Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Incandescence	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 13843 -:- 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
- 8
- 9
- 10
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Nine�Illusion

�� Draco eyed
the Hog�s Head with resignation. Not even the prosperity that the end of the
war had brought to the pub�it seemed that quite a few people wanted to drink in
a place where the barman was someone who had saved Harry Potter�s life�could
change things in it. The smell of goats, which always reminded Draco of rotting
grain and feces mixed, drifted from the planked walls. The signboard still
carried a hog�s head bleeding onto a field of white, but someone had painted
several long and dripping strands of blood on the bottom, so realistic that
Draco felt a little faint as he looked at them.

�� Needs must, he told himself, subtly
casting a spell on his face that should repel the worst of the scent before he
reached out to open the door. Think of it
as atmosphere. Surely you could set the beginning of a novel here?

�� Of course,
the moment he started thinking about that, he was at a loss for a hero, with
Potter unavailable to him. Draco sighed. Wading through his life was indeed wading
through a sea of troubles, a phrase he had seen in one of Yolanda�s stories last
night and liked.

�� The inside
of the pub was so dingy that Draco had to feel gingerly in front of himself
with his foot, to ensure that he didn�t stumble over something. As it was, he
fell over the small step coming down into the main room and straightened
himself with a flush and a clearing of his throat. Hostile glances darted at
him, then wandered away.

�� It�s not fair that Potter has such an
advantage in disguising himself, Draco thought in disgust, turning his head
in several directions as he walked across the floor of the main room. The
patrons all wore their cloaks over their faces, as usual. They all hunched over
their drinks, as usual, and communicated in grunts when Aberforth Dumbledore
brought them more drinks, as usual. Potter could walk in here wearing his own
face and probably no one would notice.

�� Draco restrained
his own exaggeration as he scanned the room for Yolanda. Yes, they would
notice, and a nervous ripple would no doubt run through the ones who were here
in defiance of the exile laws or to trade dragons� eggs or other illegal goods.
He would have to rely on the ripple to warn him if someone came in who was
dangerous to him personally, instead of faces.

�� Atmosphere, remember, he told himself,
and did his best to look confident as he strutted over to Yolanda�s table and
gave her a curt nod.

�� Yolanda
nodded back. She had secured a table in the corner, where she could watch the
doors and the few smudged windows simultaneously. A long cloak draped over her
shoulders and fell in graceful folds about her hands, but left her face bare,
so that Draco didn�t see much point to her disguise. Her drink sat in front of
her, a mug full of evil-smelling red liquid that Draco contemplated with dismay.
He didn�t relish sitting across from her for an hour or however long this
conversation would take and breathing in those fumes.

�� Draco
tossed his own cloak around the back of his chair and sat down with an
ostentatiously direct stare into Yolanda�s eyes. She would need to believe that
he was guileless, or at least it would be best if she did, for his and Potter�s
tricks to work. And it would also help if she could believe that he was a bit
stupid, the way that someone trying to blackmail a powerful and dangerous
person would be.

�� If she�s that powerful and dangerous person.
It bothered Draco that he and Potter had as yet discovered no method by which
Yolanda could have found out Potter�s secrets, though Potter had admitted to
meeting her two or three times at Ministry functions.

�� Yolanda
stared back at him. Draco went on looking until he felt his eyes water, and
then jumped as the gruff voice of Aberforth sounded in his ear.

�� What yer
havin�?�

�� Good God, his diction has declined. Draco
restrained a shudder and nodded at him. �Firewhisky.�

�� Puling
boy�s drink,� Aberforth declared, and wandered off in the direction of the bar.
Draco sighed. He had chosen Firewhisky because it was strong enough to drown out
the taste of the phantom goats and dirt that haunted the bar, but not strong
enough to strip his throat clean of its lining. Of course, no matter what he
chose, Aberforth would probably declare it was inferior to his own choice, so
Draco shouldn�t worry about it.

�� One of the lessons you should have taken
from your confrontation with Potter is that you can�t impress everyone with the
Malfoy charm.

�� Yolanda
leaned forwards across the table and lowered her voice. Draco had thought she
might do that. His hands were conveniently beneath the level of the table, so
he squeezed the small crystal in his pocket. Potter had given it to him and
explained that it was a device the Aurors used to overhear private
conversations, as long as it could be carried by or planted on one of the
participants in the conversation. Squeezing it would allow their words to flow
directly to a similar device in Potter�s ears.

�� Potter had
explained all that in fascinating detail, then forbidden Draco to ever
explicitly mention the device in a novel. Not all Draco�s sulking had changed
that.

�� You have
to understand, Mr. Malfoy, that there is a reason to get out of the public eye
with such talk as you gave me.�

�� Draco
nodded with a wide-eyed expression. �Of course. Because though you are the best
audience for it, you are not the only audience if we speak in the middle of the
street.�

�� Exactly.�
Yolanda leaned back in her seat enough to look at him appraisingly. �But I have
wards around this table that will prevent anyone from eavesdropping now. You
may speak freely to me of what you have learned.�

�� Draco
dropped his eyelids coyly. �I don�t think I could�without some hope of material
reward from it.�

�� He felt
more than he saw Yolanda�s shudder. Aberforth came back with his drink, and
Draco used the excuse of looking up and nodding at him to glance around the
room. Still he saw no one who looked like Potter, or indeed like anything but a
hunched and shrouded shape. Some of them resembled furniture more than human
beings.

�� I dislike
all talk of material things,� Yolanda said softly. �We are both writers, Mr.
Malfoy, which means that we deal with the spiritual matter of personalities,
motivations, pasts, souls. I would rather pay you in coinage of the soul.
Assuming, of course, that you know anything I would find valuable.�

�� I think I do.� Draco chose a shrewd
expression this time, as if he were considering her words, while he sipped at
his Firewhisky. �For example, I have a letter here. While it is a material
thing and thus not to your taste intrinsically, I think the shape of the
writing and the thickness of the paper and the color of the ink all together
add up to a sufficiently metaphysical whole.� He dug out the letter he had had
Justice intercept and handed it solemnly across the table.

�� Yolanda
took it and gazed at it. Draco watched her face, but she had absolutely perfect
control of her muscles. He shook his head. He had thought it might be so. He
had spent last night, after Potter left, rereading a few of her stories, and
she described expressions too well not to know how betraying they could be.
Sometimes the major revelations of her writing depended on the look on a
character�s face.

�� Interesting,�
said Yolanda, running one finger down the crease in the middle of the letter.
�Cryptic. Almost prophetic. However, I fail to see how, from this letter, you
have deduced that I could have any connection to it.�

�� The letter
hints of madness, does it not?� Draco lowered his voice to the soft tone of
hers, fully confident that Potter would be able to overhear them despite
everything. �Almost savors of it. And I know that you write about madness.�

�� Yolanda
touched the edge of the paper, seeming to admire the shape of the letters, and
then smiled at Draco. �And you have brought this to me to serve as a source of
inspiration for my stories? It is very kind of you, but ideas concerned with
madness and the other vices of our society which require satirizing drop freely
from the air. I need not pay you for this.� She pushed the letter back to him.

�� Draco put a
hand on the edge of the table and prevented the parchment from falling off it.
�Look again,� he urged gently. �Does any of this seem familiar?�

�� No.�
Yolanda shook her head, and she could do innocence very well, couldn�t she? Her
eyes were not ridiculously knowing, and she let her shoulders rise in a
helpless shrug when Draco looked at her. �I don�t know what else you want me to
say. I would tell you if I had seen it before, but I am afraid that any hunt
you mount in this direction is futile.�

�� Draco would
have exploded in frustration if he hadn�t expected this. Yolanda must know the
consequences that could fall upon her head if she was suspected of tormenting
Potter, or even driving him to madness or suicide. So he simply nodded and
leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling.

�� It�s
strange, isn�t it?� he mused. �That both you and I make our living writing
about prominent members of our society, and yet it shouldn�t have occurred to
us before now?�

�� Yolanda
said, �I beg your pardon?�

�� I can�t
believe that I never thought of Potter before.� Draco brought his gaze down and
smiled at her, keeping his face gentle. �It seems like he would be the natural
start to any series called Heroic Lives,
and yet, here I am, finding him almost at the end. And you probably would have
targeted him much earlier, except that he moved in a sphere that you considered
beyond your reach.�

�� Do you
still persist in your delusion that I had anything to do with this?� Yolanda
nodded to the letter. �Though I must thank you for giving me a name.�

��

Draco suffered a brief moment of
panic. What if he had judged wrongly and given up Potter�s secrets for nothing?
Yolanda�s regret and incomprehension was so perfect that it seemed hard to
believe it was a mask.

But he did not distrust his own artistic
judgment that much. This had become an argument about art, now, or at least he
was trying to turn it into one. He linked his fingers together and gave her a
wise, scolding look.

�I know that you�re hunting him,�
he said. It was a more open statement than he had planned to make, but Yolanda
made a careless motion with her left hand, and that at least showed he had
caught her attention. �I don�t blame you. Such tempting prey.� He hoped
fervently that Potter wouldn�t take the wrong impression from this, but then,
he had probably heard his partner or his confederates sound as if they were
betraying him before during his Auror work. Draco could not believe that no one
who tried to kill Aurors had ever targeted Potter. �And if you discovered that he
had a secret that brought him close to the edge of madness, how could you
resist?�

�� Yolanda
gave him a fleeting smile. �You have a grave misunderstanding of my character,
if you believe that I would target the hero who saved us all.�

�� I have a
better understanding of your art,� Draco said. �You have to destroy everything
that is pure and uncomplicated. Potter is not an uncomplicated force for good
in our world, but many people see him that way. You would need to bring out his
flaws into a sharper light and cast him down, so that other people would see
the folly of their own aspirations in trying to rise out of the muck of the
world. And madness is quite a flaw.�

�� He leaned
nearer, and Yolanda did the same thing with what looked like a struggle against
herself. Draco could have laughed triumphantly. He had her. Yolanda, like all
writers Draco was familiar with, wanted to be praised, but she also wanted to
be understood. And if Draco had seen what she was trying to do, even if he
didn�t approve of it, she had to follow the irresistible call of his charmer�s
pipe.

�� That was
it, wasn�t it?� Draco whispered. �That was the reason you never thought of him.
Maybe he wasn�t pure and uncomplicated�you knew that in your bones, you could
taste that simply by running your tongue along your lips�but you hadn�t
discovered any evidence of a flaw in him that others hadn�t used to try and
bring him down, and failed with. You knew that most of your audience wouldn�t
listen, now, to the same old lies filled with the dirt of prejudice. You
ignored him because he wasn�t a victim.

�� Then you
looked into his eyes, and it seems that you saw the taint of incipient madness
there. I commend you for spotting it. Someone who wasn�t looking, who wasn�t
enthralled with his seeming divinity, wouldn�t have seen it. But you did.

�� You saw
through the veils of illusion and into the heart of things. You always do.
That�s why your enemies hate and fear you. You aren�t a satirist so much as a
prophet, predicting the fall of their idols. And if you try to hurry along the
fall of one, what does that matter?� Draco shrugged a bit, watching the
fascinated way her eyes widened. �He would fall in any case. Perhaps you can
ensure that he doesn�t take down the delicate fabric of so many hopes and
dreams when he perishes.�

�� He paused,
then added gently, �Wasn�t that the way it was?�

�� Yolanda
shivered all over. Then she took a deep breath and said, �You seem to know much
about me.�

�� I have
read you, and I have thought as long on your stories as my brain would permit,�
Draco said simply. �That is why I dare to claim knowledge of you, no matter how
much my knowledge of your character may be lacking.�

�� Yolanda
shivered again, and said, �Yes. I understand now. You are more of an artist
than I thought you were when you began to talk of vulgar payment. You are a
seer of souls, someone who can spin cobwebs and make them as strong as steel.�

�� Draco
preened under her praise, because she would expect it of him and because it was
true, and then said, �I spoke of payment only because I had my doubts, at
first, that you had sought Potter out as true grist for the mill of your
stories and not for some other, more unforgivable reason. Now that I know the
truth, I see no reason for you to deny it to me. You wrote those letters,
didn�t you?� He leaned forwards and gazed at her with his heart in his eyes.

�� Yes.� No
hesitation in Yolanda�s voice, no wavering.

�� Draco could
almost hear Potter�s silent gasp from somewhere in the room. He wanted to laugh
triumphantly, but he controlled himself and gave her a steady look. �And was it
the way I have said? I want to be corrected if there is any wrongness in my
tale.�

�� It was,�
Yolanda said. �I saw him, and I read the truth of the madness in his eyes. It
was all as you have said.� She sat back and sipped at her foul-smelling drink,
smiling at Draco.

�� You must
be a mighty reader of souls, to see it in his eyes,� Draco said.

�� Of souls.�
Yolanda�s smile grew deeper. �Or of minds.�

�� She�s a Legilimens. Of course. Draco
felt incredibly stupid.

�� You have
done a remarkable job of figuring it out,� Yolanda said. �I am glad, given that
you also show an understanding of my art that no one has demonstrated in
years.� She sighed. �It is a lonely journey, to go through one�s life and not
be understood.�

�� I can bear
that,� Draco said. He was giving little attention to the conversation now,
instead trying to turn his head so that he could seek out Potter in his
disguise. He would lose the bet if he tried to figure it out later. �But I
can�t bear to see people disregard and misunderstand my books. I am lucky
enough to have achieved considerable popular success, however.�

�� I have
envied you that at times,� Yolanda said, with a heaviness of tone that turned
Draco�s eyes back to her. �I have thought that you were working with inferior
material, however much you sculpted it into pleasing shapes, and that I
deserved the attention lavished on you better than you did.�

�� Draco
lifted his chin and shrugged slightly, not sure that he dared take his eyes
from her now. There was a strange sharpness to her face that concerned him.
�Alas, there is no accounting for the tastes of critics.�

�� No,
indeed.� Yolanda slid her hand carelessly along the table. �Luckily, most other
matters are more easily explained.�

�� The world
abruptly began to spin before Draco�s eyes. He coughed, feeling as if the foul
smell of Yolanda�s drink had got into his throat and begun to choke him. He
sagged forwards, and felt Yolanda form a pillow of her hands to catch him.

�� Always sad
when someone becomes drunk on success,� Yolanda said with a sigh, and then she
shouted for Aberforth.

�� The barman
grumbled when he learned that he was doomed to receive Galleons for Draco�s
drink from someone other than Draco, but Yolanda spoke soothingly, pleasantly,
and he departed a little less ruffled. Draco heard their voices as from a
distance. He couldn�t raise his head. He couldn�t move his limbs. His eyes were
flickering helplessly open and shut, and even when he could see, he was staring at a formless sea of shifting colors.

�� What the fuck did she do to me?

�� He told
himself he should have anticipated this; after all, Yolanda had used the
Hideous Hopfrog venom, and if she was a Legilimens, then she had probably read
his intentions out of his mind in the moment after he sat down.

�� And I just had to sit there, looking her in
the eye, in those first seconds, to prove that I wasn�t afraid.

�� No, I can
help him home,� Yolanda was telling someone else, her voice gentle and amused. �I�m
afraid that we met here to celebrate the publication of his new book, and he
had a few too many. He doesn�t live far from me.�

�� The
inquisitive person turned away, and Draco engaged in a mad struggle to put his
head up and yell for help. But his body continued to dangle limply, and Yolanda
sighed as if she were exasperated and cast a Lightening Charm.

�� You�ve
gained some bulk over the last year, Draco,� she murmured to him.

�� Draco was
torn between outrage that she would dare to say such a thing and admiration of
her acting skills. No one was going to come for him as long as they thought she
was just helping a friend home.

�� Then he
remembered that Potter had been in the Hog�s Head, and his hopes rose.

�� Then he
remembered that Yolanda had had the chance to read that part of his plan out of his head, too, and his hopes crashed
again.

�� Ah, this
way.� Yolanda turned a corner. Draco tried to force his eyes to focus and
figure out which one it was, but the houses were only smears that were losing
definition even as he tried to watch them. �I thought so,� said Yolanda in a pleased voice, and then she wrapped one arm
around him and Apparated.

�� Draco
thought he must have fallen unconscious for a moment, because he seemed to go
straight from darkness and silence into firelight and harp music. Yolanda said
something sharp that was probably meant to dismiss the house-elf, and deposited
him on a couch. Draco tried to breathe deeply, as if he were asleep, and
wondered if that would be enough to fool her, and if Potter would be able to
track them through her Apparition.

�� Yolanda
reached down and plucked something from his hip, and suddenly Draco was seeing
normally again, though he still couldn�t move. He gave her a haughty glare, and
restrained the first clich�d words that sprang to his lips. He wasn�t a
character in a story, and neither was she. Forgetting that had been part of the
problem earlier.

�� Another
little invention of mine,� Yolanda explained. Draco had a distracted thought
that that was kind of her, to take the time to soothe his curiosity. They had
some things in common, after all. Yolanda sat down on a couch next to him and
shook her head. �What do I do now? That is the question. I don�t fancy being
charged with murder, and I don�t trust Memory Charms to hold. The stories where
the villain releases the hero with amnesia and thinks that he�ll not remember a
thing never work out well.� She
paused a moment, as if considering her statement as one about art, and added,
�For the villain, at least, which I grant you is rarely their import.�

�� Simply
because I discovered it doesn�t mean that I would have done anything about it,�
Draco said. He tried to sound calm and bored. Maybe that would convince Yolanda
that he had done this only as a game, if she hadn�t read all his thoughts. �A
confession like the one you made today, without Veritaserum and just to me in a
pub, isn�t of any use in identifying you if you won�t repeat it. I wanted the
satisfaction of running Potter�s tormentor to earth. Now that I�ve done it, I
don�t have to��

�� I don�t
believe you,� Yolanda said in a gentle voice, shaking her head slowly back and
forth. �Did you know that you have very expressive eyes, Draco? Not like
Potter�s. He has no shields, but he looks at the world with a guarded gaze. No
reason why he should not, after it has hurt him so many times. But you look
with a confident, steady gaze, because not enough has thwarted you.� She
stepped forwards and reached into his pocket. Draco�s heart grew heavier as she
fetched out the listening crystal that Potter had given him and crushed it with
an easy pressure of her fingers.

�� Draco
closed his eyes. At the moment, it didn�t seem that he could do anything else.

�� Yolanda
bent down towards him, and he felt her breath on the edge of his ear. �I need
inspiration from reality, as you do,� she whispered. �I had hoped that the tale
of Potter�s decline would serve me for a book-length work, and I hoped to give
it a final artistic polish�as Potter himself is so completely lacking in
artistry�by precipitating that decline. But it looks as though he is warned.
Some months of wasted effort.

�� But a
night may make up for it. And there are many ways in which someone could serve
as inspiration, especially for someone who knows madness and death as
intimately as I do.� Yolanda tweaked his ear, and he couldn�t even react to
that. �I will give you an honorable role in the final story you will ever tell,
Draco. I promise you that.��

*

��

�� polka dot:
Thanks!

�� butterpie:
Thank you! And yes, I�m sure that Harry is looking. He probably always does.

�� Unfortunately,
the trap didn�t work out quite the way they�d hoped�

�� Snivelly:
Er, I hope that you�ll still be happy with the outcome?

�� Well, Draco
got her to talk by talking about art, but, er.

�� SP777: I
know what you mean, but actually, I find Harry much easier to empathize with
than Draco. (For one thing, I have a real dislike of whining, and Draco in the
books does a great deal of that). One reason I�m writing more stories from
Draco�s POV is to try and get myself to empathize with him more.

�� And yes,
you�re right about the relationship with Harry just getting started. This is
mostly pre-slash.

�� november:
Thank you!

�� Thrnbrooke:
Yeah, about that�

�� FallenAngel1129:
Unfortunately, Draco didn�t get the chance to find out in this chapter!

�� hieisdragoness18:
Thanks! And, yes, I personally think the holding hands is a cute detail.
- 8
- 9
- 10
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

Incandescence