Warnings: Slash
Disclaimer: I still don't own them. (sniffle)
Summary: For anyone who hasn't read Incubus Anxieties, Draco is an incubus, Harry is his lover, and the live together in a flat in wizarding London. The first drabble takes place near the end of June, after they have graduated from Hogwarts. Draco is studying under Snape in order to succeed him in being the Hogwarts Potion Master, and Harry is training to be a mediwizard. That's all you need to know for right now. Dumbledore and Sirius are both still alive.
Important for those of you who did read Incubus Anxieties: I'm going to confuse you. The first couple of these drabbles are flashbacks. A friend of mine said that the ending seemed rushed, and I looked back at the epilogue and had to agree with him. So I am going to go back and expand on some of the things in the epilogue. First, of course, is the fall of Voldemort. Don't forget—Harry's not yet an incubus.
Incubus Drabbles
Drabble #1: Harry's Epiphany
Draco was lounging on the couch, immersed in a book, when he heard the front door close softly. He sat up and watched his lover stumble into the room, reading his body language with concern. Harry's proud shoulders were sagging with despair, his head was bowed, and his vibrant eyes were shadowed. The mediwizard-in-training sank down on one end of the couch and buried his face in his hands.
Instantly, Draco was on his knees, book forgotten as he crawled across the cushions to Harry and wrapped his arms around him. "Oh, Harry, love," he whispered softly.
"There were twelve today, Draco," Harry said in a voice choked with tears. "Twelve. A full dozen."
"Why do they keep bringing them to St. Mungo's?" Draco demanded, his arms tightening around Harry's trembling shoulders. "Everyone knows nothing can be done for a victim of the Killing Curse."
"Well," Harry said ruefully, raising his eyes to meet Draco's for the first time since he'd come home. "I am living proof that it's possible to survive it."
"That's no excuse. You're the only living proof."
Harry shrugged sadly and relaxed into Draco's embrace. "He's got to be stopped."
"Yes. Yes he does." The two were silent for a long moment, Harry's sadness almost tangible. Fishing for something—anything—to try and make it better, Draco spoke up again. "You know you aren't completely alone, right? You worked hard training our friends this spring—hell, even Neville can more than hold his own in the Order now."
Harry smiled faintly. "That wasn't all my doing. Neville grew up a lot after his grandmother was killed."
Draco winced. They were back on the topic of death already.
Suddenly Harry stood, dislodging Draco. The blond looked up, startled, and realized that Harry was offering him his hand.
"Let's go to bed. I want you to make me forget about everything for a while."
Draco entwined his long fingers with Harry's. He stood and pulled Harry against his chest, holding him tightly.
"I can do that," he whispered.
Harry woke in the middle of the night, the searing pain in his scar so intense it made his stomach heave, bringing him perilously close to losing his dinner over the sedge of the bed.
It was happening. He was here.
Harry knew this with an unshakable certainty as he eased carefully out of bed, being careful not to wake Draco. He pulled on a pair of flannel pants, grabbed his wand, and wondered for a moment if Voldemort would be able to get through the wards that Harry and Draco had put on the door.
He felt the faint vibrations in the air and in the floorboards due to a silenced explosion, and smiled ruefully. He couldn't say he was surprised. He pulled his invisibility cloak out from under the bed and gently covered his incubus with it. He wasn't sure how much Voldemort knew about Harry and Draco's relationship, but Harry figured that, if asked, he could say Draco was visiting his mother. Harry was not going to let Draco get hurt in this.
Harry heard footsteps coming down the hall to their room. A moment later a group of dark, hooded figures stood outside the doorway. The leader of the group stepped past the threshold and turned to the others, hissing a stern, "Wait here."
The figure then turned back to Harry and pushed his hood back, revealing the pale, hairless, serpentine face of Voldemort.
He and Harry stared at each other for a long moment. This battle had been nearly eighteen years in the making, and the entire world, the fate of which could depend on its outcome, seemed to hold its breath. Finally, Harry raised his wand and inclined his head slightly to his opponent. That was as much of a bow as Voldemort was going to get from him.
Voldemort mirrored his actions and murmured, "Are you ready to die, boy?"
"As long as I take you with me," Harry replied calmly. He cleared his mind and reach deeply within his magic, preparing himself. Silently, he shot a disarming spell at Voldemort to test the waters. His opponent's slitted eyes narrowed with disdain, but Harry had noticed that the spell had only missed him by a hair. He'd been rather slow on his feet—the physical aspects of a wizards' duel were clearly not his forte. Harry supposed that he should have expected that. After all, Voldemort had only had his body back for a little over three years, and he did not seem to be a morning-jog sort of person. Harry hoped he could use that against him.
Suddenly he found himself instinctively throwing his body to the ground and rolling, attempting to dodge three spells in close succession. This revealed to Harry two things: one, Voldemort unfortunately approved of Harry's idea of unspoken spells, and, two, Voldemort might be slower physically, but he was a faster spellcaster.
Two of the spells hit the bedroom wall by the door and disappeared. When they had first moved in to this flat, Draco had used his incubus magic to armor the walls with an extremely strong spell-absorption charm to keep their neighbors safe if the battle took place in their home.
The third curse, however, actually hit Harry—and to his shock it disappeared as well. It took him a panicked second to realize, with a rush of gratitude, that Draco must be awake and had shielded him. He was relieved that his lover was staying hidden, a silent acknowledgment that this battle was Harry's to fight. As Harry felt his heart warm with love, he had an epiphany.
His mind racing frantically, he tried to comprehend what he had realized in that moment as he continued automatically blocking all sorts of unpleasant hexes. Dumbledore had always figured that the "power the Dark Lord knows not" was the love of Harry's mother but then, when Voldemort had regained his body, he had negated that power by taking some of Harry's blood.
Now, Harry understood that Dumbledore had been right all along, that love was indeed the answer, but not his mother's love—at least not all on its own. It was much, much more than that.
Harry knew what he had to do.
Wand out, he carefully began circling around Voldemort, who copied his moves, not wanting Harry at his back. Meanwhile, Voldemort continued to throw spells at him, which Harry tried to dodge the best he could. Draco's shield-thing was nifty, but he wasn't sure how much damage it could take. He didn't want to risk it collapsing on him unexpectedly.
Once Harry had maneuvered them both so that the back wall was behind Voldemort instead of himself, he did something completely unexpected: he dropped his wand and threw himself bodily at the Dark Lord.
Head down, he hit his shocked opponent in the chest with his shoulder, knocking him back against the wall. Before Voldemort could even blink, Harry used his seeker-fast reflexes to grip his gaunt arms and pin them down by his sides.
"Have you gone completely mad, boy?" Voldemort demanded incredulously.
Ignoring him, Harry closed his eyes and let it all pour through his palms into Voldemort.
Love.
He pictured the web of it that surrounded him. In his mind's eye, he saw himself standing next to Draco, a red cord of love binding the two of them together. Ron and Hermione, Ginny and Blaise, and Dean and Seamus stood around them, all connected in a similar manner.
Each of them were also connected to the each of the others by a blue cord: friendship. Pansy now stood firmly in the circle, arms crossed, on Draco's left, while Neville appeared with his head high on Harry's right, their blue cords connecting them to everyone else.
Connected to Ron and Ginny, Harry saw green cords: the love of a sibling. Fred, George, Bill, and Charlie were now integrated in the web, both as siblings to Ron and Ginny and as Harry's friends.
The web then gained another layer as Molly and Author appeared behind their red-headed children, connected to them—and to Harry, as well—with the purple cord of parental love.
With the addition of elder Weasleys, Remus and Sirius appeared behind Harry, a purple cord attaching them to himself and a red cord attaching them to each other. He knew that Remus and Sirius cared for him, but he was humbled to discover that they felt an actual paternal affection for him.
And, of course, above it all, there was the love of his mother and his father, who had sacrificed themselves for him.
Harry—the orphan who was raised with neglectful relatives—was surrounded by love; he gave and received it freely from many different sources. Tom Riddle—the orphan who was desperate to force his mark on the world—had dismissed the importance of love. He had never been loved and had never given his love to another. This was the power he did not know.
Suddenly, Harry became aware that Voldemort's scrawny arms were thrashing beneath his fingers, nearly breaking lose from his grip. His mind, which had been firmly entrenched in his thoughts until that moment, took a long minute to comprehend that Voldemort was screaming in a pitch that barely registered in Harry's hearing, the neighborhood dogs were howling, and Voldemort was half the Dark Lord he used to be. Literally.
Harry watched in numb shock as Voldemort's body crumbled away into a pile of black dust. As the last of him disintegrated, Harry stumbled back, holding his hands as far away from his body as he could and feeling his stomach roll ominously. When he noticed that his hands and fingers, and oh God, the grooves beneath his fingernails, were caked in black dirt, he fell to his knees and vomited.
Draco was off of the bed and out from underneath the invisibility cloak in an instant. He hit a button on his and Harry's Muggle telephone—an communication system thought up by Harry and Arthur Weasley in case an Order member needed help—and dropped to his knees beside Harry. He wrapped an arm around Harry's shoulders and murmured comforting nonsense in his ear, silent waving a hand in the direction of the vomit clean it up.
"Make it go away, Draco; please Scourgify it," Harry pleaded in a small voice.
Draco knew he wasn't talking about the vomit. "I can't, Harry," he said, agonizing that he had to refuse his love this, but standing firm all the same. "We have to leave it until the Ministry officials get here, so they can prove that he's really gone." He hesitated for a second. "Here, give me your hands. I can at least take care of those." He throughly Scourgified Harry's hands, ensuring that all of the black stuff was gone, even from the creases of his palms and from underneath his fingernails. He didn't care if the Ministry officials yelled at him later—there was no way he was going to let Harry sit there with Voldemort-gunk on his hands. His partner was going to be traumatized enough as it was.
Outside the doorway, Voldemort's henchmen were beginning to get over their shock. Draco heard them muttering angrily amongst themselves and looked up at them with a smirk.
"Are you really so powerless that you can do nothing but stand there now that your master's gone? Are you truly nothing but puppets, motionless if you have no one to pull your strings?"
"You insolent blood-traitor!" screeched a voice Draco recognized immediately as his father's. Sure enough, the Death Eater angrily yanked off his mask and pushed back his hood to reveal long white-blond hair and cold silver eyes. "You are my son, and yet you defy me, defy our cause, defy our blood? You were fortune it enough to be gifted with my coveted incubus gene, and what do you use it for? To be a whore! A slut who is interested only in pleasuring a man with tainted blood such as the Potter boy? And you practically aided in the death of our master, the one who was going to give us wealth and power beyond our imaginations! I disown you, boy; I refuse to admit that you ever once belonged to me!"
"Are you done screaming like a girl yet?" Draco asked with an arched eyebrow.
"Why you...!" Lucius shrieked, seemingly unable to find a word foul enough to describe Draco. Instead, he lunged at the young man he once called his son—which is exactly what Draco hoped he would do. Actually, he'd figured that Lucius would go for his wand first, but this would work just as well. Even better, actually.
Mid-flight, Lucius seemed to smash, face-first, into an invisible barrier. Blood spurted everywhere from a once-aristocratic nose that now bent quite a bit to the left, and looked rather squashed.
In fact, Lucius had smashed into an invisible barrier. Draco had put one up over the threshold when Harry and Voldemort's fight had begun to insure that the Death Eaters didn't interfere—not that the thought had even seemed to occur to them until long after their master died. Being an incubus came with useful advantages, like the ability to perform powerful wandless magic with ease. It was fortunate for everyone on the Light side that Lucius had always concentrated on the sexual parts of his powers and had ignored everything else. He would be a much more intimidating opponent otherwise.
"That was dignified," Draco commented dryly as Lucius sat on the floor and screamed as though his nose had been chopped off instead of simply broken.
Thankfully, the sound of people shouting in the living room cut off Lucius' rant about how he would never be able to seduce anyone ever again, and the man quickly picked himself up off the floor and turned to face the newcomers.
Draco assumed that they were Order members, though he couldn't see them from where he was. They wisely had not come any further than the living room. To do so would require them to come down the hallway, allowing the Death Eaters at the end to easily pick them off.
As it was, the Death Eaters were the ones who were trapped at the end of the narrow hall.
Draco quickly cast a locking spell on the bathroom across the hall so that the surprised Dark wizards couldn't use it as a hiding place. Then, one hand still rubbing comforting circles on his trembling boyfriend's back, he watched to see what they would do. Would they fight or would they surrender?
Not surprisingly, they tried for the middle option: running away. There was a chorus of squelching sounds and the fearsome-looking masked faces began looking around in confusion, clearly not understanding why they were still there.
Draco snickered, bringing their attention back to him. "Honestly, did you really think you could Apparate out of here? How dumb would Harry and I have to be to not put Anti-Apparition wards on our house? You and your precious Dark Lord could have Apparated right into our bedroom, if you'd wanted! No, you can't Apparate in or out of any room in this building, let alone this flat. Sorry, boys and girls."
The cloaked figures turned back to the crowd in the living room, looked around at each other, as though silently conferring, and then raised their wands. Draco snorted with disgust. The fools were actually going to try and fight their way out of it!
Before they even had a chance to twitch, eighteen various spells came shooting down the hall in a rainbow of sparks and colors, and not a single Death Eater was left standing.
Draco snorted again. That didn't even deserve to be called a fight. He lowered his barrier just in time to have Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Tonks, Arthur, Molly, Bill, Fred, and George Weasley, Ron, Hermione, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Blaise, Pansy, and Ginny all rush into the room. All of them were in various states of undress, no doubt having been pulled from their beds by Draco's alarm. The younger group—even Ginny, though she hadn't graduated yet—had become official members of the Order of the Phoenix after school let out for the summer, much to Molly's displeasure. She could no longer stop the ones who had graduated and, though it had taken weeks, they had convinced her that Ginny was just as qualified to be a member as any of them—maybe even more than some of them—and Molly had finally given in.
Now they were all crowded into Draco and Harry's bedroom, staring at the mess on the floor.
"Um..." Ron finally said into the silence, "what is that?"
"It was Voldemort," Draco informed them calmly.
Every single one of them looked ill—even the twins, which was no easy feat.
It was them that recovered first, though, and they knelt next to Harry, one on each side, each grasping a shoulder.
"You did it, Harry," Fred whispered. At least, Draco was pretty sure it was Fred.
"It's over. You never have to worry about him again," the other twin added.
"You can live a normal life now, without looking over your shoulder every step of the way," Ginny told him, standing next to the twin Draco thought was Fred.
Hermione came over and knelt as well. "And you no longer have to worry that you will put Draco in danger," she reminded him softly. Harry looked up at that, into Draco's eyes.
Draco flashed him a warm smile. "And you no longer have to come home from work broken-hearted because of the number of people he has killed. The killing is done, Harry. You ended it." He reached a hand down to his boyfriend, and Harry took it. He then surprised Draco by throwing himself into his arms, nearly toppling him over. He buried his face in Draco's shoulder and Draco held him close.
"You did well, Harry," Dumbledore said then, causing everyone, even Harry, to turn and look at him. "Thank you," the old headmaster added seriously.
Tonks and Kingsley went about tying up the unconscious Death Eaters and collecting all of their wands.
"We should probably call the Minister," Arthur Weasley commented softly as he watched them work.
"Wait," Pansy said when he began to head out to the living room to use the fireplace. He stopped and everyone looked at her. "We should call The Daily Prophet first. You know how Fudge is: he tries to take credit for everything. Wait until the Prophet has the story, then call."
Everyone began talking at once, arguing over what they should do.
"HEY!" Harry shouted suddenly, startling them all—even Draco. Harry barely raised his voice anymore, now that maturity had cooled his temper a bit. Draco's lover fixed them all with a blazing green glare and a stubborn set to his chin. "I killed him so I should get to decide what to do about. Doesn't that seem fair?" he demanded. The debating Order members looked sheepishly down at their feet and nodded. Draco gave Harry a squeeze and grinned at him proudly.
"You tell them," he whispered in his ear.
"Pansy is right; we should call the Prophet first. I refuse to allow Fudge to turn this into his own victory. I strongly believe that Fudge is the second worst thing to happen to Wizarding England—after Voldemort—and I will not help him remain in office. Do any of you know a reporter at the Prophet that you trust?"
"I do," Neville said, speaking up for the first time. "Do you remember how, at the beginning of the summer, Professor Sprout and I discovered that—when well cared for and loved—a mimbulus mimbletonia will actually produce a sweet-smelling liquid that is an effective cure-all for common ailments?" He was met by mostly blank stares, though a few people, Harry and Draco included, nodded their acknowledgment. "Well, we were interviewed by The Daily Prophet then. The reporter they assigned us was very nice and the article was word-for-word what we had told her. I could give her a call, if you'd like."
"Yes, please do," Harry told him. "Meanwhile, I'm going to wash my hands."
Draco took the floo wards off the fireplace, though he left the bell charm on. No sense in taking any chances.
Harry was still washing his hands ten minutes later, when the bell on the fireplace rang, signaling that someone wanted to floo in. Draco told Pansy to answer it, walked into the bathroom, and closed the door. He stood behind his boyfriend, wrapped his arms around Harry's waist, and rested his head against his shoulder. After a few minutes, Harry relaxed back into Draco and turned the water off.
"Are you going to be okay?" Draco asked seriously, studying Harry's expression in the mirror.
Harry's green eyes closed and he hesitated for a moment. "I don't know," he finally admitted.
Draco grasped Harry's shoulders and turned him around so that they were facing each other. He slid his hands down his boyfriend's arms to his wrists, and then brought Harry's hands up. He kissed the palm of each hand gently, lovingly, and looked deep into Harry's eyes. "You're hands are clean," he said softly. "I promise. We both know he had to be destroyed, or he would have just kept killing. You saved hundreds of lives tonight and improved thousands more. We don't have to live in fear anymore, Harry, thanks to you."
Harry's eyes filled with tears and he buried his face in Draco's chest. Draco wrapped his arms around Harry and held him tight as he sobbed.
Pansy knocked on the door, then opened carefully. "The reporter is here," she whispered.
Draco nodded. "We'll be out in a second."
A young reporter with short brown hair and a sunny smile stumbled out of the fireplace, brushing soot off her shoulders.
"Good morning, Mr. Longbottom," she said, cheerfully, as he reached an arm out to steady her. "Good morning to everyone else, as well," she added, taking in the crowd in the living room.
"Good morning, Ms. Scott. Thank you so much for coming out here at," he paused to check his watch, "3:32 in the morning."
"Well, you did tell me it was worth my while. Have you made a new discovery with your mimbulus mimbletonia?"
Neville chuckled and shook his head. "No, don't worry. It's nothing like that. In fact it has very little to do with me. Could we go ahead and take her back to the bedroom?" he asked the rest of the group.
"We might as well," Professor McGonagall said. "Come this way," she commanded, heading towards the hallway.
Halfway down, it was obvious that the reporter was trying to figure out what was at the end of the dark hallway. It wasn't until they actually got there—and people began stepping over sprawled limbs—that she let out an exclamation of surprise. "Are those Death Eaters?" she breathed.
"Yes, they are," Remus responded over his shoulder. "Don't worry; they're out cold," he reassured her when she froze.
The group all piled back into the bedroom and Neville gently nudge the reporter to the front. She stared uncomprehendingly at the black grime that smeared the back wall and the small mountain of gunk on the floor. "I don't understand," she finally said.
"That is what is left of the man who called himself Lord Voldemort," Dumbledore told her solemnly.
The reporter's jaw dropped and she stared at the black stuff some more.
"Where did Harry get off to?" Sirius asked suddenly. "He could do a lot more explaining than any of us could."
"He's in the bathroom," Pansy answered quietly. "I'll go get him."
A few minutes later, Pansy came back in.
"They'll be here in a moment," she told them. Sure enough, soon after Draco came in, supporting an exhausted-looking Harry. The crowd parted to let them through and they came up to stand beside the reporter. Harry studiously avoided looking at the wall, and instead focused on the news writer.
"Hello, I'm Harry Potter. Thank you so much for coming at such an awful time in the morning."
"You're welcome," she said, sounding a bit dazed. "You do realize that this is the story of a lifetime, right?"
"Yes, we do. That's why we wanted to find a reporter we could trust. Neville told us that you were trustworthy."
The reporter flushed with pleasure. "I am honored that you chose me. Oh," she said suddenly, "I've completely forgotten my manners, it seems. My name is Carrie. Carrie Scott."
"It's nice to meet you, Ms. Scott. Would you mind taking your photos now? Then we can move back out to the living room for the interview, where there's a bit more space," he suggested, wanting desperately to get away from the bedroom.
"Oh, yes, that sounds good," she said, unzipping her camera bag. "This will only take a few minutes." She snapped a couple of pictures of the wall and the floor close up, and a few long distance pictures that encompassed the entire mess. "Could I take a picture of you next to the... remains?" she asked cautiously.
Harry hesitated for a moment, then nodded. He stood where she told him, and looked into the camera, determinedly holding his head up and telling himself he would not be sick in front of the reporter.
"Perfect," she told him with a smile after a few shots. Then she went back out to the hallway and began snapping pictures of the Death Eaters. "Do you mind if I unmask them?"
"Here, let us," Kingsley rumbled in his deep voice. He and Tonks went around removing the headdresses of the Death Eaters.
Tonks saw Harry raise an eyebrow at her when the two Aurors began putting their masks back in place after the pictures were taken. "There's no sense in upsetting the Minister more than necessary. He'll want to unmask them himself, and things will go better for us if he believes, for now, that he was the first to do it," she explained with a grin.
Harry grinned back and her and led the way back out into the living room. Draco sat down on one of the soft comfy couches and, when Harry attempted to sit next to him, he snagged his boyfriend's waist and pulled him over to sit in his lap. Thus, Harry gratefully told the entire story from the warm nest of Draco's body, strong arms holding him tightly once he got to the part where Voldemort's body disintegrated.
"And, if I may ask," Ms. Clark said after he was finished, "how did the rest of you know what was going on?"
"Draco called them," Harry explained. "They're all our friends and had promised to help if needed, so once I had defeated Voldemort, Draco called for them to help us take care of the Death Eaters."
"But there isn't a fireplace in the bedroom—at least not that I saw. And owls wouldn't be quick enough."
"Yes, but there is a thing called a telephone in the bedroom," he said, struggling to make it clear to a witch that was clearly pureblood. "It's a Muggle communication device. I was raised in the Muggle world, you know. Arthur Weasley also has a telephone because he loves Muggle inventions. I can connect to his telephone with mine."
That wasn't quite the whole story: it wasn't just himself and Arthur who had a phone. Every single person in this room had one in their house, including the Order headquarters. They were magically modified so that if anyone dialed a certain number code on their phone, all of the phones connected to it would ring to signal trouble, and each person had their own tone. Harry figured that the idea of a telephone would be confusing enough to anyone unfamiliar with the device—he didn't need to make it more complicated.
"Oh..." Ms. Scott said, sounding as though she didn't quite understand, but writing it down anyway. "Well, I think that's all I need."
"Wait, can you get a picture of all of us, please?" Harry asked, standing up and hauling Draco to his feet. "Come on, everyone, gather 'round."
The Order members stood together and took heroic poses for the camera, causing Ms. Clark to grin a bit.
"I want you to list all of their names in your article," Harry said seriously, "and tell how they defeated all of the Death Eaters. Make sure it is clear that it was us who did all of the work, while the Minister of Magic did nothing."
The reporter's eyes lit with understanding, and she smiled and nodded. "Will do," she said, extending her hand to Harry. The two shook solemnly, a promise made. "I want to thank you all again for choosing me to do this story. It is a chance I never dreamed of. I've been in this news-writing business for over twelve years, and I'm still only assigned to do little stories—no offense intended, Mr. Longbottom," she added, and Neville shrugged good-naturedly.
"Well," Harry said with a wink, "it just goes to show that sometimes honesty can pay off."
"Yes," she replied happily. "Yes, I suppose it does. Thank you again, and bye." She tossed a handful of floo powder into the fireplace and was gone.
"Now should I call the Minister?" Arthur asked.
Harry closed his eyes wearily, then opened them again and replied grimly, "Yes. Bring on Fudge."