Chapter Eight of 'The Serenity of His Rage'- Displeased
Chapter Seven.
Title: The Serenity of His Rage (8/39)
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 Eight-Displeased
Voldemort was there.
Harry knew that. He’d known it the instant Voldemort Apparated or Portkeyed or whatever he’d done to the grounds of the Manor, because his scar had burst into pain. Harry had managed to stagger away from the curse Bellatrix was firing at him right then and catch himself against a wall. Then he’d gone back to fighting.
Because what else could he do? Draco was still somewhere in the Manor rescuing his father, and Harry wasn’t going to let Bellatrix escape without punishment when she’d been the reason for Sirius’s death.
But it was hard to make his limbs move the way they should. Harry could feel himself slowing down, exhaustion and pain dragging at him. Even Draco’s excitement that leaped like breaking waves through him-which probably meant he’d found his way to Lucius’s cell or room and managed to get him out-couldn’t give him more energy.
Then Voldemort came through the door.
Bellatrix immediately turned and cast herself flat on the floor, her hair sprawled around her, murmuring something. Harry thought it was all that saved his life. His scar, his Horcrux, was burning, and Voldemort’s gaze was eating him up, and Harry did the only thing he could think of at the moment.
He set Bellatrix’s hair on fire.
Bellatrix leaped to her feet, screaming. She dashed in between Harry and Voldemort, caught the curse Voldemort had been ready to throw at Harry, and collapsed in a heap. Harry turned and ran.
He didn’t know where he was going, which made it worse. But he found himself heading down a flight of stairs and around in a large loop through a corridor that led into two rooms linked together by wide doors, and then up again. There was a big window in front of him, or maybe a set of glass doors, facing into the garden. Harry bowed his head and kept his feet moving. He thought he might be following the tug of the bond, heading towards Malfoy and his father.
If he wasn’t, then he was probably fucked.
His Horcrux scar took fire again. Harry didn’t look back. He knew how Voldemort was feeling and where he was. There wasn’t anything he could do about either of those things. Or the hissing he could hear from behind him, which was probably going to summon Nagini.
Harry threw a Blasting Curse in front of him, and the glass cracked and fell. Harry leaped through, feeling shards scrape along his arms and set the blood flowing. He rolled as he hit the ground, grunting aloud in pain at all the wounds, and then turned his head.
Yes. He knew where Malfoy and his father were, now, the same way he knew where Voldemort was. He didn’t really see Malfoy’s surroundings the same way he used to see Voldemort’s in his dreams, but he could see ghostly, flickering glimpses of trees and walls superimposed on his own vision of the gardens.
A curse streaked past him and hit the ground. Harry twisted to the side, away from it, and away from a cage of blue light that tried to grab him. Then he focused as hard as he could on the memory of winning his last Quidditch match and shouted, “Expecto Patronum!”
The silver stag materialized in front of him, and Harry snapped, “Go confuse them!”
He didn’t have time to say more than that since Voldemort was trying to hit him with the Cruciatus, but the Patronus seemed to understand. It bobbed its glowing antlers once, then turned and bolted in the direction of Malfoy Manor.
Harry thought he saw another curse pass through its body and make it shine like flame before he staggered around the corner of the Manor and almost bumped into Malfoy. He was lying on the ground like a drunk. Harry hauled on him, ignoring Lucius who was gaping at him, and shouted, “Come on, go, run!”
*
Draco reeled. He could see the way Potter was running, but the route kept mixing with his own memories of the Manor and the gardens, old memories as well as new ones, and the mixture made him dizzy.
Then someone pulled on his arm and shouted in his ear, and the bond stabilized. Potter was right beside him, without any more dancing memories to confuse him. Draco managed to lift a pitiful mockery of his Occlumency walls into place and follow Potter. Father was running beside them, glancing over his shoulder.
Then a curse touched Draco’s leg. He knew what it must have been, but he didn’t feel it for a moment. Pain tipped him up and he fell, bleeding. He knew he screamed aloud in despair and hatred.
Potter whirled and lifted his wand. A stone wall materialized behind them, absorbing a few of the flying curses. Draco also heard a smack that made it sound as if at least one running Death Eater had hit it.
“How strong do you have to be to break through the anti-Apparition spells that Voldemort’s put around the Manor?”
It took Draco a second to realize that Potter was talking to Father. Father seemed to take the same amount of time to realize it, and then he shook his head slowly, grey eyes wide. “You cannot. The Dark Lord’s power is too great. Why would you try?”
“Because we don’t have any other option.” Potter cast a Lightening Charm on Draco and slung him over his shoulder, then stuck out his arm while Draco was still trying to deal with seeing the garden from an upside-down perspective. “Come on.”
Draco felt Potter’s balance shift a little as he took Father’s arm. Then Potter said, “All right. All right. I know how to do this. I know-”
With a rumbling crash, Potter’s stone wall fell behind them. Potter didn’t seem to notice. He was still facing forwards, his attention locked on the air above the garden. Draco felt all his determination, all the water in the sea of Potter’s emotions, draw together into a single small, intense ball of water.
A faint thought touched Draco, or maybe it was Potter’s thought, about how heavy water could be when you had to carry it like that…
From Draco’s perspective in the bond, Potter threw the water of his emotions at the Dark Lord’s anti-Apparition spells.
And they broke. Draco saw a flicker of reflected lightning, saw through Potter’s eyes lightning traced in the shape of prisms against the sky, and then it was gone and Draco could breathe more easily.
“Where to?” Father asked, catching them as they fell.
“Hogsmeade,” Potter gasped, and then the world darkened twice around Draco, once in the bond as Potter fainted and once in his sight as Father Apparated them.
*
Severus jerked awake. There was nothing strange about the flaring of his Floo, because of course it had happened before, even during the calmest night. But there was something that made him feel as if this moment was especially urgent.
He noticed two things then. The mutter of pain that always came through his Dark Mark had grown stronger. And his Floo had opened itself, not merely flared, and Albus was shouting through it. “Severus! Severus!”
Severus got up and lurched out of his bedroom, barely managing to pull his robe tied around him. Albus was kneeling on the other side of his Floo, his face pasty. Severus glanced instinctively at the man’s blackened hand, but there was no change in that.
“I have just heard from Poppy,” said Albus, without preamble. “Mr. Malfoy and his father have staggered into the hospital wing. They are bearing Mr. Potter with them. I do not know what Mr. Potter did, and neither of them can properly describe it to me, but I fear he is dying of magical exhaustion.”
Severus didn’t waste time questioning it, although he could feel the fires of wonder and apprehension both burning in him. He turned to fetch the right potions, nodding when he heard the Floo close. Albus knew Severus would meet him in the infirmary with those potions. There was no need to linger and give him more explicit instructions.
Severus did contemplate, as he worked, how Lucius and Draco and Potter could have escaped the actual anger of the Dark Lord. But that was one of those questions that would doubtless have to wait to be answered.
As so many of mine always are.
*
Draco leaned slowly back against the pillows of the bed that Madam Pomfrey had plopped him in “just in case” after she healed the wound on his leg. She was finishing with her examination of Father, and she nodded.
“The bruises and the broken limbs will heal,” she said. “The Starvation Curses will be a bit trickier to cure, but won’t leave any permanent damage. I’ll be back with the potions you need in a moment, Mr. Malfoy.” She stepped away from Father, and flicked a look at Potter as she did so.
Draco looked with her. It was hard to miss that the bed was the center of all the bustle in the infirmary even if you didn’t know who was there right now.
Potter lay motionless on the bed. He was breathing; Draco knew that, because he could just imagine the commotion that would happen if he wasn’t. But Draco could feel nothing from him, nothing down the bond. There was only blank silence, eddying back and forth in his mind. Draco tried to reach out to the blackness.
There was no response. Draco might have had a bond to someone whose soul a Dementor had taken.
“Ah, young Mr. Malfoy. I wanted to speak with you.”
Draco had known he would have to face the Headmaster. He nodded and turned around. Dumbledore sat down on the end of the bed and smiled at him.
“I want to know why you told young Mr. Potter to leave the safety of the school and go with you on such a difficult and dangerous mission,” said Dumbledore, without preamble.
Draco didn’t look in the direction of Potter’s bed again, but only because he knew there was nothing new to be seen there. He shrugged and replied, “I wanted my father out of the Dark Lord’s prison. And I knew that I might never get that, if I stayed with you.”
“Why would you think that?”
Father had once told him that the mightiest of Dumbledore’s weapons was the ability to feign innocence, even hurt. Draco saw it then. He felt the tug of desire to confess everything and admit he’d been wrong, that the Order of the Phoenix members had reasons not to want to protect his father.
But then he remembered Mother again, and the cold rage came back. He’d lost her. Perhaps he’d lost Potter, if the bond couldn’t reverse the damage or whatever it was that had happened when Potter broke the Dark Lord’s spells. But he still had Father.
That meant this had been worth it.
“Because you kept putting me off, and respecting the scruples of people who hated Father more than his life,” Draco hissed. He didn’t care if Pomfrey overheard them. He was sure that Dumbledore would make her swear an oath or Obliviate her or do whatever was necessary to make sure that she didn’t turn against them.
“We had to be sure your father was safe once we had rescued him, my boy.” Dumbledore sighed heavily and looked at the bed where Father was now drinking potions while Madam Pomfrey stood by with her hands on her hips. “You might have rescued him only to doom him.”
“I’ve studied enough wards to transform any ordinary place into a safehouse,” said Draco, and put his chin up proudly when Dumbledore turned to look at him. “You should have asked me whether I could take care of Father. The answer is yes.”
Dumbledore sighed again. “The only spells that could do that are Dark.”
“So?” Draco didn’t understand why Dumbledore thought that would hold him back.
“You could go to Azkaban for some of the spells I’m sure you mean to use, my boy.”
Draco laughed bitterly, and ignored the way that Dumbledore blinked and pushed his glasses up his nose. “And I could have let my father die if he stayed there. I know what you care about. The war, and Potter.” He decided, graciously, that he wouldn’t say anything about Horcruxes in front of Madam Pomfrey, where Dumbledore might have to use a Memory Charm on her. “That doesn’t mean I have to care about the same things.”
“The bond you have to Mr. Potter-”
“Meant he rescued us,” said Draco. “Saved my life. Saved my father. I won’t forget that, but that’s different from not doing all I can to preserve my father’s life.”
“If you go to Azkaban,” said Dumbledore, and his eyes were intent in that unnerving way, “what do you think is going to happen to Mr. Potter? When all he can feel through the bond is your despair and the desire to die?”
“I wouldn’t simply sit there and feel that,” said Draco, which was true. He leaned back and turned his attention again to the other bed. He thought he could feel a faint flicker of response from Potter now as Professor Snape poured the potions down his throat. “Potter can count on me to feel rage and the conviction that I’m innocent.”
From the way Dumbledore frowned, he might have thought there was something to that. “I cannot simply allow you to do whatever you like in the name of protecting your father, Mr. Malfoy.”
Draco leaned forwards and held Dumbledore’s eyes. “Then find something that will work,” he said softly. “Because otherwise, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
Dumbledore seemed to look away from Draco with an obvious effort. “I will speak again to the members of the Order,” he said, and stood. “In the meantime, Mr. Malfoy, I suggest you rest.”
Draco chose to take that as directed to Father, since Dumbledore was partially facing in that direction, and simply looked in silence at the other bed. Father was half-asleep already, probably a consequence of the potions. Professor Snape was still silently working on Potter, using some of his hair and blood with a clear orange base that Draco didn’t recognize to make some specialized potion.
What the hell did Potter do?
*
Harry felt as if he was walking down a dark corridor. He could feel a certain solidity beneath him, and coolness around him. But when he looked up and down, he couldn’t see walls or windows. No light. If it hadn’t been for his sense of touch, he would have thought he was nowhere instead of somewhere.
He thought about turning around and walking back the way he’d come. But that seemed equally useless. He kept simply moving on, and he thought he could feel the floor bending in different directions now and then.
Potter.
The voice was distant, more like a thought than English. Harry chose to ignore it for the moment, while he turned another corner.
Potter. If you do not come out of this and back to the surface of your mind, you will die.
That voice was familiar this time. Professor Snape’s, and it sounded exactly the way it had last year when Harry went to him for Occlumency lessons and he ended up wasting both their time. Harry stopped and considered the ceiling, or what was probably the ceiling if he was in any sort of normal corridor. “Why would I die?”
You’ve exhausted your magic.
“That seems to mean I should rest some more,” Harry pointed out, and then kept wandering down the corridor. He was getting a little bored. He would be all right with coming back to the surface of his mind, he decided, if Snape would show him how to do it.
Using your magic like that weakened the connection between your body and your soul. It is possible that your soul might detach.
Harry paused. “Huh. How can you talk to me right now if I’m mostly a wandering soul, though?”
I brewed a potion which allows me to cross some of the barriers. It is hard to hold on to the connection, and it will probably snap soon. Join me, Potter. Rise, or I cannot maintain the connection to you and show you the path back.
“How do I do that?” Harry looked up, or what he thought was up, and decided maybe it was as simple as wishing that he could float. But when he did that, nothing seemed to change. He still had his feet on something smooth and cold, and there was still darkness all around him, with no growing approach of light.
You must follow my voice.
Harry scowled. Of course he would have to do something to get closer to Snape. “Even my subconscious is in league with Dumbledore,” he muttered.
What?
Harry shook his head. “Not important.”
Like most things you think about, Snape said in immediate agreement.
Harry only rolled his eyes and tried to follow Snape’s voice. But it kept drifting out of reach. One minute he was heading in the right direction, and then things seemed to spin around and send him drifting away. At least, Snape sounded more muffled when he spoke again, and Harry supposed that meant he was getting further away.
You are dying. This method will not work.
Harry swallowed a little. He really didn’t want to die. “Then what will?”
The bond. Concentrate on your soul-bond with Draco. It was meant to move one piece of your soul closer to his. You should be able to at least track where he is with it.
Harry wanted to argue that Dumbledore hadn’t said anything like that to him, but he decided it could wait. He reached out and tried to feel the bond humming in the darkness, thrumming with waves and the sense of walls that he’d felt when he was awake, filled with Draco’s impatience and-
There. There was a direction that felt stronger than the rest, a direction that felt like it had something in it, which most directions here didn’t. Harry floated off the corridor floor and towards it. He could hear Snape saying something else, but this time, he didn’t pay enough attention to catch the words.
The bond suddenly became visible, too, a little point of white light that Harry followed trustingly. Then he began to smell the sea, and when he stretched his hands out, he could feel himself drifting past rough stone walls that were probably the shape of the Occlumency walls Draco had raised around his portion of the bond.
Harry floated through an arched doorway and then suddenly into pain. He gasped and thrashed around, ignoring the hand that tried to restrain him. He almost wanted to flee back into the darkness, because at least there he hadn’t hurt.
Draco’s emotions battered him now, springing around him and spinning him like waves. Relief. One of them was minty-bright relief.
“Hold still, Mr. Potter.”
It was Draco’s relief more than his own desire or Snape’s sharp words that kept Harry still. He managed to lie down flat and close his eyes, telling himself that he’d felt worse agony and ignored it.
Only the agony when Voldemort had tried to possess him, that was true. But because it was true, Harry let Snape flush some thick, sewage-tasting potion down his throat and then cast a spell that made blood flow out of his arm.
“He will recover.”
The next instant, Harry heard another voice. “Harry? Harry, my dear boy, can you hear me?”
Of course I can bloody well hear you. But Harry could just imagine the outraged gasps he would get if he said that to Dumbledore, so he nodded weakly and opened his eyes instead, to find Dumbledore standing over him and staring down at him with a gentle hand reaching out.
“Good,” said Dumbledore. He hesitated, then added, “Can you tell me what you did, Harry? I’ve never seen magical exhaustion quite like that.”
Harry was in the hospital wing, he knew, which meant more than one person might overhear. But he couldn’t care about that right now. He just shrugged and croaked, “I used accidental magic on the anti-Apparition spells.”
“How can one use accidental magic that way?” Snape sounded disgusted. “Accidental magic comes when it will. You cannot command it.”
Dumbledore raised one hand. Harry was glad to see Snape shut up. So there were some things he respected.
“I just thought of what I wanted to happen really hard.” Harry shifted around on the bed and winced. His muscles ached and he was so tired that he wanted to go back to sleep, but Dumbledore sat there and waited, and he had done so much for Harry, like finding the bond for him, that Harry had to continue. “When I did accidental magic the other times, I wanted something to happen more than anything else. So this time, I wanted the spells to collapse. And it worked.”
There was silence for a second, and then Snape snorted. “Are we to believe this nonsense?” he asked of no one in particular.
Harry glared at him a little. He didn’t understand why anyone was even asking Snape. He wouldn’t be satisfied no matter what, so why ask his opinion?
“You should.” That was a voice Harry couldn’t really recognize, and he craned his neck to the side. Lucius looked droopy-eyed, but he was sitting up in another bed, smiling at Snape. “It is nothing more than the application of will and emotion to the problem at hand. Wandless magic, if you will, rather than accidental. Most adults do not manage to apply the magic because they want too many things to happen at once, and our emotions are confused and less clear. But adolescents can sometimes do it.”
He turned and bowed his head to Harry. “Congratulations to you, Mr. Potter. I owe you my life.” His gaze was weirdly intense.
I don’t know if that’s because of the life-debt or because of the bond, and at the moment, I don’t care. Harry yawned hugely and turned over. Maybe someone wanted to scold him for going to Malfoy Manor, but at the moment, he wanted to sleep even more than he wanted to talk to Dumbledore.
He felt something pouring down the bond, though, before he could fall asleep. Harry ignored the sound of adults arguing and cracked open an eye, turning his head.
Draco was staring at him.
There was still relief pouring down the bond, and something else, now, as well. Harry thought it was wonder.
He shrugged back and closed his eyes. He would be glad if this meant Draco lowered his Occlumency barriers a little and they could be more like friends.
But in the meantime, not even that mattered as much as going to sleep.
Chapter Nine.
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