Chapter Forty-One: Holding Their Own
"I don't mean anything personal by it, Malfoy. I'm just saying that when Saturday comes, the Gryffindor team will make the Slytherin team wish they'd never heard of Quidditch. You don't need to get into a snit about it."
Harry rolled his eyes. Connor and Draco hadn't stopped arguing about Quidditch ever since McGonagall had announced that the Gryffindor-Slytherin match would be held as normal. The wild Dark had taken no students since Amanda Bailey, and the Ministry had softened its pressure to close the school once they saw (and actually believed) that. Besides, the Headmistress believed they should continue to live as normal a life as possible, and to many students, Quidditch spoke "normal life" as nothing else could. There would be professors watching on the grounds, as well as students that Moody had trained and wizards and witches who had come for teaching but not departed for their home villages yet. Voldemort probably didn't have enough Death Eaters to defeat that many people even if he sent them all, and he would be an idiot to risk them all in one place after the disaster of the Midsummer battle.
What really concerned Harry—though he wasn't saying it aloud, because he didn't want anyone else to think he was dreadfully worried—was that he wouldn't be there.
Juniper had sent him a peremptory letter on the same day he'd finally informed McGonagall that the Wizengamot had decided the school could stay open. Apparently, the International Confederation of Warlocks had made a decision on the Statute of Secrecy. Harry was to hear the news in private, before it was announced to the British wizarding world at large. Juniper had called it "a gesture of reconciliation." Harry had braced himself to hear that they'd determined every time he broke the Statute was a crime and that he should be locked up in Tullianum. He would refuse to submit to that, of course.
And then politics between Juniper and Harry would become—rather interesting.
But that visit was set for the Saturday of the Slytherin-Gryffindor Quidditch game. Harry had fretted until Draco had reminded him just how many people would stand around the Pitch. He thought the greater danger would come from people trying to surreptitiously hex the players of the team they didn't favor. And, in the end, Harry had to agree.
He had been more inclined to listen to Draco since the Casting of Shadows. He wondered if that was a bad thing or not. At least it wasn't making him interfere in arguments about Quidditch.
"If Harry still played on the team, you'd lose, you know," Draco said mutinously as they drew near the Great Hall. "Don't even pretend that you don't know that, Potter. He's worth more than the whole Gryffindor lot of you."
"Did he tell you that while you were still drunk from his shagging?" Connor muttered. "Or is this from fantasies about being squeezed between 'Quidditch-toned thighs'—"
"I don't want to hear any of this," Harry declared, and pushed past them both to enter the Great Hall alone. He could feel the smoldering glares on his back. The one thing Connor and Draco seemed to agree on was that they both hated anyone who interrupted one of their arguments.
Harry sat down at the Slytherin table and regarded the head table for a moment. Snape gave a shallow nod of his head.
So. He'd perfected the poison that worked through the Dark Marks, then, or thought he had. Harry Transfigured an extra fork into a piece of sausage and used his own fork to eat it nervously. Snape had tested the potion thoroughly on himself and Peter, and even Hawthorn, who had agreed to it, rather surprising Harry. Lucius had watched them with disdainful eyes when they asked and refused to submit himself to it, at least until Draco had a quiet but violent talk with him.
They might be able to poison most of Voldemort's Death Eaters this weekend, in fact.
Harry swallowed his food without tasting it. He knew that this was one of the few offensive strikes they could make in the war—so far, they'd found no way around the curse on the Sword of Gryffindor, their probes at Indigena's garden had revealed more than a hundred different varieties of plant, and there was no way to call up Evan Rosier on command—but it still struck him as risky. He preferred all-out defensive war.
Or maybe I only think that because Snape might not wait until I'm back to use the poison.
Harry shook his head and resolutely attended to breakfast. He could hardly watch every single thing that happened around him and guide it personally. That interfered with the free will of others, in the end. He would go to his meeting with Juniper like a good little diplomat—taking his sworn companions with him, of course, in case Juniper "accidentally" tried to trap him in the Ministry—and trust the others to take care of themselves.
SSSSSSSS
Connor grinned fiercely as he strode out onto the Quidditch Pitch. He could feel the excitement hovering in the air around him, and howling through his body, skimming like a wind along the ribs.
They were going to win.
He felt a sharp satisfaction and joined power that he only felt when he was in proximity to the other members of the Quidditch team. He turned, skimming his eyes over them, and was rewarded with steady nods from their Beaters and Chasers. Ron caught his eye and bared his teeth in what could only be considered a smile because he probably didn't mean it as a snarl.
Connor waved his arm to him, and then turned and focused on the middle of the field ahead, where Madam Hooch stood with the balls beside her and her own leg swung over a broom, her expression stern and forbidding.
Memories of other games tried to intrude: the absolutely magnificent one that they'd played last year, for example, acting and reacting around the balls like one being, or rolling and dodging and curving in an attempt to catch the Snitch from Harry in fifth year, at which he'd failed as usual. Connor pushed them away. What really mattered was the game in front of him, and the win they would have—they would have it, he was certain—and how he would fly, not how he had flown.
The Slytherin team lined up on the other side of Madam Hooch. Connor sneered at them. He could do that. The Slytherins were no longer his enemies because of House affiliation, or because he believed the lies that Sirius had told him. They were enemies simply because they were really bad Quidditch players. They had let themselves become too dependent on Harry's skill as Seeker, and then they'd scrambled to fill the holes last year when he didn't play. And now they were still scrambling, since their best Beater last year had left Hogwarts.
They know they're going to lose, Connor thought, seeing the gnawed lips and the anxiously darting eyes. They can't win unless some disaster happens, and they know it.
He waited patiently as Madam Hooch gave the usual speech that never prevented the Slytherins from cheating anyway, and then Ron and the Slytherin captain shook hands. They were apparently attempting to crush each other's wrists. Madam Hooch cleared her throat pointedly at last, and they let go of each other.
And then the moment came. Connor felt excitement rearing up in him like a wild horse, and crouched a little over his Firebolt.
The whistle.
The balls flying.
And the teams unfolding, opening outwards like a rose, Connor flying precisely where he was supposed to go, and knowing that Ron and the others were going where they were supposed to.
This was going to be one of the good ones, he could tell almost at once. The team danced behind him like a swarm of bees, thinking and doing one thing. The Slytherin Seeker, meanwhile, flew high to look for the Snitch and almost collided with one of his Chasers, who were trying—unsuccessfully—to get the Quaffle away from Gryffindor.
Right on cue, an enormous banner unfolded from the Gryffindor seats, and the roar of a lion rolled out over the stands, not drowned by the enthusiastic hissing from the Slytherin seats. Connor grinned. Parvati had been to enchant the lion's roar, even if Dean had drawn it.
And then he began to look for the Snitch. The first rule was to start in the opposite direction from the one where the Slytherin Seeker was looking.
SSSSSSSSS
Harry entered the Ministry in resignation. He had four sworn companions with him, but that wasn't the true source of the stares. Everyone would recognize him now; the newspapers had been running enough photographs lately, as they reported on the attacks of the wild Dark at Hogwarts and suggested that Harry couldn't do anything about it.
That was true, actually. Harry was only surprised that they seemed to consider it news.
The ride to the Minister's office was silent. Aurors had appeared to accompany them before they crossed the Atrium, and they didn't bother to conceal their tight grips on their wands and their suspicious glares. Harry didn't mind that much, but he had to think determined, glacial thoughts in order to calm the agitation of his companions. Even Syrinx looked as if she expected an attack any moment.
The corridor outside the Minister's office was crowded with yet more Aurors, to the point where Harry wondered if any of them were doing anything else. He still kept his face blank, though, and thanked his childhood training. By the time they reached the office door, he had taken to keeping one hand on Owen's side, low, where it wouldn't be seen. Owen's breathing had at least eased, and Bill and Charlie seemed content to stare hard into faces and memorize appearances for later.
"Enter," said Juniper's voice when one of the Aurors escorting them knocked.
They stepped inside, and Harry nodded. "Acting Minister," he said, wanting to make it clear on what basis he'd approached the other man immediately.
Juniper looked up from behind his desk. His face was more care-worn than Harry had thought it would be. Of course, it would help if he had grown that concerned over important things, instead of assuming that the Muggles were a greater threat than Voldemort, Harry thought.
He did his best to chain his temper. The Casting of Shadows had taught him even more than he'd wanted to know about his own darkness. He could get angry and destroy Juniper in a glorious burst of temper. That didn't mean it was a good idea.
"Harry," said Juniper, carefully emphasizing the lack of a title. "You were told to come alone."
Harry snorted. "Did you truly think I'd obey that order, Acting Minister?" He took another step forward, and then halted as the Aurors drew together enough to almost obscure his view of Juniper, bristling. Harry studied them coldly. None of them were truly powerful, nowhere near Snape's or even Henrietta's strength. Admittedly, that kind of magical power was rare, but it only made it all the sillier for them to oppose him. His magic stirred. He could destroy them.
"This news is only for your ears," Juniper said, as if he imagined that could cut ice with Harry. Harry didn't think he believed it any more, though. He probably thought he had to follow the forms. He shouldn't. It only wastes time and energy—my time, his energy.
"Then send the Aurors away."
Juniper leaned forward, looking rather ridiculous peering over the shoulder of an Auror, and fastened his gaze on Harry. Harry stared back, bored. As important as the news might be, the way Juniper presented it deeply diminished his enthusiasm for hearing it.
"That will not happen," said Juniper.
"And neither will the departure of my sworn companions." Harry's arms itched with the need to fold them, but he refused to express impatience and disdain so openly through his body language. "What is the news that you have for me, Acting Minister? What did the International Confederation of Warlocks decide?"
Juniper sat still for a long moment. Then he cleared his throat and reached for a thick scroll of creamy parchment on one side of the desk. His hand shook. Harry thought the emotion that it made it shake anger. He shrugged, but inwardly felt a small blurt of satisfaction. Perhaps Juniper would finally see that insisting on standard, traditional forms of respect wasted his time.
"They have decided," said Juniper, holding up the scroll so that Harry could see the official, globe-shaped seal on the outside, "that you have broken the International Statute in the past to defend Muggles and wizards against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Such breaches were deemed acceptable because the Ministry's Obliviators managed to contain them." He spat the last words like acid.
Harry gave him a sweet smile.
"On the other hand," Juniper said, and he smiled in turn, "they have also declared that another breach, now that you have attained adult status and are legally responsible for your actions, will be immediate cause for imprisonment in Tullianum. You may still continue your training there, and the Ministry will bring you out for the final battle with the Dark, but you would have no freedom and no other rights." He flung the scroll across the desk like a challenge.
Harry picked it up and read it carefully. Yes, the language was formal and archaic, but Juniper was telling the truth about what it said. Harry laid it back on the desk and pushed it towards Juniper. The Acting Minister stared expectantly at him.
"I don't accept it," said Harry.
The Aurors gasped as one. Harry wondered whether they had fainted when Juniper asked them to deal with the aftermath of Voldemort's poisoned rain in Cornwall.
"You must," said Juniper. "This is not based on personal dislike anymore, nor the whims of an overindulged little boy. You must obey international law, Harry, or the Confederation has the power to raise sanctions against Britain, including denying British wizards the right to travel to other countries."
"I notice that France, Portugal, and Spain all abstained from condemning my actions," said Harry.
Juniper frowned. "Rather. But, of course, those Ministers are in your robe pocket."
Harry snorted. "Wanting to help the British Isles does not equal obeying me, Acting Minister. And I mean this. If it comes to a choice between saving people and preserving the International Statute of Secrecy, then I will choose to preserve lives. And if, after that, you try to imprison me in Tullianum, I will rebel again."
"It will mean that our people suffer—"
Harry couldn't help it; he snarled, and his magic touched his shoulder with a serpent. Juniper shut up, his eyes fastened warily on the snake-shaped patch of air. "Our people are already suffering," Harry snapped. "From fear, from want, from the certainty that some of their numbers are turning to Dark Arts and becoming Death Eaters, since they have no other choice under that stupid law you created, unless they wish to come to me. We are fighting a war, and of course it must be a civil war at the same time. They're longing for a true leader, and you won't give them one. Don't talk to me about suffering, Acting Minister Juniper. I have not seen you take one action that I would credit to the true desire to stop Voldemort, rather than preserve your own political power."
He both felt and heard Owen growling agreement at his side. Harry watched Juniper with narrow eyes, taking in his shocked face, waiting to see what would happen next.
What happened next was that all the lights went out.
SSSSSSSS
Draco snorted. Much as he hated to admit it, the Slytherin team was just as awful as Connor had claimed it was. The Seeker alternated between wild staring about and following the figure of Connor on his broom. The Keeper hovered uncertainly, and now and then darted towards the Quaffle, which usually enabled the Gryffindor Chasers to handily toss the ball past him. The Beaters hit the Bludgers into empty air. And the Slytherin Chasers—that they'd been put on the team at all was simply embarrassing.
Meanwhile, of course, the Gryffindor team didn't just look good in comparison, but actually was good, to the point of flying in patterns that Draco could admit were beautiful, even through his haze of rage.
He shook his head at last and stood, walking out of the Slytherin stands. A few heads turned to watch him, but most people still leaned towards the game, hissing at the Gryffindors and screaming at the Seeker as if they could somehow make the difference between an inferior team and a superior one.
Draco reached the bottom of the stands and leaned his head against one of the supports for a moment, closing his eyes. How in the world was he supposed to be proud of his House when they had a teem like that? Slytherin House shouldn't have only two students to be proud of. He and Harry would leave the school after this year. What would that mean to the Slytherins left behind?
He sighed and turned away, walking towards the edge of the Pitch. At least, if he didn't want to watch the game, he could take over sentry duty. A refugee wizard stood at the edge of the Pitch opposite him, leaning forward with an anxious expression as he scanned the Forbidden Forest. He twitched at every shout from the Quidditch game behind him, though, and Draco knew which way he'd prefer to be facing. Well, proper training would do better than mere earnestness, anyway.
"Here, go watch the game," he ordered. "I'll take your place. I don't doubt it's what you want."
The man turned sharply to face him, probably startled by his silent approach. Draco found himself facing a wizard with large, almost bronze eyes, and dark hair. That in itself wasn't so unusual.
The shimmer around him, another face and body slowly melting into the place of his own, was.
Draco had seen them only once, but he recognized the Yaxley twins. And all his training hadn't been for nothing. He didn't resort to spells that he knew would only bounce from them—if a werewolf's teeth couldn't harm them, almost nothing would—but raised his wand and sent up a bright flare of blue sparks, the agreed-upon danger signal for Moody's wizards.
Nor did he waste time wondering what had happened to the wizard who used to stand sentry duty here. He could see small flecks of blood on the Yaxley twin's hands, and he could guess.
He charged forward instead, meeting those bronze eyes and leaping straight into their paired minds, intent on possessing them. He had no doubt they would be hard to handle, well-trained as they were.
But—well, so was he.
SSSSSSSSS
Harry heard the distinctive snarl of the wild Dark in the next moment, and doubted that this was a coincidence. He flung out his hand—the right hand, the one he still had trouble using—and ignored the trampling around him, the screams, and Owen's attempt to move him.
If what Chalcedony Yaxley had said was true, the wild Dark had come hunting him. It wanted his soul, that distinctive pattern. Merlin knew why, or how Voldemort had managed to interest it so much with Harry's soul-pattern, or what it would actually use a human soul for, but there it was. It had struck where he was, and even stopped taking first-years after only two attacks. Harry thought this appearance had more to do with his presence in the Ministry than any irritation with Juniper.
"Here I am," he called.
The snarl halted. Then an immense, heavy presence alighted softly beside him, like the sound of a jaguar's footfall, and Harry felt jaws open and close gently around his head.
He knew they could crush him. He held still nonetheless. The Dark was not at its time of greatest power yet. That would be Midwinter. And he didn't think it would take him now. Two years ago, it could easily have destroyed him before Midwinter. But it had waited for that time instead, wanting the full might of its magic behind it. The wild Dark was rather like Voldemort, sometimes.
Harry was well-aware that he was trying to make generalizations and guesses about the behavior of a completely unpredictable, inhuman entity. But given that he had no other means of proceeding, he might as well act as if what he believed were true, until he received definitive proof that it was not.
The teeth sank further into his skull. Harry fancied he could actually feel the buckling of bone, the moment when his skull started to give way under the pressure of those fangs.
He waited until that moment, and then he began to sing.
The wild Dark jolted, which made Harry gasp as shocks of pain rang through him from the teeth. But he ignored it, and continued to sing, pushing the phoenix voice through his throat and the blue flame from his hands. He had acquired this gift during his last major battle with the wild Dark. There was at least the chance that the wild Dark would be fascinated with it.
The wavering light of the blue flame, strangely sharp in that absolute darkness, revealed the monster that had hold of him. A manticore. That made Harry breathe a little more easily. If the wild Dark wore the same form in which it had come to him on the walls of Hogwarts, then perhaps it was being consistent enough that he could intrigue it with this.
"Do you know what this is?" Harry whispered. "The voice of the phoenix who died to defeat you."
The wild Dark growled, a little, and made his head ring again. But it didn't hurt him, instead just staring at the blue flame with wide, and, yes, fascinated eyes.
"The second anniversary of that gift is coming on Midwinter," Harry whispered. "It will be especially powerful then, especially significant. But to kill me before then—well, it would rather undo the power and significance, don't you think?"
The wild Dark gave another growl. Harry thought it was considering his offer, but that didn't mean he knew what it would decide.
SSSSSSSSSS
Snape was prepared when the flare of blue sparks arose. No, he had not expected the Death Eaters to attack today, or he would have insisted that Minerva cancel the Quidditch game. No amount of "normality" was worth having children outside with Death Eaters.
On the other hand, he always expected the worst. So that made him better-suited than most to answering the signal. While others still gaped and screamed and scrambled, he was on his feet and on his way out of the Slytherin stands. Regulus trotted to keep up with him, and on the other side of the Pitch, he could see a flurry of motion that was almost certainly Peter.
At least this is an excuse to prevent me from having to watch my House lose in the most absurd fashion. They really had been too spoiled by Harry's presence on the team.
Snape reached into his pocket as he ran, drawing out the flask of blue-green poison. He waited until he reached a relatively sheltered area, just behind a lone tree near the Pitch, and he could see the targets.
Draco, and a whirling, cycling, blurry figure that was likely the Yaxley twins.
Snape grimaced—he was almost sure that his poison would not destroy any Yaxley—but even if other Death Eaters were not here, distance should not be an obstacle. He drew back his left sleeve and uncorked the flask.
Regulus, the idiot, paused to hover over him, while Peter started to move past him towards Draco and the twins. Snape snarled at them both. "Peter is going to be incapacitated in a moment," he told Regulus bluntly. "Bring him back here, and go after Draco yourself."
"But—" Regulus was looking at him as if he should need some protection.
"I am not a student, and I am not your brother." Peter, Snape was relieved to see, not being an idiot, had heard him and come back, crouching down beside Snape to take his arm as he held up the poison. "I do not need your protection. Go to one who does."
Regulus stayed a moment longer, staring into his eyes. Snape held the steady gaze as he poured the potion over his Mark.
Immediately, he felt the poison dive, and start burrowing through his arm, looking for evidence of the Dark Lord. He barely managed to take his wand in his right hand and cast the proper spell that would use the Mark as a conduit to the Marks of other Death Eaters. Then he bent double with both the pain and the dizzying impressions of the journey.
He was content to hear Regulus's footsteps pounding towards the Yaxley twins. At least he overcame his bout of sudden idiocy.
SSSSSSSS
Harry began another song when he felt the teeth careening inward, this time one of pure triumph and joy. The wild Dark paused at the sound of it, and then Harry felt it quiver—this time, a motion that did not transfer itself to him—like a struck bell.
And then it was gone, and the darkness lifted, and Harry could see the office and the Aurors, all crowded near the far wall, and Juniper, frozen behind the desk, again. At least, he could see them over the shoulders of Owen and Syrinx and between the bodies of Bill and Charlie, all of whom had gathered very tightly around him.
"You're bleeding," said Juniper, breaking the silence and winning Harry's internal award for the most inane comment that a situation like this would ever need.
Harry snorted and raised a hand to trace his skull. Yes, there were rather a lot of bleeding wounds along his scalp and the edges of his face, some of them quite deep. He shrugged. He would live.
"I hope that you can at least see why I won't go to Tullianum," he said. "I have more important problems to worry about, Acting Minister. The wild Dark is one of them, since it's allied with Voldemort."
Juniper's eyes narrowed slightly. "That's impossible. The wild Dark serves no mortal wizard."
"No, but he can entice it." Harry found that he was a little dizzy, which annoyed him. He shouldn't be dizzy, not right now. He yawned, and then leaned against Owen's shoulder so that he didn't fall down. "And that's what he's done, and that's what I'm dealing with. I don't have time for Tullianum."
Juniper looked as though he couldn't countenance that. Harry didn't know why. The world was rather dark and blurry and warm, and it seemed so easy to follow the sliding of the warmth into sleep. He felt Owen's arm come around him to catch him and stop him from falling to the floor, so that was all right.
SSSSSSSSSS
Indigena came in reluctantly on the Gryffindor side of the Pitch. For one thing, she thought it stupid of her Lord to send only four Death Eaters, even if three of them were his strongest.
For another, she'd been ordered to watch over Feldspar.
Her nephew looked worse than ever. Long nights of torture, and long days of infiltrating the Ministry and making Aurora Whitestag believe him, were taking their toll. Every few steps he stopped to take a breath and then cough out blood. Indigena closed her eyes in silent disgust.
All Feldspar would have had to do to avoid torture was present a brave mask around their Lord. Yes, he would still have had the hard task of the Ministry, and he would still have had to watch his words, but his tasks were no harder than many Indigena had accomplished, and easier than nursing her wounded Lord back to life. And watching their words was something they all did.
Instead, Feldspar let his eyes roll at inopportune times, and whinged about going to the Ministry when their Lord was already maddened over losing Hawthorn. It was simply infuriating that Feldspar wouldn't realize his cowardly behavior couldn't win him any favors here.
Now he sagged forward with a little sigh as they came up behind the Gryffindor stands. "I'm tired," he whispered.
Indigena stifled a deep flare of irritation. And then she looked up and saw Connor Potter sweep overhead on his broom, abandoning the Quidditch game, and an idea came to her so suddenly that she could only blink for a moment.
She seized Feldspar's arm and shook him. "Stand up and fight," she hissed into his ear. "Do you know what our Lord will do to you if you don't? We came here to take hostages. So take them." She gave him a violent shove forward. He uttered another sigh, but dragged himself to his feet.
And then he saw Connor, and lifted his wand.
"Not that one," said Indigena, drawing her own wand. "Our Lord doesn't want him harmed." Connor had seen them and was circling in low. Indigena was grateful for the stubborn courage that, difficult though it made protecting Connor sometimes, would draw him close when needed. "Choose someone else. I'll take him, but he has to be handled carefully, and you aren't capable of that." She made a vague circling motion which Feldspar could take as the beginning of a binding spell, if he wanted.
He did, and, as Indigena had hoped would happen, the pride he had hidden behind the cowardice flared up. He had not believed that the honor debt would ever matter, and then, when Voldemort had taken Indigena, he had not believed his reckoning would ever come. He believed the world owed him things, and he reacted to any misfortune with indignation, when he wasn't reacting to it with fear. He pushed at her arm, knocking her wand aside, and shook his head.
"No," he snarled. "If he's that important to our Lord, I'm taking him myself."
"Feldspar." Indigena let true alarm enter her voice. "Don't—"
But he'd already turned and aimed his wand at Connor, who was now lying on his broom and probably about to try his compulsion.
Indigena aimed her wand at his back immediately. She had the perfect excuse for destroying her troublesome nephew now. Her Lord did not want Connor Potter harmed. That was very important. Indigena would become a little "enthusiastic" in her hatred for Feldspar and her desire to protect Harry's brother, and Voldemort would accept the loss in return for keeping said brother alive.
Instead, though, Feldspar collapsed before any spell of hers could touch him, screaming and clutching his left arm, and writhing on the ground. Indigena stared at him, then stared at her own left arm. Come to think of it, she had felt a spark of pain there, but it had faded at once.
She pulled Feldspar's robe away from his arm, and shook her head at what she saw. For some reason, the Mark had dissolved into a pile of blue-green goo.
Indigena blinked a few times. They found a weapon against the Mark? They must have. And it can't hurt me—probably because it works with a human structure of flesh and blood and magic, and I am hardly human anymore.
Of course, if it had hit Feldspar, it might have hit other Death Eaters. Her Lord would be watching his followers fall about him, and not know what had happened. He would be alone, unless the weapon could not hurt the twins and they had already Apparated back to him. Someone had to take him the news, describe what had happened, and protect him from his enemies just in case this meant Harry had found the burrow.
Yes. Of course someone did.
The fact that it got her away from the battlefield without having to hurt anyone else made a sweet taste fill her mouth, but that, Indigena decided, could stay between her and her honor.
Just as several people made themselves annoying by trying to fire curses at her, Indigena Apparated home to comfort her poor defenseless Lord.
SSSSSSSSSSS
Draco found himself charging straight forward, skimming down a tunnel so slippery with defenses that he almost slid out the other side before he could stop himself. He coiled back and turned to face the body that waited on the other side of the twin who stood in their world. If he could control that second body, perhaps he could make it return earlier and replace the bronze-eyed one.
The mind was watching for him, though, sensitive to the presence of anyone in him who wasn't his twin, and he rose in battle.
Draco found himself assaulted with images of blood and sacrifice. The twins tore off faces like masks. They bent and fed from the opened stomachs of their victims, then drew out the scraps of flesh and braided necklaces that they hung around their throats with murmurs of various incantations. They raped without much passion, more interested in what they could gain from the act—the victim's horror and rage made a strong component in several spells that could further extend and preserve their joined lives, and keep open the gate to another world—than in the satisfaction of sex. They knew lives of lightless knowledge, which to them was joy, but which would make most other people run screaming from them.
Draco did not run screaming. He had seen awful things in his years with Harry. And these were only pictures of acts that were past and could not hurt him. The twins' images of sacrifice did not compare to the reality of a basilisk about to bite him, for one thing. He continued pressing forward, sinking himself into limbs and flesh, dodging past the grasping claws of the twin—Sylvan—which always stabbed behind him and then behind him again.
Seeing that would not work, Sylvan used the images of what they would do with Draco's body once they had it. They would rape him. They would shred him. They would abduct him into the world where their second body waited, and he would go mad from the sight of what was found there.
Draco might again have managed to ignore those, but the images of rape were too much.
They couldn't interfere in a joining ritual like that. He and Harry had passed the Casting of Shadows. They belonged to each other, and no one should dare to interfere, even if it was only in a joke or an image that was designed to scare him away from a specific action.
He drove forward, screaming in pure rage, and Sylvan retreated in front of him, unnerved. He called to his brother, and Oaken replaced him, ducking into the world beyond the gate, while Sylvan and Draco burst back into the wizarding world.
That gave Draco more impetus to seize control of the body and manipulate it like a puppet, not less. He was closer to his body now, and he knew that Sylvan would hurt him if he could. When he could feel the limbs surrendering to him, he set out to break the connections that bound the twins together, shouting out incantations backwards, making Sylvan draw his wand and pass it through the air in motions that would undo the effects of some of their sacrifices, and controlling the impulses to Apparate away or hurt Draco's body.
Then the scene changed into the swirling milky nothingness of the other world, and Draco realized that Oaken must have switched them out again, pushing Sylvan's useless body back into the second space while he hunted Draco.
Draco smoothly gave Sylvan the command to Apparate to Voldemort, and drag Oaken with him, while he jumped out of both minds and hurried back along the sleek tunnel to his own body. It was too bad that he couldn't give them the command to be sick all over Voldemort's boots, but there were limits.
He opened his eyes in time to see the terror and rage on Oaken's face before he vanished. He clucked his tongue. Just because they never had anyone start to undo their spells before doesn't mean that it wouldn't happen someday. They should have been prepared.
A flash of gold traveled past him, and Draco snatched it out of the air before he could reconsider. Then he felt the fluttering of tiny wings, and knew it was the Snitch.
Laughing, he turned to consider the Quidditch Pitch. Though people milled everywhere, and the professors were herding students back to the school as fast as they could, he could see no casualties other than the one wizard the Yaxley twins had slain. Voldemort had sent his most powerful servants, sure that they could not be defeated, and look where it got him.
"Good work," Regulus Black's voice said from behind him.
Draco turned and nodded to him in a familiar fashion. "Cousin. Thank you. Is anyone wounded?"
Regulus shook his head. "Not that I can see. Of course, Severus was trying to poison the Death Eaters, and I don't know if that worked." He looked anxiously over his shoulder towards the Slytherin stands, and Draco smiled to see Snape standing, with his arm around Peter's shoulders, and giving Regulus a look that clearly said he had been an idiot to worry. "I don't think there were that many Death Eaters here," Regulus continued. "Or else the poison did work, and they all died before they could attack."
Draco nodded, and held up the Snitch between his fingers, careful to hold it fast so it didn't escape. "Shall we see if we can get Slytherin credit for winning the Quidditch game?"
Regulus gave him a kind look. "We were behind by so much that one hundred and fifty points wouldn't matter."
Draco rolled his eyes. "Right. I forgot." He tossed his hand open, and let the Snitch fly away again. Then he began walking the edge of the Pitch, trying to see if his impression was true and only one person had died.
His heartbeat quickened when he saw the small group of people helping someone up the Hogsmeade road, and more when he realized the group was Harry's sworn companions. He ran towards them, and Owen, who was floating Harry behind him with a Levitating Charm, nodded to him.
"The wild Dark attacked him," he said, and sighed. "He fainted from blood loss, but we thought we should bring him back to Hogwarts instead of trusting St. Mungo's." Then he eyed Draco, and his expression changed. "What happened to you?"
"I'll tell you later," Draco murmured, his eyes locked on the sleeping Harry. Holes around the sides of his scalp and face, looking like fang marks. He kept from shaking his head and rolling his eyes. We both held our own, it looks like. We can be grateful for that much. He finally managed to satisfy himself that the wounds were minor, and looked back at Owen with a faint smile. "Today was a day of excitement no matter where members of the Alliance of Sun and Shadows went, it seems."
