Main Pairing: Harry/Draco
Side Pairing(s): Ron/Hermione
Rating: T (PG-13, whatever... you get the idea)
Warnings: homosexuality/heterosexuality, (graphic) fantasy violence, dark themes (kinda), minor character death
Summary: (Harry/Draco) Harry isn't the Dark Lord, so he cannot be with a Death Eater's son. This is the first time the Boy-Who-Lived ever asked for something and he cannot have it. So he takes matters into his own hands. Post HBP!Evil!Harry, Dark!Draco
Disclaimer: Not mine… no duh… this is on a fanfiction site after all.
Secondary Disclaimer: Because of the nature of this fic (I dare not say more for spoiler reasons) there has-to-be/will-be flashbacks to events that occured in HBP. While I would normally shy away from such citation and/or consultation of the actual work, it is very necessary because, again, of the nature of this fic (which I dare not elaborate on for fear of spoilers again). I do not own HBP in any way. I am not in any way re-writing or taking credit for HBP, I am however twisting it's events to accomodate the fic.
Stigmata
Prologue: Whispers of Truth
The lone occupant of the room looked up slowly as the barred door swung open with a creak. He didn't look surprised… or really, didn't look as though any emotion registered in his mind. As he had for the past week, his voice harsh and dry, he spoke only one sentence. A question.
"Where is Draco?"
And, for the first time in a week, Head Auror Ron Weasley answered him.
"Malfoy is in Azkaban waiting for his execution, as you will be if you don't answer our questions, Harry."
"You have not the right to question me," the dark-haired prisoner whispered furiously at his captor.
"Harry, please, work with us! Let us help you! I know this isn't the real you; come on Harry!" Ron looked in desperation at his friend, who's trial was to begin in one hour.
Harry Potter, or so he had been called, locked eyes with Ron and glared at him. He had changed. He no longer looked like Harry Potter, the Harry Potter Ron remembered. Gone was his former best friend, and in the shell left behind was something horrible, at least in the opinion of some people. But just looking at him, one could only see a year's growth in the young man; an inch added to his hair that still looked as if it grew where it willed to grow and nothing could stop it. Three inches added to his height, but his overall figure seemed unchanged by time.
It was his eyes that showed the year's influence the most. They were still the vibrant emerald color, but they were now guarded, calculating. They were deformed, too, at least in the opinion of most. Like his supposed mentor, Harry Potter's eyes were no longer human eyes. But while Lord Voldemort's eyes had resembled those of a reptile, Harry Potter's eyes resembled those of an owl. His owl, to be exact, although only someone like Ron, who had known Harry well before, could make that connection.
"You know nothing," the voice rasped at Ron, and Ron felt something break inside of him. But whether it was his hope or his heart, he couldn't tell.
"Sir, it's time to bring the prisoner in."
For a moment, it looked like Ron would stop the guard from removing his former friend from the cell, but he nodded and stepped aside as three aurors hauled Harry from the room.
Harry did not even look at his former friend on the way out.
The room was full of people, so full that it was hard to breathe amongst the audience. But people would have hung from the rafters, if they had to, in order to see this trial. This was the trial of the decade; nay, the century. The members of the Wizengamot were to try Harry Potter. Only four members still lived; they all sat waiting for the accused to be brought into the room and placed in the empty chair they faced.
There was an excited whisper as Harry Potter was brought into the room, not protesting, but walking calmly, encircled by four aurors. Each and every reporter of the many present was already writing a report of what would have to be one of the most important events in wizarding history.
"Harry Potter-" one of the members of the Wizengamot began.
"That is not my name."
All the people in the audience jumped at the sullen, yet powerful, words from the seated and bound wizard.
There was silence for a moment before the same member began to speak again. "Very well, then. Lord Scylla, formerly known as Harry Potter, you are on trial today for actions against the Wizarding World, and that of Muggles, as well. You are charged with the murder of one hundred and seventy-two wizards and witches and three hundred and forty-five Muggles of varying ages and locations. You are charged of helping to lead a conspiracy, a rebellion, against our world. You are charged with exciting certain groups, specifically Vampires and Centaurs, to join in this rebellion, bringing them together under an army loyal only to you, who call themselves the 'Furies of Hades'. I, Davenport Rok'lan, have been chosen by my fellow members of the Wizengamot to lead this case."
There was a pause, filled only with the scratching of quills on parchment. "You will not plead guilty or innocent in this trial. Our purpose is to discover truth or lie, and, to such an end, you will only be allowed to speak under the influence of Veritaserum in order to assure complete and utter truth. If it is proven that you acted not of your own free will in the actions of which you are accused, you will be proclaimed innocent; if it is proven that you acted under your own free will and of your own choosing, you will be proclaimed guilty." Rok'lan's steel gray eyes turned to Ron. "Head Auror Ronald Weasley, I ask you to administer the Veritaserum."
Ron's face was passive as he lifted a glass to Harry's lips and dosed his former best friend with the Truth Serum.
"Our first question for you, Scylla, is this: Are you a follower of the deceased He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"
"No," Harry's voice was clear and low.
Sighs of relief went around the room.
"Did you willingly participate in He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's second rebellion?"
"Yes."
Silence filled the room.
"What drove you to willingly help He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"
"Draco Malfoy."
Whispers and low voices filled the room. None of the Wizarding population had forgotten the trial only a week previous, in which Draco Malfoy, alleged second-in-command to Lord Scylla, and the only human in the Furies of Hades, was sentenced to execution, scheduled to take place three weeks from this very day.
"How did he drive you to do such a thing?"
People leaned forward in their chairs, waiting to hear of Imperius, or another curse. Or maybe it was a potion - Polyjuice, or something worse. What they were waiting for never came.
"I love him."
Pure silence filled the room. The members of the Wizengamot looked at each other before Rok'lan finally looked back at the boy sitting calmly waiting for the next question. Hesitantly, he asked, "And how did this come to be?"
In a low monotone, Harry began to speak:
"I wrote to Draco Malfoy at the summer before my sixth year at Hogwarts. I was certain that he was a Death Eater, but I knew no one would believe me without proof. I thought that if I wrote to him as someone interested in becoming a Death Eater, he might reveal in writing that he was one. Then I would have proof of his involvement.
"He didn't. So I continued the correspondence. After a while, I began to tell him more about myself, in hopes that, if he thought I trusted him enough to speak of my secrets, he would trust me enough to reveal that he was a Death Eater. I told him about my dreams, not specifics, but the generality of them. I did not speak of Lord Voldemort's connection to these dreams. He was the first one to listen to me without pity, maybe because he did not know of this. He was also the first to see my dreams for what they were: a weakness. He tried to help me purge this weakness from myself and, though nothing worked, he was the first one to try and help me rid myself of these dreams. Not cover them up, not block them out, but get rid of them.
"I began to like him. Shortly after sixth year started, I met him in Hogsmeade under a heavy glamour to hide my scar from him, just as a friend meeting a pen pal. We met more often, and my obsession grew. A week later we kissed for the first time. A week after that he found out who I was. He yelled at me. He damned me to the farthest reaches of Hell for what I'd done. And when I tried to explain that I no longer wished him harm, he rejected me. He said he was a Death Eater's son and I was no Dark Lord, so we could never have even friendship, let alone anything more.
"This was as close as he ever got to admitting that he was a Death Eater."
Harry paused for a moment, and Ron thought he saw something shift in Harry's eyes, as if he was trying to fight the Veritaserum. Then they faded back into their dull glow, and he continued.
"He said it was expected by the entire world. That I was expected to act certain ways, to do certain things, to not do others, and to be whom they wanted me to be. My dreams were now not of Voldemort, but of that. Of feeling that the world I lived in was slowly molding me, pounding at my body as a blacksmith would at a lump of ore. It went on for weeks. Those who thought themselves my friends started to worry, told me my obsession with Draco wasn't worth it asked me if anything was wrong. I told them nothing, and they were happy to continue seeing what they wanted to in me. They never realized what was happening. But somehow He realized it; Lord Voldemort realized it. My dreams shifted again, and he began to ask me why I was letting the world do this to me. He wanted to know what kept me Harry Potter, from doing what I wanted. He also wondered what it was I wanted to make me so bitter. I refused to tell him, and yet he kept asking."
Harry paused again, swallowed, and continued. "But one night was different. I don't know how he found out, but he did. He asked me why I was letting Draco push me away without a fight. Why I'd let Draco reject me, and why I'd let Draco hurt me in such a way. He said I needn't have done that. He said it was not impossible for Draco and I to have friendship, or even more. I didn't believe him. I told him that he was lying. But he wasn't. And he told me… told me that all I needed to do in order to cross the chasm that lay between Draco and myself, was to join him. Not as a servant, but as an equal."
The room held its breath along with the people in it, waiting to hear Harry's next words. They were not disappointed.
"I refused him. Over and over for I don't know how long. That one night seemed never-ending. I continued to refuse him. And the next night, even longer than the first… I still refused him. But on the third night, he asked me why I was being so stubborn. He asked me what the world had done to merit such loyalty from me. He asked me what was so important about the world that I placed it above myself so willingly. He said I'd never asked the world for anything. For all of my life the world asked of me and expected things from me, but I had never asked or expected back. He admitted that the reason for this was his own doing. But, even if he hadn't done as he had to my parents, he pointed out that the world would still expect things from me. My parents would have expected things from me. Even if they were alive, I could still never be friends, or anything more than enemies, with Draco Malfoy. But in that world, he said, in the world with my parents, I would have no way out, no chance to break free because they were my family, bound by blood. By destroying them, he had unwittingly given me a way out. None of my family was left to hold me by my blood. Only the expectations of strangers, people whom I might never know and people who sought to know me, but at the same time sought only to see what they wanted to see in me, were left. So he asked me if I would take the chance that my parents gave me when their lives ended. Would I do what I wanted? When the only thing that I had ever asked for was denied me by the world, would I turn on the world and take it as was my parental-given right?"
Harry paused and looked up at the people that stood or sat around them, as if seeing that they were truly listening to him. The room shuddered as people waited for him to continue.
"I said I would."
Even though they knew Harry had turned on them before the trial, the people in the room gasped at his confession. The last hopes that some of them had held, that their hero had been cursed or forced to do the things he had done, were shattered with those four words. But Harry continued speaking as if there was no one else in the room, in that same voice, devoid of all emotion.
"The night after that was the longest night I have ever slept through. Lord Voldemort taught me all he said that I needed to know in order to be his Heir. It seemed like I studied for ages, practiced spell work for ages more, and yet it all happened in one dream. At the very end, he evoked a ritual like that of the Death Eater's initiation. But mine was different. I was no servant, but an equal. I was not beneath or above him, but was to stand beside him. I was to set about creating my own group of followers when I awoke, and was free to choose whomever I wanted, he said. I could even ask Draco, he told me. He warned me to be careful whom I brought into my circle, because I was at a much greater risk than he, much closer to Dumbledore than he, but he said that this would soon be remedied. Even so, if even one person spoke to Dumbledore, if he began to suspect that I would not follow his plan, then he would be able to see through me to my true intentions. I would have to employ utmost secrecy. But before I could do that, he charged me with one other task: I was to find the secret chamber belonging to Ravenclaw. Dumbledore did not know the location of such a chamber, as with the secret chamber of Slytherin. It would be a safe place for me to hide anything and everything from him."
"Why would he think you would find such a chamber?" Rok'lan interrupted.
Harry looked at him and blinked before speaking again, his voice filling the room with a sound softer than a whisper.