Chapter Twenty-One of 'The Rising of the Stones'- Full-Scale
Chapter Twenty.
Title: The Rising of the Stones (21/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, mentions of Draco/others and some canonical pairings
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, some violence, soulmate markings AU
Summary: Draco Malfoy has become the Ministry’s best Auror. He executes all kinds of unusual assignments, including one to go after the unexpectedly fugitive Harry Potter. But as he chases Potter down, Draco learns a lot more about what the Ministry has been hiding from the wizarding world than he ever wanted to know-secrets that may impact more than just his ability to arrest Potter. Updated every Monday.
Author’s Notes: This will probably be between twenty and twenty-five chapters. It does involve soul-marks, the idea that soulmates can identify each other by corresponding marks on their skin. However, this doesn’t necessarily promise perfect happiness between the soulmates in question.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-One-Full-Scale
“If we’re going to plan for a rebellion against the Ministry, then we need to do it properly.”
Potter started. It was an annoying habit he’d been doing since Draco had got him inside Potter’s own tent-nicer than his, of course, with sweet-smelling moss on the floor-and Draco was getting tired of it. “What do you mean? We’re not rebelling against the Ministry. We’re only trying to bring the truth to light.”
“I was willing to accept that when it was only de Berenzan being suspicious of you and the Ministry deserving to be paid back for what they’d done to the markless.” Draco leaned on what looked like a wardrobe, or at least something made of extremely hard wood and draped with vines. Who knew, really? “But now he’s attacked me.”
Potter rolled his eyes. “And you take that personally.”
“Of course I do. Didn’t you take it personally when I came after you?”
“No.”
And he didn’t, Draco realized with some dismay, staring into Potter’s eyes and seeing the absolute truth flare in them. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here at all.
Draco stood up straight and made his voice brisk. “Well, not everyone has your policy of letting people alone and not holding grudges, Potter. I won’t forgive de Berenzan for this. When he didn’t have any indication I was plotting against him-”
“But you were.”
Draco whirled around. The heat of anger was boiling in his blood with the heat of adrenaline and the wonder of watching Potter’s magic, and he wasn’t in the mood for Potter to be so stubborn and literal and forgiving. “Stop saying that!”
Potter only looked at him with his mouth turned down. “I don’t know what you mean about rebellion against the Ministry, Malfoy. It seems a little paltry just for losing your job. Do you want de Berenzan out of office?”
In a minute, Draco found a way he could use the heat. He poured it all into his voice. “No,” he purred, and watched Potter start like a nervous cat. “Not just that. I want to see him pay for what he did to me, and you. I want to see him stop acting like an idiot, the way he did by trying to send me after you and thinking that I wouldn’t figure out what he was hiding. I want lots of things.” He paused, but Potter was only gaping at him a little instead of in full flight, and Draco thought that meant he could speak what was on his mind. “You’re just one of them.”
“W-what?”
Draco wanted to roll his eyes. He probably would have, and walked away from this as a bad job, if he’d been any less hot, or Potter’s magic any less impressive. There was oblivious and then there was infuriatingly so.
But he couldn’t let this go. He had tossed the dice, and he was going to do his best to help them land in the way he wanted.
“I want you,” he said. “I first had the thought last night, but it wasn’t a welcome one. Then I watched you fight Henson, and in particular, the way you reacted when you thought he might have hurt me.” Draco pressed a step closer.
“I just didn’t want you to get hurt for helping me. I’d have done the same thing if his target had been Ron, or Hermione, or Hail, or Oatten, or-”
Draco got tired of the list, and stretched out his arms. Since Potter was standing near the wall of the tent-house, it was an easy matter to trap him inside a circle. Potter’s jaw worked as he stared at Draco, and Draco raised his hand to trail over it. Stubble had never excited him before, but what Potter wore looked wild and shivering, and made him shiver.
“It’s an honor to be included among your closest friends and enemies,” Draco murmured. This close, he realized Potter felt different than some other wizards he’d been in such close quarters with, and not just because of the stubble. The power that surrounded him was different in quality than the wand magic Draco knew.
It was more solid, and had an earthy smell. Only appropriate, Draco supposed, for what kind of magic it was.
“I’m fairly sure Hail doesn’t want to date me,” Potter snapped, and stood up a little with his arms folded.
It wasn’t enough to get him out of the circle of Draco’s arms, which was all that Draco really cared about right now. “Of course he doesn’t. But you still included him with me, and once you trusted him. I’m asking you to give me the chance now.”
“But I do trust you. I couldn’t have come this far with you if I didn’t trust you.” Potter’s eyes caught and held Draco’s again the way they had when he’d assured Draco he didn’t take being his Auror target personally.
Enough. Draco was close, and the heat was surging inside him again, and Potter at least wasn’t trying actively to get away. He pressed his lips against Potter’s, lifting an arm to circle his neck when he made a single, panicky thrash.
Potter made a muffled sound, and a struggle, and another thrash. But he didn’t actually conjure stone arms from the ground to push Draco away, the way he could have. He just mostly stood there and returned the kiss as if he didn’t know what else to do.
Draco finally lifted his head with a slow groan, and ran his fingers across Potter’s cheeks. The stubble that quivered under his hands, and the hot shivers he could see making their way through Potter’s muscles, were good enough to make his eyes close.
“Malfoy. What. The. Hell.”
Draco grinned at Potter, totally unrepentant. Even now, he wasn’t wiping his lips with the back of his hand or making disgusted noises. That was good enough for Draco to count it as a victory. “I told you. I wanted you. It has a lot to do with seeing you use magic a little while ago, and how delicate you were.”
“Del-I snatched that Auror up and held him over our heads!”
“And you didn’t crush or damage a single line of his clothing while you did it.” Draco would have tried to crowd Potter backwards while he explained the next idea, but he already had him pinned against the tent wall with nowhere to go. “I don’t-Potter, I can’t remember the last time I saw such finesse and such power working together.”
“But that’s not the same as being attracted to someone or wanting to sleep with them or trusting them.” Potter ran a hand through his hair, as best he could when Draco’s arms largely kept his arms pinned to his sides.
Draco rolled his eyes. “Potter, you do realize that you can be attracted to magic?” He pushed in closer, and sighed as the warmth of Potter’s body beamed over him. “And this is what is, in fact, happening in my case?”
Potter only gave him another blank stare. Draco rolled his eyes again and cupped the back of his head, drawing him into another kiss.
Potter went with it, his body shimmying back and forth as if the winds of his own contrary thoughts were blowing him. Draco thought he knew why. On the one hand, Draco was good at kissing. On the other hand, Potter had Potter objections.
He proved that by drawing back again just as Draco thought the kiss had got going nicely, and gasping in desperation, “But you’re going to regret it!”
Draco took the chance to study Potter, from his wild green eyes to his stubble to the line of his jaw to the way small motes of magic trailed his hands in the air, as shiny grey as pebbles, and smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“But you have to.” Potter sounded so earnest that Draco had to bite his lip to avoid smiling, which allowed Potter to speak. He grasped Draco’s hands and stared into his eyes, shaking his head a little. “You have to think about what kind of-life it would be. I’m a hunted fugitive-”
“By the Minister I want to get rid of, of course you are,” Draco said, with a little shrug, secretly delighted to see the way it made Potter splutter. “And by me. Now that I’m on your side, do you really think that matters anymore?”
“Aurors are still going to come after me, and after you. You aren’t thinking this through, Malfoy. You have so much waiting for you-”
“Not when the Minister was already sending fellow Aurors after me.” Even though they had Obliviated Henson and sent him on his way, with a story about losing Draco’s trail during an Apparition and losing his amulet at the same time, Draco knew there were other amulets out there, and other trackers.
“A career,” said Potter, although his jaw had started clenching, and Draco held back his laughter. “A name.” He hesitated, with the air of someone about to jump off a cliff, and then plunged forwards. “A soulmate.”
“Who I’ve rejected. I know who she is, and she’s not worthy of sharing my life.”
“But who says I am, either?” Potter looked as if he was about to launch into one of his self-pity monologues again, and Draco tossed him an impatient glance. Potter narrowed his eyes and responded in a fierce, firm tone, as if Draco’s look had been a challenge to make it sound good. “You don’t know me. Not really. You know I’m good at magic, and that I don’t have a soul-mark, and that’s about it.”
“I know you from school. I know what your courage is like. And I know how much you blame yourself for things that weren’t your fault. As long as you don’t take it out on me and decide that I need to be blamed or sheltered or protected, I don’t care.”
Draco leaned in until their noses were almost touching and Potter was staring at him in what did look like rapt fascination. “And I notice there’s something you haven’t said, Potter.”
“What’s that?”
Draco smiled a little, lingeringly, at how hoarse Potter’s voice suddenly sounded. “You haven’t said that you want to back off. That you’re not attracted.”
Potter’s eyes blinked and fluttered so fast that Draco would have lost money if he’d bet he could count them. “You-you deserve more than me. It doesn’t matter whether I’m attracted or not. This is about you. It has to be,” he added, almost desperately.
“Why does it have to be?” Draco asked. He thought he knew what Potter would say, but he was interested, just in case it was something different than he expected.
“Because you have a chance at love.”
“I told you that my soul-mark-”
“I didn’t actually mean that.” Potter’s voice was gentle enough that Draco blinked and listened. “I mean that you still have a chance to find someone normal to love, someone who’s dissatisfied with their soulmate, too, or maybe someone whose soulmate died. I don’t know. But someone who has a soul and wand magic and can understand you better.”
“You think that you can’t love people because you don’t have a soul?” That wouldn’t be an unreasonable product of Potter’s illusions, Draco supposed.
“I don’t know if I can or not. But I know that I don’t have much to offer you.” Potter didn’t sound as if he pitied himself. His eyes were large and clear and never left Draco’s face. “This is the future, as far as I can tell. Either here with the other soulless and the rain unicorns who want to kill me and might succeed, or on the run from the Ministry. How can I ask you to join me in that?”
“How can you keep me from doing it?”
Potter looked bewildered at that. “You mean you want to?”
“I don’t understand how you can have such good friends and such strong support from so many people for so long, and then act like it’s strange when someone wants to stand beside you.”
“My friends and the Weasleys were exceptions.” Potter glared at him with narrow eyes. “There were a lot of people who turned on me, too. As I recall, you sometimes played a part in that.”
Draco snorted and placed a hand over his heart, then bowed his head and slid into a graceful kneel. “I hereby apologize most sincerely for my part in spreading rumors that Rita Skeeter published and creating the Potter Stinks badges. Is that enough self-abasement, or would you like some more?”
Potter grabbed Draco beneath the elbows and pulled him up, spinning him around. Now Draco was the one with his back to the wall, and he honestly didn’t mind, not when Potter was looming and huffing in front of him. In fact, he shook a little with the delicious, crackling power of Potter’s magic, which he could feel poised on either side of him like boulders that might fall over and crush him.
“You seem to dislike me. And my magic is the only thing you’ve mentioned liking me about me. Why would you want to be with me?”
“Your magic was the first reason, not the only one.” Draco leaned forwards and put his forehead against Potter’s. The scar he had thought he would feel was so soft and faded that he had to concentrate to locate it. “And I think we can change you being on the run from the Ministry.”
“What would happen if you met someone else you wanted to be with?”
“I could ask you the same thing. It might be even more important with you. If you met someone who did carry a soul-mark that you thought was yours, you would abandon me or anyone else to be with your ‘destined love,’ wouldn’t you?”
Red crushed Potter’s cheeks, and he leaned his head on one arm and sighed. “I would at least want to give them a chance.”
“Right.” Draco lifted his hand and laid it alongside Potter’s cheek, flexing his fingers a little and making Potter sigh in response. “Then we both stand the same chance of abandoning each other. We’ll always take a risk, Potter. I know you don’t believe me, but the soulmates you admire so much take a risk, too. What happens if they fail? Then they have the extra burden of knowing that they disappointed the person who placed all their happiness in them.”
“Unless one of them is a practical person, like you, who doesn’t think their soulmate worthy of them anyway.”
Draco smiled. “Only you would think pragmatism was an insult.” He nudged Potter a little, and made him fall back, letting Draco out of his trapped position against the wall. Then he promptly reversed their positions again, and stroked Potter’s cheek. “You have more questions for me, don’t you?”
“Yes. I don’t want you-to feel obligated to date me, or anything like that. We can work together on getting de Berenzan out of office and the slaughter of the soulless stopped without sleeping together, or agreeing on everything.”
“I know that. This is something I want anyway. You’re going to find, Potter,” Draco went on softly, leaning a little closer, “that I don’t ask for things I don’t want.”
Potter stared at him and swallowed. Then he said, “I’m so afraid of messing this up, you have no idea.”
Draco opened his mouth, and then closed it again. That, he hadn’t expected. “Why?”
“Because this might be my only chance. Someone who doesn’t care about me being soulless or unable to use normal magic, and especially doesn’t care that I’m on the run from the Ministry?” Potter choked and shook his head. “I’m afraid of clinging to you too tightly, of doing too much to keep you, of not letting you have enough freedom or letting you go if that’s the best the thing to do. Even if you chose to reject your soulmate, you still had a choice. This-this is my only choice, now.”
“Another tip, Potter,” Draco said, and tried to keep his bubbling anger out of his voice. “No one likes to be told he’s a last resort. Okay? Shut up and kiss me before you say something else stupid.”
Potter was silent, eyeing him, and Draco was sure that he was going to stay something else stupid, probably how this would never work. But instead, he leaned forwards and gave Draco his own proper kiss.
It was gentle, sweet, piercing. Draco found himself swaying with it, and not even noticing until Potter gently caught him and steadied him. Then he turned and nudged him towards the bed, larger and also covered with moss, in the corner.
And Draco went with it, dazed, and not only because of the crackling and clashing of the magic around him.
A lot more of it had to do with the intensity in Potter’s eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Two.
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