lomonaaeren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lomonaaeren) wrote2022-07-06 04:32 pm
lomonaaeren) wrote2022-07-06 04:32 pm
Entry tags:
[Songs of Summer]: Fire at the End of the World, Harry/Draco, PG-13
Title: Fire At the End of the World
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Content Notes: Ignores the epilogue, Dark Lord Harry Potter, mentions of minor character deaths, mentions of torture, suicidal thoughts, discussion of past suicide attempts, dysfunctional relationship, ambiguous/open ending
Wordcount: 3300
Summary: Years ago, Harry Potter absorbed a Dark power that threatened to doom the entire magical world, and he has since fought that power to a standstill in his own mind time and time again. Now he is losing his battle to it, and he’s come to remind his former Auror partner, Draco Malfoy, of an agreement they made: when the fire grew to be too much for Harry, Draco promised to kill him.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of Summer” fics, one-shots being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. While I hope the summary makes this clear, this is an extremely dark fic.
Fire At the End of the World
With a flash of fire, Harry Potter burst into being on the high cliffs of Snowdon.
Harry stood with his eyes closed for a moment, absorbing the impact of the Fire that had let him flame from one place to another. Each time, it got worse. Each time, the Fire burned a little more of his conscience to ashes, broke down a little more of his resistance to letting it simply do as it wanted.
But Harry had already decided that he had come as far as he could go. No matter what happened after this, he wouldn’t have to leap through the flame ever again.
Harry opened his eyes and glanced down. The mighty mountain’s flanks spread below him, green-brown-grey, and the bright gleam of Llyn Llydaw further down from that. Harry could see more than one Muggle walking in the distance, but no one looked up at him. The fire shields that were bound to every inch of his skin had sprung into being the moment he landed, covering the view with a faint, flickering patina, and ensuring that Harry was always protected. That included protection from being seen by Muggles.
Those fire shields were the reason that Harry hadn’t simply been able to take care of the problem himself.
He leaned against a boulder behind him, arms crossed, and watched the sky. Clouds scudded across it, leaving patches of grey and the occasional blue behind. Harry exhaled, watched his breath curl on the air in a coil of red-gold, and sighed.
Come on, Draco. You said you would be here. It wasn’t like him to be late.
Draco Malfoy had been an odd Auror partner for him all those years ago, and since they’d stopped being partners, Harry still couldn’t say that he understood Draco perfectly. But he had always kept his word about important things.
And this was the most important thing Harry would ever do in the rest of his life. Which wouldn’t be long.
A crack sounded behind him. Harry half-moved to raise a fire shield that would keep Draco from detection, but the flames had already done it, he saw, because the chattering Muggle couple standing not far below them didn’t even start.
Harry turned around and nodded. “Thank you for coming, Draco.”
His one-time partner, his former lover, nodded back, eyes as cool as the water of the lake below. Harry still wondered what they’d been thinking, both Draco and him, when they’d tried to combine sleeping together with fighting side-by-side and then…handling Harry’s condition. It had been the most intense few years of Harry’s life, but he’d broken it off because he’d seen that it wasn’t good for Draco.
“Harry.” Draco looked around slowly, as though counting the number of rocks, and then straightened up. “You said that you wanted me to keep my promise. What does that mean, exactly?”
Harry winced. He had thought Draco was remembering. If he hadn’t, then this was going to be considerably more awkward to explain.
But Harry still would. He was losing the struggle against the fire-force that ruled his body, his magic, his every waking thought. And he had already seen visions of what would happen if the thing was free.
It would burn, happily. It wouldn’t care about whether the person it burned was just or unjust, a Dark wizard or an innocent. It would just burn.
“I’m losing control of the Fire,” Harry said. Draco would hear the capital letter. “You said once that you would end my life before that happened. I’ve tried everything I can think of to take care of it myself,” he added quickly, because Draco had made a sharp sound. “But the Fire protects me from being hurt, no matter what. It burns out every poison or potion before it can start affecting me. I can’t cut my skin. I tried jumping off a cliff higher than this one, and it changed me into fire and took me elsewhere. It even blocks the fucking Killing Curse! Please, Draco. There’s no one else I can ask.”
Draco’s face was dark, but he had regained mastery of himself. He folded his arms. “Because asking your precious friends would be out of the question, of course.”
“I’d have to explain it—”
“And you can’t face their disapproval that you bonded with a Dark power. Even if that was the only way to save everyone in the world with magic.”
Harry winced, but Draco had hit it off, pretty close, as usual. He met Draco’s eyes and nodded. “They’d waste time arguing and making me demonstrate that I can’t actually kill myself instead of just—doing something about it.”
“You talked about all the ways that you’ve tried to destroy yourself and how nothing worked.” Draco’s voice was almost careless. “Why would you think I could do something?”
“Because the Fire protects me from ending my life,” Harry said. “It doesn’t say anything about other people. I would have charged into battle with a Dark wizard by now and let something happen, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it that wouldn’t just end up with the Fire infecting someone else. Someone who couldn’t fight it.”
“You think I could?”
“I think that you’ll agree to honor the containment protocols I’ve set up and ensure that it’s buried and can’t escape again after I’m dead, just in case it isn’t completely destroyed. You’ve had Auror training, and you saw—where we found it. I couldn’t think of a way to lure a Dark wizard powerful enough to kill me into a place where I already had those protocols set up. The ones who would be stupid enough to come wouldn’t be strong enough to do it. And if I could trick someone strong and smart to come there in the first place, they would probably break the protocols and take the Fire into themselves.”
Draco hummed in the way that meant he neither agreed not disagreed. Harry leaned on the rock and watched him. The Fire raged in him, whispering visions of what could happen once Harry agreed with it and they could burn the world clean of injustice, together.
“So what it comes down to is that you trust me, but also think me Dark enough to kill you.”
“You promised that you would.”
“So it’s about trusting me.”
Harry took a deep breath and let himself look at Draco’s long limbs and pale blank face and bright grey eyes with a sort of desire. Draco had been his first lover and his last. There had never been any question that he could expose anyone else to the danger of the Fire. “Yes.”
“You could have said that.”
Harry shrugged. “I thought I was saying that.”
Draco turned his back abruptly and paced over to the edge of the cliff. Harry didn’t join him, but watched Draco’s tense back and waited for him to work through whatever he needed to work through. He didn’t question that Draco would keep his promise. He would just need to build his courage up to it first.
“Do you know why I couldn’t complete the task the Dark Lord asked of me?” Draco whispered abruptly. “Even though my family’s lives were hanging in the balance and at the time I was oh-so-proud to be a Death Eater?”
Harry blinked. Not what he’d thought they would talk about when Draco was getting ready to kill Harry and save the world, but okay.
“Of course. You weren’t a killer. You did make some attempts, but doing it from a distance wasn’t the same thing as doing it face-to-face.”
“Then why do you think I could do this now?”
“Because you promised. And you’ve killed a few times since we became Aurors, I know. Always when you had a good reason. I’ll do whatever you need to make it easier for you, Draco. I know it’s a big ask—”
“But I promised,” Draco finished, his voice hollow.
Harry waited. Draco bowed his head and rested his brow on his clasped hands, his breathing shallow. Harry wondered if he would need longer than a day to work up to it. If that was the case, Harry would have to go home, trap himself in the containment circle he’d had prepared as a backup plan, and wait until Draco got to the point where he could come and do it.
And add Stasis Charms to that containment circle, so that no time would seem to pass before whatever moment Draco reached when he could make up his mind. Otherwise, the Fire would continue burning away Harry’s sanity and make him decide that he had the right to live as a Dark Lord after all and should burn through the circle.
Draco turned around. His lips were pale. He said, “Why did you break up with me?”
What is this, Answers to Questions You Already Know the Answer To Day?
But Harry held back the sarcasm. He was asking Draco to do something not just difficult but maybe impossible. He held Draco’s eyes and said, “I was becoming—someone who wasn’t good for you. I wasn’t taking as much consideration for your needs. I ignored your suggestions more often. I argued with you more, and would just go off and do something I wanted to do if you didn’t agree. I could feel myself changing.”
“Did you ever think,” Draco said, his lips barely moving, “that I didn’t mind that?”
“What? Of course not. Who could want a partner who didn’t listen to them—”
“You just argued your own perspective, Harry. And you never hurt me. You would Apparate out when you could feel your temper getting dangerous.”
“I never should have got dangerous with you in the first place,” Harry said bitterly. It had struck him on a deep level and opened a wound that would never quite heal when he realized that he had the potential to be abusive to another human being. He, who had grown up with the Dursleys and should have known better than anyone how much damage that kind of anger could deal.
Draco didn’t say anything. Harry took a few deep breaths of cleansing wind and stared at the happy Muggles below.
The Fire tugged at his thoughts, whispering, in its deep, crackling voice, that Harry could make a better world for them. He could purge the corrupt elements from the Ministry. He could threaten people into compliance, on pain of burning them. He could ensure that Muggleborn children were safe and loved even if their Muggle families didn’t want them—
Harry shoved, hard, and the Fire snarled and retreated. But not as far away as it once would have, and Harry knew it wouldn’t be for as long. And the arguments the Fire made always sounded so reasonable.
The problem was, it wouldn’t stay there. Fires needed to grow.
“Your eyes.”
Harry started and looked up. Draco had come to stand in front of him, and Harry had been so embroiled in his struggle with the Fire that he hadn’t noticed. Draco’s hand was hovering above Harry’s face.
“Your eyes are reflecting a fire,” Draco whispered.
Harry nodded. “When I looked into the mirror a month ago and saw that, I knew I was getting near the end of what I could repress.”
Draco gave a smile as bitter as charcoal. “And you carried it for ten damn years, Harry. When I was the one who carelessly released it. How could anyone expect more of you?”
The words gave Harry a vague uneasiness. He wondered if Draco had wanted him to last longer before asking Draco to fulfill his promise. Well, Harry would have loved to, but he couldn’t.
And Draco had agreed. Had offered himself, even.
“If you’re that worried about it,” Draco had said, as Harry sat on the other side of their office struggling with containing a Dark magical force as old and as strong as a volcano, “and think you’re going to destroy the world, then tell me when you think you’ve reached that point. I’ll come. I’ll aim my wand at you, and that will be the end of it.”
Harry had clung to that memory as he fought the Fire, held it still when it wanted to explode out, curbed its corruption. It was why he’d been able to justify not offing himself immediately after containing the Fire in his body and soul. He’d thought he would be able to, well, live a little while before the Fire became impossible to control.
But from the way Draco was avoiding his eyes, maybe those ten years had been too much. Maybe Draco had offered carelessly, out of guilt or in the heat of the moment. Or maybe, because they’d become lovers after that, he had come to care about Harry too much to do it. Harry shouldn’t have discounted the fact that Draco cared about him just because they’d broken up.
Harry sighed. Fine. Time for the second option. “Fine. I have the containment protocols set up at home, and the Fire can’t actually stop me from stepping into the circle and activating them and a Stasis Charm. It would be better if I died while holding it—” because that would have banished the Fire from existence completely—"but the next best thing is to trap it again. Can you promise that you’ll leave me there for at least a month and then take my body away somewhere, as far away as you can, and bury me?”
“No.”
Harry stared at Draco, frustrated. “Why not?”
Draco looked up, and something in his face had shifted. Harry frowned at him. He wondered if the Fire had somehow influenced Draco, too, but there had never been a sign of it doing that to anyone, and Harry had spent a lot more time with Ron and Hermione in the past few years than he had with Draco.
“Fine,” Harry said, voice clipped. He understood why Draco was refusing, because it would have been a large thing to ask of anyone, but it still hurt. “Then I’ll send an owl to Ron and Hermione and put—”
He stopped. Draco was aiming his wand at him. Harry spread his hands slowly, down by his side. Draco had to know as well as Harry that a single curl of Fire would char him into nothingness.
“What are you doing, Draco?” Harry asked softly.
“Did you ever wonder why I became a Death Eater?”
“I didn’t need to wonder. I knew.”
“Explain it to me, if you would.”
“Because you thought it would be brilliant, based on what your father said. And then you found out that it wasn’t anything like you thought, and you regretted it. I know that, Draco.” It was one of the many things they had discussed lying in each other’s arms at night under the stars.
Harry pushed the memories away. That was one of many things that would never come again.
“I became a Death Eater because of that,” Draco agreed, voice as soft and as grey as the sky. “But I also wanted to be close to the center of power, to be noticed. That’s not a desire I ever gave up on. I became an Auror for much the same reason, because I could see the power gathering around Shacklebolt after the war. And I stayed an Auror when you moved on for much the same reason.”
“Okay,” Harry said, not understanding.
“I released the Fire accidentally, but also…I thought how wonderful it would be if I could master it. Of course, I gave up on that dream after I saw how hard you had to struggle to master it. I didn’t have the magical power to do that.”
“I still don’t understand what this has to do with you not keeping your promise or saying you don’t want me to leave.”
“You always did trust me more than was warranted, Harry,” Draco said, and his voice had emotions in it now, at least. Sorrow, and happiness, and desire. “Never revoking my access to your wards? It’s sweet, really. And I used it to go in this afternoon and destroy your containment protocols and circle, which is what made me a little late.”
Harry stared at him in horror. Inside him, the Fire coiled and whispered eagerly.
“Draco. It took me a fucking month to build those!” Harry took a step closer, ignoring Draco’s wand now. What was he going to do? Kill Harry? “I won’t have time to do it again before the Fire—”
“I know.”
“You fucker,” Harry snarled. “What is this about? You want an out-of-control Dark Lord to serve?”
“You won’t be that,” Draco said, and smiled. “I’ve done my own research on the Fire since we found it, Harry, and I’ve read the same books you have. And some more, too. You concentrated on the worst stories, the ones that said a force like the Fire would inevitably take its host over and warp them to be the worst version of themselves. I focused on the books that said a force like the Fire takes on some traits of its host, the same way that you’ve taken on some of its, like being able to fire-travel and having your eyes reflecting flames.” Draco licked his lips. “Which makes me want to go to bed with you, by the way.”
“Get to the fucking point, Draco.”
“I don’t believe that you’ll burn out of control,” Draco said simply. “A Dark Lord? Yes, I think you’ll be that, but I believe you’ll be a just Dark Lord. You’ve talked often enough about wanting to get rid of the corruption and steer the magical world in a truly different direction. Shacklebolt didn’t manage it before they replaced him. Even Granger’s given up on her fight for house-elf freedom because of how hopeless it is. But don’t you see, Harry? We can resume it. We can make everything we want come true.” His voice was soft and shaking with eagerness.
“Draco.” Harry buried his head in his hands, which were already warmer than they’d been that morning. “You cannot possibly know that.”
“I can know that. And anyway, it doesn’t matter, does it? I destroyed your protocols, your circle. You said yourself you can’t rebuild them in time. You’ll have to live with what’s coming, Harry.” Draco smiled at him, a slow curl of his lips, and moved a step closer. “And so will I.”
“Well, yes, everyone will.” Harry felt light-headed with despair. He’d been selfish in wanting as much life for himself as possible, and in never telling Ron or Hermione what was going on so they’d stand ready to kill him if they had to. It would have taken a lot of arguing for them to agree to use a Dark spell strong enough to overcome the Fire’s protections, but they would have done it.
Draco seized Harry’s wrist and pulled his hand closer. “I never agreed to break up with you,” he snarled. “I loved being with you. I loved being your Auror partner. I loved the danger, the thrill, the closeness to the center of power, your gentleness in bed, everything about you. So no, I was never going to agree to kill you or contain you. But I can offer you something else.”
“Yeah?” Harry snarled in his face, and then called back the flames that flickered and caught on the edges of his fingernails. Barely.
“I can balance you,” Draco said quietly, and tilted his head to the side with a smile that might have been winsome if seen from a distance. “I can remind you of what’s worth living for, give you someone who will always stand at your side no matter what, and act as a voice of reason if the Fire really does start burning your conscience up.”
“Tell me one reason why I should let you do that, you bloody traitor.”
“Who else will?”
Draco lifted an eyebrow and smiled directly into Harry’s eyes, and, bloody hell, Harry was weak. He gave in and seized Draco’s shoulders. Draco came with the pull, laughing quietly, at least until Harry shut him up with his mouth.
The Fire sang contentedly in Harry’s ears. Draco shuddered in his arms, alive in a way that Harry hadn’t seen him since their affair ended, and everything was all wrong.
I’ll aim my wand at you, and that will be the end of it.
Draco had kept his promise, after all.
The End.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Content Notes: Ignores the epilogue, Dark Lord Harry Potter, mentions of minor character deaths, mentions of torture, suicidal thoughts, discussion of past suicide attempts, dysfunctional relationship, ambiguous/open ending
Wordcount: 3300
Summary: Years ago, Harry Potter absorbed a Dark power that threatened to doom the entire magical world, and he has since fought that power to a standstill in his own mind time and time again. Now he is losing his battle to it, and he’s come to remind his former Auror partner, Draco Malfoy, of an agreement they made: when the fire grew to be too much for Harry, Draco promised to kill him.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of Summer” fics, one-shots being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August. While I hope the summary makes this clear, this is an extremely dark fic.
Fire At the End of the World
With a flash of fire, Harry Potter burst into being on the high cliffs of Snowdon.
Harry stood with his eyes closed for a moment, absorbing the impact of the Fire that had let him flame from one place to another. Each time, it got worse. Each time, the Fire burned a little more of his conscience to ashes, broke down a little more of his resistance to letting it simply do as it wanted.
But Harry had already decided that he had come as far as he could go. No matter what happened after this, he wouldn’t have to leap through the flame ever again.
Harry opened his eyes and glanced down. The mighty mountain’s flanks spread below him, green-brown-grey, and the bright gleam of Llyn Llydaw further down from that. Harry could see more than one Muggle walking in the distance, but no one looked up at him. The fire shields that were bound to every inch of his skin had sprung into being the moment he landed, covering the view with a faint, flickering patina, and ensuring that Harry was always protected. That included protection from being seen by Muggles.
Those fire shields were the reason that Harry hadn’t simply been able to take care of the problem himself.
He leaned against a boulder behind him, arms crossed, and watched the sky. Clouds scudded across it, leaving patches of grey and the occasional blue behind. Harry exhaled, watched his breath curl on the air in a coil of red-gold, and sighed.
Come on, Draco. You said you would be here. It wasn’t like him to be late.
Draco Malfoy had been an odd Auror partner for him all those years ago, and since they’d stopped being partners, Harry still couldn’t say that he understood Draco perfectly. But he had always kept his word about important things.
And this was the most important thing Harry would ever do in the rest of his life. Which wouldn’t be long.
A crack sounded behind him. Harry half-moved to raise a fire shield that would keep Draco from detection, but the flames had already done it, he saw, because the chattering Muggle couple standing not far below them didn’t even start.
Harry turned around and nodded. “Thank you for coming, Draco.”
His one-time partner, his former lover, nodded back, eyes as cool as the water of the lake below. Harry still wondered what they’d been thinking, both Draco and him, when they’d tried to combine sleeping together with fighting side-by-side and then…handling Harry’s condition. It had been the most intense few years of Harry’s life, but he’d broken it off because he’d seen that it wasn’t good for Draco.
“Harry.” Draco looked around slowly, as though counting the number of rocks, and then straightened up. “You said that you wanted me to keep my promise. What does that mean, exactly?”
Harry winced. He had thought Draco was remembering. If he hadn’t, then this was going to be considerably more awkward to explain.
But Harry still would. He was losing the struggle against the fire-force that ruled his body, his magic, his every waking thought. And he had already seen visions of what would happen if the thing was free.
It would burn, happily. It wouldn’t care about whether the person it burned was just or unjust, a Dark wizard or an innocent. It would just burn.
“I’m losing control of the Fire,” Harry said. Draco would hear the capital letter. “You said once that you would end my life before that happened. I’ve tried everything I can think of to take care of it myself,” he added quickly, because Draco had made a sharp sound. “But the Fire protects me from being hurt, no matter what. It burns out every poison or potion before it can start affecting me. I can’t cut my skin. I tried jumping off a cliff higher than this one, and it changed me into fire and took me elsewhere. It even blocks the fucking Killing Curse! Please, Draco. There’s no one else I can ask.”
Draco’s face was dark, but he had regained mastery of himself. He folded his arms. “Because asking your precious friends would be out of the question, of course.”
“I’d have to explain it—”
“And you can’t face their disapproval that you bonded with a Dark power. Even if that was the only way to save everyone in the world with magic.”
Harry winced, but Draco had hit it off, pretty close, as usual. He met Draco’s eyes and nodded. “They’d waste time arguing and making me demonstrate that I can’t actually kill myself instead of just—doing something about it.”
“You talked about all the ways that you’ve tried to destroy yourself and how nothing worked.” Draco’s voice was almost careless. “Why would you think I could do something?”
“Because the Fire protects me from ending my life,” Harry said. “It doesn’t say anything about other people. I would have charged into battle with a Dark wizard by now and let something happen, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it that wouldn’t just end up with the Fire infecting someone else. Someone who couldn’t fight it.”
“You think I could?”
“I think that you’ll agree to honor the containment protocols I’ve set up and ensure that it’s buried and can’t escape again after I’m dead, just in case it isn’t completely destroyed. You’ve had Auror training, and you saw—where we found it. I couldn’t think of a way to lure a Dark wizard powerful enough to kill me into a place where I already had those protocols set up. The ones who would be stupid enough to come wouldn’t be strong enough to do it. And if I could trick someone strong and smart to come there in the first place, they would probably break the protocols and take the Fire into themselves.”
Draco hummed in the way that meant he neither agreed not disagreed. Harry leaned on the rock and watched him. The Fire raged in him, whispering visions of what could happen once Harry agreed with it and they could burn the world clean of injustice, together.
“So what it comes down to is that you trust me, but also think me Dark enough to kill you.”
“You promised that you would.”
“So it’s about trusting me.”
Harry took a deep breath and let himself look at Draco’s long limbs and pale blank face and bright grey eyes with a sort of desire. Draco had been his first lover and his last. There had never been any question that he could expose anyone else to the danger of the Fire. “Yes.”
“You could have said that.”
Harry shrugged. “I thought I was saying that.”
Draco turned his back abruptly and paced over to the edge of the cliff. Harry didn’t join him, but watched Draco’s tense back and waited for him to work through whatever he needed to work through. He didn’t question that Draco would keep his promise. He would just need to build his courage up to it first.
“Do you know why I couldn’t complete the task the Dark Lord asked of me?” Draco whispered abruptly. “Even though my family’s lives were hanging in the balance and at the time I was oh-so-proud to be a Death Eater?”
Harry blinked. Not what he’d thought they would talk about when Draco was getting ready to kill Harry and save the world, but okay.
“Of course. You weren’t a killer. You did make some attempts, but doing it from a distance wasn’t the same thing as doing it face-to-face.”
“Then why do you think I could do this now?”
“Because you promised. And you’ve killed a few times since we became Aurors, I know. Always when you had a good reason. I’ll do whatever you need to make it easier for you, Draco. I know it’s a big ask—”
“But I promised,” Draco finished, his voice hollow.
Harry waited. Draco bowed his head and rested his brow on his clasped hands, his breathing shallow. Harry wondered if he would need longer than a day to work up to it. If that was the case, Harry would have to go home, trap himself in the containment circle he’d had prepared as a backup plan, and wait until Draco got to the point where he could come and do it.
And add Stasis Charms to that containment circle, so that no time would seem to pass before whatever moment Draco reached when he could make up his mind. Otherwise, the Fire would continue burning away Harry’s sanity and make him decide that he had the right to live as a Dark Lord after all and should burn through the circle.
Draco turned around. His lips were pale. He said, “Why did you break up with me?”
What is this, Answers to Questions You Already Know the Answer To Day?
But Harry held back the sarcasm. He was asking Draco to do something not just difficult but maybe impossible. He held Draco’s eyes and said, “I was becoming—someone who wasn’t good for you. I wasn’t taking as much consideration for your needs. I ignored your suggestions more often. I argued with you more, and would just go off and do something I wanted to do if you didn’t agree. I could feel myself changing.”
“Did you ever think,” Draco said, his lips barely moving, “that I didn’t mind that?”
“What? Of course not. Who could want a partner who didn’t listen to them—”
“You just argued your own perspective, Harry. And you never hurt me. You would Apparate out when you could feel your temper getting dangerous.”
“I never should have got dangerous with you in the first place,” Harry said bitterly. It had struck him on a deep level and opened a wound that would never quite heal when he realized that he had the potential to be abusive to another human being. He, who had grown up with the Dursleys and should have known better than anyone how much damage that kind of anger could deal.
Draco didn’t say anything. Harry took a few deep breaths of cleansing wind and stared at the happy Muggles below.
The Fire tugged at his thoughts, whispering, in its deep, crackling voice, that Harry could make a better world for them. He could purge the corrupt elements from the Ministry. He could threaten people into compliance, on pain of burning them. He could ensure that Muggleborn children were safe and loved even if their Muggle families didn’t want them—
Harry shoved, hard, and the Fire snarled and retreated. But not as far away as it once would have, and Harry knew it wouldn’t be for as long. And the arguments the Fire made always sounded so reasonable.
The problem was, it wouldn’t stay there. Fires needed to grow.
“Your eyes.”
Harry started and looked up. Draco had come to stand in front of him, and Harry had been so embroiled in his struggle with the Fire that he hadn’t noticed. Draco’s hand was hovering above Harry’s face.
“Your eyes are reflecting a fire,” Draco whispered.
Harry nodded. “When I looked into the mirror a month ago and saw that, I knew I was getting near the end of what I could repress.”
Draco gave a smile as bitter as charcoal. “And you carried it for ten damn years, Harry. When I was the one who carelessly released it. How could anyone expect more of you?”
The words gave Harry a vague uneasiness. He wondered if Draco had wanted him to last longer before asking Draco to fulfill his promise. Well, Harry would have loved to, but he couldn’t.
And Draco had agreed. Had offered himself, even.
“If you’re that worried about it,” Draco had said, as Harry sat on the other side of their office struggling with containing a Dark magical force as old and as strong as a volcano, “and think you’re going to destroy the world, then tell me when you think you’ve reached that point. I’ll come. I’ll aim my wand at you, and that will be the end of it.”
Harry had clung to that memory as he fought the Fire, held it still when it wanted to explode out, curbed its corruption. It was why he’d been able to justify not offing himself immediately after containing the Fire in his body and soul. He’d thought he would be able to, well, live a little while before the Fire became impossible to control.
But from the way Draco was avoiding his eyes, maybe those ten years had been too much. Maybe Draco had offered carelessly, out of guilt or in the heat of the moment. Or maybe, because they’d become lovers after that, he had come to care about Harry too much to do it. Harry shouldn’t have discounted the fact that Draco cared about him just because they’d broken up.
Harry sighed. Fine. Time for the second option. “Fine. I have the containment protocols set up at home, and the Fire can’t actually stop me from stepping into the circle and activating them and a Stasis Charm. It would be better if I died while holding it—” because that would have banished the Fire from existence completely—"but the next best thing is to trap it again. Can you promise that you’ll leave me there for at least a month and then take my body away somewhere, as far away as you can, and bury me?”
“No.”
Harry stared at Draco, frustrated. “Why not?”
Draco looked up, and something in his face had shifted. Harry frowned at him. He wondered if the Fire had somehow influenced Draco, too, but there had never been a sign of it doing that to anyone, and Harry had spent a lot more time with Ron and Hermione in the past few years than he had with Draco.
“Fine,” Harry said, voice clipped. He understood why Draco was refusing, because it would have been a large thing to ask of anyone, but it still hurt. “Then I’ll send an owl to Ron and Hermione and put—”
He stopped. Draco was aiming his wand at him. Harry spread his hands slowly, down by his side. Draco had to know as well as Harry that a single curl of Fire would char him into nothingness.
“What are you doing, Draco?” Harry asked softly.
“Did you ever wonder why I became a Death Eater?”
“I didn’t need to wonder. I knew.”
“Explain it to me, if you would.”
“Because you thought it would be brilliant, based on what your father said. And then you found out that it wasn’t anything like you thought, and you regretted it. I know that, Draco.” It was one of the many things they had discussed lying in each other’s arms at night under the stars.
Harry pushed the memories away. That was one of many things that would never come again.
“I became a Death Eater because of that,” Draco agreed, voice as soft and as grey as the sky. “But I also wanted to be close to the center of power, to be noticed. That’s not a desire I ever gave up on. I became an Auror for much the same reason, because I could see the power gathering around Shacklebolt after the war. And I stayed an Auror when you moved on for much the same reason.”
“Okay,” Harry said, not understanding.
“I released the Fire accidentally, but also…I thought how wonderful it would be if I could master it. Of course, I gave up on that dream after I saw how hard you had to struggle to master it. I didn’t have the magical power to do that.”
“I still don’t understand what this has to do with you not keeping your promise or saying you don’t want me to leave.”
“You always did trust me more than was warranted, Harry,” Draco said, and his voice had emotions in it now, at least. Sorrow, and happiness, and desire. “Never revoking my access to your wards? It’s sweet, really. And I used it to go in this afternoon and destroy your containment protocols and circle, which is what made me a little late.”
Harry stared at him in horror. Inside him, the Fire coiled and whispered eagerly.
“Draco. It took me a fucking month to build those!” Harry took a step closer, ignoring Draco’s wand now. What was he going to do? Kill Harry? “I won’t have time to do it again before the Fire—”
“I know.”
“You fucker,” Harry snarled. “What is this about? You want an out-of-control Dark Lord to serve?”
“You won’t be that,” Draco said, and smiled. “I’ve done my own research on the Fire since we found it, Harry, and I’ve read the same books you have. And some more, too. You concentrated on the worst stories, the ones that said a force like the Fire would inevitably take its host over and warp them to be the worst version of themselves. I focused on the books that said a force like the Fire takes on some traits of its host, the same way that you’ve taken on some of its, like being able to fire-travel and having your eyes reflecting flames.” Draco licked his lips. “Which makes me want to go to bed with you, by the way.”
“Get to the fucking point, Draco.”
“I don’t believe that you’ll burn out of control,” Draco said simply. “A Dark Lord? Yes, I think you’ll be that, but I believe you’ll be a just Dark Lord. You’ve talked often enough about wanting to get rid of the corruption and steer the magical world in a truly different direction. Shacklebolt didn’t manage it before they replaced him. Even Granger’s given up on her fight for house-elf freedom because of how hopeless it is. But don’t you see, Harry? We can resume it. We can make everything we want come true.” His voice was soft and shaking with eagerness.
“Draco.” Harry buried his head in his hands, which were already warmer than they’d been that morning. “You cannot possibly know that.”
“I can know that. And anyway, it doesn’t matter, does it? I destroyed your protocols, your circle. You said yourself you can’t rebuild them in time. You’ll have to live with what’s coming, Harry.” Draco smiled at him, a slow curl of his lips, and moved a step closer. “And so will I.”
“Well, yes, everyone will.” Harry felt light-headed with despair. He’d been selfish in wanting as much life for himself as possible, and in never telling Ron or Hermione what was going on so they’d stand ready to kill him if they had to. It would have taken a lot of arguing for them to agree to use a Dark spell strong enough to overcome the Fire’s protections, but they would have done it.
Draco seized Harry’s wrist and pulled his hand closer. “I never agreed to break up with you,” he snarled. “I loved being with you. I loved being your Auror partner. I loved the danger, the thrill, the closeness to the center of power, your gentleness in bed, everything about you. So no, I was never going to agree to kill you or contain you. But I can offer you something else.”
“Yeah?” Harry snarled in his face, and then called back the flames that flickered and caught on the edges of his fingernails. Barely.
“I can balance you,” Draco said quietly, and tilted his head to the side with a smile that might have been winsome if seen from a distance. “I can remind you of what’s worth living for, give you someone who will always stand at your side no matter what, and act as a voice of reason if the Fire really does start burning your conscience up.”
“Tell me one reason why I should let you do that, you bloody traitor.”
“Who else will?”
Draco lifted an eyebrow and smiled directly into Harry’s eyes, and, bloody hell, Harry was weak. He gave in and seized Draco’s shoulders. Draco came with the pull, laughing quietly, at least until Harry shut him up with his mouth.
The Fire sang contentedly in Harry’s ears. Draco shuddered in his arms, alive in a way that Harry hadn’t seen him since their affair ended, and everything was all wrong.
I’ll aim my wand at you, and that will be the end of it.
Draco had kept his promise, after all.
The End.