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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-Six—The Surrender

            “It’s ready.”

            George had expected Harry’s eyes to light up more when he heard that, but instead, he simply smiled and nodded. As if he always knew that they’d finish it in time, George thought, and wondered whether he should shake Harry’s hand for the confidence or punch him.

            Why not do both? Fred whispered in the back of his head. This might be the last time you’ll see him long enough to do either.

            George ignored that, because lately Fred’s suggestions had more and more bitterness behind them. He watched instead as Harry reached out and laid a hand on the nearest metal ring, the one that sprang from the platform and leaned left. A sharp tang of magic sprang up around him, but it made George squint; he couldn’t see it as clearly as he could every time before, when Harry glowed. This was like the stag’s light, clear and shadowless and quick, but gone before George could be sure if it was identical.

            “That one works,” Harry said, his voice jolting in the silence, and then he moved on to the central loop and laid his hand there.

            Something seemed to shudder and scream. George had actually leaped and turned around with his wand out before he realized it was coming from in front of him. The sound was deafening and ignored the ordinary laws of echoes, coming equally well from in front and in back.

            “I thought so.”

            George shook his head. “What’s that mean?” He was trying to imagine the creature of the future that could scream like that, and whether Harry would want to face it. He couldn’t imagine. His body was still one locked, streaming, rippling shudder, trying to get over the instinctive fear and revulsion he’d felt.

            “It’s the sound my magic is going to make,” Harry said, and his voice was light and so were his eyes, so gentle and so dark that George shuddered. “But that can’t be helped, I’m afraid.”

            He moved on to the third loop, and George tried to brace himself while knowing that he couldn’t have braced himself for the light or the scream before he saw or heard them. But Harry studied the third loop for so long that George couldn’t help himself, even though he’d meant to stay silent. “What is it?” he demanded. “Is something out of place?”

            “No,” Harry said. “But I’m almost afraid to see what this manifestation is going to be.” Before George, blinking, could understand or accept what he’d said, Harry’s hand made contact with the metal.

            This time, what came was a scent. And George thought when he first smelled it that it was putrid, but he realized, a moment later, that it wasn’t. It was simply strong, strong enough to make him back up and put one cautious hand to his nose. Harry stood next to the loop, and stared up at it with wide eyes, and went on stroking the metal with one steady hand.

            “It’s marvelous, George,” he said. “You’ve outdone yourselves.” And he gave a smile that showed them, even if the word hadn’t done so, that he hadn’t forgotten Fred.

            George found himself standing tall, nodding. He had built the machine without knowing what it did. He had made it perfect enough that Harry, who seemed mostly involved in his own drama these days, would compliment him.

            He complimented us, you berk.

            And of course, since Harry hadn’t forgotten Fred, it meant George had to do so, even if it was only for a second. He found himself rolling his eyes and smiling. Then he reached out and clapped his hand on Harry’s shoulder. Harry stared at him as though he didn’t know what was coming next, a smile or a punch.

            “You did the right thing,” Harry said quietly. “You know that, don’t you? This way, we have a chance of survival.”

            “But not as a free revolution,” George said. “We know you’ve given that idea up. We know you can’t lead us to victory, and if someone thinks you’re still trying to resist Clearwater, he’s an idiot.”

            Harry went still and stared at him. Then he smiled, and this expression seemed to tremble up from within his body and overrun his face like a small pool flooding. “Yeah.”

            George sighed and dropped his hand. “So what are you going to do? Are you sure that you can’t tell us? You ought to know only Malfoy is more loyal to you. And I don’t even know if Ron is, not as much.” He had sometimes seen their little brother watching Harry with an expression in his eyes that made both of them uneasy, though Fred more. “Can’t you tell us?”

            “It’s an issue of who might overhear,” Harry said, and his smile this time was gentle in a way that George hadn’t seen in a long time, although Fred claimed to remember it. “I don’t know how to ward a conversation so that it escapes the notice of a paranoid prophecy, do you?”

            George had to shake his head.

            “Exactly.” Harry took a sharp breath and tilted his head forwards. His hair fell around his face. George hadn’t realized he kept it so long, and silently wondered when the last time was that he’d cut it, a question Fred couldn’t answer either. “Well.” Harry turned and gestured, and the fire writhed out of him and picked up the machine, cradling it on a glowing river of what looked like airy magma, turning over and over again like wheels. “I’ll take this with me and hide it. Make sure you’re there at the surrender, though. I might still need your help.”

            “We wouldn’t miss it for the world, mate,” George said, and although Fred murmured a caution in the back of his head, he knew it was equally true for the both of them.

            Harry smiled at him in gratitude and closed the door behind him and the machine.

*

            The surrender had everyone there.

            Hermione stood at Ron’s side and tried not to flinch as she felt the gazes cross her, wondering and damning and too curious for her to feel comfortable. She knew that just about everyone in the revolution had to know that she’d fled to join them now, she had asked too many questions and been involved in too many disputes for it to be otherwise, but she still felt exposed in front of everyone.

            Which was ridiculous. Hermione tried to ignore it by lifting her head and studying the scene in front of her.

            They had agreed to meet on a hill near Hogsmeade, surrounded by wards that meant no Muggles would accidentally stumble on them. The hill dipped down on both sides to form a shallow depression in the ground, and Hermione was vaguely glad it hadn’t rained last night, or both the Ministry delegation and the revolutionary delegation would have been standing in enormous puddles. The whole of those who still followed Harry were there, while most of the people with Minister Clearwater seemed like high-ranking Ministry officials, and there weren’t many of those. Hermione did see a big figure in dark robes by Clearwater’s side, and found herself grinning before she thought about it. That would be Smithson. Too bad that Clearwater would never know what happened when he turned on her.

            If he did.

            Hermione bit her lip, hard, and told herself to stop thinking about things like that. There was plenty else to watch and listen, if she wanted something to take her mind off everything that could possibly go wrong.

            Everyone, it seemed, had brought flags and banners, probably more for the way they looked than because anyone thought they would seriously become lost in the campgrounds, or stay here for long. The Minister’s people had huge tents, of the kind that Hermione had only seen before at the Quidditch World Cup, and their colors were green and red and blue. The revolutionaries had drab banners with various messages on them in white and black and brown. Mostly white. The color of surrender was everywhere today.

            Except by Harry.

            Hermione had been trying to avoid looking in that direction, because it made her anxious when she did, but now her gaze caught there and she couldn’t turn away. By mutual agreement, everyone was supposed to stay off the hill until the moment when Minister Clearwater and a few carefully-chosen people came in to meet with Veronica Dover and Ron. That would be the moment when everyone shook hands and pretended to believe—well, Dover probably did believe it—that everything would go back to normal.

            But Harry was on the hill, of course, because since when had Harry listened to the will of the people who followed him?

            He had one hand raised in front of his face, shading his eyes as he squinted at something. Hermione followed the line of his gaze, but wasn’t sure what he would be looking at. Maybe the congregation of reporters on the Minister’s side, behind her people, whose cameras flashed so constantly it made them look like a field of sunflowers bending in the wind.

            There was a small cloud of fire beside him, roiling and churning as though someone had put it on a kettle to boil. Hermione reckoned he was keeping it there just in case the Minister tried to assassinate him before the surrender had even begun.

            That was the strange part, to her. Did no one else think it odd that Harry had come along but kept a weapon beside him? They seemed to think that he would bow down and surrender to the Minister the minute she walked up to him, but they also talked about how dangerous he was and how they weren’t sure that they trusted themselves near him. Hermione had to shake her head over the contradictions.

            “Are you all right, love?”

            Ron was speaking into her ear; it wasn’t the sort of thing he said aloud, or at least not often. Hermione smiled up at him and patted his arm. “Yes,” she said. “But keep an eye out. I haven’t seen Desang yet, but she might have survived.” I hope she did. Hermione wasn’t keen on thinking of herself as a murderer, no matter how urgent it might have been for her to escape.

            Ron immediately leaned forwards, one hand hovering over his wand, though that probably wouldn’t be evident to people who were watching them from a distance. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t realize there was a chance of that. I wish you’d told me earlier.”

            Hermione rolled her eyes and shoved his elbow with hers, hard. Ron stumbled and then turned to gape at her. Hermione caught his eyes and held them. They hadn’t had many serious conversations in the few days since she came back. They were too busy apologizing and making love and explaining things.

            Hermione wouldn’t have had it any other way. But it did mean that moments like this were rather awkward.

            “You’re welcome to protect me,” Hermione told him. “But not if you do it stupidly. Charging into the middle of the surrender because you see her, for example, would be stupid. And she’s likely to be there, since the Minister seemed close to her in the few days before I left. Promise me, Ron. Keep me safe, but keep yourself safe, too. I didn’t come this far just to lose you again.” Her fingers clamped down on his wrist where no one else would see, and she looked into his eyes.

            So many memories of those eyes. Bright with passion during their wedding, and panic during their wedding night. Desperate the day that he had chosen to follow Harry and she had chosen to stay as a spy in the Ministry. And more brilliant than anything on the day she had come back to him. She was going to remember that forever.

            Hermione just wanted the chance to remember him that way forever, rather than blown to pieces by the over-anxious Aurors around the Minister.

            Ron studied her for a few moments, brow wrinkled as though he was trying to understand why she wanted this so badly. Hermione opened her mouth to explain again, and then he sighed and leaned forwards, kissing her.

            Hermione closed her eyes. She tried to let the kiss melt the world around her, the world that could be merciless and would be, unless she steeled herself to face it. She knew the end was coming, although she didn’t know precisely what it would be.

            Even knowing her allies’ plans didn’t help, because she had no idea what Clearwater had planned or what Harry would do to disrupt it.

            But she could be strong. She only needed a chance to show it.

*

            Draco watched Harry from the back, and wondered. He especially wondered about the shifting cloud of fire right next to him, the one Harry had created to keep the machine he’d commissioned from the Weasley twins hidden.

            But he didn’t move towards him. He didn’t ask all the questions that burned in his throat, such as the ones about his parents. Harry had promised to protect his parents, to get them to safety somehow. He hadn’t said how, and he had left them behind in the manor, when Draco had half-expected an early morning summons to go to their rooms and pull them out. Didn’t they have to be here, if Harry was going to save them?

            Then he felt the press of warm magic against his shoulders and back—something that it seemed most other people couldn’t feel, although he didn’t know why—and shivered.

            No. Harry could do anything he wanted, from any distance. Draco was coming to believe that, and to accept what it meant that he loved someone so powerful.

            Most of the other revolutionaries didn’t want to be with him, but the Weasleys had come with Harry, and they afforded him a space. George, the mad one, even gave him supportive glances from time to time, and clapped him on the back. Draco shook his head dazedly when he thought about that.

            He couldn’t have anticipated rescuing his parents from Azkaban when the Ministry offered this to him. He couldn’t have anticipated falling in love with Harry or changing his mind about what he would do and what he was doing in the revolution. But he still thought the strangest thing out of all the many that had happened was falling into the kind of friendship that he had with the Weasleys.

            “It won’t be long now.”

            Draco jumped at the whisper, and glanced instinctively to the left. But best-friend-Weasley and his Granger stood there, their arms around each other, and looked—well, occupied. No, it came from the mad one, and his eyes were fixed on Harry with a satisfied smile that made Draco swallow.

            “What do you mean?” he whispered. “I thought the surrender wasn’t scheduled to begin for another hour.”

            “Oh, that one,” Weasley said, as if Draco had reminded him of an unpleasant medical procedure he had to go through. “No, that one isn’t. But I’m talking about the important one.”

            And his gaze went back to Harry as if it had never been away.

            Draco swallowed against the tightness in his throat. At least someone knows what’s supposed to be going on. Because I don’t.

            He remembered the threefold plan that Harry had explained, or hinted about, to him: safety, illusion, freedom. Or something like that. The terms whirled in his head, and his breath came short as though he was in battle, as though he was in Azkaban again, instead of standing in the sunlight on short grass, with the Minister advancing in a stately fashion towards the hill. Behind her came the Auror guards, and Draco noticed the way Granger drew her shoulders back and the way the best-friend Weasley put an arm around her. They feared the Minister.

            Draco’s gaze went back to Harry, and he shook his head. “What do you think is going to happen?” he asked the mad Weasley.

            “Chaos,” Weasley said, and his happy smile didn’t do much for Draco’s confidence.

            Clearly. Draco stepped back and shut his eyes, trying to remember the way he had felt just before Harry burst through the door of the storage cupboard where Pedlar was keeping him. Confident, braced, calm. He had known Harry would find him no matter where he was, and keep him safe no matter what happened. That—had to be enough. It had to be important that he had a lover with such strong magic, and someone vowed to him.

            Draco’s breathing evened out as he thought about it, and when he opened his eyes, it was to find Weasley staring at him as if he thought to draw strength at Draco’s side. Draco looked up at Harry, and sent a silent message to him.

            Surprise all of them. End all of this, and never hesitate. I believe in you.

*

            It was all a dance.

            Harry had never been good at dancing. Hermione, and Ginny, and Mrs. Weasley, had told him it was because he didn’t listen to the music. Harry had responded irritably that he wasn’t tone-deaf, and they had looked at him with pity in their eyes and then whirled away, making the graceful steps and turns he couldn’t imitate.

            But he knew what they meant, now. There was a difference between hearing and listening, and he had only done the first when it was something as stupid and uninteresting to him as the dance at a Yule Ball. But this was—

            This was otherwise. This was different.

            The dance was the music all around him, the forces that came together here, now, in this moment, and guided them against each other. He was only vaguely surprised that no one else heard it. Or did they hear and discount it? That was natural enough, Harry reckoned. He was sometimes surprised at what other people chose to consider important. Maybe they thought that this wasn’t important for them.

            But it was important if they wanted to force him to come quietly, which Harry knew was part of their purpose here today.

            Well. Too bad for them.

            He smiled at Clearwater, and saw the way she stepped back, one hand reaching out as if she would catch the blow coming from his direction and turn it. Harry smiled at her and turned his head, eyes seeking out the Aurors on the field, and the Ministry officials, and the reporters. Cameras flashed at him, and he called up a warm little wind that blew his hair back from his scar and made sure that some of them would get good pictures.

            He might as well. It was the only thing he intended to do for them today.

            He leaped lightly down beside the cloud of fire that concealed the machine, and touched it. The cloud puffed and blew away, but since there was a glamour of a table covered with documents woven over it now, it still didn’t reveal the exact nature of what he was doing. He did hear a stir and murmur of interest from the people who thought they had come here to witness him bound in chains, though.

            Yes. It’s time.

            Harry lifted his head and turned it slowly back and forth. He could feel the lightning stag’s attention bearing down on him, all the more present for being unmarked right now, and bowed his head in its direction, whichever direction that was, before he tapped the right side of the machine.

            The far loop.

            It began to glow, and once again he smelled the sweet smell. Harry smiled, and stepped back. He touched the left loop. Again, it glowed, and this time he saw the brilliant light.

            And the one in the middle…

            Harry fastened his gaze on it, and began to call up his magic. It was like drawing all the air he could command into his lungs. Faster and faster, more and more, and he was diving deep and expanding and rearing up all at the same time. His vision flashed with small black spots. His body burned.

            Not that he had anything to fear from burning, not when his magic was fire.

            The stag shone into being above him, pawing gently at the air and turning its antlers back and forth as if to defy anyone to take him from it. Harry smiled grimly at it, inclined his head, and then brought a clasped hand down and out. The central loop rang as his magic poured into it.

            As his magic divided into three, and the triple loops glowed with a threefold division. Harry went on pouring his magic, dividing and directing the power. This was why he had needed the machine: not to pull out the magic, but to hold it once he had it. And to beam it into the air when he was ready.

            The stag was pawing and dancing, now trying to look under the glamour. It knew there was one, but not what it meant. The people staring from a distance, or walking towards him across the grass, would see him shuffling among the documents on the table, and signing some. No one would know the truth until he was ready to show it to them.

            Though it was hard, especially when pushing against the compelling pressure of the fire that was coming out of him, Harry managed to turn his head and see Draco hurrying towards him. George was behind him, but George’s mouth was wide like a lion’s and his eyes so bright that they probably ached. George knew what was going on, or enough that the actual achievement of the surrender wouldn’t make a difference.

            But Draco…

            Harry wished he could have told him. And if he had been sure that the lightning stag wasn’t listening to him at any point, then he would have. But it was always listening, and this was meant to fool it.

            To fool everyone, except the people who would know better when they were more intimately concerned.

            Harry wrapped his hands around each other. The magic was pulling at his skin and the bones beneath it now, turning them transparent, turning them liquid, turning them into light. The magic was coming from him, and it hurt. Harry bowed his head, and watched the sweat sliding down his face turn into steam.

            He spun.

            The loop on the left, the one that shone like the stag, went off in a fountain of fire. It spread out over the grass and the hill, carrying safety of its own, carrying the light to dazzle. Deception. Glamour.

            Illusion.

            The loop in the middle lifted itself and spread silent wings, wings that dragged on the ground and spread out under everyone’s eyes. Not important enough to be noticed, and yet the most important step of all, it would achieve what Harry had originally wanted for the revolution, and do so in a way that couldn’t hurt anyone.

            He hoped.

            The loop on the right leaped up and joined the dance, spreading out a sheet of white fire that aimed straight for Draco, shining like a haven. Sanctuary. Solace.

            Safety.

            And in the middle, the force that couldn’t do anything until he made it happen…

            Harry laughed, and he didn’t care what they heard.

            He stepped forwards, into the fire, and surrendered.

*

            AlterEquis: Well, you will find out who the traitor is in the next chapter, so that’s the good thing!

            SP777: Well, you should see pretty soon what it means!

            This is going to end on Chapter 50.
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Intoxicate the Sun