[From Litha to Lammas]: Dancing on a Volcano, Harry/Draco/Astoria, R, 1/3
Title: Dancing on a Volcano
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco/Astoria, established Draco/Astoria
Content Notes: Angst, threesome, ignores the epilogue, violence, minor character death
Wordcount: This part 5800
Rating: R
Summary: Having Astoria Malfoy assigned as his Auror partner is certainly a surprise, but not an unpleasant one for Harry, it turns out. As he and Astoria learn to guard each other’s backs, save each other’s lives, and even spend ordinary days together, Harry discovers that he’s being invited into something fragile and rare…something that also involves Astoria’s husband, Draco.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics, being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August this year. It should have three parts.
Dancing on a Volcano
“Your partner, Potter. Astoria Malfoy.”
Harry breathed out slowly. He’d been expecting Ron, but, well, he had known he wouldn’t get to choose. He stood up from the desk he’d claimed in the small office for newly-promoted trainees and held out his hand. “Hello, Auror Malfoy.”
Astoria gave him her hand, studying him with shrewd eyes. Blue, Harry noted, and Astoria was tall-although luckily not taller than he was-and had short honey-blonde hair that she’d tied back with some sort of charm that made it look as if it never got messy. Harry resolved to ask her about that if he could.
John Dawlish, who had delivered Astoria to the door and had a gaggle of more new Aurors behind him, gave them an important nod. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” he said, and bustled off.
“Tea?” Harry asked Astoria, motioning towards the other desk. He was prepared to exchange if she didn’t like it-he’d barely unpacked his own cluster of pens and Dark-magic-detecting devices onto the surface of the desk he’d chosen-but Astoria simply took a seat in the chair and made a face.
“No tea?”
“Hmmm? Oh, no, tea is fine.” Astoria looked up. “I merely don’t think this chair is springy enough. Merle!”
Harry blinked, wondering if that was part of an incantation for a spell he’d never heard of, and then jumped as a house-elf with blurry blue eyes appeared next to Astoria’s chair. “Merle be hearing Mistress,” he croaked.
“Make the chair more comfortable for me, if you’d please.”
Merle examined the chair, which was old and had a wooden back with spokes like that of a wheel going up it, and then nodded and snapped his fingers. In seconds, it was Transfigured into what looked almost like a Muggle swivel chair, although with a thick green cushion.
“Can he do mine?” Harry asked before he thought better of it. Astoria’s new chair just looked so comfortable.
Merle eyed him. “As long as Auror Harry Potter is not giving Merle a sock.”
Harry laughed despite himself, and despite the soft stab in the center of his chest that he got at any reminder of Dobby. “I promise, I won’t.”
Merle shuffled over to Harry’s desk and examined his chair for a long second, shaking his head, as if this was harder than changing Astoria’s, even though the chairs were identical as far as Harry could tell. Then Merle snapped his fingers, and a chair appeared for Harry as well, although with a red cushion.
“House colors?” Harry asked as he sat down. “Thank you, Merle.” The elf stared at him as if that was a prelude to a sock, but a second later, nodded and vanished.
“Do you have an objection?” Astoria was putting a green snake on her desk that looked as if it was made of crystal, and had little emeralds for eyes. As Harry met her gaze, she drew her neck back a little.
“Not really,” Harry admitted. “I just wondered.”
“Ah.” Astoria studied him for a second longer, then cleared her throat. “I have to admit, I was expecting you to throw a fit when you didn’t get Weasley for a partner.”
“Please, it’s been at least a fortnight since I threw a fit.”
“I think you had a right to that one, discovering a love potion in your tea.”
Harry privately agreed, so he just smiled a little. “I knew I wouldn’t get to choose my partner. And although Ron’s great, he’s a little too similar to me when it comes to his magical strengths. Defensive magic, mostly. I accept that I need someone who’s probably better at curses and recognizing the Dark magic.”
Astoria flickered her hand at his desk. “It looks as if you have plenty of devices to do that for you.”
Harry nodded at the Foe-Glass, the Sneakoscope, and the whirling collection of silver devices he’d built himself. He understood the way Dumbledore’s office used to look a lot better now. “True, but these can’t come with me into the field, at least not without whistling at inappropriate times. I need a partner who can guard my back and help me with arresting criminals on a regular basis.”
Astoria hesitated, then took a deep breath. “And there won’t be hard words about my husband?”
“You can’t help the way he used to be. I don’t blame you for that. I know you were probably Sorted into Slytherin because of the cushion and that snake, but to be honest, I don’t even remember you.”
“I was two years below you and Draco,” Astoria agreed quietly. “Draco and I didn’t really get to know each other until after the war.” She hesitated. “You should know that I don’t hold with the belief that Muggles and Muggleborns are terrible. Rather a disappointment to my in-laws-why are you smiling?”
“Anything that disappoints Lucius Malfoy is the highlight of my day.”
“I thought. Well, you did testify for him at the trials after the war. And for Narcissa.”
“Sure, but that was because I don’t think anyone deserves the Dementor’s Kiss. You’ll notice I didn’t try to argue the Wizengamot out of Lucius going to Azkaban. They made the decision to only give him a year in spite of me, not because of me.”
Astoria eyed him for a second, her hand tapping a bit on the desk, and then smiled. “I think we’re going to get along better than I thought we would when I heard about my assignment, Harry Potter.”
Harry grinned, and then turned as he heard Dawlish coming back down the corridor, this time with the rustling parchment that indicated he was probably distributing assignments.
*
“Isn’t it…strange working with Malfoy’s wife?”
Harry shrugged a little and leaned back on Ron and Hermione’s couch, cradling the glass of Firewhisky in his hands. “I thought it would be stranger than it is. Astoria said the same thing, actually. But we’re pretty well-matched on the magical spectrum, and she knows things that I don’t, and I know things she doesn’t. And we agree about Muggles and Muggleborns more than we disagree.”
“What about house-elves?” Hermione was sitting in a comfortable green chair by the fire, eyeing Harry sternly. The firelight threw gleams into her hair.
“I knew you would get around to that.”
“It’s important, Harry!”
“I don’t think that she and Draco mistreat their house-elves the way Lucius did,” Harry said. It was the diplomatic way to disavow all knowledge. Given that Merle seemed to have partially adopted Harry, enough to bring him food and potions without Astoria commanding it, Harry wouldn’t be making his knowledge obvious anyway.
“But Lucius would still be in charge.” Ron sipped his own Firewhisky.
“I have the impression that he and Narcissa more or less retired after the war,” Harry admitted. “They’re still living in Malfoy Manor, but they don’t go out much, and it’s in France when they do. And they leave the Gringotts vaults and the business up to Draco.”
“The business? I didn’t know Malfoy could work.”
“Something to do with vineyards, Astoria said. Raising grapes for wine.”
Ron spluttered into his glass and set it down before it could spill. “Really?”
“Yeah, I don’t know.” Harry shrugged. Honestly, what Draco Malfoy did wasn’t that interesting to him, but he was glad that Astoria felt comfortable enough to talk to him about it. “I suppose it keeps him pretty busy.”
“They don’t have kids yet, right?” Ron leaned back and flung one arm over the back of the couch, in Hermione’s direction. If he wanted her to leave the chair and sit next to him, Hermione missed the signal, still contemplating Harry with severe eyes.
“Not that I know of.” Harry shrugged again. “I suppose they wanted to wait.”
“Yeah, it’s good to wait.” Ron smiled at Hermione, and this time she got up with a little huff and sigh and sat down next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder.
Harry watched them with a touch of wistfulness. He could have had that, too, if he had wanted to wait for Ginny to be ready for marriage.
But, in the end, he hadn’t. Going through Auror training took up a lot of concentration, and he had enjoyed the feeling of just living alone in his own flat and eating what he wanted and going to sleep when he wanted, without the “responsibility” that would have come along with having a girlfriend.
And he hadn’t met anyone since Ginny he would have wanted to date, but that didn’t mean he would never meet someone.
“See if you can get the Malfoys to free their house-elves,” Hermione murmured, eyes shut and voice already drifting, which left Harry able to sip his Firewhisky and pretend that he hadn’t heard a thing.
*
“Front?” Astoria’s voice was a soft pressure against Harry’s eardrums more than it was the sound of words.
Harry nodded, and then flung himself through the door. Astoria would be right behind him, lifting a few floating wards that would keep any traps they’d missed as they approached the smugglers’ warehouse at bay.
The warehouse was a long, low building concealed, with an impressive amount of spells, right in the middle of Muggle London. Harry reckoned that the smugglers had thought they’d get away with their business for longer if they chose to distance themselves from most wizards and witches.
But they’d reckoned without Harry’s sensitivity to magic and Astoria’s interest in Muggle news of the “strange” variety. She had been the one to realize that a human interest story about a dog with a supposedly deformed tail wandering around London could be about a Crup, and together, they’d tracked it down, and discovered the warehouse.
No one was inside. Harry halted in the middle of the large, low-ceilinged room, staring in disgust at what hung from hooks above them.
Dried and stretched human skins, dozens of them.
Astoria made a sharp noise behind him as if she was going to vomit. Harry reached a steadying hand back, and she clutched it. Harry darted his gaze around and extended his senses, trying to feel out the Dark wizards he’d been sure would be here waiting for them.
There wasn’t a sign of them, which only increased Harry’s paranoia, because it meant they might have learned to hide from being magically detected. He advanced a few steps further into the warehouse, aware of Astoria turning so that her back was plastered against his.
Movement leaped into being in the far corner on the right and ahead, and Harry spun to point his wand at it, but it was already heading straight for him, a growling bolt of lightning that he thought might be alive.
Harry snapped out, “Serpensortia!”
The winged snake he’d conjured leaped up in front of him and took the lightning strike-no, the enemy creature’s bite-on its wings. Then the creature, which seemed to be part snake and part bat, began rolling over and wrestling with Harry’s serpent in midair, and Harry was swinging around to face Astoria, who had begun fighting, from the clash of spells behind him.
The wizards she was fighting, five of them, had cloaks of some oddly shiny grey material that resembled Unspeakable garb too much for Harry’s comfort. And he couldn’t feel their magic at all.
Well, we should fix that, Harry thought, and chuckled aloud when one of the wizards saw him and began to back away. Harry flicked his wand up to point at the ceiling and barked, “Magus visus est!”
The air around him sparked and turned into a cloud of sullen color for a second, which spread out and encircled the wizards. It outlined the magic spreading from their bodies like a series of spokes without a wheel to connect to. Harry watched as one of them drew the cloak over his head and his body seemed to thin and vanish from sight-but the aura remained. They wouldn’t be able to go invisible to his senses unless they didn’t use any magic for at least an hour.
And in the heat of battle, that wasn’t likely to occur.
“Ready?” Astoria stepped up beside him.
Harry looked at her and grinned. “Yeah. Let’s kick their arses.”
*
And in the end, it wasn’t even that difficult, Harry thought as he stretched his legs out in the briefing room afterwards. He’d taken one shallow cut on his arm, and Astoria had received a deeper one on her left leg, and Harry had had to drag her out of the way of a curse that might have severed her head from her neck. But the wizards had proven to be cowards once their ability to hide was taken away from them, and the creatures that defended the warehouse spent all their time wrestling with the snakes Harry could conjure.
In the end, all of the criminals were taken into custody, and the skins were removed from the warehouse. Apparently, the wizards had been using them to make those cloaks that made them magic-invisible. Harry shivered in disgust. It wasn’t justice for the victims, not yet, but at the very least those bastards would go to Azkaban for the rest of their lives.
“Harry.”
Harry glanced up. Astoria was lingering in the doorway of the briefing room. He smiled at her. “You all right?” He didn’t think she was limping. The cut on her leg had been clean, and the Healers had whisked her away to tend to it while Harry explained to the higher-ups what happened.
“Yes. Of course. Are you? You’re still sitting here.”
“It’s a good thing to let the adrenaline drain away, I’ve found.” Harry waved an expansive hand. “Otherwise, I go home and have to conjure and break things to get rid of it.”
“Oh.” A smile that Harry didn’t know how to interpret lifted the corner of her mouth. “Well, I was going to say that you would be most welcome to break some of the ugly art at Malfoy Manor.”
Harry raised his eyebrows. “What, right now?”
“Harry.” Astoria closed the door of the briefing room behind her, which made Harry straighten up and stare at her in concern. “You saved my life. I don’t think you know what that means to me. What it means to Draco. I’ve Flooed him to inform him, of course.”
Harry cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. He was a little aware, uneasily, that now all the members of the Malfoy family owed him their lives-Draco during the war, Astoria today, and Narcissa and Lucius because Harry had found out about a plot among some of the Ministry officials to murder them and raced to the Manor ahead of the disgruntled people would have done it. That had been his first five-on-one duel. “I mean-surely you must want to have some time together right now because you nearly died?”
“Having you there would remind us both that I’m still alive.”
Harry nodded slowly. “As long as you realize that you don’t owe me a life-debt.”
“I would hope to count on a deepening of our friendship instead of an actual debt.”
The tart words made Harry smile. Astoria was still Astoria, then, and not about to let the fact that he’d saved her life interfere with them being Auror partners in any weird way. “Let me get my cloak.”
*
“Auror Potter. Welcome to our home. I wish your last visit had been under better circumstances.”
Harry smiled a little tightly and shook Draco’s hand. He hadn’t seen him for almost two years, and Draco really did look different, calmer and more settled. Although also more stiff, with the way that he reached out for Harry’s hand and retracted his arm as if he was a mechanical toy.
Then he turned to Astoria, and the look on his face as he reached out to her relaxed Harry. Of course. He just got the news that his wife almost died. It’s bound to affect anybody.
To give them a private moment, Harry glanced off to the side, at the portraits that hung on the walls of this Floo room. Most of them didn’t look to be particularly old or large, and their frames were slightly tarnished silver instead of gold. Harry let his mouth quirk up at the outraged expressions that some of them were giving him. Ancestors stored in the Floo room didn’t seem like the kind of people whose opinion would be relevant to Draco and Astoria.
“Auror Potter.”
“Please call me by my first name, Draco,” Harry said, turning back and enjoying the startled expressions that flew over Draco’s face like a bird. “That’s the kind of formal address our bosses use.”
“Usually because you just did something exasperating,” Astoria murmured.
“I’ll remind you that I’m not the one who set the Minister’s tapestry on fire.”
“There was a doxy on it!”
“There are still other spells you could have used than Incendio.”
Draco let out a soft, slow breath, maybe because he hadn’t understood how friendly Harry and Astoria actually were with each other, and nodded. “It sounds as though you’ve had more adventures than I knew about,” he remarked.
Harry studied him for a moment, but there was no sound of jealousy in his voice, which made Harry relax some more. “Astoria said something about how I could break ugly art to let out some of this adrenaline?”
Draco blinked for a second, then turned to Astoria. “Those busts are family heirlooms.”
“I notice you don’t say family treasures.” Astoria’s eyes sparkled at him as she kicked off her boots. “And they’re ugly.”
“Astoria-”
“You’re always going on about how you’d like to be rid of them.”
“Astoria-”
“This way, we can make sure that we don’t owe Harry a life-debt. Another one.”
Draco shot Harry an alarmed look, and didn’t look less alarmed when Harry rolled his eyes at him. “I have no intention of claiming a life-debt,” Harry said. “I don’t want to do that to Astoria, or your family. We have to work together as Auror partners. I don’t want something hanging between us that affects our ability to work together.”
He seemed to have found the right thing to say by accident. Draco slowly relaxed. “Very well,” he said. “Then there are some busts I’d like to get rid of.”
Astoria winked at him, or maybe both of them. Draco pretended not to notice as he turned and led the way with immense dignity down the corridor towards what looked like some kind of ballroom.
Harry, who didn’t have a family tradition of sticks up the arse inhibiting him, winked back at her.
*
The room Draco showed him into looked almost like a museum, it turned out, rather than a ballroom, and was indeed full of the ugliest busts Harry had ever seen. He grinned and shook his sleeves back from his hands.
“Don’t you need your wand?” Draco asked from the door.
“No,” Harry said cheerfully. “But you might want to raise a shield.”
Someone’s rose behind him, although if Harry had to guess, he would say it was probably Astoria’s rather than her doubting spouse’s. He didn’t turn his head to check. Instead, he focused his magic as best as he could when the power was rising, churning, inside him, and might get out of control any second. Then he flashed it through his skin, as hard as he could.
Lightning burst from his hands and his face and his eyes and his legs and everything in between, a brutal start of white brilliance that grabbed the busts. When Harry blinked his eyes open, all of them lay on the floor in pieces small enough that there would be no point in trying to Reparo them back together.
Harry sighed and sagged back against the comforting hum of the shield behind him. He couldn’t do it in just one burst like that at home, because he didn’t have rooms the size of this one, and he didn’t really want to vaporize his walls or catch them on fire. But this had been great.
He turned around with a smile to thank the Malfoys, only to pause when he saw the almost traumatized looks on their faces. “Are you okay?” He hoped they didn’t regret letting him break up the busts after all.
Draco took a deep breath and walked towards him, stopping perhaps a meter away. “What was that, Potter?”
“Magic, Malfoy.”
“I’ve never seen magic like that.” Astoria’s voice was subdued, which disturbed Harry. He also hoped that she wasn’t about to start acting differently when they were at work because he had displayed unexpected powers. “How did you do that?”
“It’s harder for me to refrain from doing that than to do ordinary magic,” Harry admitted. “My magic…builds up in me when I’ve been fighting. I don’t know what else to call it. It’s like my body thinks I’ll need lots of it and produces it, and then it has nowhere to go when the fight is over. Usually, I don’t flare this hard, because I have to conjure things to destroy first and that takes some of it. But you offered me this, so. Thank you.”
Draco and Astoria exchanged glances, and then Draco cleared his throat. “I’ve heard of this before,” he said. “It usually happens because you need someone or something to balance your magic. A familiar would help.”
Harry sighed. “I know it’s kind of silly, but I’ve never managed to get close to another animal after my owl Hedwig died.”
“And you haven’t dated someone else, either, I can’t help but notice.”
“No,” Harry agreed. “I’m picky.” He shrugged, not really worried. Someday he would find someone. He had decades yet.
Draco and Astoria exchanged another glance, this time with what seemed to be silent words flying between them. Harry watched with a wistful smile. Yes, he would give himself all the time he needed to find someone truly compatible, because he wouldn’t settle, but he still envied people who already had someone.
“Perhaps there are other solutions,” Draco offered. “There are books in Malfoy Manor that might talk about them.”
“I appreciate the offer, but honestly, I think what I can do is enough. Flaring like that takes the edge off.”
Draco didn’t appear to know what to say to this. Astoria took over, briskly escorting Harry towards the door. “Would you like to come to the dining room and have something to eat? The house-elves will be thrilled to have someone to serve this late…”
*
“Where were you last night, mate?”
Harry covered his mouth with one hand to ward off the yawn. “Malfoy Manor.”
Ron froze in the office doorway, staring at him. Harry glanced up at him. “What?”
Ron eyed him, then said slowly, “No one said you were injured yesterday, and Malfoy…does he not care that rumors might go around about you sleeping with his wife?”
It took Harry a moment to realign his mind to grasp what Ron was talking about, since he was so used to hearing other Aurors call Astoria “Malfoy.” Then he laughed. “Come on, Ron. She invited me over to get rid of some of my excess magic by destroying this ugly old art that neither she nor Draco liked anyway. It wasn’t like what you’re saying.”
“You call him Draco.”
“You look like you’re about to faint. Does Corner know that you’re so excitable?”
Ron scowled. He seemed to take it as a personal insult that his Auror partner was Michael Corner, who had once dated Ginny, even though they worked well together. “I’m fine. But you and the Malfoys?”
Harry shrugged. “I wouldn’t ask you to see them socially or come to the Manor or anything like that, Ron. But I do think that I’m allowed to.” He picked up the cup of steaming tea that had appeared on the edge of his desk and sipped it thoughtfully.
It had the perfect balance of milk and lemon, just the way he liked it. Harry smiled. Then again, the Malfoy house-elves had had time to learn what he liked last night. He’d stayed at the Manor until nearly midnight, laughing and talking in an easy way he never would have imagined was possible with them.
“Where did that come from, mate?”
“Astoria’s house-elves.”
“Don’t tell Hermione.”
“I wasn’t planning to. Were you?”
Ron sighed. “No. I love her, you know that, but she starts talking about elves and she just doesn’t stop talking. And the Malfoys aren’t going to change because she wants them to, anyway. I think it’s better for her to work on passing that bill that will get people who don’t treat their elves well arrested.”
Harry nodded. None of the elves he had seen last night had looked nearly as battered or depressed as Dobby. He hoped that meant that Lucius had committed those crimes, as well, and things had changed when Draco and Astoria took over. “Anyway, I have paperwork to do. Don’t you?”
“It’s Corner’s turn.”
Harry laughed. “As if I’d believe that, when you look so shifty. Go on, Ron. I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast.”
*
Harry stepped inside his flat and immediately tensed. There was a sense of unraveled threads brushing against his skin that he trusted not at all, and which probably meant his wards had been breached. He drew his wand.
A swirl of grey moved in the corner.
It could have been an Unspeakable, but Harry snapped his wand up and shouted, “Flagrare!”
The air around him burst into flames, and the fire moved in a wide swirl with pointed arrows shooting out of it, a strong, controlled spell, nearly the opposite of Fiendfyre in its precision. There was a loud curse, and someone backed away as the edge of their grey cloak ignited and began to burn, unraveling the magic.
Harry smiled. Ending magic was a nice little side-effect of the fire.
As the intruder tore the cloak off and stomped on the fire, Harry conjured a cobra and sent it forwards with a hiss, but the Dark wizard hit it with a Killing Curse. The snake slumped over and vanished a few seconds later.
“I see,” Harry said quietly, the sense of amusement gone from him. “It’s like that, is it?”
“You ended our operation.”
“Only me? I’m hurt. That leaves out all the Aurors who played a part-”
“Don’t worry. Someone will be going over to Malfoy Manor to end the life of that interfering bitch very soon.”
Harry could feel his eyes widen. For all that Malfoy Manor had powerful wards, they weren’t engaged as often now that the war had ended, and he knew already that these cloaks could conceal the ones who wore them from most forms of being sensed by magic. They’d got past his wards, after all.
Astoria.
Harry charged.
A Killing Curse flew past him, but Harry ducked under it and conjured a shower of stones that fell from the ceiling. The man put his hands up to protect his head, but that meant he wasn’t aiming his wand at Harry, and Harry snatched him and spun him around, his own wand against his opponent’s throat. The man froze, trembling, and Harry laid his wand sideways.
“I’ll cut open your jugular if you don’t tell me how many are going after her and what they plan to do,” Harry said, which produced no response. Then he realized that he’d said it in Parseltongue. He snapped it in English this time.
“Three,” the man gasped, his Adam’s apple trembling against Harry’s hand. “W-we knew there were stronger wards there and there were two of them and Draco Malfoy is a Dark wizard. They were going to skin them and add their skins to their cloaks…”
Harry kneed the man sharply in the back and twisted as he collapsed, avoiding the spell that flickered out of his wand after all. Then he cast the Dreamless Sleep Spell, which imitated the potion and would keep the man locked in unconsciousness until Harry decided to remove the hex. The Dark wizard fell unconscious, and Harry turned and ran for the door. Apparating would get him there faster than Flooing when he had no Floo access.
*
The outside of Malfoy Manor was dark and quiet, but Harry couldn’t trust that, not when their enemies wore those fucking cloaks that could escape detection so easily. He trotted along the perimeter for a moment, and then there was a flash of light from deep inside the wards and a breathless scream.
It didn’t sound like either of the Malfoys, but Harry wasn’t taking chances.
He reared back and cast sharply. “Ferrum! Ferrum! Ferrum!”
Three swords formed of pure magic appeared, hovering in a triangular pattern around him, one to the right, one to the left, one above his head. Harry raised his hand and walked into the Malfoys’ wards, the swords driving thin cones of magic in front of them that were meant to open a narrow doorway for him and only him.
It was hard going. The wards bore down on him like tons of rock, and the power that made them up swayed back and forth above him, swaying as if it would fall any second. Harry ignored that as hard as he could. He had to reach Draco and Astoria, and he had to do it without the level of magical exhaustion that would have resulted if he’d simply torn straight through the wards.
In the end, it worked, although the swords dissipated in cascades of sparks the moment he moved out of the wards. Harry didn’t care. He just ran for the house as hard as he could, kicking up divots of grass behind him.
The scream sounded again, and there was a clash of lightning from behind the door.
Harry had almost reached it when it came flying open, and he hurled himself into a low roll. But no spells flew above him, and he snapped to his feet again to see one of the Malfoy house-elves standing there, eyes wide and hands wringing.
“Master Harry Potter is coming in and helping!” it screamed.
Harry nodded and leaped past the elf. The moment he was inside the Manor, he felt the sticky discharge that Dark Arts left behind. Someone had been using Unforgivables, enough to clog the air. No other kind of spells created that much buildup so quickly.
The only thing that heartened him, as he focused on the sounds of battle and surged towards them, was that so many Unforgivables meant they couldn’t have hit their targets, or the battle would have ended one way or another.
He ducked through a low doorway and caught a glimpse of Draco and Astoria standing back-to-back in the middle of overlapping defensive shields, shattered bookcases, and three grey-cloaked wizards facing them. One of them turned to him and struck out with a wand movement that Harry recognized, hitting him with a nonverbal Imperio.
Harry shrugged it off like steam and hit the idiot with a Clothesline Jinx, catching her in her throat and sweeping her from her feet. She went down flailing and clutching at the air.
“Harry!”
Harry heeded the warning in Astoria’s tone and dropped again. A Cutting Curse flew above his head and earthed itself in a snarl of sparks against the Malfoys’ shield.
Harry turned and cast another Clothesline Jinx at this one, who he hadn’t felt circle behind him because of those fucking cloaks. The man ducked under it, only to be caught at the knees by the lower one Harry had aimed. He collapsed, and Harry kept up the pressure of the magic against the man’s legs as he turned and put his back to the shields.
There was only one opponent left, but he wasn’t wounded, and he sauntered towards Harry with worrying confidence. Harry clacked his teeth together. Well, time to do something about that.
“Avada Kedavra!” the man cast.
Harry swiftly Levitated a piece of bookcase in front of himself, since if he just ducked the curse could go through the shields and hit Astoria or Draco. The bookcase exploded, and Harry came out of the rubble in a flying tackle that took the man down with a surprised grunt on his part.
But he still had his wand, and the longer he struggled against Harry, the more Harry’s ability to hold the jinxes on the two other idiots and keep them out of the fight was weakened. So Harry took direct action and drove his elbow into the wizard’s groin as hard as he could.
The gasp that earned the git was more like a shriek. Harry sat up and pushed his hair out of his eyes, leaning all his weight on his elbow in the meantime. The man stopped writhing and went still, as though holding his breath, which allowed Harry time to Stun him.
“Are you all right?” he asked Draco and Astoria, scrambling to his feet. He felt odd, a little light-headed. It was probably the effect of all the adrenaline.
“We’re fine.” Astoria was staring at him with wide eyes, but she did look fine, other than a scratch on one cheek. Draco was limping, which might mean he’d need the attentions of a Healer. “Harry…”
“I knew I had to come here because one attacked my house and told me they would be coming here.” Harry caught his breath, and coughed. “Are you sure that you’re all right? Draco looks like he’s limping. Do you want me to call a Healer?” He turned around and had to catch himself on the fireplace mantel. Good thing it was so close.
“Potter, your chest is almost caved in!” Draco shrieked.
Harry blinked and looked down. Oh. There was a huge, bloody wound in the center of his chest, and he could see rib-bones sticking out of it. On the other hand, it wasn’t bleeding all that much right now, and he didn’t think any ribs had pierced a lung, or he wouldn’t have been able to run and fight like he did.
“You’re…exaggerating,” he said, as he stumbled to his knees. He was mostly annoyed. He couldn’t even remember which one of them had done it, which meant he didn’t know which Dark wizard might be the most dangerous one once he lost control of the jinxes or the last one woke up from the Stunner. “Make sure you hold them. They have Clothesline…”
And then he passed out.
Part Two.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco/Astoria, established Draco/Astoria
Content Notes: Angst, threesome, ignores the epilogue, violence, minor character death
Wordcount: This part 5800
Rating: R
Summary: Having Astoria Malfoy assigned as his Auror partner is certainly a surprise, but not an unpleasant one for Harry, it turns out. As he and Astoria learn to guard each other’s backs, save each other’s lives, and even spend ordinary days together, Harry discovers that he’s being invited into something fragile and rare…something that also involves Astoria’s husband, Draco.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics, being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August this year. It should have three parts.
Dancing on a Volcano
“Your partner, Potter. Astoria Malfoy.”
Harry breathed out slowly. He’d been expecting Ron, but, well, he had known he wouldn’t get to choose. He stood up from the desk he’d claimed in the small office for newly-promoted trainees and held out his hand. “Hello, Auror Malfoy.”
Astoria gave him her hand, studying him with shrewd eyes. Blue, Harry noted, and Astoria was tall-although luckily not taller than he was-and had short honey-blonde hair that she’d tied back with some sort of charm that made it look as if it never got messy. Harry resolved to ask her about that if he could.
John Dawlish, who had delivered Astoria to the door and had a gaggle of more new Aurors behind him, gave them an important nod. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted,” he said, and bustled off.
“Tea?” Harry asked Astoria, motioning towards the other desk. He was prepared to exchange if she didn’t like it-he’d barely unpacked his own cluster of pens and Dark-magic-detecting devices onto the surface of the desk he’d chosen-but Astoria simply took a seat in the chair and made a face.
“No tea?”
“Hmmm? Oh, no, tea is fine.” Astoria looked up. “I merely don’t think this chair is springy enough. Merle!”
Harry blinked, wondering if that was part of an incantation for a spell he’d never heard of, and then jumped as a house-elf with blurry blue eyes appeared next to Astoria’s chair. “Merle be hearing Mistress,” he croaked.
“Make the chair more comfortable for me, if you’d please.”
Merle examined the chair, which was old and had a wooden back with spokes like that of a wheel going up it, and then nodded and snapped his fingers. In seconds, it was Transfigured into what looked almost like a Muggle swivel chair, although with a thick green cushion.
“Can he do mine?” Harry asked before he thought better of it. Astoria’s new chair just looked so comfortable.
Merle eyed him. “As long as Auror Harry Potter is not giving Merle a sock.”
Harry laughed despite himself, and despite the soft stab in the center of his chest that he got at any reminder of Dobby. “I promise, I won’t.”
Merle shuffled over to Harry’s desk and examined his chair for a long second, shaking his head, as if this was harder than changing Astoria’s, even though the chairs were identical as far as Harry could tell. Then Merle snapped his fingers, and a chair appeared for Harry as well, although with a red cushion.
“House colors?” Harry asked as he sat down. “Thank you, Merle.” The elf stared at him as if that was a prelude to a sock, but a second later, nodded and vanished.
“Do you have an objection?” Astoria was putting a green snake on her desk that looked as if it was made of crystal, and had little emeralds for eyes. As Harry met her gaze, she drew her neck back a little.
“Not really,” Harry admitted. “I just wondered.”
“Ah.” Astoria studied him for a second longer, then cleared her throat. “I have to admit, I was expecting you to throw a fit when you didn’t get Weasley for a partner.”
“Please, it’s been at least a fortnight since I threw a fit.”
“I think you had a right to that one, discovering a love potion in your tea.”
Harry privately agreed, so he just smiled a little. “I knew I wouldn’t get to choose my partner. And although Ron’s great, he’s a little too similar to me when it comes to his magical strengths. Defensive magic, mostly. I accept that I need someone who’s probably better at curses and recognizing the Dark magic.”
Astoria flickered her hand at his desk. “It looks as if you have plenty of devices to do that for you.”
Harry nodded at the Foe-Glass, the Sneakoscope, and the whirling collection of silver devices he’d built himself. He understood the way Dumbledore’s office used to look a lot better now. “True, but these can’t come with me into the field, at least not without whistling at inappropriate times. I need a partner who can guard my back and help me with arresting criminals on a regular basis.”
Astoria hesitated, then took a deep breath. “And there won’t be hard words about my husband?”
“You can’t help the way he used to be. I don’t blame you for that. I know you were probably Sorted into Slytherin because of the cushion and that snake, but to be honest, I don’t even remember you.”
“I was two years below you and Draco,” Astoria agreed quietly. “Draco and I didn’t really get to know each other until after the war.” She hesitated. “You should know that I don’t hold with the belief that Muggles and Muggleborns are terrible. Rather a disappointment to my in-laws-why are you smiling?”
“Anything that disappoints Lucius Malfoy is the highlight of my day.”
“I thought. Well, you did testify for him at the trials after the war. And for Narcissa.”
“Sure, but that was because I don’t think anyone deserves the Dementor’s Kiss. You’ll notice I didn’t try to argue the Wizengamot out of Lucius going to Azkaban. They made the decision to only give him a year in spite of me, not because of me.”
Astoria eyed him for a second, her hand tapping a bit on the desk, and then smiled. “I think we’re going to get along better than I thought we would when I heard about my assignment, Harry Potter.”
Harry grinned, and then turned as he heard Dawlish coming back down the corridor, this time with the rustling parchment that indicated he was probably distributing assignments.
*
“Isn’t it…strange working with Malfoy’s wife?”
Harry shrugged a little and leaned back on Ron and Hermione’s couch, cradling the glass of Firewhisky in his hands. “I thought it would be stranger than it is. Astoria said the same thing, actually. But we’re pretty well-matched on the magical spectrum, and she knows things that I don’t, and I know things she doesn’t. And we agree about Muggles and Muggleborns more than we disagree.”
“What about house-elves?” Hermione was sitting in a comfortable green chair by the fire, eyeing Harry sternly. The firelight threw gleams into her hair.
“I knew you would get around to that.”
“It’s important, Harry!”
“I don’t think that she and Draco mistreat their house-elves the way Lucius did,” Harry said. It was the diplomatic way to disavow all knowledge. Given that Merle seemed to have partially adopted Harry, enough to bring him food and potions without Astoria commanding it, Harry wouldn’t be making his knowledge obvious anyway.
“But Lucius would still be in charge.” Ron sipped his own Firewhisky.
“I have the impression that he and Narcissa more or less retired after the war,” Harry admitted. “They’re still living in Malfoy Manor, but they don’t go out much, and it’s in France when they do. And they leave the Gringotts vaults and the business up to Draco.”
“The business? I didn’t know Malfoy could work.”
“Something to do with vineyards, Astoria said. Raising grapes for wine.”
Ron spluttered into his glass and set it down before it could spill. “Really?”
“Yeah, I don’t know.” Harry shrugged. Honestly, what Draco Malfoy did wasn’t that interesting to him, but he was glad that Astoria felt comfortable enough to talk to him about it. “I suppose it keeps him pretty busy.”
“They don’t have kids yet, right?” Ron leaned back and flung one arm over the back of the couch, in Hermione’s direction. If he wanted her to leave the chair and sit next to him, Hermione missed the signal, still contemplating Harry with severe eyes.
“Not that I know of.” Harry shrugged again. “I suppose they wanted to wait.”
“Yeah, it’s good to wait.” Ron smiled at Hermione, and this time she got up with a little huff and sigh and sat down next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder.
Harry watched them with a touch of wistfulness. He could have had that, too, if he had wanted to wait for Ginny to be ready for marriage.
But, in the end, he hadn’t. Going through Auror training took up a lot of concentration, and he had enjoyed the feeling of just living alone in his own flat and eating what he wanted and going to sleep when he wanted, without the “responsibility” that would have come along with having a girlfriend.
And he hadn’t met anyone since Ginny he would have wanted to date, but that didn’t mean he would never meet someone.
“See if you can get the Malfoys to free their house-elves,” Hermione murmured, eyes shut and voice already drifting, which left Harry able to sip his Firewhisky and pretend that he hadn’t heard a thing.
*
“Front?” Astoria’s voice was a soft pressure against Harry’s eardrums more than it was the sound of words.
Harry nodded, and then flung himself through the door. Astoria would be right behind him, lifting a few floating wards that would keep any traps they’d missed as they approached the smugglers’ warehouse at bay.
The warehouse was a long, low building concealed, with an impressive amount of spells, right in the middle of Muggle London. Harry reckoned that the smugglers had thought they’d get away with their business for longer if they chose to distance themselves from most wizards and witches.
But they’d reckoned without Harry’s sensitivity to magic and Astoria’s interest in Muggle news of the “strange” variety. She had been the one to realize that a human interest story about a dog with a supposedly deformed tail wandering around London could be about a Crup, and together, they’d tracked it down, and discovered the warehouse.
No one was inside. Harry halted in the middle of the large, low-ceilinged room, staring in disgust at what hung from hooks above them.
Dried and stretched human skins, dozens of them.
Astoria made a sharp noise behind him as if she was going to vomit. Harry reached a steadying hand back, and she clutched it. Harry darted his gaze around and extended his senses, trying to feel out the Dark wizards he’d been sure would be here waiting for them.
There wasn’t a sign of them, which only increased Harry’s paranoia, because it meant they might have learned to hide from being magically detected. He advanced a few steps further into the warehouse, aware of Astoria turning so that her back was plastered against his.
Movement leaped into being in the far corner on the right and ahead, and Harry spun to point his wand at it, but it was already heading straight for him, a growling bolt of lightning that he thought might be alive.
Harry snapped out, “Serpensortia!”
The winged snake he’d conjured leaped up in front of him and took the lightning strike-no, the enemy creature’s bite-on its wings. Then the creature, which seemed to be part snake and part bat, began rolling over and wrestling with Harry’s serpent in midair, and Harry was swinging around to face Astoria, who had begun fighting, from the clash of spells behind him.
The wizards she was fighting, five of them, had cloaks of some oddly shiny grey material that resembled Unspeakable garb too much for Harry’s comfort. And he couldn’t feel their magic at all.
Well, we should fix that, Harry thought, and chuckled aloud when one of the wizards saw him and began to back away. Harry flicked his wand up to point at the ceiling and barked, “Magus visus est!”
The air around him sparked and turned into a cloud of sullen color for a second, which spread out and encircled the wizards. It outlined the magic spreading from their bodies like a series of spokes without a wheel to connect to. Harry watched as one of them drew the cloak over his head and his body seemed to thin and vanish from sight-but the aura remained. They wouldn’t be able to go invisible to his senses unless they didn’t use any magic for at least an hour.
And in the heat of battle, that wasn’t likely to occur.
“Ready?” Astoria stepped up beside him.
Harry looked at her and grinned. “Yeah. Let’s kick their arses.”
*
And in the end, it wasn’t even that difficult, Harry thought as he stretched his legs out in the briefing room afterwards. He’d taken one shallow cut on his arm, and Astoria had received a deeper one on her left leg, and Harry had had to drag her out of the way of a curse that might have severed her head from her neck. But the wizards had proven to be cowards once their ability to hide was taken away from them, and the creatures that defended the warehouse spent all their time wrestling with the snakes Harry could conjure.
In the end, all of the criminals were taken into custody, and the skins were removed from the warehouse. Apparently, the wizards had been using them to make those cloaks that made them magic-invisible. Harry shivered in disgust. It wasn’t justice for the victims, not yet, but at the very least those bastards would go to Azkaban for the rest of their lives.
“Harry.”
Harry glanced up. Astoria was lingering in the doorway of the briefing room. He smiled at her. “You all right?” He didn’t think she was limping. The cut on her leg had been clean, and the Healers had whisked her away to tend to it while Harry explained to the higher-ups what happened.
“Yes. Of course. Are you? You’re still sitting here.”
“It’s a good thing to let the adrenaline drain away, I’ve found.” Harry waved an expansive hand. “Otherwise, I go home and have to conjure and break things to get rid of it.”
“Oh.” A smile that Harry didn’t know how to interpret lifted the corner of her mouth. “Well, I was going to say that you would be most welcome to break some of the ugly art at Malfoy Manor.”
Harry raised his eyebrows. “What, right now?”
“Harry.” Astoria closed the door of the briefing room behind her, which made Harry straighten up and stare at her in concern. “You saved my life. I don’t think you know what that means to me. What it means to Draco. I’ve Flooed him to inform him, of course.”
Harry cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. He was a little aware, uneasily, that now all the members of the Malfoy family owed him their lives-Draco during the war, Astoria today, and Narcissa and Lucius because Harry had found out about a plot among some of the Ministry officials to murder them and raced to the Manor ahead of the disgruntled people would have done it. That had been his first five-on-one duel. “I mean-surely you must want to have some time together right now because you nearly died?”
“Having you there would remind us both that I’m still alive.”
Harry nodded slowly. “As long as you realize that you don’t owe me a life-debt.”
“I would hope to count on a deepening of our friendship instead of an actual debt.”
The tart words made Harry smile. Astoria was still Astoria, then, and not about to let the fact that he’d saved her life interfere with them being Auror partners in any weird way. “Let me get my cloak.”
*
“Auror Potter. Welcome to our home. I wish your last visit had been under better circumstances.”
Harry smiled a little tightly and shook Draco’s hand. He hadn’t seen him for almost two years, and Draco really did look different, calmer and more settled. Although also more stiff, with the way that he reached out for Harry’s hand and retracted his arm as if he was a mechanical toy.
Then he turned to Astoria, and the look on his face as he reached out to her relaxed Harry. Of course. He just got the news that his wife almost died. It’s bound to affect anybody.
To give them a private moment, Harry glanced off to the side, at the portraits that hung on the walls of this Floo room. Most of them didn’t look to be particularly old or large, and their frames were slightly tarnished silver instead of gold. Harry let his mouth quirk up at the outraged expressions that some of them were giving him. Ancestors stored in the Floo room didn’t seem like the kind of people whose opinion would be relevant to Draco and Astoria.
“Auror Potter.”
“Please call me by my first name, Draco,” Harry said, turning back and enjoying the startled expressions that flew over Draco’s face like a bird. “That’s the kind of formal address our bosses use.”
“Usually because you just did something exasperating,” Astoria murmured.
“I’ll remind you that I’m not the one who set the Minister’s tapestry on fire.”
“There was a doxy on it!”
“There are still other spells you could have used than Incendio.”
Draco let out a soft, slow breath, maybe because he hadn’t understood how friendly Harry and Astoria actually were with each other, and nodded. “It sounds as though you’ve had more adventures than I knew about,” he remarked.
Harry studied him for a moment, but there was no sound of jealousy in his voice, which made Harry relax some more. “Astoria said something about how I could break ugly art to let out some of this adrenaline?”
Draco blinked for a second, then turned to Astoria. “Those busts are family heirlooms.”
“I notice you don’t say family treasures.” Astoria’s eyes sparkled at him as she kicked off her boots. “And they’re ugly.”
“Astoria-”
“You’re always going on about how you’d like to be rid of them.”
“Astoria-”
“This way, we can make sure that we don’t owe Harry a life-debt. Another one.”
Draco shot Harry an alarmed look, and didn’t look less alarmed when Harry rolled his eyes at him. “I have no intention of claiming a life-debt,” Harry said. “I don’t want to do that to Astoria, or your family. We have to work together as Auror partners. I don’t want something hanging between us that affects our ability to work together.”
He seemed to have found the right thing to say by accident. Draco slowly relaxed. “Very well,” he said. “Then there are some busts I’d like to get rid of.”
Astoria winked at him, or maybe both of them. Draco pretended not to notice as he turned and led the way with immense dignity down the corridor towards what looked like some kind of ballroom.
Harry, who didn’t have a family tradition of sticks up the arse inhibiting him, winked back at her.
*
The room Draco showed him into looked almost like a museum, it turned out, rather than a ballroom, and was indeed full of the ugliest busts Harry had ever seen. He grinned and shook his sleeves back from his hands.
“Don’t you need your wand?” Draco asked from the door.
“No,” Harry said cheerfully. “But you might want to raise a shield.”
Someone’s rose behind him, although if Harry had to guess, he would say it was probably Astoria’s rather than her doubting spouse’s. He didn’t turn his head to check. Instead, he focused his magic as best as he could when the power was rising, churning, inside him, and might get out of control any second. Then he flashed it through his skin, as hard as he could.
Lightning burst from his hands and his face and his eyes and his legs and everything in between, a brutal start of white brilliance that grabbed the busts. When Harry blinked his eyes open, all of them lay on the floor in pieces small enough that there would be no point in trying to Reparo them back together.
Harry sighed and sagged back against the comforting hum of the shield behind him. He couldn’t do it in just one burst like that at home, because he didn’t have rooms the size of this one, and he didn’t really want to vaporize his walls or catch them on fire. But this had been great.
He turned around with a smile to thank the Malfoys, only to pause when he saw the almost traumatized looks on their faces. “Are you okay?” He hoped they didn’t regret letting him break up the busts after all.
Draco took a deep breath and walked towards him, stopping perhaps a meter away. “What was that, Potter?”
“Magic, Malfoy.”
“I’ve never seen magic like that.” Astoria’s voice was subdued, which disturbed Harry. He also hoped that she wasn’t about to start acting differently when they were at work because he had displayed unexpected powers. “How did you do that?”
“It’s harder for me to refrain from doing that than to do ordinary magic,” Harry admitted. “My magic…builds up in me when I’ve been fighting. I don’t know what else to call it. It’s like my body thinks I’ll need lots of it and produces it, and then it has nowhere to go when the fight is over. Usually, I don’t flare this hard, because I have to conjure things to destroy first and that takes some of it. But you offered me this, so. Thank you.”
Draco and Astoria exchanged glances, and then Draco cleared his throat. “I’ve heard of this before,” he said. “It usually happens because you need someone or something to balance your magic. A familiar would help.”
Harry sighed. “I know it’s kind of silly, but I’ve never managed to get close to another animal after my owl Hedwig died.”
“And you haven’t dated someone else, either, I can’t help but notice.”
“No,” Harry agreed. “I’m picky.” He shrugged, not really worried. Someday he would find someone. He had decades yet.
Draco and Astoria exchanged another glance, this time with what seemed to be silent words flying between them. Harry watched with a wistful smile. Yes, he would give himself all the time he needed to find someone truly compatible, because he wouldn’t settle, but he still envied people who already had someone.
“Perhaps there are other solutions,” Draco offered. “There are books in Malfoy Manor that might talk about them.”
“I appreciate the offer, but honestly, I think what I can do is enough. Flaring like that takes the edge off.”
Draco didn’t appear to know what to say to this. Astoria took over, briskly escorting Harry towards the door. “Would you like to come to the dining room and have something to eat? The house-elves will be thrilled to have someone to serve this late…”
*
“Where were you last night, mate?”
Harry covered his mouth with one hand to ward off the yawn. “Malfoy Manor.”
Ron froze in the office doorway, staring at him. Harry glanced up at him. “What?”
Ron eyed him, then said slowly, “No one said you were injured yesterday, and Malfoy…does he not care that rumors might go around about you sleeping with his wife?”
It took Harry a moment to realign his mind to grasp what Ron was talking about, since he was so used to hearing other Aurors call Astoria “Malfoy.” Then he laughed. “Come on, Ron. She invited me over to get rid of some of my excess magic by destroying this ugly old art that neither she nor Draco liked anyway. It wasn’t like what you’re saying.”
“You call him Draco.”
“You look like you’re about to faint. Does Corner know that you’re so excitable?”
Ron scowled. He seemed to take it as a personal insult that his Auror partner was Michael Corner, who had once dated Ginny, even though they worked well together. “I’m fine. But you and the Malfoys?”
Harry shrugged. “I wouldn’t ask you to see them socially or come to the Manor or anything like that, Ron. But I do think that I’m allowed to.” He picked up the cup of steaming tea that had appeared on the edge of his desk and sipped it thoughtfully.
It had the perfect balance of milk and lemon, just the way he liked it. Harry smiled. Then again, the Malfoy house-elves had had time to learn what he liked last night. He’d stayed at the Manor until nearly midnight, laughing and talking in an easy way he never would have imagined was possible with them.
“Where did that come from, mate?”
“Astoria’s house-elves.”
“Don’t tell Hermione.”
“I wasn’t planning to. Were you?”
Ron sighed. “No. I love her, you know that, but she starts talking about elves and she just doesn’t stop talking. And the Malfoys aren’t going to change because she wants them to, anyway. I think it’s better for her to work on passing that bill that will get people who don’t treat their elves well arrested.”
Harry nodded. None of the elves he had seen last night had looked nearly as battered or depressed as Dobby. He hoped that meant that Lucius had committed those crimes, as well, and things had changed when Draco and Astoria took over. “Anyway, I have paperwork to do. Don’t you?”
“It’s Corner’s turn.”
Harry laughed. “As if I’d believe that, when you look so shifty. Go on, Ron. I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast.”
*
Harry stepped inside his flat and immediately tensed. There was a sense of unraveled threads brushing against his skin that he trusted not at all, and which probably meant his wards had been breached. He drew his wand.
A swirl of grey moved in the corner.
It could have been an Unspeakable, but Harry snapped his wand up and shouted, “Flagrare!”
The air around him burst into flames, and the fire moved in a wide swirl with pointed arrows shooting out of it, a strong, controlled spell, nearly the opposite of Fiendfyre in its precision. There was a loud curse, and someone backed away as the edge of their grey cloak ignited and began to burn, unraveling the magic.
Harry smiled. Ending magic was a nice little side-effect of the fire.
As the intruder tore the cloak off and stomped on the fire, Harry conjured a cobra and sent it forwards with a hiss, but the Dark wizard hit it with a Killing Curse. The snake slumped over and vanished a few seconds later.
“I see,” Harry said quietly, the sense of amusement gone from him. “It’s like that, is it?”
“You ended our operation.”
“Only me? I’m hurt. That leaves out all the Aurors who played a part-”
“Don’t worry. Someone will be going over to Malfoy Manor to end the life of that interfering bitch very soon.”
Harry could feel his eyes widen. For all that Malfoy Manor had powerful wards, they weren’t engaged as often now that the war had ended, and he knew already that these cloaks could conceal the ones who wore them from most forms of being sensed by magic. They’d got past his wards, after all.
Astoria.
Harry charged.
A Killing Curse flew past him, but Harry ducked under it and conjured a shower of stones that fell from the ceiling. The man put his hands up to protect his head, but that meant he wasn’t aiming his wand at Harry, and Harry snatched him and spun him around, his own wand against his opponent’s throat. The man froze, trembling, and Harry laid his wand sideways.
“I’ll cut open your jugular if you don’t tell me how many are going after her and what they plan to do,” Harry said, which produced no response. Then he realized that he’d said it in Parseltongue. He snapped it in English this time.
“Three,” the man gasped, his Adam’s apple trembling against Harry’s hand. “W-we knew there were stronger wards there and there were two of them and Draco Malfoy is a Dark wizard. They were going to skin them and add their skins to their cloaks…”
Harry kneed the man sharply in the back and twisted as he collapsed, avoiding the spell that flickered out of his wand after all. Then he cast the Dreamless Sleep Spell, which imitated the potion and would keep the man locked in unconsciousness until Harry decided to remove the hex. The Dark wizard fell unconscious, and Harry turned and ran for the door. Apparating would get him there faster than Flooing when he had no Floo access.
*
The outside of Malfoy Manor was dark and quiet, but Harry couldn’t trust that, not when their enemies wore those fucking cloaks that could escape detection so easily. He trotted along the perimeter for a moment, and then there was a flash of light from deep inside the wards and a breathless scream.
It didn’t sound like either of the Malfoys, but Harry wasn’t taking chances.
He reared back and cast sharply. “Ferrum! Ferrum! Ferrum!”
Three swords formed of pure magic appeared, hovering in a triangular pattern around him, one to the right, one to the left, one above his head. Harry raised his hand and walked into the Malfoys’ wards, the swords driving thin cones of magic in front of them that were meant to open a narrow doorway for him and only him.
It was hard going. The wards bore down on him like tons of rock, and the power that made them up swayed back and forth above him, swaying as if it would fall any second. Harry ignored that as hard as he could. He had to reach Draco and Astoria, and he had to do it without the level of magical exhaustion that would have resulted if he’d simply torn straight through the wards.
In the end, it worked, although the swords dissipated in cascades of sparks the moment he moved out of the wards. Harry didn’t care. He just ran for the house as hard as he could, kicking up divots of grass behind him.
The scream sounded again, and there was a clash of lightning from behind the door.
Harry had almost reached it when it came flying open, and he hurled himself into a low roll. But no spells flew above him, and he snapped to his feet again to see one of the Malfoy house-elves standing there, eyes wide and hands wringing.
“Master Harry Potter is coming in and helping!” it screamed.
Harry nodded and leaped past the elf. The moment he was inside the Manor, he felt the sticky discharge that Dark Arts left behind. Someone had been using Unforgivables, enough to clog the air. No other kind of spells created that much buildup so quickly.
The only thing that heartened him, as he focused on the sounds of battle and surged towards them, was that so many Unforgivables meant they couldn’t have hit their targets, or the battle would have ended one way or another.
He ducked through a low doorway and caught a glimpse of Draco and Astoria standing back-to-back in the middle of overlapping defensive shields, shattered bookcases, and three grey-cloaked wizards facing them. One of them turned to him and struck out with a wand movement that Harry recognized, hitting him with a nonverbal Imperio.
Harry shrugged it off like steam and hit the idiot with a Clothesline Jinx, catching her in her throat and sweeping her from her feet. She went down flailing and clutching at the air.
“Harry!”
Harry heeded the warning in Astoria’s tone and dropped again. A Cutting Curse flew above his head and earthed itself in a snarl of sparks against the Malfoys’ shield.
Harry turned and cast another Clothesline Jinx at this one, who he hadn’t felt circle behind him because of those fucking cloaks. The man ducked under it, only to be caught at the knees by the lower one Harry had aimed. He collapsed, and Harry kept up the pressure of the magic against the man’s legs as he turned and put his back to the shields.
There was only one opponent left, but he wasn’t wounded, and he sauntered towards Harry with worrying confidence. Harry clacked his teeth together. Well, time to do something about that.
“Avada Kedavra!” the man cast.
Harry swiftly Levitated a piece of bookcase in front of himself, since if he just ducked the curse could go through the shields and hit Astoria or Draco. The bookcase exploded, and Harry came out of the rubble in a flying tackle that took the man down with a surprised grunt on his part.
But he still had his wand, and the longer he struggled against Harry, the more Harry’s ability to hold the jinxes on the two other idiots and keep them out of the fight was weakened. So Harry took direct action and drove his elbow into the wizard’s groin as hard as he could.
The gasp that earned the git was more like a shriek. Harry sat up and pushed his hair out of his eyes, leaning all his weight on his elbow in the meantime. The man stopped writhing and went still, as though holding his breath, which allowed Harry time to Stun him.
“Are you all right?” he asked Draco and Astoria, scrambling to his feet. He felt odd, a little light-headed. It was probably the effect of all the adrenaline.
“We’re fine.” Astoria was staring at him with wide eyes, but she did look fine, other than a scratch on one cheek. Draco was limping, which might mean he’d need the attentions of a Healer. “Harry…”
“I knew I had to come here because one attacked my house and told me they would be coming here.” Harry caught his breath, and coughed. “Are you sure that you’re all right? Draco looks like he’s limping. Do you want me to call a Healer?” He turned around and had to catch himself on the fireplace mantel. Good thing it was so close.
“Potter, your chest is almost caved in!” Draco shrieked.
Harry blinked and looked down. Oh. There was a huge, bloody wound in the center of his chest, and he could see rib-bones sticking out of it. On the other hand, it wasn’t bleeding all that much right now, and he didn’t think any ribs had pierced a lung, or he wouldn’t have been able to run and fight like he did.
“You’re…exaggerating,” he said, as he stumbled to his knees. He was mostly annoyed. He couldn’t even remember which one of them had done it, which meant he didn’t know which Dark wizard might be the most dangerous one once he lost control of the jinxes or the last one woke up from the Stunner. “Make sure you hold them. They have Clothesline…”
And then he passed out.
Part Two.