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Deconversion	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 23338 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 9
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Chapter Six—Exit, Pursued by a Snake

            It was Hermione who stood there.

            Harry was seeing her properly for the first time in weeks, without snakes crawling over her head and around her feet, and he wanted to reach out and embrace her just for that. But she had her wand aimed at the door, and even if, by her expression, she had expected to see something more threatening than he was, that still meant Harry had to deal with her wand. He stepped back and said softly, “Hermione?”

            “Harry?” Her eyes skimmed over him, and then locked on his face and froze. Harry reckoned he still had a single slit pupil. She gulped and swallowed, and reached out to him with vivid tears trembling in her eyes. “Have you—did they cure you? Are you back to normal now?”

            Red vapor had begun to swirl around Hermione’s legs, and out of it formed coral snakes, and snakes Harry didn’t recognize but knew were vipers. They arched their necks suggestively over Hermione’s legs, and told Harry in hissing whispers of all the many ways she could die from their venom.

            “Hold back,” Harry hissed to them. “I don’t want you to hurt anyone unless I tell you to!”

            There was a long moment when the vapor swirled and pulled against his control, and Harry knew that they were on the verge of attacking. This was his first real test of mastery over his Parseltongue gift, and if he failed, he reckoned he could end up on that Hanging Tree that Malfoy had shown him, or worse.

            But he was stronger than they were, and his desire to see Hermione unharmed was ultimately stronger than their wish to bite her. They looped and flowed and hissed, and Harry hissed back, and then they settled down and came back to him. Harry knelt down so that they could dance up his arms and flick their forked tongues against his cheeks. It felt better than he had known it could, but also ticklish, so that he laughed.

            He looked up when he heard a small sound. Hermione wasn’t laughing. She stood there with her eyes fixed on him and a bright, sick expression painting her face.

            Harry stood up and shook his head, trying to avoid looking at the snakes even from the corners of his eyes, so he would speak in English. “I’m not cured, Hermione. I just decided that I could accept this, and that was better than dying or spending the rest of my life mad.”

            “But you can’t control them,” Hermione said, in the fragile voice of someone who had spent a lot of time thinking about it, and reluctantly settled on this as the only possible conclusion. “I wish it was different, too, Harry, but you already nearly killed someone. Do you think you can avoid doing it again?”

            “I think I can control them,” Harry said, and hated himself for the way his voice faltered. “There’s someone here who’s given me the faith that I can control them, who’s told me that I can—”

            Hermione pointed her wand, and Harry’s tongue dried. He felt Malfoy shifting behind him, and then felt the heavy hand drop onto his shoulder. It felt comforting and chaining at the same time, as though Malfoy were going to save Harry by locking him up. Then he shoved past Harry. Harry could see only the back of his head as he spoke to Hermione, but hearing his voice was enough.

            “You can step out of our paths and leave well enough alone, Granger, if you please. Potter has finally learned that he has the right to live his own life. If you don’t want to stand in the way of that, then move, now.”

            “I know that he hasn’t found anything,” Hermione said, and her voice had changed into the stony, cold tone Harry had so often heard aimed at owners of house-elves who insisted on abusing them. “I know that he hasn’t learned anything but the lies you told him, and if he was well, he would never have fallen for them. You should be the one to stand aside, Malfoy. The Healers are already on their way.”

            Harry shut his eyes. Put that way, it made him wonder, What the hell am I doing? Why am I listening to Malfoy instead of the Healers, instead of my friends?

            But his friends hadn’t been there in the last few days to tell him anything. Malfoy had offered him a way to see the world coherently again, and Harry thought he could get away without hurting anyone. He was pretty sure, at least. He reached out and told the vipers in a stream of subvocal Parseltongue, Bind Hermione. Don’t bite her. Don’t you ever bite her. But hold her back, and take her wand.

            He wanted to see if it could happen, if he could do something with the snakes that didn’t hurt anyone. He had done it with Healer Chance earlier, but Hermione hadn’t been there to witness that. Harry was hoping that, if she could see a demonstration, she might change her mind and accept that Harry had only been taking Malfoy’s advice.

            He could hope.

*

            Draco could feel the magic in the air around him change as Granger aimed her wand and Potter spoke softly in Parseltongue. Draco couldn’t hear him, but he didn’t need to when he could feel that shift, the moment when the snakes he couldn’t see changed their focus and Potter employed his Dark gift in the real world.

            After that, the only thing he had to do was get out of the way.

            The floor around him changed the way it would if shadows were skimming across it, and then snakes were all around Granger, rearing up and around her arms and baring their fangs in her face and hissing, almost delicately, to drive her back. She screamed and lashed out, but in seconds they’d bound her arms to her sides, and curled around her legs, and coiled on her shoulders, and drowned her hair in a mass of bright writhing bodies. Draco watched them as they settled, and his throat ached and his tongue felt too large. He reached back and took Potter’s hand in his own, and Potter squeezed once before he stepped past Draco and faced his friend.

            “They’re not going to hurt you,” he said, although the snakes were wrapped so thickly around her ears that Draco didn’t know if she’d heard him. He almost hoped not. That would make it more frightening for her, and perhaps she would come to see what sort of wizard she’d tried to lock up. “Hermione, I know it’s hard, but—trust me? Please? Can you? They’ll just keep you here until we can get away.” His voice sank into pleading, and a few of the serpents began to unwind.

            Draco pinched Potter’s arm, and Potter whirled roughly towards him. In moments, his arms spouted triangular heads and reaching jaws, and Draco knew that he might have died if he had smelled enough like fear.

            As it was, he was perfectly content to meet Potter’s eyes, and smile a little, and speak gently. “You need to remember that we’re leaving. Trust your snakes to hold her. You can speak to her and persuade her of the legitimacy of your point-of-view when you’re somewhere where you can write letters. Are you in that place right now?”

            Potter’s nostrils flared with irritation, but he took a deep breath and shook his head. “Sometimes you’re a right bastard, Malfoy,” he muttered, moving past him and into the corridor. Draco took one more glance at Granger, bound and stifled, both for pleasure and because it might enable him to understand the Parseltongue better later, and then followed.

            “The right bastard who’s getting you out of here, remember,” he said.

            Potter nodded in concession to that, and then spun to face the corridor that led to the right. Draco listened, and smiled when he heard running footsteps. “The snakes make your senses sharper?” he asked.

            “Don’t be ridiculous,” Potter said. “Snakes don’t have ears. No, they felt the vibrations.” He took a step in that direction, and then stopped. “I don’t want too many confrontations with other people,” Draco heard him whisper to himself. “But they still have my wand, and I need to get that back.”

            “Of course you do,” Draco said. “Why not Summon it?”

            “You don’t think they’ll have it locked up?” Potter stared at him. “And I can’t do magic powerful enough to Summon a chained wand without the wand, anyway.”

            Draco turned his hawthorn wand around and proffered it smoothly, handle towards Potter. He could feel the rising excitement of his own heartbeat, louder now in his ears than the footsteps of their enemies, and there were many people—Pansy included—who would have told him it was stupid to make a ceremony out of this when they had Healers waiting to fight them. But he did it anyway, and his reward was in the way Potter’s eyes widened and his fingers twitched as if he would reach out and take the wand before he thought about it.

            “But that leaves you defenseless,” Potter said, looking at him, and Draco knew from the focus of his eyes that he had forgotten about the running Healers, too. That was another source of pleasure.

            “Not defenseless,” Draco said, and touched the pocket that hung low with the weight of a silver ball. “That’s a word that you need to stop thinking about when it applies to Dark wizards.”

            A second longer, and then Potter nodded shortly once, said, “I won’t forget this, Malfoy,” snatched the hawthorn wand, and spun around to send his “Accio Harry Potter’s wand!” ringing through hospital.

            The first of the Healers came around the corner, and there was pallor in his face, and he didn’t seem to intend to let Potter’s hero status stop him from raising his wand. Draco could feel his own muscles flowing and tensing into new shapes, waiting for a serious challenge from someone opposite him—although it probably wouldn’t come, considering how much offensive magic both he and Potter knew.

            Now it begins.

*

            Harry could feel his wand coming closer and closer, and didn’t know if he was perceiving that via his own senses or those of his snakes. Perhaps both. They did seem to have made him more sensitive to magic.

            And now that he had accepted them, they coiled around him in lazy, docile waves that reminded him of the way his magic often felt, obedient, wanting only to be used.

            Harry shook his head and then saw his wand zip around the corner. He tossed the hawthorn one into the air, confident that Malfoy would catch it more easily than he had tossed it, and took the familiar holly wood in hand. He almost expected it to burst into flames, the phoenix feather inside rejecting him because he had become Dark.

            But that was stupid, wasn’t it? Dumbledore’s phoenix had shed the feather that was in Tom Riddle’s wand, and it hadn’t rejected him.

            He wondered how irritated Malfoy would be at Harry comparing himself to Voldemort, and then resolved that he should do it as often as possible, just so that Malfoy didn’t get too comfortable with thinking that Harry wasn’t considering the possible consequences of his decision. Harry turned to face the Healers and raised a Shield Charm. The air rang in front of him and became silver and hard just in time to deflect the first curse.

            A curse, Harry thought, and his bones tingled. He had thought the Healers would go for defensive magic at first, the kind they were trained in, to restrain and bind the people attacking them instead of hurting them. But no, evidently they considered him dangerous enough that curses it was.

            Perhaps they thought that it was best to just kill Parselmouths like him on sight.

            And then he didn’t have time to think about it, because the Healers had stopped and formed a living wall in front of him, arms linked together, and one of them had shut her eyes and was whispering some spell that made her look rapt in a trance. Harry took a step towards her, and her eyes flew open and her wand shot out.

            This time, the spell that splashed down outside the Shield Charm landed a few inches from the white serpent dancing in front of Harry, and it froze briefly in shock.

            They’re trying to see my snakes. They’re trying to kill my snakes.

            The rage that shot through Harry was enough to make him snarl. Immediately, the air in front of him turned misty as he thought about what they needed, him and Malfoy and his snakes, and then there was the plop of smooth bodies hitting the ground and the serpents edged forwards. New snakes, ones Harry didn’t recognize, but with swirling red and blue bands on their bodies, and vibrating black tails.

“Bite them,” Harry hissed. “I know you can make them go to sleep instead of killing them. But bite them. Stop them.”

There was a long moment when the serpents seemed to wind their necks over each other and consider his request, and then they went forwards in a shallow rush. One for each Healer, Harry thought, and he wasn’t conscious of having counted the Healers and come up with that perfect number, either. That was his gift at work, probably.

Fangs locked home, and either the Healers had cast a spell that meant only one of them could see the snakes or they couldn’t do it again so quickly. They tried to skip sideways, but that only carried them into the mouth of another of Harry’s darlings, and then they slumped, and then their eyes fluttered, and then they dropped into a coma-like sleep. The snakes fanned out ahead of Harry, adroitly avoiding the falling bodies, aiming for more targets.

Slow clapping made Harry wake and turn, and blink. Malfoy stood behind him, applauding slowly, his eyes and his smile so bright that Harry felt himself flush and duck his head, instinctively hiding from attention and praise.

            Malfoy’s rapid footsteps came towards him, and then Malfoy seized Harry beneath the chin and tilted his face upwards, as though he had the right to do that. Harry hissed at him, but Malfoy was no snake, to be affected by the Parseltongue, and he did nothing but smile, a little, and shake his head.

            “You should never do that,” he said quietly, his gaze focused on Harry’s face. “We don’t know of anyone else in the world who can do what you do. You deserve to bask in the glory that you’ll get for it. And you’ve already proved them wrong, the ones who thought you would go insane because the Dark Lord did. You can use your snakes to harmlessly bind and drive and tranquilize. You don’t kill.” His eyes deepened in a way that made Harry wonder what was going on, because their color didn’t actually change. “But you could.”

            “And it makes you hard to think about that, right?” Harry muttered, breaking away from him, speaking randomly and not out of knowledge. He wanted Malfoy to shut up, and he wanted to silence his own disturbing response to the twit. On the other hand, Malfoy was the one who had rescued him, the one without whom he might have died.

            He was just opening his mouth to apologize when Malfoy said, “Oh, yes. It does.”

            Harry gaped at him. Then he couldn’t help the way that his eyes sneaked downwards, but were defeated by Malfoy’s own thick robes. He blushed more violently than ever and turned to follow his snakes, while Malfoy’s soft laughter arose from behind him.

*

            Draco was aware of the approaching threat from behind them before Potter was, because Potter was probably swimming in the Parseltongue and had no sensitivity for anything else right now, and Draco had trained to recognize Light magic along with Dark. He turned and glanced over his shoulder.

            And yes. Weasley. No Granger with him, which made Draco glad. Two of them together might have been a match for him, or at least he would have had to work much harder to make sure that he didn’t harm them, as he was sure Potter would prefer.

            “Someone coming,” Draco said softly into Potter’s ear. “One of your friends.” Potter’s shoulders tensed and rippled, and Draco shook his head. “I’ll handle him.”

            “No killing,” Potter said out of the corner of his mouth. “No crippling.”

            “I know that,” Draco said. “I’ll do my best to bind him or make him go to sleep, the way that you did with Granger and the Healers.”

            Potter nodded, and then hesitated when he realized that Draco had turned to face the corridor behind them. “But what happens if you fight him and fall behind me?” he asked, rolling his head to look at Draco.

            Draco admired them, those shining green eyes with slit pupils in the middle of them, the thin teeth nearly pricking Potter’s bottom lip, the slight swell of his cheeks. Draco wouldn’t have known what that last part meant, if he hadn’t the spent the past few days reading everything about Parselmouths he could get his hands on. Potter had venom sacs of his own now, growing into being. His own bite would be deadly. Draco wondered if he knew that, and if he would welcome the change.

            In time, I hope he will.

            “If something happens to me,” he said, “then tell the snakes to take you to Malfoy Manor. I’ve built a door into the wards for you, and you’re strong, much stronger than I was anticipating. You should be able to get inside. Then contact Pansy Parkinson.”

            For a moment, Potter’s mouth worked as though he wanted to ask how he would survive without Draco, what he should do next, how the snakes were supposed to protect him if Draco’s magic failed against Weasley. And then his jaws clamped tightly shut, and he nodded. He turned away from Draco without a backwards glance, running silently into the distance. The Healers sleeping on the floor snored so loudly that the faint hiss Draco thought he heard accompanying Potter faded and vanished.

            Draco turned to face Weasley.

            He came around the corner in the way that he probably thought a cautious Auror shoulder, his shoulders hunched, his wand darting around in front of him. A chair floating behind him would be used as temporary cover. Draco had seen the same tactics from his smarter enemies, and he applauded politely.

            Weasley stopped and looked at him. The stare had nothing of the open disdain Draco had seen during their last confrontation. That told him something about his enemy. Weasley was capable of evaluating other people more carefully than he let on. He would show emotions and let them interfere with his behavior only when there was no disadvantage to doing so.

            Draco could respect that. He only wished that he dared let their duel be longer. But other Healers could show up soon, and Granger might even find a way to fight her way out of the snakes binding her.

            “Malfoy,” Weasley said, and shifted would-be-casually to the side, his hand on a squirming shape in his pocket. Draco had no idea what it was, but that only increased the sweetness of the battle-hunger flooding him. Years of dedication and study in the Dark Arts had augmented the need to show someone else what he could do. And he was not afraid. “So you managed to free Harry after all. Congratulations, you might have turned a dangerous killer loose on the wizarding world.”

            Draco let his breath sigh past parted lips, and wished for a moment that Potter could be here to hear what Weasley thought of him. Then he shook his head. That information would only depress Potter, and they didn’t need that right now. “I wouldn’t have turned loose someone I thought would slaughter me and my friends,” he said.

            Weasley sneered. “And people who don’t protect themselves with illegal spells and blood magic?” He turned slightly to the side and twisted his wrist, and his wand sprang into his hand. The squirming of the thing in his pocket grew wilder. From the way he stood, with only his elbow concealing it now, Draco decided that he didn’t know Draco had seen it yet. “What are they supposed to do?”

            “Do you know your own friend?” Draco asked in interest, taking a step forwards. “We are talking about the same man, aren’t we? You know, the one who saved the wizarding world and everything surrounding it?”

            “Even the best of men can change,” Weasley said, and hit Draco with the most powerful Blasting Curse he’d ever felt while he was still talking.

            Draco took a step to the side and spoke, softly, the words of an incantation that he had spent years trying to master. As he spoke it now, he wasn’t entirely sure that it was the best one to use against Weasley.

            But he wanted to use it, and that element of risk was what the Dark Arts was all about.

            The world blurred and stretched nauseatingly around him, and then he could make out a tableau of Weasleys, all of them locked in different positions. It was the movements that Weasley would make in the next few seconds, slowed down and separated. Draco studied the one at the end, in which he’d taken the squirming thing out of his pocket, and smiled. Strange that he is so hypocritical about Parseltongue when he’s hunting with one of those spitting cobras the Unspeakables have taken to raising. The cobras were utterly vicious, lobotomized so that they only obeyed the commands of a particular voice, and capable of spitting a drug that function like a combination of Numbing Potion and Veritaserum.

            So that was the weapon. Draco didn’t intend to stand still for it.

            He returned to normal time, and the Blasting Curse hit him. Few Dark spells were defensive, Draco thought clinically as the curse spun him sideways and into the wall. One had to use them creatively to achieve the same effect as most of the Light magic that Weasley and his kind learned. For the moment, his head hurt and his ribs ached, and he had sacrificed the dodging advantage he might have gained to learning Weasley’s end game.

            But now that he knew what it was, he could deal with it.

            His wand hand was unharmed; Draco would have done something about the blast if he had thought it would not be. He lifted it up and aimed it at Weasley, and said, “Contra mentem.”

            The world blurred around him again, and he felt the power heaving in him, shining. Then it flooded out of him so suddenly that Draco vomited. But that was part of the risk, too, and he stood up and turned around knowing it had worked, or Weasley would have already attacked him.

            Both Weasley and the cobra lay motionless on the floor; the spell worked against anything with a mind. Draco smiled at them and said in a calm, clear voice, “Weasley, you’re going to find yourself unable to fight me or Potter again. Cobra, you obey me now. Come here.”

            The snake slid straight towards him, while Weasley sat up and shook his head back and forth in confusion. Draco scooped the cobra up and admired the shining black pattern on the half-spread hood.

            “I can’t wait to show you to Potter,” he told it, and then cast a few healing charms that lessened the pain in his head and ribs before he passed down the corridors after Potter.

*

            moodysavage: And I stopped here this time! Really, it just has to do with what feels like the best place to break the chapter, more than anything else.

            suicidein_angeleyes: Thank you! I think it gets even more interesting in the following chapters.

            Talltree-san: Yes, that’s what the heart means. You give your whole heart to the Dark or you give nothing.

            SP777: He wants to study Harry, and he also wants to use Harry’s influence to get the Dark Arts more accepted. And he also thinks that Harry would be fun to hang out with.
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