The Flames of Passion

A/N: Please be aware that although this is an AR fic, there is magic involved in later chapters. Please heed the warning below, it is for your sake as the reader as well as mine. If you flame me, it will be ignored since you obviously didn't read the warning.

WARNING: This fic is based around events which some readers may find disturbing. If reading about fires, death etc is something that will upset you, please DO NOT GO ANY FURTHER.

Beta'd by the wonderful shadow_samurai. Thanks for all your hard work, hun.


The Flames of Passion

Chapter 1

Two years later

Harry Potter had never forgotten his one night with the Slytherin Ice Prince. Even now, as he lay awake in the dorm he shared with eight other males, he still remembered it.

It was bittersweet agony having to play out the scene in his head at every opportunity, but he didn’t want to forget. He had promised Draco he would always remember their one and only night together, and remember he did.

The night Harry had lost his virginity had been the most beautiful and heartbreaking night of his life. He had lusted after Draco for years and finally managed to get the blond to succumb to him. Then Draco had dropped the bombshell.

Harry had left for a life of solace, opting to stay at the old Order headquarters until he could sort out his head. He stayed longer than he originally anticipated; eight weeks, to be precise. It had been his only contact with the wizarding world.

Of course, the real reason he hadn’t left for the Muggle world immediately was because of the upcoming nuptials between Draco and the ‘bitch’, as Harry had dubbed her. He remembered having seen the whole thing printed in the Daily Prophet, complete with moving pictures and a beaming Pansy. Draco, on the other hand, looked as though he would rather have been somewhere else. The smile was false, and the way he held himself was not the way Harry remembered from their school days. The blond looked nervous, his face unreadable as he was congratulated by the numerous guests who had attended the lavish affair.

Harry had sobbed as he read how the happy couple would be trying for an heir as soon as the wedding was over. He scrunched the paper up and threw it in the trash. He was not going to spend his life pining for Malfoy. Harry left the next day, setting up home in Muggle London.

His choices of employment were limited; most of the places required certain abilities, ones that Harry didn’t even have, or would never have.

It was during a long walk home from yet another wasted day roaming around looking for work that he stumbled across what would be the career that would turn his life upside down.


The smoke was so thick and the smell made his throat burn, but he couldn’t turn away. There were people screaming and even the spectators, who had been pushed back behind a section with blue and white tape, gasped in fear. Harry watched in awe as the rescuers fitted a long hose to a big red truck with flashing blue lights. They wore thick dark blue jackets with fluorescent yellow stripes across the chest and sleeves; the trousers matched, but were covered by heavy black boots. Four of the men entered a doorway that had bright orange flames licking the wood and spiralling upwards towards the sky.

They were each given a large heavy yellow hat, which Harry later learned was a helmet, and a mask to put over their faces. Harry gaped as one by one, the brave men sprayed water towards the flames and doused the fire. He was too engrossed with the way they managed it without magic that he nearly didn’t see two of the other men carrying a woman out of the building. She was covered in soot and was coughing painfully. One of them gave her his mask and her coughing decreased a bit.

After what seemed like hours, the crowd dispersed and all that remained were the red trucks and the men with the heavy blue uniforms. Harry pulled one of them aside as he was loading the truck.

“Um, excuse me, sir.” The man turned towards the voice and nodded. Harry cleared his throat and held out his hand. “I’m Harry, and I was wondering how I could join your service.”

Harry listened intently to the man, whose name was Dave, and learned that he would have to go to training school first. This was what he wanted to do, he loved rescuing people and there was also the element of danger that came with a job like that.

So the next eighteen months found Harry studying, training, and learning how to rig up a fire engine. He also learnt how to carry someone from a burning building using ‘the fireman’s lift procedure’, like his tutor had told him.

After passing his exams with flying colours, he was given his first post with the Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service on Red Watch. He snorted at the thought of his old house colours being his shift watch.

*********
In the six months that had followed, Harry had taken to the job like a duck to water. He had been to three house fires, and a motorway carnage involving three lorries and a dozen cars. He had rescued umpteen cats from trees, and even a four year old boy who had managed to get his head stuck in some railings at the local park. But it was when the times were quiet that he constantly thought about Draco. He wondered if he and the ‘bitch’ were still together.

The last time he had seen Ron and Hermione, they had said that the Malfoys had two children, a boy and a baby girl, but there was a huge investigation into the children's parentage. Ron thought Pansy was sleeping around and they weren’t Malfoy’s kids. One of them had jet black hair, the other was strawberry blonde.

The investigation became so intense that the Malfoys had left the wizarding world and were now living in a quiet suburb in Wiltshire. Draco hated the idea of being amongst Muggles, but it was the only way to protect his son. Too many questions were being asked as to who the raven-haired child’s mother was. It certainly wasn’t Pansy, and if Draco wanted to keep his young heir safe and away from the prying eyes of curious witches and wizards, then leaving everything behind was the only option.

Harry chuckled at that piece of information. Malfoy living as a Muggle, in a huge mansion which was nearly as exquisite as his old home, and without magic. It was with this thought that Harry drifted off to sleep. But it didn’t last long.

Harry had just managed to get to sleep when he heard the alarm going off. He automatically reached for his glasses and realized he didn’t wear them anymore. Contact lenses were better for a job like this. Before he even had time to blink, the lights were on in his dorm and the other fire fighters were hurrying towards the door. Harry leapt out of bed and quickly followed his colleagues to the engine room.

The chief fire officer, Gerry Sneddon, had just arrived from the control room clutching the printed details in his hand. Harry was too busy pulling on his protective clothing to hear what the 999 was, until he heard the address.

“Maybury Cove, private land, belongs to the Malfoy family. We have persons reported.”

Harry spun round and shook his head, as though he hadn’t heard the chief properly. ‘Persons reported’ meant that there were people within the building. Harry suddenly felt sick. Three appliances were needed for this shout and Harry climbed up next to his four colleagues in the first one.

“Did you say Malfoy, sir?” Harry questioned as they left the station and turned on the blues and twos. Luckily the traffic wasn’t too bad at that time of night.

Gerry turned to the nervous lad beside him. “Yeah, Potter. And according to the person who made the call, there is no sign of anyone from the residence outside, so they are either unaware that their house is on fire, or they are trapped. The house is huge, supposedly, so maybe it’s just on one floor. We’ll see when we get there.”

The journey seemed to take forever, but Harry knew it was only minutes. The fire service had to be at their destination within ten minutes of the 999 call being made. They had two minutes to spare and not a hope in hell of making it. Or so he thought. As they turned down a country lane, the men of Red Watch were left gobsmacked by the sight before them. Just a mile up the road, the sky was illuminated by flames reaching more than fifty feet. It looked like daylight had broken as the sky was so bright.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ, there is no way anyone in there is alive, sir. If they are, then it’s a fuckin’ miracle,” Michael Reilly stated. He had been to many a fire in his twenty year service, but had never seen one as ferocious as this.

Harry had learnt in this job that fear had to take a back seat. You go in, do your job, and hopefully leave with the feeling of having achieved a miracle. He could feel the bile slowly rising in his throat as they arrived outside the raging inferno. Everyone was quickly given their breathing apparatus and radio contact. The chief spoke to the leading fire investigation officer on duty that night. “What you got for my lads, Officer Milen?”

Harry listened to the conversation while he fiddled with his mask. “Three adults, two males and one female, plus two kids, both under the age of two. The upper floor is gone completely and we believe that is where one of the children is. There is a basement which our lads are having difficulty getting into. Neighbours say the couple have some sort of lab down there. We don’t know the cause of the fire yet, but we think it was a discarded cigarette. My men have been in there for over fifteen minutes and not one rescue yet. They need a break, so if your men are ready get them in there, now.” Gerry didn’t need to be told twice.

“Firefighters Potter, Mitchell, Reilly and O’Neill, you’re on main hose. Keep RC with each other at all times. Take the ground level and find a way into that fuckin’ basement. I want those people out of there, not in ten minutes, but now. Go!” Harry nodded at the command and set off with his team. He was on lead hose, which meant he had to go in first with the others behind him. His heart was pounding in his chest as he kept thinking of the one and only person he had ever loved lying helpless and maybe being burnt alive. The adrenaline kicked in at that moment. ‘I’m not going to let him die on me, not now. Fuck, where is he?’

He couldn’t very well start shouting ‘Draco’ at the top of his lungs, because he was wearing his BA and sound was muffled, and his colleagues would start asking questions, ones he wanted to avoid.

Harry’s sexuality amongst his workmates wasn’t known. Some of them were married, some single, and a few, like him, didn’t really talk much about their sex lives, or in Harry’s case, lack of. Being a gay fireman had its taboos. There were more than three others on Blue Watch who were big homophobes. One of them had been transferred to another station because of his hatred towards a colleague who had openly told everyone he was gay. The guy had been in hospital for months, so Harry couldn’t let his feelings for Draco show at this time. He was brought out of his train of thought by Reilly’s voice coming over the radio.

“Potter, two adults and one child accounted for. Neither adult is the owner of the property. He must still be in here. We have about thirty minutes of oxygen left. We need to get to… aaargh!”

“Mike! Jesus, Mike, are you alright?” Harry yelled through his radio. Mike had been sent sprawling to the floor by debris, which Harry noticed had come from the ceiling above them. “Fuckin’ hell, the whole floor is gonna come down on top of us. We have to move!”

The smoke was so thick, and the only sound Harry could hear was his breathing. He looked at the timer on his oxygen tank and that’s when he began to panic. Only ten minutes of oxygen left, which meant Harry had to either continue dousing the flames in front of him, or go and look for Draco before they were called out to refill. The latter won out.

“Mitchell, take lead for me, I’m going for rescue.” Harry stated. Firefighter Mitchell grimaced; this could lead to trouble. They were there to stop the fire spreading only, and to radio to the rescue team if they came across a body. It wasn’t their job.

“Potter, you can’t, they’ll have our nuts for this. We have to get out of here before the whole fuckin’ building crashes down on top of us.” Harry just shook his head as he grabbed his torch, and set off in what he hoped was the direction of the basement.

Luckily the fire hadn’t spread to that part of the mansion yet, but the smoke was still thick. He got onto his hands and knees and crawled along the floor. All the while, thoughts of Draco lying injured flitted through his head. It felt as though they had been in there for hours and the horrible feeling in his gut wouldn’t go away. Harry wasn’t sure if his effort to rescue the blond was in vain, but he wanted to at least say he tried.

Too many people had already lost their lives because of Harry. That was what he always thought. If he hadn’t been born, his parents would still be alive, Sirius would still be there, too, not to mention all those innocent people who Voldemort killed because of the fuckin’ Boy-Who-Lived. He was determined not to add Draco to that list.

After a few more minutes of crawling, Harry was about to give up when his BA alarm suddenly went off. “Fuck, no oxygen. Shit.” He pulled off his mask and continued along the floor, listening for any sound that would indicate Draco’s whereabouts. The smoke was even thicker now and he gagged a few times, trying his best not to vomit. It didn’t work. His eyes watered and as he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the smouldering floor, that’s when he heard it; a hoarse cry for help, coming from just a few feet away. Harry quickly jumped to his feet and took off at a run, dodging falling bits of wood and small flames that had found their way to the basement through air pockets.

“Draco! Draco, where are you?”

As the smoke got thicker, Harry couldn’t see where he was going and when his foot hit something solid, he immediately collapsed in a heap. Pointing his torch at the sudden obstruction, Harry’s eyes widened at the discovery.

“Draco!”

TBC