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Ceremonies of Strife	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 16218 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this writing.

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Chapter Forty-Four�Bound
in the Bones

�� Draco woke
when Yizzy brought his mother�s letter to him. Harry was still asleep, and
Draco settled down to read it while keeping one hand on Harry�s flank. He
didn�t want Harry waking up because of the lack of warmth, or missing him.

�� My son, the letter began. Draco relaxed.
She would have used exclusively his name to address him if she was displeased
with him.

�� I had suspected something was wrong, though,
of course, there is no way that I could have come near the truth. Your father,
or what I must now call the shadow of your father, did not speak to me as he
used to. He did not seem to remember many of the old memories I would have
expected him to recall without trouble. He was unexpectedly silent when I
waited to hear his voice. I think he struggled to recall what he should do from
moment to moment. Perhaps distance from his creator caused that, or
forgetfulness of the purpose that he came into being to fulfill.

�� I will mourn your father, but to my mind, it
is better for him to die in Azkaban, in pursuit of an escape, than for him to
have become the man I was familiar with in the last several months.

�� Draco
winced, both thankful and ashamed. It sounded as though his mother had had to
bear far more in those months alone with the shadow in the house than she had
ever told him.

�� Draco?�
Harry muttered from behind him, and one bare palm draped across Draco�s
stomach. �Are you all right?�

�� Yes,�
Draco said, and turned away to nestle down beside him. The only thing remaining
on the parchment was Narcissa�s signature, under the words Your loving mother. �My mother is fine. I don�t think that the
shadow made it a priority to find her after she disappeared, or he might have
been able to.�

�� I�m glad
he didn�t,� Harry whispered into his ear. �Are you ready for one more shagging
session before we return to the Ministry?�

�� Draco
laughed and allowed himself to be drawn down to Harry�s chest, where they
kissed and then began energetically to explore each other�s bodies again.

*

�� They
remained at the Manor for a few more hours, while Draco advised the house-elves
on what to do while he was absent from the house, strengthened the wards, and
rearranged a few heirlooms, or what looked like heirlooms. He didn�t tell Harry
for certain, and Harry didn�t ask. He was wondering how overwhelming it must be
to be told that your father had died when you were at the age when you
remembered him.

�� Draco was
holding up well, so far. Or maybe he didn�t want to cry in front of the
servants, Harry thought, as he watched Draco giving carefully stressed orders
to a circle of elves. Hermione would hate the sight. Draco thought the elves
loved their servitude. Harry didn�t know the truth. Maybe it lay somewhere between
the two extremes.

�� Or maybe it doesn�t, he thought, as he
watched Yizzy, the elf who had served them breakfast and brought Draco
everything he asked for, embrace Draco�s legs in ecstasy and then hurry off to
carry out Draco�s instructions. Draco had put him in charge of maintaining the
kitchens and making sure there was always a meal available if Draco and other
guests wanted to come here at a moment�s notice.

�� That�s all
done,� Draco said at last, as they began to walk away from the Manor later that
day. �I didn�t think it would be so�simple. And it makes me wonder if I did
Dark magic for nothing.�

�� Harry
started to answer that Draco couldn�t have known the Manor would already be
linked to him, and then realized Draco was talking about the ritual that had
led him to bond and then kill the black cat. Awkwardly, he put one arm around
Draco�s shoulders. �I�m just as much to blame as you are, come to that,� he
said. �If you want to think about it that way. I could have opposed you and
discouraged you, but instead I went and bought the bloody cat. Don�t worry
about it, Draco.�

�� Draco
leaned against him for some time in silence. Harry stood there and let him. He
felt warm and content. He and Draco were lovers in a way they hadn�t been
before, and Harry didn�t think it was his imagination that Draco trusted him
more now, that he was leaning on him more.

�� Thanks,�
Draco said at last, standing back up. �Now. Portillo Lopez said she would lower
the anti-Apparition wards in her quarters for a whole day, but we�ve been gone
for more than that. Where do you think we ought to Apparate?�

�� The
entrance of the Ministry will do,� Harry said. �We should use glamours to
disguise ourselves, though. From there, we can go to the Atrium and use the
Floo connections to reach our rooms without anyone being the wiser.�

�� Draco
nodded, and they spent a few moments darkening the tint of each other�s hair
and creating thick glasses made of light and air that would hide their eyes.
They were simple disguises, but Harry didn�t think they would be under
observation for long. The Atrium was always busy, people hurrying along on
their own business with hurried glances to spare for two ordinary-looking men.
They would make it.

�� Harry
wondered what Hermione would say about his sudden feeling of confidence and
strength. Probably that it was inspired by hormones and nothing else, he
thought with a muffled chuckle. Well, he could ask her soon.

�� What�s so
funny?� Draco asked.

�� Harry drew
him close with one arm for the Side-Along. �Tell you later,� he said, and
Apparated.

�� They
appeared in the middle of the road that Harry remembered, the one that led to
the phone box concealing one entrance to the Ministry. He took a step forwards
and then paused, frowning. Something wasn�t right. There was a sound that
should have been there and wasn�t, or a presence that should have been missing
and was there. Uneasily, Harry looked around, wondering if Nihil or a servant
of Nihil�s was watching them.

�� There
should be magic here,� Draco whispered a breath later. �Around the entrance, if
nothing else. There isn�t.�

�� Harry
turned to face him. Draco�s eyes were wide behind the fake glasses, his face as
pale as chalk, and he had his wand out despite the chance of being spotted by
Muggles while they were on the street. �Are you sure?� Harry whispered, and did
his best to sense what Draco had sensed. He couldn�t sense magic specifically,
but maybe that was why the street felt both quieter and louder than normal.

�� Yes,�
Draco said, and began to walk rapidly towards the phone box. Harry followed,
hoping that no one was looking at them too hard, and ready to glare at anyone
who was.

�� The phone
box remained where it had always been, but when Draco picked up the phone,
there was no answer, no matter how many buttons he pressed. He traded a grim
look with Harry and then whispered another spell, one Harry didn�t know,
accompanied by several jerky motions of his wand.

�� The
anti-Apparition wards are gone,� he whispered when the spell had apparently
worked, or failed, or faded. �On the one hand, that means nothing good
happened. On the other hand, it means that we should be able to get right into
the Atrium.� He held out his arm, and Harry clasped it with only a moment�s
hesitation. He wasn�t going to ask if Draco was sure, not when he was this
upset.

�� They
vanished and reappeared in the Atrium. No one was there. Harry looked up
instinctively and saw that the statues on the fountain were still in place. He
relaxed marginally. It didn�t look as though battle had come here, at least.

�� But the
continued silence was ominous. The Ministry was never this empty in the middle of the day, and usually not even at
night.

�� On the
other hand, Harry thought he would have heard a battle if it was happening, and
there was no taint of necromancy in the air, the way he had learned to sense.
He touched Draco�s arm, and without speaking, they stepped over to one of the
fireplaces. Harry tossed a pinch of Floo powder into the flames�nothing had
disturbed the bowls of powder that sat on the mantle�and called out, �Harry
Potter and Draco Malfoy�s room!�

�� The powder
burned out, dead and black, instead of catching in the fire. The flames
whooshed once, but remained ordinary flames. Draco snarled softly under his
breath and reached up to clutch at Harry�s arm with one hand.

�� I�ve seen
that before,� he whispered. �It�s what happens when the destination doesn�t
exist anymore.� He dragged in a deep breath. �When it�s been destroyed.�

�� Stand
where you are.�

�� The voice
from behind them was immediately recognizable, but that didn�t reassure Harry
as much as it should have, considering that Nihil might imitate it for his own
reasons. Nonetheless, he froze and held Draco still when he would have turned
around. There was a tense, strained quality to the voice that Harry didn�t
think it wise to provoke.

�� Ketchum
prowled around in front of them�a battle-damaged Ketchum. His hair was singed,
the top of his left ear missing, and one eye swollen so shut that Harry was
surprised he could see well enough to aim his wand. But his grip on the wand
was steady, and he examined them in silence with a grim expression.

�� You should
have been with Portillo Lopez when the attack on the barracks came,� he said.
�If you are really Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Stand still and don�t resist
when I interrogate you, and I might believe that you are who you look like.�

�� Draco gave
Harry a single startled glance, and Harry understood why. They were wearing the
glamours, but Ketchum had identified them at once. Harry wasn�t sure how. He
didn�t think they needed to know. The important part was that Ketchum was on
edge, almost ready to kill someone, and they should play along.

�� Yes, sir,�
he said, and put a hand on Draco�s arm, clutching down hard. Whatever Ketchum
was going to do, he sounded like he didn�t think they would enjoy it, and Draco
might resist because he hated Ketchum�s blood.

�� Draco
sniffed once, but was quiet as Ketchum ran his wand up and down the length of
their bodies. His eyes were dark, his face grim in a way that Harry had never
seen it. He cast all the spells nonverbally. Harry wondered if that was because
he didn�t want someone else to overhear or because he was worried about Nihil�s
servants learning how to get around the spells if they heard them.

�� Or because
of something else, something even more unimaginable. Harry didn�t know exactly
what had happened, after all.

�� Floo powder only does that when the
destination has been destroyed.

�� There was a
tightening, snapping sound, and Harry felt as though all his tendons had become
stiff. He gasped aloud, shutting his eyes and bowing his head. He didn�t know if
it was painful, exactly, but it was certainly unpleasant. He heard Draco
hissing under his breath beside him, and once he started to step forwards as if
he would attack Ketchum. Only Harry�s hand on his arm kept him in place.

�� Ketchum
spoke several words, aloud harshly, but a mesh seemed to have formed over
Harry�s ears, and he couldn�t hear exactly what Ketchum was saying. There was a
whistle of a wand through air, and then the stiffness all over his body cracked
and fell away like ice that had suddenly gone rotten.

�� Harry
looked up, blinking. Ketchum cocked one eyebrow at them and said, �Well, you
are Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. You�ll need to explain where you were, and
why you conveniently disappeared right before an attack. But I know that the
others wouldn�t want you to die before they got a chance to interrogate you
themselves. Come with me.� He turned on one heel and started to lead them back
across the Atrium.

�� Harry
followed, looking around for rubble or other more subtle signs of an attack.
Nothing revealed itself. He licked his lips, uneasy, and started to ask a
question, but Draco got there first.

�� What
happened?� Draco�s voice was as arrogant as though he�d never been through an
inspection that Harry suspected he found humiliating, and his eyes narrowed.
His hand rested on his wand, though Harry thought he was the only one near
enough to see that. �Why must we be questioned like criminals when we have done
nothing wrong?�

�� Ketchum
turned his head, although he never stopped walking. His smile was small and
grim. �Nihil attacked the trainee barracks. They�re gone, and a fair proportion
of the trainees are dead, though not as many as he wanted.�

�� Harry shut
his eyes. He was so light a wind could have blown him over. His eyes ached with
the sting of coming tears, and his hands were as stiff as though Ketchum had
never taken off the interrogation spells. He wanted to vomit, or to stand still
and wait in one place until Ron and Hermione came up to hug him.

�� Draco asked
the question directly that Harry would have feared to ask, even in his
nightmares. �What about Weasley and Granger? Did they make their way out of the
barracks before they were attacked? What about Ursula Ventus?�

�� Ventus was
one of the fiercest fighters against the living dead that hit us,� said
Ketchum, a faint pride in his voice. �Many people survived who wouldn�t have if
not for her. She�s wounded, but she�ll recover. Weasley has a broken leg, but
he�ll likewise recover. And Granger was fine when I last saw her.�

�� Harry began
to breathe again. Of course, now he had to wonder about other casualties,
people he had seen every day in passing who he would never see again, people
who had partnered with him in classes, or been in the library working on essays
at the same time he was. And the library itself, and their rooms. His clothes.
His books.

�� Draco�s
clothes and books, including the books from Snape�s library that he had moved
there. Harry winced. He was glad that he had at least brought a few books from the
rooms to Draco when they were staying with Portillo Lopez, so that Draco could
have those. And his trunk with his photo album and other possessions had been
there. It didn�t sound as though the instructors� rooms had been attacked.

�� What
exactly happened?� he asked.

�� Ketchum
shook his head. �The first we knew of it was when the living dead started
breaking into the barracks. Nihil attacked them only, and not the Ministry
itself or the instructors� offices. I don�t know why. We lost the most
casualties in the first few minutes, and after that we managed to stabilize and
secure the escape routes. More people lived than we had any right to expect.�
His mouth still pursed itself shut. �But Nihil�s creatures stayed to destroy
the barracks instead of pursuing us. That means that we have no place to house
you, Trainee Potter, and are unlikely to in the future.�

�� He turned
so that he was walking backwards, facing them. �Not that it matters. This
attack, and the failure of the War Wizards to corner and destroy Nihil as
promised, has decided the Minister. The Ministry has shifted to a war footing.
We will put you in movable camps, rotating on unpredictable bases, and from
now, ordinary classes are canceled. You are going to learn speeded-up versions
of what you most need to know. We�ll go back to an ordinary structure once
Nihil is defeated.�

�� If that happens, he didn�t say, but
Harry felt the echo of the words hanging over his head.

�� Draco drew
a deep, satisfied breath. His eyes were bright when Harry looked at him. Of
course, this was the best outcome he could ask for, Harry thought, perhaps even
enough to compensate for the loss of his possessions. He would finally have the
powerful education that he�d always wanted, and be taught the spells that he
wanted to learn, without having to leave the Aurors or Harry behind.

�� How are
you going to keep the camps secret, sir?� Harry asked. �If Nihil can break
through the wards and attack any time he looks��

�� There are
new methods of secrecy,� said Ketchum shortly, and the smile dropped right off
his face. He stopped walking. They were on the far side of the Atrium from the
Floo connections now, near a tunnel Harry had never seen before, a black thing
that disappeared into the earth. Ketchum pointed his wand at both of them.

�� This is
your last chance,� he said. �This time, we are determined to have no traitors,
and no one infected by Nihil. You�ll swear the oath and take the binding that
we ask of you, or you�ll be cast out of the Auror program with a firm Memory
Charm in place.� He gave them both a blinding smile. �You could, of course, be
easily accepted back when the war is over and normal training resumes, no
questions asked.�

*

�� Draco
bristled. Who was anyone to bind him
to secrecy? He knew what the word meant, in a way that Harry didn�t, and no
arrogant Mudblood�

�� Then he let
the thought trail off as he met Ketchum�s eyes. The man was calm, focused,
deadly, in the way that Draco had often demanded the Aurors be but had never
expected to see them be. Yes, they should have moved more strongly long ago,
and taken sterner measures to eliminate the possibility of a traitor in their
midst. Draco couldn�t squawk now because the measures also applied to him.

�� Besides,
what would happen if he protested and Harry accepted? Draco couldn�t be put out
of the program with the memory of their love affair erased from his mind.

�� What is
the nature of this binding?� he asked Ketchum, before Harry could accept
blindly and damn them both.

�� Ketchum
shook his head. �Give you advance warning and you might find a way around it.
We don�t want to give anyone that chance.�

�� Draco
stiffened his arms where they were folded. He didn�t want to give up the
Aurors, he didn�t want to give up Harry, but he also didn�t want to give up his
freedom. This binding might interfere with that.

�� Is there
any way that you can test us for infection or whatever it is that you�re
worried about before you make us take this oath?� Harry asked, giving a quick
glance to Draco that suggested he thought he was clever in giving an
alternative. Draco glared back impassively and tried not to remember the way
that Harry�s skin had felt beneath his hands. It was hard to be as angry as he
needed to be with a lover. �That way, you can explain it to us and we can still
ensure that we won�t betray you.�

�� The method
that Portillo Lopez invented to test for infection is still too complicated for
me to perform,� Ketchum said.

�� Which meant
no, Draco translated. Harry still
looked as if he would have liked to make peace, but that was impossible.
Sometimes, Draco thought, Harry really wasn�t as intelligent as Draco would
have liked him to be.

�� So our
choice is to leap blindly into the future and trust you,� he told Ketchum, �or
to give up everything we�ve tried to attain in the last eighteen months.�

�� You do
have a talent for summary, Trainee Malfoy.� Ketchum smiled in a way that said
he knew why Draco was so reluctant and found it funny.

�� That�s
unjust,� Draco said quietly. If he couldn�t get through to Ketchum with
ordinary words, then perhaps he would do it by appealing to his sense of
morality. �You know that you would have to give us more choice��

�� If there
weren�t a war on.� Ketchum�s eyes glittered. �Yes. But this is a war, and we�ve been attacked and
betrayed too many times. It�s enough.
We�ll keep ourselves safe and exile those who won�t cooperate. We probably
should have done this last year. As I remember, you were one of those who
suggested we should.� He looked pointedly at Draco.

�� Draco ground
his teeth. I didn�t mean those
restrictions to apply to me would probably not be very well-received by an
arrogant Mudblood.

�� Let me go
first,� Harry said suddenly. �That way, Draco can see if it�s humiliating or
painful, and he can refuse if he wants.�

�� Ketchum
gave him a world-weary glance, which Draco thought didn�t sit very well on his
face. The man was too naturally cheerful. �I told you. The whole point of this
is to give you too little time to react or plot a way around it. I can�t let
him have the days it would probably take to make up his mind.�

�� Harry
smiled a little. �So you were planning to cast two bindings at once?�

�� Ketchum
paused, and Harry nodded. �Hermione didn�t tell me a lot about bindings, but
she did say they were complex and powerful. I don�t think you�ll be able to
cast two of them at once, sir. Someone has to go first, assuming we both want
them.� He glanced at Draco and reached out to squeeze his arm. �So let me go
first. Draco should be able to make the decision directly.�

�� Idiot, Draco tried to tell him by
seizing Harry�s hand and clasping down hard enough that the bones ground
together in his wrist. As if I could lose
you, or not go anywhere you go.

�� Harry only
smiled at him while Ketchum nodded in acceptance. �Very well. Step forwards and
repeat the oath as I give it to you.�

�� Harry
showed no discomfort at staring into Ketchum�s eyes, something Draco knew he
would hate. And Harry�s words as he recited the oath were steady. �I swear not
to collaborate with Nihil or any creature or person I know is his or suspect is
his. I swear not to betray the Aurors to any enemy, in deed or word, writing or
spell. I swear not to fight against the Aurors for any reason, unless to defend
my own life or to protect myself or others from a traitor. I swear to come to
any of them if I suspect or fear a betrayal, or if I suspect that I or someone
else is infected with grief magic or Nihil�s taint. �

�� Ketchum�s
wand settled on Harry�s shoulder. A brief, sudden flash lit Harry�s flesh from
beneath, letting Draco see the outlines of his bones and the bright joints that
connected them. Then it faded and Harry looked normal again.

�� Draco�s
skin crawled. Breaking the oath would be impossible with a binding rooted in
the bones. You�d have to break all the bones in your body first before you
could freely betray the Aurors, and by then you�d probably be dead.

�� Harry ran
his hands up and down his arms as if he thought that he should feel more
different than he did, and then stepped past Ketchum, towards the mouth of the
tunnel, and turned to look expectantly at Draco.

�� Idiot, Draco thought again. He had no
intention of joining Nihil, whose presence in the world had helped to cause
both him and his mother grief, but it was still with some resentment that he
stepped up to Ketchum and gave the stupid oath. I can never leave him.

�� The binding
settled into his bones like a second skeleton, or a personal weight attached to
each piece of marrow. Draco shivered with distaste and stood rigidly still
until the sensation faded. Then he leaned against Harry and glared at Ketchum,
wanting the Battlefield Tactics instructor to understand how displeased he was.

�� Ketchum
didn�t seem to notice. He stepped up to the mouth of the tunnel. �This way,� he
said. �The path is protected by wards that only those with the binding on them
can pass through, which is why I had to do it first.�

�� Draco
thought he heard a faint trace of apology in the bastard�s voice, and
determined to ignore it. �Why did they attack the barracks and not the Ministry?�
he asked.

�� Wouldn�t
we all like to know that,� Ketchum said softly, and then led them into the
darkness.��

*

�� Dragons
Breath: The house-elves did prepare more than one room originally, but Draco
changed his mind after that. And I think the sex was of many different kinds.

�� Harry�s
version of necromancy is going to be very important in the next story.

�� thrnbrooke:
Thanks!
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Ceremonies of Strife