𝐃𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐓 2008

Rising From the Ashes

Author: dianacopland
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Summary: Draco Malfoy never knew that he was, for a short time, Master of the Elder Wand.  He also never expected to be saved from a fate worse than death by Harry Potter, of all people.  But when "The Chosen One" chooses not to save his father, Draco sets out on a course to either reclaim the wand or make Potter pay, or both.
Warnings: Violence, Angst, language, sexual situations.
Wordcount: ~30,400

 

 

Prologue

 

They were crammed in a back corner, the three of them, bunched together in the midst of a crowd of people that hated them.  And yet at that moment, no one was paying them any attention at all.  All eyes were riveted on the boy and what had once been a man, slowly circling one another in the middle of the Great Hall, wands in their hands, but words were the weapon of the moment...

 

"...Severus Snape was never the true master of the Elder Wand," Harry Potter said, his voice ringing in the anxious silence of the room.  "He never defeated Dumbledore."

 

"He killed ---" the Dark Lord began, his red eyes narrowed.

 

"Aren't you listening? Snape never beat Dumbledore! Dumbledore's death was planned between them!  Dumbledore intended to die undefeated, the wand's last true master! If all had gone as planned, the wand's power would have died with him, because it had never been won from him!"

 

"But then, Potter, Dumbledore as good as gave me the wand!" Voldemort said with a malicious sneer.  "I stole the wand from its master's tomb!"

 

Draco shuddered.  He'd taken the wand from Dumbledore's dead hand?  Sweet Circe...

 

"I removed it against its last master's wishes!  Its power is mine!"

 

"You still don't get it, Riddle, do you?" Potter said with scorn, and Draco could only stare.  No one dared speak to the Dark Lord that way, no one.  And yet, Potter didn't even look frightened.  He was a battered and bloody mess: his hair was tangled and ragged, hanging past his shoulders, and there was blood on his face and neck and arms.  But his sinewy body was upright and he faced the man who'd murdered his parents with more disdain than rage.  Draco found himself with a grudging respect for the man's sheer audacity. 

 

"Possessing the wand isn't enough!" Potter went on.  "Holding it, using it, doesn't make it really yours.  Didn't you listen to Ollivander? The wand chooses the wizard.... The Elder Wand recognized a new master before Dumbledore died, someone who never even laid a hand on it.  The new master removed the wand from Dumbledore against his will, never realizing exactly what he had done, or that the world's most dangerous wand had given him its allegiance..."