[From Litha to Lammas]: The Mirror and the Candle, Harry/Hadrian, Hadrian series, R, 3/3

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the end of the current story arc, but I’ll be posting another story during the Samhain to the Solstice series this year.

Part Three

“Something’s broken the wards.”

Harry didn’t remember coming awake. He only remembered Hadrian’s low, tense voice in his ear, and the way that Hadrian’s arms looped around him and dragged him nearer. It was so warm and comfortable that it took Harry a long moment to realize what Hadrian was saying.

When he knew, he froze, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs.

“What do we do?” he whispered.

“We’ll have to move.” Hadrian was quiet and tense against Harry, so Harry was, too, although he didn’t know why Hadrian was like this if they had to move right away. “Take what books and food and potions we can. I know another safehouse, and I’ll build my own wards this time, so we can stay there longer.”

“Okay.” Harry took a deep breath and nearly asked another question, but then he heard the reason that Hadrian was lying so still. There was a creak beneath them, and a soft rustling that might have been clothes.

“They’re already here?” Harry breathed, as quietly as he could.

“Yes.” Hadrian touched his shoulder and then rolled fluidly out of the bed, catching himself with an easy hand on the edge. He looked fully recovered from his magical exhaustion and his battle with the Horcrux. Harry reckoned he had to hope that Hadrian was recovered. “I’ll hold them on the first floor. They’ve already come up the stairs that far. You get the books and the other things you think we might need on the second floor.”

And he stalked out of the room before Harry could ask him for further instructions or what he was supposed to do if the people down there got past Hadrian.

Harry nearly panicked, nearly called after Hadrian, but he reckoned that there was a reason Hadrian had wanted to keep as quiet as possible. If it was Dumbledore or someone else like Ron or Hermione, Hadrian didn’t want them to know Harry was here.

If it wasn’t…

Then Hadrian probably though that he would keep the intruders from realizing someone else was here at all.

Harry steeled himself and stood up. He could do this. He would do this. He had been thinking just the other day that there would be no reason for Hadrian to stay with Harry if he really believed Harry was weak and helpless.

Harry had to prove himself to Hadrian, and he would not fail.

*

Hadrian already knew who was here. The cold aura traveling through the air was no different from the one that had briefly surrounded his own body right before he absorbed Voldemort’s spirit.

This world’s Dark Lord had arrived.

The important thing is that I keep him from Harry, Hadrian thought, with a calm, bright focus that seemed to turn his mind to crystal. I must do it, so I will.

The staircase from the second floor to the first twisted a little. Voldemort was approaching the turn, and Hadrian came down, quietly enough that he didn’t think Voldemort would suspect anything, poised so that he would be the first thing Voldemort saw when he came around the bend.

Voldemort stepped onto the right stair and froze, staring at Hadrian with wide eyes.

Now.

Hadrian slashed his wand down, casting a wordless curse that Voldemort himself had invented, and which was hard to defend against even for its creator, which was one reason he hadn’t told other people about it. A mountain range of blue lightning unfolded in the air between them, crackling and swaying, and then fell against Voldemort.

And oh, how he screamed as the curse drained his magic.

Hadrian smiled even as he wove shields around himself and blocked off the entrance to the second floor above. Maybe that would be suspicious, maybe it would hint to Voldemort that someone else was here, but Hadrian’s resolve grew even stronger and more crystalline. He couldn’t retreat. There was nowhere to go. Break that shield, and he would break them all.

He had to protect Harry.

Voldemort finally managed to break out of the curse, although only by flinging himself back and forth in a frenzy, snapping a finger with a dry sound against one wall. He was down on one knee now, panting, his head swaying back and forth like a tired snake’s.

Hadrian smiled a little more. Voldemort had hurt Harry, mentally and physically, again and again. Hadrian knew he couldn’t simply kill him, not with so many Horcruxes intact, but he could make him suffer.

It was what he deserved for hurting Harry.

“Who are you?” Voldemort hissed, recovering his feet. He was keeping a cautious distance between himself and Hadrian, greater power or not. One of the things Hadrian knew intimately from hosting Voldemort’s spirit was how much of a coward he was. It was one reason he had faced Dumbledore in battle so few times and had preferred to attack only with overwhelming power or numbers.

“Your worst nightmare.”

“What did you do with my ring?”

“What do you think I did?”

Voldemort surged towards him, his rage apparently overcoming his cowardice. Hadrian raised his shields higher. They were, again, ones that Voldemort himself had developed, this time modifying a spell that he had learned in his travels through Egypt and his delvings into ancient tombs. Voldemort’s eyes and face became blank.

And furious with fear, although it would probably take Hadrian to tell that.

“You will tell me what you did with it!”

“And what will you give me if I tell you? Safe passage from this house?”

“Yes. Safe passage and three days unhunted. Use them to flee from the country, under the shelter of Lord Voldemort.”

Hadrian tapped his wand against his chin, as if considering the offer. Of course, Voldemort was a liar, and he would break his word the moment he knew for sure Hadrian had destroyed the ring.

Meanwhile, Hadrian had to stall so that Harry could gather everything they needed.

“You would grant me all three days? From the moment I leave the house to the same moment seventy-two hours later? Or could I hope for four nights and three whole days?” Hadrian let his voice waver as if with his own fear.

It would be a stupid trick, for most people. Why would Hadrian, who had faced Voldemort so confidently at the beginning of the duel, suddenly be shaking with fear and asking for favors?

But this Voldemort had made seven Horcruxes, even if he didn’t know about one, and spent at least a year with everyone around him flattering and bowing before him. He would fall easily into the deception that Hadrian was frightened of him.

“Four nights and three days. That could be arranged, I am sure.”

Hadrian nodded slowly. He licked his lips and shifted his weight from one foot to another and tried to make it look as if he was debating with himself. He wished that he had a telepathic link with Harry the way Harry had had with this Voldemort before the Horcrux was removed, but Hadrian would have to work with what they had.

“Then—I can tell you.”

“I am pleased.” Voldemort attempted to smile, but the expression was even less sincere than the one of Hadrian’s Voldemort on the back of Quirrell’s head had been. Hadrian smiled back and nodded then.

“All—all right,” he said in English, and scuffed a foot across the floor. “Dumbledore knows something about Horcruxes.” He noticed the flare of panic in Voldemort’s eyes with well-hidden pleasure. “He might have gone hunting one of them soon. But I decided that I didn’t want to wait in case the Horcrux hurt my self. So I went after it.”

“You are Harry Potter, then. But why do you look so different?”

Hadrian kept speaking in English, because he wanted to make absolutely sure that Harry wouldn’t mistake a Parseltongue warning from him for Voldemort’s voice. In English, their voices should be more distinctive. “Dumbledore knows all sorts of rituals that can make someone different, and he was avoiding me this year. I would have had to prove that I could be stronger and faster before he would pay attention to me.” He shrugged, awkwardly. The double talk was awkward itself, but better than trying to lie outright to a Legilimens.

“How do you know spells that I invented myself?”

“You invented them? Wow. You’re clever.” Hadrian nodded. “I woke up and found them in my memory.” That had even been true, talking about his waking up from the agony of absorbing Voldemort, although it had taken months to properly sort out the memories and really master what the spells did. “Did you know we have a connection?”

And that was true, although the connection was different than what this Voldemort thought it was, and mostly in the past. He froze anyway, bending slightly forwards to fix his eyes on the lightning bolt scar faded into Hadrian’s skin.

“What do you mean?”

“Sometimes I got visions from you,” Hadrian said. “I mean, I know you know about that, since you used that to—to make Sirius Black—” He let his voice waver and break. Again, he had to be careful to keep from telling an outright lie about something that had happened to Harry and not Hadrian.

“Yes, I knew of it. But I did not know that my memories would travel the other way.” For a long moment, Voldemort’s hand shifted back and forth on his wand.

“They did. I know about your time in the orphanage, and the spells you invented, and the Horcruxes you made.” Hadrian let his smile solidify and move across his face, and Voldemort snapped his attention back to him. “What else do you think I know about?”

Voldemort had gone as still as a crouching cat. “Tell me what you did with my ring.”

Hadrian had hoped to distract Voldemort and keep him from attacking for longer than this, but he had misjudged a bit. He hoped that Harry would be ready when they needed to move, and said only, with a toss of his head, “Destroyed it.”

Voldemort lunged forwards.

Hadrian ducked low, out of range of that reaching arm, and called his shields forwards with a rush. They came skidding down the stairs and surrounded Voldemort in instants, and then moved in on him the way they had with the Horcrux from Harry’s head, beginning to crush him.

Voldemort screamed, and then began to fight, much more effectively than the Horcrux had, to dismantle the shields. Hadrian tossed his head back and yelled, “I am leaving now! Right now!”

*

Harry heard Hadrian shout, and swallowed. He had cast the packing charm that he remembered Tonks using to fill his trunk and two trunks Hadrian had found on the second floor with the books and robes and potions and—everything they needed.

It wasn’t absolutely everything. Harry had been trying to come up with ways to pack some of the more fragile vials and more finicky Potions ingredients so the spell wouldn’t damage them.

But it would have to be enough. Harry shrank the trunks, flung them into his pockets, and yelled, “Hedwig, go!” Then he rushed towards the stairs where Hadrian had confronted Voldemort.

He heard an incredible, wailing shrieking sound, scuffling and shouting and banging and breaking. The shield at the top of the stairs stopped him for a moment, but then it broke, and Harry tumbled through and grabbed Hadrian’s arm.

Voldemort, on his knees and being crushed between shields that shone like clouds, didn’t appear to notice.

Hadrian grabbed hold of Harry with fingers that felt like iron and swept in a hard circle. Harry nearly asked whether they could Apparate out of here at all, but the fall of the wards must have broken the anti-Apparition ones, too.

The last thing Harry saw before they Apparated was one of the shields that had encased Voldemort shattering. The last thing he heard was Voldemort’s shriek of triumph.

He closed his eyes and clung to Hadrian with shaking hands.

*

Harry was asleep, finally.

Hadrian smoothed his hand gently down Harry’s hair and moved away from him. He was tired from the duel with Voldemort, but not absolutely exhausted with the fear that had fatigued Harry, and he had things to do.

Voldemort knew that Hadrian could find his safehouses. That meant that he might start systematically searching all of them and breaking the wards. Hadrian knew ways to prevent that, but he had to do it as soon as possible, while Voldemort’s own magic was making it hard for him because of the spell Hadrian had cast to drain it.

Hadrian walked quietly down steps hewn into the rock itself and stepped out onto the ledge before the front cave entrance. The safehouse was deep inside the wall of a Welsh mountain that magical people had cast Unplottable spells on and removed from Muggle maps long ago, when this had been a dragon sanctuary and the carved house Dragon-Keepers’ quarters.

The dragons were gone, the colony breeding itself to extinction or being removed to join their brethren elsewhere. Hadrian had chosen this because it was the most remote of Voldemort’s safehouses, and the Unplottable magic would allow him to increase the protections on it in a certain, specific way.

He closed his eyes and meditated in silence for a moment, to make sure he wasn’t too tired. Then he opened his eyes and nodded. It was possible that this would alert Voldemort in much the same way that the destruction of the ring Horcrux or the breaking of the wards on the Peverell safehouse apparently had. But in moments, if Hadrian wove the spells carefully, he would forget that it had ever existed.

Hadrian closed his eyes again and reached for the magic. It pulsed around him, his own power and the power of the Unplottable spell that had been placed around this mountain long ago. Hadrian kept his eyes shut as he tapped his wand against his arm.

“Diffindo.”

The small cut began to bleed, but Hadrian counted heartbeats as he tilted his arm so that the blood would spray on the stone ledge, and sealed the wound again when seven beats had passed. Then he crouched and took out the vial of Harry’s blood he’d secured earlier, just after they’d arrived. Harry hadn’t questioned why he’d wanted it, although Hadrian said, truthfully, that it would help protect them.

Harry’s faith was sweet, simple, strong, the best thing in Hadrian’s life. He didn’t want to mess it up by accident.

Harry’s blood joined the pattern that Hadrian’s had made on the ground. Hadrian didn’t try to create runes or anything else sensical out of them, simply making sure that the vial was tilted enough to allow blood to fall for another seven heartbeats. Then he corked the vial and laid it aside.

Once the safehouse was sealed with his blood and Harry’s, anyone else attempting to enter it would be destroyed utterly. Hadrian didn’t intend the problem to arise; he would remove the safehouse from any other human being’s memory tonight. But he didn’t know how the wards on the Peverell house had broken in the first place, and it might be that someone had used blood-based magic on them, if they’d had access to Harry’s blood.

Dumbledore could have. Those so-called friends of his could have.

Hadrian would make sure that none of them could ever take Harry from him.

His eyes closed again, he crouched and placed his hands in the blood smeared across the ledge. He called the attention of the lingering Unplottable magic to the blood, letting it flood down his arms and study the splashed, random patterns.

The magic licked at him with a tongue that was probably forked. Hadrian smiled a little. Dragons couldn’t exactly understand Parseltongue, but they were distant kin to snakes, and the fact that both he and Harry spoke it would give the house that had once been in dragon territory something extra to bond with.

It took many, many more heartbeats than seven, but Hadrian finally felt the magic pool in front of him, waiting. He raised a mental eyebrow without moving. It was much, much deeper than he’d thought. The Dragon-Keepers who worked here must have had to strengthen the spells constantly, if the dragons had been trying to break into the safehouse or escape from their sanctuary and fly towards Muggle territory.

Hadrian swallowed and took a long moment to wrap himself in the magic, almost drown in it, and decided what he wanted to do.

He had simply planned to hide and defend the safehouse, but why not do more? He didn’t know for sure if Voldemort had glimpsed both him and Harry at the end when they were Apparating, but why not make sure that he forgot, if so?

Hadrian would have liked to erase Harry’s presence in the mind of the people who insisted on seeking him out, Voldemort and Dumbledore most notably, but he didn’t think he could do that. There were too many people who knew Harry; he was too integral to the fabric of this world.

But Hadrian?

Hadrian had come from another world. Few people knew about him here, and all of them ones that he would prefer to avoid.

Yes. Hadrian would make everyone except Harry forget him. Then he would be better able to move in the shadows and protect Harry from there. And it would only take a tiny portion of the power draped around him now, particularly because Hadrian had only been in this world for a short time and people wouldn’t have had more than those few weeks to form memories of him.

Smiling now, Hadrian opened his eyes and stood. The magic came with him, reaching out into the night like immense wings. Hadrian tugged on it, and it answered, rising above him into the shape of an enormous black dragon.

Hadrian had already discovered the power of making decisions by improvisation when he’d fought the Horcrux. This time, he would work with that kind of will and blood magic instead of a defined ritual.

But he didn’t have to do it while struggling to contain Harry and destroy a Horcrux, thank Merlin.

“Protect this house from everyone but us,” Hadrian said, staring up at the glittering golden eyes of the pure magic above him. “Strike it from the memory of Voldemort and anyone else who knows of it. Make their own blood destroy them if they manage to enter it anyway. And erase me from the memory of everyone but Harry who lives in this world.”

There was a long moment, hanging and suspended, when Hadrian was afraid that he had gone too far, pushed too much. The drain of the magic from his own aura and power became enormous.

And then the black dragon widened its wingspan and dived down upon the mountain.

Hadrian gasped as the whole mountain, all of it, containing the safehouse and down onto the spurs, began to burn with rich, golden, translucent flame. The magic shifted back and forth, and the tendrils of fire extended upwards, downwards, in every direction, and—

Into the air, melding with it and disappearing, the way that the chains Hadrian had conjured had looked when they anchored Harry.

Back in time. Hadrian knew that with the certainty of the stone beneath his feet.

The flames glittered and spun sideways, and the whole mountain seemed to rotate. Hadrian heard Harry give a frightened call from inside the maze of rooms.

Hadrian called back without taking his eyes from the fire. “Everything is all right, Harry. Come out here.”

Harry padded out, still clad in the rumpled clothes he’d thrown on in the middle of the packing and Hadrian’s confrontation with Voldemort. He stared when he saw the fire, and then flinched as the great dragon swept overhead. “What’s going on?”

“There was more magic here than I thought,” Hadrian explained, gripping Harry’s hand in his own. It was warmer to him than the touch of the magical flames. “Spells to keep the house safe, Voldemort’s wards, even magic left over from dragons. We’re going to be able to keep this completely safe.”

“You mean it? No being driven away from it again?”

Of course. Hadrian should have thought of that. Harry hadn’t had a true home since his parents had died. He’d barely settled into the Peverell safehouse, and then they’d been chased away from that, too.

“I promise. We’ll be safe here. And I’ll find a way to get enchanted windows put in, so we don’t have to just look at stone walls all the time—”

With a roar, the dragon swept back on mighty wings, and some of the darkness and light streaming away from them hit the stone. Hadrian stared as the filmy back of an enchanted window seen from outside opened towards them.

“Wow.”

Hadrian grinned down at Harry, enjoying the awe on his face, and ran a hand through that tangled hair. “By the time that we’re finished here, we’ll have something that’s made for just us, I promise. Exactly the way we want it.”

“Can we have an owlery all for Hedwig?”

“Of course.”

“She—she’s going to be able to come through these wards, isn’t she?”

Hadrian nodded. “Of course. I’ll make sure that she can.” He wondered if he ought to exempt Hedwig from the wards that would make people forget Hadrian’s presence in this world, as well. She hadn’t really bonded with him, clearly preferring Harry’s company, but he didn’t want her to attack him, either.

The magic shivered around him.

Consider it done, said a distant, ringing voice in his mind.

Hadrian thoughtfully studied the shape of the dragon as it swept over the house again, this time concentrating on the door. The magic that rose off its claws was the dark color of old blood, and the dragon was considerably smaller than it had been.

The power he had summoned was spending itself. But as long as he could accomplish his goals with it, Hadrian didn’t care.

“Will we be able to Apparate out from here?”

“Yes.” Hadrian nodded to the dragon, and the wards reached down connecting lines of flame to the door, which would permit only those whose blood was splashed on the step to complete an Apparition from the house.

“Good.” Harry leaned harder against Hadrian. “I just—I don’t want them to separate us, and I know that everybody would try to do that now. Not just Voldemort.”

Hadrian buried his nose in Harry’s hair and told him, softly, about the portion of the magic that would make the others who lived in this world forget Hadrian. Harry stiffened next to him. Hadrian gently stroked the nape of his neck, and waited.

He would listen to Harry’s objections if he had them, and apologize if he needed to. But he wasn’t going to reverse things so that Dumbledore and the rest could remember both of them. This was a matter of security.

And Harry’s security would always come first.

*

Harry swallowed when Hadrian told him Ron and Hermione and Dumbledore and Voldemort—if he had realized it—would forget about Hadrian. He didn’t know how to feel.

It was worrying, on the one hand, that Hadrian was tampering with his friends’ minds. Harry should object to that. He should be upset. He should tell Hadrian that he wanted that portion of the magic reversed, and right now.

But on the other hand…

It made things so much more convenient.

Ron and Hermione would still be worried about him, but they wouldn’t be scolding him and trying to get him away from Hadrian. Dumbledore wouldn’t be trying to find some way to trap Hadrian.

And Voldemort certainly didn’t need to know.

“Yeah,” Harry said at last, and lifted his head to stare into Hadrian’s eyes. “I’m glad you did that.”

Hadrian leaned down and kissed him, while above their heads, the dragon-shaped magic wove glimmering lines of darkness and fire.

*

There was a ripple at the edges of his mind.

Voldemort closed his eyes and sank inwards to the heart of his magic, touching the long, slow beats of it, and reaching out to the world around him to feel a disturbance in those beats.

But there was nothing there. If another Horcrux had been destroyed, like the Ring had been by Harry Potter, there was no sign of it.

There was an odd sense of loss, true, as if a Horcrux had been destroyed that he no memory of having created. But he wasn’t going to worry about that.

Not now, when he had to secure his Horcruxes against Dumbledore and Potter.

*

“I just don’t understand why he ran away, Headmaster.”

“I know, Miss Granger.” Albus reached out to pat the girl’s shoulder as she stood in front of his desk, looking incredibly defeated and depressed. He so hated to see her looking that way. “But I can tell you that I will never rest in my efforts to find him. And the alchemy-based method did at least show me one clue.”

“What was that, sir?’

“The symbol of the Deathly Hallows.”

“The what, sir?”

“Powerful artifacts from an old children’s tale. Some have believed the Hallows still existed and sought them fiercely, but it is unsure that they do.” Albus felt the Elder Wand stir in his pocket, but ignored it. He didn’t need to spread the truth of the tale to any eager audience, especially since he intended to break the Elder Wand’s power by dying in possession of it.

“Is there someplace I could go to read it, sir?”

“The Tales of Beedle the Bard is the book you want, Miss Granger.”

“Thank you, sir!” Miss Granger said, and immediately turned and ran from the office. Albus smiled. He hoped she would find something useful in her research that didn’t relate to the Hallows’ existence. Perhaps she would; she had been the one to suggest the idea of tracking Harry by blood in the first place, after all.

For now, though…

Albus sighed. He would have to continue trying to find Harry and to understand why he had run in the first place, to earn his trust again and bring him back home.

And he would have to do something he dreaded more than all the rest.

He would have to face Gellert.

In case the image of the Deathly Hallows he had received did mean something, Albus had to be prepared.

The End.