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The Rising of the Stones	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 13237 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Six—Sliding Around the Edges

            Draco sighed as he stepped into the Minister’s office. “Is this going to take long, sir?” he asked. “Only I think I have a new lead on Potter, and I want to be sure I can pursue it before his magical signature disappears.”

            de Berenzan leaned forwards, his face twitching. “I want to know, Malfoy, if you asked to see Potter’s birth records.”

            Draco blinked. “No, sir. I haven’t been down to bother the archivists again since that day when you made me understand that I did not have the right to see them.”

            “Don’t talk to me of rights. If you knew what was in them, you wouldn’t talk to me of rights.”

            That was odd, but Draco kept his expression at a pleasant, helpful, neutral level, and only said, “Well, sir, what happened was that I asked Weasley and Granger if they had any idea what was in Potter’s birth records that might have caused him to run away. I thought they might have gone and looked at them before they were sealed. But it turned out they hadn’t, and that was a useless lead.” Draco shrugged. “Too bad. I could have used that afternoon for other things.”

            The Minister sat there swearing to himself for a second, and then sat up and pointed a finger at Draco. “You will cease your attempts to find out what is in those records. Do you understand, Auror Malfoy? I can, in fact, force you to leave them alone if you won’t do it of your own free will.”

            “I understand, sir,” said Draco. “If you’ll excuse me, I should pursue my lead.”

            “Not into the archives, I hope.”

            He really is obsessed with Potter’s birth records, Draco told himself as he bowed a little and made a joke in response, one so bland and reassuring that he didn’t even bother to remember it. I wonder why? Of course he would have looked at them himself after Potter fled, but was there something in them to explain why Potter decided that he has to stay away from civilization?

            The fact that he couldn’t imagine what that information would be drove Draco even madder than before. Still, at least his ploy had worked. He’d spread the rumor that he’d questioned Weasley and Granger in detail about the birth records, and someone had carried it to de Berenzan, and he’d summoned Draco. Draco had engineered it just so that he could see what de Berenzan would say.

            Don’t talk to me of rights.

            An odd snippet, not what Draco had thought he would win at all, but at least it was interesting, and he would meditate on it later. Right now, he really did have a lead he wanted to follow up.

*

            Draco sighed and leaned back against the wall of Potter’s flat. He had thought the trace of Potter’s magical signature that he’d taken from his own clothes when he got back home after the encounter at Stonehenge might lead him somewhere. But it had only taken him back here. Apparently the traces he’d picked up by handling Potter’s candles and books and recreating the vision of the ritual were enough to overpower the faint ones he’d got simply being near Potter.

            I’ve never seen anything like those flaked stones he was working with. Maybe I should work on them?

            But in the end, Draco shook his head. At home, still floating above the brazier he’d used to create it, was the dragon. Draco was going to let it hunt Potter again this afternoon, and this time, he would go even more prepared than he had. And it wouldn’t take any extra objects or new spells.

            Potter had set himself up to melodramatically forsake the wizarding world. Draco was experienced with melodrama from Slytherin, although this particular proclamation was new. And he knew what most irritated the purveyors of it.

            Listen to them, appear to take them seriously, and let them build up a huge stage on which they could stand ranting to the heavens above everyone else…

            And then tug out the poles of the stage from beneath them.

*

            This time, the dragon came back quickly. Draco nearly lost control of his breathing when he summoned the image from it and found that Potter was in Knockturn Alley.

            Maybe that’s the source of the flaked stones, Draco thought, and studied the vision of Potter in a hooded green cloak bargaining with a hag for human teeth. And what does he want with the teeth?

            But in the end, all that mattered less to Draco than catching up to Potter. He couldn’t do anything, ask questions or arrest him or find out what kind of earth magic he was practicing, until he reached him. So Draco stepped outside the flat and Apparated, staggering a little as the cobbles of the alley came up beneath him.

            He’d Transfigured his Auror robes into something less distracting to the neighbors before he went to visit Potter’s flat, luckily. As it was, Draco copied local custom by dragging his hood rapidly over his face, and then stepped forwards and reached out to touch Potter on the shoulder.

            “Excuse me,” he said in a suitably hoarse voice. “I might have something yer would be innerested in.”

            Potter moved fast, using his elbow to knock Draco out of breath and off-balance, and then he did something with his hand—maybe he’d had some Wheezes in it—that made the ground in front of Draco leap up and blaze. Amid displeased shouts from some of the shopkeepers, Potter ran straight for the entrance of the alley.

            Draco followed him in silence. No matter what he wanted to do, he had to keep Potter in sight and decide how he would handle him in order to do it.

            Potter dodged and rolled neatly around more hags with trays around their necks and a half-goblin ladling foul-smelling grey stew out of a large and dirty cauldron. Then he leaped over a table crowded with skull-like fruit and rolled under the Stunner that Draco tried to cast after him.

            By now, people were getting together to try and interrupt the pursuit or join in or catch Draco in turn and ask him questions, and Draco didn’t want to give them the chance. He bounded straight up, using the Mercury Charm again, and flew over their heads and towards the entrance of Knockturn Alley. He would arrive there before Potter, or at least he should if Potter didn’t Apparate—

            But Potter hadn’t Apparated so far and didn’t show any sign of doing it. Instead, he came to a stop and fumbled desperately in the pocket of his cloak for something.

            Draco lunged forwards, stretching out his arm as far as he could. He hooked the hood of Potter’s cloak, and he turned with a snarl, trying to shrug Draco off and hit his arm at the same time.

            But Draco clung anyway, and whatever Potter had been casting or reaching for took effect. The stone sucked them in, and they whirled through a series of temporary tunnels that seemed to close behind them as quickly as they had opened. Draco gasped and coughed as dirt spilled into his lungs, and then closed his mouth and concentrated on keeping his grip on Potter. Potter was still lunging and slipping like a gaffed fish.

            The tunnels finally spat them out on a high cliff Draco didn’t recognize, save that it was none of the previous sites he had found Potter’s earth magic at. Draco was a little dazed, but got his feet under him and drew his wand as Potter turned around to face him, hand cocked.

            Draco expected a Stunner like the one he’d tried to cast, but instead there was a spray of stones. It took a lot more concentration to dodge them than Draco had thought, although he cursed and leaped and rolled in several directions. By the time he stood upright again, Potter had vanished into a cave at his back.

            Luckily for Draco, he couldn’t go far or fast with Draco so close behind him. Draco rushed into the cave, too, keeping a sharp eye on the floor for trapdoors, a sharp eye on the ceiling for rocks poised to drop on his head.

            Nothing like that happened, but a stone wall appeared in front of him, sealing the throat of the cave. Then it glided towards him, urging Draco back towards the entrance. Draco experienced a flicker of relief that Potter hadn’t tried to seal the entrance, and then a sharp and violent disgust at himself.

            He wanted to pursue Potter, not leave him behind. And he was never grateful for an enemy’s actions. That would have made him as weak as Potter in his melodrama.

            He aimed his wand at the stone beneath the wall and spoke another of those incantations the Auror Department would be shocked he knew. The floor writhed in response, jerking so hard that Draco had to look away as he would from a transforming werewolf.

            When he could look again, the pit had swallowed the stone wall. Draco smiled and stepped forwards.

            The roof of the cavern immediately sloped down, in a way that clamped like the bite of a giant mouth and would have caught Draco if he hadn’t jumped back. Draco swore and juggled his wand for another spell, his mouth blazing with impatience. What was Potter doing?

            Trying to keep you out.

            Draco scowled at himself for the stupid thought, and aimed his wand at the place where the roof actually touched the floor of the tunnel, hissing, “Expulso.”

            The modified Explosion Charm leaped away from his wand, turning for a moment like a firework in midair, and then hit the joining of roof and tunnel. The stone exploded into numerous shards. Draco had raised a Shield Charm to counter them just in time.

            He didn’t wait around for Potter to evoke more ridiculous defenses. He charged down the tunnel instead, avoiding the way the walls tried to literally bite him with teeth that resembled sideways stalactites.

            The tunnel deepened and widened at the same time, and a hole opened directly in front of Draco. He leaped over it, noting that it didn’t look as though it was deep. That reassured him Potter didn’t want to kill him.

            He was being annoying, though. Draco had done worse things to people he found annoying than trap them in holes.

            Another blind corner, and something roared with the sound of stone clashing. Draco whirled another shield into place above him, one that he could bind to his arm with strips of magic, and the blow that came down slammed into it, numbing his arm for a second before Draco shook the effect off.

            He nodded when he saw what was in front of him, the creature he had suspected and raised the shield above his head to avoid. It was a stone giant, blocky chunks carved from the cave and bound with spells that made it utterly loyal to its creator. It pivoted to face him, slow and with glowing eyes that Draco suspected were actually pools of magma rather than the rubies that most spells like this used. He smiled a little, reluctantly impressed. It took a lot of skill to wield magma like that, since it technically fell between poles of elemental magic, being both fire and earth.

            The giant moved to the side with a lumbering motion. Draco eyed the tunnel behind it. The best course would be to dodge past it instead of trying to destroy it. He wasn’t entirely sure that would work anyway, as heavy as it was.

            But the giant didn’t intend to give him the chance. It lashed out with an arm that had a doubled fist carved at the end of it, like a huge mace. Draco leaped out of the way, and winced as he heard it knock a hole in the stone behind him.

            He couldn’t defeat it by simply dodging forever, of course. For one thing, it blocked the entrance behind it with one leg. Draco couldn’t run at it and hope to cast spells that would break it down over time, either. That was the sort of thing that would take expert earth magic, and Draco didn’t lie to himself about what he had mastered.

            A ritual would be the thing, if I had the time…

            Another fist came hammering at him. Draco bounced it off another Shield Charm, but this made him breathless with pain. Maybe Potter wouldn’t mind killing him, after all, if it would get Draco off his trail.

            Draco did have one tactic he could choose, though, and he waited until the giant had drawn back both hands to hit him and its leg blocking the tunnel had shifted a little. Then Draco held up his wand and cast the incantation for Fiendfyre.

            The shapes that boiled out of his wand were lions for only a moment; then they grew wings and turned into grinning chimera, or sprouted snakes and were hydras. Both were good choices for going up against something like the earth giant, and Draco watched with approval as they grew even hotter, burning the stone.

            The giant tried to brush them off, but its hands slid through the flames without hurting them, and soon it began to roar in pain. Draco watched as the stone boiled and melted away, leaving only the magma eyes. And they fell to the floor and couldn’t hurt him, only glare impotently as Draco banished the Fiendfyre with another incantation he wasn’t supposed to know and walked down the tunnel.

            This one bent in several directions before starting to look as though it was made of smoothed stone. Draco nodded. He thought he was probably past the worst of Potter’s traps. He would find the heart of his sanctuary soon.

            As he walked, he had to shake his head a little at the extent to which the tunnel had been carved and worked. It seemed Potter had been planning this for a long time, which only made the abrupt way he had left the wizarding world stranger.

            Or maybe he’s just learned enough elemental magic to make this look professional, whether or not it really is.

            The tunnel came to an end at a lip beyond which dark lay. Draco paused. He didn’t want to light his wand and reveal to Potter exactly where he was, but he didn’t fancy stepping off into the darkness where anything could lurk, either.

            Then a faint glow sprang up in front of him. Draco started, wondering why he hadn’t heard a voice speak the incantation, and then remembered Potter’s problems with his wand.

            Sure enough, there wasn’t a lit wand in front of him. Instead, there was a large, mostly empty cavern with boulders piled around the walls, and they were the things glowing with a steady yellow light that brightened as Draco watched. The center of the cavern seemed to ripple, and Draco looked down at it. It wasn’t empty after all, but an underground lake.

            “What do you want, Malfoy?”

            Potter’s voice was tired, and seemed to echo from several different directions. Draco kept his hand away from his wand, or at least only his fingertips on it. Without knowing exactly where Potter was, he was at a disadvantage.

            “To question you before I take you in to the Ministry.”

            Potter laughed, and Draco listened carefully. But even that failed to track the echoes to exactly where they should lead from. They seemed to die out evenly, more like water rippling back from the fall of a stone than natural sound.

            “Do you know what’ll happen if you take me in to the Ministry?”

            “Better than you, I should imagine,” Draco said, and he thought he was probably allowing some of his contempt for people who started Auror training and didn’t finish it show in his voice. “You’ll be put in a holding cell. Other Aurors will visit you to question you and make sure you didn’t enchant me, or that personal emotions didn’t influence me into arresting you. There will be an appearance before an interrogator, and—”

            “No, Malfoy. They’ll execute me.”

            Draco halted. It was unexpected enough that he thought it deserved the compliment of his silence, although he didn’t believe Potter for a moment. “Why would they?” he finally asked. “The Minister barely wants me to pursue you, because hunting the great hero is bad press for the Ministry. What would execution do?”

            The light shifted, and Potter walked from behind one of the glowing stones. Draco drew his wand at once, but Potter barely looked at him, which was the most insulting thing he had ever done. He cast himself down on the floor instead and stared up at the ceiling of the cavern, shaking his head a little.

            “Minister de Berenzan wants me gone and wants me not to reveal what’s in my birth records at the same time,” Potter said. “I think he would have been happy to let me just leave, but he can’t do that, because it would look strange for the Ministry not to mount some kind of search. Then they found the Dark Arts books, and that complicates his strategy further. Because now it’s a hunt to arrest me, and if I come back to the Ministry, there’s the chance the truth might come out under Veritaserum.” He rolled over and looked at Draco without much interest. “So he had to send you, the Auror with the best reputation for finding missing people, and hope at one and the same time that you find me—for the Ministry’s reputation—and that you don’t—so he can ignore the problem I represent and the consequences if it becomes public.” He chuckled a little, mostly to himself, Draco thought. He ignored Draco again. “I bet he hates that.”

            Draco wanted to shake him. He restrained himself, although it was difficult. “I agree that the Minister is jealous,” he said. “But of me, not you.”

            Potter looked at him with raised eyebrows. “It’s not any personal attribute he’s jealous of when it comes to me. In fact, I don’t know if I would describe it as jealousy. He’s wary of the truth destabilizing his regime. I probably should have taken the deal he was offering.” Then Potter sighed. “But then it would have come out that I can’t do wand magic anymore. So I don’t know.”

            Draco stared at him. “You can’t do wand magic?”

            “Of course not.”

            Draco shook his head. “I don’t know why you think I would already know that.”

            “Because of my soul-mark.” Potter stared at him. “Wait—you have no idea?”

            “I already told you I didn’t, last time we met.”

            Potter snorted. “Then I suppose I might as well not tell you. It would only upset you the way de Berenzan’s afraid of—”

            Draco drew his wand and bound Potter with a wordless Incarcerous. Then he leaned back and said, “I’m not letting you go until you tell me.”

            Potter raised his eyebrows again. A fist of stone shifted out of the floor and clamped around Draco’s leg. Draco tried instinctively to pull against it, and found it as motionless as a mountain.

            “I think,” Potter said, “that this is what a Muggle dictionary would define as an impasse.”

*

            SP777: That chapter was the same length as the others.

            And I think the action in this chapter made up for it.

            Morningstorm70: You can join my Yahoo! group if you like. It’s lomonaaerensstories.
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The Rising of the Stones