lomonaaeren | Chapter Ten of 'Soldier's Welcome'- A Working of Friendship

Title: Soldier’s Welcome (10/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: R
Pairings: Harry/Draco preslash, Ron/Hermione
Warnings: Violence (and plenty of it), profanity, references to sex, takes account of DH but ignores the epilogue, heavy angst.
Summary: It’s the first year of Auror training for Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, and…Draco Malfoy, But with Hagrid, Snape’s second Pensieve, rogue Death Eaters, Auror classes, and someone trying to start a second war to worry about, Harry might not have the time to pay that much attention to Malfoy. At first, anyway.
Author’s Notes: This story is the first in a trilogy called Running to Paradise, which takes its title from a W. B. Yeats poem. Each story will be novel-length, and each will cover a year of Harry and Draco’s training as Aurors. Though there are a lot of fics out there about them acting as Auror partners, there aren’t as many about their training, so I hope to cover some original ground there. I’m indebted to a reader named SP777 for suggesting a training fic for me to write.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Ten—A Working of Friendship

“Going somewhere, Potter?”

Potter flushed and stared at Draco as if he’d lost the ability to respond to ordinary words. Maybe he had, Draco thought, glad that his arms were already folded and Potter wouldn’t notice the way he tightened them across the front of his chest to keep calm. He’d certainly acted with enough blindness in the last month, smugly convinced that Draco couldn’t see what he was up to.

Or maybe he was convinced that you wouldn’t care what he was up to.

Draco thought that the likelier conclusion, but it didn’t make him feel any better, because Potter still should have known better.

“I—yes,” Potter said, and recovered, blinking, as he shoved his glasses up his nose. Suddenly he was doing his best haughty imitation, which, on a face like Potter’s not made for haughtiness, made him resemble a constipated giraffe. “I made a study appointment with Hermione for this evening. She’s convinced I’m not working as hard as I could be, so she wants me to come to her room and study under her supervision.” He rolled his eyes, apparently trying to put a feeling of exasperation into the gesture. “If you’ll excuse me.”

He started to brush past Draco. Draco reached out and put a hand on his shoulder to detain him.

Potter gave him such a poisonous look that Draco dropped his hand before he thought about it. And then he was simply angrier, remembering the way that Potter had reached out and clasped his hand after they dueled the red and black magic. The git had been happy enough to touch him a short while ago. What had changed?

Weasley. Draco didn’t know for certain, but it wasn’t an unreasonable guess. When things went wrong between him and Potter, Weasley was usually involved somehow.

“I know that’s not where you’re going,” Draco said, exercising all the control he had to keep his voice calm and thoughtful. “Granger left the barracks half an hour ago with a bunch of other trainees to attend a special lecture that Jones is giving.”

Potter swallowed. Then he said, “Give it a rest, Malfoy, can’t you?”

“I thought that’s what I was doing for the last month,” Draco said, having decided that he needed to speak as clearly and reasonably as he could. He would not give Potter the chance to dismiss him as jealous or hysterical. “Giving it a rest. Letting you have the distance from me that hopefully would have caused you to reconcile yourself to our becoming partners.”

Potter whipped his head around, his eyes hot and his mouth open as though he intended to bite Draco’s shoulder. Draco could think of contexts in which he would not despise that gesture. “Nothing will reconcile me to that.”

“Why?” Draco moved commandingly forwards, until his chest and Potter’s were an inch away from touching. If he didn’t do something drastic, then Potter would yank his gaze away and scuttle off and ignore him again. Besides, Draco didn’t fancy the loss of dignity that would come from chasing after him. “You seemed to think it was a good enough idea when we fought together and the compatible magic showed us what we could do.”

Potter snorted through his nose like a bull that understood gelding and turned to stare at Draco again. “Power isn’t everything, Malfoy,” he said. His voice was weary. Draco decided that was better than raving, and listened. “There’s friendship, too. Ron and I have already decided that we’re going to be partners. I can’t change my mind and desert him like that.”

“Partnering with someone else—someone to whom you’re better-suited—someone who can work with you like no one else can—is deserting him?” Draco was proud of the polite disbelief in his voice. It was the perfect counter to the nonsense that Potter was spouting, taking his melodramatic balloons and puncturing them. From the flush that decorated Potter’s cheeks, he must have known it, too. “Pardon me for not accepting that. You’ll still be his friend. It wouldn’t make you hostile or alien to each other if you partnered with someone else.”

“He was upset enough about the compatible magic,” Potter said shortly. “Over this, I could lose him if I’m not careful.”

Ah. Draco moved in for the kill. “Then it’s his problem, isn’t it, not yours? If he’s the one who would reject your friendship after so many years and after everything that you’ve done together, he’s the one at fault.”

Potter stared at him with a slightly open mouth. Draco controlled his shudder. No, he didn’t want to see Potter’s tonsils, but he could put up with it for the sake of getting something else he wanted.

Then Potter looked at the ground, rubbing his forehead as if his scar ached, and whispering, “No, that’s not true.”

“It sounds like it,” Draco said. “I’m not privy to everything that happens between you. I won’t ask for more details than you’ve offered me. But it sounds as though Weasley is the one trying to force you to make decisions that you wouldn’t have made if not for him. He’s the one who wants you to choose between your friends and a great opportunity for you.” He folded his arms and stepped back with a satisfied nod, watching Potter all the while for some sign of a fatal wound in his confidence.

Potter rubbed his jaw this time. His eyes flickered with trapped fire. He obviously wanted to deny Draco’s words, and just as obviously couldn’t find a way to do so.

Draco took a deep breath, and a risk. “Tell me that you want to give up the compatible magic,” he said. “Tell me that you really never want to feel it again.”

Potter gave a sad half-smile. Draco didn’t know who the audience for that one was supposed to be. Potter didn’t have his little friends here right now, and he couldn’t believe that Draco would pity him. “I could try to lie,” he said, “but you would catch me at it right away and make me feel stupid. You have a lot more practice in lying than I do.”

Draco accepted the words meant to be a blow as a compliment. And a hopeful sign, too. At least they meant that Potter might be acknowledging reality. “Yes, I do. And I know how wonderful compatible magic is. I was right beside you, remember.” He took a step forwards again, crowding Potter so that his eyes snapped up defensively. Another risk, but Draco figured there was nothing better he could do around an overemotional Gryffindor than let him know his emotions were shared. “I know what it’s like,” he whispered. “I want it.”

Then he waited.

Potter exhaled. Draco thought he could actually smell the dust of old thoughts on that breath, disinterred from the ancient tombs where Potter had kept them since he was eleven years old. “Ah, fuck,” he said, sounding discontented. “Yeah. I want it, too.”

“You don’t have to choose between me and Weasley,” Draco went on, still whispering. The whisper made Potter look at him in a way that Draco liked, as if he were half-hypnotized, as if the whisper were a voice that had come to him in dreams and was luring him further and further on. “I’ll never make you do that. I’ll wait until you can acknowledge this. But I won’t wait for him to acknowledge this, because his opinion’s not the one that’s important to me.”

Potter narrowed his eyes in thought. Then he said, with a sharp snap of his head that Draco wished Weasley could have been here to witness, “You’re right. It’s not fair to punish you for something that’s Ron’s problem.”

Draco held back a groan. That one statement released knots of tension that had been tied up in him for years.

“That doesn’t mean that you can help me in what I’m doing now,” Potter added quickly. “It just means that I’ll stop ignoring you in class and work better with you in our private lessons.”

“You’re going to investigate the source of that Dark magic, aren’t you?” A child could have known Potter’s intent from listening to the questions he had asked among the trainees—questions they had talked about afterwards. If Potter wanted to make his investigation in secret, then he had a lot to learn.

Potter’s eyes went wide in a way that Draco wanted to laugh at. Once again, he held his tongue with some effort. “Yes,” Potter muttered, then added fiercely, “But you still can’t come along.”

“Why not?” Draco played the unfairness card again, since it had worked so well for him where Weasley was concerned. “I’m the one the magic attacked. I’m the one who deserves a chance at revenge or at least knowledge.”

“Ah, fuck,” Potter said again.

Draco let his lips curl in a small, smug smile.

*

Harry didn’t entirely know why he was standing with Malfoy in front of the corner where they had seen the illusion and the message from Nihil cast. Malfoy had spoken some words that Harry had to consider. That didn’t mean that he was wise. It didn’t mean that Harry had to take Malfoy with him on the investigation.

But that was what had happened. Harry only wished he knew why.

If I was going to listen to anyone’s arguments, you’d think it would be Ron’s. That’s what I’ve always done, and I’ve known him longer.

Harry ended up shaking his head and crouching over the wall where he was sure the illusion had been. There was an imaging spell Trainee Arrowshot had taught him which he thought it would be interesting to use.

“Demonstro obscurum,” he whispered.

Malfoy shifted behind him, as if he was surprised that Harry knew that spell. Harry ignored him, keeping his eyes fixed in front of him as he watched the spell form on the wall like a bright blue slug trail. The magic sparked and spat, and wavering tendrils extended away from it. For long moments, it hesitated, and Harry held his breath. Arrowshot had told him that the spell might not work if the traces Harry was trying to detect were too faint. For all Harry knew, Nihil might have managed to sneak in again and cast some spell that would wash away his magic.

Then the spell began moving again, and Harry let out a whoosh of breath. Malfoy clucked his tongue behind him. Harry glared over his shoulder, and Malfoy shrugged.

“You’re going to have to learn how to control your emotions,” he said. “You display them so openly, and that’s hardly wise. Anyone can know whether you’re surprised or angry or bewildered right now just by listening to you or looking into your eyes. How do you expect to surprise an enemy that way?”

“Maybe I’ll let you take care of them,” Harry said, because he thought a reference to their partnership would probably please Malfoy and make him shut up, and then he turned around and studied the magic again.

The blue lines now outlined the trace that Harry had hoped to find. It looked like a footprint, but it would give much more information than that. He had only to touch it.

He shivered and reached out.

Malfoy’s hand was right beside his, touching the outline at the same time Harry’s did.

Harry whirled around, glaring, and a little afraid. Arrowshot hadn’t told him what would happen if two people touched the trace at once. He thought it might not be harmful, but as it was—

“Malfoy,” he had time to say just before a whirl of colors like a Portkey embraced them and jerked them with the same sharp wrench as a Portkey back in time.

*
So Potter was upset. Draco didn’t care. He knew this spell, and he knew that it wasn’t dangerous to have two people use it at the same time, though Precious Saint Potter obviously thought so. The question was where he had learned to cast it and not learned how to use it. It was a good thing to have two sets of eyes look at the images the spell produced, because what it gave was an image of reality that could be played only once, unlike a Pensieve, and a single person was unlikely to notice everything.

Draco made sure to widen and clear his memory as he and Potter “landed” in the image with a slight rocking jolt, the way he would have when he wanted to memorize the recipe for a new potion. The scene in front of him was of a dim corridor. If Potter was pressed about it later, that was probably all he would be able to say.

Draco intended to see, and be able to say, much more.

The image in front of him jounced as though their landing had unsettled it, and then shadows wisped and coiled around the figure of a tall person who was striding up the middle of the corridor. Draco recognized the shadows as a fairly ordinary Mist Glamour. It was not high-level magic, which lowered his opinion of a spellcaster he had rated highly when he saw the despair and the murder curses mixed in the red and black ribbons.

Perhaps it is even better to hide your identity with a spell that won’t leave many traces or cause much alarm, though, he admitted to himself.

The figure, so muffled in the mist and the cloak it wore that Draco couldn’t make out its face or its sex, halted in front of the wall where the message and the illusion had hung. A few times he paced slowly back and forth, as if considering the width of the wall. Then he nodded and raised his wand.

He cast everything nonverbally, the bastard.

Draco watched nevertheless as the wand flourished, because sometimes one could tell much about a spell by the wrist and finger movements, even without an incantation. The illusion took form before the letters that scored NIHIL appeared. Draco didn’t know what that meant, but he took note of it anyway. In a situation like this, the smallest details might be of importance. One never knew.

The figure paused when the spells were cast and took a deep breath, one hand rising to stroke the outlines of the illusion. Though Draco couldn’t see that invisible face, he imagined it was smiling. The slow caress of the empty, malformed air gave him the idea that this was something the spellcaster had planned for a long time.

He didn’t know that for certain. But it looked that way.

Once more, the whirl of colors surrounded them and snatched them back to their own place and time. Draco blinked slowly and reached out to put a hand on Potter’s shoulder, to steady him and be steadied. That method of travel was rather disorienting.

Potter stepped away from him as soon as he could, gaze carefully averted. Draco concealed a snort. It seemed Potter, willing to admit that compatible magic held some advantages or not, still was not willing to let Draco touch him.

“I don’t understand,” Potter murmured. “She told me that the spell would reveal the truth about the past. I thought—I thought it was something like a Pensieve, where you could see things the people involved in the memory didn’t notice. I thought we might see someone spying on him, or a betraying clue he left behind, or—something.”

This time, Draco let the snort out. He cheered silently when Potter turned around with sparks in his eyes. They were about to have an argument now where a part of Potter’s self was in the words, instead of the careful ignoring distance that he had tried to preserve.

“We’re dealing with someone who’s a careful planner here,” Draco said. “Not someone who’ll leave clues behind. It’s only in novels and Auror training manuals that criminals are thoughtful enough to do that, Potter. We have to look for things that we might not realize are clues, because then there’s the chance that the criminals might not realize it, either.”

Potter scowled at him. “And what gave you the impression of careful planning? He didn’t say a word, and we couldn’t see his face.”

“He must have practiced those spells a lot to be able to use them nonverbally,” Draco said. “This was no spur-of-the-moment decision, no plan that he came up with on a drunken whim and decided to try out. And what about the way he touched the illusion? Did you notice that?” It was pitifully obvious Potter needed someone to come along and be the brains of any investigation he tried—it must be the reason he had stuck by Granger so long—but Draco wanted some company in the thinking. Why should he have to do all the work?

“He touched it like it was a living thing,” Potter said. “Like he was fond of it.”

Those were not the words Draco would have used, but because of that, they pleased him all the more. He nodded. “Yes. That indicates the illusion has some sort of special meaning to him.”

“What?” Potter demanded.

“Well, obviously we don’t know yet,” Draco snapped. “But we know more than we did half an hour ago, and I think that’s an achievement.”

Potter sighed so hard that his lips flapped. “It’s something,” he agreed, sounding so grudging that Draco would have liked to strike him. “I just wish we knew what the message indicated.” He frowned at the wall as though he still saw the letters there.

“Why the letters and not the illusion?” Draco walked to his right side to see how he reacted when Draco crossed behind him. He thought he saw a flicker of tension across Potter’s shoulders, but he didn’t turn.

“Because the name is something that someone might use to intimidate,” Potter said, “the same way Voldemort was used.” Draco flinched in spite of himself. Potter didn’t notice. He was now scowling so hard that Draco thought he was trying to force the molecules of the wall to speak and tell him the truth. “Or something that he might use to recruit people. That would give us more of a trail to follow than the image does.”

Draco raised an eyebrow. “You can think when you let your brain work, Potter,” he said. “This partnership could succeed, you know.”

Potter tossed him a quick glance. “Thank you ever so much, Malfoy.”

Draco sighed. “That was a compliment, Potter.” He’d nearly substituted a more insulting name instead, but he had decided at the last minute that that wasn’t actually the best way to get Potter to listen to him. “I mean it,” he added, when Potter looked wary. “We need more than just compatible magic to succeed. We need both of us working at the top of our game. We need our brains working in tandem. We need skills that the Auror classes can teach us. We need—”

All the lights in the corridor vanished.

*

Harry moved instinctively.

The more he’d thought about it, the more he’d thought that the attack of the red and black ribbons had to have been aimed at Malfoy. Who could have known that Harry would walk outside his door at that precise time? On the other hand, Malfoy was often in and out of his rooms in the evenings, and the ribbons could have flowed over him and strangled him if he was alone. Then they would have dissipated, and everyone would have wondered what had happened and walked about in terror—which Harry thought was what Nihil wanted.

So now he shot through the darkness and stood back-to-back with Malfoy. He’d already tried a nonverbal Lumos, and it had failed. So he chose a spell that Dearborn had described but cautioned them not to use, because it was too powerful.

If there’s any time to use a defensive spell that’s too powerful, it’s in the middle of Dark magic that’s also powerful.

“Sol!”

The sun came and sat on the tip of his wand.

He heard Malfoy yelp about being blinded, and Harry himself had to squint past the intense light so that he could see who the rest of the people in the corridor were and what they were doing. He didn’t mind about that, though, since what they were doing at the moment was cowering and covering their eyes.

That wasn’t enough to hide that they wore black cloaks and white masks. They looked exactly like Death Eaters.

Rage ripped loose from inside Harry so suddenly that he felt as if he was standing at a distance from himself. He had tried for a year now to live a normal life and avoid the spotlight and concentrate on what he wanted to be, which was an ordinary Auror. And still the past followed him, and still he was singled out, and now his reasons for being an Auror were all confused. And sometimes he was angry at Ron and sympathetic to Malfoy.

Death Eaters showing up again, when he had been so sure that all of them were in prison or dead or awaiting trial, was not something he needed.

He reached out. He didn’t know what he was reaching for, but he knew it traveled through him like a whirlwind to reach his wand, and by the time it got there, he had chosen the only spell that could contain it all.

“Tripudio cum somniis!”

The spell left him sagging and shaking. Malfoy held him up with a great deal of effort, which was odd to Harry. He was the one who ought to have the most strength; so far, he hadn’t cast a spell in this battle.

The whirlwind descended on the Death Eaters and vanished into them. For some instants, they stood motionless, and Harry started wondering that it hadn’t worked. Then they began to laugh, and whimper, and claw at their faces. One tore off his mask and revealed a fairly ordinary face, a young man’s face with dark eyes and hair and a drooping moustache. He capered in circles, cackling. The woman next to him started to snicker helplessly. Another woman enfolded an imaginary baby in her arms and began to rock it.

Harry felt even weaker with relief. Yes, the spell had worked the way it was supposed to. The Death Eaters were now living through their dearest dreams, and wouldn’t acknowledge anything in the outside world, even if it tried to force its way into their attention.

“What did you do?” Malfoy whispered into his ear.

Harry glanced curiously back at him. “Made them think their dreams were coming true. Surely you know the spell?”

“You pulled energy from me,” Malfoy said, sounding pleasantly dazed. “Without waiting for me to cast at the same time and without me casting a spell first. You just—reached in and helped yourself to my magic.”

Harry winced, his pleased state vanishing. It sounded awful when Malfoy put it like that, even if Harry hadn’t known what he was doing. He coughed and shook himself, standing as upright as he could. “Sorry,” he said shortly.

“It’s intriguing,” Malfoy said, and nearly fell. Harry reached out in alarm to catch him. He must have weakened him physically as well as magically when he pulled on him like that. Malfoy yawned. “And I didn’t say you could move,” he muttered, his eyes drooping shut.

Harry looked up. The darkness in the corridor had dissipated. The Death Eaters were still staggering in circles and nursing imaginary children and beating imaginary foes. The first of the other trainees were coming out of their rooms now, their mouths agape. Some ducked back for their wands when they saw the Death Eaters’ dark cloaks.

Sharply striding boots told of an official detachment of Aurors heading their way.

None of that gave Harry an answer about how Death Eaters, of all people, had managed to breach the wards that surrounded the trainee barracks. Then again, he didn’t know how the red and black magic or the person who created the message had managed to enter, either.

And because it was the way his life worked, Ron was the one who came around the corner and saw him cradling Malfoy. He stood still for long moments and stared before he came forwards to help carry Malfoy’s dead weight. At least he did it, Harry thought. But Ron’s mouth had become very small. That was a bad sign.

There was a sharp light in his eyes, too, that Harry didn’t know the meaning of until Ginny firecalled him two days later.

Chapter Eleven.

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Ack! Edge of your seat stuff, I know it's only in early days, which means I shouldn't be sitting this far forwards yet, but I'm dying to know what happens next :)

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Chapter Ten of 'Soldier's Welcome'- A Working of Friendship

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