Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

A Black Stone in a Glass Box	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10351 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
- 16
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Fifteen—The Quartz Wolf

            “How are we going to defeat the next animal without the snake’s fang?” was the first question that Draco asked when Potter let him out of the web. He thought it was a sensible one.

            Potter swung back on him and stared as though Draco was the stupid one. But Draco also thought events had proved that Potter had no room to criticize other people for lack of intelligence and foresight, so he simply wiped his hands off on his trousers and raised his eyebrows at him.

            “The snake has two fangs, after all,” Potter said.

            “I thought only one was left,” Draco said, trying to picture the pile of red ash that the snake had left behind when it disintegrated.

            “You thought wrong,” Potter said, and turned away from Draco, extending one arm behind him. Draco thought he was pointing at the torn web, and not until Potter jerked his head at him and clicked his teeth did Draco divine that Potter wanted Draco to take his hand so they could Side-Along Apparate. Draco stepped up to him and clicked his teeth in return, though he made it a more elegant sound than Potter could have, of course.

            “If you wanted me to touch you, all you had to do is ask,” he said.

            As he’d hoped, the tone he used made Potter turn as red as an apple, but he only jerked his head again and vanished. Draco found himself holding his breath through the Apparition, which was ridiculous, but at least he had a head start when they appeared in the tunnel again and Draco found the smell from the brown water mounting up to his nostrils.

            Potter seemed oblivious to the way Draco was pinching his nose. When he decided to do something, Draco thought, very little could stop or slow him down. He watched as Potter strode over to the pile of ash that had been the snake and rooted through it for a second. Then he stood up with a second ivory fang gleaming in his hand and nodded at Draco.

            “Now we can do what we need to do,” he said, and held out his hand again.

            Draco took it and opened his mouth to ask a question. But they Apparated again before he could do that, and appeared in a misty, dripping forest that made Draco blink twice before he was sure of what he was seeing.

            All around them stood pine trees, and in between the pine trees threaded silvery mist, and here and there in the mist moved shapes. Dark shapes, Draco saw, staring at them, four-legged. They were beautiful, or so it looked, in the brief glimpses Draco had of them before they hid themselves away again. He wondered if they were guardians for the next piece of Potter’s heart, but then shook his head. None of the other places had needed guardians beyond the beast that they were meant to defeat. He didn’t think this one did either.

            He started to ask Potter where they would find the beast, and what kind it was, but Potter held up a hand. His head was up, Draco saw, his eyes narrowed and traveling around the clearing they’d appeared in as though he didn’t recognize the place.

            “Hush.”

            Draco only heard Potter because he was already watching his mouth. Draco grimaced and stood still, glancing from side to side. The deep green and silver around him reminded him of some of the nicer Slytherin blankets he’d had on his bed in Hogwarts. Beautiful, but chill, too. Draco wished he could gather some of the loose wood that he saw lying on the forest floor and build a fire, but Potter would probably have a heart attack if he did.

            “There,” Potter said at last, his voice still low but actually audible this time. “Hear that?”

            Draco turned his head and squinted, but saw nothing save more crowding tree branches leading away into the distance like a tunnel. After a second, he heard what Potter must mean, a soft, low, melancholy wail that rose and then died away again. His spine prickled, and he wondered if they’d come to face an Augurey.

            But Potter nodded, and said, “That’s the sound of the wolf that’s guarding the next piece of my heart.”

“A wolf?” Now that Draco thought about it, wolves were probably the four-legged creatures he’d seen in the mist. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

He flinched a little at the way Potter turned around and stared at him.

            “Really,” Potter said flatly, and turned back to the woods again. “That’s what you would think, Malfoy. It’s really too bad that you ruined everything. Otherwise, you would have got this far and died, so I wouldn’t have to worry about you anymore.”

            He passed a minute more or so listening, then nodded and started splash-crunching forwards through the forest. “Come on. We need to reach the cave it guards.”

            Caves again, Draco thought, and shook his head. “The golden bird came out of a cave, and the scarlet snake was in one,” he said aloud as he followed Potter. “This chain ritual doesn’t have much imagination, does it?”

            Potter’s shoulders hunched. “You have no idea what it’s like,” he whispered. “How powerful the spell is.”

            “You could fight this wolf and be done with it,” Draco offered. He liked that, the thought of standing back and watching Potter battle an enemy that didn’t have Draco so terrified for his own life he couldn’t pay proper attention. He’d often regretted that he remembered so little of Potter’s duel with the Dark Lord. “Since you know all the tricks. You’ll have me on the side for admiration and applause if you need it.”

            Potter gave a short, grim laugh. “I’m not sure that I can defeat the wolf, either,” he said, and crossed a bed of rustling pine needles that Draco made much less noise on, once he knew they were there. “Its duty is to guard the piece of my heart that remains to it. Not to let anyone through. That includes the person who cast the ritual.”

            Draco rolled his eyes. “Of course you would choose a ritual like that,” he muttered. “Of course you would.”

            “You can be quiet and not alert the wolf that we’re coming, or you can chatter and have it ready to face us,” Potter snapped back at him.

            Draco rolled his eyes at Potter’s back again, but didn’t say anything. Draco actually thought it was exceedingly likely that the wolf had already heard them. If Potter wanted him to keep quiet, he would, though.

            It was rather like Potter to think this was important, after everything that had already changed and probably alerted the wolf. He mistook the symptoms for the disease. He thought that he could protect the world again by the sacrifice of his heart, that it was his duty and his responsibility, and if the first one didn’t work, the solution was to choose a better sacrifice, not change his tactics.

            Draco kept his opinion on that to himself, because if he started now, he wouldn’t stop. He walked in silence, and when Potter slowed ahead of him and peered frowning into the distance, Draco jerked to a halt, too.

            A growl came from the left, or at least Draco thought that was the direction. It was hard to tell with the eddies of mist still pouring around them. Draco turned in a slow circle, his hand on his wand.

            “Don’t threaten him,” Potter breathed, into his ear. Draco kept himself from jumping, but it was difficult. He hadn’t heard Potter creep up on him, either.

            “Don’t threaten him?” Draco whispered back. “When he already knows what we’re here for?”

            Potter hesitated one more time, then shrugged again. “Well. I suppose you can’t help doing that.”

            “Right,” Draco said, and just happened to be facing in the right direction when the mist parted and he saw their wolf.

            It shone from the inside, its fur heavy and white and glinting, with light apparently trapped inside each hair. Draco’s breath caught inside his throat and stayed there. He thought he saw one reason why Potter had been convinced that it could get close to them and pounce on them before they saw it. Its fur was almost the exact pale color of the mists blowing around them. Draco nodded a little and held up his hand. Potter reached over his head and let his hand rest briefly in Draco’s.

            He’d passed the fang to him. Draco held it low and close at his side, meeting the wolf’s silver-grey eyes, the color of the ones he looked at in the mirror when he was dressing up. And when he got up in the morning, to be fair. And when he got up in the middle of the night, just to make sure that he still existed.

            He slid a step forwards, wondering if there was any way he could fling the fang like a dart at the wolf.

            Then the wolf crouched down, teeth wrinkling back silently from ivory fangs of its own—

            And vanished.

            Draco spun round, gaping. He thought that the wolf must have Apparated for a second, and then told himself not to be stupid. Wolves couldn’t Apparate.

            Including wolves created as magical creatures by a chain ritual? Are you sure about that? asked an unpleasant voice in the back of his head.

            Draco held up the fang in front of him and turned to face Potter. “What can it do?” he demanded in a whisper. “Is this something else that the ritual added to it, the way the dog could breathe fire?”

            “It walks from space to space,” Potter muttered, his own eyes darting around as though he expected to see the wolf appear out of a shadow. Maybe he did, Draco thought. It seemed as likely as anything else in this mad quest. “It’s always appearing where you least expect it—Malfoy, look out!”

            He lurched forwards and into Draco, at the same moment as Draco felt teeth snap near his ankles. He whirled back, and the wolf was there, glowing from the inside, bright as hatred turned over. It crouched once more—it still hadn’t made any sound other than that original howl Draco had heard, and the sound of teeth meeting on empty air—and then it vanished again.

            This time, Draco was looking directly at it without any mist to interfere, since the wolf had knocked the mist aside with the leap it had made, and it made a sound after all right before it went. It snarled, a low, hollow, ripping sound that seemed to grow out of the center of its chest. The snarl lingered on the air as it disappeared.

            Simply gone. Draco had never seen an Apparition that neat either.

            He turned in a slow circle, staring suspiciously at the shadows under trees. He remembered what Potter had said, that it would appear in the place he least expected. His mind darted, trying to expect all the places at once, to understand where it was and where it had gone.

            If he suspected everything he could see, it would have to stay hidden, wouldn’t it?

            Then Draco went down under its weight as the wolf appeared above him.

            Draco gasped for breath, because the way it knocked him to the ground had knocked out his air, too, and reached up, sinking his fingers into the ruff of thick fur around its neck. He managed to hold it back from opening his throat with its teeth, but he couldn’t keep it at bay for long. It strained against his hold, closer and closer.

            The fang Draco held rested right alongside its neck, close to piercing the skin, but the wolf ignored it with an ease that made Draco wince. It seemed that the fang wasn’t meant to be used as a weapon against the wolf.

            What should I do with it, then?

            Then Draco’s racing thoughts concentrated wonderfully, both because the wolf’s teeth were close enough for him to feel them scrape at his skin, and because Potter had cast a spell at the wolf from the side.

            The conjured wind blew the beast off him and towards one of the looming trees that Draco could see better, now that the mist seemed to be dissipating. The wolf twisted back on itself in midair, curling around until Draco thought it was trying to assume a sleeping position, nose on its tail.

            Then it vanished again.

            Draco nodded at Potter and worked his way to his feet. “Let me guess,” he said, gasping and dazed and with his blood and his grin and his mind all working a thousand miles an hour. “It’s resistant to most of the spells that you could use on it, the way the bird and the dog were, so the only way is to attack indirectly.”

            “Got it in one, Malfoy.” Potter had stepped back a pace, too, and darted his head around from trunk to trunk, as though carving the air into slices with his gaze. “And he’s more resistant, because the closer you get to my heart, the stronger the guardians are.”

            “I didn’t think that snake was much of a challenge.”

            Potter sneered, but the wolf appeared again before he could say anything, right beside him, and lunged to hamstring him.

            Draco shoved Potter out of the way, just as Potter had tried to shove him once before, and ended up in front of the wolf. It looked up at him, grey eyes trained on what Draco thought must be his jugular, and got ready to leap.

            Draco couldn’t think of anything else to do, especially since he apparently wasn’t supposed to stab it, so he hit it over the head with the fang.

            The wolf yelped, a long, sharp sound that vanished along with it as it leaped into nothingness. But not before Draco thought he caught a glimpse of a patch on top of its head where the fur had melted away.

            Draco blinked at his hand, and at the fang, and then down at Potter, sprawled on the forest floor. “Suppose you tell me what this fang does,” he suggested.

            “I don’t know,” Potter said briefly, standing up. “I didn’t know what form the creatures would assume before they did it. I didn’t know that tooth would turn into a bridle, or that you would need to take a bit of beak from the eagle, at least until it actually broke off and I seized it. The book wasn’t forthcoming about that. Probably for the reason that you told me. If I knew all about it, I could have betrayed those secrets along with the secret of the ritual itself to anyone who asked me.”

            Draco sniffed. “Encouraging that you trust me now, discouraging that you still refer to it as betrayal,” he said, and turned in another slow circle, eyes lingering on every single tree trunk and leaf and bit of fog in the place.

            “It was,” Potter said, and took an aggressive step towards Draco that Draco might have been delighted with if they hadn’t been where they were, in the middle of a forest trying to fight a dangerous and clever enemy. “If you had approached me openly and told me what you were doing from the beginning, then—”

            “Then you would still have agreed to it, up until the moment when you regained enough of your senses to realize what you’d agreed to,” Draco interrupted, pausing to glare at him. “And then it would have been too late anyway, because we’d have unraveled enough of the chain ritual to have to go on unraveling it. But you wouldn’t have agreed to that, probably.”

            Potter opened his mouth, at the same moment as the wolf appeared on Draco’s shoulders.

            Draco went down under the weight before he could even think about fighting. The wolf was curling and snarling around him, like a feather pillow come ridiculously to life—and equipped with sharp nails, Draco thought, wincing as one hind foot raked him—and twisting as much as it could to avoid the fang.

            Draco did manage to bang the stupid weapon against its hind leg, and again fur fell off. The wolf screamed, but this time, it didn’t leap away. It got its teeth into the nape of Draco’s neck and yanked.

            Draco screamed in turn as he felt the flesh pulling off. The pain that flared up through his soul was nothing compared to the way that his anger did, though. He had been unwounded through all his adventures so far, and now this wolf—

            This time Draco slammed the fang into its belly.

            The wolf yelped, and snarled, and howled, and for a second, as he rolled over, Draco thought he’d shaken it off. But the wolf whirled back, its claws dug into him, and this time its teeth were in line for his throat.

            As it launched itself forwards with a long, howling shriek, Draco began to realize that he might have underestimated how intense a confrontation with Potter’s magical animals could get.

*

            polka dot: It’s much harder for Harry to resist his emotions now than it was!

            Seiren: Draco is already enjoying the thought of that.
- 14
- 15
- 16
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

A Black Stone in a Glass Box