Chapter Three of 'Seasons of War'- Round of Daily Life

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Two.

Title: Seasons of War (3/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, torture, sex, angst, profanity, ignores the DH epilogue.
Summary: The war against Nihil enters its final stages, Harry and Draco train as partners, and they may actually survive to become effective Aurors. Maybe.
Author’s Notes: This is the final part of the Running to Paradise Trilogy, sequel to Ceremonies of Strife, and won’t make much sense if you haven’t read the first two stories. I don’t yet know how long this one will be, but based on the others, I’m guessing 45 to 50 chapters.

Chapter One.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Three—Round of Daily Life

Gregory turned her head to study Harry and Draco with a glinting eye as they joined her class. Harry tried to tell himself that he’d faced more fearsome people than her, but at the moment it was difficult to remember who qualified, except for Nihil.

“Ah,” Gregory said, loudly enough that half her students stopped practicing and looked their way. The others kept on feverishly working. They’d probably had enough of their share of distractions, Harry thought, and learned to resist them. “I wondered when you would begin to acknowledge that you needed my help.”

Draco watched Gregory as if he were a predator equal in weight and deadliness to her. He probably was, Harry acknowledged to himself. He didn’t think he was.

“We’re here to learn,” Draco said. “If you can’t supply that, then we’ll find another teacher.”

Gregory sneered and stalked quickly towards them, her robes flapping around her ankles. Harry watched her warily. When she’d acted like that in the past, she had usually attacked him in the next moment or two.

This time, she didn’t, but simply halted in front of them, watching them with disdain. “I can teach you,” she snapped, suddenly enough that Harry jerked a little. “If you’re willing to admit that most of what you’ve learned from that bitch Morningstar is useless and has to be learned over.” She tilted her head towards her practicing students, most of who were acting in pairs or fighting a student Harry assumed was more advanced two-to-one. “All of them had bad habits I had to get rid of.”

“We’re willing to learn, yes,” Draco said. “If you’re willing to teach, which I find myself increasingly doubting.”

Gregory gave him a thin smile and beckoned at them as she turned back to the practice. “Come with me. Perhaps we can find you a willing partner, assuming that anyone else is willing to put her education on hold to attend to you.”

Harry shook his head as they followed. He knew that Draco and Gregory were probably putting on this show to convince anyone watching that they weren’t allies, but he thought a bit less hostility could have accomplished the same thing.

“You know each other’s strengths and weaknesses,” Gregory was saying as she signaled to one of the groups fighting two-on-one. They stopped, tossing hair or wiping sweat out of their eyes. Harry studied them. Two of them were women, thin and wiry, and the man was large enough that Harry knew what was going to happen even before Gregory spoke. “Natural enough, as you’re partners. But you have to study the strengths and weaknesses of others to have any chance at all. Potter. wrestle Windborne here.”

Windborne, the wizard, stepped forwards and stretched out his arms. Harry doubted he was as stupid as Dudley, but he remembered what had happened when he was a child and Dudley asked him to “wrestle.”

He had no intention of feeling his ribs knocked out of alignment because he wasn’t as strong. So he doubled around—he would have used a spell ordinarily, but Gregory liked to emphasize the training of their bodies and probably wouldn’t appreciate the use of a wand—and kicked Windborne hard in the side of the leg, as Morningstar had taught them to do with larger opponents. Windborne staggered to the side, not falling but losing his balance badly enough that Harry knew he could have taken him in a fight.

“Enough!” Gregory said. She leaned forwards, hands on her hips and eyes blazing so brightly that Harry wondered for a minute if she had been looking forwards to Windborne hurting him. “Potter, what part of wrestle didn’t you understand?”

“I would have lost,” Harry said, meeting her stare for stare. “I’m not good at that kind of fighting. I thought you were here to teach us to use our advantages, not struggle with tactics that we can’t use.”

He heard Draco put his head in his hands, but he kept his gaze stubbornly on Gregory. Yes, he had given in and played by her rules when she was an instructor and he was a lowly trainee, but he wasn’t going to do that now. She would either teach him something useful or nothing at all.

Then Gregory gave a great shout of laughter that scattered the battling trainees all out of order. Harry thought they had probably seen plenty of new students approach her and get tested, but her laughter was a sign of the apocalypse.

“Very good,” Gregory said. “Yes, Potter, you’ll need to use movement and speed to counter the strength of some of your opponents. I won’t ask you to wrestle again. But you and Malfoy will be fighting separately.”

Harry nodded. He hadn’t expected anything else.

“Malfoy, come this way,” Gregory said. “I want you to meet Jackson. Potter, Windborne, continue fighting.”

Harry winced and turned back to Windborne. He hadn’t meant to make a bad example of the bloke, but he could see that his face was grim, and he would probably do his best to hurt Harry now, to get his pride back.

Well, I’ve survived worse.

*

Draco could feel his face burning as he tried to sit comfortably on the muddy ground in the circle that surrounded Weston and Lowell. Kelly Jackson, his opponent in Gregory’s class, had deliberately kicked him in the arse. He had a huge bruise there—he’d had Harry check—and it made him want to squirm.

Pride was stronger than pain, though, as it had always been for the Malfoys. He sat still, arms folded, and watched Lowell step towards him.

The man was Weston’s partner, and also had compatible magic with her. They had taught Harry and Draco privately in the barracks how to begin handling their magic and to do such tricks as channeling it through each other’s wands. Draco had thought the same thing would happen in this class, though of course most of the other students didn’t have compatible magic.

Not so. Instead, Weston and Lowell were forcing partnerships together and teaching them to trust each other in a flurry of activity. Draco didn’t know what the class had to offer him and Harry, already tried and trusted partners for a year and a half, except that they had to give the illusion of obedience to the Head Auror’s wishes by attending it.

Now, he watched through half-lidded eyes as Weston walked around Granger and Weasley, telling them that just being in love with each other wouldn’t make them good partners. Granger was nearly in tears, while Weasley folded his arms and scowled at the ground.

“Malfoy.”

Reluctantly, Draco glanced at Lowell. He couldn’t just ignore one of the instructors, either, but it would have been easier if he could, he thought wistfully. “Auror?”

“I want you and your partner to demonstrate the trust test to us.” Lowell had an upright stance lately, as though acting like a soldier would somehow hold off the danger of Nihil. “You’ve been together long enough that it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Draco reluctantly climbed to his feet, glancing over at Harry, who luckily had heard Lowell and was standing up, too. “We haven’t done this particular test before, sir,” he said.

“That shouldn’t matter,” said Lowell. “Not if you’re as accomplished as you must be.” He turned and nodded to Weston, who was already turning to him. “Leave them. We have a demonstration to arrange.”

“I see.” Weston watched them with harder eyes than Draco had ever seen her use. Of course, she had been through Nihil’s attack on the trainee barracks and the desperate evacuation the way the rest of the Aurors had, an attack Draco and Harry had missed since they were off confronting the shadow of his father at the time. “Well?”

“Which test do we demonstrate?” Harry asked. Draco relaxed. He wouldn’t have been comfortable revealing his ignorance of what Lowell and Weston wanted them to do.

“The same one we’ve been showing all morning,” Lowell snapped, his impatience obviously wearing through. Draco tried to remind himself that the man had reason to be impatient and that he and Harry could still learn much from a pair of Aurors who had used compatible magic for years, but it was difficult. I’ve done more for the war effort than you have. “The one where you cast offensive spells at your partner and he stands there without a shield, trusting you not to hit him.”

“Is that going to work?” Draco demanded. “We do have compatible magic.”

Weston stopped walking as though he’d hit her. She traded a long glance with Lowell, and then began to laugh In fact, she laughed so hard that she had to lean against the wooden stump they’d been using in the middle of the ring for students to fall off into each other’s arms. Her shoulders shook and her hair straggled across her face as she bowed it, hiccoughs merging into giggles.

“I had forgotten that,” Lowell said, with a pale face that showed his irritation. Draco hoped that he would relax soon, or they might need to take him to Portillo Lopez. “Or, at least, not forgot, but it was not in my mind.” He wheeled back to Harry and Draco. “Then we need you to fight in concert.”

“Very well,” Draco said. That sounded more like what he wanted to do, and in fact, he was surprised that the Aurors hadn’t had the trainees practice dueling more often since coming to the camp. “Who should we fight?”

“Us,” Weston said, rising to her feet as if she and Lowell had consulted about this earlier. There was no trace of humor in her face anymore.

Draco tried to catch Harry’s eye to ascertain how he felt about this, but Harry looked eager. Draco frowned. He wasn’t sure they could best Lowell and Weston, and he didn’t fancy being embarrassed.

Still, they took up positions in front of each other, while the ring of trainees moved further back to be out of the way. Lowell spoke as they bowed. “A bow is traditional, but that does not mean you should remove your eyes from your opponents. Many, if they perform it at all, take the bow as a chance to attack early.”

Weston’s arm lashed out, and the first spell flew towards Draco, a straight but many-forking line of purple light that he didn’t recognize.

Harry raised a Protego Shield, and the compatible magic rolled towards Draco in a wave of increased strength. He grinned fiercely at Harry and wrapped both of them in a thick skin of spikes, projecting outwards at different angles to catch and spear the spells that Lowell and Weston hurled.

It was a good thing he had. Lowell and Weston were both quicker than Draco had counted on. Of course, they had years more experience working together, but Draco still didn’t like the sense of being outmatched.

They barely seemed to have a pause as the compatible magic flowed back and forth between them, giving the other increased strength from the backwash each time one of them cast a spell. Draco worked furiously at the offensive magic, trying smoke spells and fire spells and lightning spells first, while Harry raised the shields and dissipated the nets, bolts, explosions, and Transfigurations that Lowell and Weston tried.

Draco became lost in the battle, the compatible magic traveling back and forth, regular as a tide and as overwhelming. He saw Lowell stagger from a carefully placed fire spell that struck his wand hand and smiled with pride, but then fell over himself when Weston’s latest net tightened around his leg and curled inwards to stab at his thigh.

Harry gave an incoherent shout and lurched forwards. Draco snapped his head around to tell him to stay where he was, but it was too late. Lowell had already snared him with a net that snatched him into the air and dangled him there.

The trainees gasped and applauded. Draco gritted his teeth against the pain and reminded himself, again, of Lowell and Weston’s experience. They hadn’t set out to deliberately humiliate Harry and Draco. Nor was it humiliating to have lost to them.

Now, if I can only convince myself of that.

“This is the way that a partnership should work,” Weston said, turning to the other trainees and flicking her hair out of her eyes. Draco was bitterly pleased to see that he had at least made her sweat a bit. “One partner handling what the other cannot, both of you knowing each other’s strengths and weaknesses and striving to compensate for them and use them to your advantage against your opponents.”

“One problem with Potter and Malfoy,” Lowell said casually, as if he wanted Draco to hate him forever, “is that they have different skills, in defensive and offensive magic, and stay only with them. They need to spend more time studying the kind of spells they are not experts in. And that applies to all of you.” His gaze went briefly to Granger and Weasley. “No matter what your specialty, there will be times in battle when none of it can help you. Make sure that you know how to cast other kinds of spells as well, even if you never attain the level of comfort and expertise in them that you do with the more familiar ones.”

Draco wondered sourly what Granger’s “specialty” was, or what they thought it was. Arguing people to death, perhaps.

Weston flicked her wand, and the net stabbing Draco’s leg fell away. He rose to his feet and gave a curt nod of thanks, then glanced over to make sure that Lowell had freed Harry. Harry was breathless and red-faced, but unharmed.

Weston passed close to Draco as she went to pair up a few other trainees. “What you did was impressive,” she whispered to him. “You need not fear that we have lost respect for you because you have lost one duel.”

Draco gritted his teeth and didn’t respond. Of course, most of the magic he knew was Dark Arts, and so unsuitable in a duel with Aurors who would probably stick to their legalistic definitions over winning the war.

Harry must have noticed something wrong, because he slapped Draco on the back as they came back together. “You don’t need to worry,” he murmured. “Weston and Lowell have been fighting together a lot longer than we have, and using compatible magic for a lot longer than we have, too.’

Draco shook his head. He didn’t know how to explain without sounding vain and impossible, but he wanted to say that that wasn’t the point. Nothing could make him feel better about losing except winning.

Well, this just means that there are things I can’t share even with Harry, I reckon.

*

“And when you are in a rocky landscape, with multiple boulders that the enemy can hide behind, you must…”

Harry sighed, and hoped a moment later it wasn’t audible. Ketchum didn’t have the obstacle courses that he did back in the Ministry to instruct them in Battlefield Tactics, so he mostly lectured instead, and then expected them to retain everything he said.

The trainees sat in a circle around him, some of them, like Hermione, writing frantically. Draco had parchment and had cast a spell that would make his quill take all the notes, while he sat nearby with his arms folded, gaze fixed on Ketchum as if waiting for him to make a mistake. Harry would have asked Draco for the spell, but he didn’t have parchment with him anyway, so it wouldn’t have mattered. At least he was certain that Draco would let him study his notes later.

Well, mostly certain.

He wished Ketchum would arrange demonstrations of some kind, even if he couldn’t use the full obstacle course. Harry learned better that way.

“Trainee Potter, what would you do if your enemy was in a rocky landscape like the one I just described and heaving boulders at you?”

Harry jolted back to the present. Ketchum was standing over him, staring into his face with his hands on his hips. He looked worn and tired, Harry thought, staring up at him, his dark skin almost grey.

“I would set up a shield to bounce the boulders back at him,” he said, deciding to offer the best answer he could rather than admit that he hadn’t been listening.

Ketchum sighed. “I know of no one who can manage a Shield Charm that strong, Trainee Potter. Are you certain of your answer?”

“I can manage one,” Harry said. “And what else could I do? Hiding behind other boulders would only encourage him to throw those at me, and it would be easy for one to roll over and crush me.”

Ketchum paused, head cocked. “Why not throw up a screen of dust and small stones in front of him, so that he would lose sight of you for a moment and you could reverse his tactic and hurl boulders at him?”

“Wouldn’t that only apply if the dirt wasn’t hard-packed?” Harry countered. “A lot of places I’ve seen with boulders have been like that.” He was lying outrageously, since he had only once seen a lot of boulders, when the Dursleys had to drag him along on holiday, but it was true of that place, anyway.

Ketchum gave him a thin smile. “I will take into consideration your own abilities and powers when asking you questions in the future, Trainee Potter, as well as the fact that your attention tends to wander during discussions like this.”

Harry felt his face flush as Ketchum returned to his central place in the circle, and caught Draco’s sarcastic gaze. “Next time, let me study your notes,” he whispered fiercely.

“How was I supposed to show them to you in the middle of class?” Draco countered, and Harry had to admit that he couldn’t see an answer to that.

*

“Have you thought more on what I said?”

Draco sat quietly in his chair and kept his gaze lowered. Presenting a picture of humility, no matter how false, seemed the best way to handle Holder. He didn’t see a reason to do anything in response to this question, for example, but nod.

“Good.” Holder prowled a few steps towards him and then stopped. With his head bowed, Draco could see only her feet and the lower part of her robes. “And what have you decided?”

Much as he detested Holder, Draco thought, looking up, the one part of her bearing he did wish he could imitate was her voice. It had a surface like polished granite, giving nothing away and presenting only variations to the individual eye—or ear—that didn’t add up to a purchase.

“I’ve decided that I should work with you calmly and honestly, and not try to think about who these tactics might ultimately be practiced on,” Draco thought, and then held his breath, cautiously. It was a complete lie, of course, but then again, he thought this meeting would be a test of his ability to lie to her and get away with it.

Holder moved her head slowly, so that her hair fell equally slowly down her neck and curled onto her shoulders. Draco sat still in response. She used such movements to disconcert people, he was coming to understand, and make them fidget and blurt out incautious responses simply to fill the silence.

“Perhaps you are right,” Holder said, “at least as far as it concerns personal loyalties. But your loyalty to the Aurors must be more than merely personal. What would happen if you found someone practicing the techniques you had perfected on an innocent?”

“I’d have to make sure they were innocent first, madam,” Draco said. “A thing that’s not certain anymore with the infections that Nihil can fill the soul with.”

Holder held up her hand. “Everyone here swore the oath that will destroy them if they go into service to Nihil, and which they would have been unable to swear if they were already in his service. Limit your imagination to members of this camp, and see what answer you would give.”

The answer is that I hate you, Draco thought. And he did, more passionately than he had expected to even after what she did to Harry. Part of the problem was that she kept suggesting further pains she could inflict on Harry, and then watched him as if the mention of those pains was only a test.

Draco didn’t know whether they were. He didn’t think so, since she hadn’t hesitated once to use a painful spell. She would again, if she thought Harry’s dedication to the Aurors was less than perfect. And she could find something to base that accusation on, given her marvelously twisted imagination.

“I would have to see what the technique was, and why the torturer was using it in the first place,” Draco said, “and make my decision accordingly.”

“If you had to make a decision quickly?” Holder pressed closer. “If you didn’t have time to ask questions or take other actions that would determine your course without doubt, but must simply act?”

Draco felt another pulse of hatred. No matter what he said, Holder would find some way to construe it as wrong. If he said that he would act without thought to stop the torture, she would probably decide that that meant he would act to free Harry no matter what. If he said that he would hold back, she would accuse him of insufficient loyalty to the Aurors.

He could almost have adopted the tactic he knew Harry would use in a situation like this: outright defiance, telling Holder that he knew she was only waiting to trap him and he refused to walk into the trap. But Draco knew the absolute worst thing he could do at the moment would be letting Holder see that he understood and abhorred her tactics. She had to think that he had only a certain threshold of intelligence, or she would no longer believe his lies.

So he lowered his eyes, and murmured, “I would assume the torturer was incorrect, because the oath would surely have destroyed the person who broke it and tried to go into service to Nihil. If he was still alive, that would mean the victim must be innocent.”

“You might be incorrect,” Holder said at once. “Someone might have found a way to break the oath.”

The oath that you just said was unassailable? But Draco nodded and pretended that he was listening, that he agreed with her, that he was wrong and he would accept that and never mention it again.

He didn’t think she would ever trust him, and in some ways this pretense was useless. But the more he came to understand her, the better he might be able to protect Harry if she decided to move against him.

And at the very least, it keeps Robards and Holder herself contented and off our backs, so that we can accomplish our real work.