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Ragnarok	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 11308 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Ragnarok
- 2-Strike
- 3-Assault
- 4-Counterstrike
- 5-Backblow
- 6-Clash
- 7-Collision
- 8-Blast
- 9-Jab
- 10-Rush
- 11-Unite
- 12-And Conquer
- 1
- 2
Title: Ragnarok

Disclaimer: J. K.
Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun
and not profit.

Pairings: Harry/Draco

Rating: R

Warnings: Heavy
violence, gore, sex, angst, manipulation, discussion of suicide, arguably Dark
versions of both characters. Ignores the epilogue.

Summary: Draco
Malfoy, at thirty, is the youngest member of the Wizengamot. He thinks he has
achieved the highest political power of which he�s capable�until he learns the
secret of Ragnarok, the elite corps of wizards who
deal with �unsolvable� problems for the Wizengamot.

Author�s Notes: This
will be, I think, a fairly short story, somewhere between 12 and 15 chapters,
and perhaps even shorter than that. It involves fairly cynical versions of the
characters. The title is the name of the event that, in Norse mythology, was
supposed to kill the gods.

Ragnarok

Chapter One�Attack

�� Kneel
before me, Draco Malfoy, newest initiate into the Wizengamot.�

�� Draco
dropped to one knee, keeping his eyes down. It should technically have been
both of his knees that touched the floor, but he wasn�t about to make such a
complete sign of submission if he could get away with a lesser one.

�� Either it
was permissible, or none of the people surrounding him noticed. Knowing their
subtlety and the way they had essentially seized political power in the
wizarding world in the last ten years, Draco knew which one he was betting on.

�� He didn�t
look up, but he knew who had stepped in front of him from the snowy white color
of his robes and his heavy boots, made to help him with several foot problems.
Algernon Risidell, his sponsor into the Wizengamot, placed both hands on
Draco�s forehead and pressed down hard enough to make him grunt with
discomfort. Draco gritted his teeth and ignored the temptation to fold under
those hands and kneel further, or fall. Risidell had warned him that he would
suffer tests like this. To show weakness might not deter the others from
accepting him into the Wizengamot, but it would affect their opinion of him.
Draco wasn�t about to risk that.

�� Draco
Malfoy comes before us as a candidate for the Wizengamot,� Risidell said, his
words deep and echoing. Draco suspected that was a property of the iron chamber
they had entered, rather than of Risidell�s own voice, but he couldn�t be sure.
It was another thing he would have to learn.

�� He had
trained his eyes and his nose and his ears to the highest level of acuity they
were capable of, he sometimes thought, and then something like this happened.
If he hadn�t been able to sense acoustic enchantments on the chamber in the
brief look he�d had at it before he kneeled, he would require more training.

�� What are
his qualities?� demanded a woman�s voice from the side, soft and husky with
age. Draco knew where she was standing�six paces to the right from him and one
forwards�though he had never met her and so couldn�t identify her.

�� Courage,
strength of will, political knowledge, and diplomacy,� said Risidell. He hadn�t
told Draco if that was a ritual answer or one that each sponsor had to come up
with on his own.

�� Draco
mentally completed the list. Ruthlessness,
a daring that lets him take risks, pride, a hunger for
power. He smiled, and knew that no one would see it because of the way in
which Risidell was forcing his head down. A
knowledge of how to use that power once he has it. He thought that last
quality rarer than all the rest.

�� The woman
grunted, but another voice took up the chorus of questioning. �Why should we
admit him to our sacred ranks? Can he truly govern the wizarding world? Can he
move with us in the stately dance of politics? He is so young.�

�� Draco
didn�t let them see him tense. After all, he had expected opposition based on
his age. He was only thirty, and most of the Wizengamot members�although not
all�far older. And most of the younger ones had got in on the basis of blood.

�� He has
danced well enough so far to permit us to take notice of him,� said Risidell
mildly. �He has offered private advice in several crises that has proven to be
invaluable. He has showed that he is his father�s son in the ways that matter,
while not having his father�s necessary but regrettable other qualities.�

�� Draco still
fought the temptation to flinch whenever he heard someone mention his father,
but he knew that such a source of weakness would prove an irresistible target
to the other members of the Wizengamot. He would have to learn how to shield
it, and quickly.

�� Besides, he
had done what no other Malfoy had done in generations and become one of the
powers of the wizarding world himself, rather than the power behind the throne.
Notes and autobiographies and memoirs from many of Draco�s ancestors indicated
that they had done that because they thought it safer.

�� Or because, thought Draco, who had
learned to read between the lines, they
were afraid of what they might find if they dug into their own souls, looking
for the true ore.

�� What
brings you to support him?� demanded someone else, behind Draco and to the
left, who sounded agitated enough that Draco immediately deduced this was not a ritual question. �His money? His
looks? His friendliness to yourself?�

�� Risidell
laughed heartily. �His ancestors and mine had spats centuries ago,� he said.
�It�s hardly friendliness. And you know that his name is involved with mine,
now that I�ve sponsored him for the Wizengamot. If he fails, I take a blow and
lose some prestige. I would not sponsor anyone I thought could not stand the
strain.�

�� Draco took
a slow, easy breath. Remember that, he
told himself. Risidell wouldn�t risk his
own power simply to bring in someone he was infatuated by. Because you fear
something like that happening does not mean it would.

�� It could
still be his money,� said the same voice, gruff and low and with a snarl in the
back of its tones that said its owner got upset fairly often. Draco mentally
marked it off for remembrance at a later date. He didn�t think the ceremony was
supposed to function this way, but it was giving him a list of his enemies.

�� Of course,
most initiates were probably presumed to be so overawed and cowered by the
ritual that they couldn�t think such things.

�� He doesn�t
have enough left to tempt me after the reparations that the Ministry made his
family pay,� Risidell said, with what Draco thought was remarkable honesty
until he reflected on the people present in the room. Risidell was speaking a
warning to his colleagues and also to Draco, in case Draco thought to influence
him with gifts or bribes. �He has recovered some of that fortune through his
own ingenuity, but he is hardly the richest of us.�

�� Draco
smiled again. He could have been, but he had found better things to spend the
money on than decorating the insides of his vaults. When he shifted, he could
feel the thrum of those things through his muscles.

�� I, for
one, have no objections,� said a woman�s voice, so warm that Draco thought for
one moment she must be a singer. But he knew of no singers currently on the
Wizengamot. She might be related to one, though. �I hope that Mr. Malfoy feels
welcome among us and will consider us his allies.�

�� Draco would
remember that voice, too, though he suspected the offer of alliance would be
less sincere when he was standing before her.

�� Of course
you don�t, Melisande,� someone else said from the side, his voice small and
weak and disgusted. The singing voice laughed at him, and from the silence that
followed, Draco had no doubt who had won that encounter.

�� Does
anyone else have objections?� Risidell asked, with a gentle emphasis on the
word �else.� No one seemed to, or else they restricted it to mutters too quiet
for even Draco�s enhanced ears to hear. Risidell moved back from Draco, taking
first one hand and then the other from his forehead. �Rise, Draco Malfoy,
member of the Wizengamot.�

�� As Draco
stood, someone behind him moved forwards to drape the ceremonial white cloak
with a blue lining around his shoulders. Draco turned his head, catching her in
the act. She paused and smiled at him, and spoke in the singing voice.
�Welcome, Mr. Malfoy. I do look forward to the offer of alliance.�

�� Draco
recognized her now, and felt stupid for not doing it simply from the voice.
Melisande Gilfleur was the most publically famous member of the Wizengamot, a
tall woman with long blonde hair, eyes of a stunning green, and the ability to
make public speeches that caused the newspapers and the public both to fall
prostrate in front of her. Draco had seen and heard her numerous times.

�� It�s the iron chamber that caused the
difference and made her unrecognizable, Draco told himself defensively,
though he suspected not, and made a little bow to her. �Thank you, Madam
Gilfleur, and thank you for defending me.�

�� She smiled,
murmured, �Who could not?� and then moved aside. Draco turned in a slow circle,
the way Risidell had told him he should after he was confirmed, so that
everyone could see him. It also gave him a chance to get a look at the
Wizengamot, and identify the position of the voices who had opposed his
initiation.

�� The husky
witch�s voice that had spoken first, he thought, belonged to an older woman,
probably past her hundredth year, who stood with her hands folded into her
sleeves and simply looked at him when Draco nodded. She had straggling
iron-grey hair and a mouth that could sour sugar. Draco asked Gilfleur in an
undertone for an introduction, and she glanced back and forth between him and
the woman with a faint, knowing smile.

�� She�s
Madam Henrietta Yvers, dear,� Gilfleur murmured. �And she thinks anyone under
fifty ought to be shut up in a cage to teach them discipline, with the
prohibition extended to sixty in special cases. I wouldn�t let her trouble
you.�

�� Draco
didn�t like the idea that Gilfleur could see he was troubled, so he turned back
to the direction of the voice that had asked why Risidell was supporting him.

�� That didn�t
take a lot of searching, either. There was really only one man it could have
been, and he was leaning back against the wall of the chamber near the
entrance, his arms folded, not bothering to clap. His gaze was hostile enough
to score lines into Draco�s skin if eyes were weapons. Draco smiled at him, and
he turned his head away, snorted, and spat on the floor.

�� And that�s Mr. Jasper Kellerston,� said
Gilfleur, with a sad shake of her head. �He still can�t let the grudges from
the war go.�

�� What
grudge from the war is that?� Draco murmured. Risidell was waving him forwards,
out of the chamber, to take advantage of the food and wine he had promised
Draco would be waiting for him in another room. Draco studied Kellerston
intently in the moment or so he had, memorizing his blue eyes and the hooked
shape of his nose, which were the most distinctive things about him.

�� He claims
that your father was part of a group which attacked and destroyed his family,
soon after You-Know-Who�s second return.� Gilfleur pressed heavily down on
Draco�s arm for a moment, though her hand was hidden by the folds of their
sleeves, so that Draco didn�t think anyone could see. Her voice didn�t change
tone or volume, but, joined by the pressure of her hand, Draco would have been
a fool to mistake the warning in it. �He�s been known to become a
little�violent in demanding redress for that attack.�

�� Surely
most of the Death Eaters must be in prison by now,� Draco murmured. Or withdrawn so far into the past that they
wouldn�t know what the present was if it tried to introduce itself. That
was what had happened to his father. He was still at home, because Draco
considered he would get better care from the house-elves than if Draco sent him
to an asylum of some sort, but there was no fearing�or hoping�that he would
ever be a political force again. �Almost fifteen years after the attack?�

�� Fourteen,�
Gilfleur said, with the absent smile of someone passing on ancient gossip. �The
problem is that there�s no evidence of who the Death Eaters were, you see; the
only way to find out for certain would be questioning most of the suspects with
Veritaserum. And only Kellerston is in favor of that.�

�� Draco had
time to nod and wonder why she was being so helpful�well, of course she wanted
something, but he hadn�t yet had time to figure out what�before Risidell
swooped up to him and took his arm. �Come with me, dear Draco,� he purred. �We
have so much to show you.�

�� Draco
willingly followed him, with a nod of his head to Madam Gilfleur. He could feel
his heartbeat making his throat thick, and he could have used something to
drink or food in his stomach to settle himself. His head was spinning.

�� This was
one of the reasons he had chosen to become part of the Wizengamot rather than
running for Minister. The Minister had had little power in the past ten years,
as the Wizengamot claimed most of his duties and responsibilities behind the
scenes. Among those duties was the possession of secrets that most of the
people outside the higher circles of power barely knew existed, or didn�t know
existed at all.

�� Draco was
about to learn them, and other people would not know.

�� He took
care to keep some distance between his body and Risidell�s as they passed out
of the iron chamber into the maze of corridors that occupied the ground floor
of the Wizengamot�s headquarters. He didn�t think the older man would
understand the source of his half-erection. No one who had never succumbed to
the dizzying lure of power would.

*

�� You
understand our philosophy now,� Risidell said, as he closed the door on the
room full of files hinting at alliances with wizarding groups all over Europe.
�The Ministry floundered after Scrimgeour died during the war because, at the
time, it was believed that only one person should be in possession of all our
government�s secrets. But what happens when that one person is killed? Chaos.�
Risidell shook his head, with a grim expression that told Draco he sincerely
thought chaos worse than any damage someone with the Wizengamot�s secrets in
his head might do. �This way, if one of us dies, there are still many others
who know what needs to be done. And the same thing if one of us turns traitor.�

�� Draco
nodded. His spinning head had calmed, and he no longer felt the need of food;
he was almost replete with all the secrets he had seen so far.

�� There was
still one, though, that he had wished to know since he turned his attention to
the Wizengamot a decade ago. He had first heard of their existence then, or
rather heard whispers and rumors of their existence. Risidell hadn�t shown it
to him so far, and Draco had to wonder if this wasn�t just a legend, like a few
of the other secrets he had asked about and Risidell had explained were
reflections of wizarding society�s paranoia.

�� But he
wouldn�t know if he didn�t ask.

�� What about
Ragnarok?� he asked, just as Risidell started to
guide him down a wide corridor with white stones set into the walls in an
apparently random pattern. It wouldn�t be really
random, Draco knew. Not in the Wizengamot.

�� Risidell
actually missed a step, and then turned a speculative glance on him. Draco saw
the gleam of his eye and knew Risidell would be a bad enemy if he had cause to
make him so. Draco tried to look back with respect and calm acceptance at the
same time. He would be a worse enemy, and he didn�t mind Risidell knowing that.

�� I�m
impressed, Mr. Malfoy,� Risidell said, and smiled a moment later. �Very few
people hear about Ragnarok before they manage to
become part of us.�

�� Draco
accepted the compliment with a smile and an inclination of his head, never
taking his eyes from Risidell�s face. He knew the man had sponsored him because
Draco had convinced him he would be a good ally who�d vote as Risidell did on
most matters. It was an alliance of mutual satisfaction so far. No reason for
that to change, but it would, beneath the surface, if Risidell refused to tell
him the truth about Ragnarok. Draco had a fascination
with the secret he knew was almost childish.

�� What you
may have heard is quite true,� Risidell said, and seemed to gather his courage
around him. Draco deduced that he thought he had little to lose with telling
the truth, since Draco already knew about Ragnarok�s
existence. �We call on Ragnarok when we need rising
Dark Lords put down, or when we know that
someone is guilty but we cannot deal with him by other means, or when a Dark
artifact or spellbook is discovered that the Department of Mysteries cannot
contain. The goal is annihilation, and to that end, the wizard who works as Ragnarok uses his magic to destroy, utterly, all trace of
the danger. If it was a Dark Lord, for example, Ragnarok
would eliminate the magical knowledge and the knowledge of his habits in the
minds of his followers as well as the Dark Lord himself.�

�� Draco had
picked up on the central point in that speech, the only one�other than Ragnarok�s specific duties�that he had not known already.
�Wizard?� he asked quietly. �The rumors I heard said that Ragnarok
was an elite group.�

�� The smile
Risidell gave him proved that admitting that was the right move. It let
Risidell fell superior in the possession of one secret, and less threatened
than he would have been if Draco had known everything already. Draco smiled
back and concealed the interest that made his blood sting along his veins.

�� It suits
us to let our enemies imagine this is an elite group,� Risidell admitted. �That
way, they�re more likely to look over their shoulders and assume that what
hunts them�if they�re the kind of criminal who would have heard of Ragnarok at all�is a group of well-trained wizards they�ll
need to watch out constantly for. They might be able to take down one, but not
all of them. Instead, we have a single wizard so powerful that his magic eats
up everything it touches.�

�� Draco
restrained a moan with difficulty. He was fully hard now, and was grateful that
Risidell was walking a pace in front of him and unlikely to see or feel. His
voice was breathy when he asked, �Who is it?� but that couldn�t be helped.

�� Risidell
paused and looked back at him. Then he murmured, �I hadn�t intended to tell you
this the first day. But why not?� He led Draco swiftly around a few more
corners, until they fetched up before a wooden door bound in gold and lead. The
tingle of the wards around it made Draco�s hair start to rise three feet away.

�� He has to
have such protections because of his own magic,� Risidell said. �It pours in a
torrent through his body, and it would destroy this building every time he was
angry or had a nightmare if not for the wards. We experimented with shields
until we came up with ones he couldn�t destroy.�

�� Draco
discreetly squeezed his cock when Risidell�s back was turned. He watched
closely as Risidell took down the wards, but he couldn�t see how it was
accomplished. Risidell made a single gesture, spoke a single incantation, and
lowered them�and Draco had to admit that was more sensible than working through
the hour or so it would take to dissipate all those immensely powerful spells
one by one.

�� The magic
burst from behind the door the minute it opened. Draco held his breath as it
swirled around him, cold and uncaring as a river in full flood. Yes, he could
see why Risidell had called it a torrent.

�� What
happened to make him this way?� he asked as he followed Risidell into the room
beyond. It was dim, he could see at a glance, as if whoever lived here
preferred the light of a single fireplace to anything more.

�� Risidell
shrugged in a way that indicated he was either unconcerned about the answer or
too used to it to bother worrying. �A ritual of some kind. He interrupted it
while it was in progress. It was meant to grant power to some Dark wizard or
another, but instead it raised his own magic.�

�� Draco held
his breath this time for a different reason. He had been through such rituals
himself. He wondered if whoever lived here would be able to sense that.

�� Come in
and shut the door if you�re coming.�

�� Draco knew the voice. He couldn�t place it,
but he knew it. He was whirling to face the chair in front of the fire, the one
that had its back to them, before the figure rose from it.

�� A tall, slender
man in black clothes, shirt that stretched taut over his muscles and trousers
that bulged as though he carried more than one wand in the pockets. A face that
looked at them without welcome or caring, without an expression, in a way that
Draco thought the more practiced Wizengamot members would have envied. Green
eyes that looked as if they could watch the world burn and not care.

�� Potter,�
Draco whispered, and his heartbeat and his hunger spiraled wildly through him.

*

�� Harry
wasn�t surprised to see that Malfoy wore a Wizengamot member�s cloak. He had
always thought that the little bastard would find his way into the circles of
power. A surprise that it had happened so soon, perhaps, but since he didn�t
have much interest in anything beyond his approaching death, he couldn�t care
about that, either.

�� And then
something came along that did interest
him.

�� Risidell
was speaking, giving Malfoy the speech that was meant to impress all the new
members. Malfoy listened to it without taking his eyes from Harry. His nostrils
flared and his shoulders quivered with his emotion, but Harry could look
straight through his body and into what lay inside it.

�� Malfoy
contained magic. It leaped and dodged and circled inside him, a wild, red-gold
power constantly seeking a way out. But he had it contained, somehow, in
stronger bonds than Harry had managed to ever contain his own magic in.

�� He had gone
through rituals of the same kind that Harry had, but Harry had no doubt that it
had been done willingly in his case, in quest of greater power.

�� Harry
licked his lips. Malfoy�s lips drew back in response. Harry had no idea what
was in his own face, but a reaction of Malfoy�s sort was what he was looking
for.

�� He needed
to get rid of his magic before it destroyed his body. He had researched until
he wanted to die simply of exhaustion, but all the spells or rituals he could
uncover needed two people to perform, the other near his own level of strength.
He had never found anyone like that, and so it had seemed simpler to give up in
despair.

�� But if
Malfoy was like that�

�� Harry bowed
when Risidell said they had to leave and took his seat before the fire again,
already planning. It would be easy enough to contact Malfoy again. It seemed
likely that he would be drawn back soon, attracted to Harry�s magic. It took
some people like that, and while Harry usually disdained them, he would use
Malfoy as hard as he could.

�� Sitting
there in silence, he could feel his magic eating away at his joints, at his
organs, at his bones. The human body was never meant to be the conduit of
forces so elemental, and he was dying from the inside out. That he had lasted
ten years was more of a miracle than he�d had a right to expect.

Harry had taken a career as the
Wizengamot�s enforcer because it was the only career that would suit the
endless destructiveness of his magic�well, the only one that would do that and
potentially help the wizarding world at the same time. He�d lived in silence,
under the lie that he had emigrated to Australia when he was twenty, sick of
all the fame and in search of a better life. The Wizengamot had deflected the
attention from him in the last decade, certainly.

But Harry would have given much to
live with the fame instead of with the magic.

Now, it seemed he might have the
chance.

And if it turned out to be a fool�s
delusion, well, he might find the courage to overcome hope and stubborn
resistance together, go out into some deserted patch of country where his dying
agonies wouldn�t destroy everything, and kill himself at last.
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Ragnarok