyssop has been infused. There must be white candles, a censer of pure fire, and a suspension of the stars that presided at the heir's birth.
            Harry stared at it, then turned the book so that it faced Draco. "What does that mean?"
            Draco bent over to read it. Harry stared at the line his neck made in turn, and the shine of his hair, and wished that he knew whether he wanted Draco because that was just what he wanted, or if the house was making him want it.
            "I don't know," Draco admitted, after reading it for a few minutes. He leaned back and stared hard into Harry's eyes. "I know that you have to undergo it, and that you don't really want the ordeal, but there is something good about it."
            "What?" Harry's voice croaked, and he flushed a little at the way Draco's brows rose. He cleared his throat and repeated the question. "What could possibly be good about it?"
            "If you face your own soul," Draco said quietly, "you might know what parts of you right now are you, and what parts are just the house."
            And you might know whether you really want me.
            Draco didn't say that; of course he wouldn't. But Harry felt the shimmer along his nerves. He bit his tongue, hard, still staring into Draco's eyes. Draco waited, motionless and quiet. If he thought the same thing, then it seemed he'd decided not to say it.
            Harry finally nodded, abruptly, and sat back. "Then I'll at least go to the house and pretend that I'm going to undergo the ordeal so that Kreacher will give me this purification, whatever it might be. But I'll make the final decision about whether I'm really going to go into the dark and face my soul."
            "That's fine," Draco said, without turning a hair. "After all, I intend to be with you. We can both face our souls at the same time."
            Harry could say nothing, and he would have the same trouble finding words to tell his friends the truth when he had to explain the ordeal to them. But he reached out and took Draco's hand and held it convulsively, and Draco let him do it. For Harry, that was enough.
            For the moment. And it might take the ordeal to tell him whether he wanted Draco for anything more.

*
SP777: Yes, you should be nervous.
Draco couldn’t find the words to tell him, in the end. Especially when he’s not sure Harry’s joy would be real.
delia cerrano: He will have Ron and Hermione, too.
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Ancient and Noble Houses