Thanks for all the reviews, those of you who bothered! Luckily for you, I
am too discouraged today to solicit more reviews. More would be appreciated
(as long as I don't get another one telling me to buy a Latin dictionary),
but vicarious internet person expects nothing. Maybe I'm just depressed
about finishing my story, my project, my baby. Hope you enjoy it as much as
I enjoyed writing it.
Disclaimer: Have I told you lately that they're not mine?
Chapter 14: Sacrifice and Solitude
"May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong. . . May your heart always be joyful, may your song always be sung. May you stay forever young."
Bob Dylan, Forever Young
As soon as Harry had disappeared through the great doors, Lucius ordered his guards to leave them, then he advanced upon his slender child and took him captive. This time Draco permitted the unwelcome invasion and tolerated Lucius' wondering hands bruising him, his blunt fingernails scraping against his back, his fingers harshly gripping his delicate organs, his fingertips brutally pinching soft cheeks. Draco grunted in surprise and pain as he felt cruel fingers plunge into and invade his body, then his mouth was covered in a harsh, possessive kiss. "You ARE mine," Lucius hissed, mouth smeared with Draco's blood, from where he had bit down into a soft lip. "Whatever you say, whoever you whore yourself out to, you will ALWAYS be mine."
Draco permitted the invasion, for the moment, keeping his emotions and reactions tightly reigned in, his eyes fixed on the orb that showed Harry getting into the magical elevator. His father brutally forced his fingers further into him, and he could not help but clench tightly and gasp in pain. He was twisted around and shoved him against the giant throne, its blunt wooden arm biting into his stomach. He felt his father's body pressed into his body, and he compelled himself not to resist, waiting for the globe to reveal Harry's safety. He registered his father's fingers again, moving, but not prodding into him any longer, ripping down his pants, then he felt a foreign body pressing into him. There were no candles surrounding him now, so there could be no purpose in the rape other than the demonstration of power and domination. Draco heard, somewhere in hall, his mother's thin voice begin to sing, in an eerie, warbling manner. He watched Harry leave the elevator and walk into the departure hall, feeling more detached than he had ever been from what was happening to him. He didn't let himself feel the pain, physical or psychological, and though part of his mind was screaming that it was happening again, the other part accepted, calmly, calculatingly, that, yes, it was happening again.
His father forced. into him, piercing him, ripping through his guardian ring, tearing through yielding flesh and muscles; Draco saw Harry stepped into an enclave, ignoring the shock and agony as his body registered the brutal assault. With his father's cock buried deep inside him, now rapidly thrusting and stabbing, he watched Harry depart to the safety of a red phone booth somewhere in London. Now, finally, it was time to fight.
"GET OFF ME, YOU FUCKING MONSTER!"
Draco let go of his steely self control and welcomed a rush of uncontrollable rage and adrenaline. He bucked violently and suddenly, taking his father by surprise and throwing him off. He whipped around and hurriedly yanked up his pants in time (pain radiating through him) to straighten and take the brunt of Lucius' renewed attack. "How dare you, you little shit!"
Draco didn't waste his strength by replying, as he struggled against the bigger, stronger man, trying to keep cruel hands from reaching his body; but it was hopeless, as his father used his greater bulk to pin him against the side of the throne. Draco, however, was too far gone to accept obvious defeat, even when Lucius had each wrist in a vice like grip, painfully grating his bones. He tried to kick out, but Lucius' weight was crushing his pelvis, and still the berserker rage would not give up. He head butted his father, breaking his nose with a satisfying crunch. The move didn't get his father's weight off him, but it jerked the bigger man's head back, spewing curses, and Draco lunged forward on instinct and sunk his teeth deeply into the jugular artery pulsing on the long neck. Blood spurted and Lucius tried to wrench away, but Draco bit down harder and didn't let go. His father's body began to twitch, then it collapsed backwards, Draco falling with him, on top of him, still latched to his neck. When the body stilled, Draco pulled up, ripping away the flesh gripped in his canines, mouth filled with and dripping blood. Only then did a semblance of rationality begin to return.
He struggled to his feet, shaking from the adrenaline rush and spitting out the bits of flesh in his mouth before wiping the blood on his sleeve. He took a quick look at the globe to confirm that Harry was not in the Ministry and he was greeted by a view of busy London streets. Then he turned to his mother, who was platting her hair into tiny braids. "Mother. . . Narcissa."
Narcissa looked up at him with a curious but rather vacant expression on her face. Draco would have felt sympathy, but he had once again locked up his emotions in favor of doing what had to be done. "I'm going to kill everyone and destroy this place. Do that alone spell you always do and you should be alright. Mother! The alone spell! And stay there for as long as you can."
Actually, the spell had a long technical name, but his mother had always called it the alone spell, because she did it when she wanted to be alone (which was frequently). For her purposes, the spell was absurdly powerful, blocking everything - light, energy, magic, material, sound, what have you - from entering or leaving the mirror-like sphere that would surround the caster; but it suited the needs of the present perfectly.
Narcissa began mumbling the spell and soon she was hidden, leaving Draco looking at a rounded reflection of himself. He was filled with such self loathing that he felt slightly nauseous and had to repress the do something violent and pointless. He had a mission to complete.
He briskly and determinedly stalked to his father's corpse, the kneeled down to dip his hands in the bloody wound. He smeared the blood across his forehead and across his cheeks, in two parallel lines, then he coated his hands completely, making them like dark gloves. Finally, he stood and strode into the middle of the hall, if just for a greater sense of importance. He straightened his posture and closed his eyes, then chanted in a strong voice, "Io grannae Thee per liberia el energia mortarial che entre tuto. Poi, io te offrir mia vivo et el vivo di mio haine, per el balancia."
It was ancient magic, as old as the sex magic that had for over a decade marked Draco's life, and as old as the love magic that had saved Harry Potter, and as old as the familial magic that still protected him. Such ancient magic was so rare and forgotten that it didn't even need to be outlawed, so ancient that it preexisted wands. In a handful of rare and archaic texts (one of which resided in the Malfoy manner, another of which resided at Snape Manor), this spell could be found under the category of hate spells - spells that drew their power from hate, and could not be done in its absence. The translation provided for the spell read, "I beseech You to set free in me the destructive energy that resides in us all. In return I offer you my life and that of my most hated enemy, so that balance will be maintained."
The spell required the blood of the caster's most hated enemy (indeed, it was warned that the blood of someone else would kill the caster without achieving the desired effects). The blood was to be smeared onto the face in two parallel lines, indicating two balanced deaths, and to coat the hands, where the energy would be released. For obvious reasons, the spell had never been widely used - firstly, one had to have killed one's most hated enemy, a point that usually negates the need for such a powerful spell; and secondly, it was a spell that killed the caster. The spell released the caster's life force, killing everyone within a large radius, and it did so completely, leaving a body without the energy to breathe, or to even have a heartbeat. Draco had no idea what the implications of being a Giver would be - he hoped it meant that it wouldn't kill him, but he doubted this; and besides, he hoped more that his condition would make his radius longer and his energy more destructive.
Draco's head fell back suddenly, instantly, as he felt something inexplicable, but very basic, be torn from him. His arms shot up of their own will, from the force of the energy flowing out of him. In a fraction of a second the feeling went from having his life torn out of him to having it cascade from him, as though eager to escape. He felt the ground shudder beneath his feet, and he opened his eyes fractionally to see, through a veil of long eyelashes, the wall in front of him crumble in a sea of blinding light. Then it stopped. The entire experience, including the chant, had taken a total of fifteen seconds.
For Draco, everything was still - he could hear nothing, not even the beating of his heart, not the collapsing walls, and he could feel nothing, not even the rising and falling of respiration. His vision went blurry and he fell backwards, though he could barely feel his impact with the quaking marble. Actually, he didn't think it at all a bad way to die. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was the curious face of his mother peering down at him.
*
Harry had been sitting just a short distance from the red phone booth that had led him from the Ministry of hellishly evil Magic. He didn't know what else to do, and he refused to simply go away. He would wait for Draco to follow him out or to come to him in some other way, or at least for some sort of sign, but he would not simply leave him down there. So he would wait impatiently for whatever he would deem was a reasonable amount of time, then return to the pit of horrors to find his love. Danger and death were of no consequence.
However, Harry didn't have to wait long for a sign. It was well within the amount of time he had decided to give Draco when he felt the ground lurch below him. He was sitting in a Burger King across the street from where the Ministry actually was, but he immediately ran to the door and pushed his way out onto the street. People started screaming as huge section of the road suddenly receded into a deep indentation, and Harry was thrown onto his butt, where he watched in horror as several buildings on the other side of the road collapsed, crushing people and cars. Harry struggled to his feet and grabbed for his wand, only to remember that it was gone. He tried to move towards the chaos - to somehow help - but between the panicked people and the rumbling ground, he had a hard time of it. His mind felt as chaotic as his environment and time seemed to stretch, and he watched building crumbled and lives be crushed as in slow motion.
Within forty seconds, a large section of the block had been reduced to rubble, but all that was likely to cave in had done so. People were standing around, shocked, some sobbing, and the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. Some people, like Harry, were trying to help others from under crushing debris, but there was probably no one else who had any inkling of what had happened.
Harry felt numb, acting automatically, a horrible sense of understanding pervading him. "Oh Draco, this was your plan?," he mumbled. How many people had died because of this? Were the deaths of all these muggles worth the deaths of all those death eaters? Were they just the casualties of war? He struggled to lift a chunk of cement off a small boy, though he doubted the child was still alive.
Finally, the police, ambulances, and fire engines arrived, taking over for the civilians and forcing everyone else to stay away from the site. Harry, dirtied with blood (not his own), sweat (his own), and dust, finally allowed himself to collapse tiredly onto a curb and began to cry. "Draco, Draco, Draco," he blubbered angrily, cradling his head in his hands. "What have you done? I trusted you. You said you knew what you were doing, but I never would've let you do this if I known. You didn't even save yourself."
A great wail of grief was ripped from him, his own words stabbing him where it hurt the most: Draco was dead. It hadn't taken him very long to implode the Ministry, but there was no chance that he had also had enough time to get out alive. Besides, he KNEW. In his guts, in his heart and soul, he KNEW that Draco had intended to die. It was why he had told Harry that he loved him. Harry felt betrayed - Draco was supposed to live and be his lover. That was the way it was SUPPOSED TO BE. HOW COULD HE ABANDON HIM LIKE THIS? Harry was the one who was supposed to die. He had never wanted Draco to die for him, he wanted Draco to live for him. This was the worst possible outcome - him alive and alone, and Draco dead. Because of him. He felt guilty and betrayed and alone and in unimaginable agony. It wasn't supposed to end like this.
A dumpy, motherly woman sat down next to Harry and tried to comfort him, but Harry would have none of it. He stood and ran. And ran. He ran a long time before exhaustion overcame him.
*
Destroying the Ministry, Lucius Malfoy's stronghold and headquarters, accomplished what killing Voldemort hadn't. Lucius Malfoy himself and over a thousand of his most dedicated and competent supporters had been killed that afternoon, most of them by incineration, as well as thirty seven muggles (none of which had been incinerated). The only surviving wounded were muggles. The muggle world declared the catastrophe an act of terrorism and blamed it both on Israeli and Palestinian extremists, depending on who one listened to. The extensive use of magic and no small feat of political manipulation managed to cover up the existence of the Ministry.
In the wizarding community, most of the remaining known death eaters either went into hiding or were hunted down and killed. A small few survived long enough to go to Azkaban. There were isolated outbreaks of violence, but for the most part, the resistance from death eaters and their supports was minimal. It was one thing to cut off the head of the dragon, and something else entirely to then chop its body into tiny bits.
No one knew what had happened, not really, and Harry wasn't inclined to tell. He thought, quite correctly, that Draco would rather not have his story told, and, in any case, Harry had no desire to tell the world of his love and his shame. There was, however, a persistent and prevalent rumor that placed Harry at the scene of the catastrophe and, by extension, it was assumed that he was in some how responsible for the defeating the Dark side. Harry always declined to comment on such rumors, maintaining, quite unbelievably, that he had nothing to do with the incident. But people knew. There was also some talk, first begun by a handful of remaining Aurors, that the cause of the Ministry's obliteration was some archaic hate spell - but it was widely agreed that the spell was not destructive enough to do the devastation that had been done. Though perhaps if the great Harry Potter had been the caster. . .
Slowly, efforts were made to restore the wizarding world to its former sanity. Dumbledore was named Minister within days of Minister Malfoy's death and his popularity was considerable. Masses of wizards and witches voiced their support and confidence by coming out of hiding and returning from abroad. Hogwarts was even due to reopen with a few weeks, with Minerva McGonagall as acting headmaster. Until then, Harry was staying with Ron at the twins' place (above their joke shop in Diagon Alley). It was rather crowded, as Ginny was staying there too, neither her nor Ron wanting to live at the Burrow by themselves. It was a slightly strained arrangement, as it was obvious that Harry was hiding something, besides which he was severely depressed, but the Weasleys were generally too spirited to be much bothered by this. Ron had tried to talk to him about it a couple of times, but ultimately Harry's moroseness convinced him of the truth of his words, "Drop it, Ron. Please. You don't want to know and I don't want to tell you. The past is over."
In truth, Ron was hurting too, what with the recent death of his parents, and he very much sympathized with Harry's desire not to have to talk about it. So he tried to fix him in manly ways - they played Quidditch with the twins, they experimented with almost every single 'joke' in the twins' supply, he let Harry show him around muggle London, though the last was an activity that somehow seemed to make Harry wistful and pensive. His mood improved moderately after buying another wand, though it wasn't as distinctive as his first.
Harry had only been there four days when Hermoine arrived. It was exactly a week since the collapse of the Ministry. With the end of the war, and Dumbledore's ascension to power, more official channels were dealing with the orphaned and displaced and Hermione was eager to get back to her boyfriend - though there was some noticeable awkwardness between her and Harry, simply by virtue of the fact that they shared a terrible secret. And neither of them had ever been able to relieve themselves of the guilt associated with that secret. Especially not Harry. Their first conversation alone went as follows:
Ginny had gone to bed earlier, but the twins and the trio had stayed up drinking, supposedly to celebrate Hermione's arrival, as well as the defeat of the death eaters (though the latter had been celebrated ad nauseum). Eventually, the twins went to bed, knowing that they at least had to get up to work the next day. Ron stumbled to bed and passed out not much after that, leaving Hermione and a very drunk Harry Potter sprawled on the couch.
"So what happened to him?," Hermione asked, direct as always.
"To who?," Harry automatically replied, his drunken brain on autopilot for the moment.
"You know who I'm talking about." Now her eyebrow was arched up, and the look was so familiar that Harry's face bunched up in a sudden effort not to cry.
"He's dead. It was him who did that to the Ministry and he was inside when it happened." Harry covered his eyes with his palms. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry.
"Oh," was the only reply Hermione could give for a long moment, but she couldn't help but feel a wave of gratefulness and indebtedness. Draco had taken Harry's place in dying to save the world. Suddenly she understood. "You think it should've been you."
"It shouldn't've been either of us. He wouldn't've been in the Ministry if it wasn't for me," Harry whispered guiltily.
Hermione did not envy him his predicament. "I don't know what to say. It could've happened to a better person. Better him than you." Oops, wrong thing to say. She wasn't usually so tactless, but then again, she couldn't have known of Harry's attachment to his victim. She had also suffered under the impression that their recent trip into the shady side of morality had given her a certain right to be tactless.
But now a rather drunk Harry was standing in front of her, glaring down at her, his fists shaking in rage. "You are wrong and you have no IDEA what you're talking about," Harry gritted out between clenched teeth. "Draco was a better person than me and he didn't deserve this. He didn't let me go to my death when I fought Voldemort. He saved my life at great cost to himself. And I couldn't return the favor. I got him killed! He came to the Ministry to save ME!"
Harry's body trembled violently, but then his rage broke and he collapsed back onto the couch, rubbing his eyes and temples. "Just leave it," he mumbled followed by a whisper too soft for Hermione to hear. She looked at him speculatively: something didn't quite add up, but she doubted she'd be able to get any more out of him, especially not while he was in this state. Harry had always felt responsibility strongly.
"I'm sorry, Harry," she said soothingly, getting up and walking towards the hallway. "All I know is that I'm glad he was able to save you, and that we all lost something to this war. I'm here if you ever want to talk about it."
When Harry didn't respond, she bid him goodnight and went off to sleep in the bed she shared with Ron. Harry had been relegated to the lonely couch.
XXXXX
BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO HATE MY GUTS AND NEVER READ ANYTHING I EVER WRITE AGAIN, PLEASE READ THE NEXT CHAPTER!!! You will be happy to note that I have posted these two chapters simultaneously for just this reason. (And please review, for either or both chapters, though I don't think I can handle mean comments right now.)
Disclaimer: Have I told you lately that they're not mine?
Chapter 14: Sacrifice and Solitude
"May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong. . . May your heart always be joyful, may your song always be sung. May you stay forever young."
Bob Dylan, Forever Young
As soon as Harry had disappeared through the great doors, Lucius ordered his guards to leave them, then he advanced upon his slender child and took him captive. This time Draco permitted the unwelcome invasion and tolerated Lucius' wondering hands bruising him, his blunt fingernails scraping against his back, his fingers harshly gripping his delicate organs, his fingertips brutally pinching soft cheeks. Draco grunted in surprise and pain as he felt cruel fingers plunge into and invade his body, then his mouth was covered in a harsh, possessive kiss. "You ARE mine," Lucius hissed, mouth smeared with Draco's blood, from where he had bit down into a soft lip. "Whatever you say, whoever you whore yourself out to, you will ALWAYS be mine."
Draco permitted the invasion, for the moment, keeping his emotions and reactions tightly reigned in, his eyes fixed on the orb that showed Harry getting into the magical elevator. His father brutally forced his fingers further into him, and he could not help but clench tightly and gasp in pain. He was twisted around and shoved him against the giant throne, its blunt wooden arm biting into his stomach. He felt his father's body pressed into his body, and he compelled himself not to resist, waiting for the globe to reveal Harry's safety. He registered his father's fingers again, moving, but not prodding into him any longer, ripping down his pants, then he felt a foreign body pressing into him. There were no candles surrounding him now, so there could be no purpose in the rape other than the demonstration of power and domination. Draco heard, somewhere in hall, his mother's thin voice begin to sing, in an eerie, warbling manner. He watched Harry leave the elevator and walk into the departure hall, feeling more detached than he had ever been from what was happening to him. He didn't let himself feel the pain, physical or psychological, and though part of his mind was screaming that it was happening again, the other part accepted, calmly, calculatingly, that, yes, it was happening again.
His father forced. into him, piercing him, ripping through his guardian ring, tearing through yielding flesh and muscles; Draco saw Harry stepped into an enclave, ignoring the shock and agony as his body registered the brutal assault. With his father's cock buried deep inside him, now rapidly thrusting and stabbing, he watched Harry depart to the safety of a red phone booth somewhere in London. Now, finally, it was time to fight.
"GET OFF ME, YOU FUCKING MONSTER!"
Draco let go of his steely self control and welcomed a rush of uncontrollable rage and adrenaline. He bucked violently and suddenly, taking his father by surprise and throwing him off. He whipped around and hurriedly yanked up his pants in time (pain radiating through him) to straighten and take the brunt of Lucius' renewed attack. "How dare you, you little shit!"
Draco didn't waste his strength by replying, as he struggled against the bigger, stronger man, trying to keep cruel hands from reaching his body; but it was hopeless, as his father used his greater bulk to pin him against the side of the throne. Draco, however, was too far gone to accept obvious defeat, even when Lucius had each wrist in a vice like grip, painfully grating his bones. He tried to kick out, but Lucius' weight was crushing his pelvis, and still the berserker rage would not give up. He head butted his father, breaking his nose with a satisfying crunch. The move didn't get his father's weight off him, but it jerked the bigger man's head back, spewing curses, and Draco lunged forward on instinct and sunk his teeth deeply into the jugular artery pulsing on the long neck. Blood spurted and Lucius tried to wrench away, but Draco bit down harder and didn't let go. His father's body began to twitch, then it collapsed backwards, Draco falling with him, on top of him, still latched to his neck. When the body stilled, Draco pulled up, ripping away the flesh gripped in his canines, mouth filled with and dripping blood. Only then did a semblance of rationality begin to return.
He struggled to his feet, shaking from the adrenaline rush and spitting out the bits of flesh in his mouth before wiping the blood on his sleeve. He took a quick look at the globe to confirm that Harry was not in the Ministry and he was greeted by a view of busy London streets. Then he turned to his mother, who was platting her hair into tiny braids. "Mother. . . Narcissa."
Narcissa looked up at him with a curious but rather vacant expression on her face. Draco would have felt sympathy, but he had once again locked up his emotions in favor of doing what had to be done. "I'm going to kill everyone and destroy this place. Do that alone spell you always do and you should be alright. Mother! The alone spell! And stay there for as long as you can."
Actually, the spell had a long technical name, but his mother had always called it the alone spell, because she did it when she wanted to be alone (which was frequently). For her purposes, the spell was absurdly powerful, blocking everything - light, energy, magic, material, sound, what have you - from entering or leaving the mirror-like sphere that would surround the caster; but it suited the needs of the present perfectly.
Narcissa began mumbling the spell and soon she was hidden, leaving Draco looking at a rounded reflection of himself. He was filled with such self loathing that he felt slightly nauseous and had to repress the do something violent and pointless. He had a mission to complete.
He briskly and determinedly stalked to his father's corpse, the kneeled down to dip his hands in the bloody wound. He smeared the blood across his forehead and across his cheeks, in two parallel lines, then he coated his hands completely, making them like dark gloves. Finally, he stood and strode into the middle of the hall, if just for a greater sense of importance. He straightened his posture and closed his eyes, then chanted in a strong voice, "Io grannae Thee per liberia el energia mortarial che entre tuto. Poi, io te offrir mia vivo et el vivo di mio haine, per el balancia."
It was ancient magic, as old as the sex magic that had for over a decade marked Draco's life, and as old as the love magic that had saved Harry Potter, and as old as the familial magic that still protected him. Such ancient magic was so rare and forgotten that it didn't even need to be outlawed, so ancient that it preexisted wands. In a handful of rare and archaic texts (one of which resided in the Malfoy manner, another of which resided at Snape Manor), this spell could be found under the category of hate spells - spells that drew their power from hate, and could not be done in its absence. The translation provided for the spell read, "I beseech You to set free in me the destructive energy that resides in us all. In return I offer you my life and that of my most hated enemy, so that balance will be maintained."
The spell required the blood of the caster's most hated enemy (indeed, it was warned that the blood of someone else would kill the caster without achieving the desired effects). The blood was to be smeared onto the face in two parallel lines, indicating two balanced deaths, and to coat the hands, where the energy would be released. For obvious reasons, the spell had never been widely used - firstly, one had to have killed one's most hated enemy, a point that usually negates the need for such a powerful spell; and secondly, it was a spell that killed the caster. The spell released the caster's life force, killing everyone within a large radius, and it did so completely, leaving a body without the energy to breathe, or to even have a heartbeat. Draco had no idea what the implications of being a Giver would be - he hoped it meant that it wouldn't kill him, but he doubted this; and besides, he hoped more that his condition would make his radius longer and his energy more destructive.
Draco's head fell back suddenly, instantly, as he felt something inexplicable, but very basic, be torn from him. His arms shot up of their own will, from the force of the energy flowing out of him. In a fraction of a second the feeling went from having his life torn out of him to having it cascade from him, as though eager to escape. He felt the ground shudder beneath his feet, and he opened his eyes fractionally to see, through a veil of long eyelashes, the wall in front of him crumble in a sea of blinding light. Then it stopped. The entire experience, including the chant, had taken a total of fifteen seconds.
For Draco, everything was still - he could hear nothing, not even the beating of his heart, not the collapsing walls, and he could feel nothing, not even the rising and falling of respiration. His vision went blurry and he fell backwards, though he could barely feel his impact with the quaking marble. Actually, he didn't think it at all a bad way to die. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was the curious face of his mother peering down at him.
*
Harry had been sitting just a short distance from the red phone booth that had led him from the Ministry of hellishly evil Magic. He didn't know what else to do, and he refused to simply go away. He would wait for Draco to follow him out or to come to him in some other way, or at least for some sort of sign, but he would not simply leave him down there. So he would wait impatiently for whatever he would deem was a reasonable amount of time, then return to the pit of horrors to find his love. Danger and death were of no consequence.
However, Harry didn't have to wait long for a sign. It was well within the amount of time he had decided to give Draco when he felt the ground lurch below him. He was sitting in a Burger King across the street from where the Ministry actually was, but he immediately ran to the door and pushed his way out onto the street. People started screaming as huge section of the road suddenly receded into a deep indentation, and Harry was thrown onto his butt, where he watched in horror as several buildings on the other side of the road collapsed, crushing people and cars. Harry struggled to his feet and grabbed for his wand, only to remember that it was gone. He tried to move towards the chaos - to somehow help - but between the panicked people and the rumbling ground, he had a hard time of it. His mind felt as chaotic as his environment and time seemed to stretch, and he watched building crumbled and lives be crushed as in slow motion.
Within forty seconds, a large section of the block had been reduced to rubble, but all that was likely to cave in had done so. People were standing around, shocked, some sobbing, and the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. Some people, like Harry, were trying to help others from under crushing debris, but there was probably no one else who had any inkling of what had happened.
Harry felt numb, acting automatically, a horrible sense of understanding pervading him. "Oh Draco, this was your plan?," he mumbled. How many people had died because of this? Were the deaths of all these muggles worth the deaths of all those death eaters? Were they just the casualties of war? He struggled to lift a chunk of cement off a small boy, though he doubted the child was still alive.
Finally, the police, ambulances, and fire engines arrived, taking over for the civilians and forcing everyone else to stay away from the site. Harry, dirtied with blood (not his own), sweat (his own), and dust, finally allowed himself to collapse tiredly onto a curb and began to cry. "Draco, Draco, Draco," he blubbered angrily, cradling his head in his hands. "What have you done? I trusted you. You said you knew what you were doing, but I never would've let you do this if I known. You didn't even save yourself."
A great wail of grief was ripped from him, his own words stabbing him where it hurt the most: Draco was dead. It hadn't taken him very long to implode the Ministry, but there was no chance that he had also had enough time to get out alive. Besides, he KNEW. In his guts, in his heart and soul, he KNEW that Draco had intended to die. It was why he had told Harry that he loved him. Harry felt betrayed - Draco was supposed to live and be his lover. That was the way it was SUPPOSED TO BE. HOW COULD HE ABANDON HIM LIKE THIS? Harry was the one who was supposed to die. He had never wanted Draco to die for him, he wanted Draco to live for him. This was the worst possible outcome - him alive and alone, and Draco dead. Because of him. He felt guilty and betrayed and alone and in unimaginable agony. It wasn't supposed to end like this.
A dumpy, motherly woman sat down next to Harry and tried to comfort him, but Harry would have none of it. He stood and ran. And ran. He ran a long time before exhaustion overcame him.
*
Destroying the Ministry, Lucius Malfoy's stronghold and headquarters, accomplished what killing Voldemort hadn't. Lucius Malfoy himself and over a thousand of his most dedicated and competent supporters had been killed that afternoon, most of them by incineration, as well as thirty seven muggles (none of which had been incinerated). The only surviving wounded were muggles. The muggle world declared the catastrophe an act of terrorism and blamed it both on Israeli and Palestinian extremists, depending on who one listened to. The extensive use of magic and no small feat of political manipulation managed to cover up the existence of the Ministry.
In the wizarding community, most of the remaining known death eaters either went into hiding or were hunted down and killed. A small few survived long enough to go to Azkaban. There were isolated outbreaks of violence, but for the most part, the resistance from death eaters and their supports was minimal. It was one thing to cut off the head of the dragon, and something else entirely to then chop its body into tiny bits.
No one knew what had happened, not really, and Harry wasn't inclined to tell. He thought, quite correctly, that Draco would rather not have his story told, and, in any case, Harry had no desire to tell the world of his love and his shame. There was, however, a persistent and prevalent rumor that placed Harry at the scene of the catastrophe and, by extension, it was assumed that he was in some how responsible for the defeating the Dark side. Harry always declined to comment on such rumors, maintaining, quite unbelievably, that he had nothing to do with the incident. But people knew. There was also some talk, first begun by a handful of remaining Aurors, that the cause of the Ministry's obliteration was some archaic hate spell - but it was widely agreed that the spell was not destructive enough to do the devastation that had been done. Though perhaps if the great Harry Potter had been the caster. . .
Slowly, efforts were made to restore the wizarding world to its former sanity. Dumbledore was named Minister within days of Minister Malfoy's death and his popularity was considerable. Masses of wizards and witches voiced their support and confidence by coming out of hiding and returning from abroad. Hogwarts was even due to reopen with a few weeks, with Minerva McGonagall as acting headmaster. Until then, Harry was staying with Ron at the twins' place (above their joke shop in Diagon Alley). It was rather crowded, as Ginny was staying there too, neither her nor Ron wanting to live at the Burrow by themselves. It was a slightly strained arrangement, as it was obvious that Harry was hiding something, besides which he was severely depressed, but the Weasleys were generally too spirited to be much bothered by this. Ron had tried to talk to him about it a couple of times, but ultimately Harry's moroseness convinced him of the truth of his words, "Drop it, Ron. Please. You don't want to know and I don't want to tell you. The past is over."
In truth, Ron was hurting too, what with the recent death of his parents, and he very much sympathized with Harry's desire not to have to talk about it. So he tried to fix him in manly ways - they played Quidditch with the twins, they experimented with almost every single 'joke' in the twins' supply, he let Harry show him around muggle London, though the last was an activity that somehow seemed to make Harry wistful and pensive. His mood improved moderately after buying another wand, though it wasn't as distinctive as his first.
Harry had only been there four days when Hermoine arrived. It was exactly a week since the collapse of the Ministry. With the end of the war, and Dumbledore's ascension to power, more official channels were dealing with the orphaned and displaced and Hermione was eager to get back to her boyfriend - though there was some noticeable awkwardness between her and Harry, simply by virtue of the fact that they shared a terrible secret. And neither of them had ever been able to relieve themselves of the guilt associated with that secret. Especially not Harry. Their first conversation alone went as follows:
Ginny had gone to bed earlier, but the twins and the trio had stayed up drinking, supposedly to celebrate Hermione's arrival, as well as the defeat of the death eaters (though the latter had been celebrated ad nauseum). Eventually, the twins went to bed, knowing that they at least had to get up to work the next day. Ron stumbled to bed and passed out not much after that, leaving Hermione and a very drunk Harry Potter sprawled on the couch.
"So what happened to him?," Hermione asked, direct as always.
"To who?," Harry automatically replied, his drunken brain on autopilot for the moment.
"You know who I'm talking about." Now her eyebrow was arched up, and the look was so familiar that Harry's face bunched up in a sudden effort not to cry.
"He's dead. It was him who did that to the Ministry and he was inside when it happened." Harry covered his eyes with his palms. I'm not going to cry. I'm not going to cry.
"Oh," was the only reply Hermione could give for a long moment, but she couldn't help but feel a wave of gratefulness and indebtedness. Draco had taken Harry's place in dying to save the world. Suddenly she understood. "You think it should've been you."
"It shouldn't've been either of us. He wouldn't've been in the Ministry if it wasn't for me," Harry whispered guiltily.
Hermione did not envy him his predicament. "I don't know what to say. It could've happened to a better person. Better him than you." Oops, wrong thing to say. She wasn't usually so tactless, but then again, she couldn't have known of Harry's attachment to his victim. She had also suffered under the impression that their recent trip into the shady side of morality had given her a certain right to be tactless.
But now a rather drunk Harry was standing in front of her, glaring down at her, his fists shaking in rage. "You are wrong and you have no IDEA what you're talking about," Harry gritted out between clenched teeth. "Draco was a better person than me and he didn't deserve this. He didn't let me go to my death when I fought Voldemort. He saved my life at great cost to himself. And I couldn't return the favor. I got him killed! He came to the Ministry to save ME!"
Harry's body trembled violently, but then his rage broke and he collapsed back onto the couch, rubbing his eyes and temples. "Just leave it," he mumbled followed by a whisper too soft for Hermione to hear. She looked at him speculatively: something didn't quite add up, but she doubted she'd be able to get any more out of him, especially not while he was in this state. Harry had always felt responsibility strongly.
"I'm sorry, Harry," she said soothingly, getting up and walking towards the hallway. "All I know is that I'm glad he was able to save you, and that we all lost something to this war. I'm here if you ever want to talk about it."
When Harry didn't respond, she bid him goodnight and went off to sleep in the bed she shared with Ron. Harry had been relegated to the lonely couch.
XXXXX
BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO HATE MY GUTS AND NEVER READ ANYTHING I EVER WRITE AGAIN, PLEASE READ THE NEXT CHAPTER!!! You will be happy to note that I have posted these two chapters simultaneously for just this reason. (And please review, for either or both chapters, though I don't think I can handle mean comments right now.)