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Rejoicing In Their Strength	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 9781 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter; that belongs to J. K. Rowling. I am making no money from this fic.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the
second-to-last chapter, instead of the last chapter, after all. I�ll need one
more chapter to do justice to the ending.

�� The full
moon.

�� Draco knew
it would rise that night even before his father came into the latest torture chamber
pale with excitement, even before he remembered that Harry had told him
yesterday that he would only have one more day of torture to endure. It was as
though the moon was connected to the tide of blood in his veins and made it surge
and dance and run with flames. Draco turned his head towards the window of the room,
interested for the first time in a long time about what he could see from the
Manor instead of from outside it.

�� You feel
it, don�t you, my child?� Lucius whispered, smoothing his hair back from his
forehead. He laughed giddily a moment later and leaned his head down so that
his cheek rubbed against Draco�s. �No reason you should not. The full moon is
near, and its light means your freedom. Malfoys have always been sensitive to
changes in their personal fortunes.� He chuckled, ruffled Draco�s hair, and
pulled back so that he could turn to a cabinet full of differently colored
vials. If Draco squinted, he could see a dangerous shimmer of heat and fumes
above most of the potions.

�� I hope that you aren�t sensitive to the change of a bunch of werewolves invading your
sanctuary, Draco told his father mentally, and whispered, �Sir, I feel
afraid when I don�t know what you plan to do. Can�t you give me a hint of what kind of spell or ritual
you�re going to perform?�

�� Lucius
smiled kindly back at him. �Forgive me, Draco, but I think ignorance the better
protection for you in this case. Your mind would try to second-guess mine if
you knew everything.� He drew out a vial that was bright poison-green, looked
at it critically for a moment, and then put it back on the shelf. �And this
ritual is so delicate that the mental energy of the participants needs to be as
calm and as united as possible.�

�� Draco
frowned and shifted in his chains. �But we me afraid and you confident, does
that mean that we�ll be calm together?�

�� Lucius
chuckled again and gave him the same kind of glance he�d given the potion: flat
and critical and dismissing him as an unfit participant in whatever magic he
had in mind. �We both want you free of the Dark magic,� he said. �That�s enough
union for the ritual.� He smiled again, but this time it was more like the mad
grins Draco had become used to seeing from him. �The twist is coming soon,
Draco.�

�� Yes, Draco thought, watching with a
sharp ache in his heart as his father saw himself reflected in the glass of one
of the vials and paused to stare at his own face. Yes, it is.

�� Then he
closed his eyes and leaped free of his body so that he could tell Harry what he
had learned about the ritual, small though the crumbs of information were.

*

�� You�ve
done very well, Draco.�

�� Draco
closed his eyes and let his head sag forwards with a sigh. He felt a bit stupid
accepting comfort from Harry in this situation, when all he had to do was wait. Harry was the one who had to coordinate an
attack and worry about his people and whether Lucius�s traps would manage to
kill one of them.

�� Harry�s
voice sharpened, and the hands he�d made real for Draco and was smoothing up
and down his face clamped down, making Draco wince with unexpected pain. �Don�t
start thinking that your life is unimportant compared to the lives of my pack.
It�s not the case, and I won�t have you thinking it.� He crouched down in front
of Draco until Draco had no choice but to look at him. �If you start thinking
that, do you know what I�ll be obliged to do?�

�� Not rescue
me?� Draco whispered, trying desperately to crack a smile.

�� Harry�s
teeth snapped near his ear, enough to make Draco flinch. Harry leaned back on
his heels, breathing deeply. �Sorry, I�m sorry,� he whispered. �I never want to
frighten you. But please don�t joke about that, Draco. I can�t bear the thought
that you might come to believe it.� He ducked his head until his chin rested on
his folded arms and stared at Draco broodingly.

�� All right,
I apologize,� Draco said. He could see the
power around Harry now, even when he wasn�t concentrating, settling on his
shoulders like a furry green-grey cloak. �This can�t be easy for you, either,
since you�re trying to control your natural instincts.� He hesitated as Harry
gave him a quick, grateful smile, then added, �And how does the rest of the
pack feel about this? Really? I know Hyacinth doesn�t care as long as you�re
happy, but don�t Celia and Josh resent being asked to spy?�

�� Harry
leaned back and looped his arms around his knees. �The rest of the pack
understands balance,� he said quietly. �I rescued them and taught them to
manage their wolves and gave them a place to have hope and survive when they�d
thought that they might never have that again. In return, they let me have the
greatest chance at pure happiness I�ve had since I was changed.� He lifted his
head to glare challengingly at Draco. �And they understand strength, if they
don�t understand balance or friendship. They know that I�m strong enough to
take what I want by myself, to rescue you if they won�t help.�

�� Draco
stared at him in concern. Harry�s eyes were wild and glittering; they looked
like tunnels into an ocean with the sunlight playing on it. Draco remembered
the way Harry had stood poised in the clearing with the pack around him, their
strength overlapping each other�s, and shook his head. �I think it�s best if
you come with the others.�

�� And I
will.� Harry gave him a smile that melted almost the moment it showed up. �But
you wanted to know what they thought, and I told you.�

Draco closed his eyes. He desired
to sit forever in the reassurance that Harry�s aura of power gave him, but he
knew that he couldn�t. So he settled for saying, �Do you think that you�ll
really manage to rescue me?�

�� Harry�s
head bumped against his, in a gesture that wiped clean the memory of Lucius
nudging his cheek that morning. �Yes.�

�� Draco
didn�t need any ornaments on that sentence, no extra words. He put his arms
around Harry�s neck and held him there, self-satisfied and content.

�� At least,
content until Harry leaned towards him and whispered, �And you�ve been braver
than you know, stronger than I can easily think about, so I don�t have to ask
if you�ll manage to wait until we get there.�

�� Harry�s
aura of strength meant the tears that soaked down Draco�s face and into his
hair were unfortunately real.

*

�� It was
time.

�� Draco hung
shivering in his bonds as Lucius arranged a circle of potions and small,
irregular objects�golden blocks and silver mirrors and what looked like
obsidian arrowheads�in front of him. The chains were different from anything
he�d ever been bound by, made of crystal. Draco could feel the hum of magic in
them without concentrating. The soft sunset light coming in through the windows
seemed to energize the chains, and Draco wondered for a moment how Harry and
the pack would get him out of them even if they managed to fight their way past
the Manor�s wards.

�� Which I�m no longer confident they will. When
he was with his father instead of Harry, it was easy to pick up on Lucius�s
supreme ease and belief that nothing could possibly disrupt his plans.

�� Ah, my
son.� Lucius stood up with a potion in a vial, the same poison-green one that
he�d rejected earlier that day as not being good enough, and smiled at Draco.
The smile was the sanest that Draco had seen him give in months. Not that that
changed anything, Draco thought. His father was still mad. And he proved it
when he held the potion out, shook it, listened as though for chimes moving in
the liquid, and added with a luxurious sigh, �And soon you will be free of the
Dark magic, and thus of your chains. I apologize for binding you,� he added,
with an anxious look, �but it is the only way for me to be safe from you.�

�� Draco
wanted to laugh. Yes, because I�m the
dangerous one. He shut his eyes and tilted his head back, wondering for a
moment if he should go outside the Manor to guide the pack to him. He was in a
room on the second floor, a large one that had probably been intended
originally for a ballroom. Draco had found himself losing some of the memories
of his home as Lucius tortured him. It was a random place, and perhaps Harry would
be tempted first to look in the dungeons.

�� If they even manage to get through the wards.

�� Draco told
himself not to think that way, but he was reduced to shivering convulsively as
Lucius began to build a circle around him, chanting steadily in Latin all the
while. If there was one thing his father had always been good at, it was
holding long and complex incantations in his mind, and that talent, like so
many of the others that were inconvenient for Draco, hadn�t died with his
sanity. Draco watched glittering blue lines of light leap from one object to
the other, and his shivering built to the point that the chains rattled.

�� Do not be
afraid,� Lucius said, during a pause in the incantation. �I promise that soon
you will be free, perhaps even before the full moon reaches midnight.� Then he
returned to the spell, and gave Draco a new fear.

�� Is that enough time for Harry and the pack
to get through the wards? Draco bit his lower lip, what was left of it, and
turned his head so that he could look at the window again. The sunset light had
grown brighter, but he didn�t know if the full moon had risen yet, and how long
it would take the pack to recover from the change if it had. How close were
they? Had Hyacinth challenged Harry again and needed to be subdued? What would
happen if the pack changed their minds once they transformed, or rebelled
against Harry�s leadership right now?

�� It was no
use, no matter how many times he told himself that his fear probably only fed
his father�s ritual. He had to leave, had to go see what the pack was doing. He
closed his eyes and shot his spirit forth from his body.

*

�� He was glad
that he had come when he saw them, and not because of his own fear. They were
magnificent.

�� The pack,
all in wolf form, stood not far from the weakest point in the wards, a seam on
a corner of Malfoy Manor where two wards overlapped. It was also far from any
of the defenses that were meant specifically to counter werewolves. Draco
looked at their bodies boiling together, their power rising around them in
auras that turned the air dark. Celia, Josh, and Leila were anxious, and it
showed in their waving tails and the stamping of their slender legs.

�� Hyacinth
and Harry stood alone together in the front of the pack, a match for each
other, one black, one scarlet, so large that
Draco found himself shivering as he hovered above them. They were both still,
as if all their restlessness had been distilled into the three inferior wolves
of the pack. They might have been statues, save for the way the wind flattened
their fur against their bodies and the wild, brilliant gleam in their eyes.

�� Harry
tilted his head back and howled.

�� The sound
traveled through Draco�s mind like a spear, and apparently through the minds of
the rest of the pack like a cast net. Hyacinth�s head tilted back first, but
the others weren�t far behind, and then they wove their voices with Harry�s.
Soaring, shining, changing in Draco�s perception from sound to light as they
arose, they were a challenge and a call to courage. Draco found himself longing
to laugh, even though the sound also held him still with the solemnity of it.

�� Harry
looked up and saw him, giving a single grave nod of his huge head. Draco felt a
flash of purest love. In the moment of the
attack, he still remembers me. Of course he does. I should never have doubted
it.

�� Harry took
a step forwards, then reared slightly like a horse before he charged, probably
to build up extra momentum. The rest of the pack spread out around him, until
Harry stood at the head of a pentagon. Then they lowered their heads and sped
forwards at the same moment. Their power rippled over them in a sparking dome
that made Draco breathless. He could see the silvery light dancing off their
coats, almost lost in the shadows and pink light of sunset.

�� They met
the wards.

�� Celia and
Josh howled in pain, but continued to strain forwards. Leila hung suspended in
the air, her paws cycling wildly, her tongue hanging out of her jaws. All the
fur on Hyacinth�s head was standing up, and she snarled like a monster out of
the fairy tales that his mother used to tell Draco, her eyes unmixed scarlet.

�� Harry hit
the wards, and for a second a sheet of lightning surrounded him. There came a
flash so bright that Draco flickered away in instinctive defense.

�� Then he
heard the creaking and cracking of a falling plane of stone, and Harry howled
in rage and pain and triumph, before breaking into the belling cry that Draco
had heard him use when they were hunting the doe through the forest.

�� The flash
cleared. Draco, now hanging above the trees some distance away, could see a
smoking hole in the air, surrounded by golden spiraling threads. The wards had
broken and were unraveling all over the walls of the Manor.

�� Harry stood
on the other side of the dissolving magic and howled to encourage his pack, who
piled after him, no longer restrained by the defenses they had set out to
destroy. Hyacinth was yelping, thunderous sounds that were probably as close as
she could come to barking. Leila had all four paws on the ground and laughed
with her tongue lolling out, before she shot forwards to stand at Harry�s right
shoulder. Celia and Josh trotted along at the back, their strides matched,
their eyes blinking and their fur singed.

�� Draco darted
out so that he could drift directly above them. Harry tilted his head back, and
those wide golden eyes, with the slightest trace of green, found Draco.

�� My father
has me in a large room on the second floor,� Draco called. �Look for several
windows in a row with bars in the shape of a cross on them.�

�� Harry
howled in response, and then he and the pack turned, running faster than
anything on four legs should have been able to, moving around the house in the
direction of his torture room.

�� Draco shut
his eyes. Then he flickered back into his body. There was no way that his
father wouldn�t have felt the assault on the wards, and Draco had to know what
he would do next.

*

�� What in
the name of Merlin.�

�� Lucius
spoke the words in a flat tone that immediately made gooseflesh spring out on
Draco�s skin in terror. When his father spoke like that, he was dangerous in
either state of mind, mad or sane.

�� Draco
opened his eyes in time to see his father snatch up a candle from the table
nearby and stare around. During the time Draco had watched the pack, the pink
light of sunset had faded into murky purple shadows, so Draco needed the
candle, too. Lucius examined the walls for several moments, as though he
expected to find the source of the trouble in this room, and then raised his
wand and murmured a spell that Draco recognized as a clairvoyance one.

�� Werewolves.�

�� There was
such incredulity in his tone, such outrage, that Draco could easily imagine him
asking how werewolves could have dared to interrupt his ritual. He laughed
before he thought better of it.

�� Lucius spun
around and stared at him. Draco shook his head, as much as he could in the
chains, and said, �Werewolves, Father? Where would they have come from? They
could be abroad tonight, of course, but why would they come here, of all
places?�

�� I do not
know.� Lucius was taut now, looking from one window to the next. He lifted his
wand as if he would cast a spell, then lowered it again in what looked like
indecision. �This is the perfect room for the ritual,� he muttered, as if
trying to convince himself. �But I cannot use if it I am interrupted. But as
long as it is the night of the full moon and the werewolves do not come here,
there is no need to move. Why would they come here? They will try the lower
doors and windows first. They are mindless beasts, and there are such
protections on this place as they cannot break through.� He nodded as if
satisfied and returned to his Latin chant.

�� Draco
glanced at the wide door that led into this room from the rest of the house.
The yellow web of spells spun over it had not been disturbed by the wards
falling. Similar yellow strands covered the windows. He feared that Lucius
might be right.

�� He
hesitated, wondering if the pack would know what the protective spells were if
he simply described them. He hadn�t heard Lucius cast them, so he had no idea
how to identify them more conclusively.

�� The stone
of the wall under the windows cracked.

�� Draco
turned to stare at it, pain radiating through every part of his body. It was
not enough to dim the laughter that bubbled behind his lips. Harry hadn�t
bothered with the windows or the door at all. He was going to come straight
through the walls, which, with the wards fallen, were simply ordinary marble,
and apparently couldn�t stand up to the weight of a werewolf.

�� Draco
couldn�t stand it any longer. Once again, he left his body so that he could
observe the pack from the outside.

�� He was in
time to see Harry�s paws leave the ground as he hurled himself up and like a
boulder thrown by a catapult straight at the wall. It trembled and cracked. As
Harry came down, Hyacinth rose in his place, and hit the weakened place he had
just struck. The cracking sound repeated, and now Draco could see the hairline
fractures speeding through the marble, touching each other, hesitating, and
then spreading further.

�� He crowed,
and saw Harry�s eyes briefly catch on him as he leaped again. Those
golden-green eyes promptly grew brighter, and Harry lowered his head like a
battering ram, as though the sight of Draco had given him strength.

�� Draco
danced in place, then flickered back into the main room so that he could see
what his father was doing.

�� Lucius
faced the cracking wall, his mouth bent down at a sharp angle, his eyes distant,
as though he were trying to recall the last time he had faced a situation like
this and couldn�t. His wand went up and down. Draco saw his mouth form the
syllables of first one spell and then another. Each one was discarded, because
Draco doubted that he could make any spell fit the situation in the way that he
wanted it to.

�� Draco,� he
murmured suddenly, and turned and looked at his son. �Draco, advise me. What is
the best spell to hold off a gathering of werewolves? You must have studied
those books more recently than I have, because I have never studied them.�

�� Draco
collided with his body again, and had no trouble feigning a terrified
expression. �I thought that the wards were supposed to keep them out.�

�� Lucius�s
wand flicked, and the crystal chains tightened. Draco found it suddenly hard to
breathe. The chain that crossed his chest must be pressing down. He coughed and
kept on coughing until Lucius sighed and relented, loosening his bonds.

�� You must
try not to mock me, Draco,� he explained gently, stroking his wand. �The wards
will not work in this case, because they are gone. There must be another way to
face werewolves, and I want you to tell me what it is.�

�� Draco bit
his lip. �Doesn�t silver hurt them?� Harry,
forgive me. But he might kill me if I don�t give him something likely.

�� Lucius
relaxed with a chuckle. �It does indeed! I did not think of that.� He turned
and began to chant at the far wall, opposite the one Harry and Hyacinth were
cracking. As Draco watched, enormous silver spearheads formed there, aimed at
the pack. He shuddered as he imagined them launching and transfixing the
werewolves.

�� He flashed
out of his body again and yelled. Harry, who stood on the ground, tilted his
head back in inquiry. Hyacinth came down from her leap and looked in some
irritation from her leader to Draco.

�� My father
is using silver spearheads to anticipate you,� Draco shouted. �I don�t know
what you can do to stop that��

�� Harry
uttered a series of short howls. Celia, Josh, and Leila stepped up close behind
him, and Hyacinth stepped sideways so that her shoulder brushed Harry�s. Draco
tried to swallow his jealousy. Harry howled again, a long, ululating sound, and
the ripples of power rose like a fountain, cascading around him.

�� Harry�s
paws left the ground again, but he hadn�t jumped this time.

�� Draco
watched open-mouthed as he soared, using his outstretched legs and his tail to
direct himself, straight at the crack in the wall. The power was visible around
him as fuzzy purple lightning, crackling and catching in his ears and ruff.

�� Harry
slammed into the stone with an impact that made Draco wince. But the werewolf
magic was with him, the way it had been when the pack took down the wards,
freely yielded by his followers, who loved him just as Draco did. The stone
turned to dust where he touched it, and the windows sagged as the wall
supporting them vanished. Harry soared straight through and into the room
beyond.

�� Draco
willed himself to hover above Lucius�s head. He was there in less time than it
took to make the wish, and so got to see the moment when his father and Harry
first confronted each other.

�� Lucius�s
gaping mouth and widened eyes were all he could have wished for.

�� Harry,
however, was not looking at Lucius. He had his head turned and was staring at
Draco�s body on the torture rack. Draco looked with him, too much in tune not
to. He had to look away again when he saw bones and bits of skin there, nothing
more. That glance was enough to tell him that he would never walk again, and probably
wouldn�t have survived if not for the constant application of healing magic.

�� Harry
turned back to Lucius, and his growl made the floor shake.

�� The hole
behind him pulsed with red, and then Hyacinth was stalking up next to Harry,
her teeth showing white through the scarlet fur around her mouth, her coat on
end, her paws moving silently, the aura of power around her transforming her
into a creature of blood and fire.

�� The rest of
the pack howled encouragement from beyond the hole.

�� For a long
moment, the confrontation trembled on a dagger�s edge.

�� Then Harry
and Hyacinth charged.

�� And Lucius
launched the silver spearheads.

*

�� Word_Slave:
Thank you! I get worried about fictional characters all the time, so no need to
apologize for that.

�� Thrnbrooke:
Well, Hyacinth at least is convinced that Harry would go crazy if Draco died.

�� yaoiObsessed:
Thanks! Lucius didn�t immediately connect the falling of the wards with Draco;
he would have killed him if he had. That was what Harry was gambling on. Lucius
is so crazy that he can�t connect logical chains of cause and effect any more.

�� polka dot: That
will depend entirely on how much healing Draco needs and what he wants.

�� Cassandra:
Thank you!

�� mrequecky:
Thank you!

�� SP777: Glad
you feel that way. I think this story is distinctly less horrifying than some
others I�ve written, because the focus is Draco�s escapes to the pack, not what
Lucius has done to him. The understatement is meant to be more effectively horrifying
that way, but it doesn�t have the central place in the story.

�� I am
smiling. Thank you very much.
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Rejoicing In Their Strength