Title: The Splendor Is Waiting

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Pairing: Harry/Draco

Warnings: Angst, slight violence, Hogwarts "eighth year"

Rating: R

Wordcount: This part 3000

Summary: Harry discovers a book in Regulus Black's bedroom the summer after the war—a book that tells him of a series of rites once widely practiced among wizards of all kinds, to combat the enemy of both Dark and Light. Fascinated, Harry starts delving deeper, and finds himself developing a slow friendship with Draco Malfoy, who can tell him more. A story spanning five parts.

Author's Notes: Another of my Wednesday one-shots, this time for imuptonogood, who asked for something with Harry learning more about wizarding culture, and taking it seriously. Could be AU, so at any time 5th year onward. I'd love a light Harry (with that generous spirit he has) becoming entrenched in with Dark wizards (where Dark is not evil, but a cultural thing) and a Harry/Draco relationship.

The title is taken from the poem "Glory and Shadow" by the Irish poet A. E.

The Splendor Is Waiting

Part One—The Book of the Heir

Harry leaned forwards and curled his fingers around the edge of the small wooden panel, dragging it out of the wall. He was only vaguely curious, but even the curiosity was better than the deep void that had seemed to fill him since the end of the war and the defeat of Voldemort.

At first, he'd been relieved that he was calm and not upset. And then the calmness had gone on and on, and he hadn't cried at the funerals, and everyone had talked about shock, and the Healers at St. Mungo's had treated him for that, but it hadn't seemed to help.

Nothing did, really.

Harry thought he'd just poured so much into the war that he had nothing left. Maybe, in time, it would return. But until it did, he was no fit companion for Ginny, or anyone else grieving as much as the Weasley family was, or for Hermione, on her quest to retrieve her parents. So he had shut himself behind some newly impenetrable spells on the Black house and proceeded to wander around and investigate secrets in the house.

The panel sticking out of the wall of Regulus's room was one of them. Harry got it all the way open, and looked into the gap.

There was a small black book there, bound with leather. Harry took it out and turned it over. It was stamped in gold, and there was a slight vibration through the lettering that reminded him of a heart.

The Book of the Heir.

Harry smiled a little. The heir, huh? Probably it had come to Regulus because his parents had despaired of Sirius.

Harry sighed a little when he thought of Sirius. Even that grief felt more real than anything he'd been through in the last few years. But he didn't think that simply sitting around and berating himself for not feeling properly was the answer. If it was, then someone would have woken him up before now.

He could take the book with him and read it, though. At least it was new. Harry tucked the book calmly into his pocket and sauntered down the stairs, going to the kitchen, where he could sit and eat the endless food that Kreacher was glad to make him and not be bothered by anything.

Harry lay awake in bed a week later, staring at the ceiling. His head was turning over and over like one of the curses he had seen the Death Eaters cast during the Battle of Hogwarts. He finally sat up and flicked his wand at the fireplace, lighting the flames again, when he realized that he wouldn't get to sleep, anyway.

Then he reached out and picked up The Book of the Heir again, flicking through the pages idly, although he had read them enough by now to know them almost by heart.

The book spoke of a series of rites that were supposedly used by wizards all over the world to put—something to sleep. Harry let his mind skirt around that word, even though it wasn't the one that the book had used. Then he nodded and let his mind settle on the word the book had chosen.

Rites against Shadow. That was the biggest section of the book. Hell, it was practically the subtitle.

Shadow was, according to the book anyway, an ancient force, the enemy of both Dark and Light. It wasn't sentient so much as a state of being that could return if enough wizards didn't do the rites to keep it propitiated. It didn't participate in the conflict between Dark and Light. It didn't crush them. It didn't destroy them. It was nothing.

Not a force of hatred or of love. In a world of meaningless, unmoving Shadow, there was no room for either Dark or Light. There was no room for change of any kind. There would only be one kind of light, one kind of weather, one kind of person—if any still remained—one kind of existence. One kind of state of mind. Nothing more than that.

Harry nodded. Maybe that revelation wouldn't have hit him so hard, but he knew how he thought of Shadow. He thought of it as the way that he had felt since the end of the war. Nothing mattered. Nothing would ever change again. Why not lie back and let events take their course?

Maybe part of it had been natural shock. Maybe part of it had been a healing he needed to take time for. But the book said bluntly on the first page that that was one of the tricks of Shadow, and once it got hold of a wizard like that, it was hard to get the hold off again. And Shadow was particularly prone to reaching for wizards who had crossed the threshold of death in some way, or who had sat back and given up on life, or who had grown up in the Muggle world and never performed any of the rites that were supposed to hold Shadow at bay.

Harry closed his eyes for a second. So basically, I was the perfect victim.

But—and as he thought it, his hands closed on the spine of the book—he didn't want to be the perfect victim anymore. He'd had enough of that with Voldemort. He was going to oppose Shadow in the ways the book suggested.

Then Harry opened his eyes, and his mouth twitched a little. Well, sort of the way the book suggested. Yes, he wanted to live and have stronger emotions than simple nothingness and make changes in his life.

But the sort of rites that he'd have to perform weren't the ones the book offered. Light and Dark wizards—who sounded more and more like people who had just chosen different weapons to fight Shadow, to Harry—did different sets of them. And of course The Book of the Heir, having belonged to the Blacks, didn't tell him the sort that Light wizards performed.

Harry didn't think he could just ask the Weasleys, either. They were Light, he had no doubt, but they had never said anything like this—about this—to him.

So he would have to investigate and figure it out on his own.

Harry looked down at The Book of the Heir with a certain affection anyway. Without it, he would never have known there was Shadow or what the malaise creeping over him might be. He might not have come up with the resolve to go back out into the wizarding world and even to Hogwarts, if need be, to pursue knowledge about the series of things he'd need to do.

Harry patted the book gently on its cover and lay down in his bed. For the first time since the end of the war, his sleep was black, not grey.

Harry rolled his eyes and shoved himself back from the table in the library. It really was ridiculous that no book in the whole bloody place showed any sign of knowing what The Book of the Heir was talking about.

Well, they did mention Shadow, and the rites that were supposed to prevent it from becoming prevalent. Harry had to admit that. If they didn't, then he would have had to admit that The Book of the Heir was probably only something an insane Black family member had written and Shadow was a fantasy that didn't exist after all and only coincidentally matched how he'd felt after the war.

But all the books at Hogwarts said was that Shadow had been defeated, or chained, or put permanently to sleep, or something. And it was enough to play Quidditch and eat good food and cast pretty spells and do whatever else you enjoyed, that it was living well that made Shadow go to sleep. So there was no need for rites.

By now, though, Harry rather liked the idea of having rituals that he could use to celebrate being alive, and an enemy to fight against that had tried to claim him and that he could shove away and yell at the way he'd done with Voldemort. And if the rites didn't mean anything to him when he tried them, well. At least he would get to try them.

If he could only know what they were, what they involved.

Harry folded his arms and scowled. Books were no help. Light wizards he talked to hadn't ever heard of the bloody things. He had tried to get a pass to the Restricted Section, and even told McGonagall and a few of the other professors why when they'd asked, but McGonagall had only got a complicated expression on her face.

"Don't you think you've struggled to conquer an implacable enemy long enough, Mr. Potter?" she asked. "Let someone else fight the battle, if it's there to be fought. I assure you, there are wizards who would find such a thing stimulating."

Flitwick's and Sprout's reactions had been similar, except that Flitwick's had involved more squeaking and Sprout's more crying about what a "dear and brave" boy he was. And then Ron had said that Harry appeared to have come fully back to life, except that he was still (bewilderingly) uninterested in dating Ginny, and why did he need something like the Light rituals anyway?

Hermione might have said something different, but she was still in Australia. Ron's face was tense and drawn except on the rare days he received an owl from her, so Harry didn't want to press him too much.

Harry sighed. He thought he needed to ask a Dark wizard who wasn't dangerous to him, who would at least know more about where to find the rites if not the rites themselves, and someone who he could press on the subject if they were reluctant to talk about it. With a life-debt, for example.

And there weren't a lot of choices when it came to that, honestly. And only one who was at Hogwarts.

"It's private."

Harry stared at Malfoy. He hadn't thought he'd react like this. He had expected a denial that Malfoy knew anything about Shadow and the rites that controlled it, or maybe he'd expected Malfoy to blow up at him for trying to use a life-debt to force him to listen. But instead, Malfoy had nodded when Harry mentioned the life-debts. Harry suspected Malfoy had thought he'd claim the debts long since.

Now, though, when Harry had explained about Shadow, and the rites, and The Book of the Heir…

Malfoy stood there with his eyes closed and his face pink and one hand closed into a fist, as if Harry had asked him how many times a day he took a shit or something.

"It's private," Malfoy whispered again, when Harry opened his mouth to say something. "No, I can't discuss it with you. You should never have asked me." He turned his head and opened his eyes, and Harry winced as if from something deadly. Malfoy hadn't looked at him like that since the end of the war.

Hell, he hadn't really looked at Harry at all since the end of the war, but that only rendered the contrast more shocking.

"Those rites aren't a secret," Harry said. "They can't be, if wizards used to practice them all over Britain."

Malfoy's hands moved restlessly for a second, and then he said, "You still can't ask me. It's—it's something that needs to be done in private, Potter." He eyed Harry for a second under his lashes, and then added, "Besides, they wouldn't work for you."

Harry sneered impatiently. "Because I had a Muggleborn mum, I suppose?"

"What?" Malfoy's head reared back and his jaw dropped, and that was what made Harry listen instead of walking away. "Because you're not a Dark wizard. I thought you knew that, if not anything else."

Harry snorted. "Idiot. I don't want to practice your rites. I want to know where I can find a book that discusses the ones for Light wizards. Or if you knew them, then I wanted to learn them from you. I see now that I can't do that, because if they're all private and shit, you probably don't know them. But can you tell me where to find a book on them?"

Malfoy had straightened and was regarding Harry more intently. They were outside the school, near the Forbidden Forest. It was the only place Harry had thought private enough for a discussion like this, especially since Hagrid was visiting Madame Maxime in France and couldn't interrupt.

"You want to learn them," Malfoy said.

"It's almost as if I've spent the last five minutes telling you that or something."

But he seemed to have lost the capacity to irritate Malfoy. Malfoy only reached out and gestured in the air between them, as if cupping an invisible face or shaping an invisible curve. "Light wizards don't generally practice them anymore, you know," he said. "They don't believe in Shadow. Or they think they're too modern and the rites are too archaic."

Harry nodded without taking his eyes from Malfoy's face. He believed Malfoy when he said that he wouldn't betray the Dark rites, but he seemed to be building up to a different revelation. The least Harry could do was give him some serious attention.

And he had to admit, having Malfoy's gaze on him made a small part of him feel satisfied and no longer ignored. It had been annoying when Malfoy wouldn't even glance at him.

"I know where I can get my hands on a book," said Malfoy, leaning forwards and studying Harry. "And I'll do it because I think you deserve the chance to know something like this. The Dark rites…" His face melted into something that Harry had never known before. "They're beautiful."

This, Harry decided after a stunned moment, is what wonder looks like on Draco Malfoy's face.

"Every wizard deserves to be a part of that, if they want it." Malfoy looked him squarely in the eye. "And the book isn't even technically illegal because it's Light magic, just old and forgotten. But you'll need to do two things."

Harry nodded. He didn't think Malfoy was about to ask him to kill someone, or hurt someone, or even prank his friends. He was too serious for that.

"First, you'll need to pay me for the book." Malfoy tilted his head back as if considering the leaves of the trees on the edge of the Forest. "The Ministry took enough money from my family that I can't easily afford that sort of thing anymore."

Harry gave a choppy nod. He thought dwelling on that, or even speaking aloud right now, would just embarrass Malfoy further.

"Second," said Malfoy, and tilted his head back down so their gazes were locked again, "I want to instruct you."

Harry blinked, then studied him. "How can you, if the rites are private?"

"The actual performance of the rites is private," Malfoy explained tersely, and flicked his pale hair out of his face. "And I meant it when I said I couldn't tell you, just explain the information. But the teaching was always meant to be passed one from one person to another."

Harry nodded, enlightened. "You can't tell me, but you can show me."

"Exactly." Malfoy gave him another squinting look. "We would have got on a lot better if you'd ever shown any interest in this before."

"I didn't know they existed," said Harry, and didn't apologize, because he was done apologizing for his interest in the bloody rites. "Should I withdraw some Galleons from Gringotts and owl them to you, or what?"

"That would be best." Malfoy took another step towards him. The shadows filtering through the leaves layered his face with shining green and grey, very different from the lands and mists that Harry had been wandering in when he was still a victim of Shadow. "From now on, there can't be an obvious connection between us, you understand? The teaching is also private, unless someday…" Then he shook his head. "You would never want to share this with someone else who I know and trust. It's too…sacred."

He tried to choose some other word, Harry thought, but that's the one he came up with.

Well, he would respect it. He nodded. "I understand."

"Good," said Malfoy. He started to turn away, but hesitated. Then he turned back and gave a strange bow to Harry, placing one hand at his waist and sweeping the other arm behind him in a curve like a swan's wing.

"You're making the right choice," he said. "You'll see."

And he turned and took off for Hogwarts.

Harry leaned back against the tree behind him, and felt more content than he had since the end of the war.