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Soldier's Welcome	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 25565 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

Chapter List
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Chapter
Forty-Four�Nihil

�� Draco ran,
panting, beside Harry as they headed for the front of the Ministry, because the
loudest noises of fighting seemed to come from there. He took a moment to
reflect, grimly, that he would have tried to run away from those sounds just a year ago.

�� But that
was before he had Harry beside him, Harry who had smiled at him and fought
beside him and shared compatible magic with him and kissed him.

�� Harry, who told me he loved me.

�� Draco suffered
a single intense pang of regret that Nihil could not have held off for five minutes more.

�� They sped
up a corridor that opened into the Atrium, and saw a glow of white light from
ahead. Draco licked his lips. A glance at Harry was sufficient to show him that
this was Dark Arts; Harry had a disgusted expression on his face.

�� Draco
nodded to Harry and drew his wand. Harry drew his in what looked like the same
smooth motion, though Draco knew it wasn�t really, and they whirled to face the
threat.

�� The white
light dimmed enough that Draco could see the creatures cantering forwards out
of it. They might have been centaurs, but their flanks were a dark purple color
that had never been seen on any natural centaur, and their human heads were
covered with horns, tusks, and odd long projections that looked like stingers.

�� The
creatures reared, and Draco saw they held bows in their hands, bristling with
multiple flexible arrows that whipped up and down like cattail stalks.

�� It was as
if they shared one mind. Harry cast Protego,
and the magic rolled over to Draco, drenching him in a spray of confidence,
relaxing his muscles. He knew he was smiling as he cast the Fire-Giver Curse,
but that wasn�t a problem as long as it didn�t interfere with his casting of the
spell.

�� It didn�t.
The pseudo-centaurs shot their arrows, and they began to burn in mid-flight.
Then they halted, hovering halfway between Draco and Harry and the archers,
before they turned around and stabbed the centaurs in their flanks and heads
and chests. Draco could smell the scent of burning flesh, and hear their
screams.

�� He laughed
aloud, exultant, though he felt Harry�s hand clamp down on his shoulder. Then
Harry wheeled around and began running towards the sounds of battle from
further up the Atrium.

�� Draco ran
with him. If Harry was too weak to enjoy the sight of an enemy dying, well,
Draco would enjoy that for him, and Harry would be the one to offer protection.
His magic was better-suited to that sort of thing anyway.

�� The floor
surged up to meet them suddenly. Draco fell, his legs knocked from under him,
and felt Harry crouch over his back, drawing a circle with his wand that raised
a circular shield of green light. An instant later, something slammed against
the shield, something with multiple legs and chattering jaws loaded with chitin
that might once have been human. Draco shuddered and stared in fascination as
it slid down the shield and scuttled off.

�� Saw it
from the corner of my eye,� Harry explained breathlessly, reaching for Draco�s
hand and helping him back to his feet. �Are you all right?�

�� Draco
nodded. His breath and his dignity were gone, but they would both recover. He
looked around, scanning the floor beyond the fountain for signs of the
screaming they had heard, but again, the battle seemed to have moved further
off just as they were about to catch up to its fringes.

�� He did see
streams of blood running from a pile of broken limbs. He winced and wondered if
he should try to screen the sight from Harry, but when he turned back, he
realized from Harry�s grim, transfixed stare that he had already seen the
bloody mess.

�� They�ll
pay for that,� Harry said, in a voice that was more a threat because he didn�t
raise it, and then stabbed Draco with a single glance. �And they�ll pay with
death if they try to harm you.�

�� Draco
couldn�t help it; he preened a bit. One of his favorite fantasies when he and
Harry had still been enemies was that someday Harry would step between Draco
and someone who was tormenting him�the Weasel, perhaps�and declare that he had
changed his mind and Draco was worth protecting. This wasn�t the same
situation, but hearing Harry promise to kill for him was no small gift.

�� This way,�
Harry snapped then, and nearly hauled Draco off his feet running to the right.
Draco fought until he had his balance back, and then ran willingly alongside
his partner.

�� He would
follow wherever Harry led, as long as he was allowed to play an equal part in
the leading.

*

�� Harry
crouched behind a cubicle wall, grateful beyond words, at the moment, for
Ketchum�s Battlefield Tactics lessons. There was some kind of conference going
on in the middle of the Auror Department between several of Nihil�s followers,
and Draco and Harry would never have got this close without practice in Ketchum�s
obstacle courses.

�� They were
close enough to hear, but not close enough to catch every nuance of the
argument. Harry leaned his head on the wall and sighed noiselessly, for which
Draco still nudged him as if he�d sighed aloud. The most vital part of the row
to hear had probably been the very words they had missed.

�� I don�t
understand why he�s so intent on bringing them down,� said a figure in the
middle of the group, surrounded by a shifting, arctic-white glamour that kept
Harry from seeing any details about it. �After all, they�re only two Auror
trainees in a sea of them.�

�� Two Auror
trainees who resisted him, escaped him, and denied him their magic.� That was a
tall woman with a sweet voice, a voice that gradually wore on Harry�s nerves
the longer he listened to her, because it shouldn�t belong to someone who
seemed so irredeemably evil. �I can see why our leader�s fascination extends to
them.�

�� But he
wanted to make them resources, and he failed,� said a third figure, who had
dark hair that appeared to completely encircle his head and deny Harry any
glimpse of his face. Draco had whispered that he thought that was a glamour,
more complicated and thicker than most of the ones they could identify�not that
complicated and powerful magic was unusual for Nihil�s servants. �That has
happened with others. He was wise enough to give up on them and go on. Why can
he not give up on these?�

�� Because
think what a resource Harry Potter would have been.� The tall woman made an
impatient motion with her head, maybe because another of the glamoured figures
had stepped towards her to argue with her. �Oh, it doesn�t matter. He simply
wants them found and neutralized. We can do that for our master without
necessarily knowing what he wants them for.�

�� That�s
true,� said the figure with the hair around its head. �And you have a means of
locating them, don�t you, Isola?�

�� Harry moved
his lips over the name, wondering if he had heard it before, or whether it was
the name of anyone who had gone missing in the last few months. He glanced at
Draco, who had more contact with those pure-blood circles. Draco simply shook
his head and pointed two fingers back at the conversation.

�� I do.�
Isola drew a hand out of the pocket of her robe and stared intently at something
in her palm. Harry saw a flash of white light like that kind that had announced
the centaurs. Isola laughed. �Ah, they are not far from here. It will be easy
to find them.�

�� And then
Draco grabbed Harry�s arm, leaned over to whisper in his ear, �Just follow me.
You�ll thank me for this later,� and hurtled over the cubicle wall, bearing
down on the glamoured people. Harry had to go with him, at first because of the
pull on his arm and his sheer astonishment, then because he would never let
Draco go into battle alone.

�� Isola spun
to face them. Harry made out a carved white bracelet in her hands, glowing like
the sun, before she flung it away and drew her wand. The glamoured figures fell
back into a semicircle and linked their hands. The bodies of the two on the
farthest ends of the semicircle tore open, and two boiling masses of grief
magic rose up and hurtled towards them.

�� Draco
jerked to a halt and stood back-to-back with Harry, whispering, �The curse to
banish Dark magical creatures?�

�� Harry
agreed, his words seeming to fly ahead of his mind. He was in the middle of a
situation so unexpected and urgent that he had no time to think through it
logically. He felt the warm pressure of Draco�s back against his, the bony
pressure of his shoulder blades, and heard him yell, �Abigo!� The incantation pulled the word from his mouth along with the one from Draco�s.

�� The masses
of grief magic tore apart like clouds before a blast of powerful wind. The same
wind apparently came back again and caught them up, and the red and black
tendrils shuddered and faded. Harry nodded in satisfaction.

�� Then the
shimmering blast of compatible magic hit him again, and he discovered that he
was smiling and speaking so fast that Draco surely couldn�t understand him. Did we trade minds as well as leadership in
magical power just now? �Let�s Transfigure them. That way, we can embarrass
Nihil and avoid having to kill him.�

�� He didn�t
wait for Draco�s agreement. He knew it couldn�t be long in coming, given the
powerful, compelling current that held both their minds. He pointed his wand at
Isola, with Draco�s wand rising next to his like a mirror image but pointing to
the figure with hair around its head, and together they chanted, �Commuto pullum!�

�� Isola and
the glamoured figure tried to raise shields, but they either didn�t know
shields against Transfiguration or Harry and Draco had moved too fast. Their
targets began to shrink, sprouting feathers as they did so. Their eyes turned
small and round and black, and their voices turned into shrill piping. A moment
later, there were two small yellow chicks running around where Isola and the
man had stood, their stubby wings beating in pathetic strokes.

�� Harry
stared as the rest of Nihil�s servants fled. He panted and leaned against
Draco. It felt as though someone else had possessed him and powered his spells,
made his decisions, and given him the spell that he knew he hadn�t known, or at least couldn�t remember learning. He
licked his lips and turned to face Draco.

�� Draco
looked at him sideways. �I read about that in one of the books on compatible
magic,� he mumbled. �But it seemed so powerful and so far away from anything
that we were doing that I didn�t think we�d be able to do it for years.� He
blinked several times, and staggered.

�� Harry
caught him and held him up. The chicks had scuttled under the desks, and Harry
decided they could leave them there. They could hardly transform themselves
back if they weren�t Animagi.

�� How much
rest do you think we need?� he asked. �Only we should try to join the battle
again as soon as we can.�

�� Draco
nodded shortly, bending down so that his hands rested on his knees. Harry noted
with quiet satisfaction that Draco inclined towards him at the same time, as if
he trusted Harry to support him more than his own body. Harry curved an arm
around his shoulders. �I know,� Draco gasped out. �Give me a few minutes to
rest, and then I�ll be ready.�

�� Harry
nodded, and glanced around the Auror Department. He and Draco had been running
from floor to floor of the Ministry, striking where they could, joining a few
of the other Aurors and trainees and then breaking apart from them again. It
didn�t look as though there were any wounded or attackers in the Department
right now, but�

�� Then Harry
saw a shadow waver from under one of the cubicles, and quickly sprang forwards,
holding up his wand.

�� At ease,
Trainee Potter.�

�� It was
Portillo Lopez�s voice. Harry still eyed her carefully as she came around the
corner, but she held up her arm in answer, and Harry saw the shimmer of the
glamour that hid her jade bracelet. He nodded, supposing it was the best answer
he could have for right now.

�� He still
stayed close to Draco as they moved forwards to join Portillo Lopez and the
people who walked behind her, though. Harry saw two of the trainees in their
class, Pollian Kepler, and a blonde woman whose name he thought was Anna
Kasanova. She had a long wound on her face that had been knitted together with
a spell. Now and then she raised a hand to touch it.

�� Don�t do
that, Trainee Kasanova,� Portillo Lopez said, without even looking around. She
was examining Draco and Harry, probably for wounds, and nodded in satisfaction
at the end of the examination. �Very well. Come with us. We are attempting to
form small pockets of resistance throughout the Ministry which can combat Nihil
when he moves away from his initial attack.� Her robes swirled about her as she
turned to face the entrance of the Auror Department.

�� What
happened?� Draco demanded. There was still a breathiness in his voice that
Harry didn�t like, but he was walking on his own. Harry settled for walking
beside him in case he started to fall over again. �I thought the War Wizards
were supposed to fight Nihil and use their all-powerful magic to keep him away
from the Ministry?�

�� His voice
was sharp and mocking. Harry gave him a warning look, but he didn�t think Draco
noticed.

�� Even the
War Wizards cannot be everywhere at once,� said Portillo Lopez, sounding
unfazed. She cast a spell that toppled two of the cubicle walls. Harry shook
his head. If Nihil�s servants had thought
to do that, we would have been dead. �They are away from the Ministry at
the moment, looking for Nihil in the hiding places they thought likeliest. But
Nihil circled back to the Ministry, around them, and he has disabled the alarms
and the Floo connections so that no one can reach them.�

�� Is that all?� Harry demanded. He held up
his wand. �I can send my Patronus with a message, Auror, if you just tell me
who to send it to.�

�� Portillo
Lopez gave him a long, slow look. �That has been tried,� she said quietly. �I
saw the Patronus bound into one of the wards that Nihil has raised around the
Ministry. A moment later, the body of the woman who had tried it exploded.�

�� Harry
winced and lowered his arm. Draco gave him a wry look and moved closer, as much
as to say that he wasn�t the only one who needed protection from his own
recklessness.

�� How did
Nihil get so powerful?� Harry asked instead, determined to relieve his feelings
of frustration somehow. �I mean, somebody
has to know. What about his followers? Do you recognize any of them?�

�� Some of
them have faces similar to those I have seen in the past, but I recognized none
of our trainees.� Portillo Lopez paused near the lift, or what should have been
the lift. Metallic wreckage filled the chute instead of doors. �We will need to
climb down. Nihil has blocked the staircases, and I believe that the major
battle is taking place in the Atrium. Trainees, if you would?� She stepped back
and gestured with one arm.

�� Harry
grimaced, but it was true that they
had all received training in climbing in Ketchum�s class, so it could be done.
It was simply uncomfortable and dangerous.

�� He
surrounded his hands with small shields of the kind that Ketchum recommended for
navigating dangerous territory, and then reached out. Sure enough, two
fragments of metal would have pierced his skin except for those shields. He
could feel Portillo Lopez nodding in approval in the moments before she
commanded Draco to follow him. Draco said something that was probably a
question as to why, and Portillo Lopez said sharply, �Your magic is strong
enough to support you both if you were to fall, and to support the others if
they stumble.�

�� That was
evidently enough for Draco. Harry managed to glance up and exchange smiles with
him as they carefully picked their way down the lift shaft, their hands
scrambling madly for holds, their feet braced on either side of the shaft.
Harry didn�t know what they would have done if it was only a few inches wider.
As it was, he felt like a spider�a clumsy spider who was going to fall any
moment.

�� Shut up, Harry told his stupid brain
that insisted on feeding him thoughts like that. It�s no worse than being high up on a broom during Quidditch. Really,
he was together with Draco and one of the Auror instructors; things were a lot
better than they could have been.

�� What are they like for Ron and Hermione?

�� Again,
Harry had to control an overexcited spasm of his arms against the walls. He bit
his lip and waited a moment, despite the fact that he could practically feel
Draco�s boots on his back, before he continued climbing. Speed wouldn�t do any
good if it meant that he fell.

�� By the time
they reached the level of the Atrium, Harry�s body was shaking with pain and
fatigue, but he stepped out of the lift shaft and dropped into a crouch the way
Ketchum had taught him, looking around. The floor was covered with rubble, and
in some places the walls had half-collapsed. Harry could see twitching bodies
lying here and there, in poses that reminded him sharply of the Battle of
Hogwarts. Not all the bodies were human.

�� Draco
landed beside him, and suddenly exhaled hard, pointing. Harry turned to look
even as he adjusted himself automatically so that he could shield the people
who were climbing down behind him.

�� A figure in
a painfully heat-haze-like glamour�Nihil as they had seen him in the fight with
Ketchum�was striding across the rubble, his feet skimming over it and
rebounding, so that he seemed to actually be walking through the air. And a
single figure stood facing him, his eyes wide and still and dark.

�� Dearborn.

�� I have
been waiting for this for a long time,� Dearborn
said, and then lifted his wand and launched lightning at Nihil.

*

�� Draco, who
had spent time with Dearborn and trained with him privately, thought he
understood the level of skill in this battle more than most of the people who
crouched behind him, transfixed and staring, or the survivors he could see
peering over some of the blocks of rubble.

�� But even he
was startled by the grace that Dearborn
brought to the battle, and humbled, a bit, to realize that at least one person had managed to achieve a
level of power comparable to the War Wizards� without their training.

�� Nihil
struck with complicated curses that Draco knew should have taken him minutes to
weave: webs of light that turned the floor to a marsh beneath Dearborn�s feet,
pinwheeling tigers that descended from the air and struck at Dearborn�s head,
arrows of light that flared fit to blind him, a spell that briefly withered his
arm and turned it into a stick smaller and more useless than many twigs Draco
had seen.

�� And,
swaying back and forth sometimes before the power of that magic but always
stepping forwards again and bringing up more strength than Draco had realized
existed, Dearborn
answered.

�� The marsh
shimmered and turned back into stone. The tigers burst into sparks that fell
harmlessly around Dearborn
the moment they got within a foot of him. His face already wore a shield of darkness
that defeated those arrows of light. When his arm twisted and shriveled, Dearborn tossed his wand
into the air, caught it with his left hand, and spread skin and flesh along his
right arm again as if the wand was a spider spinning out silk.

�� And then he
began to go on the offensive, and Nihil fell back in front of him, replying in
the same language of power.

�� Stones
flung themselves into the air like suicidal attackers, and bounced back again.
A stone wall came into being between them, then puffed into dust. A plate of
iron nearly fell on Nihil, but he danced aside and heaved it back at Dearborn,
who made it vanish. Bloody wounds opened along their arms or shoulders or
backs, but it was only a moment before they startled rolling shut, the skin
gathering and knitting itself at the upper end of the injury before the lower
end could finish being slashed open.

�� Nihil
opened a pit below Dearborn.
Dearborn soared
out of it on a conjured pair of fairy wings made of dust and light.

�� Dearborn tried to impale
Nihil with a set of iron spikes that rushed up through the piece of floor he
was standing on. Nihil smiled, and they turned to jets of water that rushed
over his skin and splashed harmlessly along his arms.

�� Nihil
called vultures that stooped on Dearborn
with toothed beaks, joined a moment later by a vampire. Golden eagles appeared
on Dearborn�s
shoulders and launched themselves out as straight as arrows, multiplying as
they went, downing the vultures viciously and staking the vampire through the
heart and the eyes with talons of light.

�� Dearborn moved his wand
in a swirling pattern, and Nihil�s face turned blue as the air left his lungs
and body in a rush. Nihil stepped to the side and moved his wand down his body,
and Draco saw one of the bodies turn into air, which rushed to sustain Nihil
until he could cancel Dearborn�s
charm completely.

�� Hex blended
into defense, curse into countercurse, Transfiguration into reversal, until
Draco could no longer pick out the individual spells. It was a simple contest
of magic, and Draco felt awed and humbled to be present at it.

�� Sometimes
another thought tried to intrude, which wondered how they would survive if ever
Nihil or Dearborn lost control of the destructive forces that danced beneath
them. Bu he could feel Harry�s shoulder under his hand, and as long as he had
that, he couldn�t stir his mind out of the hypnotism that gripped him.

�� And then
Nihil raised his hands, extending his arms above his head, his voice hoarse as
he shouted words Draco thought were Greek. Light followed his gesture, welling
up like a stylized rising sun, and this time Draco was sure Nihil was trying
deliberately to destroy the battlefield and the spectators.

�� Dearborn, his face
desperate, dashed forwards and jumped into the light, his arms spread and his
voice shouting more Greek in response. His wand danced over his head; Draco
thought he had thrown it away, but it evidently floated along with him, casting
spells on its own.

�� There was a
soundless explosion that made Draco�s ears pop and caused him to open his jaw
in a scream. He thought one of his eardrums must have burst, so intense was the
pain. He flailed on the floor for a minute, trying to get rid of the pain and
make sure Harry was well and watch the conclusion of the battle at the same
time.

�� The light
faded, slowly, reluctantly. Glowing chunks of air still clung to the walls and
the dust of what had been the fountain.

�� Nihil was
gone. Draco didn�t know if he was destroyed or not. He suspected there was no
way to tell.

�� But Dearborn lay where he had
stood, his head flung back, his eyes wide and glassy, his limbs cut from his
body and his throat slashed.

*

�� SP777:
Thanks!

�� Draco will have
a hard choice to make in the second story. He wants everything, both Auror and
War Wizard training and Harry�s companionship.

�� Chapter 45
is the last one, not 44. But you�re right, there will be one hell of a
cliffhanger.

�� MewMew2:
Thanks for reviewing.

�� hieisdragoness18:
Thank you!

�� Thrnbrooke: Here you are.

�� Dragons
Breath: Thanks! Good call on Draco�s obsession.

�� Soria: Thanks! Good to see you back.

�� qwerty:
Thanks! Harry will have even more reason to be thankful that he didn�t wait.
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