Spoiler Warning: This story is a sixth year fic that follows on from the events of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. As a conseqeunce this story contains *major* spoilers for book 5. You have been warned.
SNAKE HEALER: THE MALFOY MUGGLE LOVER
CHAPTER 15: RESCUE
"Potter!" A familiar voice shouted desperately as the voice's owner burst into Harry's room at top speed, catching Harry completely by surprise. The intruder stopped to regain his breath before continuing. "Father's been imprisoned by the dark lord. I need your help to rescue him."
"Do you really want to rescue him, or is this some plot to give me to Voldemort?" Harry queried distrustfully, he knew that Luicus had been imprisoned because he had seen the meeting himself, but he did not trust his Slytherin rival to betray Voldemort. As far as Harry was concerned, his half brother was loyal to the dark lord.
The look on Draco's face, however, answered all of Harry's doubts, as it mixed utter horror with a deadly sense of determination. It wasn't so much the idea of betraying Potter to the Dark Lord that offended Draco, even if such an action was against the express wishes of his father, but the idea of not aiding his father, especially after having promised to do so, that caused the look of horror. "My previous sympathies are irrelevant. My loyalty to my father overrides everything else, even my loyalty to Aunt Bella," Draco hissed vehemently, fully expressing the anger that Harry's doubts had provoked. The intensity of the response was not lost on Harry. "My father is a prisoner and in grave danger. It is my duty as his son and heir to aid him in every way I can."
"Fine, you want to rescue Lucius," Harry responded grudgingly, "But how do I know you won't betray me to Voldemort after you've rescued him? I mean surely you'll want to get back in Voldemort's good books after having rescued him?" He was more than willing to believe that Draco would put his family before anything else, after all Lucius held the same opinion, but Harry doubted that Draco viewed him as family.
"The dark lord can go to hell for all I care. His opinion of me is of little consequence as I have no intention of betraying father by joining him." Draco responded angrily, his face twisted into the same vicious sneer as before, whilst his voice retained the air of finality that had permeated it previously.
"So I can trust you?" Harry queried; he just wanted to be absolutely sure that his school rival would not betray him if their prospective rescue attempt didn't go as planned.
Draco was less than impressed with Harry's scepticism. "Potter!" he growled irritably, "Can you get into that thick head of yours that as much as I dislike you I am not about to hand you over to the dark lord. I give you my word on that. Now can we please get down to rescuing father? Time is of the essence."
"Certainly," Harry replied, now that Malfoy had actually promised not to turn on him he was more than willing to help, provided one or two issues were resolved first. "But you can start by refraining from insulting me and actually calling me by my name for once. If we're to work together, we could at least be polite to one another."
Draco's eyebrows shot upwards at Harry's comment. He was more than intelligent enough to grasp the implication of his rival's words, "To do that. I would need to know your name." He commented blandly, he was not going to get his hopes up that his enemy had finally seen some sense.
"Leo Jason Evans," Harry explained in response, "I'm not quite ready to be known as a Malfoy, but I'm damned if I'm going to called something I'm not, especially if it's the son of James Potter."
"Fair enough," Draco commented. That his half-brother was even willing to regard himself as being related to the Malfoy family, was a pleasant surprise for Draco. It also meant that Potter, or Leo as he was now called, could be trusted at lot than he had previously thought. "Now lets get going, as it will just the two of us the sooner we act the more likely we are to succeed." He turned to leave the room, but was called back.
"Wait a minute," Harry called. Draco turned around to see the Gryffindor digging through his trunk, "If it's just going to be us, we'll be needing this." The Slytherin sneered with impatience at the delay, but his expression changed when he saw the object that his school enemy had been looking for. He had not expected Potter to possess an invisibility cloak, despite his surprise he was also pleased: a third invisibility cloak, to go along with the one in father's office and the one Bella had loaned to him, would come in useful.
It was only a few minutes later that Draco and an invisibility cloak clad Harry tumbled out of the fireplace in the Lestranges' Apartments. Fortunately, neither Bellatrix nor Rodolphus were anywhere to be seen. Assuming that husband and wife were asleep, the two boys made sure to be quiet, despite Draco's assurances that Rodolphus was a heavy sleeper and that Bellatrix never slept in her bed anyway. After having grabbed his invisibility cloak, which he then passed onto Harry for him to keep along with his father's, Draco strode out of the apartment, schooling his features so as to look as calm as possible. Harry followed behind, trying to be as quiet as possible. Whilst they did not expect to run into any death eaters, especially not on the upper levels of the manor, neither boy wanted to take any risks. As far as finding their father was concerned, getting past the dementors posted in the dungeons presented no problems, because they could not distinguish Harry from a death eater.
As it was they did not encounter anybody, dementor or human, until they sensed the cold aura of the dementors as they approached the stairs down to the dungeons. Harry stopped moving the moment he felt the dementors' presence, even from such a distance he began to feel himself weaken. He called quietly for Draco to stop too, but his call was drowned by the call of another.
"Draco, wait," the voice called, the blond Slytherin recognised it instantly as belonging to someone he could trust, so he stopped walking. If it had been Dolohov or one of the Lestranges he would have ran, but whilst Marcus Flint was fanatical about quidditch, his opinion of the dark lord was far from magnanimous.
"What do you want, Marcus?" Draco asked, his impatience and nerves making him snap gruffly.
"Father thought you might want these," the former Slytherin explained as he approached his former teammate. He handed Draco, a familiar looking wand and a small cloth bag that he knew contained a portkey as well as what looked like a set of keys, "Oh, father says not to worry about having to fight friendlies. We've all gone home and we won't come if he summons us to hunt your father down. Just give me a few minutes to get out of here." Without waiting for a thank you, Flint turned and ran back from where he had come, heading, Draco presumed, to the apparition point.
Draco soon moved on too, without waiting for Harry. The Gryffindor, however, waited for a but longer whilst he concentrated his mind on resisting the effects of the dementors using a simple Occulumency trick that Draco had taught him. Moments later he hurried on after his half-brother, following him down the stone staircase that led to the dungeons.
As expected the dementors swarmed around the dungeon entrance. There were also various dementors wandering up and down the corridors past the storerooms that seemed to serve as cells. One or two of the prisoners had dementors posted outside their cells as guards. Overall, the number of dementors gathered in such a small space meant that having to force their way past them, once Lucius had been freed, was going to be an almost impossible task. Not that Harry considered this, as he was too busy trying to keep the memory of his mother's death from flooding into his mind and overpowering with the overwhelming despair that inevitably lead to unconsciousness. Harry followed Draco as the Slytherin strode past all these guards without a second glance, concerned only with reaching their father's cell, which was right at the back of the complex.
The number of patrolling guards thinned as they get nearer, but then so did the number of prisoners, until they reached the two dementors stationed on either side of the iron barred door that was their destination. "You were quick," Lucius commented as Draco strode up to the door. The presence of the two dementors seemed to have no effect on him, but both Harry and Draco knew that was merely a facade. "I expected you to take an hour not twenty minutes, but then I didn't expect you to come alone."
"He's not," Harry stated, pulling the hood of his invisibility cloak from off his head. He stood several yards behind Draco, but moved forward momentarily to pass the two extra invisibility cloaks he had been holding before moving back.
"Good," Lucius replied looking at Harry, before turning to give orders to both boys, "Give Jason my portkey, it activates by touch. I know two you came by Floo but the apparition point is nearer. You can also portkey out from the throne room, which is to your left as you exit the dungeons. I trust you know that the dark lord can see through invisibility cloaks."
"Leave Voldemort to me. I'll try and catch him in a priori incantatam; he's not expecting me so it should work. Once you've escaped I'll head for the throne room" Harry answered, as Draco, who was now clad in an invisibility cloak, handed him a portkey, before giving the remaining invisibility cloak to their father. He still held Lucius' wand though, passing that through the bars would set off an alarm.
"Fine. We'll draw the death eaters off you, to give you room to escape. There shouldn't be that many around," Lucius responded, he didn't sound entirely happy with the plan, but as it was the only one they had he wasn't going to veto it.
The alarm went off the moment Lucius stepped outside his cell. The dementors moved towards Lucius as he sprinted past them, up the corridor. He was far out of their reach by the time started following. He didn't even slow as he grabbed his wand out of Draco's hands. Harry and Draco followed him up the corridor, the former bellowing, "Expecto Patronum," after they had gone a few yards. Neither of the boys nor Lucius took much notice of the form the Patronus took, they merely followed close behind ghostly figure as it scattered the lines of dementors that had gathered to block the corridor ahead of them.
"Expecto Patronum," A different, older voice bellowed as the three Malfoys first caught sight of the stone staircase that lead to the upper floors. Another Patronus burst forth, this time from Lucius' wand, and joined its ghostly kin in scattering the flood of dementors that seemed to fill every corner of the three corridors that joined at the stairwell. That the combined effects of the gathered dementors began to affect Harry, causing him to weaken, was ignored by all, even Harry. All the three men were concerned about was running desperately along the path that their patroni had carved for them amongst the endless sea of dementors that the patroni had scattered away from them.
There were no breaths of relief as they reached the staircase, leaving the last dementor behind them, as the chase was not over, merely one of the most nerve-wracking parts of it. They all knew that these vile soul-sucking beasts would persue them until Voldemort ordered them not to. What they did not expect was that such an order would come at the top of the staircase. For it was there, at the top of the staircase leading to the dungeons, that the escaping trio encountered the dark lord and the small coterie of death eaters that accompanied him. Needless to say, the dark lord's entourage was caught completely by surprise when their master stopped suddenly, for they as both Voldemort and the Malfoys had expected, could not see the escaping trio.
"They're here. Lucius, his brat and one other. Kill them." Voldemort sneered to his death eaters as the three Malfoys froze upon seeing the man they had wanted to avoid. They weren't particularly afraid of the small party in front of them, except possibly Draco, who as at the back of the party posed to run the moment the death eaters were distracted, having adopted such a position through fear. Lucius though had intentionally ducked behind Harry, setting up his younger son as the obvious target for any curse that might be sent in their direction.
Voldemort, who assumed that all three had frozen in fear, fell for the trap that Harry and Lucius had created. "Avada Kedarva," he yelled, aiming to hit the extra, whose name or relationship to Lucius, he didn't know, in the chest. He ignored the fact that his target was simultaneously casting a stunning hex, regarding such an action as too little, too late. He regretted such arrogance the moment that the two spells met and formed the same coloured thread of magic that had occurred at Voldemort's rebirth fourteen months previously.
Just as before the magic generated by the connecting thread between the two brother wands took on a life of its own, encasing both the dark lord and his young enemy in a golden web of light which protected them from any outside interference, even the evil aura of the dementors. Just as before, Voldemort and his followers were taken completely by surprise. The dark lord's shock allowing Harry to get the upper hand in the battle of wills, despite the tiredness resulting from his desperate run through the dungeons. Slowly, with an effort of immense concentration, the joining of the two threads inched towards the dark lord, as red began to overpower the sickly green of the killing curse. Until that is, the dark lord recovered his composure and abruptly the line between the two wands stopped moving. Nothing was said, both men needed their full concentration on winning this battle of wills, as both knew what was at stake. Neither noticed the loud explosion just behind the dark lord or the sprinting figures of Lucius and Draco as they ran towards the apparition point, nor did they notice the effect the explosion had on rousing the death eaters from their stupor, causing them to chase the two traitors, whilst barely missing them with their deadly curses. Both men ignored all this as they focused solely on the unmoving line in front of them, focusing on every last ounce of power and strength that they could muster in the titanic battle of will over the small thread of magic that linked them.
And, once again, it was Fawkes that made the difference. Neither Voldemort nor Harry knew how long it took for the phoenix to appear, it could have minutes or it could have been hours, but once it did the effect was dramatic. Disheartened and distracted by the painful song, Voldemort began to weaken, just as Harry unlocked new reserves of energy that he didn't know he had. Exhaustion seemed to fall away from the blond Gryffindor, as the beautiful song enthused him with hope and joy, giving him the ability to push the thread of magic that linked the wands away from him, making the beam of Gryffindor red magic slowly push the dark lord's thread of evil green back towards the wand from whence it had come. Horror, anger and aggravation dawned on Voldemort's face as the red connected to his wand, causing a stream of shadow curses to come from his wand.
Then came the shadows of people, killed by the unforgivable killing curse the dark lord was so fond of. Neither of them expected the first shadow to be of Ronald Weasley, most especially the dark lord, who looked at his opponent with all the hatred he could muster, recognition in his eyes. "Potter, I should have known," he growled with so much venom that it made Ron shudder. "You have a nasty habit of surviving."
Harry said nothing. He had no wish to tell the dark lord of his relationship with Lucius, so he left the talking to his best friend and to the shadow of his Uncle Janus. "It's the power of love, the power of the healer," Janus said, a fierce anger in his eyes, from the look on his face his comment had been designed to unhinge Voldemort and it worked. Neither Harry nor Ron though understood what he was talking about.
"Love is for the weak!" Voldemort thundered. Janus' comment had had the desired effect. "The healer must be powerful. I am powerful and I am the healer!"
Janus merely smirked in amusement, "If you are so powerful then why have you been beaten by a sixteen year old boy?" The expression on Voldemort's face only darkened, it was clear that he refused even to acknowledge that he had been defeated. Janus, however, remained silent for a response that would never come.
"Love?" Ron answered in the dark lord's stead, hesitantly at first but then more confidently, "Grandpa always said love is the most powerful form of magic, far more powerful than the dark arts, and he was an Auror." Janus turned from the dark lord to face Ron and then Harry as his smirk turned to a warm smile.
"Exactly," he said, before turning to Harry, "Now go, young healer, break the connection before the death eaters return. We can distract him long enough to allow you to escape." He did it without hesitation, not even, waiting for Janus' exhortation for Harry to pass on his love to his family. He broke the connection and ran, turning down the corridor to his left, grabbing Lucius' portkey from out of his portkey as he ran. It activated the moment he stepped into the dark lord's throne room, tugging out of the of Voldemort's lair and dumping him in the entrance hall of Malfoy Manor, where a worried Lucius and grateful Draco were waiting for him.
I was tempted to end that on a cliffhanger, but being in a good mood I decided not to. As said previously, the next chapter will not out as soon as this one, but you shouldn't have to wait too long. As a sidenote I do intend to finish this story this year, so you shouldn't have to wait too long between chapters.
There might be errors in my description of priori incantatem as I do not have my copy of Goblet of Fire on me. If there are significant errors I will edit the chapter once I have my copy of GoF back.
Finally an extended note about Harry's new name. As I said in the last chapter I will be continuing to carry Harry by his old name in the narrative. Other characters in both thoughts or dialogue, will refer to him by his new name. As I said in the last chapter, his true name is Leo Malfoy, as such people such as Draco, who are not his friends and have previously referred to Harry as 'Potter', will call him 'Leo'. Naturally some authority figures will call him Malfoy, but never when Draco is around. If someone in dialogue refers to 'Malfoy' they will generally be talking about Draco, not Harry, unless it is an authority figure addressing Harry directly. However, I also said that his mother wanted him to be known by his middle name of Jason, so anyone who would have previously referred to Harry by his first name will call him Jason, as per his wishes. This may sound confusing, but all you need to remember is that 'Leo' or 'Jason' are names for Harry, whilst a character referring to 'Malfoy' in dialogue is generally talking about Draco, unless common sense dictates otherwise.
Thank You to all those who reviewed chapter 14, your reviews and your patience were most appreciated. If you want me to e-mail you when I update this fic leave your e-mail address in your review.