Gooood morning (afternoon) all! So, I figured that although chapter 6 is still sitting around being a general ass, I do have two chapters sitting around waiting to go, so since it's been almost two months since I gave ya'll a chapter of this, I thought I'd relent. This chapter begins the action.


Previous chapters:

Prologue / Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three /




Quick Summary: Harry Potter is the wizarding world's hero. But when Voldemort discovers a dark magic that could turn his greatest threat into a valuable asset, will Harry be able to hold onto who he is, or submit to the shadows within?

Set in 7th year, but follows canon only till the end of Goblet of Fire.

Title is a song by Ben Harper

Pairings: Harry/Draco, Sirius/Remus, Hermione/Ron. Implied Voldemort/Draco, Voldemort/Death Eaters

Warnings:

-Spoilers for books (and movies, I guess), 1-4 with occasional 5-6 spoilers for largely irrelevant things like character names and monsters and things. Not plot-related stuff. (I think/hope).

-Rated R-18 (for later chapters) Also known as NC-17 (for Americans.)

-This story contains - obligatory capitals: SLASH! Also known as YAOI, also known as males having sweaty sex with OTHER MALES. If you don't want to read that kind of stuff, don't read the fic. Don't complain to me if you do and it grosses you out, that's just silly on your part. There are also issues of non-consensual sex. Run while you still can.




Lets get this Party started!




Quick A/N for this chapter: This chapter has not been beta'd by anyone other than me, (mimei is now in a permanent state of uni-crisis), I'm not one of these people who can't spell (i.e. use spell-check) or place an apostrophe without a beta, but nor am I an amazing grammar superhero, so, forgive any wrongness, please.




Disclaimer - This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This disclaimer has been nicked, too.

-


The next day, the gentle bell tones of his alarm woke Draco. He sat up, blinking - and suddenly grinned.

In the luxurious Slytherin bathroom - during his shower and early-morning preening session, Draco was still grinning.

By the time he and his friends were heading up for breakfast, it had got to the point where Vince turned to him and said, “Draco, you’ve been in a permanent bad mood for about two years, what’s got you so cheery this morning?”

If possible, Draco’s smile only widened, “I don’t know Crabbe, maybe I’ve found something to look forward to in the day for a change.” He said flippantly, turning away to confidently push open the double-doors to the Great Hall.


~..*..~


A knife cut through the air.

Dammit! That was close! Concentrate you idiot! Harry thought furiously.

Harry sliced his sword upwards, closing his eyes, stilling his thoughts and forgetting everything except moving into the form. He shifted his feet and dodged a ghostly opponent with another well-practiced movement of body, mind and weapon. With a startlingly swift movement, he dropped to the floor and rolled, neatly avoiding a shimmering mace that had been aimed for his head. Pulling out of the roll, he moved to his feet with almost blurring speed, coming up with his wand in one hand, sword in the other, three spells were fired off in rapid succession finishing with Harry twisting and slicing the sword around behind him and completely through the neck of the opponent standing there.

Silence. For one moment the room stood in complete peace, the bodies of Harry’s attackers littering the floor, Harry’s harsh breathing the only sound. Then a sharp crack of applause ran through the room and Harry whirled, eyes wide with adrenaline.

“Excellent, Harry, I didn’t expect you to get your wand back so fast.” said the familiar voice.

Harry met his Godfather’s eyes, ignoring the movement behind him of the training Phantoms slowly re-forming and moving to stand in obedient line, waiting for the next fight to begin. He stood still and tense for a moment, then closed his eyes, trying to piece back his shattered concentration. “I didn’t expect to either, but I saw an opportunity, and I took it.” He replied.

He opened his eyes, sighing and moving over to his friend and mentor, grabbing a gym towel.

Sirius watched Harry as the young man moved away, wiping the sweat off the handle of Godric’s sword, sheathing it briskly then placing it inside a chest and snapping it closed.

Sirius frowned a little, concerned, “Are you okay, Harry?” He asked.

Harry sat down abruptly on the bench that ran along the perimeter of the training room, “I’m fine.”

Sirius came and sat down next to him, handing him a glass of water, “You’ve been tense all morning.”

Wiping the sweat out of his eyes, Harry just sighed and shook his head.

Sirius kept watching him, “You seem... distracted.”

“I’m fine.” Harry repeated.

After a short pause, Sirius spoke again, “You don’t seem fine. In fact, you’ve been distracted and off your game ever since you had that Vision Quest two weeks ago”

Harry tensed.

“Harry, I know you said you didn’t want to talk about it, that it was personal, but I want you to know that Remus and I are here for you if you need to talk.”

With a half-hearted snarl, Harry tossed the towel onto the bench and stood, “I don’t see why this needs to be such an issue!” He said, “I told you that it didn’t matter, why can’t we just drop it?”

“It obviously did matter to you if it’s been putting you off this much for this long.” Sirius said.

Harry made an exasperated sound, “If you start giving me the ‘do not let your emotions control you’ lecture, Sirius, I-”

“Well? What do you expect!?” The teacher responded, “You’ve been in constant training for two years, you know that this battle requires you to be above petty teenage problems-”

Harry took a step back, “Bloody hell, Sirius” he looked away, trying not to let his mentor see the frustration and hurt he was feeling. “I’m fucking SORRY okay? Let me just turn my switch back onto robot! Excuse me for feeling like a human being for a few days, I realise that that is completely inappropriate!”

“Harry,” Sirius stood up, “I didn’t mean-”

“No! No, Sirius! I just- I can’t keep this up! I need one freaking day off to be seventeen okay? To have normal doubts and worries about normal, every-fucking-day things! I need ONE day - please - NOT to be the saviour of the world, alright!?” said Harry.

“Harry, you can’t-”

Harry let out a little scream, “Oh fuck, just, forget it, okay!” Trying to hold back furious tears, he turned and ran from the room, ignoring the voice of his Godfather calling him back.


~..*..~


Draco stirred his cauldron and secretively peeked at Potter while he reached for some monk-picked blueberries. Potter was glaring intently at his potion, as if trying to psychicly force it to boil. Draco decided that it might be best to ignore him for a few more days, let Potter get really worked up before engaging with him again.

Anyway, anticipation is always the best part of the chase.


~..*..~


Harry stabbed at his casserole with his fork.

“Mate, that casserole doesn’t deserve your vengeful wrath, it never did anything wrong except have peas in it, surely that can’t be so bad?”

Harry snarled and pushed his plate away.

Hermione frowned at him, “Harry, all day you’ve been looking like a weather warning should be issued for you before you enter a room, what’s up?”

The three friends were sitting together eating dinner in the Great Hall, Harry sighed, trying to ignore the chatter of the other students and a faint oncoming headache. “I had a fight with Sirius this morning,” he said.

“Aw man,” Ron put a hand on his shoulder, “What about?”

“It was stupid really,” Harry said, “He just starting nagging at me about how distracted I’ve been lately and I blew my top.”

Ron and Hermione exchanged glances over Harry’s head - which Harry tried his best to ignore.

“What did you say?” Hermione asked kindly.

“Oh, I just-” he let out a frustrated sigh, “I was stupid really, it’s just that... Do you guys ever think about how one day, Voldemort will be dead and this whole war will be over... And all the adults who have been involved in this, they’ll be able to pick up and carry on with the lives they had before any of this began.” He stopped, struggling for words, “But, most of us kids, we’re all soldiers- only soldiers. Apart from people like you Hermione, and maybe Neville, most of us don’t know anything about ourselves apart from what we’d do on a battle field. So what happens, when we’re all grown up in a world suddenly devoid of a great evil to fight? We can’t be soldiers anymore; but we have no idea how to be real people because we never had a chance to learn how. We were too busy learning to fight at fifteen, to kill at sixteen - to ever have a childhood.” He shrugged, “I mean, I’m not complaining, I’m happy they let us fight instead of locking us away like china-dolls, but I wonder how that affects a person, don’t you?”

Ron sat and blinked at him until Harry wondered if he had sprouted a second head, but Hermione put her hand over his and squeezed. “I do know what you mean, Harry, and it’s a fair question. I’m sure from a psychological point of view there is a very small chance that this is not going to affect our adult lives, but what other choice do we have?”

Harry looked at her and smiled, “None, which is comforting when I realise I should probably go and apologise to my godfather for being a total idiot.”

Hermione laughed, “Well, I think you have the right to be a little annoyed with your lot in life, Harry, just don’t start feeling too sorry for yourself, or Professor Snape might give you a week-long detention with Malfoy to show you how just much worse it could get.”

Harry stared, feeling his eyes start to glaze over.

Ron started laughing his head off and pointing at Harry, “Oh, mate! The look on your face was priceless!”

Harry just blushed and turned back to his casserole, wishing he could disappear into the floor but incredibly grateful that Ron had misinterpreted his expression.


~..*..~


Draco, sitting at the Slytherin table, watched Harry Potter and smiled. He watched as Harry stopped trying out torture methods on his food and turned to his friends, looking glum but thoughtful, obviously explaining something. He watched as the Weasel stared at Potter like he was something from another planet, until Granger leant over and squeezed Potter’s hand, saying something which then caused Harry to smile. This was followed by another comment which caused Harry’s mouth to open and his eyes to spread wide in an expression of dazed shock.

Draco rested his chin on his hand, licking his spoon clean while Weasley collapsed into bouts of laughter, Potter turning away and going as red as a tomato.

Plunging his spoon back into his dessert, Draco thought idly, I wonder if they are talking about me?


~..*..~


After Harry had finally got Ron to shut up, Harry sat and considered his options over his pudding.

Well first off, I’ve got to apologise to Sirius and promise to get my concentration back on target.

He paused, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. Except I’ve already tried that but Malfoy keeps distracting me again. He peeked through his fringe over at the Slytherin table where Malfoy was engaged in stabbing a Third-year’s hand with his fork for attempting to steal the last éclair.

I suppose I could always push him off a cliff into the Lake. Harry grinned at the thought; though it rapidly turned to a frown as the image of Draco Malfoy disappearing underwater changed with him re-emerging as Half-Naked Mer-Malfoy, smirking up at him and flicking his tail coyly.

Fuck!

Harry was just about to turn to Ron and ask him to smash him over the head with something so he could be put out of his misery now, when there was an odd noise from the high-table. Harry turned to look at Dumbledore who had just started out of his chair with a strange look on his face - when the whole room went silent...

...Harry looked around nervously but couldn’t see anything wrong other than the horrified-looking headmaster... until he realised that no one was moving.

Not just, sitting still; no one was moving an inch. It was like they had all been hit with Petrificus Totalus, they were breathing, and their eyes twitched occasionally, but no one was really moving a muscle.

Except Harry.

Harry was just reaching for his wand when the doors of the Great Hall slammed open, a bolt of pain flared though his forehead, and a sibilant voice said “Accio Harry’s wand!”

He cried out and tried to grab for his wand but it flew away too fast, across the room and into the hands of Lord Voldemort, who was standing right there, in the middle of Hogwarts’ Great Hall.


--

Next Chapter

Yeah, comments appreciated as always, (i.e. obsessed over). Chapter five will come out whenever I get around to editing it, and chapter six will one day, also be finished. :( Also planning on getting Ch.2 of Dry My Tears finished soon-ish.