Title: Rejoicing in Their Strength (2/6 or 7)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: R
Warnings: Torture, violence, profanity, insanity, character death (not Harry or Draco), creature!fic (werewolf!Harry). Takes place after DH but ignores the epilogue.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Summary: Lucius went mad after the war, and he has killed Narcissa and confined Draco to Malfoy Manor while he does magical experiments on him. Draco escapes at times by astral travel. During one of his journeys, he is astonished to find Harry Potter, who vanished after the war, living in the Forest of Dean.
Author’s Notes: This fic is rather graphic in its descriptions of the torture that Lucius inflicts on Draco. Tread with caution. It will probably be six or seven parts long.
Part One. Thank you for all the reviews!
That morning, it was rats.
Draco didn’t even bother trying to stay in his skin. He fled into the astral world as soon as Lucius brought the first cage into the room.
*
There had been signs of madness long before Lucius had actually begun to torture him, Draco thought, as he hovered in the middle of the purple mist and examined a few of the nearer stars, which acquired extra points when he did so. His father had always been prone to sharp stares and odd remarks. He had laughed when one of the first Slicing Spells Draco practiced cut a snake in half, and refused to have the house-elves remove it or kill it himself, instead intent on showing Draco how it could writhe and snap futilely at the air as it died.
But without the eventual torture, Draco had to admit, none of those small signs would have meant anything to him.
Instead, Lucius had begun to go downhill as soon as he got out of Azkaban. They were all confined to house arrest and would be for two years. Lucius had taken to staying in his library and reading Dark Arts books more and more often. His mother, her arm around Draco’s shoulders, had whispered that it was his father’s means of coping with his loss of power and freedom and Draco was to leave him alone while he studied.
Draco had. He mourned the loss of his own pride and self-respect, and so he understood what Lucius was feeling.
He thought.
Then he had trudged into the dining room for another cheerless meal one night and seen fleshy wires strung above the table. Draco had halted and blinked at them, and at the red chunks of meat dangling from them, not understanding.
“Do you like it?” Lucius asked behind him, voice regretful. “When I learned that your mother was sick, I knew the only cure was to hang her by her own nerves and tendons from the ceiling.”
Draco shuddered and closed his eyes tightly. He could never forgive the self of his memory for standing there like an oaf, staring up at the ceiling and opening and closing his mouth as if he would find some answer in himself to what Lucius had done.
Maybe he could have got out of the house, if he ran swiftly enough. Maybe he could have snatched his broom and flown, and when he crossed the wards that warned of a Malfoy breaking his house arrest and the Aurors responded to the alarm, Draco could have told them about Lucius. They would have believed him even before they saw the ruin of Narcissa’s body. They were always willing to believe any evil of a Malfoy.
Instead, Draco had stood there and let Lucius take his arm and whisper into his ear, “You’re sick, too. You’re tainted by Dark magic. But don’t worry. Your cure will be less drastic than hers. I just have to find it.”
Dark magic, indeed, Draco thought, closing his eyes and flipping his spiritual body around in the air, for the sheer fun of doing something he would never be able to do again with his physical body. As if I’d ever touch the stuff again. It was Dark magic that unbalanced his mind in the first place. Had to be.
It was easy for Lucius to fool the Aurors when they came. They weren’t interested enough in the fate of the Malfoys to look too closely. Lucius created a convincing illusion of his wife that moved up and down stairs, sat at the table, and stared haughtily. As for Draco, he was present in his own body, with the glamour of clothes on him-Lucius said that being actually clothed would delay his “healing”-and a big fake smile plastered on his face. Lucius, meanwhile, did most of the talking, glittering and witty and putting the Aurors at their ease. His wand spun lightly beneath his fingers under the table, giving great jolts to the glamoured collar that Draco wore about his neck at those times and which would kill him if he attempted to speak a word out of turn.
Just because Lucius had gone mad did not mean he had gone stupid. More was the pity, as Draco would have had some chance at escape if he had.
No help to be found in the Aurors. No help to be found anywhere, since it was not as though Draco would be able to alert anyone when he traveled in a body that was invisible to everyone.
Draco opened his eyes again, and watched the stars change as he flipped heels over head and head over heels.
You know there is one person who can see you, or at least sense you. Harry Potter.
Draco began to shiver and couldn’t stop.
Potter was a werewolf, and Draco knew the change made people into Dark creatures. Potter hadn’t sounded like one, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t one. And Draco had never been able to trust Potter. Why should he assume that he could now? If Potter heard his story, and laughed at him, and left him there…
Draco knew he would then be even further down the road to madness than he had been before.
Still, there was one thing Potter might be able to do for him. Draco needed some amusement and diversion when he was away from home and traveling. Someone who could see him, and might be willing to talk to him, would be both.
Potter had his own secrets to hide, that was certain. Draco occasionally heard bits and scraps of news from the Aurors, though not much. Surely one of them would have mentioned if their hero had been bitten by a werewolf and exiled from the wizarding world. It would be exactly the sort of gossip that most of the public would relish while pretending to be sorry about.
Draco needed to be in a position of power in relation to someone. Taunting Potter with the revelation of his secrets would assure that.
Draco turned and dived towards the forest where he had seen Potter again, making sure this time to imagine garments clinging to his usually naked spiritual body. Powerful people did not appear naked outside their private rooms.
*
The werewolves’ clearing boiled with a restlessness that made Draco think he was standing in the middle of a kettle. This time, he could feel the aura of strength and lightning from every member of the pack, not just Potter.
Which he was glad of, because it gave him something entertaining to watch. Potter was nowhere in sight at the moment.
Celia and Josh were wrestling in the center of the clearing, grasping one another’s arms and necks, throwing one another from their feet, dodging clumsy grabs and taunting each other. Draco winced as he heard the fleshy thump with which their bodies hit the ground. Of course, they were both werewolves and had supernatural strength, especially this close to the full moon.
Leila was sitting in the door of one of the houses, frowning at a book that looked like it might be the same one Celia had been reading yesterday. Draco dared to come closer this time since no one was present who could see him, and raised his eyebrows at the title. Discovering Inner Strength.
That doesn’t sound like something any of them need to do, he thought, glancing over his shoulder again in the direction of Celia and Josh.
He understood the book’s title better when he saw Hyacinth lying in the shade of the flowering bush where Potter had spoken to her yesterday. She was panting, her sides rising and falling, and there was a dark flush to her skin that made her look as if she was sick. Draco crouched next to her and stared at her tightly shut eyes.
She made soft little sounds which he took for part of the panting at first, and then realized were muted growls.
Potter said something about her wolf being stronger than the rest of theirs, Draco remembered. I suppose she takes the full moon harder than they do.
Even as he watched, Hyacinth flowed to her feet-Draco started back reflexively, even though she simply passed through him as if he were a ghost-and turned to look at the forest. Draco looked with her, but saw nothing. Hyacinth growled again and turned three times in a circle, flinging herself down like a dog. Her eyes, which had a distinct golden glaze to them, stared over Draco’s head into the distance.
“Malfoy. Mind telling me why you’re here?”
Draco swallowed. Potter had come up behind him. He slowly redirected himself so that he was looking towards Potter, helped by the way that Hyacinth’s gaze was steadily pointed in the right direction. It was obvious what she’d been waiting for now.
Potter leaned against a tree, cloaked in an aura like a storm. His arms were folded, his face remote and stern, and his eyes golden-green like grass striped with sunlight. Oddly enough, Draco found himself taking heart from the posture and the stare. It was so exactly like the way he had expected Potter to look.
“I was in the area and thought I would take a look,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders.
Potter narrowed his eyes and took a deep and deliberate sniff. The rest of the pack was drawing in now, glancing from Potter to the patch of air that contained Draco. Draco waited gleefully for questions about Potter’s sanity to begin. It would be nice to have some company.
But it seemed the pack trusted their leader too much to ask those kinds of questions. Celia did murmur, “Someone’s there we can’t see.”
“Yes,” Potter said. He spoke softly and reassuringly, though he still kept his gaze on Draco as though measuring him up as a threat. “I can see him, though, and smell him, and hear him. He’s an old schoolmate of mine, Draco Malfoy, who went under house arrest a few years back.” He cocked his head, and Draco was reminded of nothing so much as a dog about to scratch its ears. “This is your way of evading the law and exploring all the places that you won’t get to see while you’re under house arrest, then.”
It was a ready-made excuse, and Draco seized it gratefully. He shrugged and tried to look as bored as he was pretending to be. “Got it in one, Potter. Now. Mind telling me how it is that you can sense me when no one else could before?”
Potter smiled slightly, despite the chorus of growls from behind him and Leila’s mutter about how he didn’t have to converse with someone who was breaking the law already. “The werewolf’s power is a power of the body,” he answered. “It changes the body, it sharpens the senses, it turns our eyes a different color. Some people think it corrupts the soul, too, but I don’t agree with them-as you’ve probably noticed if you’ve listened to my words in any detail.” He shrugged. “I’ve already noticed that I can sense things I never could before. I can smell a scent of lingering love around abandoned houses that people cared greatly for, for example. I can sense faded ghosts who have mostly moved on to the afterlife. And I can sense you.” His nostrils fluttered again, as if he were trying to memorize Draco’s scent so that Draco could never take him by surprise again.
“Then why can’t your happy band of faithful followers see me?” Draco tossed his head at the other werewolves.
“They haven’t been as calm and as centered as I have been for long enough.” Potter ran a hand through his hair. “Most werewolves, who try to deny what they are, never pay enough attention to the wolf’s senses, and the ones who give in completely exist in a world of madness where one perception is pretty much the same as another. They might be able to see you, but they wouldn’t know what they were looking at.” He gave Draco a narrow smile. “Those words only apply to the human form, by the way. They’ll all be able to see you when they shift.”
Draco gave a small shudder and silent thanks that he had never come across a pack of werewolves while he was traveling like this. Then he reminded himself that that was ridiculous. It wasn’t as though they’d be able to hurt him even if they could all see him.
“So, Potter,” he said. “How did you get bitten? Why are you living here with this ragtag band? It sounds as though it’s a secret you don’t want many people to know. What will you pay me not to reveal it?” Draco was enjoying himself hugely. Power surged through his veins in the way that, back in his body, the rats would be surging across his stomach.
Potter gave him a sharp smile in answer. Draco told himself that Potter’s teeth hadn’t really lengthened; that was vampires. “How are you traveling, Malfoy?” he asked. “It sounds as though a few Aurors would pay a lot of money to know that you’re evading house arrest and maybe spying on the inner workings of the Ministry.”
Draco panicked. If Potter told the Aurors, then it was certain word would get back to his father, and then his one escape would be taken away from him, and he really would die under Lucius’s torments the way he had started to think he would.
Potter shook his head, eyes locked on Draco’s face. “You don’t need to worry,” he said. “I won’t betray your secret, as long as you tell me what it is, if you don’t betray mine. And you’ll receive my story in return.”
“Not wise,” Hyacinth said, in a tone on the edge of a snarl.
It was stunning to see how quickly Potter’s face changed to a mask of tenderness at the sound of her voice. He turned and dropped to his knees beside Hyacinth, running his hands down her neck. “What is it?” he murmured. “Do you sense that it wouldn’t be wise for us to trust him? What do you smell?”
Hyacinth raised her head, eyes slitted and glazed. They locked on him, and Draco jumped. For just a moment, he was sure, she saw him, and he was equally sure that what looked out of her eyes at him was not human.
“No sense,” Hyacinth whispered. “But a smell of blood, and death, and pain.” She turned away, whimpering, and tucked her head into her flank with a fluidity that half-convinced Draco she had already started to change. Potter spent a moment caressing her hair, his face bright with sorrow and determination both.
“One day,” he whispered to her, “a wolf of that strength will be a blessing. You’ll see.” Then he rose to his feet and turned to Draco.
“A short trade,” he said. “The full moon is tonight, and I need to spend time with my people. But I want your promise that you won’t betray us. I give you my word that I’ll promise if you will.”
Draco felt himself relax, at least as much as he could when he didn’t have any solid muscles to uncoil. He nodded. “I never knew I had this ability,” he said. “I got bored one day, and wished so fervently to be away from the Manor that it just-happened. I can’t touch anything while I’m out here, only see and listen, so I can promise that I won’t hurt your pack.”
Potter considered him with glittering eyes for a long moment. Then he jerked his head down in a sharp nod and said, “And Fenrir Greyback bit me. The wizarding world would have gone mad if they knew. I didn’t feel like either being their martyr or a political test case. I wanted to balance with the wolf instead, studied how to do that, and decided that living in a wild environment would be best for now. Someday, when the rest of the pack and I have sufficient control, we’ll go back into the wizarding world. But we can’t for right now.”
He jerked his head again. “I promise not to reveal your secret. Now, go. Come back tonight if you want to see what we can achieve.”
So authoritative was his voice that Draco found himself jumping back into the astral world before he could reconsider. He hovered there, blinking, and licking his lips despite the fact that he couldn’t feel the touch of his tongue.
Someone can see me. He won’t betray me. It might be entertaining to watch a werewolf pack change. At least, it’s something I haven’t seen before.
And new things were of much value in the life he was living now.
*
Since he would probably lose track of time if he went back into the Manor-and Lucius had spoken about using iron as well as rats today-Draco chose a place “not far from the forest” to pass the time until night. That meant he spent the remaining hours of daylight staring at an unutterably boring town of Muggles, all of whom seemed to be engaged in frowning at boxes and taking paper out of boxes and listening to boxes and talking into boxes. Some of them shivered when he passed through the offices, and once a small box exploded. Delighted, Draco tried to make that happen again, but couldn’t. Maybe it was only a coincidence and not the Muggle devices responding to the magic of his astral form after all.
Obediently, he reappeared in the clearing that held the pack when the full moon was on the verge of rising. He shivered as he stared around, even though he couldn’t feel the cold-and it wouldn’t really be cold anyway, since it was June. The restlessness he had picked up from the werewolves earlier was now snapping, surging, soaring. Draco rubbed briskly at his intangible arms and had to resist the temptation to rush out of the clearing into the forest.
You’ve come from a place that’s even more dangerous, he reminded himself. And once Potter gives a promise, he keeps it. He’s a Gryffindor, they can’t help themselves. You don’t need to think he’ll betray you.
The feeling went on boiling around him, but for long moments, he couldn’t see any of Potter’s pack. He kept turning in different directions, though, as though someone was staring at him.
And then, one by one, they began to emerge from their houses.
Hyacinth came first, already walking on all fours. She tilted her head back and shuddered as Draco watched. The next moment, she was twisting on the ground, her bones reshaping themselves, her skin growing a thick rusty pelt that couldn’t hide the sheer muscle of her. Draco listened to her howls of pain and wondered how in the world Potter could fool himself. No balance with the wolf was ever going to come out of that.
Celia and Josh both became tawny wolves, Josh with streaks of black on his muzzle and legs. Celia sneezed and jumped on Josh, wrestling with him, only cocking one eye and one ear at Draco before she did. Draco smiled cautiously. It seemed that Potter’s program had worked with those two, at least.
Leila was a black bitch with neat silver tips to her tail and ears, who sat in the doorway of her house and waved her tail lazily, watching the younger wolves with a knowing air that Draco found annoying. She spent some time staring at him, then snorted and looked away. Draco resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at her.
Potter emerged last.
Draco stared despite himself. He had never thought a werewolf could be beautiful; he had always feared them as horrible monsters, and that was the last place you looked for something aesthetically pleasing. But Potter was a wolf with a body as dark as his hair, his black fur trailing off into warm brown on his legs, to almost a honey color on his paws. A single white line ran down the middle of his spine, and a ragged white mark on his forehead showed where the lightning bolt scar would be when he was human. He looked around at the pack, nodded to Draco, and then loped towards the other wolves.
Only when he was near Celia did Draco realize that Potter was also big. He didn’t look like it, because his muscles moved as smoothly as oil and he projected an air of quiet confidence, with power muted beneath it, as though he didn’t need to command. But his shoulder would at least reach Draco’s, at six feet high, and that air of relaxation made him seem larger still.
Celia and Josh stopped wrestling when they saw him and stepped forwards to rub their noses against his jaw, whining. Potter turned his head, and Leila joined them at a trot, tongue lolling as she nipped at Potter’s tail. Potter tilted his head, and Leila lay down as if scolded.
Hyacinth joined them last. Draco cowered reflexively when he saw her. Her color had deepened to the scarlet of freshly spilled blood, her eyes were only a few shades lighter, and Potter overtopped her by an inch or less. If Potter was not here, Draco could see, she would have been the leader of the pack, no question.
If she could have gathered them.
Because Hyacinth was a lone wolf, someone who would have become a monster like Fenrir Greyback. Draco could see that, too. Even with the Wolfsbane he was sure she had taken, or she would have been running mad through the forest, she was alternately panting and snapping, her wildness straining at its bonds.
Potter turned and glanced at her. For long moments, their eyes held. A throbbing growl that reminded Draco of Muggle engines worked its way up Hyacinth’s throat. She started to crouch, and the rest of the pack backed away in anticipation.
Potter didn’t crouch. He returned her stare boldly, instead, his body alert and his eyes curious. He didn’t look as though backing down or glancing away was an option.
Hyacinth’s growl stilled at last. She lowered her head and bowed over her extended forelegs instead, the way Draco had seen Crups do when they wanted to play. Potter leaned over and nipped her softly on the ear.
Then he tilted back his head and howled.
A chorus of howls answered him at once, an undulating wail of voices that rose up as if they would chase and bring down the stars. Draco could almost feel his pulse jumping and his throat drying out. He would have Apparated spontaneously at the sound of that if he was here in the flesh.
As it was, he had nothing to fear, and the sounds were rather thrilling than otherwise.
Potter sprang ahead into the forest. Hyacinth was a stride behind him. Celia and Josh went flying in their wake like leaves, and Leila managed a respectable sprint at the back.
And Draco, because his astral projection was willing himself to be in certain places rather than walking, could keep up.
He flashed from tree to tree, and always, somehow, Potter had got ahead. He was panting as he ran, his eyes gold with exhilaration, his feet flying so fast that Draco could see whirlwinds of dirt spinning up behind them. Those werewolf muscles worked for him, whether he was circling trees at a pace that made Draco dizzy or crouching to leap over a deadfall. Draco appeared next to an ancient oak and caught a perfect image of Potter in mid-jump, his forelegs thrown forwards, his hind legs extended back, his head up and his muzzle open to howl again in the sheer exaltation of the thing.
Trust Potter to find some way of flying even in this form, Draco thought.
The pack spread out as they traveled through the forest, communicating by tiny yelps and growls. Hyacinth ran ahead of Potter, and then she gave a belling call like a hound that Draco felt sure had some specific meaning. These were werewolves and not ordinary wolves, after all, and they weren’t limited to calls prescribed by instinct.
Potter howled in response, and then came the three voices that Draco hadn’t learned to distinguish yet. He had no interest in trying, either. He kept up with Potter instead, watching in rapt silence as the great black head swept down for a scent and then the powerful body tensed and skimmed through the trees.
Suddenly, something sprang out ahead with a noise of cracking branches that was like thunder to Draco. He started.
A deer.
Potter and his pack were coursing a hind who dodged madly to avoid them, who jumped small rivers and flitted like a shadow over the underbrush, who showed them a clean pair of heels so many times that Draco was sure she would get away. The werewolves had a lot of strength, but they weren’t tireless, and they’d already run for almost an hour by the time they found their prey; the moon was fully up.
But it didn’t seem to matter. On and on they piled, howls linking them, their panting breaths slicing through the silences in between howls, rejoicing in their strength. Draco lost himself in the sheer smoothness of their movement, or rather of Potter’s movement, because Potter was the one he accompanied and couldn’t tear himself away from. Now and then, he swore he could feel a prickling of tears at his eyes.
The hind turned at last in a small bay of rocks, foaming and snorting in her terror. Her legs shook until she almost lay down, but she forced herself backwards, and the rocks sheltered her flanks and sides from attack. The werewolves could only come at her from the front, and that was too narrow for them to force their shoulders through.
Draco glanced at Potter as he came to a whooshing, whuffling stop, and the rest of the pack piled up behind him. Potter studied the hind with intelligent eyes, but didn’t seem overly concerned. Draco raised one brow. Really? And how are you going to get out of this one?
Then the hill above the hind which held the rock bay trembled, and Hyacinth came springing from above to fall on her back.
The hind, incredibly, managed to leap one final time, surging over Potter’s head and making a bid for freedom. Hyacinth’s attack didn’t crush her spine the way it was probably meant to. Instead, Hyacinth landed behind her and snapped twice at her heels instead. The hind screamed and stumbled. Hamstrings severed, Draco thought, so caught up in what he was watching that he felt almost nothing. I forgot, somehow, that wolves are pack hunters.
Potter jumped before the hind had come fully down from her magnificent leap, and met her four feet above the ground, his body dwarfing hers. His jaw clenched on her throat, and he tore his head sideways. Blood drenched his black fur, and the ground, and the faces of Celia and Leila, coming eagerly up behind him.
But the image that remained in Draco’s mind then, and forever after, was that of two dark shapes, one slender, one bulky, the bulky one clasping the neck of the slender one as they hung motionless against the moon.
Part Three.