Lord of Shadows Arc, Book One: Prince of Darkness

Title: Lord of Shadows Arc, Book I, Chapter One: As the Walls of Jericho

Author: Christine C, aka Jazz Coyote. Not to be confused with Christine of "Unlikely
Beginnings" fame, though that's a cool story, too. . .

Beta: Greensleeves, the Amazing.

Ratings: This chapter, PG for swearing. Overall NC-17

Pairings: Eventual DM/HP, RW/HG, GW/FW (Twincest), others. . .

Warnings: Dark!Harry, Scared-as-hell!Draco, Surprisingly-Tolerant!Ron, rampant
symbolism, perceived OoC, implied self-mutilation, eventual sap, fluff, sex,
swearing, and, once Rowling publishes the next book, AU. . . should I go on?
Oh yeah, incest, slash, het, . . .No non-con, but who knows, there might be
character death later on. . .Book 2 will have some OCs. . . I think that might
be it. . .oh yeah, way near the end (long way away), some MPREG, but I set up
for it real early, you'll prolly forget I did so by the time it happens.
. .or maybe not. . . I might not. . . not there yet. . .

Notes: Later on will be some Twincest, so watch out. . . this starts out kinda
lighthearted but if you read the Prologue, you know it won't stay that
way. It does get darker. This is the beginning of something looong. Covers years
of their lives. Reviews make me write faster, so whatever you think, lemmee
know.

Disclaimer: Malfoys are sexy, Potters are too, Rowling owns all, please do not
sue.

Summary: for the Arc? Impossible. For Book I--basically, Draco gets some
bad news, becomes desperate, things happen, gahh. . .This chapter--Draco
plans revenge for his father, and makes some startling discoveries.
__________________________________________________________________

As the Walls of Jericho

Much has been made in recent years -- oh hell, who
am I kidding, decades--of Harry's and my love for each other. Countless
have been the comparisons between us and other couples along the order of Odysseus
and Penelope, Beatrice and Benedick, Vina and Cormus, or Neo and Trinity.
We have, it seems, become something of a living myth.

But myths start with a truth. And the truth of the origins
of our love starts with hate--sixteen years of scorn and derision.

The first eleven years of my life were filled with training
as the Malfoy heir. I had eleven years of learning to resent Harry for everything
he was. By the time I went to Hogwarts, he was the center of my life. My sole
thought was to see him expelled, so I went out of my way to aggravate him to
no end. I spent the next five years like that. After eleven years of lies, I
never even gave him a chance.

It wasn't until my father was imprisoned in Azkaban that
the lies came tumbling down like the walls of Jericho. It was only then that
I truly met Harry Potter for the first time.

--from The Prodigal Dragon; Memories of the Hopelessly Hyped
Life of Draco S. Malfoy-Potter
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
There were only two options open to Draco Malfoy the summer after his fifth
year. First, he could rescue his father from prison. Or, he could exact revenge
for his father's imprisonment on his rival, the party responsible for it. But
as he thought about it, Draco realised that his father, a very smart gentleman,
was probably making plans of his own for escape, and it was very possible that
any plans Draco made in that area would get in the way of his father's. And
getting in the way of his father was the last thing he wanted to do. At the
time.

So, content to leave the father rescuing to his mother, Draco turned his thoughts
to revenge on Mr. Harry Potter. Instead of waiting for the next school year--which
is what would be expected--Draco decided that vengeance must be achieved
before summer was out. He also decided that he would no longer settle for small,
petty acts such as had been his method for the past five years. Instead, it
would be something great. Something wonderful. Something that would permanently
hurt the Boy-Who-Lived-to-be-a-Pain-in-the-Arse. Something to make him easier
prey for his father's associates.

The problem was, what to do? It was at this point that Draco realized how little
he knew about "That Potter." Sure, he knew Potter was a spoiled goody
goody who was almost universally adored. And he knew the names of his best friends.
But aside from getting one of them whacked -- which would mean Draco could
no longer torture them--what did that leave him with?

So Draco decided he would need to spy on Potter, and learn what would really
hurt him. He gathered together a few books from his father's extensive library, two two of the several invisibility cloaks his family owned, and his broom. First,
he fashioned an invisibility device for his broom, for being invisible was no
use if someone saw pieces of broom flying around. Then he took the cloaks and
some invisible thread, and made a complete suit, for being invisible was pointless
if an updraft came about.

These took about two days of non-stop work to finish. It was still the first
week of July when Draco took to the skies and flew to 4 Privet Drive.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The thing about Muggles, Draco thought, is that they can be so
morbidly depressing without even trying.

Row upon row of identical houses stretched in all directions like the ranks
of some dreadful army of the incredibly uninspired. He supposed that was why
the houses had numbers, there being no other way to tell them apart.

For the first time in his life, he began to see the Weasleys -- or more
specifically, the Burrow--as a step up from something.

But even so, he still felt a twang of disappointment when he glided gracefully
in front of number 4. Surely there would have been something proclaiming that
"here lives the Boy Who Lived!" But nothing--a plain brown house
with a plain brown fence. A lawn that needed a charm or two. A car which, though
Draco knew admittedly little of such things, looked rather average.

Draco glided over the roof--after all, if Potter was out sunning himself,
he may well be in the back. But disappointment came yet again with only a small
patch of grass without even a decorative hedge or tree.

A breeze blew, and on it Draco caught the faint scent of bacon, eggs and toast.
Guiding his broom over to a window, Draco saw a long-necked woman bent over
a stove, while a large boy seemed to make a fuss and an older large man looked
to conciliate him. But still no Potter.

The strange family ate their full, and then, when the toast was soggy, the
eggs cooled, and the bacon congealed, they piled the leftovers on a plate and
the long necked woman took them upstairs.

Muggles, Draco thought, following her on the outside, are bloody
strange.

The woman stopped outside a door covered in locks. What sort of animal
that's that dangerous would be kept inside a house?

The woman rapped twice on the door, then slid the plate through the cat flap
on the bottom.

"Wake up!" she snapped, in a thin, shrill voice. "The garden
needs weeding again. We're out for the day, there's a list on the kitchen table."

The reply, when it came, nearly shocked Draco off his broom. There was a shuffle,
and then in flat voice which seemed all together too even, "Yes, Aunt Petunia."

Draco nudged his broom to the left, peering in through the next window. There,
half in the shadows, half in the early morning sun, eyes glittering with a weary
malice evenly divided between the door and himself, was Potter, but a Harry
Potter as he'd never been seen before. Dark shadows framed flat, empty eyes
as hard and green as broken bottles.

The footsteps moved away, and in a disturbingly graceful motion, Harry drew
a knife seemingly out of the air and threw it at the door. Interestingly, the
blade thudded home right where the woman's head would have been, had the door
ceased its existence for a moment.

Draco was floored. And his eyes grew wider as Potter's mouth twisted into a
self-mocking grin, his eyes twinkling with dark amusement.

"Damn me." Draco heard him say. "Damn me for my pride, my Gryffindor
arrogance. Damn me for living when better men die. And damn that Hat for being
right after all."

This was not what Draco expected. He watched, fascinated, as Harry picked at
his breakfast, then traveled downstairs to weed the garden.

Here Draco noticed many more things. Harry seemed to have a habit of muttering
in Parcel tongue while he weeded. The inside of his left forearm was scored
with several long scars. His right hand was engraved with the words, "I
must not tell lies." His back was tanned a lovely bronze that really showed
of his lean, rippling muscles. . .

What?

"I can't see you, but I know you're there." Harry suddenly spoke
aloud, seemingly to no one. "Surely I haven't survived this long
without knowing when I'm being watched. And besides, my friend can taste broomwood
on the air." At this, Harry lifted his hand above his shoulder, and Draco
was only moderately surprised to see it filled with a goodly sized garden snake.

But what did surprise him quite a bit was Harry's calm demeanor. If Draco even
suspected he was being watched, he'd be quite a bit more jumpy than Harry, who
seemed to know he was being watched.

The implications of this thought disturbed Draco so greatly that he promptly
removed himself from Harry's presence and spent the next few hours flying idly
over the countryside, running through the morning's events again and again.
And when he finally landed on the balcony outside his bedroom, he had come to
only one conclusion: Harry Potter, who ever he was, was not the person Draco
had always believed he was. Indeed, it seemed that Draco knew much less about
Harry than he'd thought he did .

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The next morning, as Harry was pruning the hedges, he was not surprised to
feel that he had company again. He was surprised, however, when a clipboard
loaded with parchment materialized out of the air, and then a Quick-Quotes Quill,
still in the wrapper. He watched, bemusas tas the quill seemed to unwrap itself
before his eyes. It fluttered in the air for a moment, and he watched as it
turned from its original white to black, showing that it was now attuned to
the thoughts of the person holding it. Then the clipboard settled to the ground
by his knee, the quill atop it.

"Are we to hold some sort of communication, then?" Harry asked.

One was hoping, the quill wrote.

"Well, thehat hat do you want to talk about?" Harry resumed his
clipping of the hedge.

Aren't you going to ask who I am, or demand to know what I'm
doing here?

Harry chuckled. "You're invisible, your broom is invisible, and
you're concerned that I not hear your voice. I imagine this is because
you don't want me to know who you are, much less what you're doing.
What would be the point of asking?"

There was a pause. Point. You're rather trusting, though. Aren't
you afraid that I'm here for some nefarious purpose?

Harry took a minnute to think. "You could well be here for something bad for me. But you're already the best company I've ever had while I lived here . The snakes are nice, but rather uninterested in anything other
than biting mice, and that sort of conversation gets rather dull quickly. So,
I am left in a small quandary where you are concerned. See, I've found
that where I am concerned, there is precious little middle ground. People either
love or hate me. If you are the former, there's little for me to worry
about. And if you're the latter. . . well, if you wanted me dead, I think
I would be already. So, I think I'll wait and see."

Wait and see if I love or hate you?

"No, wait and see if you are one of those who want to kill me, or simply
to see me suffer."

So you already know that I'm not a friend?

"You're someone I've met before, someone who thinks I would
recognize their voice or handwriting. The people I've met who like me
would feel no need to hide themselves so cleverly. The fact that you're
hiding this way means that otherwise I probably wouldn't speak to you
at all."

Then why are you?

"Good question. Probably because I'm dreadfully curious. I should
know better, but I've never been known for being sensible. You know what
they say. . . curiosity killed the cat. . . At this rate I'll prove that
damn Hat right. . ."

. . .What hat?

"The Sorting Hat."

. . .what would you prove right about it?

Harry smirked. "It tried very hard to sort me into Slytherin. I insisted that I would go anywhere but there, so the hat finally decided that if I wouldn't go to Slytherin it had better put me in Gryffindor. I was relieved, because I didn't want to be in the same House as Draco Malfoy."

. . . That is the last thing I ever expected you to say. Almost a Slytherin? Well. . .why didn't you want to be around Malfoy? I've always wondered why you two hated each other so early on. . .

Harry sighed, putting the clippers down. "I can't speak for Malfoy. For myself. . . well, we first met at Madam Malkin's, and he said some things there that were very uncomplimentary about students who hadn't been raised in wizarding families. I don't think he knew that I fell into that category, but from what he said, I was the very kind of person he wanted kept out of Hogwarts, which was the best thing that had ever happened to me. So later, when we met on the train, I couldn't forget what he'd said, so I rejected him. It was rather public, so I think that's why he's hated me ever since. But, again, you'd have to ask him."

I bet you were glad to see his father thrown in Azkaban.

Harry gathered up the clippings and walked over to a brush pile. "Not really. I mean, I'm glad that there's a Death Eater behind bars, not that I kid myself into thinking he'll be there for long, but no, I'm not glad that anyone's father was taken away. I sometimes wonder what it was like growing up with Death Eaters as parents. He never seemed like a fatherly person. But it was pretty clear to me that Malfoy really loved and admired him, and it's always rough when someone who's that important is taken from you."

Sounds like the voice of experience

Harry walked over to the garden shed, the clipboard following. "Yeah. The same night Malfoy Senior was captured."

Who?

Harry put the clippers away, and closed the shed door, and look of consideration on his face. Then he nodded, as if ending an internal debate. "Sirius Black."

Black? But isn't he the one who betrayed your parents? And then killed all those muggles?

Harry crossed the yard, and entered the house, politely holding the door open for his guest. "No," he said. "He was innocent the whole time." He picked up as list on the table. "I'll tell you as I wash the dishes."


~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

An Excerpt from: Lion at New Moon:
The Many Lives of the Boy Who Lived on Several Occasions


Looking back, it seems a miracle that Drake and I ever found each other. Some--those who believe in soul mates--insist that we would have eventually. It's nice to think that, considering the alternative--which involves my death and the deaths of countless others.

But it was one thing, really, that changed the course of history. Draco was impatient and decided he wanted revenge on me before school started again. It was nothing I did. It was Draco who initiated the whole thing--or rather, his burning hatred of me.

Remember, these were the days before WWIII, before I became what I am now, before ParcelMouth, before the Vanquishing or even the Samhain Bonding. This was before we met Tyrese, Yahiko, 'Crow or Trinny. In those days, it was hate at first and every sight.

First impressions do so much damage. We never really gave each other a chance. He was insecure when I first met him, due to suddenly being in a strange place with strange people and his father nowhere near, so he was even more of a prat than usual. Five years we lost, because he was nervously babbling the only way he knew how.


His blessed impatience changed all that.


I owe him so much, because of that. For the longest time, he thought he was a burden to me, that perhaps, had the situation been slightly different, I would not have allowed our relationship to continue as it proceeded to, and continues to do. I think he's since realized that I was hooked from before I even knew that my secret watcher was him. I think it was our first conversation with him using that Quick-Quotes Quill that even now he is still using.

You see, though, my point? People give me credit for pretty much saving the world. But they're wrong. It was Draco's impatience that saved us all.


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