Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

An Image of Lethe	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21751 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Forty-Two—The Plotting Hours
            “Did you ever feel,” Hermione asked, leaning forwards with eyes so big that Harry knew without asking that the question had troubled her, “like you were losing yourself in the playacting? Like it was Voldemort and not you who was going to come back?”
            “Of course I did.” Harry whispered the words, but Ron shook his head, and Harry took a swallow of water and then repeated them. “Of course I did. But I couldn’t let that stop me. If I stopped once because I was scared, then I knew I’d probably never have the strength to take up the acting again.”
            “I’m just trying to understand, mate,” Ron said. “But why did you decide to rely on Parkinson and Greengrass and—and Malfoy more than you relied on us?”
            “Because I was playing Lord Voldemort and it would have seemed strange to communicate with Light wizards all the time?” Harry offered lightly, a little exasperated. “You’re right that I could have sent more Patronus messages, though. I was just so afraid that someone would see them leaving the house—and I doubt Voldemort ever managed to cast a Patronus, since I doubt he was ever happy. I’m sorry.”
            Ron glanced away from him, his cheeks flushing. Hermione patted his hand and then turned and looked at Harry again.
            “I think what Ron means,” she said gently, “is that you didn’t rely on us to help you with the research for the reverse Lightfinder or anything like that. You sent Death Eaters on those missions, or looking in libraries for the information. We could have done something.”
            Harry only shook his head back. “How, though? I couldn’t receive any owls with letters or packages, and you know that a Patronus can only carry a short message. I had to rely on people who were there with me and who could do the research because I’d ordered them to. Or pretended to order them to.”
            “We wanted to do something,” Ron said, between gritted teeth. He still had his head turned away, and his hands, clenched on the back of Hermione’s chair, were so white that Harry wanted to reach out and pry his fingers loose. “We wanted to make sure that you wouldn’t lose yourself to the horror of playing Voldemort. Instead, you just relied on Death Eaters and people you didn’t know as well, and we had to wait around to even hear that you were still you.”
            Harry closed his eyes. Suddenly, he understood a lot better. This wasn’t Ron and Hermione being afraid that playing a role would change him. This was them wanting to help and stewing in their helplessness until they went mental.
            He held out his hands. Hermione seemed to understand faster, but Harry heard Ron coming around her chair, and his hand hit Harry’s only a second after Hermione had grasped his other one. Harry sat there holding both his friends’ hands and drawing strength from them, trying to imagine what would have happened if he’d reached out to them when he was trying so hard to create the reverse Lightfinder.
            If he’d found a way to reach out to them. Some way he could have trusted and which wouldn’t have added to the list of continual worries.
            “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I trusted those people I had to trust, and no more. I tortured one of the Lestrange brothers because I had to make him respect me, and I tortured Draco when his father cast a spell on him that meant he couldn’t tell me something willingly. I wanted to trust you, but it was—hard to think of a way.”
            “You thought we would reject you when you came out of that playacting?” Hermione whispered.
            Harry gave her an exhausted look. “I thought you would agree with the wizarding world that I’d done something just by pretending to be Voldemort. And I’m so sick of lying, and pretending, and being judged for it, and knowing what would happen if I didn’t do it.” He sucked in a breath and said what had to be said. “And being judged for who I love.”
            Hermione stood up and hugged him, but said nothing. Ron stood where he was and cleared his throat several times. Then he shook his head and muttered, “There’s no good way to say it. I don’t trust Malfoy. I don’t see how you can go on dating him, Harry.”
            “Because I want to,” Harry said. “And I’m not asking you to trust him. I’m asking you not to make disparaging comments about him and ask me if I’m sure and try to push me towards other people to date.”
            Ron looked as if he’d swallowed a very large fly. “That’s going to be difficult,” he said. “Because I don’t think you should be with him.”
            Harry sighed. “I love him. What I went through during our time among the Death Eaters bonded me with him. He was almost the only person I could trust.” He thought a little, and then added, “Parkinson always suspected I was treating Draco worse than I was, and Astoria was so shy and retiring that I didn’t want to push her much when it came to helping me other than doing research. And I didn’t know which way Draco’s mother was going to jump. So he was almost the only one.”
            “The only one there,” said Hermione, and once again gave him a disapproving look. “You could have trusted other people if you had deigned to bring us into the game.”
            “It wasn’t a game.”
            Harry said that with enough force that Hermione rocked backwards a little. Then she blinked and put out a hand and clutched his again. Harry held on tight enough that she winced, but he was making his point, and he didn’t want to soften while he was doing that.
            “It was never a game,” he said. “It couldn’t be, not when it was costing me and other people so much. I didn’t—if I could have found some way to bring you in, then I would have. But in the meantime, I was thinking and working and sweating all the time, and there was no way that I could think of to reach you. And then I was involved in fooling the Death Eaters and trying to build the reverse Lightfinder and keep my relationship with Draco a secret and—”
            He closed his eyes, tightly. Ron took his other hand again. Harry glanced at him, but he didn’t look inclined to speak.
            “In the end,” Harry whispered, “what I feared most came to pass. I mean, other than being found out and killed by the Death Eaters. It turns out the Wizengamot still won’t change their minds. They’ll make exceptions for me and Bill and Fleur, but that’s it. They won’t promise to make exceptions for the other people who tested Dark in the Lightfinder. I don’t know what they’re going to do about the Unseen. Who—who knows. There’s just too much that’s going on, and a few Death Eaters escaped and might be hunting me down, and the Unseen will probably do it as soon as they manage to persuade the Ministry not to pay attention to them. They’re ancient and they can apparently see some of the future. Who knows?”
            Ron leaned over and hugged him. Harry leaned into his friend and said nothing. Ron whispered, “You know we’ll stand by your side, mate. No matter what. Of course we will. You’ll always have our support.”
            “Yes, you will,” Hermione echoed firmly. “And I still wish that we could have worked with you to build the reverse Lightfinder, but I see—why it wasn’t the first thing on your mind.” She paused, and Harry heard nothing except her light breathing for a second.
            “You have to make a plan for the future,” she said then. “What are you going to do right now about the Death Eaters and the Unseen? Don’t think of the future and whether you’ll be able to manage it. What is it going to be right now?”
            Harry snorted. “Isn’t thinking about what I’m going to do about them thinking of the future?” he asked, opening one eye to consider her.
            “It’s not as overwhelming as thinking about all of the future at once,” Hermione said firmly.
            That much was true. Harry sighed and sat back with a shake of his head. “I don’t know. The Unseen can supposedly get through any defense I have, or that anyone can conjure. They can do things like freeze time for everyone else in the Wizengamot courtroom. How am I supposed to stop that?”
            Hermione smiled triumphantly. “There’s a spell that can. It judges intent. I wove it around the house when we asked Kingsley if you could come to stay with us, and it won’t let anyone through who plans on harming anyone who lives here. It’s like a more powerful version of the protection you had on the Dursleys’ house.”
            Harry let his opinion of that protection go by without comment. Hermione knew what his life with the Dursleys had been like, and if she thought this was worth trying anyway, then it was. “All right. We’ll use that for right now. And it should keep out the Death Eaters as well as the Unseen, right?”
            “Of course it should,” said Ron, with a snort and a shake of his head. “The only two still free are Greyback and Lestrange, and of course they would want to harm you.” He gave Harry a quick look. “And the Malfoys, of course.”
            “Of course,” Harry echoed back dryly, and went to write Draco a letter, and think.
            This was a good short-term plan. In the meantime, he could see what the Ministry did about the Unseen, if anything. Kingsley was the one with the most knowledge of them. How he would act now meant a lot.
            And Harry would spend as much time as he could with his friends, and talk with them, and ease them into the realization he had already come to.
            He might or might not be able to continue in the country when Greyback, Lestrange, and the Unseen were finally dealt with, but Draco wouldn’t. And Harry had made a promise.
            One that he passionately and desperately wanted, despite the knowledge of all he would leave behind and how much it would hurt, to keep.
*
            Draco Apparated into the small meadow that Harry had appointed as the meeting place, and looked around carefully. He didn’t think Weasley and Granger would actually set up an ambush for him. For one thing, it would hurt Harry. For another—
            Well, maybe there wasn’t another reason, when Draco thought about it. He had to trust to the strength of their affection for Harry. He had no trust at all in their political convictions, or their connection to the Ministry. He planted his hands in his pockets, and settled down to wait.
            The crack of Apparition to the side brought him spinning around, but there was only one, and that and the dragon’s glad cry from his shoulder told him who it was.
            Well, and Draco felt it was right. He followed the dragon a second later, bursting past the complicated tangle the beast had made around Harry’s face and upper arms. He was sure his lips would find Harry’s in a kiss.
            They did.
            Harry’s hand was in his hair, assured, guiding, familiar. Draco kissed him hard enough to make them fall over, and the dragon took off from in between them with an indignant squeal. Draco broke the kiss only long enough to laugh, and then he returned it with interest, while Harry went on stroking his hair and the nape of his neck and making inarticulate murmurs that Draco didn’t need to understand. The love in them was plain enough to hear.
            It ended with Harry sprawled on the grass and smiling at Draco above him, and Draco stroking his face and hair. Harry closed his eyes and this time, there could be no doubt that his sounds were simple happiness. Draco ignored the temptation to finish rolling Harry over and show him exactly what this moment meant to Draco. This meadow looked isolated by rolling walls of trees, but Draco didn’t actually know where they were or who might be nearby.
            “Where is this place?” he asked, when he’d pulled his hand back and Harry had sat up with a mixture of a grumble and a sigh.
            “One of the places in the Forest of Dean that Hermione and I stayed when we were hunting for the Horcruxes,” Harry replied, looking around at the trees. “I remember them a lot better than I want to.” His grimace vanished as his gaze came back to Draco. “But maybe I’ll think of this one more fondly now.” He reached out and toyed with a strand of Draco’s hair.
            Draco tilted his head and enjoyed it for a moment, then resolutely focused on what they needed to be doing. “You called me here for more than a chance to see me.”
            “Yes, although that was the most important reason.” Harry found his hand and held it tightly. “The Unseen and those two escaped Death Eaters make me nervous.”
            “They make me more than nervous,” Draco said quietly. “Especially since Greyback will probably never forgive you for this.”
            Harry nodded. “And since the Ministry’s hunting him, he might decide the best way he can strike back is my death. Well.” He paused for a second, and then said, “Ron and Hermione want me to stay with them.”
            Draco shuffled back on his knees, found he was at the limit of Harry’s arm and Harry was gazing at him steadily, and then said, “I thought you were already staying with them.”
            “Draco. You know what I mean.” Harry wrapped his arms around him.
            Draco shut his eyes and told himself that he should have known what it meant, that his happiness never did last, and that of course Harry would always choose his friends over Draco. But he thought his voice was remarkably calm and flat, given how true all his thoughts were. “So you won’t come with me when we leave.”
            “We?”
            “My parents too, of course.” Draco opened his eyes and gazed over Harry’s shoulder towards the trees. The dragon was perched on a branch, lipping at the leaves and looking as if he wanted to try being a vegetarian for a day. “But it can’t include you if you’re determined to stay behind.”
            Harry’s arms abruptly crushed around him, and Harry whispered, “If you knew what you meant to me, you’d never say that.”
            Draco blinked, then got angry. “You sounded as though you’d already made the decision to honor your friends’ wishes above your promises,” he snapped, and wriggled backwards again. “Excuse me for thinking that your Gryffindor loyalty was going to prevail after all.”
            Harry lowered his eyes and sat there for a second with his hand in Draco’s. A bird called somewhere, and the dragon spread his wings and flew off into the forest after it. Apparently leaves didn’t satisfy him, Draco thought.
            “Ron and Hermione never doubted me as much as I thought,” Harry whispered. “They were mostly angry because I hadn’t let them help.”
            Draco held back savage replies about how much Harry had already been wearing away playing his role and hadn’t had time to coddle spoiled Gryffindors who wanted to “do it themselves” like first-years, and simply nodded.
            “That makes it harder to leave,” Harry said. “If I was fighting with them, I’d hate it and regret it, but it would also make it easier to decide on not seeing them often for the next several years. At the very least.”
            His hand tightened again in Draco’s, and he locked eyes with him. “At the same time, I know I don’t want to be parted from you.”
            Draco nodded. That had been what he wanted to hear. Harry could have all the friends and all the wishy-washiness he liked, as long as he chose Draco in the end.
            “That does leave me wondering how exactly I should solve this,” Harry said, with a long sigh. “The spells that Hermione has on the house will protect me from Death Eaters for now. The Unseen might still find some way around them.”
            Draco started a little. “I did find out one thing,” he said, and looked around for the dragon. A few seconds later, the creature came into sight, chasing a bird around a tree. Draco rolled his eyes. “Will you call him back?”
            Harry grinned. “He’s spent the last few days with you, and he abandoned our reunion awfully quickly. Why don’t you call him back?”
            “Hey, Nameless Thing!” Draco called.
            The dragon flicked his tail and continued chasing the bird. Harry cleared his throat. “He might obey you better if you invented something to call him.”
            “You should do it,” Draco said, and folded his arms, feeling mutinous and utterly happy at the same time, that they were able to sit here and argue about something so ridiculous. “If you created him, you should be the one who comes up with a name.”
            Harry turned and considered the dragon. It had landed on a branch with the bird clasped in one claw. After studying it for a moment, however, the dragon seemed to conclude that he preferred his meals already cooked. He opened his claw, let the bird fly free, and then polished his muzzle and tail vigorously against the branch.
            “I don’t feel like naming him after someone already dead,” Harry muttered. “Although I did consider naming my future children after my parents, or possibly Professor Snape.”
            Draco stared at him. “Why in the world would you name one of them after Professor Snape?”
            “Why, wouldn’t you want to?”
            Draco shook his head. Somewhere they had taken a turn from the ridiculous to the bizarre, and he didn’t understand it. “I had a different relationship with Professor Snape than you did.”
            “You had one, to begin with,” Harry said, and then softened his words with a smile. “But I thought he was the bravest man I’ve ever known.”
            He looked thoughtfully at the dragon again, while Draco held his tongue about how the bravest man he’d ever known was sitting in front of him. Harry was thinking hard enough about what to name the dragon without Draco interfering. If Draco did say something, they would probably end up sitting here for the duration of the afternoon.
            “I want to name him something serious,” Harry whispered. “He did save my life with the Unseen, and he helped with the plan to unleash the reverse Lightfinder.”
            And he might breathe fire at you if you came up with a silly name, Draco thought, but he nodded. Small or not, the dragon was still a dragon.
            “He saved me,” said Harry, and cocked his head. “I wonder if I could call him Salvation?”
            It took Draco a moment to realize that Harry wasn’t asking the question of him, but of the dragon. The dragon turned to look at Harry and slowly opened his mouth. Draco tensed, but what came out wasn’t fire. It was the dragon’s curling tongue, accompanied by a great deal of saliva.
            “All right, then,” said Harry, but he was smiling in a way that made Draco think he should have seen Harry’s next suggestion coming. “What about something short that still acknowledges the role you played? What about Sal?”
            The dragon rolled his tongue back inside his mouth and considered Harry for a moment with his head cocked to the side and his tail swishing slowly back and forth.
            “That way,” Harry continued in a grave manner, “no one will have to know it’s short for Salvation. They’ll probably assume it’s short for Salazar Slytherin. And no one can say that’s not a serious name.”
            The dragon took off from the branch, flying hard and true. Draco nearly jumped up to retrieve Harry and pull him out of the way, but although the dragon hit Harry hard enough to knock him over, it wasn’t a vicious hit. He was licking Harry’s face with a hot tongue a few seconds later and wagging his tail hard enough to make Draco snort.
            “Sal it is, then,” Harry muttered, his hand on Sal’s head, and smiled at Draco. “You were saying?”
            It took Draco a moment of scrambling to recover his original idea, but then he had it. “We already know—Sal can resist the Unseen’s magic,” he said. “Why not send him into the Ministry to find out what they’re doing? He might not be able to bring back a written report,” he added hastily, seeing Harry already opening his mouth, “but he makes his intent understood pretty well. And you might be able to put his memories in a Pensieve.”
            Harry hesitated, then shrugged. “I’d do it if I didn’t think Sal would be in danger.”
            Sal tapped his tail pointedly against Harry’s temple, then twisted his neck around and spat flames at the same moment as he reared, flapped his wings hard enough to rise a bit off Harry’s shoulder, and clawed the air. Then he sat back down and stared expectantly at Harry, while Draco did his best not to laugh.
            “He’s a dragon who can breathe fire and fly and resist even magic that stops time for the Wizengamot,” said Draco. “I really don’t think he’s going to be in any danger.”
            Harry nodded slowly. “All right. Then you can go, Sal.” He knuckled the dragon roughly on the head, and Sal crooned and curled up on his shoulder. Draco smiled. He had the feeling that he knew who the dragon would go home with.
            Harry caught his hand before they left and said softly, holding his eyes, “I’m going to give it a fortnight to find out if I can do anything about the Unseen or if the Ministry can capture the Death Eaters. Whether they can or not, then I’m going to leave with you.”
            “If we can do anything about the Unseen,” Draco corrected him, and enjoyed both Harry’s smile and the feeling of something going right for him for once.
*
            Harry lay quietly in bed, looking out the window. Hermione had exclaimed over Sal and asked Harry dozens of questions about how he’d created him, while Ron seemed mainly impressed with how much Sal could eat. Harry had answered the questions and permitted the feeding, since he wanted Sal to have plenty of energy for his expedition into the Ministry that night.
            He knew he shouldn’t be so worried. This was a test run only, and Sal would probably come back perfectly fine. But he also knew he wouldn’t sleep, so he lay there.
            Then something moved beneath his window—something too large for Sal.
            Harry had his wand in his hand instantly. He breathed softly, wondering if Hermione hadn’t studied the spell she’d cast correctly, or if someone had come up with a way to bypass it. Come to think of it, he’d never asked her if someone could carry goodwill towards him in their heart until they got close to the house and then change their minds, or if someone under the Imperius Curse to hurt him would trip the spell.
            Then Fenrir Greyback stood up and stared into the window at him.
            The spell’s gone, Harry thought, as he sprang to his feet and aimed his wand. That, or the Unseen undid it, or Lestrange knows a counter for it—
            Greyback gave a delighted whine and bowed his head on the windowsill, fawning. “My Lord, my Lord,” he whispered. “I knew part of you had to be left. I know the Ministry has strengthened the Harry Potter part of your personality so that it overwhelmed your true one, but you know me, don’t you? There’s a little bit of you left, or you would have cursed me immediately!” And Greyback cocked his head to the side in a motion that someone had probably once told him was appealing.
            Harry stared at Greyback with his mouth open. The papers were spreading the story that he was still really Voldemort, he knew, which at least a few people stubbornly persisted in believing. He had never thought that their lies would do him a service.
            And it’s no wonder Greyback can get past the spell, Harry thought as he sat down hard on the bed. He doesn’t mean me harm.
            Harry cleared his throat hoarsely. “Part of me is still me,” he whispered. “Yes, Fenrir, I know you, my loyal dog.”
            Greyback nodded and gripped the windowsill. Harry’s room was on the ground floor, but Greyback still clung as if he’d had to climb a high wall. “Tell me what to do, my Lord,” he whispered. “Tell me what to do.”
            Harry lifted his head. Could he play Voldemort one more time, for the sake of a better future than he’d have otherwise?
            Yes. Of course I can.
            “I must know what became of Lestrange,” Harry urged Greyback harshly. “What do you know?”
            “I killed him. Because he betrayed you and would have tried to convince me that you are not my Lord and are only Harry Potter.” Greyback clapped his teeth together with a look of satisfaction. “His blood was delicious in my mouth, my Lord.”
            He means he tore out Lestrange’s throat, Harry translated to himself. He was shaking, a little, but he was also determined to do things in a way that made his heart thrum. That removes one complication. I can do this.
            “The pressure they have brought to bear on me is very strong,” Harry breathed harshly. “Soon the part of me will fade and be gone.”
            “Then I will kill them, my Lord.” Greyback’s nails tightened on the wood of the windowsill, and his eyes flashed crazily. “All of them!” He started to climb into the room.
            “No!”
            Harry still had the Voldemort commanding voice down pat, he was glad to see. Greyback dropped back, cowering and whining, and murmuring protests of eternal loyalty, which Harry cut easily across. “There is an organization called the Unseen, within the Ministry. They are the only ones who had the magic necessary to enslave me and crush me. There is no stopping the fading now. I will die, and only Harry Potter will be left.” Harry leaned forwards. “But before I die, I wish you to do one last thing for me.”
            Greyback rose slowly, his eyes fixed on Harry and his body vibrating slightly. “Yes,” he breathed. “Let me do this last thing for you, my Lord. Please.”
            Harry nodded, once. “The Unseen have a series of hidden places within the Ministry, offices where they keep their maps of the future.” Greyback didn’t even ask questions, he saw, so focused was he on what Harry was saying. “I’ve sent my dragon as a scout tonight who should be able to find out the way. I want you to go there and destroy the maps and other implements they have. Destroy their magic. Break their wands.”
            He leaned forwards and fixed his eyes on Greyback. “But I don’t want you to harm anyone. Do you understand me? They are to be left alive to mourn the loss of their magic, and to hear my laughter over their screams of loss.”
            A long stream of drool slid from Greyback’s jaws and landed on the sill. He nodded so fast that Harry’s sight of him blurred.
            “Yes, my Lord,” he whispered. “Yes, my Lord.”
            “Good,” Harry said, and held out his hand. Greyback padded into the room, moving on all fours, and sniffed at his hand. “You are not to kill anyone along the way, either,” he added, as an afterthought. “Or infect them with lycanthropy. They are to bear witness to the final and catastrophic loss of my enemies.”
            “Yes, yes,” Greyback whispered.
            Harry took a single breath, because that would be enough for what he had to say. “You know that you will likely die in the assault?”
            Greyback looked up. The moonlight caught his eyes and shone off them.
            “My Lord,” he whispered, and abased himself on the floor. “It will be my honor.”
            Harry sat there looking at him, and wondered when reality had passed into acting, when this had become real for Greyback, and might be real for Harry, too. He slowly held out his hand.
            Greyback extended his tongue and licked gently at Harry’s palm, for the first and last time. Then he bowed, said, “Send me your dragon when you are ready, my Lord. I’ve always been good at communicating with animals,” and leaped through the window. Harry heard the light pattering of his footfalls as he ran away.
            Harry sat there with thoughts tumbling through his head, and only moved when Sal came back. Sal settled on his shoulder and licked his cheek once.
            “Yeah,” Harry whispered, and set about the task of extracting the memories Sal held so he could look at them.
*
Christopher: Harry probably can’t change the Ministry’s attitude completely. He’s done his best and it didn’t work. But at least he can take care of the Unseen.
moodysavage: No. Unfortunately, for some people, it never will be.
Kain: Thanks for the prompt!
Well, Fenrir was loyal to the end, and at least Harry can use him to get rid of two birds with one stone. And Harry’s not going to wait for Kingsley or the Wizengamot to do something about this.
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An Image of Lethe