Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

An Image of Lethe	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21751 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 5
- 6
- 7
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Six—Council of War
            “Will your friends be joining us, Potter?”
            Draco used the question as a neutral one. He was too occupied in staring at the riches of library around him to ask something deeper, or more probing, or more interesting.
            The library had shelves that loomed to the ceiling, and the books that occupied them were squashed together, worn leather binding against bright red, covers that almost looked like woven wood and ones that had to be dragonhide scattered casually here and there. Without looking more closely, Draco couldn’t tell their system of organization, but he had no doubt that they were old. And there were a few titles that told him here were tomes that most people had considered lost forever.
            He wanted to wander along the shelves, let his fingers trail down the spines, and absorb the sense of lingering magic and power there. He wanted to see if there was any way that he could learn something from simple touch. Some grimoires spoke to you like that, through the brush of fingers on the binding of someone brave enough to touch them, instead of looking at their pages. Their secrets were powerful enough to destroy you if you read them.
            “No,” Potter said, and shocked Draco back to the moment. It was probably a good thing. Astoria’s hold on his arm was getting uncomfortable, and Draco wanted her to be able to stand on her own in a lair of their enemies—or the people who had recently been their enemies—not seem like she would be a good target. He gently let her hand go, and patted it when she looked up at him with an expression like pain. Astoria bit her lip, understanding, and turned away, sitting down in the chair furthest from the fire.
            “Why not?” Pansy studied Potter from head to foot. Draco hoped she was seeing some of the same things Draco had during their last meeting, the open secrets that had made him decide to take a chance on Potter.
            “Because I can’t get a firecall through to them, and sending an owl would be too conspicuous if they’re in a meeting or something,” Potter said simply. “And I’m not sure how they would react to seeing you here.” He was looking at Draco in particular, but his eyes flicked sideways to encompass Pansy, too.
            Pansy grimaced and nodded. “What are you planning?”
            “That depends a lot on you.” Potter finally finished piling wood in the fireplace and flicked his wand to light it. He turned around with his back to the hearth and studied them with as much interest as they’d given him. “I wasn’t planning on hosting you this morning, you understand.”
            “We need to come up with a way to use your fame and get the word out to the public about what the Lightfinder really does,” Draco said, because they did, and he was a little exasperated with the notion that they would do something else first.
            “What proof do we have?” Potter extended one empty hand.
            Draco snorted. “Maybe you scorn to make allies of older generations, but I don’t. They’re the ones who know about Dark and Light and Shadow affinities, and what they really mean. And the other categories of spells, too. They’re the ones who can help us make the best arguments about the spells that stand to get banned if the Ministry keeps going the way it is, and how many of them are ordinary spells that no one would be able to live without.”
            Potter bit his lip for a moment. Then he nodded and folded his arms, leaning back so that his head bumped against the mantel. “But what about the younger generations? And how are we going to show that the Lightfinder does show your affinity instead of, for example, the taint on the soul that the Ministry believes it shows?”
            “It’s ridiculous that anyone believes that,” said Pansy fiercely.
            “Agreed. But we still need proof otherwise, because that’s what the paper is telling everyone.” Potter glanced at her, then waved his wand and floated a piece of parchment over to him. “I thought I’d write to Shacklebolt today and ask about what you told me—”
            Draco found himself on his feet without thinking about it. Well, he had just escaped from Aurors who wanted to take him captive and maybe torture him, and only spent about half an hour in the bedroom Potter had given him before they gathered in the library. “You’ve just revealed everything, then?” he asked, and lifted his wand to cast a Memory Charm.
            Potter’s wand was already there, though, and he gave Draco a flat look. “No. I only asked about what you said, about the Light and the Dark Arts and the affinities. I had to have some independent source of confirmation. Otherwise, admit it, you would have called me a fool and a trusting Gryffindor, and say that I shouldn’t have believed you so readily.”
            Draco frowned and shifted his shoulders backwards, dropping his wand to his side. “I wouldn’t have said that.”
            But he probably would have thought it, at least if Potter had appeared to embrace Draco’s words without considering them carefully. Potter watched him with gleaming eyes that said he knew it.
            “Fine. Shacklebolt, at least, is utterly convinced that the Lightfinder reveals a taint on the soul, and he thinks that I’ll be fine as soon as I go through Lethe. Here.”
            He handed the letter to Draco. Draco kept himself from gaping, but barely. This was a level of trust he hadn’t thought he would get from Potter. It meant that he—that he—
            Would have to consider some of his own movements more carefully, especially if Potter wasn’t such a Gryffindor fool as he’d presumed.
            He read through the letter, and Pansy came forwards to read over his shoulder. Astoria curled up harder in her chair and shivered.
            “What does it say?” she whispered.
            Potter cast her an unexpectedly tender glance. Draco raised his eyebrows, and then snorted in remembrance. Potter could see she was younger than they were, and he’d never had hostile dealings with her when she was still in Slytherin. He probably wanted to safeguard her for the same reason that he did the children Draco had mentioned.
            So Potter’s still a hero, even if he’s stopped being a martyr. Check. Let’s hope that works out for us.
            “That Potter here has the hatred and the power in his soul to cast the Unforgivables, and the Lightfinder doesn’t just reveal the extent of a wizard’s power and affinity because there are spells that would show that already,” said Draco sourly, and held the letter out to Pansy, who carried it over to Astoria. He switched his gaze back to Potter. “How did that make you feel?” He would have been furious, himself.
            “Abandoned, at first,” said Potter, and then his head came up. “And then furious. But it gave me the beginnings of a plan. There are spells that show a wizard’s power. Can we show similarities between them and the Lightfinder?”
            Draco raised his eyebrows, interested. “Not all of them would show someone’s power as color. Are you asking about something that could do that?”
            “Could we show that a spell like that functions like the Lightfinder?” Potter countered. “I don’t know enough magical theory to come up with a good description. Maybe Hermione would.” Draco curled his lip a little, but although Potter gave him a stern look, he didn’t consider it enough worth bothering about to interrupt himself. “Or maybe we could develop a spell like the Lightfinder that would show power as color, but we could make everyone acknowledge that that was just what it did, that it didn’t show a taint on the soul.”
            “That’s unexpectedly clever,” said Draco.
            Potter gave him a grin with edges. “Thank you.”
            “Oh, you know what he means, Potter,” said Pansy, breaking in before Draco could say something he might regret. “I think we have to show that spells like that function the same way the Lightfinder does. Developing a new spell takes a long time.”
            “That’s true.” Potter shrugged a little. “So now we just have to come up with a good candidate.”
            “There’s the Soul Revelation Spell.”
            Astoria’s voice was so quiet and Potter so still that Draco thought at first Potter hadn’t heard her, and started to open his mouth to explain. But then he saw Potter turn towards Astoria’s chair, and nod encouragingly. “Yes? What’s that? Does it function differently from the Lightfinder if it shows the soul?”
            Astoria was sitting up with her hands clenched as if fighting against her own temerity, but she gave Potter a sharp glance at his words, and Draco smiled. She needed some opposition to find her voice, just like some Slytherins always had. “It’s not really the soul that it shows, and I don’t care what they told you.”
            “I’ve never heard of the spell, and I don’t believe that the Lightfinder shows my soul.” Potter gave a restless little motion of his hand that he cut off when Astoria frowned and bit her lip, maybe when he saw how nervous she was. “I was just going by the name of the spell.”
            Pansy opened her mouth, but Draco caught her eye and shook his head. It would be good if Potter respected Astoria as one of them, and that meant letting her speak up with her own words and make her own mistakes, if she was going to make them.
            “The Soul Revelation Spell just shows your affinity and power,” said Astoria. “It doesn’t show the soul. It got named that by ignorant people who didn’t understand what it did. Just like the Lightfinder.”
            Now that Draco thought of it, he should have remembered that. Granted, the Soul Revelation Spell wasn’t one he had at the top of his thoughts all the time. But the Lightfinder ought to have reminded him of it, and that should have made him wonder why the Ministry needed to invent a machine for the same purpose when they had that spell.
            Potter hadn’t only wondered the same thing, he had leaped past Draco to the answer. “They really must believe that the Lightfinder shows the soul,” he muttered. “Or they would have just used the spell.”
            His face was downcast, the shadows dark in his eyes. Draco frowned at him. Potter sounded more depressed than elated.
            “Yes,” said Pansy. “They do. No matter how stupid it is. Magic that affects the soul is simply rare. It’s Light Arts, and that means hard to master, and the Ministry would tax a lot of its practitioners doing it. That’s if they even have more than a few people who can perform this spell, which I doubt. And so they probably thought a machine was more trustworthy and more efficient.”
            Potter grunted something. Astoria said, “I think we ought to let as many people as possible know about this spell, so that we can point out the similarities between it and the Lightfinder and urge them to stop using the Lightfinder.”
            “How are we going to do that?” Pansy demanded. “It’s not like we have regular access to lots of owls and pamphlets.”
            Astoria replied heatedly, and Pansy moved over to her so they could argue better. Draco left them to it. He had a target of his own, and he stood up and approached Potter, who was turned around so that he was staring into the fireplace, his hands resting heavily on the mantel.
            “What is it?” Draco asked. It would probably turn out to be something ordinary, but for the moment, Potter was more fascinating even than the library.
            “There’s a small chance that the Lightfinder might show the soul. Or be involved with soul magic, at least.”
            “No, there’s not,” Draco said sharply. “Because the soul, assuming that it exists as a definable identity, has nothing to do with your affinity or your power.” He paused. Potter said nothing. “Are you going to explain what you mean?”
*
            I shouldn’t .But what if they make a wrong decision because they don’t have all the information?
            Harry turned slowly around. There might be a way to explain the connection he’d had with Voldemort without explaining all the nuances, he thought. The last thing he wanted was to expose the kind of soul magic Voldemort had used.
            But they had to understand something, and from the way Malfoy was standing near him, with flared nostrils and dark, intent eyes, he wouldn’t be put off by an ordinary lie.
            “You know that I had a connection with Voldemort,” Harry said, and tapped his scar.
            Malfoy flinched. “Do you have to use that name?”
            “Yes,” Harry snapped. “Because it’s a bloody name. If you really didn’t believe that he was gone and never coming back, then I doubt you would be standing here now!”
            Malfoy hesitated. “Point.” On the other side of the library, Parkinson and Greengrass had gone still. Harry exhaled. Malfoy continued, “But what kind of connection was it?”
            This much, Harry thought he could explain without endangering anything. “A soul connection,” he replied. “I could see through his eyes and feel his emotions. I could sometimes see what his snake familiar was doing, because Nagini was also linked to his soul.” Malfoy looked pale and sick, and Harry nodded grimly. “It has to do with the way that my mother sacrificed herself to save me that night, and then he used my blood in a ritual to come back. So the connection we had got strengthened. My scar hurt and sometimes bled when he was angry. And sometimes he knew what I knew. That sort of thing.”
            Malfoy swallowed, but got back to the main point instead of being distracted into gape-mouthed horror like it seemed the two Slytherin girls were going to be. “And so you think the Lightfinder might have picked up on a real taint in your soul, because you were linked to someone evil?”
            Harry nodded, relieved that he didn’t need to talk about Horcruxes and split souls and all the rest of it. “We won’t know for sure until they test the Lightfinder on lots of other people—”
            “They have,” Malfoy interrupted, looking at him strangely. “Didn’t you know that? Most of the news stories have been following you and the development of Lethe, but of course they’ve done other tests.”
            Harry shook his head slowly. “I was barely reading the news, and only paying attention to what was happening with Lethe and these attempts to ‘redeem’ me,” he admitted. He did remember Hermione bringing up something about testing other people in the Lightfinder, but she had been able to tell he wasn’t interested, and she’d dropped it. “How many people? How many have tested Dark?”
            “A hundred and ten, and almost everyone has tested at least green.” Malfoy folded his arms and stared at him. “They’ve only tested a few red ones and a few yellow ones, and they were all children but one.”
            “That means they’ve had less time to do evil things?” Harry asked.
            Malfoy gave him a nasty smile. “It means their affinity isn’t that strong yet because they haven’t had the chance to cast that much magic. And there are children who’ve tested Dark. Those are the ones they’re debating about cutting out of Hogwarts and insisting that they be monitored at home.” He paused. “Still think the Ministry has a point, Potter?”
            “I never thought they had a point about the children they tested, Muggleborn or pure-blood,” Harry snapped back. “I thought they might have a point about me, because I did have that connection. No one else did.”
            “Yes, yes, you’re unique,” Malfoy interrupted, and stepped up, staring at him. “I’m only going to say this once, Potter. You take too much on yourself. Not all your uniqueness is evil, and not everything that happened during the war is your fault.” He swallowed a second later, looking nauseated. “Don’t make me say that again.”
            Harry laughed, and broke what he thought could have been an unpleasant silence when he did so. “Fine. So they’ve tested others in the Lightfinder, and they’re discovering more Dark wizards than they thought they had.” He turned to Greengrass and Parkinson, watching them with silent faces. “If one of us went and performed the Soul Revelation Spell, would they know what we were doing? Is it seen as threatening?”
            “Who can perform it?” Parkinson asked. “Draco and I are wanted, and we probably can’t do it anyway. They’re watching you. Astoria can’t use her wand without revealing where she is since she still has the Trace on it.”
            Harry snorted. “You can use mine,” he told Greengrass, who tucked her elbows in and simply nodded. “But although they’re watching me, there are times they do want me to use my magic, usually when I’m speaking to Splinter about Lethe. Would that be more acceptable? I’ll ask about the spell and tell them that it seems to have the same effect as the Lightfinder, so I’d like to use it to monitor myself and make sure that I’m not becoming more Dark.”
            “That’s an interesting idea, Potter,” Malfoy said from behind him. “Where was this interesting person when we were at Hogwarts?”
            “Too busy trying to survive to think about the larger issues of life,” Harry told him dryly. “What do you think, Parkinson, Greengrass?”
            “Call me Astoria,” Greengrass whispered. “I think you should.”
            Harry glanced at Parkinson, who sniffed and stuck her nose up as if she wanted the ceiling to get a good look up her nostrils. “I’m not giving you permission to call me by my first name. When you’ve earned it, you’ll know.”
            Harry barely refrained from rolling his eyes at her. “Very well. But what do you think about the question that I asked you?”
            Parkinson hesitated, then locked eyes with him and said, “You know that I would have given you to the Dark Lord.”
            Harry just looked at her and didn’t say anything. Yes, he knew that. But the way he saw it, the Ministry was the more pressing problem right now. If that was solved, then maybe he and Parkinson could go back to fighting about petty slights that had happened when they were children. Parkinson had wanted to give him to Voldemort, but she hadn’t actually done it, which put her ahead of a lot of other people.
            Parkinson seemed to want to work through it, though, so Harry gave her a small nod and waited.
            “I want—I want to know that I can trust you,” Parkinson continued in a low voice. “I want to make sure that you’re not going to take it the wrong way, when we have to work together.” She looked away again, but this time, Harry didn’t think it had anything to do with wanting to give the bookshelves or him or even Malfoy a good look at her profile. “If you need to punish me or something like that for my ignorance, go ahead and do it now. Not later. And don’t take it out on Astoria and Draco.”
            Harry hesitated. He wanted to say that it didn’t matter, but that wouldn’t work, because it did matter to Parkinson. He wondered what the hell he was supposed to do with an opportunity to punish his enemies.
            He thought he’d never had the chance before. He’d been fighting Voldemort, who was never going to submit tamely to punishment, and he hadn’t got the chance to actually ever use the Cruciatus on Bellatrix.
            But he finally thought of something, and raised his wand. “I want you to make an Unbreakable Vow that you won’t betray me to the Ministry.”
            Parkinson turned around and stared at him. “That’s all?”
            What was she expecting, for me to torture her? Harry wondered. And he wondered, too, whether she had been thinking about it in terms of him being a Light wizard, or a Dark wizard, or simply an enemy. But he refused to answer her expectations by doing something he wouldn’t be able to live with later, no matter how good it felt at the time.
            “I think that’s enough,” he said shortly. “You’ll have the risk of death, and I can trust you absolutely that way.” He looked over. “Be our Bonder, Malfoy?”
            Malfoy was still, maybe remembering the Unbreakable Vows that had bound Snape and the part his own life and near-death had played in them. But then he shook his head as if waking from a dream, and nodded, and moved forwards until he was crouching solemnly in front of Harry. Parkinson came over a second later, and Harry knelt down to face her.
            “You have to think about the wording of the Vow carefully,” Malfoy said, his voice clipped. “Otherwise, she could die because of an innocent action. And the Vow has to have three parts.”
            Harry had already thought about it. He wasn’t such an idiot as Malfoy sometimes thought him. He looked Parkinson dead in the eye. She was a little pale, but she knelt there and looked at him steadily enough.
            “Vow that you will never betray what we’re doing here by speaking a word to the Ministry or anyone associated with them,” Harry said.
            “I swear,” said Parkinson, and Malfoy moved his wand, and Harry started as the first tongue of flame sprouted.
            “You will never betray what we’re doing here by writing anything to the Ministry or anyone associated with them,” said Harry.
            Parkinson gave him a glance that might indicate a little more respect. “I swear.” The second tongue of flame connected their hands. Harry didn’t think Parkinson’s hand was sweating quite as much as it had.
            “You will never betray what we’re doing here by gestures or any other kind of action, to the Ministry or anyone associated with them,” Harry demanded.
            Parkinson gave another slow nod. “I swear.” And the final flare of fire was there, and Malfoy’s wand moved again, and then he stepped back and looked back and forth between them.
            “You realize that the smartest thing for Pansy to do is just not speak or write to anyone outside our little group,” he said, and then rolled his eyes. “Or wave at them, I suppose, or make hand signals.”
            “Yes, I know,” said Harry. “That’s all right. There are other roles she can play.” He turned to Parkinson. “I haven’t done much research in this library, because I don’t know how. Can you? Find the Soul Revelation Spell, and the incantation and the wand movement, and what kind of restrictions might be on performing it? Knowing the Ministry, there’s some.”
            “Yes,” said Parkinson, and stood up and walked over to the bookshelves. Astoria trailed her, after a small glance at Harry. Harry tried to show her a smile.
            That left Harry with Malfoy, who cleared his throat a moment later and said, “It’s interesting, Potter, that you appear so much smarter now that you’ve acknowledged your Dark affinity.”
            “I’m smarter now that I don’t have a war occupying my whole attention,” Harry corrected him, and Malfoy looked interested and maybe a little impressed. “Now, come on. You’re going to help me with the magical theory part of this, so I can give a good explanation when they ask me what’s wrong with the Lightfinder.”
            He wondered if Malfoy would bristle at the order, but Malfoy followed him tamely enough to the bookshelves instead. His gaze was heavy on Harry, but Harry had lived with that since coming to the wizarding world. He would now.
*
            Draco touched his chest, where hope was stirring slowly to life again, a flame that had almost been choked by the ashes.
            Potter’s right. He can be more than just a figurehead.
*
SP777: Because he thinks that Lethe will help, so he has hope that the problem will solve itself through measures that they’re already taking.
- 5
- 6
- 7
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

An Image of Lethe