Part Four of 'Rejoicing in Their Strength'
Title: Rejoicing in Their Strength (4/7)
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, bloody animal death, 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 again for all the reviews!
Of course he went back to Potter’s glade.
He didn’t mean to. But staying in his body while his father tortured him was no choice at all, and he found observing Muggles, or even wizards, less interesting than it had been when he was sure no one could see him.
Someone could. That person waited in the distance, and probably forgot about him the longer he was absent. Draco pictured Potter involving himself in the affairs of his pack, and his friends if they ever visited, and deciding that Draco was only an aberration in his life, the same way Draco had been for him in Hogwarts.
His pride, battered down by Lucius’s wires and bolts and pinching machines, decided, for some reason, that that was the final insult. Before his death, Draco could at least say that he had managed to matter to Harry bloody Potter.
Even if he was the only one who ever knew, because all Potter had to do to conceal the fact was simply not mention to anyone else that he’d talked with Draco.
A memory of Hyacinth and the way she’d sniffed out blood and pain on him made Draco pause for a moment. But then he shrugged and flitted away from the arguing Muggle family he’d been watching in the direction of the pull that led to the forest. All he had to do was wait until Hyacinth left and then present himself to Potter. He was sure he could irritate him easily enough to make him forget what Hyacinth had said, or get him talking of himself, which Potter loved to do. Draco would luxuriate in the sensation of fooling someone else one more time.
*
“There you are.”
For a moment, Draco decided he’d made a mistake after all, even though he’d carefully waited until Potter split his pack and sent them in separate directions to “try to balance their wolf and human sides for an afternoon.” Somebody had to have stayed behind. Probably Hyacinth; so far, Draco had not heard Potter speak to anyone else in that careful, coaxing tone.
But when he flickered around the tree and definitively into Potter’s sight, he saw that Potter was watching him with those brilliant wild eyes, and moving towards him with a slow step that suggested he was trying to tame a skittish animal, and talking to him in that tone.
Draco stood there, staring. He knew that Potter still couldn’t touch him or harm him; if he hadn’t managed to do it on the night of the full moon, when the werewolf magic was strongest, then he wouldn’t be able to when they were three weeks away from the next time he would transform.
And there was something like sympathy in Potter’s look and movements, not the scorn Draco had expected, or the suspicion Potter would have that Draco was the one doing the torturing and murdering. Sympathy was like a rare wine at this point.
So Draco let Potter get within five feet of the limits of his astral body, listening all the time to Potter’s flow of amazing, amusing words.
“I know something must be wrong-with you, or around you. I remember the way you looked when you first arrived last time. You were as thin as a werewolf who’s tried to starve himself to death, and you had wounds on your legs and arms that looked like the work of rats.” Potter licked his lips. “I discounted that when you changed because you clearly had the power to make yourself look like whatever you wanted. But the scent of blood and death Hyacinth told me about proves I shouldn’t have. What’s happening to you, Draco? Is it the Ministry? I gave them a request through Ron and Hermione for Aurors to investigate Malfoy Manor, but they said they’d been there and that everything was fine. So clearly, it’s not something it’ll do much good to contact them about. Either they’re causing it, or they’re ignoring it, or they’re not seeing it. Which is it? What’s happening to you?”
Draco sighed as the crackling aura of strength flowed over him. It was so thick that he could have gone to sleep on it like a pillow. It would be wonderful, he thought, to simply trust in Potter the way his wolves so apparently did and tell him what was happening. Of course Potter still couldn’t do anything, because he had given up his political power to hide away in the forest, but it would be soothing to pour out the words.
“Draco.” Potter’s tone had dipped, a choice that surprised Draco at first, because surely it would make his voice more like a threatening growl. But seemingly that was the right tone to work with the aura of strength, because Draco found his perceptions of Potter as a comforter increasing. “I can help you. I only need a few details. I only need a name. Who is the one doing this to you? You’re an innocent victim. I can help you. I only need a name.”
“Nice try, Potter.” With an effort, Draco pulled himself out of the daze he was falling into and retreated with a small shake of his head. Then he realized that he might as well stand in place, since Potter could hardly grab him and shake the answer out of him, and he raised an eyebrow and clasped his hands behind his back. “But what makes you think that I’d tell you the name now, when I didn’t before?”
Potter gave him a smile that would have been gentle, except Draco could see the edge of teeth in it. “So you do admit that something is happening to you.”
“Things happen to different people every day,” Draco said, mentally cursing himself for the slip. After a moment, thinking back over the different torments that Lucius had subjected him to in the past week, he decided that the slip was forgivable. He was still doing better than most people would have under this kind of pressure; he could cling to his pride. “For example, eating and sleeping and having pointless arguments with their friends. Dying. Being changed into werewolves. You know how it is.”
Potter’s eyes flared, and Draco flickered backwards despite himself, until he landed behind the tree where he’d stood while he was waiting for the rest of the pack to leave the clearing. He’d forgotten that, of course, no matter how much control Potter had over his wolf, he’d always had a temper, and his being a werewolf would aggravate it.
“Draco, I’m sorry.” It was sweet to hear an apology, and to hear someone who wasn’t Lucius calling him by his first name. Draco peered around the tree. Potter slunk towards the tree, his head lowered, his eyes on the ground. Draco stared. He hadn’t realized that Potter knew what humility meant. “I only want to know more about it. I don’t want you to put me off with lies when it’s perfectly obvious that you’re being hurt. Yes, I would have mocked you in school, but we’ve both changed since then.” Potter took a deep breath, as though he needed to think about his own words for a moment. “Come out and let me help you.”
Draco closed his eyes and stood still. A fine trembling was making his astral body flash and alter in front of his gaze, and he didn’t want it distracting him while he considered what he should do.
Could this be the help that he had wanted and despaired of finding?
But then the memory of his last conversation with Potter returned to him, and he brutally trod out the hope as he answered, “You told me that you couldn’t help. Your political influence is limited, everyone would know you were a werewolf if you left the forest, and asking the Ministry didn’t work. Exactly what you do you propose to do?”
There was silence for so long that Draco thought Potter had given up and gone back to sit in the middle of the clearing and wait for his pack to return. It was better that way, Draco told the dizzy tide rushing through his mind. There was absolutely nothing that anyone could do for him. He knew that. He had to start remembering reality more often.
Then Potter stepped around the tree and stood looking at him.
Draco’s breath caught in a gasp. Potter’s eyes were mostly golden now, and he had his teeth bared, and his black hair hung shaggy and unclipped to his shoulders, which Draco hadn’t noticed before, probably because Potter’s head was in such constant motion. He looked like a beautiful wild beast in the sunlight striping the tree trunks, and Draco was distantly glad that he’d seen a sight like this before he died.
“No one could give me justice after Greyback bit me,” Potter said, as if that was an answer to Draco’s question. “The Aurors said he was too dangerous to try arresting even on a night when it wasn’t the full moon. They sent out hunters for him, but they were too many and too heavily armed, and so of course Greyback always heard they were coming and ran away before they managed to corner him. He slaughtered a few Aurors for the fun of it, and left their corpses as warnings. Most of the Ministry didn’t know I was a werewolf, but I pleaded for justice for the people who died next to me that night, and still they couldn’t do it.” He exhaled, and a growl rode his breath.
“So I did the only thing I knew would satisfy me-and the wolf, which it is important to pay attention to and please. Only you can’t indulge all its desires, because that makes you less human.” Potter began to pace back and forth, his head swaying restlessly. At the moment, Draco thought he looked less like a wolf than an angry bear.
“I don’t see how this has much relevance to my situation, Potter.” Draco was grateful that the words came out bored. There were many less complimentary-to himself-tones that they could have taken at the moment, and he no longer trusted his own reactions around Potter.
Potter gave him a single intense look probably intended to shut him up. Draco raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, because it seemed the simpler course. Potter gave a small growl and shook his head, as if he wanted to bite through something. Of course, he had nothing in his mouth.
“I’ll get you justice,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I have to go around the Ministry to do it. I’m already permanently outside the Ministry. They feel that they don’t dare trust any werewolf, no matter how much in control.” He stretched, and Draco found it easy to imagine fur cloaking him and claws at the ends of his fingers. “I’ll get you justice,” he repeated, and there was the sound of ripping flesh in the back of his throat.
“That will go against everything that you told me you were working for,” Draco said. His thoughts were wheeling in mindless circles again, and he was barely conscious of the words coming out of his throat, except that they were the arguments he would use against Potter if he truly intended to resist this offer of help. “You wanted to show the Ministry that you could become a good little mingling of human and wolf, obedient to all the things they wanted you to do. And now you’re going to insist that you’re not like that after all? Now you’re going to give them proof that you’ve gone to the monster side?”
Potter took a step towards. Draco imagined for a moment that he could feel that hot breath puffing across his face, and then realized it was only the exhalation of Potter’s power. He flickered away nonetheless, and ended up standing on the roots of the tree.
“My pack is absolutely and utterly loyal to me,” Potter murmured. “So are my friends. And would you run to the Ministry to tell on the person who granted you your justice and your freedom?” He tilted his head, his gaze wise with a darkness that Draco thought more human than werewolf. “I didn’t think so,” he added when Draco remained silent.
Draco was caught in a shivering fit which might or might not show in his astral body; he didn’t know. The important of it was mostly internal.
He had basked in Potter’s power the other day, in the sense that Potter was finally becoming what he should have been-edged, sharp, dangerous-and that he wielded the wolf as a weapon instead of the other way around. That had been enough to attract him irrevocably when he was sure his experience of that power would remain purely abstract.
Now here was an offer to use that power on his behalf.
He knew that part of Potter’s desire to use it for him was because he was a victim. Potter didn’t have any fond memories of Draco from school, and Draco wasn’t a werewolf that he could shelter in his pack and make his subordinate, so it must simply be that he wanted someone to rescue.
With the possibility of real freedom opening up in front of him, though, Draco couldn’t bring himself to mind the role. His pride had given him nothing so far but a way to endure death. If Potter could give him life…
He willed his astral body to match the state of his physical body as it was at that moment. It wouldn’t hurt him, since he was unable to feel anything when he was spiritual.
Potter’s eyes widened and went on widening until Draco thought he could see straight through them into the wild soul that Potter carried within him. Then Potter whirled and sank his fingers into a tree.
They punched straight into the bark and stabbed at least halfway through, making the tree, a sturdy pine about forty feet high, wobble. It didn’t matter that Potter lacked claws in human form, Draco thought, watching greedily. He had done this. And he would probably do and dare worse to get Draco out.
Potter ripped his hand free. The tree listed and sagged. Potter circled and punched it from the other side, and it fell straight over, crackling and rustling other branches, creating a hollow boom that echoed through the forest. Draco felt a vague disappointment; surely the other members of the pack would hear that and come running back to find out what was wrong with their precious leader. But he had already taken the gamble and was committed now.
He stepped forwards so that Potter would stop punching trees-as exciting as that was-and pay attention to him.
Potter immediately stepped up to him and carefully extended his arms to encircle Draco’s body. Draco couldn’t feel it. That didn’t matter. The very fact of the gesture made him close his eyes in hope and need. And Potter’s strength flowed over him like a riptide, a riptide that had decided of its own free will not to hurt him. Oh, it would hurt other people in his defense, but never him.
“Who did this to you?” Potter asked, and this time it sounded as though he could barely voice the words. His primal urges taking over and strangling him, Draco supposed.
“My father,” Draco said. He had thought it would be hard to confess that truth, since, after all, Potter had even more reason to despise Draco’s parents than he did to despise Draco. It wasn’t. Instead, the moment the words began to spill out, Draco found that he couldn’t stop talking. “Dark magic contaminated him, and he started losing his mental balance. I think he probably always was a little mad, and the confinement to the Manor made it worse. He killed Mother, but he uses an illusion to pretend that she’s still alive when the Aurors visit. And he’s been torturing me because he thinks I’m somehow sick with Dark magic and the torture will cure me.”
Potter shifted and stepped away from him, his hands still extended in front of him and his eyes and teeth wickedly bright. “He’s taken your wand?” he asked.
Draco nodded. “And he keeps me naked most of the time, so that I wouldn’t survive long even if I did try to escape. I use the astral travel to avoid most of the pain. I’m sure that I would be dead or mad by now if I didn’t.”
Potter ducked his head as though to protect his throat. His eyes were hazy with thought. “Does anyone have a clue about this?”
Draco smiled, and he knew the smile was bitter, but he thought he had a right to make it that way. “The Aurors see what they want to see. Lucius is very good at disguising the fact that he killed Mother and he’s abusing me. They ask a few questions, laugh and nod when my father says something witty, and then leave. I’m sure they think that I’m just a sulky young man because I never say anything that Lucius doesn’t order me to say.”
Potter nodded. “And you’re sure that your father has no chance to recover?”
Draco laughed. “Of course not,” he said. “I think that he would have stopped short of using rats on me and impaling my knees with diamonds if there was any sanity left in him.”
Potter stepped close to him again. Draco caught his breath. Potter hadn’t grown taller-he was still only Draco’s height, or even an inch shorter-but that aura of strength lent him all the bulk he needed.
“Can you last a few more weeks?” Potter asked. “That’s all I’m asking for. No more than that. I should be able to find a way into the Manor and rescue you before then.”
“I don’t know if I can last,” Draco said. “I don’t know bad the damage is, or whether my father will hurt me so badly before then that I’ll die.” He found his astral body trembling and flickering again, which surprised him. He had thought he had accepted his impending death and no longer feared it.
With hope and the possibility of freedom, fear returns, he reminded himself. He ought to have remembered that from the war. The times when he was most afraid were the moments when he thought he might be able to escape the Dark Lord and someone would discover his plans.
Of course, for understandable reasons, he hadn’t thought much of the war in the past few months.
“How long has he been torturing you?” Potter asked. “Does he heal you afterwards?”
“I’ve rather lost track of time,” Draco said, with a glance that produced a ducked head and a murmured apology from Potter. “He heals me, but his healing spells are always less powerful than his Dark magic, and he can’t wait for long before he has to start torturing me again. He’ll go too far and kill me soon, or my body will simply give up from all the damage it’s taken.”
Potter growled under his breath, which Draco took for defiance of fate rather than disagreement, and began pacing back and forth in front of Draco, his head bowed. Then he looked up and said, “This is a time I could wish the werewolf magic wasn’t so effective. It sweeps through our bodies like fire when it touches us and burns out minor magical talents. I can’t talk to snakes any more, and Celia used to be a Metamorphmagus but lost it when she changed. If she could still disguise her face effectively, I’d send her to the Manor and let her spy out a way to get through the wards. At least I could be sure your father wouldn’t know who she was.”
Draco shuddered. “If my father even suspects that someone is trying to rescue me, he’ll go more mad than he already is. I can’t comprehend the level of pain I would be in if that happens.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
Potter’s voice vibrated in his chest, and he had moved up so that his arms encircled Draco’s ghostly form again. Draco smiled at him, unable to express the gratitude that pounded in the middle of his chest like a drumbeat.
“But you’re right,” Potter said. “It will take a lot of care to get around the wards, and I suspect that you can’t do anything about them from inside?” Draco shook his head regretfully, and Potter clucked, as though he suspected his question had caused Draco pain. “Very well. You’ll tell me about the weakest places in the wards. I’ll get Hermione to bring me a book on exploiting weak places like those. It’s Hermione, she’ll be ecstatic to bring me a book. Especially one that isn’t about werewolves.” His voice was wry. “Lucius would recognize me, Leila has a few old wounds that limit her motion, and I don’t trust Hyacinth’s control when she’s away from me. It’ll need to be Celia and Josh who spy out the Manor. Both of them were Muggleborn, so that increases the chance that your father won’t have any reason to have seen them before.”
“What are you going to do?” Draco breathed.
“Rescue you. I told you that.” Potter lowered his head and let his nostrils flare, as though taking a deep breath of whatever scent he could smell from Draco’s astral body comforted him. “You should never have had to suffer like this in the first place, but I can make sure that you don’t have to suffer like this again.”
“But how are you going to rescue me?” Draco wished he could hear what the plan was, so that he could have some hope to cling to as his father’s whip fell on his body and he recovered from the wounds during the bouts of healing magic.
“I won’t know that until I hear about the weak places in the wards.” Potter’s hands closed in on him, and then drew back again as Potter seemed to remember that he couldn’t actually touch Draco. “And…if worst comes to worst, there’s one particular thing that I know would work, but it would involve a lot of risk to you as well as to us, since Lucius would have no doubt that we were breaking into the Manor.”
Draco shook his head. “Save that plan for the absolute last option.”
“We will. It’s time-dependent.” Potter gave a smile that Draco didn’t understand, and then it changed to an earnest look and he bent down and looked into Draco’s eyes from a short distance away. “I need you to do one thing other than tell me about the weak places in the wards, Draco.”
“I’ll try,” Draco whispered. It would be wonderful to have someone to help him against Lucius, and he almost believed that Potter would be that person, but the fear of acting against Lucius for himself was still stifling.
“Endure,” Potter whispered back. “Last until we can figure out a way. And whether we have to use the time-dependent plan, or whether we manage to discover something before then, I promise you, we will come.”
Draco nodded. “I can do that. I can try.” He hesitated, then asked, “Are you sure your pack will cooperate with you to save me? Muggleborns wouldn’t have much reason to like Malfoys.”
“They do what I tell them to,” Potter said simply.
And it was the command in those words, the assurance of unquestioned power, that at last gave Draco faith as well as hope.
Part Five.