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A Black Stone in a Glass Box	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10352 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Twenty-Four--Malachite Eyes

            Luckily, the lightning spell seemed to have stunned the dolphin as well, because for a second it lay still on top of Draco, its mouth slightly open and its eyes seemingly blinking. Or so Draco thought, through the few, faint shadows he could still see when Harry's spell had taken most of his sight.

            He heard Harry gasp, and then Draco was dragging the remnants of the net over the dolphin's head and drawing them as tight as he could, trying to regain his breath as well as his freedom of action. The dolphin could start lashing again any second, and he wouldn't be prepared.

            Sure enough, teeth flashed past his wrist, and Draco only got his hand free because he heard it coming. He tumbled to the side, swearing steadily at Harry all the while, and heard Harry's horrified apology. Draco shook his head as hard as he could and rolled away from a strike of the dolphin's powerful tail.

            "Find out what the rose does!" he bellowed, and he thought he managed to make at least a little sense, because he heard Harry fumbling for something, and then casting a Summoning Charm.

            After that, most of Draco's world became the desperate flailing, splashing, sliding mess on the beach, and the morass of mud that the water was turning it into. The dolphin kept squealing and lunging at him, but it was lunging towards the water at the same time, probably panicked to find itself stranded. Draco kicked it when he could, although he thought his blows had little impact on those sleek sides, and above all concentrated on keeping his head and hands out of its jaws.

            At least his sight was starting to come back, if slowly. He wanted to yell at Harry again, but he could hear Harry casting another spell, and this one couldn't be as ill-judged as the one that had blinded Draco.

            Draco thought. He hoped that Harry, along with Draco himself, was remembering that the dolphin, like the leopard and the wolf, was probably immune to most direct magic.

            Harry finished the last syllable of his incantation on a rapid hiss. Draco heard another hiss from overhead, and looked up to see the silver rose hovering over their heads. Its stem had twisted into a long noose, and Draco grinned. He didn't know if the rose had done that itself or Harry had modified it, but it didn't matter. He liked it.

            He began to maneuver the dolphin beneath the noose. It wasn't easy, even though they were pretty high up on the shore now and the dolphin was slower than it had been, panting and lashing its tail more feebly. Draco thought the dolphin probably knew instinctively what the rose did and didn't want to go near the bloody thing.

            Too bad, Draco thought, and drove the dolphin to the side, then corkscrewed his body after it and wrestled it up the beach. You still hold a piece of Harry's heart, and that means you have to die, no matter how beautiful you are.

            The noose was only a few paces behind the dolphin's head now, but it brought its beak sharply forwards, and Draco had to duck as the teeth ripped towards his forehead. That propelled him face-first into the sand. By the time he could raise himself up and look again, the dolphin was already halfway back to the ocean, using its tail to scoop up sand and shove its body, jarring and jouncing, down the slope.

            "No, you don't!" yelled Harry, and finally jumped into the battle. Literally, Draco saw after a moment of staring. He was shoving the dolphin, steering it furiously away from the water, towards the noose again.

            The dolphin focused on him, and froze.

            For a second, anyway, but it was enough time that Harry could put his back and arms into the push and get the dolphin almost directly under the noose. Draco snapped out of his trance and swirled his wand, manipulating the noose lower, until it hooked over the dolphin's head and around its neck.

            The dolphin thrashed again, and Draco reached out and tugged Harry back. Harry came willingly, his eyes wide as he stared at the dolphin. Draco remembered what he had said about fearing the end of the hunt for the creatures, and squeezed his hand, trying to convince Harry without words that he would stand by him beyond that end.

            If it came. Draco had expected the noose to start working the instant the rose was attached to the dolphin, but the beat was still gasping and dragging itself in the direction of the sea. Draco shot a questioning glance at Harry, and met a wide-eyed one and a shaking head in return.

            "As far as I know, this is what the rose is supposed to do," Harry shouted into his ear, since the dolphin's squeals were too loud for them to just speak normally. "I cast a single spell at it, and the stem unfurled."

            Draco opened his mouth to answer, and then cursed and rushed after the dolphin as it managed to thrust its nose into the water. He didn't care anymore what had been supposed to happen. What mattered was that the dolphin was getting away.

            Just as he caught up with it, the dolphin slid down until its dorsal fin was almost submerged, and turned sideways, churning up the slope of the bay as it fought towards the place where the sand dipped into deep water. Draco tried to catch hold of the tail flukes, but they slapped and stung his fingers, preventing him from getting a grip. It looked like there was only one real possibility.

            He grabbed the floating silver rose, and cast a Sticking Charm on the hand that had grasped it. Then he reached for the dolphin's dorsal fin with the other.

            At the same second, the dolphin reached the end of the sand that had grounded it, and struck forwards with head and tail and flippers and everything in it for the open water. Draco felt his feet dangling.

            "Draco!" shouted Harry. He must have cast the Bubble-Head Charm that surrounded Draco's head, because Draco was too much in shock to do so.

            Then they were underwater.

            Draco held his breath before he remembered that he didn’t have to, shook his head wildly, and managed to accept the air that the Bubble-Head Charm provided to him. The water was just as pretty beneath the surface as above. That wasn’t Draco’s problem with where they were going, really: into the deep sea, where Harry wouldn’t be able to easily follow them.

            And Draco was riding a dolphin who had already provided that it had resistance to most forms of compulsion or magic that Draco might have tried.

            Fucking fantastic.

            But Draco had been in harder situations—negotiating with a few of his lovers, for example, or the time that one of his spells to improve a broom had gone wrong and he found himself plummeting towards the ground from eighteen hundred feet above—and survived them. In the end, this dolphin was simply a conjured animal from an object, probably a part of a plant, judging from the color.

            So, as the dolphin traveled deeper and deeper, to the point that Draco felt pressure building around his body and he was starting to lose sight of the dolphin’s color as the jade water darkened to black, Draco reached down, got his other hand on the silver noose around the dolphin’s head, and yanked.

            The dolphin surfaced with an indignant squeak and circle of bubbles. Draco smiled, braced his heels on the dolphin’s back, and glanced back at the shore to wave at Harry with his free hand. The other was still bound to the rose with the Sticking Charm.

            Harry was running back and forth on the sand, his eyes frantic, his hands waving in the air. Draco doubted that he was just waving back for pleasure’s sake, but he had no idea what he was supposed to do. He was busy enough as it was.

            The dolphin got its breath and dived again. This time, Draco was ready for it, and he had another idea. He got his heels into the proper, different places, and gathered up the loose tendrils of the silver rope. Then he used them like reins, kicking the dolphin at the same time and yelling helpful advice that it probably wasn’t going to pay attention to.

            The dolphin’s drumming tail flicked over its back and nearly hit Draco in the head. Draco ducked and yanked on the noose again. “Turn!” he shouted.

            The dolphin paused for a few seconds, floating in the water. Draco crouched still further and got as much of a grip on the noose as he could. It was much less slick than the rubbery skin on the dolphin’s sides.

            Then he saw the extent of the creature’s murderous plan. The dolphin began to dive once more, and this time it ignored every single pull that Draco could throw into the mix. There was nothing to do but ride it out.

            But he couldn’t ride it out, that was the problem, Draco told the part of his brain that had plotted that strategy. Sooner or later the dolphin would dive deep enough for the pressure to injure Draco. Or maybe it was aiming for a special rock or reef where it would scrape Draco off.

            The streak of water past its flippers, the click and chatter of its teeth, and the rapid darkness and cold gathering around him made it hard to think of an alternative plan. But once again, his native genius came to his rescue, and made Draco remember how the wolf and the leopard had both been vulnerable to magic that didn’t aim to directly injure them.

            He drew his wand, taking his right hand from the silver rose with extreme caution. But the dolphin didn’t pause. It had made up its mind and wouldn’t change it now.

            Draco conjured a Bubble-Head Charm around the dolphin’s head.

            This time, the dolphin paused. It shook its head. It raised one flipper and scraped at the smooth exterior of the bubble. Draco smiled and shook the reins again, murmuring a suggestion for speed in any direction.

            There was speed, all right.

            Straight up the dolphin went, back towards the surface, squealing in indignation, its tail churning the water to whiteness and foam. Draco swayed backwards and at one point completely off and flailing, as he would be if he was riding that falling broom. But he had got back on the broom, and he did the same thing with the dolphin, flinging one leg over its sleek side.

            They exploded through the surface with a force that nearly did tear Draco loose. He clamped down more with his hands, this time using a Sticking Charm on them both. He doubted any more magic would settle the issue. From here on out, it was just him, wrestling the dolphin.

            The creature spun and danced, reared on its tail and leaped for the sun, turned around and tried to bite him. But the reins were too tight for that, and Draco only had to haul on them to discourage the dolphin. It resumed trying to introduce his skull to the seabed in short order.

            Draco laughed aloud as they broke the surface again, in a dazzling spray that filled his eyes with light as the sun leaped from the drops. He couldn’t see Harry, but he was sure he could feel him watching, from the direction of the shore, and that was gift enough.

            “Draco!”

            He could hear Harry shouting, distantly, given the obvious limitations of the Bubble-Head Charm. Draco turned his head, seeking, but the dolphin plunged stubbornly downwards again, and swimming bubbles interrupted Draco’s vision.

            But the spell that heated the water around them, and filled it with beams of light to counteract the dolphin’s dive, proved Harry had decided on the right enchantment at last.

            Draco could see now, and he could hear the dolphin squealing in pain; the same small change of heat in the water did it far more harm than it did Draco, since it needed to stay cool. Once again it shot towards the surface, and this time Draco felt free to murmur the Finite, ending the Sticking Charm that kept his hands on the noose, and carefully draw his wand with one hand.

            As the dolphin surfaced and thrashed, head twisting back and forth as though spotting its enemy on shore would allow it to escape this torment, Draco cast the spell that filled the Bubble-Head Charm with water.

            The dolphin began to squeal again, hard and sharp, and tried to dive. Draco leaped off into the water this time, and barely ducked another clap by that great tail. He knew that the dolphin would drown, especially since Harry boiled the water beneath it again and kept it from diving it to the depth where it might have managed to pop the charm on a rock.

            The dolphin lifted its beak above the surface, and Draco took pity and added more water, so it would drown faster. There were still several convulsive jerks and shakes before its body went limp and drifted on the waves, the silver rose bobbing and trailing above it like a balloon.

            Draco started to wade out to retrieve whatever the dolphin would turn into, but a much more powerful glow than he had ever seen before surrounded the conglomeration of them, dolphin and rose and charm. For a second, Draco did think that he saw a small strip of green plant melting out of the dolphin's body. Then the mixture soared into the sky, a glittering, turning miracle of light. It was white, but shot through with silver, and the green of the water. Draco stood in front of it, frankly staring. He felt Harry come up beside him, but neither of them said anything, simply watching in appreciation.

            And, Draco had to admit, the feeling that it was the end of an era.

            Harry put his hand on Draco’s arm. Draco turned and caught his hand, kissing the knuckles and then the fingers. Harry shivered a little, and opened his mouth. Draco found himself leaning forwards, swaying a little on his toes as he waited to see what Harry would say.

            As it turned out, he wasn’t to know.

            The light flew over to him, surrounding his head like a halo. Harry jerked his head up with a gasp. Draco tried to reach for him, but his hand collided with the edge of the light as though it were a Bubble-Head Charm.

            Harry stood there with his hands drumming on the light, and Draco drew his wand and circled around him. He dismissed his own Bubble-Head Charm and started casting all the hexes and charms he knew that could disperse this magic.

            Nothing worked. Draco, his heart beating and his palms sweating, wondered for a wild moment if the end of the chain ritual might kill the one who had created it, even though he had never heard of a chain ritual that did that.

            Then the light calmed, and dropped away from Harry. It formed into long, trailing chains and then small, barreled things instead, and Draco realized that there were two glass keys lying on the sand, one near Harry’s feet, one near his. He picked his up, dazed. It was beautiful and delicate, loops and flutes and swirling barrels.

            He looked up in time to see Harry watching him with a half-crazed smile. His eyes shone from inside. Not jade and not emerald, Draco thought, staring at them, though in his time he’d heard bad newspaper articles call them both. No, instead these eyes were malachite, harder and a more complicated shade of green, with glitters and glimmers of blue inside them.

            Not Harry’s eyes. More like the dolphin’s eyes, but in Harry’s face.

            “Did you think there would be no guardians for the last piece of the heart?” Harry whispered, in a rasping voice that Draco could only imagine Harry having after years of smoking. “For the heart itself?”

            “I thought you would come with me and we would retrieve it,” Draco said, his voice so blank that he realized after a moment he was telling the truth. He couldn’t really think of anything else to say.

            Harry tossed his head back and laughed. It was a horrible laugh, probably the worst one Draco had ever heard. He bit the inside of his cheek and refused to react, because he knew that was what Harry wanted. Or the thing that lived inside Harry wanted.

            “You’ll never find it,” Harry whispered. “He was the only one who could have guided you, and you’ll never find it.”

            Draco was growing a little calmer now—in fact, calmer all the time. It made sense that something else was growing inside Harry’s mind, since it had referred to him as a separate being. He refused to look away from those malachite eyes, but he moved his hand to the shaft of his wand.

            “Why is this so different from any chain ritual I’ve ever heard of?” he asked. “They don’t do this.”

            Harry smiled, or the thing inside him smiled with his lips. “A ritual that could only be performed by a slayer of Dark Lords,” it murmured. “That must mean that someone with a close connection to Dark Lords came up with the ritual in the first place, no?”

            A Dark Lord, Draco realized. Probably as a twisted form of revenge.

            “But no one could say that he was not warned,” said the thing, and smiled complacently at Draco. “You even tried. I owe you something for that.”

            Draco didn’t wait around to hear more about what kind of punishment it intended to give him. He whipped his wand out and shouted, “Accio keys!”

            The glass keys leaped straight at him, into his hands. Draco snatched them out of the air and whirled around, Apparating without a second thought. The creature roared behind him, but the sound was cut off as Draco Disapparated.

            Maybe you’re going to punish me, Draco thought as he landed inside the Manor’s wards, but you’ll have to catch me first.

*

            polka dot: It’s not entirely his fault. The ritual affects him, too.

            SP777: Well, Draco has one task left now! The story will finish at Chapter 27.

            The problem is that the dolphin won’t hold still long enough for them to simply spear it.
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A Black Stone in a Glass Box