No, Draco, Harry tried to say, but no words emerged. No, don't go! Don't go, don't go---
He was still mentally chanting the words when he heard Abrire from the living room and a moment later, the heavy thud of the dungeon door.
And then, nothing but silence.
------------------------------------------------------
Coming Soon in A Year Like None Other:
Chapter Sixty-Seven: The Owlery
Warning: The next chapter contains canon character death.
Chapter 67: The Owlery
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=5036&chapter=67
------------------------------------------------------
A Year Like None Other
by Aspen in the Sunlight
------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Sixty-Seven: The Owlery
------------------------------------------------------
Harry's field of vision was limited to the stone ceiling above, the hex so absolute that he couldn't even shift his eyes to either side. Severus is going to kill me. That was his first thought after he heard the door slam shut. All that practice out in Devon, and the first time I really needed my magic, I let myself get caught off guard. But I wasn't expecting Draco to hex me for real, was I? Let alone hit me like a Muggle would--
He wasn't quite sure how long he'd been laying there; his thoughts seemed to be oozing like treacle, as though time itself had slowed down. By the time he'd gotten to wondering about Draco hitting him, though, a harsh, discordant noise began exploding inside his mind. Long, loud, and shrill, it just went on and on, a high pitched whine that demanded attention.
The magic doorbell, he was slow to realise. Somebody's at the door. Maybe it's Draco trying to come back in! But no, that doesn't make sense; he knows how to open the door from the outside.... unless Severus never showed him? Maybe he didn't. Maybe Severus made sure that Draco couldn't get in again if he left, a ploy to keep him from leaving in the first place... very Slytherin. Well, at least now I know why he never snuck out before. He probably thought I wouldn't let him back in.... and I actually might not have, at least in those first few weeks...
All of a sudden, it was like Harry's mind snapped to full attention inside his head, his sluggish thoughts only slowly catching up to implications he should have realised the instant he first began to hear the doorbell ring. That could be Draco out there, running from Lucius or maybe a bunch of Slytherins out for his blood.... That could be Draco, pounding and begging to get back in, and you're laying here doing nothing!
But there's nothing I can do against Petrificus...
On the cusp of that denial, though, came another one. Maybe there is something....
Remembrance assailed Harry then, the images still moving in slow-motion, every thought taking an age to form. A cell where he'd turned stones translucent until he could see the heart of them. The hospital wing, noise ricocheting all around, light so bright he could feel the heat, windows shattering under the force of his anger, the force of his need. A robe and mask, the anger that time wrapped around a need to kill, to destroy, to rip asunder--
And now, he had another need.
Drawing deeply into his core, Harry braced himself and thought, I can do it, I can do this. Wild magic, that's what I need. Or not so wild, because now I'm in control of my dark powers, aren't I? I channelled wild magic that one time in Devon, made it do what I wanted it to do, and I didn't need a snake to make it happen. Or my wand... All I needed was enough anger, enough rage...
Too bad he wasn't angry at Draco. Well, he was, but it wasn't anything like the fury he'd directed at that robe and mask. His anger now was woven through with something else, something far more potent.
A need to help.
He didn't want to blast Draco with his dark powers, he really didn't. All he wanted was for the other boy to come home safe. Draco had been wrong to hit him, wrong to throw that hex, wrong to leave, but he shouldn't have to die for it.
How to save him, though?
It was emotion that had set him free on Samhain. Emotion, fierce emotion...
Memories rained inside his head. Draco, giving his wand back. Challenging him day after day to work his way back toward his magic. Insisting that Hermione had to come to Devon because she could be with Harry when Draco and Snape couldn't.
But those were memories, not feelings, and Harry's every instinct was screaming at him that emotion alone could spark his wild magic. So what did he feel for the Slytherin boy? He didn't hate him; Harry knew that much, but he'd never given much thought to what he did feel. They were brothers, sure, but as comfortable as that usually was these days, it said nothing about emotion. Snape had made them brothers by unequivocally accepting them both as his sons.
But what had they done as brothers?
Memories filled him again, this time not so much ones of what Draco had done to earn his trust, but what Harry and Draco had done together. Memories of the good times they'd shared.
Studying together, day after day, Draco laughing at the bats Harry liked to doodle as he read... Comparing notes on the girls in their year... Watching Quidditch on the enchanted picture frame... Joking around about Snape's peculiar habits... Wizards' Scrabble late at night, rematch after rematch with Draco making up slang... Trying to sneak Galliano from their father's tall bottle of it, only to find that Snape had warded his liquor cabinet to turn intruders' hands a glowing green... Brewing the counter potion in the lab that same night, the both of them saying "hush, shhh, quieter!" every few moments...
What was it that Draco had said? That he could sort of stand Harry's company now, every now and then? That was a bit like Snape's I don't hate you at all declaration, wasn't it? They weren't brothers just because Snape had set things up that way and told them so. They were brothers where it counted.
Even if the Slytherin prat had just punched him in the face, hexed him, and made off with his wand.
I care about Draco, really care, Harry thought. That's the key. I can do this, I can, but this time it'll be love, not hate or fear or anger unlocking the wild magic that still lives inside me. I've always wanted a brother and I'm not about to lose the one I've finally got. I can do this, I can. I can break out, I can break the hex---
From somewhere in the middle of his soul he felt a stirring like a snake coiling, preparing to attack.
Break the hex, break the hex, he mentally chanted, the words flowing faster through his mind. The coil inside him grew tighter, stronger, gathering energy as his thoughts became a mental blur streaming through him like a gale force wind.
Breakthehexbreakthehexbreakitbreakitbreakbreakbreakbreakkkk---
The serpent inside him struck, lashing out, energy and power blasting through him in one fell swoop. It didn't flow out through his fingers this time, though; didn't break windows or melt walls. It cleansed him, or so it felt. Draco's hex fell away from him under the force of it, the change so sudden it was almost cataclysmic, like Harry had been scrubbed raw from the inside out. It hurt, actually, waves of pain resounding all through him, but Harry scarcely noticed that. A surge of adrenaline masking the pain, Harry blinked to moisten his eyes. Or eye, because it seemed like the other one was swollen closed, puffy and weepy. With just one eye to see with, his vision was skewed, things not looking quite the way they should, everything strangely flat.