Chapter Thirty of 'Seasons of War'- Gifts and Surprises

[lomonaaeren]

Chapter Twenty-Nine.

Title: Seasons of War (30/40)
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 Thirty—Gifts and Surprises

“We are still learning from our researches.”

Draco sighed. He knew, from the stiff way Holder spoke and the direction in which she turned her head, so as to avoid his gaze, that the words were simply a cover for the lack of success or knowledge or new information that the Aurors were finding. Draco had to appreciate that it wasn’t easy to research death, but that didn’t mean that they shouldn’t go further and try harder.

He leaned forwards, angling his head so that Holder would have to take notice of his single eye. He wasn’t above playing up the “unacceptable sacrifice” that had put Holder on his side in the first place. If she was guilty, then she might hurry up and start putting together the basics of a plan to defeat Nihil. “Fine. Is Robards still behind you? Will he support a direct attack on Nihil?”

Holder made a small gesture with one hand. “He will. I know that you question his commitment, Trainee Malfoy, but he is simply cautious. He doesn’t want us to overcommit ourselves to one course of action too soon.”

“Move too slowly, and we’ll find Nihil overcoming us,” Draco muttered, leaning back in his chair. He was sitting in the entrance of Holder’s tent, while the breeze blew on his face from his blind side. It was soothing, and eased the odd, burning ache that Draco would feel in his empty socket and his scars at random moments. “Just remember that.”

“I am.” Holder turned and glared at him. “And before you can say it, yes, I also realize that we might not be able to rely on your partner to save us this time, if his magic is part of the same continuum with Nihil’s. That would require—”

She went still. Draco narrowed his eye as he watched her rise to her feet. She was extending one hand in front of her as though to grope around an invisible wall that had suddenly appeared in her way. Her expression was stricken. Draco couldn’t tell whether she was feeling fear or excitement from it.

“Auror?” Draco asked, making sure his voice was edged.

“It might,” Holder said, and didn’t complete the sentence, instead whirling around and sprinting out of the tent. Draco started to rise to his feet and follow her. He didn’t generally move as fast since the loss of his eye. He didn’t want to trip over his own feet and be an object of more embarrassment and staring than he already was.

“Malfoy.”

With a sigh, Draco turned around. He had taken on more responsibilities since he confirmed his position as head of the comitatus, and it seemed that all sorts of people came to talk about different problems and suggestions, to the point that he didn’t automatically recognize all the voices that addressed themselves to him anymore.

His heartbeat quickened when he saw Portillo Lopez standing behind him, however. She cradled a red lacquered box in her hands. Draco bit his lip and tried to look as if he wasn’t sweating, though of course Portillo Lopez would be swift to spot it if he was.

A silvery glow came from the box.

“My eye is here?” he whispered.

Portillo Lopez, whose gaze often seemed fixed in the distance as if scanning the mysteries of the dead rather than the living, was looking directly at him now. She nodded and reached out to put a cold, strong hand on his arm.

“And my Order is here to restore you.”

*

Harry had thought he knew what anxiety was when he was watching Draco in the middle of the circle of silver fire, dueling Herricks. He hadn’t had any idea. This was anxiety, to stand silent and sweating beside Draco’s bed while a circle of Portillo Lopez’s Order surrounded them, draped in heavy dark robes that hid their faces. Ron and Hermione were somewhere outside the tent, with Herricks and Ventus, but Harry found it hard to think about them.

Or, really, to think about anyone except the man who lay on the bed, his arms stretched out rigidly at his sides, his head tilted back and the empty eyelid propped up with a spell that let Harry see straight into the socket.

Portillo Lopez had warned Harry that he couldn’t interfere, no matter how much it might look like Draco was in pain. Of course he would be, Portillo Lopez had said; the body didn’t easily accept the transfer of a new magical object into itself at the best of times, and this was a new eye connecting with dead skin. But they knew how to restore Draco. Harry would have to remain silent and stay out of it if he trusted them.

Harry wasn’t entirely sure that he did trust these men and women, at the moment. They looked too much like Death Eaters.

But Draco had said that he wanted the eye back, and God knew what they could do if the Order didn’t help. Harry wouldn’t trust himself with something like a magical eye, and they couldn’t betray secrecy and the war by going to St. Mungo’s—who might not even have specialists who could do something like this, for all Harry knew. So he stood there, silent, and heard the chanting rise and fall all around him. If any of the Order were using their wands, he couldn’t see it, since the heavy sleeves of the robes concealed their arms and hands. The only thing he could be sure of, the only thing that seemed real in the universe besides Draco, was their voices, rising and falling.

Draco lay still. It was more than Harry thought he could have done in the same circumstances as Portillo Lopez opened the red box at the foot of the bed and dipped her hand inside. Harry half-wanted to look around and see what the eye looked like when she brought it out, but he couldn’t turn away from Draco’s clenched jaw and locked muscles.

Besides, he could see well enough when Portillo Lopez stepped around the bed and extended her cupped palms to Draco.

The eye shone like a crystal ball in Treleawney’s rooms back at Hogwarts, although it also pulsed in a faintly disturbing way that Harry reckoned was meant to show it was alive. Portillo Lopez murmured words that could have been instructions or soothing words for Draco or even commands to the eye. Then she knelt down beside the bed and delicately let her fingers explore the sides of the eyesocket and the scars.

That must have hurt, too. But Draco lay still.

Harry moved nearer, hoping that Draco would sense him there, somehow, despite Portillo Lopez’s injunctions that they mustn’t touch.

Portillo Lopez urged the eye down. For a moment, it pulsed brighter than ever, and Harry was afraid that it was too big for Draco’s empty socket. What would they do then? They could send for another one, he supposed, but it would damage Draco’s hopes, and it would dismay the rest of the comitatus. Harry saw how they relied on Draco now, although they might deny it.

Portillo Lopez pursed her lips and gave a shrill whistle.

The chanting all around Harry soared to a pitch high enough to shatter glass, and froze there. Harry had to clap his hands over his ears, but at least he never blinked or looked away from the bed.

The eye turned misty and transparent. Then it seemed to ooze, or melt, from Portillo Lopez’s fingers into Draco’s socket. Harry took several deep breaths, because that was one of the more disgusting things he had ever seen, and then Portillo Lopez flattened her fingers out and spread them apart.

The eye was no longer in the middle of them.

She stepped away from the bed, and the members of her Order nodded approvingly and sang and stamped and began to move in a distinct, dancing circle. Harry huddled a little closer to the bed so that he could escape the dance, staring at Draco’s face.

The eye settled into place, for a moment still a magical extension separate from his body. Then it glowed, blinked, and focused.

Draco turned to look at him.

Portillo Lopez settled back with a loud gasp, staggering as though she would fall. Luckily, one of the Order dancers caught her and set her back on her feet; Harry was incapable of leaning over and helping her at the moment. “Thank Merlin that’s over,” Harry heard her mutter, sounding more human than she did most of the time.

Draco extended a hand. Harry clasped it. “How do you feel?” he whispered, hardly able to believe that it wasn’t horrible. But Draco was seeing with the eye, and that was the important thing.

*

Draco could understand what Portillo Lopez had meant when she warned him that the eye might be awkward at first.

His head, and the skin of his face, seemed to bulge and stretch around the eye. The world turned in two different directions at first, as his body sought to integrate the eye had that got used to seeing on its own and this new, magical one. Draco could feel random pulses of energy traveling through his body from his face. He reached up, half-wondering if he would pluck it out and fling it from him.

Then the pulses solidified, and thickened, and extended into his body like a cable. Draco could feel the eye anchoring itself into place. The gelatinous images he had half-seen became real, and then crossed over with the views from the real eye, and blended, and steadied. Draco changed his reaching hand into a sunshade that would protect him, or should, from the sudden reality that stretched all around him.

It wasn’t perfect. Seeing through a magical eye wasn’t like seeing through one of flesh and blood, and couldn’t be, even though Draco had chosen one that was without the more exotic magical properties of Moody’s. But the images around him had a soft silvery glow, and he could live with that. And they were sharper on one side than the other, but he could live with that, too. It seemed that his real eye had the ability to see further with peripheral vision, but his magical one gave him better vision straight ahead.

Draco could live with that, too. The most important thing was that so much of what had been darkness was now light.

He looked up at Harry, and found that he was no longer peering at two separate images of his face, stamped on darkness with nothing behind them. He was seeing Harry’s face, and he could make out all the little nuances that flickered through his expression, the tightening of the skin around his eyes and his anxious look. Harry had his hand and was whispering, “How do you feel?” over and over, in a way that meant it wasn’t the first time he had said it.

Draco nodded twice, then stopped himself before he began to look like a ridiculous Muggle toy. “Better than I would have thought,” he said.

“Can you—can you see?” Harry spoke the word with a hushed reverence that would have made Draco laugh, but he understood. Harry was trying to ask how he felt in a different way. Draco let his hand tighten on Harry’s by way of answer.

“Let me up,” he said. “I want to see what happens when I look around the room, and then I want to see how I look in a mirror.”

Harry nodded and hauled him up. Draco wondered if he was aware of the strength of his muscles when he did that, if he knew how strong he was altogether, or if he knew how his magic shone around him—

His magic.

Staring, Draco realized that he could, indeed, see Harry’s magic. It glowed and rose and fell around him in sparkling cascades, silver and green shot through with red and black on the edges. It was one of the most fascinating things Draco had ever seen, if not always the most beautiful; the black and red made it look like a volcanic eruption sometimes. But he could see more with his new eye than his first one had allowed him.

It was a gift. Draco firmly told himself to believe that, rather than seeing it as just another level of his strangeness.

“Are you all right?” Harry was squinting at him, as if he knew that Draco had gone quiet and still for a reason and not simply because the world was strange around him.

“Yes, of course.” Draco kept his voice as calm as he could. The members of Portillo Lopez’s Order had left, but Portillo Lopez was watching them, and he didn’t want to sound too excited or upset in front of her. Only God knew what she would decide to do if he did. “I can see magic, that’s all.”

“Everyone’s magic, or just mine?” Harry asked.

Draco blinked. He hadn’t expected Harry to ask a question so intelligent—

And I do need to stop underestimating him like that.

Draco turned his head away and fixed his attention on Portillo Lopez. She stood up, as though she knew what Draco was seeking to understand about her and wanted to help him by showing off as much of her height as possible.

The magic around her was a different sort than the kind that encompassed Harry. In fact, Draco could only see three rings, like the rings of a planet, each a deeper gold than the next. Portillo Lopez might have been walking around the world in a costume made of brass. The rings hummed quietly, and Draco wondered if it was a measure of how much under control her magic was, or if it was touched by necromancy and her struggles to murder necromancers and that made the difference. Would Harry’s magic look more like that as he grew older and learned to tame his power?

If any of us survive to grow older, and Nihil doesn’t destroy the world the way that he’s been threatening to do.

But Draco couldn’t think about that right now. He nodded in response to Portillo Lopez’s curious gaze. “Yes, I can see you,” he said. And although he could only see the magic through his new eye, he no longer felt as disoriented as that revelation had made him expect to feel. His head, or his magic, or both, were working hard to blend the impressions from both sides of his brain. He relaxed and leaned on Harry, letting Harry escort him across the tent so that he could see the mirror waiting on the other side of it.

The mirror was large and made of silver, unflattering but real. Draco blinked, and saw both eyelids slide shut over both eyes, exactly as if the silver one had always been there. It shone, but not as radiantly as it had when he watched Portillo Lopez bring it out of the box. Draco shuddered privately. The memory of her holding the eye towards his face, while it dripped through her fingers like ice cream, would stay with him as a private image of torture for a long time.

But now…

Draco reached out and touched the mirror with one hand. Yes, it was where he thought it should be. No more problem judging distances and angles. Draco would have expected more, but then again, this was a magical eye. It had already bonded itself, or it should have, with his internal power and begun to adjust itself to the needs and the differences of his body and his expectations. Draco smiled, and the reflection in the mirror smiled back.

“I can’t wait for the others to see you,” Harry said. His expression was bright and wistful, and he leaned on Draco’s shoulder with a smile that Draco reached a hand up in turn to trace, relying on his reflection for guidance. It worked; his hand landed where it should be instead of hovering in the air off to the side, and Harry made it easier by leaning forwards and kissing his fingertips. “Can I bring them in?”

“With a warning to Herricks first,” Draco said, nodding majestically. “I’m only the poor patient who might be wounded by an insult otherwise.”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him and stepped back to the flap of the tent. Draco went on studying himself in the mirror. The glass wasn’t enchanted, and that accounted for why he saw no banners of magic rippling from it, but when he held up his wand, he couldn’t see anything there, either.

Then he wondered: why couldn’t he see his own magic?

It didn’t work in the mirror, apparently, but when he looked down, he saw sparkling bands of deep blue and green that encircled his wrists like bangles. Draco held them up to his face, closer to the magical eye than the other. They hummed like Portillo Lopez’s—no, they sang, and he liked their restrained, pleasant music.

“You have made the right choice.”

Draco blinked and looked up. Portillo Lopez stood not far from him, studying him with critical detachment. Draco realized that he hadn’t heard her move. He had got used to not paying as much attention to his surroundings under the influence of losing one eye. That was a mistake that he would have to correct as soon as possible. His comment to Harry notwithstanding, he didn’t want anyone thinking of him as helpless, even while he was still adjusting to the magical eye, or easily tricked.

“Did you worry that I wouldn’t?” he asked, and examined himself. The scars really did detract from his appearance, he had to admit. They would be the first things to go.

“Yes,” Portillo Lopez said. “I thought that you might decide it was better, for your pride and your image, to have no eye than a magical one. That would have satisfied you in some ways, but led to a poorer outcome for the battle and the war.”

Draco chuckled. He couldn’t remember hearing her speak like that before. “Do you think that I’m that important to the defeat of Nihil, then?”

Portillo Lopez gave him a strange blance. “Of course.”

“In and of myself?” Draco had to press. He didn’t know what was taking Harry so long to come back with the rest of the comitatus, but he would take advantage of it to question Portillo Lopez. “Not simply as Harry’s—balance, and partner?”

She shook her head and gave him a single, slight, puzzled look. “Why would you assume that anyone valued you only for that? Most of those who despise you also despise Potter, and would see no reason to keep either of you about.”

Draco shut his mouth as Ventus and Granger came into the tent, Weasley and Herricks approaching more slowly, but he couldn’t help but think there was a flaw in her reasoning. Someone like Holder could want to use Harry and see Draco as an obstacle, someone who had to be eliminated before Harry could be usefully manipulated.

On the other hand, Draco didn’t think Holder was against them now, though her behavior this morning had been odd. He turned to greet the rest of the comitatus, resolving to focus on the challenges in front of him while keeping an eye open for the rest.

He smiled grimly when he had that thought. Of course he could do that. He had one eye now to spare, after all.

*

“Did it work?” That was Hermione, leaning forwards in interest, thinking as much about the process of putting in the magical eye as about the potential abilities it would give Draco, Harry knew.

“Is he our battle leader again?” That was Herricks, his arms folded and his voice so determinedly neutral that Harry would have rolled his eyes if he hadn’t thought Herricks would notice him doing it.

Ventus and Ron were silent, but they had bright-open, hopeful expressions. It touched Harry to see the one on Ron’s face. Ron had grieved over Draco’s lost eye more for Harry’s sake than Draco’s, but it seemed as though that was enough to make him happy Draco might finally be getting it back.

“It worked,” Harry said. “He can see out of the eye.” He thought he would leave it open to Draco to speak about the magic he could see. He might want to keep it silent, a secret advantage even from those who knew him best, for now. “But,” he added, as they started to crowd towards the tent, “I want to tell you something before you go in there.”

Hermione halted as though she were bracing herself for bad news. Ventus and Ron simply looked impatient. Herricks looked as if he alone had some idea of what was coming next, and glared at Harry.

“I don’t want anyone speaking as though this change weakens him or makes him less handsome,” Harry said. “The eye glows, and that might disconcert you. But if you imply as much, I’ll hurt you.”

Hermione blinked. “Malfoy chose the eye, though. He must have thought about the way he’d look with it. He’s not as blind to personal appearances as you are, Harry,” she added, and Harry couldn’t tell which of them she meant to compliment. Maybe neither.

“Yes, but Draco’s realized that he can’t control the thoughts people have about him.” Harry caught Herricks’s eye. “He can only refuse to accept insults. But there are subtler ways of insulting him, especially when you’re working closely with him, which isn’t something that most of the trainees and the Aurors do. So I want you to act as if you’re happy and nothing else. Like I said. Insult him, and I’ll hurt you.”

Ron nodded and touched Harry once on the shoulder before he walked past him. Hermione went with a backwards glance. Ventus sighed as if the whole discussion bored her and ducked into the tent. Herricks lingered behind her. He had an effective glare when he wanted to use it, Harry thought. He looked coolly back until Herricks rolled his eyes and turned away.

“I know that you were talking about me,” he said. “It couldn’t have been more obvious.”

“I know the way your mind works,” Harry said, not raising his voice. “I know that you might think Draco is weak again because of the way the eye makes him look, and because a magical eye can’t possibly be as effective as a real one. You gave your promise to Draco, but you didn’t make any promise to me.”

“I’ve kept my promise so far.” Herricks’s arms crossed more tightly.

“It’s been two days,” Harry pointed out tartly. “I meant it, Herricks. You could attack him again; we both know you could. And we know that you’d lose. But this time, you would suffer even if you won.”

Herricks exhaled and glanced away. “Don’t worry, Potter,” he said. “Malfoy has proved to me that he has the will and the determination of a leader, as well as the battle spells. It’ll be better now that he also has the ability to judge distances and see the world the way other people do. Trust me,” he added, when Harry opened his mouth. “I know—there are reasons I could despise him. But now I’m not trying to.”

He went, and Harry had to be content with that.

Coming into the tent, he saw Draco in the middle of the comitatus, receiving their congratulations and comments like a king with his courtiers. And from the intent way he peered at them, Harry was sure he saw their magic, and also that he didn’t see fit to warn them he did.

Harry briefly caught Draco’s eye—both of them—and smiled as broadly as he could.

Merlin, I’m proud of him.

Draco flushed slightly as he ducked his head back.