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Burning Day	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10061 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Three—Golden Crystal
            “How recent are the rumors?” Harry thought he did a good job of sounding calm. Then he realized that the bookshelves in the corners of the library were rattling, and that two serpents of stone had risen out of the floor behind him and crowded either side of his chair, flickering their tongues out at regular intervals.
            Sometimes, Hogwarts was a bit too responsive to his emotions and thoughts.
            “They seem to be very recent.” One of the centaurs who had come to visit him was a sorrel stallion called Reuben, his tail curled tightly around his flanks instead of lashing the way Harry had thought it would be. Then again, that tightness revealed tension, too. “We only heard of them the other day, when we caught an intruder in the Forest who had drawn near the foals’ playground.”
            “Did he tell you who was spreading them?” The next thing Harry needed to worry about, and the one that was currently choking him like a bone in the back of his throat. He was going to find out who was spreading them, all right, and he was going to make them choke.
            “No,” said Reuben, and settled back on his haunches with a sigh. One of the things Harry had had difficulty in getting used to was that the horse part of centaurs’ bodies didn’t move exactly like horses; they could perform tricks with their legs and knees that would be difficult or dangerous for horses. Reuben was practically sitting now, one hand clasped in front of him, near a wide belt that was draped around his waist. “But he did show us this.” He opened a pouch on the belt and took out an odd little sculpture that he handed over to Harry.
            Harry took it and turned it over, staring at it. It looked like it was made of clear yellow crystal, maybe with some sunlight trapped inside it. It was shaped like nothing in particular, although it had a central ring and some sharp horns projecting out to the side. It was a little bigger than the center of Harry’s palm, which would make it hard to carry comfortably.
            Harry started to shake his head and say that he had never seen anything like it, but just then, the crystal flared, light reaching out from within it to touch the walls of Hogwarts. Harry drew in a sharp breath and ducked his head. That light was hot and magical, and it was pulling at—
            It was pulling at his bond with Hogwarts.
            His temper flaring incandescently again before he could consider whether it was a good idea, Harry brought his hand down, fingers spread. The magic of Hogwarts surged up around him, the stones shimmering and the floor heating up. It pushed back against the alien power of the crystal, forcing it into the outer edges of the sculpture. Then Harry tossed the thing into his desk drawer and shut it. That cut off its reaching out to the bond altogether.
            Harry hissed and looked up at Reuben, who was nodding. “That is the reason the wizard was able to come so far into our territory without us sensing him,” he said. “And without you sensing him either, Lord Potter. He bypassed the wards and the enchantments. He bypassed the protections of the stars.” He set his chin on his fingers and stared broodingly at the desk. “We did not know what to do about it. It is wizard magic, but nothing we have seen before. So we bring it to you.”
            Harry glanced at the other centaur, a black mare who had introduced herself as Niamh. Her breasts bouncing about had been rather distracting at first, but he had got used to it. She was watching him with calm, cool eyes.
            “You said that you were a wardkeeper?” Harry asked. He hardly knew what that was, but he could guess from the name and Niamh’s presence here.
            “Yes, Lord Potter.” Niamh’s voice was even more precise and correct than Reuben’s. “I am the one who keeps the herd’s wards and ensures that they are functioning correctly. I stumbled upon the wizard when I was going to investigate them.”
            “Because of a disturbance?” Harry sat up. At least that might indicate that the sculpture didn’t work well.
            “No,” said Niamh. “As part of routine maintenance only. I saw that the wizard was creeping along, holding the crystal close above the ground. I saw it pass through the line of one of the wards without disrupting it. I do not know how it works, however. The wizard prepared to defend himself the moment he saw me, so I did not get a chance to examine it further.”
            “I suppose I can’t question the wizard?” Harry looked back and forth between the two centaurs. He didn’t really know if they would let even him into the heart of their territory where they must be holding the prisoner.
            Niamh bowed her head. Reuben cleared his throat as the burden of the conversation shifted back to him and said, “Alas. We extracted the information on the rumors and his purpose from him, but the questioning was…vigorous. He did not even give his name before he departed into the realm that wizards inhabit among the stars.”
            Harry sighed. “He’s dead?” Probably, but you never knew with centaurs.
            Reuben nodded. “But I doubt that the death will cause you any political complications. If he did not even give us his name, you can hardly expect grieving relatives or his employers to be knocking on your door.”
            Harry had to admit that was true, but, as usual with centaurs, scraped past the main part of the problem. “But that doesn’t prevent other people from trying to use these things to get close to your foals.”
            “I will be more vigilant in my wardkeeping,” said Niamh, and scraped a hoof so hard over the floor that Harry felt the pain from the stones of Hogwarts. He reached down to touch them, and Niamh inclined her head. “And I will report any more violations or breaking of the boundaries to you at once, so that you may come and question the wizards.”
            “I don’t know if you’ll sense the violations, if you didn’t sense this one,” Harry said, as kindly as he could. Implying that their wardkeepers wouldn’t find their enemies could hurt his diplomatic relations with the centaur herd in the Forest. “I think I should keep this thing and analyze it, instead. Post sentries along the Forbidden Forest for a few days. I can send some of my trusted people at the court if you think it would help.”
            Niamh touched her own side, where a scar curved; Reuben lowered his chin. “We would prefer to guard our own land, Lord Potter.”
            Harry just nodded. He couldn’t blame most centaurs for being distrustful of humans. One like Firenze was definitely unusual. And this new rumor wouldn’t help the cause. “All right. I’ll let you know the minute I have something on the crystal.”
            Neither Niamh nor Reuben wanted to stay after that. Harry didn’t blame them. They would be uneasy inside stone walls with so many wizards, even if they trusted Harry enough to report this to him.
            Harry slowly opened his drawer and took out the crystal sculpture again when they were gone. This time, it didn’t try to stab at his bond with Hogwarts. It just lay there, quiescent, and Harry knew that he would have passed it off as something harmless if he was looking at it in a different context. Maybe the kind of peculiar knickknack that some wizards liked to decorate their houses with. You couldn’t even feel anything magical about it, if you were just holding it in your hands.
            Harry half-closed his eyes, made sure he was in the chair and his feet were raised from the stones of the floor, and sent a pulse of his magic into the thing.
            It was swallowed at once, and then beams of light began to reach out from the crystal again. Harry slammed it back into his desk drawer, and scowled at it. So. It was capable of absorbing magic, both that of centaurs and that of wizards, and it would react with reaching out to any instance of it. That was probably how it had eaten through several of the centaurs’ wards instead of only one. Once it had consumed the first one, it would go on reaching until it had swallowed all it could find. The wizard would only have to put it back in a pouch or sheath to make it stop.
            That was going to make it hard to track down the maker of it.
            Harry smiled, knowing it was a nasty smile. Luckily for him, he had resources that not that many people did.
*
            “Have you heard anything about the rumor that you can use centaur foal hooves in aphrodisiac potions?”
            Draco opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had been about to tell Harry of his progress with Lucy Lenneal and the overtures she had asked him to make, but this question threw him off so badly that the only thing he could do was blink and start again.
            “What?” he asked, as he draped his cloak over a chair that sidled up to receive it. “I haven’t heard anything about that.”
            “That was all I wanted to know,” Harry said, and stood up from behind his desk to pace back and forth.
            Draco watched him, head cocked. He thought of and discarded many remarks, such as the one that Harry spent far too much time on magical creatures and the need to protect them, and far too much time in his office. Draco hadn’t actually been in Harry’s rooms that often, mostly because Harry was never in them. They raised a bed from the stones when they wanted to make love in his office.
            Then Draco snorted. They. And that was ridiculous for the same reason that asking Harry to spend less time on magical creature causes was.
            “What happened?” Draco asked. “Did you catch someone who wanted to cut up centaur foals to make a potion? What a stupid idea.”
            Harry stopped pacing and shot him an intensely gratified look. “I knew I could depend on you to have the right response,” he murmured, walking across the room to him and catching Draco’s lips in a deep kiss. He drew back and continued in a way that made Draco want to banish all talk of centaurs from his head. “You would see that it’s a stupid idea without launching into the kind of fit Hermione did. I thought she was going to faint or something.”
            Draco had actually meant it was a stupid idea because it would be calculated to get Harry after you when he had taken on the burden of defending the centaurs, and because he knew several bits of Potions theory that suggested that kind of thing would never work, not because he cared that much about the morality of it. But he knew other things that he shouldn’t say.
            And not saying them got him kisses. He locked his hands on Harry’s arms and returned the kiss with interest.
            Harry wrestled with his clothes a second, then drew back and made an impatient gesture. Draco’s shirt slid off smoothly over his head and landed on the same chair that held the cloak. A second later, his trousers and pants followed. Draco leaned back against the desk in nothing but his socks, and laughed.
            “I suppose you can replace those if they got torn?” he asked.
            “Of course I can.” Harry was kneeling on the floor in front of him, and Draco caught his breath with a snap and a gulp. It wasn’t everyone who could say that they’d had the Dark Lord of Great Britain on his knees for them. “Now be quiet.”
            Draco probably couldn’t have spoken even if he wanted. He was learning a lot about the virtues of silence today, he reflected, as he spread his legs.
            Harry shut his eyes right before he fastened his mouth around Draco’s cock, as if he couldn’t bear to see it coming. Draco knew it wasn’t that, and watched in amused tolerance as Harry took him in completely, swallowing over and over. Draco’s tolerance faded as soon as Harry’s tongue managed to curl around a certain spot on the underside of his cock, and he grabbed onto the desk as he gasped.
            Harry sucked him with the same patience and determination that he always showed when he made love to Draco, as if he was so worth spending time on that he blocked out the rest of the world for Harry. Every tangle and twist of his tongue, every sideways movement of his mouth, even the heat from the inside of his cheeks, said that. Draco had to lean forwards and put his hands on Harry’s shoulders for support long before Harry was done, as much as because he could feel how devoted Harry was to this task as because he was losing his balance.
            Devoted to this task, and devoted to him.
            Draco came with his ears ringing and his hands trembling, and sank to the floor the moment Harry let him go, to stretch out and pant. Harry huffed softly and bent over to kiss him. Draco didn’t mind, even if he was used to his lovers cleaning their mouths out first.
            Harry laughed as if he’d heard the thought, which Draco considered wasn’t impossible, for all that Harry wasn’t good at Legilimency. “Just stay right there, will you?” Harry murmured, rolling above Draco and stretching out so that Draco’s thigh was between his legs. “I want to rub off against you.”
            Draco folded his hands behind his head and watched as Harry rubbed, his head tilting back like Draco’s had, his mouth falling open in an even more undignified way. Draco could feel the warmth against his leg, first hard and then spreading and wet, but his eyes were full of Harry’s glazed eyes and lips parting in satisfaction and breathy groans. This was the perfect way to begin an evening, even if it had been a less than happy day for Harry.
            When he was done, Harry folded gracefully down next to Draco like a cut flower, and lay there breathing softly. Draco stroked his hair, waiting and content to wait. Harry wasn’t going to disappoint him.
            Harry rolled over and lifted a hand to trace Draco’s cheekbones. “How are you so good?” he murmured, then prevented Draco from answering by pulling down his chin and kissing him on the mouth hard enough to burn.
            Draco went with it, but pulled back and shook his head. “What’s good about lying there and letting you rub one off against me? You don’t need any particular skill for that.”
            “But no one else could smell like you and lie there so perfectly,” Harry mumbled incoherently, closing his eyes.
            Draco thought he would go to sleep, and managed to arrange them so that he was lying with the trailing edge of Harry’s robe beneath his head, and his arms wrapped around Harry. That way, he wouldn’t wake up with a sore head or back in the morning, the way he had the last time they’d done this. The stones of Hogwarts would cradle Harry, but they wouldn’t offer any special consideration to Draco unless Harry told them to.
            But Harry started and opened his eyes long before Draco could consider drifting off to sleep. “It’s awful, what they tried to do to the centaurs,” he whispered. “And they were able to get past the wards into the Forest, too.”
            Draco opened his mouth in a yawn, but then Harry’s words caught up with him, and he sat up. “Past your wards?”
            Harry curled closer to him. “Yeah. And that means I didn’t keep my promise to the centaurs that no one else would bother them in the future.”
            Draco shook his head. It didn’t sound as though any centaur foals had been killed yet, or that would have been the first thing Harry told him, so he couldn’t care that much about them right now. “Do you know how they did it?”
            “You’re going to make me talk about this now?” Harry rolled a single pleading eye at him.
            “You’re the one who brought it up,” Draco pointed out, although he did lie down with his arm around Harry’s shoulders again. “But I would like to hear more about what you found, if you know anything.”
            Harry nodded, sighed, and pulled away. Draco Summoned his own cloak and pulled it down on top of him to stifle some of the cold, then got up and followed.
            Harry unlocked a drawer in his desk with a complicated wave of his hand before he paused and said, “This might be dangerous, so stand back.”
            Dangerous, in the middle of Hogwarts? But if it was something that could get past Harry’s wards once, Draco reckoned it might be again. He stepped back obediently and watched as Harry pulled something clear and shining yellow out to balance it on his palms.
            Draco felt all the breath leave his body as he stared at the thing, and he reached out to clutch the edge of the desk. Harry immediately spun around to face him. “You know what it is? What is it?”
            “I’ve seen things like it before,” Draco whispered, eyes locked on the reaching, stubby branches, like branches of coral. “Not the same color, but pretty much the same shape.” He managed to drag his eyes away from the thing, and locked them on Harry’s face. “Some of the Death Eaters used them to capture magic in the Manor. The Dark Lord was going to do something with them once they were all charged with enough power. But it was never enough for him, and I never found out what it was.”
            Stormclouds stirred in Harry’s eyes. “I see,” he said, and set the thing back in its drawer. “So the only people likely to have knowledge of these are former Death Eaters.”
            “Like Yaxley,” Draco caught on, seeing where this was going.
            “Like Yaxley.” Harry nodded and stared down at the drawer. “And most of them are in Azkaban and only accessible to Ministry wizards. So the Ministry is interfering again.”
            And if the Ministry had any people with sense in it, Draco thought, they would have run a thousand miles in the other direction rather than stir the danger he saw then in Harry’s eyes.
*
Ciara_D: He’s certainly happier than a lot of people would be in this situation!
CareLessLover: Yes. That’s why Harry didn’t think they should be punished or anything.
Jester: Thank you!
SP777: Well, a couple centaurs in this chapter? They’re paranoid about letting people near their foals, though.
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Burning Day