Chapter Forty-Three of 'Ceremonies of Strife'- Setting His House In Order

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Forty-Two.

Title: Ceremonies of Strife (43/45)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione, Lucius/Narcissa
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, Dark magic, angst, profanity, sex (slash and het), character deaths (not the main characters).
Summary: Sequel to Soldier’s Welcome. As Harry and Draco head in to their second year of Auror training, they are resolved to try and balance the relationship between them with their personal difficulties. That might be a bit harder than they think when the difficulties include necromancy, Azkaban escapees, unicorn ghosts, the risen dead, a secret order of assassins…and the second war, guided by Nihil.
Author’s Notes: This is the second part of what I’m calling the Running to Paradise Trilogy, focused on Harry and Draco’s Auror training. A reader on AFF called SP777 suggested the idea for this series to me. I’d advise you to read Soldier’s Welcome first before you try to read this one, as this story doesn’t spend a lot of time recapitulating the first one.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Forty-Three-Setting His House In Order

When they finally struggled out of the snow, Harry expected Draco to say that they should head back to the Ministry, or go to Ireland to look for his mother. Harry was willing to do either, although he didn’t think they had much of a chance of finding Narcissa, given how well she seemed to have hidden herself.

Instead, Draco touched his forehead and then glanced at the place where the false Lucius had lain in the snow, as though saying farewell, and turned to Harry. “I have to go to the Manor,” he said.

Harry wasn’t sure he understood the almost challenging look in Draco’s eyes, but he nodded. “Then we’ll go,” he said.

Draco’s face relaxed into a smile, and he stretched out his arm so that Harry could take it. “The Manor was already connected to me,” he murmured. “I sensed that when I was halfway through the spell, and it was what first warned me that something was wrong. Of course the allegiance of the wards and the house-elves would have transferred to me the minute my father died in prison. The spells to make such a thing automatic were long ago set up by the Malfoy line. This Lucius could only have a shadow of authority as long as my father was still alive and fueling him, I reckon.”

Harry nodded. He didn’t think he had an answer for that, especially because he knew nothing about how inheritance spells worked. He was straining his knowledge and intelligence giving that explanation of why Lucius’s shadow had formed as it was.

For the moment, he was more than happy to let Draco take the lead.

*

Draco Apparated them into the Manor’s largest courtyard, an open space deep within the house, surrounded by four high walls. Drifting snow lay there, which Draco had never seen happen before. Then again, it required an effort of will to keep the snow beyond the walls, and no one had been here to make it. If Draco had seen a sight like this, he would have known in an instant that something was wrong.

But he hadn’t, and so he soothed the self-blame that wanted to score him. Not all of the habits he had picked up from Harry were healthy.

He concentrated instead on the feeling of wards closing around him with the smooth silkiness of water parting as he dived into a pool. He had never thought he would feel that. He hadn’t truly been able to conceive a time when his father wouldn’t be alive, although he had got used to being without him since Lucius went to Azkaban.

I have to mourn.

That would come later. At the moment, Draco had more important things to worry about. He strode out briskly, to the center of the courtyard, and pushed against the wards as he did, feeling them flex and snap and gather energy after days of lying dormant.

Harry was right behind him, or Draco would have been worried when he heard him gasp. As it was, the snow had risen up in shapes like waterspouts, and so Draco knew the source of Harry’s surprise. He looked back with a wry smile and saw Harry staring at the spouts that carried the snow back over the walls, leaving bare stone and earth where it had been.

“How can you do that without pointing your wand?” Harry whispered. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

Draco blinked, not having thought that would be what had surprised him, and then reminded himself that Harry had grown up in the Muggle world. He probably thought of magic as something like water that had to be guided and channeled to accomplish useful tasks, rather than being moved through and lived with. Draco would do what he could to remedy that hole in Harry’s education.

For the moment, he simply raised his eyebrows and answered, “The wards are connected to me, and when the head of the Malfoy family is here, they act as he wants them to. I want the courtyard cleared.”

Harry nodded. There was wonder in his eyes, which went some way to soothing Draco for what had happened today. He smiled and continued his walk to a door on the other side of the courtyard, which he opened, the wards undoing the locking charms and brushing away the snow that had accumulated at the bottom of it.

The corridor beyond was drafty and cold, but house-elves appeared at once, bowing and squeaking and asking for orders. Draco gave them with a haughty sneer that he knew made Harry blink at him, but he didn’t care. The elves were happy enough to follow his commands no matter what, and the sneer made him feel better.

Fires were lit, moldy food was thrown out and replaced with better, Warming Charms were cast, and spilled liquids and broken glass-probably shattered in the shadow’s tantrums-were cleaned up. Harry frowned and tilted his head in that way that meant he was about to ask a strange question. Draco waited.

“How did the house get like this?” Harry was looking at a faded tapestry on the wall, with trailing threads at the edge that indicated mouse chewing. “I thought house-elves would automatically keep a house in order, even if no one told them to. I don’t think anyone told them to keep cooking food and cleaning rooms at Hogwarts.”

“In the beginning, orders were given,” Draco said calmly. “The house-elves there are linked to the Headmaster. If the school had no Headmaster, then they wouldn’t work, which is one reason a new one is always appointed as soon as possible when one dies.” Harry’s eyes darkened, and Draco knew he was thinking about Dumbledore. Draco continued as if his words had stirred up no memories, though. He didn’t want this to stand between them. “And here, if the current head Malfoy doesn’t live in the house, the elves retreat to the bare necessities to keep the house from falling down. Lighting fires where they aren’t needed isn’t one of them.”

Harry nodded. “Will they punish themselves for failing to keep the Manor up?”

“Not unless I order them to.” Draco’s voice sharpened before he turned away. He couldn’t bear to talk about house-elves-to argue about house-elves-right now. He had a hard letter to write.

Harry took the hint and followed him in silence to the library, where a fire was already blazing. Elves bustled around, dusting, rearranging books, and cleaning up a scarred table that the shadow had probably used a knife on. Draco commanded that ink be brought; he could already see a quill and parchment in place. Perhaps the shadow had meant to write a letter before Harry lured him out.

One of the elves, clad in a thin strip of gauzy bandage wound about its waist, hurried over with ink, bowing again and again, tears running down its face. Draco took the ink, shook it once to ensure it wasn’t frozen, and looked sternly at the creature. “You will prepare bedrooms for us, and a meal. Do you understand?”

“Yizzy is understanding, Lord Malfoy sir!” Yizzy pulled hard on its ears and bounced on the balls of its feet. “The beds is being ready in instants!” It vanished, the air rushing in behind it.

Harry might have been staring at him accusingly. Draco didn’t look up to see. He sat down and began to compose a letter to his mother.

In the end, there was nothing he could say that would lessen the difficulty of the blow for her, or the cruelty of the wound. She would blame herself for not having seen the differences between the false Lucius and the real one right away, and there was nothing Draco could do about that either. What he could do, what he tried, was to explain that this hadn’t been their fault, that it was connected to the imbalance of magic in the world.

He could give his mother something to lift the blame from her shoulders-this was like an earthquake or a storm-and something to fight.

While he did not cause it alone, this imbalance in the forces of life and death is tied to the existence of Nihil and the way he raises the living dead. The shadow would never have torn free from my father’s body in an ordinary time, but remained a dark wish in his mind. He tried to destroy Harry in some ways, since that is what my father desired, but went astray in others. This is not Father’s fault, either. He did not know, and he stayed in Azkaban, and he paid the price.

Draco thought about begging Narcissa to return home, but decided against it. He still didn’t know exactly what had happened to her-though he had seen stains among some of the broken glass that made him dread-and he didn’t know how many evil memories the Manor might hold. It would have to be her choice.

He finished, and then he turned and held out his hand to Harry. Harry raised his eyebrows, but took it.

“I want to go to bed,” Draco said quietly.

He had a cold burning sensation in his chest, as if he had swallowed an icicle. He didn’t know what that meant. He also knew that his words had been the right ones to say, but not why.

He didn’t care, as it happened. He was the Lord of the Manor, and his father was dead. That was enough truth to bear for one day.

*

Harry had expected, without knowing why, that he would go back to the bedroom that he had spent Christmas at the Manor in, but instead the house-elves had prepared rooms in a different part of the house. Draco said it was Lucius’s old rooms when Harry asked about it, and in a tone of voice that said he didn’t want to discuss it. Harry nodded and opened the door.

The magnificence made him blink. If he’d ever had any reason to think about the room where Lucius Malfoy slept-which he hadn’t-he would have imagined marble walls and chandeliers and beds encrusted with so much gold that they weren’t comfortable to sleep in. And of course there would probably be enormous gems cut in half and just sitting around. Harry knew that he wasn’t adequate to imagine what Draco’s life had really been like.

Instead, there was warmth everywhere. Harry could see some gold and gems, but they were discreet: a handle, a small cup that he thought had probably been put on a little table and just looked at, a bedknob. The dominant color was brown because of the wooden walls and the huge stones that made up the hearth. A fire blazed there. Harry blinked and blinked some more, and then turned to face the fire and held out his hands.

He was cold, but he wanted to give Draco some time in the room alone, too.

Draco walked back and forth, and Harry heard sliding noises like he was touching the curtains around the bed and sighs like he was remembering things. Harry kept his gaze on the fire and tried not to imagine what Draco must have felt when he was a child. Maybe he came here when he had nightmares.

Or maybe house-elves comforted him. Harry felt his heart ache. No matter how much he had tried to know and understand Draco during the past few months, since their row over his necromancy, it seemed he always had more to learn.

Draco finally said something, but his words were muffled. Harry turned around, having an odd picture of Draco standing there with one of the curtains wrapped around his face.

He wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

Draco stood at the foot of the bed, which was decorated in brown, too, and green so dark that Harry had to look twice to make sure that it was green. There were silver pillows, but otherwise it didn’t look much like a Slytherin bed. Draco had taken off his robe and dropped it on the floor, which was so messy and unlike him that Harry just stared. Draco’s fingers were on the buttons of his shirt.

“Uh, you’re tired?” Harry asked. Of course it made sense, but he hadn’t expected it for some reason. He turned towards the door. “I’ll ask the house-elves to show me to my room, so you can get some sleep.”

“There is no other room.”

Harry felt as though he had just stepped off a cliff, or at least a stair that was higher than he’d thought. He turned around with his heart pounding in his ears, and saw that Draco was shrugging off his shirt, to drop it on the robe. The firelight was bright enough to show the old scars on his chest from the Sectumsempra spell.

“Draco,” he said. “Are you sure?” Then he realized his throat was so dry that Draco probably hadn’t heard him. He swallowed and repeated the question.

“Yes,” Draco said. “I just found out my father is dead. I had to write and tell my mother that. Portillo Lopez is covering for us at the barracks, so we don’t need to be back by a certain hour. I’m cold and I’m lonely. And I want you.” He had started on his trousers, and didn’t look at Harry as he spoke, seeming to assume that of course Harry would stay where he was and agree.

Well, Harry thought as he watched more and more of Draco surface from his clothes, gleaming like a dolphin, I’m not an idiot, whatever he thinks sometimes.

He walked back across the room, feeling the carpet slide under his feet like grass, and put his arms around Draco. Draco kicked off his trousers before he leaned up and kissed Harry hard enough to make his mouth smart.

This was different from the other times, Harry knew at once, because Draco was straining against him as if they were wrestling, and making small snarls in the back of his throat, and his arms closed around Harry in a way that would leave bruises. And then he turned and tumbled them onto the bed, and Harry felt suddenly overdressed.

He started pulling and clawing at his clothes, while Draco helped by tugging off his boots. Then Draco was on top of him, moving with his mouth open, his teeth bared, his eyes so wide and hazy that he looked like he was drowning.

Harry opened his mouth to say something else, and forgot it as Draco kissed him. And then they were struggling against each other, pushing at each other, crying and gasping in ways that Harry had never heard.

They were both getting naked, if not there yet. Draco still had his socks on, and they got caught somehow in Harry’s robe buttons and had to be kicked at. Draco yanked at Harry’s shirt and got it tangled around his shoulders. Harry dropped his glasses on the floor and then thought it would probably be a good idea to pick them up, fold them, and put them on the table.

Draco crawled back atop him when they were both naked, staring at him with eyes so wide and dilated that Harry got concerned again and reached out for him. Draco slapped his hands down and then closed his eyes, a brief frown contorting his features.

A small pot lifted from a table nearby and settled on the bed. Harry started, and then reminded himself that Draco could do things like that because of the wards. Draco reached out and grabbed it.

Harry gave him a shaky smile, knowing now what was going to happen next, not sure if he was ready, and wanting to do it anyway. “Are you-Draco, are you sure?”

“I told you that,” Draco said, and his voice was impatient enough to reassure Harry that at least he wasn’t so entirely under the influence of hormones not to be himself. Draco reached down, pried open the sealed clay lid of the little pot, and pulled out a thick fingerful of blue goo. He reached back towards his arse, brow furrowing as if he were working on a difficult problem in Concealment and Disguise, or trying to decide yet again if Ketchum was a good instructor despite being Muggleborn.

Harry watched without breathing, which became uncomfortable in a minute. He let it out in a whoosh, and Draco raised one eyebrow and looked down at him, asking him without words what he was doing.

Harry gave him another shaky smile. “It’s just nerves,” he said. “Draco, I’ve never done this before-with a man, at least. Do you realize that? I don’t know if I’ll make it very comfortable for you.”

*

Impatience raged in Draco, flames that danced up and down and felt as if they were real, they scored his back and chest so fiercely. Didn’t Harry understand? He was doing this to help him move past his grief, because he wanted Harry, and because fucking would help him get rid of all the emotions that boiled in him with no place to go. The last thing he wanted was for it to be comfortable.

To make the point, he shoved one more goo-slick finger into himself, catching his breath against it, then sat down on Harry’s cock, which was more sensible than the rest of him and already pointing almost where Draco wanted it to go.

It burned more than the impatience did, and Draco clenched his jaw down on a yell. But he sank deeper, or lower, whatever the appropriate word was here, working Harry further into him, and Harry gasped and went white and twitched as though he was going to die, which Draco thought was not appropriate.

“Breathe, Harry,” Draco said, his own voice a high, breathless squeak. Harry should have been the one saying that to him, he thought mindlessly, if all the words he’d overheard in the Slytherin boys’ bedrooms down the years were accurate.

It was hard to breathe. And he was so full, in a way that reminded him of the way he sometimes felt after a day, crammed full with the events of it, and waiting to fall asleep so he could forget at least some of them.

“Dr-Draco…hnnh…”

Draco forced his eyes open-the pressure of Harry’s cock in him seemed to have mashed his eyelids down, which made no sense-and looked at Harry. He lay on his back, of course, beneath Draco, his mouth open and his breaths coming so fast that he sounded like a Muggle machine. Or what Draco imagined a Muggle machine sounded like; he hadn’t heard that many of them, after all.

He bent down and whispered in Harry’s ear, wriggling his arse so that Harry’s cock would shift about a bit, “Surprising?”

“Hnnh,” said Harry again, which seemed to be his new language.

Draco laughed-he was getting his breath, finally-and leaned back, rocking and shifting slowly so that they could both have a chance to get used to this. Harry’s legs trembled. Draco’s legs trembled. Everything hurt and burned fiercely enough that Draco half-wanted to get off and lie down on the bed beside Harry to wank him to climax as usual. But only half. “I know-I can’t wait-”

His shifting paid off, and Harry’s erection stabbed against his prostate.

Harry screamed, and bucked. Draco rode him still, eyes clenched shut again, hands clutching Harry’s hips and chest. He felt as though someone had put another cock inside him, the sensation was so sudden and shocking.

When he looked at Harry again, Harry’s mouth was hanging open, and he panted, and there were small wet noises emerging from his mouth that weren’t pants. He looked at Draco as if he were the center of the universe.

“Ready?” Draco asked, and began to ride.

*

Harry had never done this before, but it wasn’t as though he was completely unprepared. He knew what happened between two men when they had sex. In fact, he had been prepared for that to happen when he and Draco first started sleeping together, and it had been a wonderful surprise to find out that you could do just as many things with hands and mouths as you could with cocks and arses.

But then Draco had chosen this, and Harry didn’t want to deny him, and now he really didn’t want to deny him. Even if he had pictured something rather different, sex shared with laughter instead of tears.

Or were there tears? Draco had his eyes shut fiercely as he rocked above Harry, his mouth set in a scowl, but no tears stained his eyes when he peeked down at Harry. His hair was wet, but not with weeping. There were places on his body that gleamed with scars, but no new wounds. Harry reached up to trace the lowest of the Sectumsempra marks with a finger, and Draco shuddered and moved faster.

And the heat and the tightness that were clasping his cock were incredible.

Harry shut his eyes and ran his fingers over Draco’s skin, touching here, stroking there, caressing and tweaking in different places. He was going to come soon. He hoped Draco wouldn’t be horribly disappointed when he did, because Harry didn’t have the legendary endurance that the Daily Prophet liked to talk about him having when they speculated about his sex life.

Then something hit his chest, and he blinked and looked down, to find Draco’s penis dripping there.

Oh, of course. There was something he could do to ensure that Draco didn’t simply sit there with a limp and soft cock inside him and have to wank himself. Harry reached out and encircled Draco’s erection with his fingers, tugging.

Draco’s jaw tumbled open. His hair flew behind him as he stared down at Harry, evidently stunned that Harry had remembered to touch him at all. Harry gave him an apologetic smile and pulled harder, tightening his fingers, trying to think of how he could most imitate for Draco the clutch of Draco’s arse.

Something that resembled an indignant wail started in the depths of Draco’s chest and then broke free. His arse clamped, his thighs clamped, his fingers sank into the skin of Harry’s hips, and Harry would swear even the skin of his cock writhed as if trying to hold Harry’s fingers there when he began to come.

Harry licked his lips as he watched the dots of white form across his stomach and chest. He was greedier about Draco’s orgasm than he had been about any of the rest of it, he realized in some surprise. He could have lain there and watched Draco come and not done any of the rest of it-

Not done-

The thoughts fragmented, and his body lurched up as he came into Draco. His hands flailed, open, on the sheets, and then closed down and tore something, from the sound. Draco laughed, hair bouncing again, neck shaking, gasping a few last times in pleasure.

“Nothing like it, is there?” Draco sounded smug.

Harry shut his eyes and tried to say something, but he couldn’t. Draco’s arse was hot and slippery from him. He knew this coupling had mostly been for Draco, to ease his emotions, but Harry felt it as a gift that he didn’t know if he could ever repay.

He tried. When Draco rolled off him and snuggled down beside him in the sheets, Harry turned and kissed him, open-mouthed, shut-eyed, seeking.

Draco smiled, and touched his face, and was silent.

Chapter Forty-Four.

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