Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

An Offering of Dragons	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 8786 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 2
- 3
- 4
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Three—Hebridean Black
            “Bracing, isn’t it?”
            At least, that was what Harry thought Allison MacFusty had said. He had to bend down in the face of the wind and lock his hands into crevices in the rock, so he wasn’t actually sure. The hood of the thick cloak he’d borrowed from Allison’s brother blew back from his face. He stood up and put his back to the wind for a second, and then the hood snapped down sharply enough to hurt his ears.
            Not more than the wind was already hurting them, though. There was that.
            Allison walked back in front of him and held out a hand. Harry gripped it gratefully. She walked his hands through the motions of an unfamiliar spell, and Harry gasped with relief as he found that the wind disappeared when he moved his wand in the same patterns and cast it.
            “What was that?”
            Harry glanced over. Draco stood beside him, apparently never having moved out of the shelter of an upright piece of rock. He looked at Harry and shuddered slightly. Harry smiled and drew Draco into the circle of his arm, walking with him down part of the slope of the little island.
            “I thought the weather in these islands was supposed to be mild.” Draco infused those words with as much complaint as someone else could have in a ten-minute rant. Harry smiled and glanced over at Allison. The wind had died as suddenly as it had arisen.
            Allison grinned at them. She had the round face of all the MacFusty wizards Harry had met so far, chatted with by Floo, and seen running around in the giant house where he and Draco had Flooed in, shouting incomprehensible numbers to each other. She also had two long chestnut pigtails that Harry was amazed hadn’t whipped her in the face. “It is. That was a Hebridean Black flapping its wings.”
            Harry whistled. “What is the one who lives here? Male or female?”
            “Oh, male, of course.” Allison looked a little shocked. “It would be as much as my job or your lives were worth to bring you near a nesting female with a clutch.”
            Draco gave a little moan, but when Harry glanced at him, he raised his chin and pasted on a smile that he seemed to assume was sincere. “Is the male safe to approach?” he asked.
            Allison seemed to have recovered her good humor as she smiled and turned away. “As safe as any dragon,” she said. “Which isn’t very. But that’s the reason you came to be around dragons in the first place, isn’t it?”
            “Mad,” Draco muttered, not enough under his breath that Harry didn’t hear it. Allison would probably hear it, too, if not for the brisk crackling of her footsteps across pebbles. “They’re all mad, Dragon-Keepers. Every single last one of them.”
            Harry pinched his arm, and Draco subsided, but his face was green. Harry ignored him for the moment as they followed Allison over the crest of the hill. He was eager to see a bigger and fiercer dragon than the Welsh Green.
            “Of course,” Allison continued as she threaded her way through a swaying stand of wildflowers and across a small creek, “I would never have taken you to meet some of the males who have a habit of lunging at visitors. This one is Firewing. He’s one of our show dragons.”
            “Does he do tricks?” Draco asked. It was only his tone that Harry had to elbow him for, though, because honestly, he was pretty interested to know the answer to that himself.
            “Sort of,” Allison said, without appearing to take offense. There was another hill in front of them—one big enough to hide a dragon behind, Harry noted with rising excitement. “He tolerates people better than most of the others, and he’s got it into his head that when more than one of us shows up, he’s going to be fed.”
            She turned around and watched them for a moment. “Keep quiet at first. You need to give him time to get used to your voices. Make slow movements, and only walk towards him if I tell you it’s safe. You’ll see where to stop. It’s a great scorched line in the ground. That’s the limit his fire can reach from his favorite sunbathing place.”
            “Oh, good,” Draco said faintly, and Harry nudged him in the side again. Draco was quiet as they began to cross the hill.
            When they finally reached the top, Harry caught his breath. There was a little dale below, with a smaller ridge beyond, and it seemed as though the whole bottom of that little dale was full of gleaming purple-black dragon.
            As he watched, Allison took a whistle from her belt and blew a little blast. The mound of purple-black below stirred, and then lifted its head. The head went on rising long past the point where Harry thought the neck should end.
            “Is that real enough for you?” Draco was muttering fervently at his side. “Dangerous enough for you?”
            Harry just nodded, his throat thick. The dragon paced slowly across the little dale towards them, wings jolting at every stride. The way that his head craned down reminded Harry of the way Dudley used to peer at things close to his face. But there was nothing laughable about him, or pudgy. Instead, he was simply one impressive dragon.
            “Now,” said Allison, “remember what I told you about keeping your voices down, and not making any sudden movements. I know this is a little startling, but it’s also one of the best tricks Firewing can help me do.” She either didn’t hear or didn’t care about the little moan Draco made, but ran down the hill towards Firewing.
            Harry swallowed. He supposed that when dragons knew you, you could do this kind of thing.
            Firewing bowed his head, seemed to focus his eyes on Allison or identify her by scent or do whatever else he needed to do, and eagerly opened his mouth. Allison dove towards him, her feet leaving the ground. Harry was sure that she’d used some magic to do it, but he hadn’t seen her cast.
            He became aware that Draco was clutching his arm and he was clutching Draco right back, his breathing shallow and excited.
            Allison landed neatly in Firewing’s mouth, balancing between his front fangs. She held up her hand, which seemed to clutch a little bit of meat; Harry hadn’t bothered to look when she close, and now he couldn’t see it. Firewing tilted his head back and began to beat his wings.
            Harry leaned against Draco, and Draco leaned against him, and together they kept themselves from being blown away. Forcing his eyes open against the wind-tears that wanted to seal them shut, Harry saw Allison toss the bit of food into the air.
            Firewing seized it and swallowed it. Then he blew a blast of fire straight up into the sky. Allison came along with it.
            Harry did shout; he couldn’t help it. But Allison must have been using fire-resistant spells on her clothing along with all the other magic protecting her and helping her leap impossible distances. She rolled around neatly and snapped her cloak over her head as she came down, laughing. The cloak seemed to stiffen into wings that helped her glide to a stop on the ground. She caught herself with a small stagger and turned around to wave at Harry and Draco.
            Harry waved madly back, glad that Firewing hadn’t decided to lunge for them because of the shout.
            At that moment, he became aware of hot breath right next to him and a heaving snort. He turned around, slowly because he had somehow remembered that, and stared right into Firewing’s eyes from a distance that he could have crossed with one finger.
            It was strange, standing so close to the eye of a dragon. Harry found that he couldn’t move. His legs weren’t shaking. He simply stood and stared, enchanted. He didn’t know what the etiquette was for meeting a dragon’s stare. Maybe Firewing would swallow him up for being rude any time now.
            But Harry couldn’t help thinking that it would be worth it.
            Moment after moment passed, and still Firewing didn’t bite or roast Harry, but continued to stare. Harry supposed he could just be curious. Dragons undoubtedly had their moments of wonder like any other animal.
            Beside Harry, Draco gave another tiny moan.
            Firewing pulled back and considered them from a greater distance. Then, just as Harry had begun to really dare to breathe again, Firewing darted his head forwards and opened his mouth in Draco’s direction.
            To Harry, what he did next just seemed natural.
*
            No. No. I’m not going to die like this, burned to a crisp, am I?
            Draco didn’t dare move. He still hoped, in some distant part of his mind, that standing there like an idiot would save him. He could hear MacFusty edging towards him, but he was sure she would be too late.
            Of course she would. Draco stared into the jaws of death, the looming white teeth and the curls of flame far down in the dragon’s throat, and found time for only a dull impatience that Harry’s love of adventure had led them here.
            Then the dragon was suddenly tossing its head, moving away, and Draco could see something else. He lifted his head with a gasp, and blinked when he saw what that other thing was.
            Harry, balanced on the dragon’s nose, was steadily advancing towards its eyes. Draco would have shouted this time if not for MacFusty’s hand on his arm, gripping hard and driving him into silence.
            Firewing sat further and further back on its haunches. Draco saw its eyes cross trying to stare at its own nose. Then it reached up and angrily swiped a claw towards its muzzle. Harry ducked. The dragon must have scratched its own scales, though, because it roared in pain.
            “Does your partner have any training in Dragon-Keeping?” whispered MacFusty to Draco.
            “Of course not,” Draco said. He wanted to say, He’s a bloody Auror, he has no clue what he’s doing, but in fact, he thought Harry might. He was used to charging into impossible situations and surviving them because of his own courage and luck, after all. This was probably just the same thing, except this time Draco had been the victim.
            Or almost the victim. Doesn’t he know he can come down from there now that I’m not actually in danger of being burnt alive?
            “I’ll try what spells I can to help him,” said MacFusty grimly, and Draco saw her raise her hands. “But I’m not sure they’ll be much help if Firewing decides to flame.” And her wand began to fly, while her voice muttered charms Draco wasn’t familiar with.
            Harry, meanwhile, had finished the walk up Firewing’s muzzle to his skull, and he leaped up and landed there. Firewing roared again and tossed his head. Harry wavered but didn’t fall. Draco heard MacFusty hiss something beside him. It didn’t sound complimentary.
            “Get down,” Draco said as intently as he could, but of course Harry was too far away to hear him.
            Harry turned and cast a spell down the dragon’s back to its tail. Draco couldn’t see what it was with a huge mound of tossing, rearing reptile in between him and Harry, but the next instant Harry began to run, balancing so easily on the rough scales that Draco found his mouth open without words to fill it.
            Firewing swirled around, rising so far and beating his wings so fast that Draco almost got blown over again. Only MacFusty bracing beside him kept him safe. Draco’s dread that Harry would get toppled off was too great for him to look. He had to close his eyes.
            “I don’t believe it!” MacFusty shouted, her voice dazed. “He used a bloody Stairstep Spell to get down Firewing!”
            That made Draco pop his eyes open again, and sure enough, he could see it now that Firewing had turned its back to them. Harry had used a spell that usually Aurors cast to span the gap where old stairs or ramps had fallen away. The stairs floated a meter or so above Firewing’s spine, following its general curve. Harry pounded busily down them, and now he was only a few meters above the ground.
            But swinging towards Harry was Firewing’s broad tail, and Draco could see—could see as if it was already happening in front of him—how that would smash Harry’s steps to pieces and send them flying.
            “Harry!” he shouted, this time, ignoring MacFusty’s hissed instructions to be quiet, and closed his eyes again.
*
            Well, it seems I was right that this holiday was going to be an adventure.
            Harry could feel how much his feet were going to hurt in the morning, from how hard they hit the steps, and how much his bones and knees ached as he forced them into a run. But the point was, the point was, how hard his heart sang in its cage of ribs.
            Firewing spun, and the stairs eddied and drifted after him, not quick enough to actually follow the flexing motions of his spine. Harry saw the tail coming up to one side of him, and he could feel, like a prophecy, the ache that it would cause along his spine and his sides if it hit him.
            He didn’t intend to stand still long enough to let that happen, of course.
            Harry dived forwards. He heard wind whistling around him, and he knew he was falling in a position that not that many people would recommend, his arms tucked on either side of his head. He knew Firewing’s tail might not miss him.
            He still had the insane temptation to laugh.
            He landed with a hard bounce, and immediately rolled out of the way of the stomping feet. Firewing dropped back to all fours and began beating his wings again. Harry let the wind blow him this time, faster than he could have walked, back towards the hill where Draco and MacFusty stood.
            He knew when his luck had run out, when the dragon’s roaring settled to a low mutter and the wind stopped. It would probably be a darting head and a blast of fire next. Harry stood up and carefully inched back the rest of the way, remembering—now—what MacFusty had said about small movements.
            But Firewing seemed to have decided that he was done with this shit. He labored back to the center of the dale where he’d been sleeping when Harry and Draco first saw him, and curled up with a great sigh. He never looked at the hill, even when Harry made a lot of noise scrabbling up it, or when Draco flung his arms around Harry with a triumphant cry.
            Harry only got to enjoy one minute of a hug before Draco was shaking him hard enough to make his head hurt.
            “Why did you do that? Why did you do that?” Draco was on the verge of slapping him, it looked like, and he didn’t appear to notice Allison’s opening mouth or her frowning glance at Firewing. Harry did, though, and he would rather not have to deal with a dragon again so soon after the first time, so he put his hand on Draco’s arm and shook his head.
            “Why don’t we talk about this back at the Welcoming Cottage?” he suggested, and turned around to smile at Allison. “Thank you for a fabulous show. I’d be interested in seeing descriptions of the spells you used, if you want to write to me.”
            “I’ll send a letter.” Allison’s eyes were bright with amusement as she looked between him and Draco. “And I hope that you have better luck in your next visits with dragons, Auror Potter.”
            Harry laughed. “I may have to be more careful. I think I used up all my luck with this one!”
            “Yes, you did,” snapped Draco, and hauled him off his feet with a single tug of his arm. “Let’s go.”
            Harry shrugged backwards at Allison as he got dragged along. He could understand why Draco was upset, and at the same time, he wanted to laugh aloud with how good this felt. Even the small snores that rose from the dale where Firewing lay asleep just made him feel better.
            He hoped that Draco would be able to explain what he wanted without shouting.
*
            “I want you to never do that again.”
            Infuriatingly, Harry only nodded and smiled at him. They were in the “Welcoming Cottage,” the small building of stone and thatch that the MacFusty wizards evidently thought sufficient to house visitors in. Draco had already cast spells that stuffed up all the cracks in the walls where whistling draughts could come in, and used some charms that would make the house smell like dirt and nothing more to wandering dragons. MacFusty had said, when they asked her, that Hebridean Black dragons “didn’t often” come this close to the cottage, but they should just move slowly and quietly if one did.
            Harry hadn’t. And he was still alive.
            Even though Draco had been extremely relieved about that, now he wondered if Harry shouldn’t have suffered at least a small burn, to teach him a lesson. Maybe then he would stop being so stupidly blasé about it all.
            “What a rush, huh?” Harry spun around in the open middle of the cottage. Draco found himself hoping that he would hit his shin on the table, but he didn’t. He just ended up with his hands pointing towards Draco and his grin, extremely pleased with itself, aimed at him.
            Draco didn’t respond. He simply sat down on a chair, and waited.
            Harry dropped his hands and sighed. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”
            “You’ll never do anything like that again?” Draco demanded.
            Harry nodded. “I’m hoping that any other dragons that come close to us won’t snap at you, of course!” He gave Draco a tender smile. “Are you okay?”
            “Wonderful,” Draco drawled. “And that’s not what I meant. I never want you to risk your life in such a stupid manner again.”
            “Of course I won’t,” Harry said. “It was a rush because I got to do it once. I wouldn’t want to regularly sprint up and down dragons’ backs, any more than I would want to handle cases like that all the time in the Aurors.” He shook his head and sat down in the chair on the other side of the table. “So it won’t happen again.”
            “I’m not talking about running up a dragon’s back specifically,” said Draco, and touched his forehead. A headache was beginning there, a small indefinite pulse of pain behind his eyebrows, the sort that only Harry could cause. “I’m talking about all the chances that you take. You told me you take a ton in your job, and that’s one reason you didn’t want to let me close when I asked, right?”
            Harry took a cautious step back from him. The light in his face had dimmed. Draco found himself regretting that, but he had to shake his head a second later. Yes, it was necessary to bring him down to earth. He had to understand how Draco thought about this.
            “It’s about risks,” Draco said softly. “You know that you could have cast a spell at Firewing that would have shocked his head back or distracted him until MacFusty could deal with him. But you chose to jump on his nose instead.”
            Harry at least kept silent, as if thinking about that. Draco was glad to let him. He crossed his legs and waited.
            “Yes,” Harry finally said. “I can see why you’d be concerned about that.” He glanced at Draco, seemed to brace himself, and leaned forwards to rest his elbows on the table. “Are you upset because it seems like I value danger more than I value you?”
            Draco licked dry lips. He hadn’t expected Harry to put it in terms that so perfectly encapsulated his thoughts—including the ones he didn’t want to speak aloud. But he also didn’t want to push away the insight just because Harry was the one who had come up with it.
            “Yes,” he said finally, in much the same croaking tone Harry had used.
            Harry nodded, his eyes tender, and stood up to come around the table. Draco stood up to meet him. Harry rested his hands on Draco’s shoulders, eyed him, and said, “All right. I can’t promise to never do it again, because I would probably do it again and just get you more upset. It takes a long time to change a habit. But I’ll try.”
            Draco’s shoulders settled back. “Thank you.”
            “You’re welcome.” Harry smiled quizzically at him. “But you have to admit it was at least a little cool.”
            “It was crazy.” Draco tried to keep his tone flat. He didn’t succeed.
            “But it was a little cool, too.”
            Draco knew he was going to smile, and he didn’t want to give Harry that much of a victory. Instead, he ducked his head and murmured austerely, “You owe me at least a blowjob if I’m going to admit that.”
            He should learn not to challenge Harry, Draco thought a second later, because it meant he had to stand in the middle of the floor of the Welcoming Cottage—not even against a wall!—and try to muffle his cries as Harry set enthusiastically to sucking. After all, loud sounds could attract a MacFusty as well as a dragon.
*
Jan: Thanks! Well, at least Draco didn’t try to pretend this dragon meant nothing to him. ;)
starr: Thanks!
- 2
- 3
- 4
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

An Offering of Dragons