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Black Phoenix	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 21568 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Twenty-Five--Recuperation
            Harry carried Persephone tenderly back into his office. She was still shivering, and clinging to him so hard that he was a little startled that he didn't have claw marks in his arms. But her shivering stilled as he put her on the perch. As if knowing what her problem was, or knowing that he had heard it from the centaurs, had given her strength, she could perch now.
            Harry took a step back from her and gave her a measured look. Persephone opened one eye, looked at him, and closed it again. Harry touched the middle of her back, and she huddled close to his hand in turn.
            "I made you," Harry told her quietly. "I'm responsible for you. I can't let harm come to anyone else because of you, but--"
            Persephone opened one eye and chirped at him. It took a moment for Harry to realize why. Then he remembered Yaxley, and the people that Persephone could have hurt in the past, if she wanted to. She could even have attacked Gorenson. He smiled a little.
            "Yes, well," he said, pleased beyond description that Persephone was acting a bit more like her old self. "That doesn't really count. I mean, you weren't the one that killed Yaxley. Not exactly. And you haven't killed and fed on anyone. I would have known if you had."
            Another chirp, and Persephone tucked her beak into her feathers. Harry had thought she was sleeping a lot lately, but it was probably the best means she had of recovering her strength. He reached up and touched the perch beneath her feet once, to let her know he was there, and then turned away and walked to his desk.
            He was going to send out the letters that Briseis wanted him to send. Then he was going to start reading up on the appropriate magical theory calculations that would estimate exactly how much flesh Persephone needed. He had asked the chestnut centaur before they left the Forest, but the healer had only shaken his head. He had told Harry how to estimate it, though, and the best time to feed it to her.
            "Her burning day cannot be far away," the chestnut centaur had said, and this time he'd pawed the floor of the Forest for emphasis instead of fear. "The starvation is part of the weakening she endures towards it, the way a normal phoenix would begin to lose feathers." He had nearly swallowed his tongue when Harry glared at him over the way he had said normal phoenix, but had recovered enough to be going on with. "She will need to eat human flesh when she arises as a fledgling. It is, after all, what happened the first time."
            "I thought a phoenix's burning cycle was longer than this," Harry had said, still cradling Persephone close, while his gaze challenged the chestnut centaur to use the word "normal" again.
            The centaur had sought through his mind for the appropriate words, or at least Harry was almost sure he had, while Harry's hands continued to soothe Persephone, and she continued to almost pant. Then he had said, "Yes. Well. She emerged from the nothing to the flame, and then had a meal right away. It is not surprising that that meal would stamp its imprint on her." He had dragged his gaze from the leaf litter in front of his hooves and up to Harry's face. "And perhaps she would have been stronger and better able to endure a full burning cycle, if her first meal had been of living flesh rather than dead."
            Harry nodded, and told them farewell. He had walked back to the castle in a mood of desolate determination, but now, sitting down at the desk and starting to write letters from the instructions that Briseis had left him, he was calm.
            He was going to give Persephone the pound of flesh, or however much it was, himself, of course. There was no way that he could sacrifice any member of his court, those people who had come to him for protection and a better life than in the world outside. And he was not going to allow Persephone to feed on his enemies. He knew now she would be willing; her sweetness had been a symptom of her illness.
            But no, he would not do that. He had chosen to declare himself a Dark Lord because it was the only title he knew that would have some weight in the world outside Hogwarts. He had performed Dark spells because he had to, and he would continue to, if enemies threatened him or his people.
            But there were certain lines he would not cross. He could not abandon his responsibility to people who had taken the chance and trusted him.
            No more than I can abandon my responsibility to Persephone.
            Harry stopped and closed his eyes for a second, rubbing his nose. Then he went back to his letters.
            On the perch beside him, Persephone crooned softly in her sleep. It sounded like a groan.
            Harry wrote a little faster.
*
            "Hullo, Draco."
            Draco started and turned around. He thought at first that Rosenthal hadn't warned him of Harry entering through the Floo because she was still gone, trying to glean some information on Tillipop's retirement from her contacts in the Ministry. But no, Harry was walking towards him, and there was no fireplace in this little drawing room where Draco had chosen to sit. He must have simply walked through the wards around the Manor, the way he had when he first decided to visit Draco.
            His face looked more pale and tired than the news of Tillipop's retirement could account for. Draco was sure he must have heard about it by now, though. He stood up and came hesitantly around the desk, holding his hands out. "Harry? What's wrong?"
            Harry shook his head, opened his mouth as though he was going to dismiss Draco's concern, and then abruptly shut it again and swallowed. "Can I just hold you for a second?" he asked, holding his arms out first.
            Draco let Harry draw him close. Harry sighed into his hair, and his hands were tight in the middle of Draco's back. Draco waited as long as he could, until he thought the questions would tear him apart like rising steam, before he asked. "What's wrong?"
            Harry pulled back. "I found out today that Persephone is sick," he said. "Starving, according to the centaur healer who looked at her. She needs--she needs living human flesh to survive, because I was foolish enough to let her first meal be Yaxley's dead body. Well, I suppose that dead flesh would sustain her. But living would be better, according to the centaur." He looked away from Draco, towards the wall that he had come through. "I'm hardly going to give someone to her as a sacrifice, am I? So it'll have to be mine. And I spent all afternoon researching how much she would need, and how to take it off my body without bleeding to death, which of course I probably would if I tried to do this any other way." He swallowed. "I thought about transforming something into human meat for her, but I don't think it would be effective."
            Draco just stood there, stunned. Then he tugged Harry towards the couch he'd been sitting on. "We're going to sit down, and house-elves are going to bring us tea and those cakes that you like," he said. "And then you're going to repeat that."
            Harry laughed wearily and pulled him over to sit down. "I don't think I can put it much more clearly than I already told you," he said, and was silent while Draco snapped his fingers and gave their order to the house-elf who appeared. "I mean, that's it. I conjured a black phoenix out of nothing to protect me, and she's not like any other phoenix. I created a creature out of magic, and of course I have to pay the price to keep her alive. I can't ask anyone else to."
            "I still don't see why you can't feed her someone who displeases you," Draco said, playing a little, because he did know the reason, and he wouldn't have loved Harry so much if he had been any other way. "Someone like Gorenson."
            Harry rolled his eyes. "Because he's going to be so obliging as to show up and let my black phoenix attack him, of course. No. This is the weakness that's going to overcome her as she gets near her burning day. The centaur healer thinks that had something to do with it, too. Maybe she'll always get weak like this near her burning day. She'll have to eat it on that day." He ran his hand through Draco's hair. Draco held still, hoping it comforted him. He liked being petted, of course, but that didn't seem to matter much right now, next to the demons Harry was struggling with. "I don't know how much time that is. A little. I can--I can investigate the spells instead of having to do it tomorrow, anyway."
            "Do you realize how remarkable you are?" Draco whispered, leaning towards him. "So many other people would just let her starve to death. They wouldn't give anyone up to her, maybe, but they wouldn't harm themselves, either."
            Harry snorted and gestured with one hand. "I highly doubt that many other people would have the bad luck or the stupidity to create a man-eating phoenix, either."
            "It wasn't stupidity," Draco said, because he remembered the moment when Harry had created Persephone, and he wouldn't let him call that stupid. "Unfortunate, maybe. Doubly unfortunate that she ate a corpse for her first meal. But not stupid. Not when you took a curse that would have killed you, turned your own magic against you, and made something as remarkable as that out of it." He leaned in further, his hands on Harry's shoulders so that neither of them would fall. Harry watched him with such skeptical eyes that Draco had to smile and kiss his nose. "It was remarkable. You really can't dispute that."
            "Remarkable in your sense of causing trouble for our enemies, maybe," Harry retorted, but he had relaxed a little. This time, when he lifted his head to receive Draco's kiss, there was nothing sad or reluctant about it.
            Draco kissed him so hard on the lips that Harry grunted and fell back on the couch, and they came near upsetting the tea-tray. Draco slid it away on the table with one foot and went back to the serious work of taking Harry's mind off things.
            It didn't hurt, of course, that Harry was right there helping Draco take his mind off anything but the way Harry's body felt under his fingers. Already their shirts were gone, and Harry hissed in a gratifying way as their naked chests pressed against each other. Draco shut his eyes and shivered. So strong, so warm.
            Harry rolled Draco beneath him on the couch, and bent over him to kiss his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, his lips. Draco started and gasped beneath a kiss on his earlobe, and Harry paused to watch him with eyes that reflected the firelight.
            "What, that was a sensitive place?" Harry asked in pretended innocence. "Well, I didn't know that." And he bent down and kissed it again.
            Draco cried out. Why should he pretend? He was with the man he trusted, loved, wanted. There was nothing to be gained from pretending to be less sensitive than he was, playing around or teasing, the way he might have with a more Slytherin lover. Harry was never going to use this against him.
            Except in the most delicious of ways, as he proved when he pinched Draco's nipples hard, when he kissed his other earlobe, when he found a place near Draco's collarbone which just dragging his tongue over made Draco flail. Draco had kind of intended to spend time in bed with Harry as a comfort to Harry, but already his resolve was fading, and his hands were falling limp, and he was letting Harry do anything he wanted.
            Oh, well, Draco decided, when he had a small moment to think about it more realistically. Harry is the kind of Gryffindor who gets pleasure out of bringing his lover pleasure, anyway.
            After that, rational thought seemed really beside the point.
*
            Harry lifted his head, panting and licking his lips. He'd had a hard time refraining from going straight to Draco's cock and sucking him off, but he had thought of something he'd prefer to do instead.
            He looked down at Draco, naked, while Harry was only half-naked, and smiled at him. It took a long moment for Draco to open his eyes, but he glared when he did. "Why did you stop?" he whispered. There was a satisfactory amount of panting behind each word.
            "Because I want to see you come when I'm inside you," Harry said, and Draco arched and writhed against him, thrusting so hard between his hips that Harry had to bite his lip and lift himself up a little. Otherwise, he might have failed his own challenge.
            "Yes, please," Draco whispered.
            Harry grinned at him and pulled his trousers down. He could fling them over there somewhere to join Draco's clothes. He thought they were in a corner of the room. It really didn't matter. What mattered most was getting naked to join Draco.
            And then it mattered that he could conjure lube on his fingers with a rub of those fingers and a wish for it, and Draco's eyes were laughing up at him as he tried to lift his arse and Harry tried to get to it, and their limbs tangled.
            "I'm sorry that the Manor isn't going to make this as comfortable for us as Hogwarts did," Draco whispered. "I don't have the kind of bond with the Manor that you do with Hogwarts."
            Harry wanted to tell him not to talk nonsense, but it occurred to him that he had a far more effective measure to shut Draco up, and his fingers in Draco's arse were it. He slid them inside, the lube easing the way, and Draco did indeed shut up. He also rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, and seemed to stop breathing for a second.
            It took quite a bit of squirming and grunting until Draco was ready for Harry's cock. Well, until Harry felt Draco was ready for his cock, anyway. Draco had been begging with his hips and his tongue, when he could assemble the words, for a few minutes by then.
            Harry slid back up the couch and into place. Draco's smile was warm for him, welcoming, enchanting. Harry took a moment to luxuriate in that. Not everyone had someone they could trust as much as he trusted Draco. Not everyone had someone they could be with.
            Then Draco made a noise like he would bite his own lip off, and Harry gave in to both their pleasure and slid into him.
            It still took a minute or two to adjust: the warmth around him, the way Draco's legs lifted and fell, the noises he made that now sounded like muffled mutters to hurry up, and Harry's own overwhelming sensations. He bowed his head, his hands braced on either side of Draco, and rode the pleasure until he was sure that he wouldn't come right away.
            That would disappoint him, sure, but it would disappoint Draco even more. And Harry never wanted to do that.
            He raised his head and met Draco's eyes. Draco grunted and mumbled back, then summoned a huge blast of breath and sense from somewhere and said, "Move!"
            Harry laughed and began to ride Draco.
            And the laughter was gone, in a blast of warmth that picked him up like a wave and carried him onwards, over Draco's grunts and gasps of delight, and into another world that surrounded Harry and lapped at him until he wanted to recoil, except that he was too busy thrusting to do that, and altogether he felt very good right now, and the only thing better than that was to make someone else feel good, and he reached down and slid a few fingers around Draco's length, and squeezed, and then Draco joined him, at least if the spasming of his body underneath Harry was any indication.
            Then they were gone, tumbling, lost in each other.
            And when Harry's mind returned to the present and the problem and Persephone, it no longer seemed overwhelming. If it wasn't easy, either, well, he already had a plan in place to deal with that.
            "Thank you," he breathed into Draco's ear. Draco seemed somewhere between asleep and unconscious with bliss, and Harry wasn't sure if he’d heard him.
            Draco's arms tightened around him, and Harry knew he had heard all that he needed to.
*
Christopher: It’s not so much getting around the problem that’s the problem (if you’ll excuse the redundancy), it’s that it’s going to be yet another thing that makes Harry feel he’s not really doing a good job as the Lord of Hogwarts.
Meechypoo: Gorenson might have suspected, but he didn’t have time to examine Persephone in detail the way the centaurs did.
BAFan: Thanks!
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Black Phoenix