Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Marathon	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 52456 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Chapter Fifty-Two—Spiders’ Web
            Harry maintained his calm façade more easily than he had thought he would as the Spider urged him towards the door with the wand under his ribs. Well, after all, he had been in more than one hard situation as an Auror, and he had emerged alive. He was more worried about the innocents around him.
            Well, and the amount of scolding Draco was going to do when Harry emerged from this alive, and had to go back home and tell Draco the truth. Harry had every intention of doing both.
            He eyed the Spider imitating Ron sideways. He was darting his eyes around—and that was an experience Harry could have lived without, to see his best friend’s eyes so panicked and searching—and cold sweat had already broken out on his forehead. In some places, like the middle of the Auror Department at the Ministry and the Burrow, that would have given him away in an instant.
            But unfortunately, everyone here was too busy staring into their drinks and being an unknowing innocent victim to help Harry. Harry would just have to play it by ear, and hope that he could do something once they were outside.
            The disguised Spider brought his lips up to Harry’s ear, as though he had heard the thoughts racing through Harry’s head. Harry curled his lip. He hoped that the Spider hadn’t literally heard them. The last thing he needed to deal with was a Legilimens.
            “If you try something,” the Spider whispered, “I can make you look like the villain who ended these innocents’ lives.”
            As threats went, it was effective, but only for reasons that he didn’t understand. Harry didn’t give a shit about his reputation. He would have thought the Spiders would know that, with the way that he had been talking to the reporters and exposing himself as one of the Aurors who had done questionable things in the past.
            They don’t really understand me, just like they don’t understand Ron. They think they can control me.
            And that led to another thought that Harry hadn’t been sure of until he heard the restless, nervous tone in the Spider’s voice. They want me alive.
            Maybe to torture for information, maybe to view whatever “miracles” they thought that convincing him of their genius could bring to the attention of the Ministry, maybe to kill in revenge. But Harry had never been all that interested in the motives of the Dark wizards who tried to use him as a target—far less interested in listening to them explain those motives than they were in explaining them to him, usually. It just meant that he had a little more play in the situation, that he could afford to act on the knowledge.
            He waited until they got outside the pub. It took longer than it should have, even with one of them under Polyjuice and desperate not to betray that he was, because the Spider kept muttering comments about how Harry was drunk and that was why he had to stand so close to him, and how he got drunk like this every time they were here, and what a lightweight he was. Harry wanted to roll his eyes. They had no audience. Everyone was still drowning their sorrows.
            Nervous. He’s not used to this kind of thing. Maybe he usually kills people instead of takes them prisoner.
            All of it added up to one conclusion: nervous man who wanted to keep Harry alive, was temporarily separated from his allies, and was equally fumble-fingered about playing up his disguise for the benefit of people who didn’t care anyway. And someone who didn’t understand Harry himself.
            Harry struck the minute they stepped out into the alley behind the pub.
            He had his hand near his own wand, anyway: dangling down near his side, the opposite side from the one where the Spider had planted the wand he was using to keep Harry complacent. It was sheer carelessness, for the Spider not to have noticed that he hadn’t Disarmed Harry. On the other hand, Harry didn’t think that any of these idiots had any experience in taking prisoners. They probably killed most of the people they took in experiments.
            Harry whirled to the side, gasping as if he had been caught by something, or was in pain. The Spider hesitated, and because he did that, it was all the distraction that Harry needed.
            His leg was already in motion as he spun around, kicking the Spider’s kneecap out and making him stagger. Harry landed from the spin and tucked himself close to the side of the pub as spells came down from the roof.
            Two Spiders in grey cloaks leaped down in front of him, and behind him, Harry could hear the click and rustle of multiple legs as the literal spiders came for him. Harry swept his wand up and bellowed, as loudly as he could, “EXPECTO PATRONUM!”
            The silver stag bounded out of his wand and straight at the Spiders, who scattered before they remembered that the stag couldn’t literally hurt them. Harry shouted, “Go to Draco! Tell him I’m in trouble! Apparition coordinates the sign of the Blacksmith’s Arms!” and whirled around to deal with the literal spiders, one of whom was leaping for his back.
            It smashed rather noisily and messily into the stone wall that Harry raised between them, with a nonverbal spell, and the other arachnid had to pause a moment to climb it. Harry put his back to the wall as the Spiders in front of him started pressing forwards, no longer scared because the Patronus was gone, and murmured a Confundus Charm. The Spiders stared at their wands, then at each other.
            Now to deal with the spider that was crouched on the stone wall above him. Harry raised his wand and gestured sharply in the Blasting Curse, and it hit home with a force that exploded one of the spider’s legs. It was large and grey, and not completely destroyed, but it scuttled desperately down the other side of the wall when Harry aimed his wand at it again.
            And it was all going so well, until the Spiders on the roof decided to join in.
            Harry hissed as one curse cut him on the shoulder, not badly but enough that blood would flow and the pain would be distracting. He hurled himself forwards, then yelped as he landed on the shoulder against the wall. He bounced off and raised a shield above his head, which deflected the hexes and jinxes for a bit, long enough for him to toss his head up and look at the roof of the pub.
            There were at least eight men and women up there, all dressed in the same robes as the two in the alley with him. At least these two, who seemed to have received a Finite from the ones on the roof, were approaching more cautiously, probably realizing now how badly Harry could hurt them when they found themselves at close quarters with him.
            Harry grimaced. In cases where he was near the empty houses and abandoned buildings that Dark wizards tended to favor for their lairs—because that meant fewer people were likely to report on their activities—he would have collapsed the roof and let the Spiders deal with their own landing. But there were still innocent people in there.
            Harry dropped to his knees instead, bringing the shields with him and deflecting some more curses. The two Spiders in front of him had got up the confidence to aim at his knees and feet, but they jumped when he knelt down, and still more when Harry hissed, “Bolus!”
            The net rose up out of the stones at the Spiders’ feet, closing around them and hauling them down. It couldn’t literally pull them into the cobblestones, but it kept trying, and that was enough to keep them occupied for a few moments.
            Harry used the few moments to turn around and begin climbing the wall. The Spiders on the roof laughed, and one of them threw something. Harry saw it only out of the corner of his eye.
            He dropped back to the street, hands protectively over his head, and the silver, round thing—which had little black things sticking out of it, maybe fins that helped it swim through the air—hit the wall instead. There was a complicated noise that had a bit of a sizzle to it, and then the steam cleared. The silvery thing was gone.
            So was the portion of the wall it had landed on, cut clean off.
            Harry didn’t have much time to wonder about it. A swam of real spiders came over the wall, not including the one he had injured, but more of the big white and grey ones, with clicking mandibles. One of them reared up and spat something that might have been venom, but when Harry jumped aside, it sizzled at his feet, too, sticking to the cobblestones like acid.
            Shit. He needed to get out of here, and as soon as possible.
            But then he saw one of the Spiders climbing down from the roof and aiming his wand at the windows of the pub. No. He couldn’t just desert the fight when there were innocent people in the pub who would be hurt if he did.
            Harry howled with frustration, raised another Shield Charm to deal with some of the webs and other nasty things the beasts were flinging at him, and then aimed his wand at the Spider who was leaning towards the window. “Expelliarmus!” he bellowed.
            His anger made his magic more potent than he knew. The wands of what looked like every Spider on the roof came flying towards him. Harry had to dodge them, and then step on as many as he could, smashing them like insects. He heard cries of anger and pain, and reckoned that they were less dangerous without their wands.
            Or that was what he did think, until the next invention fell towards him like a drifting net of silk.
            Harry ran away from it, but the wind whirled it, and one strand of the net caught him on the cheek. Harry yowled as his skin parted around it, so neatly that he barely felt the pain at first, barely knew it was there, except he saw the web out of the corner of his eye and felt the blood inching down his jaw. He flung himself away from it, conjuring a wind as he went to blow it against the far wall instead.
            It clung to the wall of the pub, branding a black mark into the stones. Harry shook his head.
            Something grabbed his foot. One of the spiders had worked its way through his maze of shields and was hauling at him with its jaws, while others clicked forwards to wrap their legs around his legs.
            Harry waved his wand, hard, and Transfigured some of the spiders into glass ones. One fell over sideways and smashed. Harry easily kicked the one clinging to him off, so it broke, too, and backed up towards one of the alley walls. The Spider on the roof who had tried to use their wand on the window before was bending down with another of the silvery spheres in hand.
            Harry opened his mouth, not sure what spell was going to come out next, whether it would be Dark Arts or otherwise inadvisable. He was just so tired of dealing with this shit.
            The air shimmered, and something dark and twisting opened next to Harry. He stared at it. Then he began to raise shields against it, and aim a shield at the window into the pub. What else could he do?
            The dark, twisting thing swept towards the spiders, and began to scoop them up. As Harry stared with an open mouth, and the human Spiders on the roof made disbelieving noises, it began to eat them, crunching them like someone would crunch frogs’ legs, ignoring their squirming and attempts to bite it.
            Harry swung around while the Spiders on the roof were still staring and began to cast as many Stunners as he could, as fast as he could, while his heart bounded and sang. He had to bite his lips again and again to keep from breaking out in joyous laughter.
            Draco was here.
            He Stunned five of the eight before they could recover from their surprise. Then one flung another of the silver spheres at him. Harry caught it with a simple Reflecting Charm that he ought to have thought of before, and sent it back at them.
            One of the women opened her mouth for a scream; the sphere slammed into her, and made her vanish. The other two Spiders seemed to be trying to Apparate, but it wasn’t a huge success without their wands. Harry Stunned them, too, and turned around to deal with the ones who had been struggling with the net he’d conjured.
            Both were unconscious. Harry ran towards them and bent down to see. It seemed that the net had slammed them so many times into the stones as it tried to drag them into the street itself that they had huge bloody lumps on the back of their skulls. Harry stepped back and shook his head with a deep breath.
            “And this is the welcome I get.”
            Harry jumped again, and turned around. Draco stood at the entrance to the alley, one hand on his wand, one clutching a gigantic silver ring with a huge black stone on it. Harry winced. He could feel the Dark magic that buzzed from the stone without even trying. Well, at least now he knew what had conjured that dark whirlwind—which appeared to have faded away without leaving a trace.
            “I would slap you,” Draco said, in a considering tone of voice, “right after I kissed you. But the blood all over your face rather puts paid to both those ideas.”
            He slipped the ring into a coat pocket and stepped briskly up to Harry, turning his head back and forth so that he could see the cut on his jaw. Harry winced, and submitted. It hurt like he was getting the cut all over again, but he’d been lucky to escape with nothing more than this and the wound on his shoulder.
            “I don’t think it’s going to scar,” Draco said. His voice still sounded as though he was deeply considering a problem that Harry had laid before him. In a way, he was, Harry thought. “But you might want to put some salve on that as soon as possible. And as for the one on your shoulder—” He aimed his wand at it briskly. “Episkey.”
            It hurt when it closed, too, but Harry had expected that. It took a professional Healer not to make a wound hurt when it was stitching itself up. He smiled at Draco instead. “Where did you get the ring from?”
            Draco’s eyes sparked, and his hand tightened on Harry’s face until Harry winced. “Home first,” Draco said. “Salve second. Explanations, and satisfying your prying Auror instincts, third.”
            “But I can’t just leave the Spiders here,” Harry protested, turning around and staring at the people he’d Stunned. The last thing he wanted was for them to escape and start some other insane campaign to capture or kill him.
            Draco snorted and jerked his head at the pub. “When I Apparated here, the first thing I noticed was the door hanging open. The people inside have fled, and they’ve probably informed the Aurors already. Add extra spells if you want to make sure that they stay unconscious until the Aurors get here. And I’m sure you’ll receive an owl telling you that you have to attend yet another interrogation session. Because they’ll know it was you.” His hand tightened again, and Harry winced. “Home, Harry.”
            “So you can say I told you so?” Harry muttered under his breath as Draco herded him, not always gently, out of the alley.
            “Home so that you can get the salve on that cut, and be tended by someone who has your best interests at heart,” Draco said. His hand didn’t tighten again, but then, Harry wasn’t sure that was physically possible. “Home so you can rest. Home so we can contact Weasley and figure out how they managed to wrench this location from him.”
            Harry opened his mouth, alarmed. He hadn’t thought that Ron might be in danger because of the Spider showing up Polyjuiced into him. He should have, and the instant that he got home, he would—
            “I sincerely doubt that the answer to that question matters right now,” Draco said. “Or I wouldn’t have suggested you resting first.”
            “Can you firecall Ron while I’m sleeping and make sure that he’s all right?” Harry demanded. Then he modified his tone when he saw the freezing look Draco had turned on him. “I mean, please?”
            After a careful study of him, Draco snorted and nodded. “Because it’s you asking, I will,” he said. “That doesn’t mean that you’re going to get an answer I wake you up for. And Weasley might not even speak with me without you there. If he doesn’t want to, then it’ll wait until you wake up. Okay?”
            “All right,” Harry said. He hesitated, but Draco was still leading him along towards the Apparition point. “Draco? I really am sorry.”
            There was a pause, and then Draco nodded and his hand loosened a little. “I know,” he said, voice tight. “But we are going to talk about this, and it’s not going to happen again.”
            “Okay,” Harry repeated meekly. He was starting to feel his wounds now, and the magical exhaustion, and the physical. He was lucky to have escaped alive; he might not have without Draco and his distraction, and his whirlwind.
            But a glance at Draco’s face showed him the tirade that any attempt to discuss that ring right now would turn into, so Harry shut his mouth and let himself be taken along.
*
SP777: Yes. And Harry has a whining fest, or a bit of one, next chapter, when Draco enforces some of the consequences.
delia cerrano: Harry was more afraid of the consequences of what would happen if it was just Ron and he found Draco spying on him than he was afraid of the consequences of the Spiders. He believes (sometimes wrongly) that he can fight himself out of every battle situation.
BAFan: That’s a question both Harry and Draco would like the answer to.
Polka dot: You’re probably right.
Ciara_D: Draco finds that a restrained tone is more productive.
CareLessLover: Draco hasn’t been right every time! …Only most times.
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Marathon