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Wondrous Lands and Oceans	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10108 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Chapter Twenty--New Inhabitants

The riders were not human.

Draco was sure of that in the first moments he watched them drop, but he was surprised by how much they looked like humans. They sat upright, or only slightly slumped forwards, and the hands that rested on the necks of their mounts had no claws or other disqualifications for human. It looked as though they had normal shoulders, and two legs only. Of course, it was difficult to tell much more than that when they were muffled up to the shoulders in what looked like cloaks of the same feathers that wrapped their mounts.

"Who are you?" Harry asked, his voice low and level, but carried to everyone in earshot with the help of his winds.

Because that will work. Draco said back to him in a voice that he let flood with all the blue and purple emotions of his disapproval.

We have to start somewhere, and the tone might show them that we're not a threat.

Draco had no idea why it should show them that when they probably didn't speak English or anything like it, but he had to admit that he didn't really have a better idea. He hovered and waited for some sort of response from the riders.

It was not long in coming.

The nearest rider dropped beneath them, the creature it rode hovering in a way that should have been impossible for so large a beast. Then again, who really knew what was possible and what impossible by the laws of Hurricane?

The other two riders began to weave rings around them, their beasts uttering those cries like clashing metal on the way. The air filled with noise that made Granger--whom Draco would have thought more accustomed to battle after the way she had hunted at Harry's side--clasp her hands over her ears and Weasley shout something loud and furious that faded into the general melee.

Distraction, Draco snapped in Harry's direction.

I know it, Harry responded, bright and low, and Draco saw that his hands were already furiously weaving back and forth. They don't care about what we said to them. Let's see whether they care about this.

The next moment, wind flew and banged away from Harry, the fiercest wind Draco had ever felt him summon. Shrieks erupted from thin air, louder than the ones that had broken from the throats of the creatures, and the beasts' wings became useless as Harry flung them backwards.

The riders made harsh movements with their forelimbs, the wraps of feathers blowing back so that Draco could make out their features at last. Their heads pointed forwards, their eyes brilliant above what looked like beaks, and their skin glinted softly, covered with what looked like pinfeathers. The fingers Draco had thought they held on the slender reins controlling the beasts were actually long claws, flexing back and forth as they fought to hold their positions in the air.

Not human! Draco cried to Harry across the gulfs of air that separated them.

And that surprises you?

Before Draco could reply to that in the way it deserved, the creatures were hurtling back towards them, their wings beating relentlessly, their mouths wide open and their heads stooping down as if to scoop up the individual humans in their mouths. Draco felt the winds snap to around them, as Harry reacted to the immediate threat by hauling them out of the way.

It's war, then, Harry said, with a satisfaction in his voice that Draco didn't understand, and the wind snapped out back, forth, right, left, up, down, more directions than Draco had known Harry could command, or more than he thought he should be commanding when he was still so close to magical exhaustion. Draco felt the winds around him tighten into what seemed to be a flexible mesh cradle, a protective version of what Harry had wrapped around the beast when they tried to capture it last night, and then he swung madly across the sky.

What the fuck are you doing?

Battle.

The answer flooded the bond with colors of crystal and gold that Draco had never seen before, exultant and deep as a sunrise, and he thought he might understand why their predicament thrilled Harry. He understood war, he understood fighting, and he was never happier than when he had an enemy he could attack directly, instead of having to cope with it as he would the politics of the camp.

All of which made him mad, of course, and this something they would have to talk about sooner rather than later.

But Draco had little chance to agonize over that as he found himself hovering a long way above Harry, still wrapped in that protective cocoon, and battle was joined.

*

The beasts came at him from before and behind, and one from directly below, a tactic that Harry hadn't often had to face before this. They had open mouths and wide claws and wings that rivaled the sky in expanse, and Harry knew he should be afraid, that fear would be the sensible and expected response.

But he was full of too much joy to be afraid.

The beasts came for him, trying to close in a triangle that would trap him between them, but Harry was already gone. Down and at a diagonal he flew, his hands held close at his sides to avoid even the barest breath of an encounter with the wild claws, and his will alone commanding the winds that exploded around him like a maze of strings.

He might not have the shredding power of Draco's gift, but that didn't matter, not here and not now. Not when he could wield winds like nets and hawsers, tangling around the wings of the beasts, snaring their claws as they struggled, binding their mouths as they shrieked.

He reached the end of his dive and turned around, to see the three beasts upside-down, their riders clinging to them desperately like people on charmed brooms. Snared by nothing, they must think. Or could those native to Hurricane sense the wind and its magic even though they could not see them?

Harry laughed, floating there, his friends safe above and watching the battle, his muscles aching in the best possible way, his enemies at his mercy.

Then he made them fall.

He heard a multitude of shrieks as they did, and knew not all of them had come from inhuman throats. He looked up at Ron and Hermione and waved reassuringly moments before he pulled the beasts out of their falls, spinning them like yo-yos.

            The riders began to dangle from their saddles, or whatever it was that their beasts wore; Harry found it hard to see. He didn’t care about seeing. The sensations stabbed through him like lightning, the freedom and the ease and the sheer insane power of it, and he laughed as he spun the beasts back upright and strengthened the wind around them, while making sure he had enough gusts at his beck and call to keep from falling.

            Then he called to them with a gesture they might understand, forming winds into a dense spiral and catching up some grass from the meadows so they could see it. He placed that to one side. On the other side, he outlined a gentle, cradling wind with grass, and then waited to see which one they would choose.

            It didn’t take the riders much time to make up their minds; one could say that for them, at least. They turned as one to point their beaks and claws at the gentler wind. Harry nodded, and broke the meshes that held them up, stooping them into the wind that would carry them straight to the ground. The riders went without one menacing glare back at Harry or the others. Maybe they could learn.

            Harry slanted towards the ground when he was done, laughing and laughing and laughing. His throat hurt. He touched it once, and then dropped his hand and looked up at his friends. Are you all right? he asked Draco. He hadn’t been aware of the bond while he was battling, he thought. It was probably the longest time he had ever gone without touching Draco’s mind since they had first bonded, or at least since he’d stopped resisting the bond.

            I’ll be better when we’re on the ground and away from these enemies, Draco said. He sounded as though he was holding his voice, or his thoughts, which meant the same thing in the bond, level with extreme effort.

            Sorry, Harry said, only now thinking about what this might have appeared like from the outside. But he wouldn’t have gone back and done something less dangerous if he could. This had been what he needed, and what he had wanted the moment he realized how intent the riders were on attacking.

            Draco said nothing, but Harry thought he could feel his gaze across all those meters of air. He straightened his own shoulders and tried to convince himself that it would be all right. His friends were likely to understand, and they had seen him use even greater displays of power when they were still in the wizarding world, and been all right with it.

            Are you sure of that?

            The voice in his head was sly, insinuating, and had nothing to do with either Draco or the call he had heard before. It was purely the voice of his conscience, or his guilt, in the deepest part of himself, always convinced that he didn’t deserve anything he’d been given.

            I’m sure, Harry told it flatly, and reminded himself that only madmen talked to themselves, and dismissed it from his mind.

*

            Draco was grateful that Harry had chosen to have them land on a piece of the meadow near the mountains they’d flown over, at least out of sight from the beasts and riders who had landed somewhere else. He didn’t want the provocation to attack that looking at them would probably be right now.

            And it wasn’t even the riders and beasts he was worried about being tempted to attack, so much as Harry.

            He looked Harry calmly in the eye as they fell and then dropped softly into the grass. Harry frowned at him and shook his head a little as though he didn’t understand what Draco was doing, or thinking. But then the chairs landed and released Weasley and Granger, and Draco discovered his real allies.

            “Don’t you ever, ever do something like that again, Harry James Potter!”

            Harry turned to Granger, gaping. Draco made a mental note that Harry’s full name worked well, at least in that particular tone, to take Harry off-guard and convince him to listen to what followed.

            Granger stepped up to Harry and stared into his eyes, not backing away even when Harry frowned at her. She wasn’t afraid of his magic, Draco thought. Good. That would have been a complication they didn’t need, renewed fear and distrust of Harry, when they had to make Harry listen to them if they were going to stand a chance of convincing him not to do that again.

            “What?” Harry asked, as though he didn’t know perfectly well what.

            Granger shook her head, lips pursed. “You were mad,” she said. “Especially to be handling that much magic so close to having collapsed of magical exhaustion. What did you think would happen? What would have happened if you’d dropped them, or us, in the middle of flinging that wind around?”

            “That wasn’t going to happen,” Harry said instantly, his nostrils flaring with a stubbornness that Draco knew almost better from that look than from the corresponding white flare in the bond. “The wind would have told me it was going to break out of my control. That was what happened last night. I had enough warning to catch myself as it fell, because it told me it was going.”

            “But you’re still recovering from a case of magical exhaustion,” Draco said, because he could be just as annoying as Harry could. He caught Harry’s eye and smiled grimly at the expression of outrage there. Yes, do be outraged. It won’t help, he sent along the bond. “This time, you might not have had that warning, or not in time to do anything about it. You know as well as I do that playing with this level of power is dangerous, and not something you have much experience with from Earth. It could have ended badly.”

            “It didn’t.”

            Harry turned away from Draco, and the image of a stone wall came down the bond. Draco didn’t mind that. He sent creeping tendrils of amusement and anger back, and they seized and broke down the stone. Harry snarled at him over his shoulder.

            “You know you’re in the wrong, and you hate admitting that,” Granger said. She had spent some moments studying Harry, and now nodded as though she was the one bonded with him, and the one who could get him to admit his mistake. Draco controlled his jealousy. If she made Harry listen, that would be close to enough for him. “You regret it already.”

            “I did what I had to do,” Harry said, a stiff little speech, while the bond between him and Draco twisted like a wire in the wind. “What else were we going to do?”

            “Work harder on approaching them peacefully,” Granger said. “Because they didn’t understand English was no reason to attack them.”

            “Yes, they looked so marvelously peaceful themselves,” Draco drawled, because while he didn’t agree with what Harry had done, someone had to represent the voice of common sense in this situation.

            Granger turned and glared at him. “We don’t know what might have happened if we had held back and not responded to their attacks. Or if Harry had held them at a distance and done so until they realized we were stronger. This is our world now, but theirs, too. We have to live with them. How can we do that if we’re attacking them?”

            Harry winced, and Draco felt the throb down the bond as that statement went home. Why do you listen to her so much more easily than you do to me? he asked Harry.

            Because I’ve always listened to her.

            Draco reckoned that was true, what with the adventures that Harry and Weasley and Granger had had together, but it didn’t make him any less irritated with Harry. He leaned back on air and shook his head. “Granger’s right,” he said aloud. “You have enough power to forbid them from attacking us and hold them at bay. But that thought never entered your head, did it?” I heard what you said when I asked you what you were doing, he added, as Harry turned on him. You sounded so joyful to be fighting. I would have thought you would be tired of war after the part you played in it.

            Harry squeezed his eyes shut and lifted his hands to cup them around the sides of his skull. Draco watched without much pity. He knew what Harry had endured, or a lot of it, thanks to the development of the bond, but this situation had been of his own making.

            “We need to concentrate on other things than just keeping peace with the riders, whoever they are,” Harry said harshly out of the cocoon of his hands. “We need to think about the power that called us, and how we’re going to get there if we can’t make a detour to the north.”

            “We need to think about this more,” Draco said peacefully. He noted that Weasley and Granger had stepped back and seemed prepared to let him handle it. Well, perhaps even the Terrible Twosome can come to some sense at last.

            Don’t talk about my friends that way!

            Draco sent back enough harshness that Harry staggered as though caught by one of his own winds. What you did is the point of this conversation, and not what I call them. They don’t care what I call them. They can’t hear it.

            I can.

            Draco reined himself in, hard. His temper was rising to meet Harry’s, and it would do no one but their enemies any good if they argued. Perhaps the power that called them had even been waiting for this.

            Harry, he said, when some moments had passed by and he and Harry had watched each other and the bond had boiled with emotions and both Weasley and Granger remained passively back, still. You know as well as I do that this isn’t the way to handle it. What are we really arguing about?

            He would have heard Harry swallow even if they hadn’t been bonded, he was sure. How reckless I was with my wind magic when I still haven’t recovered very well from attacking the creature that watched us.

            Draco nodded. Right. That means you can defend yourself on those grounds, but you shouldn’t try to distract me with small, petty statements that matter less.

            Harry huffed out a breath. Then he said, Fine. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have used that much magic, and I should have given the riders more of a chance to explain themselves. Is that what you wanted to hear?

            What I want to hear is less important than knowing that you won’t do it again, Draco said, and produced the emotion that Harry didn’t seem to have taken note of from behind his back like a card in a game. You frightened me, Harry.

            Harry winced. I’m sorry. I should have known how it would feel to be snatched up like that and hung in the air. I was sure that I wouldn’t let you fall, but you don’t have the same control over the winds that I do.

            I wasn’t scared of that. I was scared for you.

            Harry blinked at him, and that was another thing that exasperated Draco about him, that he would never think of that, even when their minds were linked and thinking of that should have been as simple as listening to what Draco was thinking and picking up his emotions from there.

            Yes, I was scared for you, Draco told him. You don’t have to agree, you can think that you were perfectly in control, and maybe I should have picked that up from the bond and stopped being so frightened. But I thought you had gone mad. It felt like that. That’s the main reason I want to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again—although Granger is also right that sooner or later we’re going to have to live on the planet with these people.

            Harry said nothing. Then a small, shimmering tendril of emotion crept down the bond, and Draco realized he was smiling. Thank you. For that.

            For what? And then there were the times that Draco thought being bonded didn’t actually help them to understand each other that much.

            Reminding me that someone worries about me. That it’s not always about the damage I could cause or the way I attacked other people, although those things are important, too. That sometimes, it’s about worrying about me. I know people care about me, but it’s always nice to hear.

            Draco decided that next time he hesitated between being honest and lying, being honest would win. Harry would melt and purr all over him if he did that.

            Not all the time, Harry said, his voice like sand. But I think it’s time that we went back to talking in a way that Ron and Hermione can hear, don’t you?

            You still haven’t said whether or not you would do that again.

            I won’t do it again. And the quiet steadiness behind the promise echoed down the bond and meant more to Draco than many other things Harry could have said.

*

            “We should decide what we’re going to do about approaching the riders and seeking peace with them.”

            Harry sat back quietly while the others debated what to do. He felt he had nothing to contribute to this conversation right now. He might already have caused irreparable damage—although at least he hadn’t killed anyone, and he had safely put the riders and their beasts down on the ground. That might go far as a peace offering, should they ever manage to actually communicate. He had apologized, and that was as much as he could do for right now.

            He turned his head to the north, across the green meadow, and watched the white winged creatures that looked like antelope grazing again. He wondered if they were intelligent, and if there was a way to communicate with them if they were. He thought about how nice it would be to have the camp here, to live in a place that looked more like Earth, at least as far as the grass went, and without as many dangers. The birds would probably never come here, and the wind wasn’t as wild thanks to the mountains.

            But there was the power that had called them from the volcano, and there were the riders and their beasts.

            As Hermione argued that they should speak to the most human-like people they had found on Hurricane first, Draco argued for going back to the volcano and trying to sneak up on the power that had called them again, and Ron favored a direct attack, a shadow fell over them. Harry looked up at once, and saw a beast hovering there, its paws tucked into its breast, the shaggy coating of feathers swaying around it.

            A rider sat on its back.

            Harry gathered up his winds, not expanding them yet, not doing anything threatening, but weaving them into a quiet, tight cocoon around the four of them. If the rider attempted to swoop down, drop a weapon, use wind magic, or anything else, then it would learn how well-prepared they were to defend themselves.

            But the rider only swept back and forth as though uncertain who they were—or counting them. By now, the others had noticed them and had fallen silent, staring up. Harry knew, because of the bond, that Draco’s claws were extending.

            The beast abruptly kicked its back legs against the air and beat its wings, ascending sharply. It wheeled into the sky and was gone. But the rider leaned over the side of it before that, and something small plummeted towards them from its hand.

            Harry snapped up a giant hand to catch the thing, only to find that Draco was there first, cupping it in a nest of invisible claws. Harry leaned back as it came down, and then leaned in curiously.

            It looked like a stripped piece of meat, about the size of a deer haunch. Harry had no doubt—after the first moments when he doubted the nature of it altogether, at least—that it came from one of the antelope on the meadow.

            Draco stared at it, then at Harry. “A peace offering?” he asked.

            “We can hope,” Hermione said, and Harry knew he hadn’t ruined everything after all when he saw the way she smiled.

*

            SP777: Thanks! And yes, that’s a good description of the flying creatures.

            I think it’s only natural that Harry trusts Hermione more; he’s known her well for a long longer, and she’s got him out of a lot more sticky situations.

            unneeded: We’ll have to see what happens.
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Wondrous Lands and Oceans