Chapter Twenty-Nine of 'Seasons of War'- The Challenger

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twenty-Eight.

Title: Seasons of War (29/40)
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 Twenty-Nine—The Challenger

“Malfoy.”

Thanks to Harry’s warning yesterday, Draco had expected the voice that rang out behind him. He was a bit surprised that Herricks had chosen to confront him in the middle of the camp, in front of the trainees going to morning classes and the Auror instructors coming out of their tents, but that didn’t alter his plans about how to meet the challenge much.

“Herricks,” he said, turning around and smiling as if he hadn’t heard the hostile tone in the other man’s voice. “Is something wrong?”

“You know that you can’t lead the comitatus any longer.” Herricks’s voice was so rich with arrogance that Draco felt like applauding. His father would have appreciated someone like Herricks, he thought. “You only have one eye. How can you command us in battle? You can’t even judge distances, never mind things like whether someone should cast curses or defend instead.”

Draco felt like sneering—many people would say that the ability to command and strategize was unimpaired by the loss of an eye—but he didn’t feel like showing Herricks that he considered any of his objections legitimate, never mind that particular one. He stood there in disdain until Herricks had come all the way up to him and was panting in front of him, face flushed. Draco sniffed delicately, but didn’t smell the alcohol he had half-thought Herricks would use to bolster his strength.

By now, everyone had stopped and was watching them. Among the watchers was Ventus. Draco couldn’t tell anything from her bright, interested face except that she was curious about the outcome of their little battle.

And he had an audience. Good. If he couldn’t defend his strength in front of others, he would either be weak, or it would be easy for Herricks to come up with lies about him and spread them.

“Understand,” Draco told him, “that you are the one who started this. I never questioned your fitness to be part of the comitatus, even after you approached me this way. Do you agree with that?”

Herricks snorted. His hand moved restlessly along his wand. Draco wondered if he would attack without warning, but he didn’t think so. Herricks was protesting in the first place because he thought that Draco wasn’t the right kind of leader. He had to prove that he was, and that meant following codes of honor. He had probably always planned on that, if he had chosen a public place.

“I know that no one else in the comitatus has the courage I do,” Herricks said, “or you would have been challenged before now.” He shot a betrayed glance at Harry, who, Draco could feel, had stopped behind his right shoulder. “Or they would have voted you out and put someone else in your place.”

“It’s strange that you think a duel is the right way to put me in my proper place,” Draco murmured, “instead of a vote. One might think that you were afraid of the outcome if you gave them a chance to choose.”

Herricks narrowed his eyes. He visibly restrained himself from responding, but he did dart his eyes from side to side, taking in Draco and then their audience. He said nothing. That didn’t matter. Draco could practically read his thoughts by this point, despite the difficulty in reading his face with one eye. He wondered why Draco was raising the stakes by accusing him of cowardice, when he had to believe that Draco would lose the fight.

Draco, though, wanted everyone to see exactly what sort of arrogance Herricks possessed. He recognized it, because he had seen the same kind in Harry back in school. Herricks didn’t think he could lose because he was doing the “right thing.” Of course heroes never lost.

“Just remember that you could have avoided this,” Herricks said, and lifted his wand.

Draco anticipated him by casting a protective shield around them, a circle that rose like a wall of silver flame. It blurred the sight of the watching audience, but it also meant that none of the spells used in the duel could cross the line and hit innocents. Herricks’s face deepened in its flush.

“I would have done that,” he muttered.

Draco smiled and said nothing. He wasn’t a fool enough to let gestures that could make him look better and Herricks worse go unmade. Sure, Herricks had probably meant that first wand movement as a protective one and not an attack on Draco, but everyone would remember that it was Draco who had sheltered them.

A few Aurors had arrived outside the circle. Draco could hear the calls from people who sounded like Lowell and Weston, urging them to drop the shield and give in to the Aurors’ authority. Draco ignored them. He couldn’t turn his head to see them without taking his eye from Herricks, and he had to win this duel.

Luckily, he was fairly sure that he could do that, although he didn’t know for sure how many defensive spells might be in the other man’s repertoire.

“I never wanted it to come to this,” Herricks said flatly as he began to circle. “Remember that, will you? That you could have given in and saved yourself this embarrassment with a gracious surrender? I would have treated you with grace. I know how hard it can be to give up power you believe you have a right to.”

Draco regarded him with a fixed smile until Herricks shifted uneasily, and then shook his head. “No,” Draco said thoughtfully. “I don’t think you have any idea, because you’ve never done it.”

Herricks’s flexing face said that he felt the insult, and he launched a fireball spell with more force than necessary. Draco stepped coolly aside—he recognized the spell as one that only sent the fire in a straight line, without dodging or zigzagging involved—and watched the magic burn itself out on the protective shield.

“Can you do better than that?” he asked. “I’m starting to wonder how much of an addition you actually were to the comitatus.”

Herricks snarled at him, and this time the combination of spells he cast was truly inventive: one a lightning spell, the other a spray of water that he’d timed so it would cross the first spell and soak Draco. Draco reckoned that Herricks thought merely shocking him to death with plain lightning too ordinary.

Draco would have had a hard time avoiding the lightning with both eyes. He didn’t need to avoid the water, as long as it was only the spell that hit him. He focused on Herricks and said coolly, “Tempora recessim.”

He briefly saw, and recognized, astonishment on Herricks’s face before the spell took hold.

*

Harry prowled up and down outside the silver shield wall, staring at Draco anxiously. They had agreed long before Herricks made his challenge—last night, in fact—that Harry shouldn’t interfere when Draco fought. It would make him seem weak, and the whole point of this was to show that he could be the leader of the comitatus despite Herricks’s stupid doubts.

But it didn’t mean that Harry was any happier with that barrier that made seeing inside the circle like looking through a curtain of water, and it didn’t mean that he didn’t fear for Draco.

Particularly when he noticed what spell Draco was using.

Draco, for fuck’s sake—He had thought Draco was joking when he talked about this spell, and although Draco had showed him the incantation and the wand movement, Harry had automatically assumed it would only be useful against Nihil, or Nihil’s forces. Against them, potentially very useful.

But now—

Idiot!

It didn’t help that the spell was working exactly as Draco had said it would, and that few people were likely to recognize it, given its Dark nature and the shield barrier. That would have been one reason Draco had chosen that kind of shield, of course. And it would be impressive, and it would reassure the rest of the comitatus as well as the rest of the trainees that Draco was not to be trifled with. Most of the people around Harry were cheering in awe. They saw what had happened, not the process by which it had happened.

None of that helped because all of it missed the point. Harry didn’t want Draco compelled to defend himself with Dark magic. There was still the chance that someone would notice. These were experienced Aurors, after all, at least in the audience.

The lightning bolt vanished as if it had never been, the light running backwards along the forks and the straight part of the bolt, aiming at Herricks. Herricks himself stared with his mouth open as his wand twitched in his hand, going through the motions that would cast the spell backwards. Meanwhile, the water splashed on Draco, and he stood still with immense dignity and let that happen. He shook his head afterwards and cast his first offensive spell of the battle.

“Imaginor ovem!”

Harry had to nod in grim approval. This was a better spell than one that reversed time in someone’s immediate vicinity so that it seemed as if their actions right before that had never happened, and it would accomplish Draco’s purpose, showing that he could fight an enemy and humiliating Herricks at the same time.

The spell hit. Herricks rocked on his feet as the white light shimmered around him like angels’ wings—or at least what Harry thought angels’ wings might look like, given some poetic imagination in the audience watching—and then vanished. Herricks’s face was blank, and he uttered a hurt little sound. Harry felt more than heard some of the Aurors stir around them, ready to move forwards and stop Draco if necessary. They didn’t know what spell this might be.

Harry snorted bitterly. Too bad they couldn’t have considered Draco’s safety as closely when Herricks was trying to hit him with both lightning and water.

But Herricks dropped to all fours and uttered the sound again. This time, there was no mistaking it as anything but what it was, a bleat. Then he pawed at the grass and lowered his head so that he was cropping at it with the flats of his teeth.

Laughter spread through the crowd as even those who didn’t understand the Latin saw what Draco had done. Herricks thought he was a sheep. He capered forwards like a lamb, then paused and stared around in perplexity, apparently looking for the rest of the flock. His gaze on Draco was questioning. He bleated again and trotted in a circle, swallowing a few blades of grass with every evidence of enjoyment.

Draco watched him with a tolerant but contemptuous smile. Harry kept an eye on Lowell and Weston, the Aurors nearest the barricade. Weston had a sharp smile on her face. Lowell looked less approving, but both of them were nodding. Harry thought they hadn’t believed that Draco could cast a spell in a duel without hurting someone. Well, they’d had their chance to see better.

Draco circled his wand in a quick ring and hissed the particular counterspell to this charm under his breath; Harry suspected that Draco didn’t want the majority of those watching to learn it. Herricks paused, his nose quivering, when it hit, and then turned bright red and sprang to his feet.

“I’ve humbled you,” Draco said, his face blank and his voice so bored that it would take keen ears—keener ones than Herricks had, Harry believed—to catch the menace in it. “That’s good. A good leader should always have some measure of humility. Are you willing to agree yet that you can’t lead the comitatus, or do I have to teach you another lesson?”

Herricks quivered. Harry could see the different sides of the conflict fighting in him. On the one hand, he really did want the good of the comitatus, and his objections that Draco couldn’t handle himself in battle should have been answered, on both the offensive and defensive fronts.

On the other hand, he didn’t want people to laugh at him, although they would anyway after he had acted like a sheep, and his pride had to be as strong as the desire to do well by the comitatus, or he would have left Draco alone.

Harry saw the moment when Herricks lost the battle to his pride. He swirled his wand in a spiral shape and cast his hex nonverbally. The air between him and Draco turned the color of a shaken sheet.

Harry didn’t know what spell was coming any more than the majority of the stirring, muttering crowd did. He could only clench his fists together and hope that Draco did.

*

Ah, yes. I thought he might choose that one.

Draco hadn’t dueled someone before whom he understood as well as he understood Herricks. He had fought beside the man, listened to his private thoughts in the discussions of the comitatus, and watched him argue with Ventus, whose ideas Draco also understood well. So, while he’d never dueled him, he still had some understanding of how he would react in a battle situation, which was more than he had with Nihil or his minions.

So he knew that Herricks would go for something big and flashy, to prove that his previous loss to Draco had been a fluke, and something humiliating, because he had to address the penance that Draco had inflicted on him. That left a limited choice of spells at his disposal, at least given that he was still an Auror trainee and he wouldn’t use Dark magic. Draco had his defenses ready and waiting under his tongue while he watched Herricks, using the perception of how Herricks shifted to the side and tossed his head more than he used his eye to estimate the idiot’s mood.

And now Herricks was going for a spell that would render Draco naked and bound, hanging from a wooden cross-bar that seemed to have been arranged for someone else’s pleasure. It was one of the more imaginative options, and Draco had to allow that he was rather cautiously impressed. That didn’t mean that he was caught defenseless, the way Herricks had intended, and that didn’t mean that he was tempted to lose to soothe Herricks’s ego. Nothing would soothe Herricks’s ego except a comprehensive scratching—something Draco was also disinclined to provide.

So he caught the hex flying towards him with one of his own. It didn’t reverse the time between him and Herricks; it simply created multiple illusions of himself, so that the hex had to spread between them and expend its force in minor inconveniences like the brief feeling of no cloth against his skin. It couldn’t actually do Draco any harm, and in the meantime, he would remain the favor.

He knew what the others outside the shield would be seeing: many Draco Malfoys appearing, fluttering and flashing, and then vanishing again. In the meantime, Herricks flew backwards and was surrounded by a cloud of white sparks and muted flames. When they disappeared, he had suffered the fate he intended for Draco.

Another gale of laughter arose. Draco coolly studied his handiwork and walked closer. His eye couldn’t give him the proper view from so far away.

Herricks, his naked chest crossed by ropes that carefully avoided his nipples, stared at Draco with hatred. That was a more extreme response than Draco had thought he would provoke, relying as he was on Harry’s report that Herricks still really wanted to be part of the comitatus, but as its leader. Now it seemed as if he would give up much, including the comitatus, to destroy Draco. Draco arched an eyebrow and spoke quietly, watching the twitching muscles in Herricks’s face as much as he could. If he made a mistake now, he might set up an enemy at his back.

“Listen. I wanted to give you the chance to back away. You decided not to take it. You know better than I do what that means, now that they’ve—seen you. You could lose Ventus’s friendship and membership in the comitatus. Do you want that? Or will you continue to pursue vengeance, vengeance that you can never take?” Draco was tempted to add that Herricks should have learned by now that Draco was simply his superior with a wand, but refrained. He would leave that up to their audience to judge.

Herricks’s hands flexed back and forth in the loose loops of rope that tied them to the wood. “I hate you,” he said.

“Yes, yes, expected and very tiresome.” Draco flapped a hand, not allowing mockery to enter his tone. He could do this if he kept his voice calm and made it clear that he was judging Herricks as a potential member of the comitatus, not someone he scorned. “We only included you in the first place because you were Ursula’s partner. I’m starting to think we should have had higher standards.”

For the first time, a flush of true shame, rather than the false kind provoked by Draco’s exposure of him, crossed Herricks’s face, and he looked away. “I had the right to think that the loss of your eye had slowed you down,” he muttered. “Someone who’s not physically able will never be as good as someone who is.”

“Do you know who the Auror with the most captures in the last twenty years is?” Draco asked.

Herricks’s flush deepened, but he didn’t reply. Draco answered for him. “Mad-Eye Moody. Now, I have no intention to look like he did, with that ugly, scarred wooden leg and roving eye, but I wouldn’t mind rivaling his record.”

“You’re not him,” Herricks said. “You didn’t get through training before losing your eye. That makes a difference.”

“It only means that I’ll have longer to adapt to the loss before I go chasing criminals,” Draco said easily. “And to leading the comitatus, and to fighting in the war against Nihil. This war is a proving ground harder than any dueling circle or ordinary program. Will you accept that or not?”

Herricks closed his eyes. “If you would get me off this bar, then it would be easier to think,” he muttered.

“So sorry for that,” Draco said, with a smile that he knew didn’t make him look particularly sorry. On the other hand, Herricks wasn’t looking at him right now, so it wasn’t as if he would know. “You’ll have to think like this. I’m not fool enough to release someone who would immediately try to attack me again.”

“You think so little of my honor?” Herricks opened his eyes, but kept his head turned away, as much as he could given the ropes.

“Yes,” Draco said simply, and then waited. Herricks would either give in or not, and Draco had to admit, he could see possibilities for himself and the comitatus in either one. He was curious as to what would happen, not apprehensive.

“It should have been Potter,” Herricks muttered. “You can at least agree with me, that it should have been him? He’s the one who won the war. He’s the one who has the name, and the fame, and the power, to draw other people to him.”

“With everything you’ve learned about Harry in the last few months, you can still say that?” Draco rolled his eyes. “Really? He never wanted the fame and the attention. He still worries that his reputation will affect the way the Aurors treat him, either positively or negatively. He would find either embarrassing. And he’s right, at least about Holder and Robards. They expected miracles from him and that he would try to take over the Aurors at the same time, because people would follow him. But he doesn’t have those desires. And his power is unpredictable. It’s linked with Nihil’s. He doesn’t make the best leader for other reasons, too, but that’s a large one.”

Herricks bit his lip, hard, as though he assumed that it would somehow lead him to more intense thinking. He bit it until blood flowed, and Draco waited, unimpressed and unshaken. No one could interfere, given the silver shield, and given that, if the Aurors were really interested in preventing a duel and nothing else, they would have done so before now.

“He could still increase the size of the comitatus and serve as a liaison between us and the outside world,” Herricks muttered. “And I don’t think that you understand what his great attraction to me is.” Draco narrowed his eye, but Herricks went on and clarified that he hadn’t meant to say Harry was sexually attracted to him. “He doesn’t want power. You do. That means he’s a good leader and you’re not.”

Draco, when he recovered from the shock of that, had to laugh. Herricks shot a glance towards him at that.

“You’ve been listening to too much old moral philosophy instead of the realities of leadership,” Draco said, shaking his head. “Yes, the people who are reluctant to lead might be the best in some people’s eyes because they would give up power quickly and not stray too far from the rules. But would they have the talent or the willingness to lead, if all they’re thinking of is shedding their responsibilities as soon as possible? Why should I trust their work ethic to make them stay in the position, when their will and their natural bent are against it? Someone who wants power makes the better leader, because it means that he’ll want to stay in power and so listen to his subordinates more.”

A frown spread across Herricks’s face. “Someone who desires power might not have the natural talents, either,” he muttered.

“I think we can both agree that that’s not the case here.” Draco spun his wand, not taking his gaze from Herricks. “Can we count on you or not? This will have to be the last rebellion, if you’re going to say that we can. The comitatus can’t afford to worry that you’ll shoot some curse at our backs if you aren’t sincere. I will put you out if you can’t make a true submission.”

Herricks closed his eyes, but Draco was more hopeful this time. Herricks had a more thoughtful cast to his mouth. When he looked at Draco again, it was to nod.

“Yes, I see what you mean,” he said softly. “There’s no room for me otherwise, so I accept. I swear that I’ll live by your rules and serve side by side with Potter without suggesting more to him.”

Draco hid his laughter—as if an offer from someone like Herricks would tempt Harry and cause him to abandon his principles!—and nodded. “Very well. I’ll give you a trial period, and we’ll see how you do.” He waved his wand to release Herricks from his bonds and restore his clothes to him.

When he lowered the shield, Harry immediately came up and kissed him. Draco accepted it with one eye on Lowell and Weston, the closest Aurors.

But Weston was smiling, and Lowell, if less pleased, as he looked, was willing to abide by his partner’s rules. She said, “I see that you’ve learned to handle yourself, Trainee Malfoy, in more ways than one.”

Draco nodded and leaned back into Harry’s embrace. Even this could be useful, he thought, seeing the eyes of the crowd fixed on him still. Let them all see that he was the beloved and the partner, in more than one sense, of the Savior of the Wizarding World.

Let them try to go against him then.