lomonaaeren

Chapter Six.

Title: Ceremonies of Strife (7/50)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione, Lucius/Narcissa
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, Dark magic, angst, profanity, sex (slash and het), character deaths (not the main characters).
Summary: Sequel to Soldier’s Welcome. As Harry and Draco head in to their second year of Auror training, they are resolved to try and balance the relationship between them with their personal difficulties. That might be a bit harder than they think when the difficulties include necromancy, Azkaban escapees, unicorn ghosts, the risen dead, a secret order of assassins…and the second war, guided by Nihil.
Author’s Notes: This is the second part of what I’m calling the Running to Paradise Trilogy, focused on Harry and Draco’s Auror training. A reader on AFF called SP777 suggested the idea for this series to me. I’d advise you to read Soldier’s Welcome first before you try to read this one, as this story doesn’t spend a lot of time recapitulating the first one.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Seven—The New and the Old

Harry collapsed into bed and stared at the ceiling, his head whirling. He had thought, two days ago, that his most pressing problem would be to find a way to explain the symbol in the necromancy book to Draco and his friends without arousing their suspicions.

Then they’d arrived back for Auror training, and the sheer busyness of the first day had driven that entirely out of his head until now. At the moment, he was wondering rather dismally how they would survive the term.

*

“Most of you had my classes last year,” Jennifer Morningstar said, moving back and forth in front of them with an energy Draco envied her. He felt as though someone had struck him merely because he’d had to get up earlier than he’d been used to during the summer. “Nothing has changed, except the training exercises, the intensity, and the amount of time I will expect you to spend practicing each week.” She paused with a serene smile and looked around the room. “Any questions?”

Everyone stared gloomily back at her. Draco repressed a sigh. I can see Combat is going to be as fun this year as it was last year.

“Malfoy.” Morningstar nodded to him, and Draco found himself on his feet, responding to the crisp command in her voice, before he thought about it. “Show me what you remember from the lessons last year, against…” She paused, gaze traveling around the circle, and Draco found himself hoping she wouldn’t pick Harry. The way they had learned to “move” together was not the approved one.

“Against Ventus,” Morningstar finished with a pleased little nod.

Draco blinked and turned his head. Their classes had been rearranged for this second year, and so he was with many people who were at the same level as they were but whom he’d never seen. Ventus was apparently a tiny woman with dread-filled big blue eyes who stood up on trembling legs when Morningstar looked at her and shuffled nervously forwards.

Draco bowed to her, in the Morningstar-approved fashion, and then fell back into a defensive crouch. Ventus stood there as if she didn’t know where to put her hands and feet.

“Begin,” Morningstar said, and moved out of the way.

Draco launched a cautious attack. Ventus bent aside from it. Draco tried to kick her in the stomach. She wasn’t there. He tried to catch her across the ankles with a sweep from his foot. Somehow, she had leaped gracefully over it with an energy that Draco wouldn’t have thought was in her.

And then she began to fight in earnest.

The rest of the fight was more or less a blur in Draco’s memory. Around, upside-down, from angles that he wasn’t certain existed, Ventus attacked, and her eyes blazed with joy and her hair flew around her. Draco managed to keep from getting too badly hurt, but that still left him with bruised elbows, a scraped cheek, and one blow to the solar plexus that made him bend over and gasp.

“You need to practice more,” was the only comment Morningstar made before she called another pair up, and Draco went back to sit next to Harry, with a resolve to learn more and better healing spells as soon as possible.

And keep an eye on a certain student who seemed, when he whispered the question to someone else, to be named Ursula Ventus.

*

“This is the year when you learn most everything,” Samwise Ketchum said, sweeping a slow glance around their group. Though he caught Harry’s eye, as he seemed to catch everyone’s, he didn’t pay him any special attention. Harry and Draco might as well have been ordinary students rather than, last year, working with the instructors to try and prevent a takeover by Nihil. “The second year is crucial. Last year you learned elementary ways to avoid obstacles and navigate battlefields.

“This year,” and Ketchum stepped back to gesture at the looming mess of ladders, floating cubes, ropes, and platforms before them, “you will build your own courses.”

Harry grinned and shot a glance at Draco, to see if the notion excited him. Draco looked back with what seemed annoyance. Harry winced at the sight of the bruises on his face and murmured another pain-subduing charm under his breath. Draco blinked at him, probably feeling it take effect, and then smiled slightly.

“Trainee Potter, we’ll begin with you.”

Harry started guiltily, and then stepped out of line; it was that or have everyone else edge away from him, which was even more embarrassing. He cleared his throat and tried to pretend he had the remotest idea of what Ketchum had been talking about. “Yes, sir?”

“If you had to prevent someone from getting into the upper left-hand corner of this room,” Ketchum said, “how would you do it?”

Harry surveyed the obstacle course between him and that corner slowly, then stepped to the side and looked it over again. This was one of the times he really hated having bad eyesight. Just when he thought he’d seen everything that was in the way, another rope or stone or wall planted firmly in mid-air would blaze out at him.

Then he saw Ketchum leaning slightly forwards from the corner of his eye, and remembered that this was one teacher who valued creative solutions.

“I’d burst apart everything between here and there, sir,” he said firmly.

Ketchum arched an eyebrow. “Indeed? And what would keep your enemy from simply conjuring more things to stand on? Flotation charms are simple, you know.”

“I’d lay down the Stasis Charm so that they couldn’t use the same kinds of spells that are keeping these things aloft,” Harry said, waving an arm at the midair obstacle course. “And while they were trying to figure out another combination of spells that would work, I’d attack them.”

“From behind what cover?” demanded Ketchum.

“A Disillusionment Charm,” Harry said, glad that he’d thought it over before he responded. He’d been about to say that he’d leave some of the chairs and walls on the floor in place, but then Ketchum would have asked why his enemies couldn’t pile those obstacles on top of each other to reach the left-hand corner.

Ketchum stared at him with piercing eyes so long that Harry started to worry Disillusionment Charms were subject to some restriction he’d forgotten about. Then Ketchum nodded.

“Acceptable,” he said. “Useless your enemies were intelligent enough to use a spell that reveals the presence of hidden humans in a room, but acceptable.” Harry stepped gratefully back into line as Ketchum faced the left-hand corner of the room and extended his wrist. “This is how I would do it…”

*

Draco couldn’t help looking suspiciously around as they filed into Concealment and Disguise, a large, round room deep in the Ministry he’d never entered. There were cushions scattered on the floor, but no desks. Draco frowned even more. He still found Auror Ketchum’s informality grating at times. He hoped this didn’t mean that they would have another far-too-relaxed instructor.

“My name is Auror Ysabel Davidson.”

Draco started. What he had thought was a bookcase in the corner, or at least a long, deep shadow cast by one of the flickering torches, revealed itself to actually be a tall woman clad in Auror robes. They were a shade darker than normal, Draco thought, using observation to relieve his embarrassment as she glided into the center of the room. The woman had large dark eyes and black hair that twisted in elaborate curls across her scalp.

Auror Davidson gestured with one curled hand. Draco found himself taking a seat on the nearest cushion without thinking about it. Weasley flopped down with a surprised expression on his face.

He probably isn’t used to obeying anyone except Granger, Draco thought in irritation, and then turned around and fixed his eyes on Davidson.

“You will learn many things here,” Davidson said in a cool voice, pacing in front of them. Her robes flowed around her feet with a gentle swishing sound. Draco relaxed. Davidson must have had training in a school that taught her to moderate her tones, make herself elegant, and move with care. That was refreshing next to people like the Mudblood Ketchum and the disorganized Hestia Jones. “The title of the class is somewhat misleading. Concealment and Disguise, yes, but that involves more than learning how to change your face. It is not by the face alone that others recognize us.” She pointed a long, manicured fingernail at Weasley. “What do you think people recognize you by, Trainee Weasley?”

“Er,” Weasley said, and knotted his hands together as if he was facing some hard exam question. “My hair?”

Davidson considered him in silence, her head on one side, and then said, “If you say it, then it must be so.” Draco snickered, unable to help himself, even though it earned him an elbow in the side from Harry and a sharp glare from Granger. “There are other methods, but yes, in fact, I did recognize you as part of your family without knowing your name due to your hair.” She looked around the class. “Now that you have seen me for a full five minutes, what would you recognize me by?”

“Your height,” Granger said.

“Your voice,” Draco said, and tried to make Harry participate with a nudge of his own, but Harry glared at him and sat still.

“And yet,” a new person said, in a high, shrill tone, “those things can change.”

Draco turned back, and gaped. The new person was not a secondary instructor who had entered the class, as he had assumed, but Davidson herself. She was slumped over now, the expression on her face relaxed and open and a bit dazed. Her voice was different, but not high-pitched enough that Draco would have believed it exaggerated. She looked like someone for whom the words “good nature” were an integral part of her soul.

Davidson turned towards them, head swaying, and clucked her tongue. “Ah, you are all staring. I get that every year.” She laughed, and the laughter was free and joyous and loud, the kind of laughter Draco had heard from Harry after they made love. It didn’t fit at all with the restrained demeanor Davidson had presented just a short time before. “Do try to remember, changing a few things can change the whole. It will work less well over time as you know me.” She paused. “If you ever do.”

Draco scowled. I would have appreciated one elegant instructor to take Dearborn’s place. Now, I reckon, we won’t have one.

*

“My name is Patricia Coronante.”

Draco groaned, and Harry wanted to kick his ankle for being so rude, but their desks were too far apart. He knew that it couldn’t be the name alone that was making Draco upset. It was probably the fact that they had walked into the classroom and found Auror Coronante, who had bright orange hair, standing on her head.

Coronante had gone on standing on her head while she encouraged them to find seats, and then had proceeded to greet most of them by name. Harry wasn’t surprised about that when it came to him, Draco, and Ron, but Hermione had sat up proudly when her name was called and looked at Coronante in some curiosity.

“I’m sure you didn’t expect to find an instructor like this for Stealth and Tracking, did you?” Coronante flipped back to her feet and jumped down from the desk where she’d been perched. “I’ve had a lot of people who ask me how I can teach it. I’m noisy, they tell me, in more ways than one.” She touched her bright hair and grinned.

Draco muttered something under his breath. This time, Harry extended his leg the awkward distance and did kick his ankle. Draco nursed it and glared at him from the corner of his eye.

“Too many people overestimate the role of silence in Stealth,” Coronante said cheerfully. “You can be as noisy as you like and still have your prey look past you, as long as you’re doing what they expect to see.”

Harry saw Hermione already scribbling notes on a piece of parchment. Coronante drifted towards her, and she looked up. An expression of guilt flashed across her face. Harry wondered why, but then remembered the way that Hermione often behaved around the professors at Hogwarts when they were planning something, like their investigation of the Chamber of Secrets. Whether or not she had broken a rule in a way they could have punished her for, she felt a kind of generalized guilt.

“For example,” Coronante said, “you’d be able to hide as a student in a school very well, Trainee Granger. You like writing things down and looking studious and busy. But how would you be able to follow someone around a city without getting noticed?”

Hermione caught her lip between her teeth. Harry felt sorry for her. It was probably one of the few times in her life that she didn’t know the answer.

“That sounds like a question that I would answer in Concealment and Disguise instead, Auror Coronante,” she said at last.

Coronante beamed and stepped back from her desk. “Good! These two subjects work together, in fact, and I’ll often question you about something Auror Davidson has taught you or give you exercises to do in her class. But one thing that clearly separates Stealth and Tracking from Concealment and Disguise is that Stealth concentrates more on behavior than on body language, and on following your prey, not simply going unnoticed.” She cocked her head at the rest of the class. “Why aren’t you writing this down?”

“She’s going to be bloody awful,” Draco whispered in complaint to Harry as he pulled out a parchment and a quill.

Harry rolled his eyes and didn’t respond. They hadn’t talked much so far about Draco’s reaction to Muggleborns, and Harry knew they would have to. But he didn’t want to start today.

*

They have compatible magic.

Draco sat up the moment their instructors for Partnership Trust walked into the room, but he wasn’t exactly looking at their faces or their robes or the way they moved, though it was a combination of all those things that forced him to the appropriate conclusion. These weren’t any two Aurors, or even a pair who worked well together and had decided to teach a class that would require teamwork. It went deeper and further than that.

Beside him, Harry made a choking sound. Draco smiled, glad that he had recognized the same thing, though he probably wouldn’t be able to identify it as quickly as Draco could.

“Greetings,” said the man. He was heavily muscled, much more so than Draco was used to seeing on Aurors, who seemed to tend to slenderness and speed. He had straw-colored hair and pale green eyes, nowhere near as startling as Harry’s. His voice and his face were both calm, exquisite models of good breeding. Draco’s hope for a properly restrained teacher rose again. “My name is Frederick Lowell. This is my partner, Charlotte Weston.”

The woman dipped a curtsey to them, which was heartening to see. Her hair was a rich chestnut, trimmed short and floating around her chin and ears. Her eyes were black, like Professor Snape’s, but warm.

“As some of you might have already guessed,” she said, with a quick glance at Harry and Draco, “we share compatible magic. But that doesn’t mean we can’t teach people without it how to handle themselves in battle and trust one another. By the end of this year, in June, you will be assigned partners. Of course, assignment comes in the case of your being unable to discover someone who meshes and melds with you. We will all hope for the finding instead.” She smiled. The smile was again much warmer, but Draco thought he could compare it favorably with his mother’s.

“Some of you may wonder,” Lowell said, moving off to the left of the room, and so towards Draco, “why an entire class on learning to trust your partner? After all, you do learn similar things in other classes. Fighting with partners and squads in Hand-to-Hand Combat, which you will be doing this year. Fighting in teams, as you did in Offensive and Defensive Magic.” He paused a moment, head bowed, and Draco was certain he was remembering Auror Dearborn. “And you will have heard about the importance of acting and fighting next to someone else in Auror Conduct.”

“But this class is necessary,” Weston said, voice low and perfectly pleasant but also piercing. Professor Snape would have liked her, Draco thought as he turned to face her. She has his methods of getting attention. “Among other things, too many people forget those lessons by the time they come to gain a partner of their own, or they are unable to remove them from the context of one class and see the commonalities between them.”

Draco looked hard at Harry. It was even more amusing when Harry stared back at him blankly, obviously not seeing all the many ways that Weston’s comment could apply to him.

“We will demonstrate an example of our partnership to you,” Lowell said. “But that is not all. You will be seeing how other partners react and fight and work together in day-to-day life.”

“Sometimes it’s the paperwork that causes disagreements,” said Weston, with a small smile, “and not the cases at all.”

“This sounds like a class in how to be married,” sneered someone from the back of the room. Draco turned and saw a dark-haired young man with his feet on the desk, his hands behind his head, and an expression so superior on his face that Draco promptly wanted to strike it off.

“A good marriage and a good Auror partnership are much alike, Trainee Bane,” Weston said. “Alas, that we can only teach you how to master one.”

Draco made sure that Bane heard him snicker at that. That got him a glance of dislike, but Draco didn’t care. It would have been a shame for someone like that to prefer him.

“And you have to take this class if you want to continue your training,” Lowell said, in the tone of someone settling an argument. “So there’s that.”

Bane leaned against the back of his chair and folded his arms. “I’ll be watching to see how useful it is,” he muttered.

And I’ll be watching for any opportunity to see you fall, Draco thought.

Harry gave him a warning glance. Draco, pulling out parchment, could easily pretend that he’d missed it.

*

“This class,” said Hestia Jones, her eyes very bright and her voice very shrill, “is a combination of Observation and Charms—I mean, Defensive and Offensive Magic—oh, dear…”

A large stack of papers had fallen off her desk onto the floor. As she crouched down to retrieve them, another stack fell. Harry heard laughter break out around the room, and winced. He knew a lot of students found Hestia comical or only looked forwards to her class because the homework was easy, but he remembered how it had felt to have dozens of eager, expectant eyes on him when he felt too young for the job.

She really belongs in the field, he thought, as he surreptitiously waved his wand under his desk and made the paper stick together in clumps so it would be easier to gather. Not teaching. She did well with the Order of the Phoenix.

Hestia shot him a grateful glance—perhaps she’d felt the spell—and stood up, stacks safely together once more. “So,” she said, as she faced her audience. “That’s the definition of Quick Response. You’ll be doing a lot of acting as well as writing—I mean, you’ll be taking action.” Harry smiled, cheered by that. Maybe that would play to Hestia’s strengths. “For now, I’ll just give you the list of studying I expect you to undertake.”

“You’re smiling at her a lot,” Draco said under his breath as Harry leaned out to accept a stack of paper from Hestia. They were sitting at the very front of the row, and Harry managed to shake his head and murmur a response as he handed one parchment to Draco and the rest down the line of students.

“She’s nervous. I know what that’s like. And she was a friend, or sort of, during the Order of the Phoenix days. She came to help guard me when the Order flew me from my relatives’ house to Grimmauld Place the summer before fifth year.”

“You still don’t have to smile at her that much,” Draco said, this time with a sharper edge to the whisper.

“And you don’t have to be that jealous,” Harry said in return, annoyed, and they didn’t speak for the rest of the class.

*

“Welcome to the Spell Lexicon.”

Draco managed to keep himself from jumping, but only just. This room was larger than the one in which they met with Davidson, and also had better acoustics. The walls looked to be stone at first, but Draco touched one as they went to one of the neat rows of benches lined up in the center of the room and felt a slickness that had never been part of natural stone. He frowned and rubbed his fingers. It would make sense that they’d altered the walls somehow to keep spells from bouncing off them and hitting students, but like this?

Then the instructor stepped into the middle of the room, and he forgot everything else.

This man moved like a fighter. He was nearly Draco’s height, but he had whipcord muscles everywhere and fierce pride in his eyes, which were dark. Draco could forgive, if only just, the red tinge to his hair for the sake of the expression of slight contempt he used to survey his students. Draco didn’t mind contempt when it came from someone who looked much older and wiser.

“My name is Roger Aran,” said the man. “I was retired from my business, which was spellcrafting, but they’re short on instructors this year and asked me to help.” He smiled, as if to say he knew exactly where the shortage had come from and thought the Ministry idiots for allowing several of their teachers to be killed or driven away by Nihil. “Other people will teach this class. But it, and you, are under my ultimate control. Do you understand?”

Granger put her hand up. Draco rolled his eyes and wondered why she wasn’t more intimidated by competence when she saw it. “Please, sir,” she said, “why is this class called the Spell Lexicon?”

Aran’s lip curled. “A lexicon is meant to improve your vocabulary,” he said. “I will be improving your vocabulary of spells. Powerful spells, minor ones, cleaning and healing and offensive and defensive spells. Whatever I think important, you’ll learn it.” He leaned forwards confidingly. “Including several spells that I’ve invented myself.”

Draco felt his heart give an excited leap. Perhaps I won’t need to become a War Wizard to get access to good knowledge after all.

He thought Aran looked directly at him for a moment, perhaps because of his expression, but then he turned away and began to bark the description of the first spell. Draco wrote fit to break his hand, and felt overwhelmed with happiness when the class was over.

And the need to learn more, and more.

*

Harry shook his head and closed his eyes. Definitely too much information and too many different subjects to absorb in one day.

But not so much that he hadn’t taken one more look at his necromancy book before he fell asleep. The symbol of the wheel with deadly nightshade along its spokes linked Portillo Lopez to an order of assassins.

But not an order that was meant to kill the living, as Harry had at once assumed. An order meant to kill the living dead, to, as the book put it, “return them to the embrace of the ground and the natural order of things.”

Harry had no idea what to do with that.

Chapter Eight.