Part Twenty-Eight of 'Their Phoenix'
This will be the only update on this story for the week, as I am moving this weekend. I should be able to resume updating on Tuesday of next week.
Title: Their Phoenix
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Threesome, Snape/Harry/Draco. (Harry and Draco do develop their own sexual relationship within the threesome). Some Harry/Ginny and Snape/Draco near the beginning of the story.
Rating: NC-17.
Warnings: Magical bonding, slash sex, violence, profanity, massive denial. Springing-from-DH AU; it starts deviating from the moment Voldemort confronts Snape in the Shrieking Shack.
Summary: AU. Voldemort has learned who the true master of the Elder Wand is, and he plans to kill Draco along with Snape. Harry is desperate to save them, because Dumbledore would have wanted him to. But with wild magic, Horcruxes, and Dark Marks all involved, Harry may have condemned all three of them to something worse than death.
Author’s Notes: This is One of Those Bonding Fics. It’s also One of Those Threesome Fics, and also One of Those Fics With Harry-in-Denial. If that sounds like what you’re looking for, then come right in. I’m sorry to say that I have absolutely no idea how long this will be, and it will also be irregularly updated, whenever I finish a major “part.”
Part One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Draco came awake gasping, his hand planted across his stomach and his heart beating so fast that it gave him a headache. He scrambled up in the bed and stared around, trying to catch a glimpse of some danger that would justify his fear.
He’d been in the middle of a blended dream, imagining all the things that Harry wasn’t yet comfortable with doing-
And then he was awake, and the fear that danced around him was like the fear he had felt right before the Aurors attacked their house.
Draco had no intention of ignoring the warning this time.
He realized something was wrong when he turned his head, though. Harry and Severus had told him that the visions of the future had affected them, too; Harry had seen the walls of the house rippling and Severus had been the one to notice the phoenix on his arm burning with blue flame. Now, they both slept peacefully, Severus even snoring. Draco reached out and shook his shoulder.
Severus opened his eyes, his brows drawing into a line as he surveyed Draco. He could feel his emotions through the bond well enough, of course, but Draco still received no share in them from Severus, only a pearl-like curiosity. “What is the matter, Draco?” he asked, his voice low and thick with sleep.
“I don’t know.” Draco caught his breath in distress and bowed his head. “I woke up with this fear running through me, and I don’t know why.”
Harry gulped and sat up on the other side of him, rising to his knees so that he could put his hands on Draco’s shoulders. Draco wished the tide of comfort flowing from Harry, warm and sweet as melted chocolate, could make him feel better, but his head still rang with fear and his eyes still flickered with shadows.
Severus abruptly swore. Draco turned to look at him and saw him staring down. Draco looked in that direction.
His own phoenix shone with the blue flame that had predicted the attack last night, but neither Harry’s nor Severus’s phoenixes did.
“What is going on?” Harry asked the question with steel in his voice, leaning forwards over Draco’s shoulder so that he could see the phoenix better. The bond between him and Draco was alive with bright, swooping golden flecks like birds circling in agitation over the remnants of a destroyed nest. “And why don’t we feel it?”
“I have read about this.” Severus was already rising and flicking his wand to Summon a robe from across the room. “The bond sometimes predicts danger to the mental and not the physical health of one of its members. In that case, only the member of the bond most directly affected will receive the warning.” He tugged the robe over his shoulders.
Draco shook his head. “But that doesn’t make sense. What could affect me and not you? We’re all bound together.”
Severus turned to him, anger and pity mingled in his face and flowing like a medicinal potion down the bond.
“I fear that someone is attacking Malfoy Manor in hopes of harming Narcissa.”
*
Harry braced himself against the immediate tide of panic that flowed from Draco down the bond, and put his hands on Draco’s shoulders when he tried to leap out of the bed. Draco fought mindlessly, his arms lashing out and the bond dissolving into frothy waves. Harry turned him around and kissed him firmly.
Draco stiffened in a spasm of rejection, then relaxed with a sigh. Harry drew back and spoke quietly. “We’re going to save your mother, Draco, be sure of that. But dashing out like this is just what our enemies want. It’ll make it easier for them to destroy us.” He looked briefly at Severus, but found nothing save approval in his face, which caused him to relax. He looked back at Draco and shook his head. “So we have to get ready and Apparate to the Manor right away, and we need to be ready to face them when we arrive.”
“Use the phoenix again?” Draco’s voice was a bare whisper. He leaned forwards, burying his head against Harry’s chest.
“Yes,” Harry said. “And I think we have a few minutes to open ourselves to it. You remember how the warning last time came before the attack, instead of as it happened? So I think this warning is coming before the attack on your mother. We’ll need to hurry, but it needs to be an organized hurry.”
Severus leaned in from the other side and laid his hands on Draco’s shoulders. “Harry is correct,” he said. “Let us proceed in such a fashion as our enemies will not suspect.” He smiled coldly. “Let us proceed in such a manner that we can destroy them completely.”
Harry shot Severus a warning glance. If we destroy them completely, then the Ministry might succeed in drumming up charges against us again.
I do not care, Severus answered, his eyes bright with disgust and anger. We have done enough to placate the Ministry, and still they continue to persecute us. This time, we must bring down the hammer of our magic on them, so that they will learn to fear us. Fear will teach them the lesson if respect cannot.
Harry grimaced. He would need to be the steady rock for both of them, to ensure that they didn’t get out of control.
Considering what had happened, though, he found it difficult to blame them. And it was not as though circumstances required him to take this role in the bond often.
“Let’s open the bonds to their fullest extent now,” he said aloud, because Draco was probably too distressed to have noticed the mental conversation between him and Severus. “We need to be ready.” He Summoned his robe at the same time and stuffed his arms and legs into it. He didn’t want to be dressing at the most delicate moment, which would come only when the bonds were fully open.
Severus nodded, and then the tide of emotions flowing from him grew stronger. Draco reacted at the same moment. Harry gasped, the surge and dazzle of colors and sensations almost overwhelming him.
Draco and Severus dived past him, moving like radiant shadows in the bonds, each of them trying to take up part of the phoenix. Harry let them, and waited for the time when the bonds were open to their fullest extent, pouring life and sweetness through him. He braced himself against the flood, because he had to. If he lost himself now, and let either Draco or Severus, vengeful and impatient, take control…
He was afraid of what kind of curses would appear beside their names and photographs in the paper tomorrow.
He felt the moment when they hovered between each other, cloaked in soft warmth that grew hotter and hotter like flaming feathers, and the phoenix was beginning to rise above them.
Now.
Harry gathered up the reins of control the way that he remembered Draco doing so when they became the phoenix to fight the Aurors. He tucked them under his wings and through his claws, threading them tightly. Then he rose and extended his awareness into the sky above them and through the walls, looking for other traps. He wouldn’t put it past the Aurors to attack their house at the same time as the Manor.
There were no enemies hiding outside in the streets, however, and no dark shadows of hostility watching them through the windows of Hogsmeade. Harry relaxed and turned to deal with the complaints from his bondmates, which boiled up and down in the back of his mind like jumping fleas.
You can’t do this, Draco said.
The power we wield is worth nothing unless we all agree to share it, Severus snapped.
That’s not true, Harry replied calmly. We didn’t agree to what Draco did last time, but we knew it was the best decision he could have made as soon as he made it. And I wouldn’t agree to you trying to use our magic against anyone who’s already at Malfoy Manor. I would shut the bonds, and you wouldn’t be able to fight if you only had your power. He flicked his attention back and forth between Severus and Draco, to make it clear that he was addressing them equally. I won’t have you killing people.
My mother is in danger! The red flag of Draco’s terror blazed across Harry’s mind. I have to do something to help her-
Because murdering people and getting taken for a murderer yourself always helps, Harry said dryly.
I didn’t mean it like that-
I agree that we must do something, Severus said, his voice bubbling and snarling. A wild ripple of power ran through their shared magic that felt a lot like Severus trying to snatch back control. The Ministry has gone free too long for attacking us. Shacklebolt has made promises and has not kept them-
And if it’s not the Ministry?
The possibility shut them both up for long enough that Harry could figure out how to manipulate their bodies. They would stand and react like automatons if Harry tugged on the reins of power in a particular way. He was satisfied. They would actually have to Apparate to Malfoy Manor and join in the forming battle, rather than waiting in the safety of their house the way they had last time.
I don’t like this, Draco fussed.
I don’t like this, either, Harry snapped, having to split his attention three ways: to controlling their bodies, to controlling the swells of power that disturbed the outer edge of the enormous phoenix, and to arguing with his bondmates. But we don’t have a better choice.
To kill them-
That won’t fucking solve anything! Harry roared, and heard echoes of a distant shriek. Their neighbors would be getting out of bed now, he knew, and suffered a brief moment of doubt. Were they really doing what their enemies wanted them to? What if the attack on Draco’s mother was a trap to lure them in and make them behave just like this, so that their enemies would have an excuse to tell the public they were dangerous?
Severus said that could not be so, because they had been sent no warning of Narcissa’s danger. Their enemies could not know that the bond would predict it for them, and could not know that they would appear until after the attack was over.
Harry nodded and then leaped into the air. It was the oddest sensation he had suffered so far in trying to guide the compound phoenix along. Their bodies were walking, drawing wands, ready to Apparate, but at the same time he could sense wings beating, claws folding up under a feathered breast for a long flight, a tail spreading so that it could help to direct the bird against the wind. He tumbled and turned, and Draco fell silent with a yelp, as though he had figured out his own internal resistance was doing little to help the phoenix fly. Harry bent his head, flattened his crest, and went to work with a will.
The darkness of Apparition gripped them and squeezed them contemptuously. When they came out of it, they were hovering above the grounds of Malfoy Manor, their bodies minute specks near the gates below. Draco had been able to bring them here-the knowledge that flowed through his head was Harry and Severus’s knowledge while they shared like this-but not inside the wards.
Draco whistled a shrill warning, which emerged from the phoenix’s beak as a hiss. Harry didn’t think that mattered, though he felt Severus’s nervous agitation, like scalded water, that they had alerted their enemies; surely the sight of a giant hovering bird was more than enough to alert them. Harry looked where Draco directed, and saw seven people sneaking towards the gates, draped in heavy grey cloaks.
Those look like the cloaks the Aurors wore, Draco said, wariness and triumph surging around his words. In another moment, the bond between him and Harry twisted as he tried to seize control again.
The Aurors wore black cloaks, Harry said, and directed them into a dive. Draco winced in surprise and started paying attention to the real threats, thank Merlin, instead of insisting that he had to be the leader.
The people who had done the creeping whirled around and stared upwards. When one of them tried to yell a warning, a second interrupted with advice, and a third broke and started fleeing. Harry experienced a moment of Severus-flavored smugness that they obviously weren’t a united army, with discipline that would hold them together in the face of a threat.
That increases the likelihood that they aren’t Aurors, he tossed into Severus’s face, and then they were in the middle of the battle.
It was always a strange thing, trying to describe it afterwards. Harry never managed to give Ron and Hermione a successful picture, and he had no need to try with Draco and Severus because they had been there. But his mind split. He could feel Draco and Severus with him; he could feel the wind rushing past his feathers, though technically he thought his feathers didn’t exist; he could feel his iron-hard determination to make sure that none of the attackers were done permanent harm.
He could feel the grass crushed beneath his feet as he drew his wand and ran at the attackers in his own body. The last remnants of sleep blew away from his eyes and mind. He was alert, countering a hex that splintered the air in front of him and dropping to one knee to raise his Shield Charm.
Draco was beside him, screaming constantly and wishing desperately that there was some way he could be sure of his mother’s safety before he fought. He focused solely on offensive magic at first, but a wayward curse from the other side, cast with more luck than skill, stung him and burned his foot. After that, he made sure he was ready to raise shields and temporary wards before he burned and stung back.
Severus dropped behind his bondmates because he did not wish to match their speed, rather than because he couldn’t. He would be the silent source of strength to them, the unnoticed defender. He cast a shield around Draco and then countered a jinx flying his way with a burst of sparking lights that dazed the man opposite him, burned off half his hair, and sent the wizard away howling.
Harry coiled the immense power of the phoenix in its claws and struggled fiercely to contain it. Severus and Draco wanted to use that power to hurt the attackers, to force them to their knees and then rip their heads off. Harry handed them a different task instead, one that would require them to use finesse: rip the attackers’ cloaks off and reveal their faces.
Severus and Draco’s interest flowed into that project after a moment, and then Harry found it easy to reach out with small, sharp-edged winds and shred the cloaks without ever touching the flesh beneath them.
The wizards squawked as the open air blew across their faces, and two more of them broke and ran. They were unexceptional, and Harry didn’t bother trying to memorize their features. He was more interested in the face of the tall figure who stood at the center of the chaos and yelled, trying futilely to force her people to come back and face down their enemy.
Huxley.
Harry raged with Draco’s hunger for vengeance and Severus’s cold fury for a moment. If they had killed Huxley during one of the other times they confronted her, this could never have happened. Narcissa Malfoy would never have been in danger, and Draco’s home would never have been in danger of wrecking. The wizards’ spells had pounded on the gates, and that was an insult. Someone had to pay for this.
Harry rolled over twice and dived neatly through the middle of their anger, his wings spread wide and his flames burning so fiercely that they had to listen to him. It won’t make any difference if we kill her now! The gates are already damaged, and they didn’t break through the wards, so we know that your mother isn’t injured. But if we kill her, how many people do you think we’ll find who are willing to listen to our side of the story?
Severus flipped back to sanity when he heard that last remark and joined Harry in restraining Draco, though he snarled and spat and struggled against them. Someone has to avenge this insult! he cried, when he realized that his strength was inadequate to resist his bondmates. It can’t be allowed to stand!
We should worry about the future before the past, Harry said, and then willed two glittering ropes of light to spring out and surround Huxley, just in case she got the idea to Apparate before they could question her. He was not sure if the ropes came from their wands or from the phoenix’s claws, and he didn’t care.
Most of her companions had fled already, except for one witch the spells had knocked out who was lying senseless on the ground. Huxley stood in the middle of the ropes with her head high and her mouth firmly set. Harry had the impression that she was trying to contain despair.
Good. She deserves at least that much after what she did to us.
Harry had the phoenix land on the grass in front of her and lower its head delicately, until the great beak hovered a few inches above her eye. Huxley finally showed some sign of fear, flinching and looking down. But she otherwise didn’t turn away, and Harry’s contempt of her grew. She wasn’t courageous, the way he saw it. She was proud of the evil things he had done, and that took all virtue away from her.
Then light blazed from the Manor, and Narcissa Malfoy was visible in the front door, surrounded by house-elves, though Harry continued to look directly at Huxley. More than one pair of eyes would give that odd vision, Severus thought. Harry acknowledged it and told Draco to reply to his mother, because he would be the one who could best reassure her that nothing harmful to her son or her property had happened.
“Hullo, Mother,” Draco said, his voice calmer than Harry knew he would have managed under the circumstances. Severus reminded him, in a waterfall of soothing, that Draco and Severus would have been calmer if it had been the Weasleys or others of Harry’s friends who were attacked, and so they would have managed to play the role of holding Harry back. Harry had done well because his personal feelings were not engaged, and he should not compare himself to Draco, who had years of training on how to remain composed in public. Harry relaxed. The entire exchange had taken less than a moment, because Draco was still speaking. “A minor misunderstanding with someone who believed that she had the right to punish you because she could not punish us.”
Narcissa walked slowly across the lawn. Thanks to Draco’s eyes and Draco’s knowledge of her, Harry knew that a slight tremor marred the way her hands gripped her wand and that that was not usual. But her face was otherwise perfectly calm and cold, and she eyed Huxley with the distant curiosity that she might give to a harmless bug on the dinner table that had escaped the house-elves. “Ah,” said Narcissa after a moment, her voice distant and reserved, familiar and loved. “That would be Griselda Huxley.”
“Yes, it is,” Severus’s voice said. Huxley tensed where she had ignored Narcissa. Harry kept his attention on the ropes around her; he expected their prisoner to try and break free at any moment. “I am sorry to have disturbed you at this time of night. We would have avoided it if we could have.”
Harry twitched his head in wonder and admiration. This was the way of the pure-bloods, then: to pretend that nothing was wrong, that grave danger was an inconvenience. He reckoned there were no people in the world who liked understatement more.
Of course not, Draco snapped at him.
“Do not apologize. I would much rather suffer a disturbance in the night than damage to my home.” Narcissa stepped forwards and considered the gates as if they were the only things that mattered. “Luckily,” she murmured, “I know many spells that can repair metal, and few that can repair marble.” She nodded to two of the house-elves that had followed her, and they immediately squeaked and surrounded the gates, attending to them.
Harry blinked. She knew the spells, but set the house-elves to work?
A house-elf’s knowledge is considered to belong to the wizard who owns it, Draco said impatiently, and spoke to his mother again. “You’re all right?”
“How should I not be all right, Draco, when none of the spells pierced the barrier of the wards?” Narcissa’s voice was mild, but Harry could feel the heat when Draco flushed. His mother stepped through the gates and peered at Huxley from close up. After a moment, she shook her head. “So small a thing to have caused so much trouble.”
Huxley tensed, and then brought her wand up and tried to cast a Burning Curse at Narcissa.
Harry tightened the ropes with a snake of his long neck, and Huxley cried out as her wand burned straight through and fell in ashes from her hand. Harry filled with gloating and worry both at once. It would have been easier for them to make a case that they had not harmed Huxley if they had not accidentally burned her wand.
On the other hand, Huxley had no witnesses but herself, since her single companion left was still insensible. If Shacklebolt refused to accept the word of four of them against one, that only proved his corruption.
“No more of that from you, if you please,” Narcissa said sharply. “You have interrupted my rest quite enough.” She turned away from Huxley as if she had ceased to matter and faced Harry’s body. “How did you hear of this in time to rescue me, Mr. Potter?”
Harry wasn’t sure why she wanted an answer from him instead of her son, but both Severus and Draco retorted that she wanted to see how much all three of them were in accord. Harry smiled as he answered. Narcissa would find no gaps between them that she could exploit to embarrass Draco. “The bond grants us certain special abilities. And once we realized that the warning pointed us here and indicated that Huxley was the culprit, of course we had to come.” He shrugged modestly and tried an understatement of his own. “We couldn’t let you face the damage to your property alone. I’m only grateful that it was no worse.”
That has several lies in it, Severus murmured. I am impressed.
I couldn’t have our enemies knowing exactly how we figured out what was wrong, Harry said, tilting his head at the watching Huxley.
No, that was wise, Draco said, sounding calmer by the second. Look at her. He snickered. Harry looked through the eyes of the phoenix and found Huxley staring at them with a pale face and trembling lower lip. She really thinks that we can foresee her exact movements somehow.
“A useful thing to have,” said Narcissa. “And I thank you for your noble intentions.” She faced Huxley again. “Why attack me? I know that we have never had anything to do with each other. I would have remembered-you.” The pause in her words implied all sorts of insults.
Huxley ignored that, leaning forwards to stare at Narcissa with burning eyes. “Death Eaters deserve to be driven to death,” she whispered. “If the Ministry will not do its part and condemn you and people like you to Azkaban, then I will have to do it for them.” She cast a scornful glance at them, though Harry was so mingled at that point that he couldn’t tell if it was at only Draco and Severus or not. “And their worst crime is corrupting the Boy-Who-Lived, who ought to hate them.”
“A most unreasonable motivation for attempting to harm me,” Narcissa said, folding her hands in front of her. “I have never killed a single person in the Dark Lord’s service. Nor has my son.”
Huxley laughed, and the laugh was wild around the edges. Her calm was starting to deteriorate, Harry saw, which he hoped was a good sign. She had already said more than enough for a sane Minister to condemn her, but since Kingsley was so panicky where Huxley was concerned, it was good to have additional evidence. “Why should I believe you? Even if I did, what would spare him?” This time, Harry was sure that her look had been meant to spear Severus. Severus’s boredom snaked through the bonds. He would infinitely have preferred time alone in bed and dreaming their blended dreams to this.
“Believe us or not, as you please,” said Narcissa. “But you are a vigilante, taking the law into your hands when the Ministry has decreed that we may go free.” She shrugged. “I doubt they will look kindly on that.”
Huxley chuckled sharply. “Minister Shacklebolt is the most powerful person in the Ministry, and he doesn’t dare oppose me. He knows at the bottom of his heart what is right, even if political considerations prevent him from expressing that opinion aloud.” She pointed her nose up at a sharp angle and closed her eyes in a ridiculous manner that she probably imagined showed nobility.
*
Severus slid into the woman’s mind in that crucial moment before she closed her eyes, when thoughts of the hold that she had on Shacklebolt were uppermost. He doubted that Shacklebolt or Huxley would ever tell them of the secrets that compelled the Minister to act like an idiot around her, and they had to know.
Harry’s surprise washed over him. It felt as if Harry stood at the apex of a triangle, tied to Severus and Draco with sharp cords that tugged on them every time he moved. Severus found it less comfortable than Draco’s leadership, but he was well aware that part of that came from his struggle against it at first.
At least Harry did not actively oppose his use of Legilimency. And Severus sent back a current of cool reassurance as he moved. He did not think that Huxley knew he was a Legilimens, and he would be subtle enough that a crude mind like hers could never realize he had touched her thoughts.
A memory unfolded around him with clarity and precision that made Severus rethink the crudity of Huxley’s mind. On the other hand, it was indeed her uppermost thought, so that might be the reason for the clarity.
Shacklebolt was fighting a wizard that Severus found it hard to see on a street in Hogsmeade, while Huxley stood enthralled in a doorway not far away. Shacklebolt used a flurry of spells, some of them curses which made Severus raise his brows in respect and which should have downed most enemies immediately. But this opponent laughed and continued forcing his way forwards. From his height and the black cloak he wore, Severus reckoned that he was a Death Eater named Malcom Parewell, who had vanished on a mission for the Dark Lord years ago. Probably he was about to learn what had happened to him.
Shacklebolt closed his eyes in despair, and then aimed his wand and yelled out, “Avada Kedavra!” with the desperation of someone who didn’t expect even that to work.
Of course it worked. There was no block for the Killing Curse except the one that Lily had accidentally discovered, and if anyone had ever sacrificed themselves for love of Parewell, Severus would have died of shock. In the memory, it was Parewell who died, slumping to the ground the moment the green beam of light touched him.
Shacklebolt stared at him for long moments, his breath rushing in anger and fear. Then he edged forwards, wand at the ready, and cast a Slicing Curse directly into the body. Parewell’s arm fell off, and blood flowed out, but he didn’t move. Shacklebolt closed his eyes in relief and turned around.
Huxley stepped out of the doorway that had sheltered her and smiled sweetly at him.
Severus slithered out and into his head and the bonds again in the moment before Huxley could shut her eyes. Shacklebolt used an Unforgivable in front of her, he confirmed to Draco and Harry. That is why she has such a hold over him. He would go to Azkaban at once, especially since the Aurors are specifically forbidden to use Unforgivable Curses.
Is that all? Draco asked in disappointment. I thought it would be something more personally devastating.
But Harry was silent and thoughtful, and Severus knew that he understood the political consequences better. Draco had cast the Unforgivables more often than Harry, and might be more dulled to their impact. The public, however, would go mad at hearing that their beloved Minister had used them, even if it was before he had taken office and against a Death Eater.
“We’re going to let the Ministry decide what to do with you, Huxley.” Harry made his voice cold and simple. “The Ministry is more than one person, and not all of them feel about me-or about Death Eaters-as you do.”
Huxley opened her eyes and gazed at them with the bright, clear pity of a fanatic. “You feel that way,” she whispered. “All of you, because you have an inborn sense of what is right. You simply won’t allow the feelings to rise to the surface of your minds, because that would disrupt your lives too much.”
Harry turned to Narcissa without consulting Huxley further, which Severus thought sensible. “May we depend on you as a witness to what she was trying to do?” he asked, with such an extreme formality of tone that Severus could have laughed. Of course, Harry was probably trying to show Draco that he did care about the safety and comfort of his mother-just not enough to let Draco kill people indiscriminately.
Harry acknowledged a moment later that that was exactly what he was doing. Draco snapped that he didn’t need to be coddled like a child, and Harry sent an image of pinching his cheeks. Severus laughed at both of them.
One of the hardest things to get used to when the bonds joined them like this was the sheer speed of their thoughts. They had exchanged all that information and the corresponding emotions before Narcissa replied, though she was not slow in reacting to Harry’s question.
“Of course you may,” she said, her voice low and strong. She looked at Huxley in a way that made even that idiot woman falter, and then turned to Harry. Severus wondered idly how she would react if she realized that she might as well speak to any of the three of them, and was hit from two sides, with Harry’s amusement and with Draco’s proud defense of his mother’s flexibility. “In fact, might I suggest that we go to the Minister now, and catch him off-guard, rather than wait for him to react?”
“That’s an excellent idea,” Severus said, causing Narcissa to glance at him. He wondered if she was more surprised that he had spoken when she had addressed Harry, or that his voice might sound a bit like Harry’s at the moment. Draco snapped that she knew the difference, and then turned away to chase the sound of Harry’s laughter again. “Shacklebolt is poor with surprises. While I do not truly believe that he had any involvement in this attack, or Huxley would have bragged about it, it is for the best if we force this surprise onto him rather than allowing her side to do so.”
“I do not need the protection of the Minister,” Huxley said in a spectacularly nasal tone.
“You were bragging that you had it just a minute ago,” Draco muttered. Severus could feel Draco’s fingers digging into the wood of the wand, and sent a soothing thought to him. Harry muttered back, and distracted Draco enough that Severus could give a civil answer to the infuriating woman.
“All of us need the protection of the laws of the society in which we live,” he intoned solemnly. “There is no higher authority than law, don’t you agree?”
Huxley stared at him warily for a moment, then snorted. “A Death Eater can only mouth the words. If law was the authority that you proclaim it to be, then you would have been tried and sent to Azkaban the way you should have been.”
“There are laws against attempted murder and against the damage of property,” said Draco, who seemed to have regained his mental balance, much to Severus’s relief. He stepped forwards and looked at Huxley without so much dangerous passion, now, and his wand was safely behind his back. Indeed, the expression on his face was more pitying than anything else. “You haven’t obeyed them.”
“When the law breaks down and the Wizengamot refuses to do what it should,” Huxley began, which sounded like it would be the start of a long speech.
Narcissa cast a Silencing Charm at her and then bound the witch who still lay unconscious on the ground with Incarcerous. “I find that I tire of listening to her chatter,” she explained to Draco and Harry, who blinked at her. “And she will have plenty of chances to speak when we are in front of the Minister. Shall we go?”
*
Shacklebolt rose to his feet when he saw them, his face strained. He had been working late in his office, which disappointed Draco a bit. It would have been only repayment for the trouble Huxley had caused them if they’d had to wake him up at home and drag him to the Ministry. At least the several empty teacups that littered his desk said that he’d been struggling hard to stay awake.
“And the Aurors simply let you through, did they?” he asked, with resignation that irritated Draco. To listen to Shacklebolt, you would think that he was the only one who had ever had to deal with problems of this kind.
Harry brushed against his mind, a touch like soft flame. They had dropped that extreme closeness of the bonds they’d used to fight Huxley and her people when they came to the Ministry-if a spell here detected that and figured out how it worked, one of their advantages would be gone-but Draco’s mind still felt more sensitive to the emotions and the thoughts of his bondmates than usual. Harry spoke more clearly in his head than if he had risked the words to his lips. He’s refused, several times, to see that it was more dangerous to all of us to have Huxley roaming free than to arrest her, since she has more chances to be an embarrassment to him. Of course he doesn’t think of this the same way we do.
Draco turned his head away, both mentally and physically, and smiled grimly at Shacklebolt. “Once they realized who Harry was and that we had someone with us who had tried to kill him multiple times? Yes.” He turned his head back over his shoulder, and Severus and his mother came in with Huxley and her accomplice floating bound behind them.
It was instructive to watch the way Shacklebolt’s face drained of both color and animation. He stepped around the desk at once, as if he would go up to Huxley and untie the ropes, then stopped, his fingers twitching. His voice was brittle as he said, “I have told you that I can do nothing against her.”
“You can,” said Severus, and stepped around Huxley so that she could not read the movement of his lips; she had a charm that muffled her hearing on her ears. Perhaps he also wanted to conceal the information from Narcissa. Draco would not be surprised if that was the case. It sometimes seemed to him that he was the only one who trusted his mother the way she should be trusted. “We know the secret as well, Minister. We know about the Unforgivable.”
Shacklebolt stiffened. The next moment, an expression of perfect despair crossed his face, and he bowed his head, which had the effect of muffling his voice. “How can I do anything? I am caught between you and her.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you took up political power and found yourself vulnerable to her machinations,” Severus said, without sympathy. Draco was glad that he was the one speaking. Harry looked so distressed that he might have tried to arrange a bargain with Shacklebolt. It was clear by now that the Minister would never hold to a bargain. “You will arrest her and take our testimony for her having acted with complete fanaticism and irrationality rather than personal principle when she attacked our home and Malfoy Manor. Or your secret will emerge in any case.”
Shacklebolt laughed. “And why should I do what you want? Either way, my secret is going to come out. Huxley will talk about it if I try her in front of the Wizengamot, and you’ll talk about it if I don’t.”
Draco sighed in disgust. Harry looked more distressed than ever at that, which wasn’t a good sign, and even Severus frowned, the bond between them churning with the kind of muddy bubbles that Draco knew he sent up when he was baffled. The solution was very simple, but it looked as if he would have to be the one to offer it.
“Sir,” he said calmly, masking all the less complimentary things that he could have called Shacklebolt in the back of his mind, “why should you try her in front of the Wizengamot? She’s committed multiple crimes now. You’re justified in saying that you wanted to give her another chance to prove herself law-abiding, especially since she rescued so many people during the war, but now you’ve decided to give up on her. Let one of the smaller courts try her. She doesn’t deserve the dignity of a full trial before the Wizengamot. In fact, you shouldn’t give her that, since it would only fuel her drive for notoriety.”
Huxley was looking from one to the other of them as if she were trying to figure out what they were talking about. Draco didn’t think she had a clue about it unless she also happened to be an expert lip-reader. Her companion stared at the floor and didn’t try to add anything to the defense.
“Her drive for notoriety,” Shacklebolt said, frowning. Harry and Severus both returned smooth flows of puzzlement to Draco.
He sighed again and began. “Obviously, the reason that she attacked Harry, and kept attacking him, was to get her name out there. Few people have talked about her since the war as often as they’ve talked about Harry.” He hadn’t done research to be sure of that, but it was a safe bet, since the Daily Prophet had a story about Harry almost every day and Draco hadn’t seen one about Huxley in the last six months. “If we give her lots of attention and a Wizengamot trial, that will only encourage her to do something else, to keep her name in the papers. On the other hand, doing it in a quiet, small fashion won’t give her what she wants.” He glanced sideways and sneered when he saw Huxley frowning at him. Does she think I care about her for any reason than because she has forced me to? Does she think she can threaten me? “That should be obvious.”
“If she talks about my secret to someone other than the Wizengamot, the rumors will eventually reach them,” said Shacklebolt. He looked both hopeful and cautious.
“And why should anyone pay attention to the word of a madwoman?” That was his mother’s voice, light and cool. They might have been in the middle of one of the drawing rooms where Narcissa went to speak with her friends, Draco thought as he turned to regard her with pride, for all the difference that she let the situation make to her.
“A madwoman,” Shacklebolt repeated slowly, but this time his eyes had a gleam that meant Draco did not have to despair of his intelligence. Even better, comprehension rushed through the bonds that tied him to Harry and Severus, fire on one side, suddenly transparent ice on the other. That would save him tedious explanations later, Draco thought, and fell back to the side so that his mother would have an unimpeded view of Shacklebolt, and vice versa.
“Yes.” Narcissa gave a shrug of her shoulders and a dismissive flick of her fingers that Draco thrilled to and loved her for. “Surely only a madwoman would attack a warded Manor, or cast a Gut Chewing Curse on the Boy-Who-Lived in public, or later try to attack their house in Hogsmeade. Surely only a madwoman could be worsted in battle and in public argument and still try to come back. Surely only a madwoman would claim to support the Ministry and yet refuse to accept its pardons, given to the two former Death Eaters bonded to the Chosen One.” Narcissa lifted her lip and glanced over her shoulder at Huxley. “Spread the right kind of rumors before she starts speaking, and I do not think that you have much to worry about.”
Shacklebolt laughed quietly. “I think you are not as dead-set against me as I believed,” he said, with an almost fond look around the room.
Harry didn’t smile back at him. “If you don’t do this, if you attempt to release Huxley on a technicality again or claim that there would be some sort of public panic if she were arrested-”
“I have tired of the excuses I had to make as well,” Shacklebolt said at once. “You’ve relieved me of a problem that I had grown increasingly unsure how to handle. This is the best way to handle it.” He stepped up next to Huxley and put a hand on the ropes that held her. She glared at him, obviously understanding that this wasn’t going to go well. “And the woman with her?”
“An accomplice in the attack on my home.” Narcissa gave another perfect shrug. “Ask her what you will.”
After that, everything was over but the cordialities. Shacklebolt called in some Aurors he presumably trusted and gave them brisk orders about the handling of Huxley and her accomplice. The other witch’s head drooped further as they dragged her off to a holding cell. Draco really couldn’t find it in himself to be sorry.
Draco had sensed a thick green emotion traveling beneath the surface of Harry’s mind as they walked out of the office, but not until they had left the Ministry entirely did Harry speak to him. I’m sorry for holding you back so strongly when you wanted to kill Huxley. I would have wanted to kill her if she threatened the Weasleys.
Draco took a deep breath, aware of Severus watching them through the bonds, waiting for the resolution of this conflict. You were right, he said with some difficulty. I would have made things worse if I’d killed her. For one thing, her followers and the Ministry could have accused me of murder then, which was never true before.
Harry reached out and touched the back of his neck, while the bond between them swirled with blue and gold. Then Severus’s hand covered Harry’s.
Draco, because he could not stand anyone to be left out in this moment of supreme contentment, reached out and found his mother’s fingers. She squeezed his hand lightly, once, and together they marched out of the Ministry and away from one problem resolved permanently.
Part Twenty-Nine.
Title: Their Phoenix
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Threesome, Snape/Harry/Draco. (Harry and Draco do develop their own sexual relationship within the threesome). Some Harry/Ginny and Snape/Draco near the beginning of the story.
Rating: NC-17.
Warnings: Magical bonding, slash sex, violence, profanity, massive denial. Springing-from-DH AU; it starts deviating from the moment Voldemort confronts Snape in the Shrieking Shack.
Summary: AU. Voldemort has learned who the true master of the Elder Wand is, and he plans to kill Draco along with Snape. Harry is desperate to save them, because Dumbledore would have wanted him to. But with wild magic, Horcruxes, and Dark Marks all involved, Harry may have condemned all three of them to something worse than death.
Author’s Notes: This is One of Those Bonding Fics. It’s also One of Those Threesome Fics, and also One of Those Fics With Harry-in-Denial. If that sounds like what you’re looking for, then come right in. I’m sorry to say that I have absolutely no idea how long this will be, and it will also be irregularly updated, whenever I finish a major “part.”
Part One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Draco came awake gasping, his hand planted across his stomach and his heart beating so fast that it gave him a headache. He scrambled up in the bed and stared around, trying to catch a glimpse of some danger that would justify his fear.
He’d been in the middle of a blended dream, imagining all the things that Harry wasn’t yet comfortable with doing-
And then he was awake, and the fear that danced around him was like the fear he had felt right before the Aurors attacked their house.
Draco had no intention of ignoring the warning this time.
He realized something was wrong when he turned his head, though. Harry and Severus had told him that the visions of the future had affected them, too; Harry had seen the walls of the house rippling and Severus had been the one to notice the phoenix on his arm burning with blue flame. Now, they both slept peacefully, Severus even snoring. Draco reached out and shook his shoulder.
Severus opened his eyes, his brows drawing into a line as he surveyed Draco. He could feel his emotions through the bond well enough, of course, but Draco still received no share in them from Severus, only a pearl-like curiosity. “What is the matter, Draco?” he asked, his voice low and thick with sleep.
“I don’t know.” Draco caught his breath in distress and bowed his head. “I woke up with this fear running through me, and I don’t know why.”
Harry gulped and sat up on the other side of him, rising to his knees so that he could put his hands on Draco’s shoulders. Draco wished the tide of comfort flowing from Harry, warm and sweet as melted chocolate, could make him feel better, but his head still rang with fear and his eyes still flickered with shadows.
Severus abruptly swore. Draco turned to look at him and saw him staring down. Draco looked in that direction.
His own phoenix shone with the blue flame that had predicted the attack last night, but neither Harry’s nor Severus’s phoenixes did.
“What is going on?” Harry asked the question with steel in his voice, leaning forwards over Draco’s shoulder so that he could see the phoenix better. The bond between him and Draco was alive with bright, swooping golden flecks like birds circling in agitation over the remnants of a destroyed nest. “And why don’t we feel it?”
“I have read about this.” Severus was already rising and flicking his wand to Summon a robe from across the room. “The bond sometimes predicts danger to the mental and not the physical health of one of its members. In that case, only the member of the bond most directly affected will receive the warning.” He tugged the robe over his shoulders.
Draco shook his head. “But that doesn’t make sense. What could affect me and not you? We’re all bound together.”
Severus turned to him, anger and pity mingled in his face and flowing like a medicinal potion down the bond.
“I fear that someone is attacking Malfoy Manor in hopes of harming Narcissa.”
*
Harry braced himself against the immediate tide of panic that flowed from Draco down the bond, and put his hands on Draco’s shoulders when he tried to leap out of the bed. Draco fought mindlessly, his arms lashing out and the bond dissolving into frothy waves. Harry turned him around and kissed him firmly.
Draco stiffened in a spasm of rejection, then relaxed with a sigh. Harry drew back and spoke quietly. “We’re going to save your mother, Draco, be sure of that. But dashing out like this is just what our enemies want. It’ll make it easier for them to destroy us.” He looked briefly at Severus, but found nothing save approval in his face, which caused him to relax. He looked back at Draco and shook his head. “So we have to get ready and Apparate to the Manor right away, and we need to be ready to face them when we arrive.”
“Use the phoenix again?” Draco’s voice was a bare whisper. He leaned forwards, burying his head against Harry’s chest.
“Yes,” Harry said. “And I think we have a few minutes to open ourselves to it. You remember how the warning last time came before the attack, instead of as it happened? So I think this warning is coming before the attack on your mother. We’ll need to hurry, but it needs to be an organized hurry.”
Severus leaned in from the other side and laid his hands on Draco’s shoulders. “Harry is correct,” he said. “Let us proceed in such a fashion as our enemies will not suspect.” He smiled coldly. “Let us proceed in such a manner that we can destroy them completely.”
Harry shot Severus a warning glance. If we destroy them completely, then the Ministry might succeed in drumming up charges against us again.
I do not care, Severus answered, his eyes bright with disgust and anger. We have done enough to placate the Ministry, and still they continue to persecute us. This time, we must bring down the hammer of our magic on them, so that they will learn to fear us. Fear will teach them the lesson if respect cannot.
Harry grimaced. He would need to be the steady rock for both of them, to ensure that they didn’t get out of control.
Considering what had happened, though, he found it difficult to blame them. And it was not as though circumstances required him to take this role in the bond often.
“Let’s open the bonds to their fullest extent now,” he said aloud, because Draco was probably too distressed to have noticed the mental conversation between him and Severus. “We need to be ready.” He Summoned his robe at the same time and stuffed his arms and legs into it. He didn’t want to be dressing at the most delicate moment, which would come only when the bonds were fully open.
Severus nodded, and then the tide of emotions flowing from him grew stronger. Draco reacted at the same moment. Harry gasped, the surge and dazzle of colors and sensations almost overwhelming him.
Draco and Severus dived past him, moving like radiant shadows in the bonds, each of them trying to take up part of the phoenix. Harry let them, and waited for the time when the bonds were open to their fullest extent, pouring life and sweetness through him. He braced himself against the flood, because he had to. If he lost himself now, and let either Draco or Severus, vengeful and impatient, take control…
He was afraid of what kind of curses would appear beside their names and photographs in the paper tomorrow.
He felt the moment when they hovered between each other, cloaked in soft warmth that grew hotter and hotter like flaming feathers, and the phoenix was beginning to rise above them.
Now.
Harry gathered up the reins of control the way that he remembered Draco doing so when they became the phoenix to fight the Aurors. He tucked them under his wings and through his claws, threading them tightly. Then he rose and extended his awareness into the sky above them and through the walls, looking for other traps. He wouldn’t put it past the Aurors to attack their house at the same time as the Manor.
There were no enemies hiding outside in the streets, however, and no dark shadows of hostility watching them through the windows of Hogsmeade. Harry relaxed and turned to deal with the complaints from his bondmates, which boiled up and down in the back of his mind like jumping fleas.
You can’t do this, Draco said.
The power we wield is worth nothing unless we all agree to share it, Severus snapped.
That’s not true, Harry replied calmly. We didn’t agree to what Draco did last time, but we knew it was the best decision he could have made as soon as he made it. And I wouldn’t agree to you trying to use our magic against anyone who’s already at Malfoy Manor. I would shut the bonds, and you wouldn’t be able to fight if you only had your power. He flicked his attention back and forth between Severus and Draco, to make it clear that he was addressing them equally. I won’t have you killing people.
My mother is in danger! The red flag of Draco’s terror blazed across Harry’s mind. I have to do something to help her-
Because murdering people and getting taken for a murderer yourself always helps, Harry said dryly.
I didn’t mean it like that-
I agree that we must do something, Severus said, his voice bubbling and snarling. A wild ripple of power ran through their shared magic that felt a lot like Severus trying to snatch back control. The Ministry has gone free too long for attacking us. Shacklebolt has made promises and has not kept them-
And if it’s not the Ministry?
The possibility shut them both up for long enough that Harry could figure out how to manipulate their bodies. They would stand and react like automatons if Harry tugged on the reins of power in a particular way. He was satisfied. They would actually have to Apparate to Malfoy Manor and join in the forming battle, rather than waiting in the safety of their house the way they had last time.
I don’t like this, Draco fussed.
I don’t like this, either, Harry snapped, having to split his attention three ways: to controlling their bodies, to controlling the swells of power that disturbed the outer edge of the enormous phoenix, and to arguing with his bondmates. But we don’t have a better choice.
To kill them-
That won’t fucking solve anything! Harry roared, and heard echoes of a distant shriek. Their neighbors would be getting out of bed now, he knew, and suffered a brief moment of doubt. Were they really doing what their enemies wanted them to? What if the attack on Draco’s mother was a trap to lure them in and make them behave just like this, so that their enemies would have an excuse to tell the public they were dangerous?
Severus said that could not be so, because they had been sent no warning of Narcissa’s danger. Their enemies could not know that the bond would predict it for them, and could not know that they would appear until after the attack was over.
Harry nodded and then leaped into the air. It was the oddest sensation he had suffered so far in trying to guide the compound phoenix along. Their bodies were walking, drawing wands, ready to Apparate, but at the same time he could sense wings beating, claws folding up under a feathered breast for a long flight, a tail spreading so that it could help to direct the bird against the wind. He tumbled and turned, and Draco fell silent with a yelp, as though he had figured out his own internal resistance was doing little to help the phoenix fly. Harry bent his head, flattened his crest, and went to work with a will.
The darkness of Apparition gripped them and squeezed them contemptuously. When they came out of it, they were hovering above the grounds of Malfoy Manor, their bodies minute specks near the gates below. Draco had been able to bring them here-the knowledge that flowed through his head was Harry and Severus’s knowledge while they shared like this-but not inside the wards.
Draco whistled a shrill warning, which emerged from the phoenix’s beak as a hiss. Harry didn’t think that mattered, though he felt Severus’s nervous agitation, like scalded water, that they had alerted their enemies; surely the sight of a giant hovering bird was more than enough to alert them. Harry looked where Draco directed, and saw seven people sneaking towards the gates, draped in heavy grey cloaks.
Those look like the cloaks the Aurors wore, Draco said, wariness and triumph surging around his words. In another moment, the bond between him and Harry twisted as he tried to seize control again.
The Aurors wore black cloaks, Harry said, and directed them into a dive. Draco winced in surprise and started paying attention to the real threats, thank Merlin, instead of insisting that he had to be the leader.
The people who had done the creeping whirled around and stared upwards. When one of them tried to yell a warning, a second interrupted with advice, and a third broke and started fleeing. Harry experienced a moment of Severus-flavored smugness that they obviously weren’t a united army, with discipline that would hold them together in the face of a threat.
That increases the likelihood that they aren’t Aurors, he tossed into Severus’s face, and then they were in the middle of the battle.
It was always a strange thing, trying to describe it afterwards. Harry never managed to give Ron and Hermione a successful picture, and he had no need to try with Draco and Severus because they had been there. But his mind split. He could feel Draco and Severus with him; he could feel the wind rushing past his feathers, though technically he thought his feathers didn’t exist; he could feel his iron-hard determination to make sure that none of the attackers were done permanent harm.
He could feel the grass crushed beneath his feet as he drew his wand and ran at the attackers in his own body. The last remnants of sleep blew away from his eyes and mind. He was alert, countering a hex that splintered the air in front of him and dropping to one knee to raise his Shield Charm.
Draco was beside him, screaming constantly and wishing desperately that there was some way he could be sure of his mother’s safety before he fought. He focused solely on offensive magic at first, but a wayward curse from the other side, cast with more luck than skill, stung him and burned his foot. After that, he made sure he was ready to raise shields and temporary wards before he burned and stung back.
Severus dropped behind his bondmates because he did not wish to match their speed, rather than because he couldn’t. He would be the silent source of strength to them, the unnoticed defender. He cast a shield around Draco and then countered a jinx flying his way with a burst of sparking lights that dazed the man opposite him, burned off half his hair, and sent the wizard away howling.
Harry coiled the immense power of the phoenix in its claws and struggled fiercely to contain it. Severus and Draco wanted to use that power to hurt the attackers, to force them to their knees and then rip their heads off. Harry handed them a different task instead, one that would require them to use finesse: rip the attackers’ cloaks off and reveal their faces.
Severus and Draco’s interest flowed into that project after a moment, and then Harry found it easy to reach out with small, sharp-edged winds and shred the cloaks without ever touching the flesh beneath them.
The wizards squawked as the open air blew across their faces, and two more of them broke and ran. They were unexceptional, and Harry didn’t bother trying to memorize their features. He was more interested in the face of the tall figure who stood at the center of the chaos and yelled, trying futilely to force her people to come back and face down their enemy.
Huxley.
Harry raged with Draco’s hunger for vengeance and Severus’s cold fury for a moment. If they had killed Huxley during one of the other times they confronted her, this could never have happened. Narcissa Malfoy would never have been in danger, and Draco’s home would never have been in danger of wrecking. The wizards’ spells had pounded on the gates, and that was an insult. Someone had to pay for this.
Harry rolled over twice and dived neatly through the middle of their anger, his wings spread wide and his flames burning so fiercely that they had to listen to him. It won’t make any difference if we kill her now! The gates are already damaged, and they didn’t break through the wards, so we know that your mother isn’t injured. But if we kill her, how many people do you think we’ll find who are willing to listen to our side of the story?
Severus flipped back to sanity when he heard that last remark and joined Harry in restraining Draco, though he snarled and spat and struggled against them. Someone has to avenge this insult! he cried, when he realized that his strength was inadequate to resist his bondmates. It can’t be allowed to stand!
We should worry about the future before the past, Harry said, and then willed two glittering ropes of light to spring out and surround Huxley, just in case she got the idea to Apparate before they could question her. He was not sure if the ropes came from their wands or from the phoenix’s claws, and he didn’t care.
Most of her companions had fled already, except for one witch the spells had knocked out who was lying senseless on the ground. Huxley stood in the middle of the ropes with her head high and her mouth firmly set. Harry had the impression that she was trying to contain despair.
Good. She deserves at least that much after what she did to us.
Harry had the phoenix land on the grass in front of her and lower its head delicately, until the great beak hovered a few inches above her eye. Huxley finally showed some sign of fear, flinching and looking down. But she otherwise didn’t turn away, and Harry’s contempt of her grew. She wasn’t courageous, the way he saw it. She was proud of the evil things he had done, and that took all virtue away from her.
Then light blazed from the Manor, and Narcissa Malfoy was visible in the front door, surrounded by house-elves, though Harry continued to look directly at Huxley. More than one pair of eyes would give that odd vision, Severus thought. Harry acknowledged it and told Draco to reply to his mother, because he would be the one who could best reassure her that nothing harmful to her son or her property had happened.
“Hullo, Mother,” Draco said, his voice calmer than Harry knew he would have managed under the circumstances. Severus reminded him, in a waterfall of soothing, that Draco and Severus would have been calmer if it had been the Weasleys or others of Harry’s friends who were attacked, and so they would have managed to play the role of holding Harry back. Harry had done well because his personal feelings were not engaged, and he should not compare himself to Draco, who had years of training on how to remain composed in public. Harry relaxed. The entire exchange had taken less than a moment, because Draco was still speaking. “A minor misunderstanding with someone who believed that she had the right to punish you because she could not punish us.”
Narcissa walked slowly across the lawn. Thanks to Draco’s eyes and Draco’s knowledge of her, Harry knew that a slight tremor marred the way her hands gripped her wand and that that was not usual. But her face was otherwise perfectly calm and cold, and she eyed Huxley with the distant curiosity that she might give to a harmless bug on the dinner table that had escaped the house-elves. “Ah,” said Narcissa after a moment, her voice distant and reserved, familiar and loved. “That would be Griselda Huxley.”
“Yes, it is,” Severus’s voice said. Huxley tensed where she had ignored Narcissa. Harry kept his attention on the ropes around her; he expected their prisoner to try and break free at any moment. “I am sorry to have disturbed you at this time of night. We would have avoided it if we could have.”
Harry twitched his head in wonder and admiration. This was the way of the pure-bloods, then: to pretend that nothing was wrong, that grave danger was an inconvenience. He reckoned there were no people in the world who liked understatement more.
Of course not, Draco snapped at him.
“Do not apologize. I would much rather suffer a disturbance in the night than damage to my home.” Narcissa stepped forwards and considered the gates as if they were the only things that mattered. “Luckily,” she murmured, “I know many spells that can repair metal, and few that can repair marble.” She nodded to two of the house-elves that had followed her, and they immediately squeaked and surrounded the gates, attending to them.
Harry blinked. She knew the spells, but set the house-elves to work?
A house-elf’s knowledge is considered to belong to the wizard who owns it, Draco said impatiently, and spoke to his mother again. “You’re all right?”
“How should I not be all right, Draco, when none of the spells pierced the barrier of the wards?” Narcissa’s voice was mild, but Harry could feel the heat when Draco flushed. His mother stepped through the gates and peered at Huxley from close up. After a moment, she shook her head. “So small a thing to have caused so much trouble.”
Huxley tensed, and then brought her wand up and tried to cast a Burning Curse at Narcissa.
Harry tightened the ropes with a snake of his long neck, and Huxley cried out as her wand burned straight through and fell in ashes from her hand. Harry filled with gloating and worry both at once. It would have been easier for them to make a case that they had not harmed Huxley if they had not accidentally burned her wand.
On the other hand, Huxley had no witnesses but herself, since her single companion left was still insensible. If Shacklebolt refused to accept the word of four of them against one, that only proved his corruption.
“No more of that from you, if you please,” Narcissa said sharply. “You have interrupted my rest quite enough.” She turned away from Huxley as if she had ceased to matter and faced Harry’s body. “How did you hear of this in time to rescue me, Mr. Potter?”
Harry wasn’t sure why she wanted an answer from him instead of her son, but both Severus and Draco retorted that she wanted to see how much all three of them were in accord. Harry smiled as he answered. Narcissa would find no gaps between them that she could exploit to embarrass Draco. “The bond grants us certain special abilities. And once we realized that the warning pointed us here and indicated that Huxley was the culprit, of course we had to come.” He shrugged modestly and tried an understatement of his own. “We couldn’t let you face the damage to your property alone. I’m only grateful that it was no worse.”
That has several lies in it, Severus murmured. I am impressed.
I couldn’t have our enemies knowing exactly how we figured out what was wrong, Harry said, tilting his head at the watching Huxley.
No, that was wise, Draco said, sounding calmer by the second. Look at her. He snickered. Harry looked through the eyes of the phoenix and found Huxley staring at them with a pale face and trembling lower lip. She really thinks that we can foresee her exact movements somehow.
“A useful thing to have,” said Narcissa. “And I thank you for your noble intentions.” She faced Huxley again. “Why attack me? I know that we have never had anything to do with each other. I would have remembered-you.” The pause in her words implied all sorts of insults.
Huxley ignored that, leaning forwards to stare at Narcissa with burning eyes. “Death Eaters deserve to be driven to death,” she whispered. “If the Ministry will not do its part and condemn you and people like you to Azkaban, then I will have to do it for them.” She cast a scornful glance at them, though Harry was so mingled at that point that he couldn’t tell if it was at only Draco and Severus or not. “And their worst crime is corrupting the Boy-Who-Lived, who ought to hate them.”
“A most unreasonable motivation for attempting to harm me,” Narcissa said, folding her hands in front of her. “I have never killed a single person in the Dark Lord’s service. Nor has my son.”
Huxley laughed, and the laugh was wild around the edges. Her calm was starting to deteriorate, Harry saw, which he hoped was a good sign. She had already said more than enough for a sane Minister to condemn her, but since Kingsley was so panicky where Huxley was concerned, it was good to have additional evidence. “Why should I believe you? Even if I did, what would spare him?” This time, Harry was sure that her look had been meant to spear Severus. Severus’s boredom snaked through the bonds. He would infinitely have preferred time alone in bed and dreaming their blended dreams to this.
“Believe us or not, as you please,” said Narcissa. “But you are a vigilante, taking the law into your hands when the Ministry has decreed that we may go free.” She shrugged. “I doubt they will look kindly on that.”
Huxley chuckled sharply. “Minister Shacklebolt is the most powerful person in the Ministry, and he doesn’t dare oppose me. He knows at the bottom of his heart what is right, even if political considerations prevent him from expressing that opinion aloud.” She pointed her nose up at a sharp angle and closed her eyes in a ridiculous manner that she probably imagined showed nobility.
*
Severus slid into the woman’s mind in that crucial moment before she closed her eyes, when thoughts of the hold that she had on Shacklebolt were uppermost. He doubted that Shacklebolt or Huxley would ever tell them of the secrets that compelled the Minister to act like an idiot around her, and they had to know.
Harry’s surprise washed over him. It felt as if Harry stood at the apex of a triangle, tied to Severus and Draco with sharp cords that tugged on them every time he moved. Severus found it less comfortable than Draco’s leadership, but he was well aware that part of that came from his struggle against it at first.
At least Harry did not actively oppose his use of Legilimency. And Severus sent back a current of cool reassurance as he moved. He did not think that Huxley knew he was a Legilimens, and he would be subtle enough that a crude mind like hers could never realize he had touched her thoughts.
A memory unfolded around him with clarity and precision that made Severus rethink the crudity of Huxley’s mind. On the other hand, it was indeed her uppermost thought, so that might be the reason for the clarity.
Shacklebolt was fighting a wizard that Severus found it hard to see on a street in Hogsmeade, while Huxley stood enthralled in a doorway not far away. Shacklebolt used a flurry of spells, some of them curses which made Severus raise his brows in respect and which should have downed most enemies immediately. But this opponent laughed and continued forcing his way forwards. From his height and the black cloak he wore, Severus reckoned that he was a Death Eater named Malcom Parewell, who had vanished on a mission for the Dark Lord years ago. Probably he was about to learn what had happened to him.
Shacklebolt closed his eyes in despair, and then aimed his wand and yelled out, “Avada Kedavra!” with the desperation of someone who didn’t expect even that to work.
Of course it worked. There was no block for the Killing Curse except the one that Lily had accidentally discovered, and if anyone had ever sacrificed themselves for love of Parewell, Severus would have died of shock. In the memory, it was Parewell who died, slumping to the ground the moment the green beam of light touched him.
Shacklebolt stared at him for long moments, his breath rushing in anger and fear. Then he edged forwards, wand at the ready, and cast a Slicing Curse directly into the body. Parewell’s arm fell off, and blood flowed out, but he didn’t move. Shacklebolt closed his eyes in relief and turned around.
Huxley stepped out of the doorway that had sheltered her and smiled sweetly at him.
Severus slithered out and into his head and the bonds again in the moment before Huxley could shut her eyes. Shacklebolt used an Unforgivable in front of her, he confirmed to Draco and Harry. That is why she has such a hold over him. He would go to Azkaban at once, especially since the Aurors are specifically forbidden to use Unforgivable Curses.
Is that all? Draco asked in disappointment. I thought it would be something more personally devastating.
But Harry was silent and thoughtful, and Severus knew that he understood the political consequences better. Draco had cast the Unforgivables more often than Harry, and might be more dulled to their impact. The public, however, would go mad at hearing that their beloved Minister had used them, even if it was before he had taken office and against a Death Eater.
“We’re going to let the Ministry decide what to do with you, Huxley.” Harry made his voice cold and simple. “The Ministry is more than one person, and not all of them feel about me-or about Death Eaters-as you do.”
Huxley opened her eyes and gazed at them with the bright, clear pity of a fanatic. “You feel that way,” she whispered. “All of you, because you have an inborn sense of what is right. You simply won’t allow the feelings to rise to the surface of your minds, because that would disrupt your lives too much.”
Harry turned to Narcissa without consulting Huxley further, which Severus thought sensible. “May we depend on you as a witness to what she was trying to do?” he asked, with such an extreme formality of tone that Severus could have laughed. Of course, Harry was probably trying to show Draco that he did care about the safety and comfort of his mother-just not enough to let Draco kill people indiscriminately.
Harry acknowledged a moment later that that was exactly what he was doing. Draco snapped that he didn’t need to be coddled like a child, and Harry sent an image of pinching his cheeks. Severus laughed at both of them.
One of the hardest things to get used to when the bonds joined them like this was the sheer speed of their thoughts. They had exchanged all that information and the corresponding emotions before Narcissa replied, though she was not slow in reacting to Harry’s question.
“Of course you may,” she said, her voice low and strong. She looked at Huxley in a way that made even that idiot woman falter, and then turned to Harry. Severus wondered idly how she would react if she realized that she might as well speak to any of the three of them, and was hit from two sides, with Harry’s amusement and with Draco’s proud defense of his mother’s flexibility. “In fact, might I suggest that we go to the Minister now, and catch him off-guard, rather than wait for him to react?”
“That’s an excellent idea,” Severus said, causing Narcissa to glance at him. He wondered if she was more surprised that he had spoken when she had addressed Harry, or that his voice might sound a bit like Harry’s at the moment. Draco snapped that she knew the difference, and then turned away to chase the sound of Harry’s laughter again. “Shacklebolt is poor with surprises. While I do not truly believe that he had any involvement in this attack, or Huxley would have bragged about it, it is for the best if we force this surprise onto him rather than allowing her side to do so.”
“I do not need the protection of the Minister,” Huxley said in a spectacularly nasal tone.
“You were bragging that you had it just a minute ago,” Draco muttered. Severus could feel Draco’s fingers digging into the wood of the wand, and sent a soothing thought to him. Harry muttered back, and distracted Draco enough that Severus could give a civil answer to the infuriating woman.
“All of us need the protection of the laws of the society in which we live,” he intoned solemnly. “There is no higher authority than law, don’t you agree?”
Huxley stared at him warily for a moment, then snorted. “A Death Eater can only mouth the words. If law was the authority that you proclaim it to be, then you would have been tried and sent to Azkaban the way you should have been.”
“There are laws against attempted murder and against the damage of property,” said Draco, who seemed to have regained his mental balance, much to Severus’s relief. He stepped forwards and looked at Huxley without so much dangerous passion, now, and his wand was safely behind his back. Indeed, the expression on his face was more pitying than anything else. “You haven’t obeyed them.”
“When the law breaks down and the Wizengamot refuses to do what it should,” Huxley began, which sounded like it would be the start of a long speech.
Narcissa cast a Silencing Charm at her and then bound the witch who still lay unconscious on the ground with Incarcerous. “I find that I tire of listening to her chatter,” she explained to Draco and Harry, who blinked at her. “And she will have plenty of chances to speak when we are in front of the Minister. Shall we go?”
*
Shacklebolt rose to his feet when he saw them, his face strained. He had been working late in his office, which disappointed Draco a bit. It would have been only repayment for the trouble Huxley had caused them if they’d had to wake him up at home and drag him to the Ministry. At least the several empty teacups that littered his desk said that he’d been struggling hard to stay awake.
“And the Aurors simply let you through, did they?” he asked, with resignation that irritated Draco. To listen to Shacklebolt, you would think that he was the only one who had ever had to deal with problems of this kind.
Harry brushed against his mind, a touch like soft flame. They had dropped that extreme closeness of the bonds they’d used to fight Huxley and her people when they came to the Ministry-if a spell here detected that and figured out how it worked, one of their advantages would be gone-but Draco’s mind still felt more sensitive to the emotions and the thoughts of his bondmates than usual. Harry spoke more clearly in his head than if he had risked the words to his lips. He’s refused, several times, to see that it was more dangerous to all of us to have Huxley roaming free than to arrest her, since she has more chances to be an embarrassment to him. Of course he doesn’t think of this the same way we do.
Draco turned his head away, both mentally and physically, and smiled grimly at Shacklebolt. “Once they realized who Harry was and that we had someone with us who had tried to kill him multiple times? Yes.” He turned his head back over his shoulder, and Severus and his mother came in with Huxley and her accomplice floating bound behind them.
It was instructive to watch the way Shacklebolt’s face drained of both color and animation. He stepped around the desk at once, as if he would go up to Huxley and untie the ropes, then stopped, his fingers twitching. His voice was brittle as he said, “I have told you that I can do nothing against her.”
“You can,” said Severus, and stepped around Huxley so that she could not read the movement of his lips; she had a charm that muffled her hearing on her ears. Perhaps he also wanted to conceal the information from Narcissa. Draco would not be surprised if that was the case. It sometimes seemed to him that he was the only one who trusted his mother the way she should be trusted. “We know the secret as well, Minister. We know about the Unforgivable.”
Shacklebolt stiffened. The next moment, an expression of perfect despair crossed his face, and he bowed his head, which had the effect of muffling his voice. “How can I do anything? I am caught between you and her.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before you took up political power and found yourself vulnerable to her machinations,” Severus said, without sympathy. Draco was glad that he was the one speaking. Harry looked so distressed that he might have tried to arrange a bargain with Shacklebolt. It was clear by now that the Minister would never hold to a bargain. “You will arrest her and take our testimony for her having acted with complete fanaticism and irrationality rather than personal principle when she attacked our home and Malfoy Manor. Or your secret will emerge in any case.”
Shacklebolt laughed. “And why should I do what you want? Either way, my secret is going to come out. Huxley will talk about it if I try her in front of the Wizengamot, and you’ll talk about it if I don’t.”
Draco sighed in disgust. Harry looked more distressed than ever at that, which wasn’t a good sign, and even Severus frowned, the bond between them churning with the kind of muddy bubbles that Draco knew he sent up when he was baffled. The solution was very simple, but it looked as if he would have to be the one to offer it.
“Sir,” he said calmly, masking all the less complimentary things that he could have called Shacklebolt in the back of his mind, “why should you try her in front of the Wizengamot? She’s committed multiple crimes now. You’re justified in saying that you wanted to give her another chance to prove herself law-abiding, especially since she rescued so many people during the war, but now you’ve decided to give up on her. Let one of the smaller courts try her. She doesn’t deserve the dignity of a full trial before the Wizengamot. In fact, you shouldn’t give her that, since it would only fuel her drive for notoriety.”
Huxley was looking from one to the other of them as if she were trying to figure out what they were talking about. Draco didn’t think she had a clue about it unless she also happened to be an expert lip-reader. Her companion stared at the floor and didn’t try to add anything to the defense.
“Her drive for notoriety,” Shacklebolt said, frowning. Harry and Severus both returned smooth flows of puzzlement to Draco.
He sighed again and began. “Obviously, the reason that she attacked Harry, and kept attacking him, was to get her name out there. Few people have talked about her since the war as often as they’ve talked about Harry.” He hadn’t done research to be sure of that, but it was a safe bet, since the Daily Prophet had a story about Harry almost every day and Draco hadn’t seen one about Huxley in the last six months. “If we give her lots of attention and a Wizengamot trial, that will only encourage her to do something else, to keep her name in the papers. On the other hand, doing it in a quiet, small fashion won’t give her what she wants.” He glanced sideways and sneered when he saw Huxley frowning at him. Does she think I care about her for any reason than because she has forced me to? Does she think she can threaten me? “That should be obvious.”
“If she talks about my secret to someone other than the Wizengamot, the rumors will eventually reach them,” said Shacklebolt. He looked both hopeful and cautious.
“And why should anyone pay attention to the word of a madwoman?” That was his mother’s voice, light and cool. They might have been in the middle of one of the drawing rooms where Narcissa went to speak with her friends, Draco thought as he turned to regard her with pride, for all the difference that she let the situation make to her.
“A madwoman,” Shacklebolt repeated slowly, but this time his eyes had a gleam that meant Draco did not have to despair of his intelligence. Even better, comprehension rushed through the bonds that tied him to Harry and Severus, fire on one side, suddenly transparent ice on the other. That would save him tedious explanations later, Draco thought, and fell back to the side so that his mother would have an unimpeded view of Shacklebolt, and vice versa.
“Yes.” Narcissa gave a shrug of her shoulders and a dismissive flick of her fingers that Draco thrilled to and loved her for. “Surely only a madwoman would attack a warded Manor, or cast a Gut Chewing Curse on the Boy-Who-Lived in public, or later try to attack their house in Hogsmeade. Surely only a madwoman could be worsted in battle and in public argument and still try to come back. Surely only a madwoman would claim to support the Ministry and yet refuse to accept its pardons, given to the two former Death Eaters bonded to the Chosen One.” Narcissa lifted her lip and glanced over her shoulder at Huxley. “Spread the right kind of rumors before she starts speaking, and I do not think that you have much to worry about.”
Shacklebolt laughed quietly. “I think you are not as dead-set against me as I believed,” he said, with an almost fond look around the room.
Harry didn’t smile back at him. “If you don’t do this, if you attempt to release Huxley on a technicality again or claim that there would be some sort of public panic if she were arrested-”
“I have tired of the excuses I had to make as well,” Shacklebolt said at once. “You’ve relieved me of a problem that I had grown increasingly unsure how to handle. This is the best way to handle it.” He stepped up next to Huxley and put a hand on the ropes that held her. She glared at him, obviously understanding that this wasn’t going to go well. “And the woman with her?”
“An accomplice in the attack on my home.” Narcissa gave another perfect shrug. “Ask her what you will.”
After that, everything was over but the cordialities. Shacklebolt called in some Aurors he presumably trusted and gave them brisk orders about the handling of Huxley and her accomplice. The other witch’s head drooped further as they dragged her off to a holding cell. Draco really couldn’t find it in himself to be sorry.
Draco had sensed a thick green emotion traveling beneath the surface of Harry’s mind as they walked out of the office, but not until they had left the Ministry entirely did Harry speak to him. I’m sorry for holding you back so strongly when you wanted to kill Huxley. I would have wanted to kill her if she threatened the Weasleys.
Draco took a deep breath, aware of Severus watching them through the bonds, waiting for the resolution of this conflict. You were right, he said with some difficulty. I would have made things worse if I’d killed her. For one thing, her followers and the Ministry could have accused me of murder then, which was never true before.
Harry reached out and touched the back of his neck, while the bond between them swirled with blue and gold. Then Severus’s hand covered Harry’s.
Draco, because he could not stand anyone to be left out in this moment of supreme contentment, reached out and found his mother’s fingers. She squeezed his hand lightly, once, and together they marched out of the Ministry and away from one problem resolved permanently.
Part Twenty-Nine.