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Loup-garou	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 8099 -:- 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 Five—Breaking Natural Laws

            “I didn’t know, mate.”

            Harry gave Ron a tight smile. They’d sat down for dinner together, but Hermione hadn’t joined them. She’d brushed past with a sandwich and a stack of books two feet high in her arms, muttering something about eating in the library.

            Harry took a bite of the fish that Ron had prepared and shook his head. “I wouldn’t have expected you to know that I was a torturer and a murderer. I didn’t come to you with that branded on my forehead, after all.”

            “No, but you came with a brand,” Ron said. “I should have realized that that would change you.” His eyes darted towards Harry’s left arm and away again, although, if Hermione had really told him everything, Harry would have expected him to look at his shoulder instead.

            “I didn’t change because of the Mark,” Harry said. “Because of my desperation to get away from Malfoy, perhaps. But I learned Dark spells and committed the mistakes that saw people dead before that, Ron.”

            His best friend put down his fork slowly. “I’m not hungry,” he said.

            Harry ate a few more bites, mostly to show he could, before he shoved his plate away and stared Ron in the eye. “Tell me what you need to feel comfortable around me again,” he said.

            “I don’t know.” Ron leaned back from him. Harry tried not to read that as a rejection, and waited. Ron curled his fingers into his palms and swallowed. “I never thought you would become a Dark wizard. Did it happen because we weren’t there? Because the Ministry didn’t appreciate your work the way they should have? Why?”

            “Because I wanted enough power to stop Dark wizards,” Harry said, “and to bring justice where I knew the Ministry wouldn’t, either because of corruption or because they didn’t have enough evidence.”

            Ron didn’t look as though he knew whether to be sick or impressed. “You set yourself up as a vigilante,” he said.

            “Except no one knew,” Harry said. “I was careful to keep the knowledge that I was learning Dark magic from the Ministry. Malfoy only knew because I tried to use it to escape from him. If I could have kept it from his notice, then I would have done that, too. It probably would have helped me escape him later,” he added with some regret. Should he have yielded when Malfoy first tried to Mark him, lulled Malfoy into complacency, and then struck, killing the bastard?

            Then he remembered, again, the complex spells that linked the Mark to his mind and soul. He shifted uneasily. He didn’t know if he could actually have killed Malfoy, and it would have been awful to have a less brutal knowledge of how the Mark could control him when he finally went up against the bastard.

            “Dark magic is Dark magic,” Ron argued, but he turned his head away from Harry as though he didn’t believe his own words. “You could have done something differently, found some other way to achieve your goals. Harry—you’re a Dark wizard.”

            Harry ate a few more bites while he thought about that. Then he sighed and said, “Yeah, I reckon I am.”

            Ron snapped his head around and stared at him. “I can remember a time in school when you would rather have died than become one,” he whispered.

            Harry reached a hand across the table, but Ron didn’t reach back to him, which made him feel stupid, so he dropped his hand to his side again. “Yes, but that was school,” he said as gently as he could. “We’ve both changed since then.”

            “I haven’t,” Ron said. “Not that much.”

            “But you’ve changed to the point where you have to admit that it would be hard for us to stay exactly the way we were,” Harry said. He wished he had better words. He wished, for the first and only time in his life, that he had become a politician the way so many people had expected him to after Auror training. He could use the practice in persuasive speeches he was sure he would have received. “I’m a Dark wizard. You’re Hermione’s husband and a fire-fighter. That’s a change.”

            “You say it as though it was just another profession,” Ron said, and then took the deep breath he had used right before confessing to Harry that he was going to ask Hermione to marry him. “That’s what bothers me, mate. Not that you’re a Dark wizard as much as the fact that you aren’t bothered by it.”

            “I’ve had a chance to come to terms with it,” Harry said cautiously. “And the things I did that are most horrible aren’t the Dark spells. Or they aren’t the result of Dark spells like the ones you’re thinking of, at least. I still think murder is evil, even if I had only done it by stringing a Tripwire Jinx across some stairs and making Robards fall down them. I think the Mark had its part in turning me into a monster. I don’t want to be one.”

            “But you’ll accept the title of Dark wizard?” Ron’s fingers writhed as though he was digging them into dirt.

            “Dark wizards are different from monsters,” Harry said, though his voice wavered a bit when Ron stared at him. “So, yes. And right now I have to call myself a monster, even, although I’m hoping to change that. But I can’t change the fact that I know Dark magic, I’ve used it, and I would use it again if someone threatened my life and I felt frightened enough.”

            Ron bent forwards and rested his forehead against the backs of his hands. “We would be there for you,” he whispered. “We would, mate. You could have called on us for help, instead of learning Dark magic.”

            “How often have we communicated in the last few years since you went to Australia?” Harry asked quietly.

            “Um,” Ron said. “A few?”

            Harry nodded. “We grew more and more distant from each other’s daily lives, and Auror work was my daily life. I had to learn spells that would be relevant to me then, not during the times between battles when I could think about Flooing you.”

            “But when you felt yourself slipping into the darkness—” Ron began.

            Silly, and endearing.Harry held up a hand to stop him speaking. Ron did, but then gazed at him with such appealing eyes that Harry sighed.

            “It wasn’t like that,” he said. “I had to make decisions in the heat of battle, and those decisions were sometimes ones that other people would have told me were wrong. But they weren’t there; they didn’t have to make the choices that would keep them alive. I was and I did. What should I have done, let myself die rather than learn or use one single spell that might have saved me?” His voice curdled at the end of that speech, and Ron winced.

            “Chosen some other spell,” Ron said firmly. “That’s part of the problem with Dark magic. It takes you over, addicts you, until you only think of it. I’d bet that you could solve some of your problems with hexes we learned at Hogwarts, mate. You’ve always been clever and creative with spells that way. Not every curse we used during the war was an Unforgivable.”

            “But I did use them then,” Harry said. “What makes my use of them to survive a battle with a Dark wizard so different? That was a war, and so is this.”

            Ron’s face was green this time. “Not the same,” he breathed. “The Death Eaters were fanatics, set on destroying you and people like you. Not all the Dark wizards you fought could have been that way. Some of them probably only wanted to brew or smuggle in peace.”

            Harry threw up his hands. “Now you sound as if you’re defending them, which means you should be defending me if you consider me one of them.” He pushed back from the table, his hunger destroyed by the words. “I did what I did. I’m not proud of it, and I want to keep from ever murdering anyone again. But I’m not going to spend the rest of my life apologizing for my choices. Especially when Malfoy’s after me,” he added, wondering if Ron had managed to forget that. “He’ll make me regret it if I don’t use my entire repertoire of spells and struggle to be free of him. And he’d have no compunction about using Dark magic against me. Some of those curses have no counter that the Ministry recognizes as legal.”

            Ron shifted restlessly in his seat. “I don’t know how you know that,” he muttered. “Or, rather, I can imagine, and none of it makes me particularly anxious to be around you.”

            Harry slammed a hand flat in the middle of the table. Ron leaped and stared at him as if the hand were a wand. With the power thrumming beneath his skin and still leaking up from his core, Harry thought dimly, it might as well be.

            “So this is about me losing my innocence, is it?” he hissed. “You would prefer that I not know certain things and die than know them and save my life?” He shook his head, words brimming over in his mouth, heart right behind them. “Is Hermione tainted because she used Unforgivables during the war? Am I? Would the world be a better place if everyone knew that the incantation for the Cruciatus Curse had once existed but not what it was? I don’t understand, Ron, because that’s what you sound like you mean, but it’s an incredibly stupid thing to sound like you mean.”

            Ron flushed deeply and stood tall to face him. “I still love you, Harry,” he said with quiet force. “I still want to support you, and I want to see you free of Malfoy. I shudder to think what he’ll do to you. But I fear even more what’s going to happen to you as a result of this. Will you never go back to Britain again? It sounds like it, since you murdered Robards. Are you going to try to get help with your addiction to Dark magic? It doesn’t sound like that. Maybe you think this is the only way to stay alive, but it’s not.” He paused, as though staring into a mirror, and then added, “And sooner or later, we all have to ask ourselves whether being alive is better than the alternative.”

            Harry laughed. It wasn’t the reaction he wanted to have, not when Ron’s face went from solemn to offended, but he couldn’t help it. He ended with a choking gasp and wheeze, and shook his head.

            “You’re mad,” he told Ron. “Really and actually mad. I faced that choice yesterday, and I picked death over slavery. It’s not my fault that I returned, but Malfoy’s, and I know so little about the magic he used that I don’t even know whether it was Dark or not. So don’t talk to me about the sacrifices one has to make and how you have to value some things more than your life. I know all about that.”

            Ron turned red, then white. “Yeah, I apologize, mate,” he said. “I reckon you do, at that.”

            “Apology accepted,” Harry said briskly. “Now, tell me. Do you think you’ll be able to help me against Malfoy? Or do you want me to leave?”

            “Are you going to keep using Dark magic?” Ron demanded.

            Harry temporized. “I’ll try not to use it here, unless it’s the only way that I can keep from Malfoy from taking over my body and soul.”

            “The Australian Ministry has even more laws about the use of Dark magic than the British one,” Ron said. “It’s one reason we decided to live here, although Hermione also wanted to be close to her parents. We wanted to feel safe, and Britain wasn’t that way anymore. Do something else like use the Soul-Severing Curse here, and we could get in a lot more trouble that we can’t just flee. Do you understand, Harry? This is our home.”

            Harry nodded. He understood the value of the word, although he’d never had one, unless Hogwarts counted.

            “I won’t let you bring trouble down on us just when we’re finally feeling settled in and safe,” Ron continued, although his voice had softened a little, probably because of Harry’s nod. “If we can help you against Malfoy, say the word. If you’re going to be casting Dark spells, then we’ll want you to leave before the sun sets that day.”

            Harry knew that his best friend would once never have said such things to him, but then, he once never would have expected his best friend to put up with him casting Dark magic. “I still need to decide how to fight him,” he said calmly. “I’ll let you know if you can help. And we might both need to wait and see what Hermione comes up with.”

            After a tense moment, Ron nodded. “She’s saved us more than once,” he muttered, slumping back into his chair as though Harry’s declaration had stolen the tension from his body. “Maybe she can save us again.”

            Harry prudently kept silent about exactly what they might need to be “saved” from, and why. He went upstairs instead, and shut his bedroom door behind him, and stood still as he thought.

            No matter where he went, Malfoy would be able to track him through the Mark. Harry thought the bond between them weaker now that the Mark had changed position, but that didn’t mean it had lost its locative properties. And if he didn’t know exactly where Ron and Hermione’s house was, Harry imagined that he would learn soon.

            So the solution wasn’t to keep evading him, or to stay here forever. Instead, Harry needed to pick a battleground where he could face him and learn it well enough to use it as home ground before Malfoy caught up to him.

            You are thinking of flight, my Harry? That was once so unlike you.

            Harry stiffened as the words sounded in his ear, practically a sigh, a whisper, a caress of breath. He swung around and stared at the walls, but of course they offered him no sign. Ron had said proudly that first night that wards were around the house that would alert them to the use of Dark magic, but they hadn’t sounded when Harry cast the Soul-Severing Curse. Harry doubted they would sound now.

            Reluctantly, he drew back his sleeve until he could see the Mark on his shoulder. Was it larger than before? Harry wasn’t sure. He hated the mere sight of the stylized running fox so much that he didn’t often look at it. Perhaps he should have.

            I was surprised when you ran from me in Britain. I will be more surprised if you run now. You know that we have more to talk about, Harry. Unfinished business that must make you as curious as it does me.

            Harry gritted his teeth in loathing and responded, hoping that the curled-tongue emotion traveled along with his words. The only thing I’m curious about is how far you’ll pursue me before you give up.

            Oh. Well, you need not wonder. A laugh like a wind in grass touched his ears, or his mind, or whatever part of him was actually hearing this. Harry didn’t know, and that just made his teeth grind all the harder. I will never stop pursuing you. I have your measure now. More stubborn than I dreamed, stronger than I knew, more wonderful than I can stand. I want you, Harry.

            Yes, you’ve made that clear before. Harry paced back and forth through the center of the room, muscles so tense that they hurt. He wondered why he wasn’t simply cutting off contact with Malfoy, but hated to admit it was mostly because he didn’t know how.

            And perhaps he was curious. With the emotion buried somewhere beneath the hatred that Malfoy had more than earned.

            Not like this. Malfoy’s voice changed, dipping and dropping the layer of humor that had covered it before. Oh, Harry. I took half your words as lies and the other half as exaggerations. I thought I knew you better than you knew yourself. Of course, with someone as consumed by guilt as easily as you are, while still practicing Dark magic and not feeling guilty about that, it was relatively easy to see you had no self-knowledge, he added.

            Harry ripped his head to the side, imagining that the words were like reins Malfoy was trying to fling around his head. If Malfoy still thought Harry could be harnessed and driven, he didn’t know him at all, extraordinary claims to the contrary. Get to the point.

            I am. Malfoy sent a bolt of pleasure through the Mark. Harry had hoped that the changing of the Mark’s position might weaken that as it seemed to have weakened or changed their magical connection, but instead, the pleasure seemed to spread more evenly over his body this time, so that Harry staggered and nearly fell on the bed. He gritted his teeth against a sob this time, mostly of frustration at how good the bastard could make him feel. Theway I want you has changed. Now I know that you meant it when you said you wanted to be free.

            Harry’s eyes snapped open, and he stared at the far wall, trying to reason his way through the complicated tangle of Malfoy’s mind, and not getting anywhere. So let me go.

            How can I resist someone who wants so badly to be free, but who I might stand a chance of taming? Malfoy responded instantly. If I have you, willingly submitting to me, then I have something no one else in the world has. And I want you for deeper versions of the same reasons as before. Would you leave your wand lying on the ground after a battle and walk away from it? You have become as necessary to me as that.

            Harry shook his head. You might imagine that, Malfoy, but you have to be wrong.

            Why? From the sound of things, Malfoy might be settling in for a long chat. Harry gritted his teeth and glanced at the door to his rooms, wondering if the wards would have a delayed reaction and Hermione or Ron would come storming in at any moment. I discovered something yesterday that ought to mean something even to you, who seem to care so little about power except as it can serve you. I discovered that we had created new magic when we exchanged our power—

            Yeah, that’s one word for it, Harry interrupted bitterly. He still hated the fact that his grand gesture, the choice he had made to die, had been thwarted by Malfoy.

            And now we both have more power than we had before, Malfoy finished, with an edge in his tone that said he had at least heard Harry’s words, though he might have decided to ignore them. Itwon’t fade or go back to normal. This is the new level of magic that’s in your core, Harry, and I’m at least as strong.

            The impact of what Malfoy was saying sank home at last, and Harry flinched. You’re mad, he thought.

            Why? Malfoy laughed softly into his ear. It would be a stupid lie to tell you unless I was certain it was correct. But that is one reason I don’t want to let you go. Who knows what else we can do, acting in concert?

            Harry shook his head. It wasn’t—there was no way that what Malfoy was saying was true. He was weak in Potions theory, although his Auror trainers had done their best to correct that weakness, but he knew the basic theories of magic as well as anyone. No creation, no destruction. Magic transformed all the time, but it didn’t fade away—only its effects did—and it didn’t come into being.

            Malfoy waited, seeming to give Harry time to deal with the incredible revelation. Except that it wasn’t a revelation, Harry thought, irritated beyond measure that he had given Malfoy a handle with which to manipulate him, because it was a lie.

            Again, why would I lie? Malfoy asked him. I have plenty of other reasons to want to keep you, and I could simply have recited them. But this is something new, something that we must meet and discuss. His voice thickened with lust, but Harry didn’t think it was physical, more lust over possibilities, the way that Harry had sometimes felt when he was observing new Dark spells in play from a wizard he’d chased. We need to talk about this.

            Harry licked his lips. If there was the smallest chance that what Malfoy was saying was true, then yes, they did. But he needed to be the one to set the terms.

            I can let you have that, Malfoy said to him, his voice suddenly grave and thoughtful. Harry knew better than to believe that, though. Malfoy would do whatever was most necessary to snare him.

            Well, yes, Malfoy added then, as if he was a little insulted that it had taken Harry so long to realize that.

            Harry took longer than he needed to to make the decision, staring thoughtfully out the window and waiting until the hiss of imaginary breath in his ear sounded impatient. Then he jerked his head down as if he was nodding and said, Yes, I would like to meet you in a place that I’ll pick out. I’ll send the Apparition coordinates to you through this means of talking as soon as I’ve chosen it.

            Because he had no idea yet, Malfoy could ransack his head all he liked and not find the coordinates, as he must have known. Malfoy growled at him and said, Asyou will. If you delay too long, I will speak to you again.

            I’m trembling, Harry said, before he felt Malfoy withdraw from his head. He opened his eyes and stared at the Mark on his shoulder again. It wasn’t blazing, or tingling; the words they’d exchanged seemed to have no effect at all on it.

            Well.

            Harry sucked thoughtfully at his lip and replayed the conversation in his memory. This was—intriguing. Malfoy had been his arrogant self during the conversation, but perhaps a touch less arrogant than he usually was. Harry might have actually been able to live with someone who sounded and reacted like this.

            Not that I should. He smiled then, and he had the impression that Malfoy would have recoiled before his grin if he could have seen it. If I have the choice of the ground and do enough research before we meet, then I should be able to find a way to fight him off once and for all.

            If he was telling the truth. If this wasn’t another stupid lie. Though, as he had said, Harry couldn’t see the reason for it, if it was; Harry already knew that Malfoy wanted him and would go out of his way to capture him.

            If.

*

            Draco leaned back in his chair and sighed, touching his left arm with a hand that shook. Sweat coated his forehead, and he felt nearly as tired as he had immediately after the battle with Harry.

            He had concentrated as hard as he could during the exchange to avoid expressing emotions that would alienate Harry. He had bitten back response after response, remark after remark, joke after joke. He had used the plain truth as much as possible.

            His lips and tongue bore the marks of his teeth, but it had worked. Harry was giving him a chance.

            And, for now, that was all he wanted.

            He was content to sit there for a time, alone with his thoughts. Satiety was a novel experience.

*

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