Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Returning to Sanity	By : AchillesTheGeek Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 31213 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter books or films, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 94
- 95
- 96
But … death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveler returns …
- Hamlet, Act III Scene i
Sunday December 20
Igor Karkaroff had almost forgotten how much he hated Cairo. But it all came swirling back to him the moment he arrived in the dingy street known only to the Wizarding world. After the dark and cold of Scandinavia, the heat and light hit him like a slap in the face. Not to mention the teeming throngs of people! At Durmstrang, there were many places nearby to go and escape and be alone, and he knew more of them than anyone else. Here, though, there were people invading his physical space, jabbering at him, offering him all manner of goods, from shoes to wives. He physically recoiled. It was most annoying that, thanks to the demands on his time at Durmstrang, he only had a couple of days to re-acclimatise to Egypt before the Ritual; he would, he was quite sure, need all of that time, he decided.
But, while he wanted to get used to Egypt, there was nothing that said he had to stay in Cairo. After a few discreet enquiries, he managed to acquire the necessities – a portkey and a contact – and an hour later he appeared in the lobby of a hotel in Aswan. He took a critical look around. He could see at once that it wasn't really the sort of place he would choose – but then, a year ago he had been in a crofter's hut in Scotland, so, he thought with a rather rueful smile, he was quite well off, all things considered.
He hardly noticed all the Egyptians edging away from the foreigner with the mad grin on his face; he wouldn't have cared, anyway. They took his money and gave him a room; that was all he needed. Their company, and the incessant jabber in his face, he could well do without.
Tuesday December 22, 1998
Unlike the full Map of the Worlds Ritual that they had performed on the Summer Solstice, which was always performed at noon, the Darkness Ritual had to span the very moment of the Winter Solstice, that is to say, the exact instant that the Sun reached the Tropic of Capricorn and appeared to stand still before making its apparent journey back north. According to Bill's well-thumbed almanac, that event was due to happen at exactly 1:56am GMT on 22 December, no matter that the Solstice itself was reckoned to be on 21 December. That this was at night was a very happy coincidence – the complete absence of sunlight only helped this ritual. Even the waxing moon would be only three days old – as near to perfect darkness as they were ever likely to get in this land where cloudy skies were a rare event.
Bill arrived at Berenice just after midnight in high spirits. Since he was coming from Gringotts and Karkaroff from Durmstrang, it had made better sense for them to each make his own way to Berenice and meet up there rather than trying to synchronise calendars beforehand. As an extra bonus, it meant that Bill could take the opportunity to watch the Ceremony of the Woods. For, while he had not had any official part in the Ceremony (as a professional curse breaker and ritual expert, he was well aware that performing two separate rituals in the span of twenty-four hours was not at all a sensible thing to do), that did not mean he could not attend; he had simply taken care to be under a glamour while doing so. It had been well worth it; the sense of community that the ceremony had engendered had been palpable. He had found it incredibly moving to see Muggles, Squibs, Muggle-born and Half-bloods joining in what was traditionally a pure-blood-only event.
Travelling separately had also been useful to avoid being noticed. The Egyptian Government, including their Ministry of Magic, were rather chary of allowing foreigners anywhere near ritual sites. And, Bill had to admit to himself, given the number of relics that had been 'liberated' from the country, with good reason. Two wizards arriving together, one a known curse-breaker, would surely arouse some notice; independent travelers could hope to avoid suspicion. And avoiding suspicion was definitely something his employers were pleased about. The Goblins were always very secretive about such matters.
When he entered the chamber, Bill thought for a moment that he was first; but then a dark figure wandered over to him from the shadows. Despite himself, he was impressed. He had a wealth of experience in places where being surprised by anything could easily mean death, so not many people could sneak up on him. By the look on his face, Igor Karkaroff very much enjoyed being one of them.
"So," the older man said, "you are here at last. You have the wood?"
"Yes," Bill replied, a touch curtly, "and of course I do."
"Good," Karkaroff said, ignoring Bill's tone. He would have just nodded; but the only light in the chamber was from the two very light Lumos charms the wizards had cast, and Bill might not have seen the motion of his head. "Well, we should get started. It will be the moment of Solstice soon enough."
Bill put down the tiny backpack he had brought with him and began to unload it. Karkaroff was rather startled to see the amount of stuff he managed to pull out of it. He had heard of these bags that could contain vast amounts, of course; but ones like this that obviously went beyond the scope of normal expansion charms were something of a rarity and difficult to get hold of. He had heard that the Granger girl had had one, and had idly wondered how she came by it; but then, he mused, perhaps her predilection for research went beyond mere facts. It didn't really matter to him, after all.
Once all the gear had been removed, the two wizards began the painstaking task of assembling everything exactly as required by the ritual. First to go on the table was a piece of black vellum; Karkaroff was impressed that it seemed to be perfectly smooth and uniformly dark, both of which were notoriously difficult in the stretchy, imperfect material. Clearly the goblins took this enterprise seriously and were not afraid to put their resources behind it. Then came the glass dishes, on which they place the small heaps of – highly dangerous – chemicals: noxious yellow sulphur, poisonous red cinnabar, saltpetre, and so on until a circle of small bowls had been placed precisely around the edge of the parchment. In the middle, Bill placed a shallow silver dish, which he then filled with water.
By half-past one, everything was ready, and they spent a tense twenty minutes waiting before they were able to start the ritual. When the alarm Bill had set to warn them went off, he touched his wand to the small pile of sulphur they had placed in the middle of the ritual table and whispered the required incantation.
The result was spectacular. Unlike the Summer solstice, which had been in daylight, hot and sweaty, this time the air was freezing cold. So the column of fire that flared up out of the silver dish was most welcome, giving both light and heat in abundance. Also, unlike Summer, there was no need for them to cast anything at all once the initial spell had been set; they only really had to watch and hope they'd got everything right as the ritual unfolded before them.

ooOOoo
Deep sleep did not come easily to the Malfoys that night.
Lucius tossed and turned ...
A new warmth that had come into his family from last night, and the Ceremony had only reinforced that. He too had been moved, and had remembered so many emotional moments: the horror of the Dark Lord in Malfoy Manor; the terror of the Battle of Hogwarts; the anger he had had after the battle, when his and Draco's magics were locked away; the astonishment at Potter's victory over the Dark Lord and the bind; the fear of being Potter's vessel; the hollowness of being sentenced to Azkaban and the relief at Hermione's suggestion of a suspended sentence being accepted; the horrible angst of trying to beat the Debt of Magical Emancipation; the euphoria of feeling he'd got one over Harry Potter; the lonely feeling of his family at war with him; the dismay of discovering he had not beaten the debt at all. Since then, he had discovered, to his surprise and delight, that owing a debt to Harry Potter was, as his son had assured him, completely unlike owing one to the Dark Lord; indeed, since the day Draco went with Harry to Grimmauld Place, he had found himself becoming free for the first time since the Dark Lord's return.
It was a heady feeling; and not less so because of the way the Ceremony of the Woods had taken those feelings and distilled them. Of course the challenge for them was to reconcile the events of the year with the pure-blood ways he still needed to cling to to remain a political force. As his mind ran over the Ceremony, it struck him that Narcissa, bless her, had done just that: by opening up the pure-blood ritual to all, she had also opened up a way for pure-bloods to influence the rest.
It was beautiful. It was devious. It was every inch the action of a Slytherin. And so he began to plot and plan…
Narcissa dozed fitfully …
She knew that Lucius was scheming. She had been married to him for long enough to interpret all the signs: the sighs, and quiet mutterings, and tossing-and-turning. She turned over, cast a silencing ward, and started to doze off again.
In the Potter-Malfoy bedroom, things were much calmer. Draco was snoring very lightly, dead to the world in his favourite sleep position entwined around his own personal Wizard pillow. As always when in this position, he had a slight smile on his face; not that anyone was awake to see it.
And Harry?
Harry dreamed …
A white mist swirled all around him, As it slowly began to clear, the space he was in took on shape: a large room; no, scratch that, a very large room, stone walls, high ceiling, a feeling of home …
He looked around curiously. He felt he should know where he was; but somehow it didn't seem right. It was as if one had walked into a well-known room from a different door; things were familiar but seemed to be in the wrong places, somehow.
His observations were cut short by the drawling of a rather familiar voice.
"Mr Potter."
He turned to see a hazy figure walking towards him. It was clearly that of a man, dressed all in black robes. Harry stood still, waiting patiently until it took visible shape, confirming his first impression: Severus Snape was walking towards him.
"I must be dreaming," he replied. "And it's Malfoy-Potter now."
"Ah yes," the man sneered. "Dreaming, you call it. Can't say, having watched you in class, that I can agree. You seem more awake than ever."
And then all of a sudden, there was a strange twinkle in the onyx eyes, and to Harry's very great surprise, Snape actually smiled at him. It was rather unnerving. For in Harry's experience, Snape smile was usually a smirk, just before a tricky question, or docking house points, or when he'd decided on a particularly vile detention. But that was different. There was genuine amusement in his eyes. Somewhat to Harry's surprise, Snape reached out a hand to him.
"I suppose I must congratulate you on your marriage," he continued, as Harry accepted the handshake. You certainly seem to have found a most intelligent partner. It seems, perhaps, that you are not a complete dunderhead after all."
Harry smiled. This was the closest thing that he had ever received to a compliment from Snape. Perhaps he should not have been surprised when the man went on to turn it around immediately. But really, he would have been unhappy with anything else.
"Tell me," he asked with a raised eyebrow, "have you investigated the library at Spinner's End since visiting with the other Mr Malfoy-Potter?"
Harry blushed, and Snape continued, "thought not. How did you manage to pass any of your subjects, I wonder, if you ignore such treasures… Tell me, have you decided on a new career now that you are not going to be an Auror?"
Harry was a little floored at the question, and wondered how Snape knew that; but then, the portraits seemed to know all sorts of things too.
"Er, well, as it happens, I haven't yet..." he stammered out.
"Now, now, Severus, I think that's quite enough baiting of poor Harry," another familiar voice said.
"Professor Dumbledore!" Harry exclaimed, and turned to see that indeed they had been joined by the former headmaster.
"Harry!" he said, a huge smile on his face. "Nice place you have here."
"Me?" Harry asked, and then thought back to the time he had met the headmaster in the dream replica of King's Cross station. "But… I don't even really recognise it."
"Don't you?" Albus replied, and waved his hand to draw Harry to look closer. As he did, the mist seemed to clear further, and he realised where he was.
"It's the Great Hall!" he exclaimed. "But… it's different."
"Five points to Gryffindor," Snape said sarcastically, and Harry had to bite his tongue lest he exclaim at his very first ever House points from the snarky Potions professor. Not that it counted, of course; as an Eighth Year student, he no longer officially belonged to Gryffindor. He was quite sure that Snape had thought of this; and, by the twinkle in his eye, Dumbledore was well aware of what was going on.
As the mist swirled away, it became clear that they were indeed in the Great Hall at Hogwarts, or a replica of it; but it was strangely different. For one thing, there was a gallery that ran around three sides of the room
"Surely that was never there?" Harry asked as his arm indicated the gallery.
Snape followed the sweep of Harry's hand, seeming to see the gallery for the first time.
"Not in my time," he replied.
"Curious," Albus mused. "In fact, my boy, it was there – but not in your time. No, it was removed by my predecessor as headmaster, Armando Dippett. He thought it rather detracted from the grandeur of the Hall. And we certainly no longer needed it; time was when the Hall was filled to bursting, but we have improved the expansion charms since then. And I'm afraid that the Wizarding wars with Gellert Grindelwald and Tom Riddle have had a rather deleterious effect on enrolments…"
"Gellert?" Harry asked, then remembered Dumbledore's sister and the events of long ago, culminating in the death of Ariana Dumbledore, Albus and Aberforth's sister, and a broken friendship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and the latter's incarceration in Nurmengard. "I remember you discussing him. Um, he was there that day, wasn't he? Do you now know what happened?"
"Ah, Harry," Dumbledore said softly. "That tale has not been vouchsafed me yet; I fear I must move beyond these spheres to find that out."
While they were talking, Snape seemed to have vanished; Harry decided he was offering them a chance to talk in private. He found it rather strange; but on the whole, it was easily the most comfortable conversation he'd ever had with the man, and somehow it cemented the fact that the hostility between them was truly at an end. As he mused, Harry looked around, admiring the structure: the balcony ran along one side of the Hall, and was supported by rather lovely fluted marble pillars.
Something jogged in Harry's memory. Fluted pillars? Where had he seen them before?
"Professor," Harry asked, "these pillars – there was one actually there when I defeated Voldemort. I hid behind it when I spoke to Draco. But how could that be?"
Albus looked thoughtful, but his eyes twinkled, and he actually rubbed his hands together. "Ah, Harry," he said, "How delightful! A mystery! I must confess I have always been rather partial to good mysteries; they make me feel young again. I'm afraid do not know how you have managed to recreate this place as it was before you were born; nor how the pillar could possibly have actually been there. There is some deep enchantment at work here."
"Oh," Harry said.
"Quite," the headmaster replied, looking carefully at an engraved image on the pillar. "Does this look familiar?" he asked.
Harry came over to see what the headmaster was studying. It was indeed a familiar shape: a triangle containing a circle overlaid with a straight line.
"The symbol of the Deathly Hallows!" Harry exclaimed.
"And also Gellert's symbol," Dumbledore said. "Now, I wonder…"

ooOOoo
The ritual finally finished just after three am. The last thing to happen was a sudden eruption of yellow sulphurous smoke, which swept around the pillar of fire that was still burning on the ritual table; and then, with a huge bang, it swept into the flame and was burnt up. At this point, the pillar itself collapsed, and the room was left in pitch darkness.
"Well," Karkaroff said eventually, as he calmly cast a Lumos charm which instantly lit the whole space, "I think we can safely say that the ritual worked."
"I suppose so," Bill replied, as he walked to the table, but Karkaroff could hear the disappointment in his voice. The redhead did not elaborate; he simply moved to the table to examine the result.
All of the dishes had vanished completely. Instead, on the parchment, they saw an intricate pattern of extremely fine silver lines, etched in a glass medium that made the resulting parchment absolutely rigid.
"Wow!" Bill said as he saw it, and Karkaroff rather agreed, though not willing to express himself quite so uncouthly. Instead, he took out his wand.
"Revelio!" he cast.
Instantly, a light came up from the parchment, and the silver pattern took on three-dimensional shape. Before, Bill had thought that the map they had produced was very impressive magic; now he had no words. The map, stretched out above the table, was breathtakingly beautiful. Once again, there were concentric spheres; at least, it appeared so at first, but then he saw that the outermost figure, the Sphere of Intangible Absence, was not in fact a sphere at all. It was more like a bowl: the bottom was spherical, but then it seemed to reach outwards, not upwards. And it did so with a sense of foreboding; it got darker as it branched away from the other spheres, and there was a palpable sense of being lost as it seemed to spin away …
"Now," Karkaroff said, affecting a didactic tone, "the thing that this map will show us clearly, that the other map did not, is any horcruxes that still exist. My theory is that any horcruxes will progress through the spheres more slowly than the soul they were made from; acting as a sort of brake to them."
"Which would explain how they can anchor someone in this world," Bill mused.
"Exactly!" Karkaroff replied, his eyes lighting up with the fervour of a man expounding his pet theory. He pointed to an intricate web of silver lines that connected small misshapen objects, caught crossing into what must be the Sphere of Intangible Extension. Karkaroff studied it with keen interest. "This, I think, must be Voldemort's horcruxes, fleeing from the realms. You remember we found him last time, already in the Sphere of Intangible Absence. It is very strange, though; some of the strands seem to have snapped somehow. Perhaps they were broken when the horcruxes were destroyed?"
"I remember last time," Bill replied; but he had not heard the headmaster's theory, being distracted, already scanning the image, looking to see if there were any more of the thin silver lines.
To their very great relief, they found none.

ooOOoo
Draco stirred in his dreams. All at once, he seemed to find himself back in a familiar classroom: there were tables and chairs, to be sure, but in addition there was a cupboard. He was, he knew at once, back in the Defense classroom as it had been set up in their third year. Which should mean that the cupboard contained a boggart; and the Defense Professor was …
"Hello Draco," Remus's dry voice said as Draco thought of him.
"Professor Lupin!" he replied, blushing with embarrassment as he thought on how he had agitated to have the werewolf removed from the castle, and yet it was his funeral that Harry had first stuck up for Draco in public.
"None of that!" the werewolf said, instantly understanding the issue. "For a start, I'm not a Professor any more. And that's why I'm here, Draco. You need to know that your part in the War is understood. And I, for one, forgive you. Harry was my cub, you're his spouse; it would be ridiculous for us to be anything but friends."
The word 'ridiculous' reminded Draco once again of the boggart and how 'riddikulus' was the curse to dispel it. He could smile at the memory now.
"I wonder what I would see now," he mused.
"Best not to see, I think," Remus replied. "But I do need to ask you a rather serious question."
"Ah," Draco said, and suddenly it camed to him. While they both loved Harry, this Remus Lupin was the same Remus Lupin who was Harry's godson Teddy's father. Complicated.
"About Teddy?" he replied.
"Yes."
"Well, let me see," Draco said slowly, choosing his words with care, "Harry's his godfather, that's not going to change. And I guess, um, how can I put this, since you're not available…"
"By being dead you mean," Remus interrupted, but the smile on his face gave Draco courage to continue.
"Yes, that. I guess that makes us his step-fathers." And, warming to the idea more that he would have thought, he continued, "so that means we're going to have three children..."
Remus smiled.
"Thank you," he said, secure in the knowledge that the two people he cared about most in all the world –Teddy and Harry – were in good hands. They chatted a little longer before a contented werewolf disappeared in a cloud of mist as Draco fell back to sleep.

ooOOoo
The mists swirled again, and Harry found he was seated alone on a bench that had now appeared. He idly wondered of perhaps it might be transfigured into a chaise-longue as it had been before; even as he thought it, the bench shimmered slightly and changed form, just as he remembered it.
"Impressive," a voice said to him, and with a swirl of red light, a figure appeared beside him. A very familiar figure. A very welcome figure indeed.
Harry's eyes lit up.
"PADFOOT!" he yelled, all but knocking Sirius Black over in a huge hug.
"Hi kiddo," Sirius replied with a laugh as his arms automatically snaked around his godson.
They sat clasped tightly together for a long time.
"So, just you?" Harry asked eventually as they released each other. "No Moony?"
Sirius gave him a sad smile. He knew what Harry was not asking, how he was hoping that perhaps his parents would appear as well.
"No Moony," he agreed. "He has another assignment today. And don't think I don't know you'd rather see your parents."
"Er, yeah," Harry said nervously, worried that perhaps Sirius might be offended by the possible implication that by himself, he wasn't enough.
Sirius roared with laughter.
"Don't worry, Harry," he said. "No-one will take offense from you here. Now, I understand you have a dog animagus? Wanna play tag?"
And with that, Sirius changed to his own form. Harry followed suit and the grim and the labrador raced each other around the Hall. First one chasing the other and then reversing.
At last, rather tuckered out, they sat back on the chaise-longue.
"Wow," Harry said, "guess I'll be tired tomorrow!"
Sirius chuckled. "Good. Now, the visitors you have had tonight came for a reason, can you guess what it is?"
"Does it have anything to do with the mordant? I noticed there was a red light when you appeared, just like there is in the Haussmann shield."
Somehow, Harry wasn't surprised that Sirius did not seem to need any explanation for this remark.
His face became serious for once. "Yes and no. Well, a bit, I guess. You see, there was some really strange magic set loose when you set Draco and Lucius free from Voldemort's curse. And that has affected both the living world and the world of shades. I'm not the one to tell you how it happened; but we were finally allowed to come and visit to let you know that all is well."
Here Sirius gave Harry a sly dig in the ribs. "It seems the rulers of this realm understand your propensity for worrying about things that aren't your fault."
Harry snorted. "All right then. So, is this the last visit? Or will I see you again?"
"I don't think you'll see me again," Sirius replied, becoming serious again. "Or any of the others, after tonight. But you will have one other visitor. And he will tell you what it's all about. But I might have to prepare you…"
- 94
- 95
- 96
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

Returning to Sanity