Chapter Seven of 'The Serenity of His Rage'- Come Midnight
Chapter Six.
Title: The Serenity of His Rage (7/39)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Angst, minor character deaths, torture, violence, gore, magical bonding, AU
Rating: R
Summary: AU of HBP. Narcissa never made Snape swear an Unbreakable Vow, and in the end, Draco decides to accept Dumbledore’s offer of sanctuary. But when Narcissa dies and Dumbledore declares his intention to create a soul-bond between Harry and Draco mainly to get rid of the Horcrux in Harry, Draco becomes enraged. He’ll use the soul-bond and the sanctuary Dumbledore gave him. But not exactly in the ways that Dumbledore anticipated.
Author’s Notes: This story will be fairly dark and approximately thirty-nine chapters long. It should update every Tuesday.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Seven-Come Midnight
“Come on, Potter.”
Draco didn’t understand why Potter was blinking and squinting at him as if he had a headache. Draco would have known that through the bond. He had his barriers a little lowered this time, so that he was only in a house above the sea of Potter’s emotions, not a tower.
“Just a minute,” Potter said, and put a hand on his scar.
Draco stared at him. “Your scar is hurting?” He didn’t think it had hurt since the night he had shown Potter how to do Occlumency in his dreams. Again, it was something he would have sensed through the bond.
“It’s strange,” Potter said, focusing on the stone wall in front of them instead of Draco. Draco stirred impatiently. He’d had Potter sneak down to the dungeons to meet him under the Invisibility Cloak instead of having Draco meet him in Gryffindor Tower, because it was easier for Potter with that ruddy cloak. But now they were wasting time standing around outside the common room. “It’s like a storm that’s about to break. It’s like it’s about to ache, but not actually aching yet.”
Draco looked at Potter again, then held out his hand. Potter didn’t notice, bent over and muttering to himself. Draco sighed. “Come on, Potter. Let me help.”
“How?” Potter turned to him, still bent over, with glassy eyes.
Draco moved towards him and put his hands on Potter’s shoulders. “Our bond ought to be strong enough to fight off something that’s not even happening yet. Right?”
“I don’t know…”
“It should,” Draco said. He wanted to get on with going to the Manor and helping his father, not soothing Potter’s anxieties. “Take my hands and look into my eyes. We’re going to do something about this.”
Potter’s hands were shaking and his eyes were strange. They were still green, but it was as if all the blood vessels in them had flooded to the surface at once. Draco frowned. They did look almost red.
But they weren’t the Dark Lord’s eyes. Draco refused to let them be.
“Take my hands,” he repeated, when Potter didn’t immediately return the grip. Draco squeezed down until Potter grimaced and returned the hold, probably realizing he wasn’t about to get out of this. “Now look into my eyes. I want you to tell me what you see when you look there.” From the way Potter blinked at him, the question wasn’t clear. “What kind of reflections? What kind of color?”
“Um, blue,” Potter said, and blinked and frowned. Some of the blood vessels seemed to sink back into their proper place, which relieved Draco inexpressibly. “No, grey. And there’s a sort of reflection of the torches behind me…I think?”
Draco nodded. “Can you concentrate on me and stop thinking about the pain in your scar?” Let’s see. Pressing down on Potter’s temples worked last time. Let’s give him a little pain to think about now. He squeezed with his hands again, but all it did was make Potter look dazed.
“No,” Potter whispered suddenly, his head bowing as another flash of red racked his eyes. Draco couldn’t feel the pain itself, or the ache, but he did get a tense pressure along the edges of his temples that was probably equivalent. “Sorry. It’s-it’s Voldemort. He’s planning something. He’s happy about something. Probably a raid.”
“That’s good,” Draco said, and he knew it had to be false cheer. “That means that he’ll be away from the Manor, and we can sneak in and get my father out without our most dangerous enemy there.”
“But if he’s doing something-”
There was no warning. One moment, Potter was bent over in Draco as if he was about to vomit from rancid food and his mouth was twitching but he spoke in a relatively normal voice, the next second he began to scream.
It was a hoarse, bellowing cry, and Draco knew there was no way it would go unnoticed in the Slytherin common room. He reacted without really thinking, sweeping the Invisibility Cloak around both him and Potter and bustling them around the next corner. Then he clamped a hand over Potter’s mouth.
And he did something else. He released the tight control that he, at least, had always had over his emotions, and swept the bond into Potter’s head as a blast of pure, stunning force.
Potter’s bellows stopped at once. Draco could feel his astonishment, like a curling, cold wave pulling Draco further into the undertow of his mind. It covered over the pain and drowned the sensation that the Dark Lord was forcing through his soul-bond with Potter. Potter’s hands touched Draco.
So did his emotions.
Draco could barely keep his feet. Potter’s curiosity and shock felt so much more intense than his own. It was like eating dull, bland food that was good for you all the time and not paying much attention to the taste, and then suddenly having a four-course feast deliver itself straight into your mouth. There was freshness and sweetness, and Draco wanted to explore and find out what else there was.
There was resentment of him, for one, for keeping his mind closed all the time and acting with (what Potter thought was) smug superiority since he was so much better at Occlumency than Potter. Even the resentment tasted crisp and snapping, like some of the brittle biscuits that the house-elves used to make at home.
The way his mother used to eat those biscuits, sitting in front of the fire with a book when Draco was very small, and Draco would cuddle beside her, and now and then Mother would put a hand on his head…
Potter followed the feelings about his mother, and Draco shook his head a little when he remembered that Potter could see into the deepest, loneliest corners of his mind just as easily as Draco could see into his. So he would need to back off on opening the bond. He thought he had done what he wanted to, anyway. Potter seemed thoroughly distracted from any notion of the Dark Lord invading his mind.
Draco floated slowly back, until he was once again in the house beside the sea, shielded by his Occlumency walls. He had a lot more temptation to let the walls down again, though. Now, he knew what the sea was like.
He slowly opened his eyes. Potter’s face was hovering right in front of Draco. His eyes were green again. He reached up and put a hand on Draco’s shoulder that felt weird, although Draco thought he would probably have felt it the way Potter meant it if the bond was still open.
And that was a thought too strange to be putting up with. Draco shook his head and, in the starry night underneath the Invisibility Cloak, muttered, “What happened?”
Potter closed his eyes again. “There was a raid. But I only saw part of it. I was paying more attention to the bond with you than the bond with him at the moment.”
Draco couldn’t help the smugness that ran like foaming cider under the surface of his mind. At least Potter wouldn’t sense it with the barriers of Occlumency up between them again, or at least Draco didn’t think he would. He nodded shortly instead and asked, “What happened?”
“It’s a raid on Muggleborns’ parents.” Potter’s voice was soft and distant, and his eyes were fixed on the wall-or rather, the slope of the Cloak’s cloth-behind Draco’s head. “I didn’t recognize any of the names that he mentioned, though. Maybe he’s only raiding people’s houses who have young Muggleborn children.”
“Nonsense,” Draco had to point out. “How in the world would he know about them? Only Hogwarts staff hold that knowledge.”
“And the Board of Governors, right?”
Draco stiffened. But he couldn’t afford to get into a shouting match with Potter or his accusations right now. “Yes,” he acknowledged, and then swept on. “Anyway, we’re going to get outside the walls and then Apparate to the Manor. You’ve been through Side-Along Apparition before, right, Potter?”
Potter grimaced, which was answer enough. Draco nodded back and started dragging Potter along towards the entrance hall.
“Wait.”
Once again, bloody Potter was setting his feet and acting as if he was owed something before they continued. Draco tried to shove down his impatience and smile as he turned around to face Potter. “What?” he whispered. Footsteps said at least some students had come out of Slytherin and decided to look around.
“I need to ask you something.” Potter had his eyes locked on his hands. “I think-I mean, there’s a possibility that there could be Horcruxes hidden in Malfoy Manor. Since one was already hidden there. I need to ask you if you can think of any Dark artifacts hidden there that might be more of them.”
Draco stared at him. He had no idea what Potter was talking about. “Horcrux? You? You weren’t there?”
“No.” Potter swallowed a good deal of air and lifted his head. Draco writhed in an agony of impatience-if Potter had to ask this stupid thing, he could at least hurry up with it-but Potter stood there stolidly before he continued. “During our second year, your father gave Ginny Weasley a diary that possessed her. That’s why she acted like the Heir of Slytherin and ended up in the Chamber of Secrets with the basilisk that I had to kill. The diary was a Horcrux. I want to know if you can think of any other artifacts like that that your family has.”
Draco blinked slowly. He knew he looked like a lizard, but he didn’t care. “I didn’t know anything about the diary, Potter. What makes you think that my father trusted me with knowledge like that on a regular basis?”
“I didn’t think that. I just thought you might know-”
“I don’t know of any powerful Dark artifacts in the Manor,” Draco interrupted him. And he would go on interrupting until Potter made some sodding sense. “My father didn’t want me around them for the very good reason that my father loves me and they’re Dark.”
“Right,” Potter said. and sighed. “All right. Then let’s go and rescue your father.” He started to move down the corridor.
Draco had to follow him right away, because it was that or be left behind to slip out of the Cloak, but he had questions. “Why did you suddenly decide to ask me that right now?”
“Does there have to be a reason? I remembered the diary was a Horcrux and I thought, well, where one of them came from, another one could-”
“No, Potter. I might buy that from someone I wasn’t bonded to, but I can feel my head ringing when you tell a lie.”
“What an extremely inconvenient thing,” Potter muttered.
Draco gave a hard grin and kept moving. “Planning on telling me a lot of lies, were you?”
“I mean it might happen when we’re in the middle of a battle or something, and if it prevents you from casting a curse or dodging one-”
“Come on, Potter, you won’t be telling me lies in the middle of a battle.” Draco thought it was time to move the conversation back to what they should have been discussing in the first place. “What made you think up that question?”
“I didn’t think it up. I promised Dumbledore I would ask it. He’s the one who decided there could be more Horcruxes in your Manor.”
Suddenly sour, and not sure he should have forced Potter to answer his question, Draco paused. Potter paused behind him, and murmured something. Draco licked his lips, his mouth too filled with that sourness to answer.
Potter is always going to be more loyal to Dumbledore than he is to me, bond or no bond.
Well, of course he would. It had been Dumbledore’s idea that they bond, after all, not Potter’s. But Draco had thought he was making some good inroads, helping Potter and convincing him to do something that wasn’t at all in Potter’s usual nature. He’d been wrong, because Potter had asked the question after all.
“Draco?”
“No,” Draco snapped before he thought about it, and saw Potter flinch. “You don’t get to call me that. Not here. Not now. Not when you just revealed that you were acting on Dumbledore’s orders.”
He kept moving ahead, making sure to keep Potter under the Cloak with him, but otherwise not paying much attention to him. So far, then, he had failed in making Potter embrace Draco’s view of things. He would have to try something else.
The problem was, Draco wasn’t sure what else he could do. He had the bond, but Draco became too distracted when it was fully open, and Potter didn’t even like the idea that they couldn’t lie to each other. Which sure seemed to argue that he was planning on doing lots of lying.
I’ll have to find something else, that’s all.
*
“Quiet.”
Harry staggered as Malfoy pulled him after him, and through the large iron gates of Malfoy Manor, which opened without a sound. Harry felt gravel under his feet, but couldn’t see clearly. And he knew what Malfoy would think of the idea of using a Lumos Charm.
To be fair, it was the same thing Harry would think about using a Lumos right now, when they were trying to sneak quietly into enemy territory. But he felt, through the bond, a tense, strained impatience directed towards him. Malfoy probably thought Harry was stupid enough to make the suggestion, anyway.
Malfoy, not Draco.
Harry told himself solemnly that he wouldn’t forget that again. Malfoy didn’t like it when Harry called him by his first name? Harry never would again. He wouldn’t forget the way Malfoy had snarled at him with foam practically flecking his teeth when Harry had said it, either.
“This way.”
Harry followed the tug on his arm. He would be going in blind, but he had to trust it wouldn’t be for long, that they would reach a place where he could cast a curse and duel anyone who was there to be dueled and basically distract the Death Eaters’ attention while Malfoy went and found his father.
“Whatever you’re planning, stop it.”
Harry grinned a little. It seemed Malfoy didn’t like it when Harry had private thoughts, either, but this time, Harry had no compulsion to share them.
“I thought I could be a distraction while you got your father out of whatever cell they’re keeping him in,” he muttered to Malfoy as they maneuvered around the edge of what sounded like a fountain and up to the front door. “You know the floor plan better than I do. And you’d have a better idea of where you’re keeping him.”
“I risk feeling whatever emotions you’ll feel when you’re doing that, and it might distract me. We go together-”
“In the name of the Dark Lord, halt!”
Harry snapped his head up. He knew that voice. And the wand aimed at them out of a square of light falling from the center of a huge window onto the grass, and the cloak swirling behind the Death Eater with the aimed wand.
“Too late, we’re seen,” Harry said. He couldn’t seem to stop grinning as he drew his wand. This felt appropriate. “I’ll hold her off. Go and find your father. She might not have noticed that you’re here.”
Yes, it’s appropriate. The only thing that might be better is if Neville was here, but since that’s not going to happen…
Harry threw the Cloak off his head and laughed in joy. The figure in the doorway staggered back in shock, and Harry whirled his wand, cast a Leg-Locker Jinx that didn’t land, dodged a Cruciatus Curse that was aimed solely at him and seemed to indicate that Malfoy would get away with not getting noticed, and ran towards Bellatrix Lestrange.
*
My bond partner’s going after my aunt.
Draco had only a moment to feel strange about that. Then he cursed softly as he realized he could do nothing here without making the situation worse-nothing except what Potter had told him now. Bellatrix might not attack him, but she would try to capture him, and other Death Eaters were coming now to deal with the single intruder they thought was there. That would leave most of the deep places of the Manor unguarded.
And Potter was right about Draco knowing those deep places and where his father was likely to be imprisoned better than Potter did.
Draco flew up the steps and into the house through the front doors, dodging the Death Eaters who bolted past him with snarls. None of them spared a glance for him, proving it was much easier to use an Invisibility Cloak when you were alone. In a few seconds, Draco was in one of the internal corridors that led to the great dining room, alone.
Draco had to calm himself down, after that. He could feel Potter’s emotions swirling and battering against his walls, and he knew he could lose his focus in them too easily. He stood there silently and refused the impulse to run and shout. That was what the Death Eaters were doing, and it wouldn’t avail them against Potter. From the sounds of it, he was still fighting.
When Draco thought he was balanced, he drew his wand and breathed out, “Point Me Lucius Malfoy.”
The wand tugged hard to the left, and Draco sped off that way, through an arched doorway that had once led to a welcoming room for guests. It didn’t now, but Draco didn’t pause to look at all the grotesque decorations the Dark Lord had filled the room with and hung on the walls. He bounded, instead, through the secret passage hidden behind a bookcase and down the swirling, bending tunnel beyond, and then into the portion of the cellars that usually held the wine.
That had once held the wine. Now, there were barred doors set up, and Draco waited for a moment, panting harshly, looking around and wondering where the hell his father was. The spell was pointing down the corridor, but there was a swirling mass of magic there, blue and green and threatening, that made Draco hesitant to walk that way.
“Draco?”
Fuck my instincts, Draco thought, when he heard the hoarse voice of his father calling. Yes, it was from beyond the mass of magic, and Draco’s fears melted away to nothing when he heard it. He sprang directly for it.
“Draco!”
Yes, there it was, his father’s hand thrust between the bars. He was staring at Draco in fear, though, as if Draco wasn’t the person he had expected to show up to cut him out of this cage. Draco gave him a smile as wry as he could while he drew his wand and prepared to slice through the chains binding his father to the floor and the bars.
“What are you doing here?” Father whispered.
“Getting you out of here before the Dark Lord can do the same thing to you that he did to Mother,” Draco said crisply, and concentrated as hard as he could before he spoke the more powerful version of the Cutting Charm that he’d studied last week. He had thought he might have to do something like this. “Abscido.”
The nearest chain snapped apart in sheer frenzy, and then the same invisible blade cut through the one on Father’s feet. He stood up slowly, wobbling back and forth. “Can you open this door?” he asked.
Draco nodded, both in answer and in approval. Father had given up on asking what could be dangerous, useless questions until they were both out of here. He had more sense than Potter and some of his friends would have. “Yes.” Draco turned and stared at the door, and let out all the rage that had been building inside him since he first heard about Mother and realized what the Dark Lord might do to Father.
“Absumo!”
The spell roared out of Draco, and he found himself thrown back against the far corner of the cellar wall by the force of the blast as the barred door burst into pieces. He nearly hit his head on a rack that had once held bottles of wine. Draco panted and pushed himself upright with one hand, still shaking his head. He was going to get out of here, and so was his father, and they would go far away and hide behind the spells he had practiced to keep Father safe, he reminded himself. He didn’t have time for a dizzy, aching head or any of the other things that were trying to crowd on him right now.
“Draco.”
He especially didn’t have time because Father was right in front of him now, watching him with eyes that had gone pale with grief. Draco reached for him. “Come on. We don’t have much time. Potter is holding the Death Eaters off right now, and the Dark Lord isn’t here, but he might come back at any moment.”
”Potter?”
Draco reflected that he could have sprung the surprise on his father a little better. But he didn’t have time to explain about the bond now, and he was sort of reluctant to. Father might think Draco could have done better, that a true Malfoy would have found some sort of way out of the predicament of saving his parents that didn’t involve soul-bonding to someone on the opposite side of the war.
“Yes. Come on, Father. Please,” he added, when Father hesitated after all as if he would ask more questions.
Father again showed the good sense any Malfoy was born with and rushed wildly after Draco down the cellar corridor. Draco started back up the secret tunnel he had come down, but Father caught the collar of his robe. Draco turned around, doing his best not to snarl in impatience.
“I know a route that comes out on the grounds,” Father explained. “We’ll be much less visible to anyone who sees us.”
Draco paused only once. Potter was fighting back the way he had come, and Draco wasn’t sure he would know what was going on if Draco went another route.
But it wasn’t as though Draco planned to abandon him here. He was just going to make sure Father was safe first. He would come back for Potter if necessary.
He was a few steps up the new corridor when pure horror blasted through the Occlumency blocks he had up and dropped him straight down on his back. Draco heard Father calling him sharply, and heard even more distant screams and shouts, but he couldn’t keep the horror from holding him there, like chains made of cold water.
“Draco? Draco!”
But Draco couldn’t open his mouth to reassure his father that he was all right. His head turned towards where Potter was fighting, and his mouth opened, and he screamed.
He didn’t know what he screamed. Pain? Reassurance? He didn’t know. But he did know that one minute he was in his head, and the next he was with Potter, hovering in his head, in the middle of his battle.
The battle Potter was losing.
Didn’t Dumbledore say we could do this? Draco thought muzzily, turning his head back and forth. That we could see each other’s surroundings as well as feel each other’s emotions? This is part of the soul-bond, but not one that I knew about.
And then he lost all sense of anything but pain and horror, because the Dark Lord had come through the door of the dining room.
Chapter Eight.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/808403.html. Comment wherever you like.