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The Rising of the Stones	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 13237 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Five—Dragon of the Night Winds

            Draco sat before the fire until he thought his mind soothed enough to begin the ritual. Then he turned to the tools set up in front of him, all of them in small braziers filled with silver sand. The silver sand had been through fire and water both, to disenchant it. The only elemental power Draco wouldn’t be using in this ritual was earth magic. It would have masked his sense of Potter’s presence.

            His possible sense of Potter’s presence.

            Draco grimaced a little in response to his own thoughts. But he could not keep leaping from one site to another, and now that he had some concrete thoughts on who Potter’s soulmate might be—or might have been—he had a way to track him.

            Draco reached out first, and touched the brazier full of live coals. When he puffed on them, fire started up. The flames in his hearth swayed back and forth as if in acknowledgment and welcome. Draco cast a spell that sheathed his fingers in a shimmering red-and-gold glove, and then he reached out and into the coals before he could think better of it.

            His magic had protected him, as he had thought it would. He couldn’t feel the heat, and he cradled the coals in his palm and blew on them again. They flared, absorbing his breath. Draco turned and tossed them into the brazier full of water.

            The steam that rose, hissing and a purer, hotter white than it should have been, was easy enough to capture. Draco swirled his wand, and the steam danced towards him and into the small box of air in front of him he created to hold it.

            This part was trickier, and required more magic. Draco leaned back far enough to cast the Dragonsbreath Curse on himself without disturbing the steam. Then he leaned forwards, using a wordless spell to dissipate the box that contained the steam and breathing out in the same moment.

            Fire tore through the steam, making it tumble and roil, filling it with blue and orange blazes. For a moment, Draco could see something waiting on the other side of it, something with a huge, intelligent red eye that looked at him patiently.

            Then the vision was gone, the fire fading, and Draco funneled the steam with another wordless spell into the brazier full of a tiny Wind Charm, which caused the air above it to constantly move. Moving air had magical properties of its own if one paid the proper respect to it, much the way running water did.

            The steam passed through the air and began to break apart, tossed by the Wind Charm. Draco hastily floated up the brazier of pure water and upended it, passing the makeshift raindrops through the air that way. At the exact same time, he breathed again, and fire passed through the same space occupied by air and water. The flare of elemental magic was strong enough to sting Draco’s eyes.

            This time, the light didn’t simply flare and fade, the way it had with the steam. Instead, it gathered in one place, building on itself, piling up like small stones dropped onto a cairn. Draco thought of Carn Gluze and hoped this was a good sign, even though he hadn’t actually used any earth magic in this ritual.

            The piling finally stopped. A small, bright red sphere floated in the air. It drifted towards Draco, and he nodded a little when he saw one golden eye looking out from the center of it. This was the elemental creature he had hoped to create with the ritual.

            “Ready?” he asked the golden eye.

            The eye blinked once. Then the sphere came to a stop in front of Draco’s right shoulder. He had to pay one more price, this one of pain, to send it on its way.

            Draco grimaced and brought his hand up in a smooth arc, pressing his palm against the crimson sphere.

            Skin sizzled as he pressed it flat, and he bit his lip to keep from shrieking. The sphere blazed brighter, and the golden eye became a pair of them. Stubby wings chopped out from the sides of the sphere, and then what might have been a tiny dragon hovered there, neck turned a little.

            “Go find Harry Potter!” Draco gasped, with the last of his voice that wasn’t a scream, and pushed at the sphere.

            The dragon crashed through the glass of the window, it was flying so fast. Draco leaned over to watch its flight path, and sighed when he saw that it was safely on its way, soaring straight for the horizon.

            Then he cast a Reparo on the window and went over to plunge his hand in the sink under cold water. When he thought it had chilled long enough, Draco took his hand out and Summoned a flask of burn paste to rub on it.

            Meanwhile, his mind jumped along the path of the dragon, which would be attracted to both the name Draco had uttered and a strong concentration of earth magic, the one element missing from its makeup. Perhaps it would have been enough to send it seeking only one of those things, but Draco wasn’t going to take a chance. It was just as likely to come back with an image of something at Stonehenge, and no Potter there.

            The burn paste helped. Draco cast a Catnap Charm on himself, which would allow him fifteen minutes of deep, instant slumber and then wake him up; it was the best way to get some rest while not missing the arrival of the dragon when it came.

*

            As it was, he used the charm ten times before he opened his eyes to find the little golden-eyed dragon floating in front of him, and he thought for a moment that his spell had failed.

            But then he saw the eyes that opened wide and beamed the vision at him, shining in the darkness like a Muggle light display, and he caught his breath and bent close.

            It was Stonehenge after all. Draco felt that vein on the side of his head that Mother had always said betrayed him beginning to twitch. Had some group decided to perform a powerful earth magic ritual there, this night of all nights, and accidentally messed up his spell?

            But in a few seconds, he saw it wasn’t so. There was the image of Stonehenge, but the image of Potter moved through it.

            Potter had shaggy hair, as though he’d been gone much longer than the Ministry’s official count of time, or trimmed it short with a sharp knife and not much skill. He studied the ground in front of him, and then knelt. There was a knife in one hand—maybe the one he’d used to cut his hair, Draco thought. Potter placed it in front of him and closed his eyes.

            A swirl of dirt and small pebbles rose up in answer. Potter directed it back and forth, his eyes still shut. Draco shook his head. Wasn’t he interested in seeing where his little experimental results ended up?

            Then he noticed something he hadn’t consciously before, and sat up. The only guide the whirlwind had was Potter’s hand.

            His wand was nowhere in sight.

            So Granger was right about him having some sort of problem with his wand, Draco thought, and nipped his lip in excitement. He was glad now that he hadn’t tried tracking Potter by his wand, a method that was finicky anyway. He stared as Potter settled the dirt and stones from the whirlwind on top of what might be the very same mound Draco had found there before, and then picked up the stone knife again.

            Draco squinted, and the image the dragon carried sharpened obligingly. No, he’d been fooled by the low light and maybe the poor quality of the image. Potter didn’t have a knife at all, but one of those strange flaked stones Draco had found making the runes at Carn Gluze.

            Potter spoke, but the image had no sound and the shapes of the words on his lips didn’t look familiar. Draco supposed they weren’t a spell, though; he’d taught himself to recognize the look of the more common incantations from a distance. It was one reason he was still alive when so many of the Ministry’s Aurors weren’t.

            Nor did the spells, if that was what they were, seem to have any effect. Potter laid the flaked stone down finally and crouched on his heels with his head hanging. Perhaps it was a ritual, and it had taken a lot out of him.

            Draco waited, tense. If Potter Apparated, then Draco would have to go back to Stonehenge and try tracking him by his magical signature again.

            But Potter stood and moved over to another part of the inner circle of stones, before crouching. He had a second flaked stone in his hand, and began to cut a rune into the dirt in front of him.

            “He’s still there?” Draco breathed. The dragon bobbed in response, although it wasn’t fully capable of understanding all the nuances of the question.

            Draco didn’t wait. He sent the dragon back to the brazier, where it would stay as a blob of fiery light until the next sunset if he had need of it again, and then he spent a moment making sure he had a few tricks along that might make the difference in a battle between him and Potter.

            And then, then, he stepped out of the house and Apparated to Stonehenge.

            He knew he was smiling as he did it. He always smiled that way when he was about to bring the hunt to a successful conclusion.

*

            When he came out of the Apparition, Draco could feel the power humming in the air.

            It was earth magic, of course, because he could feel the thrum beneath his feet even more than in the air; the stuff in the air was only the usual residue of a ritual. But he hadn’t thought Potter would manage to raise this much with a few simple stones and a rune, and he had to admit, as he moved softly through the shadows, to a reluctant awe.

            He dismissed the awe a second later. He couldn’t let inappropriate emotional reactions influence this capture.

            The limited amount of Auror training Potter had had didn’t include any special courses to develop his senses, from what Draco had heard. That meant Draco should be able to get as close as he wanted before Potter heard him and whirled around.

            And yet, that didn’t happen. He didn’t step on anything; he moved through the shadows like a shadow. But Draco saw Potter turn ahead of him and crouch down anyway, and a flare of light came from the mound of disturbed dirt at his feet.

            “Who’s there? I know you’re a wizard, not a Muggle.”

            If Potter was desperately on the run, as his hair proclaimed, he didn’t sound like it. Draco paused, and revised his strategy. He had wanted to question Potter anyway before he took him into the Ministry, hadn’t he? And he wanted to learn what Potter thought he was doing with the earth magic, and whether Draco’s guess about the Dark Lord being his soulmate was right.

            Draco stood up and moved into the edge of the circle of light that the small thing—not a fire, it was too white and still—at Potter’s feet cast.

            Potter watched him with a wild animal’s wariness, even though Draco was sure the git had recognized him. Then he shook his head and said, “The Ministry would send an Auror after me, of course. As though I’d done something wrong.”

            Draco raised an eyebrow. Outraged innocence, not an unexpected tactic for Potter to take, but one that Draco found intriguing anyway. He couldn’t have expected to fool an Auror as experienced as Draco. “Those Dark Arts texts in your flat were illegal to possess, you know that. And that ritual you performed to burn away your soul-mark is on the edge of the law if not actually over it.” It seemed that the Wizengamot argued the illegality of such rituals constantly, as some wealthy pure-bloods wanted to either bind good soulmates to their heirs or give those heirs the ability to get rid of unworthy ones.

            A hard grunt left Potter. Draco could have hit him in the solar plexus and produced much the same reaction, he thought. Draco frowned a little in disappointment. Potter had expected Draco not to notice the ritual?

            “Then—you don’t know—they think—” Potter broke off his speech. His face twitched and roiled as though he had a lot of strong emotions right under the surface.

            Draco considered those emotions a waste if they weren’t shared with him. Irritating Potter used to be a way to do that, so he said in a slow drawl, “You left blazing signs for someone with the ability to see them, Potter. Your soulmate was the Dark Lord, right? And you want to be rid of every tie that bound you to him?”

            He made the question swift as an arrow to the heart, so Potter would be more likely to confirm it one way or the other. Either an attack or a dropped jaw would be things Draco could take as proof.

            What he hadn’t expected was for Potter to sit down in the middle of the little circle of scraped dirt and start laughing.

            Draco had the childish urge to stomp his foot and demand to know what Potter was doing. Since he didn’t know he could only stare, silently, and Potter finally sat up and wiped at the tears on his face.

            “You don’t know,” Potter said. “You knew it had something to do with soulmates, and you saw the ritual, and you know I was looking into the Dark Arts and earth magic, and you must have performed some pretty impressive magic yourself to find me here, and—you don’t know.” He chuckled one more time and fell on his back, staring up at the moon. “I’m so surprised I don’t know if I can move.”

            If Potter couldn’t, that was no barrier to Draco’s movements. He calculated angle and distance for a moment, and then tried to leap forwards. He could subdue Potter with magic, of course, but his outraged feelings really wanted a wrestling contest.

            He stumbled hard and felt as if he’d bruised his nose against something, and Potter sat up and blinked at him in surprise.

            Then he chuckled again. Draco was starting to hate the sound. “Didn’t perform impressive enough magic to realize that this ritual raises a barrier against anyone who tries to cross? Well, it does.”

            Draco stood up and circled the perimeter of the space without answering Potter. He hadn’t recognized it, no, but he should have recognized the soft gestures and muttered words that were sufficient to enact a barrier. Earth magic was out of his area of expertise, but certain rituals had certain components in common. This one could not be unique.

            There was no circle in the earth around Potter. There weren’t even flaked stones or runes to make one. Potter stood on what had looked like ordinary ground to Draco, not different from the protected ground around him, until Draco had actually tried to cross whatever invisible line there was.

            Draco looked back at Potter. Potter was clamping his lip between his teeth, but his eyes twinkled anyway.

            Draco didn’t want that to happen. He slowed his breathing deliberately and murmured, “It is impressive enough on its own, but I didn’t see you using a wand, either.”

            The gates of Potter’s face slammed shut, and suddenly Draco couldn’t tell what emotion was on his face, which was a little alarming. He bent over and gathered his flaked stone from the ground, saying simply, “That shouldn’t be a surprise to you if you had any idea what was going on.”

            Draco decided to change tactics. “The Minister’s barring me from finding out,” he said, and saw Potter’s hand freeze on the stone. “He won’t give anyone access to your birth records, even though they’re saying you ran away after reading them. If you think you suffered injustice, tell me. I’d be a more powerful advocate for you than your friends would.”

            Potter stared at him in silence. He then looked around as if he thought Draco had reinforcements who would show up from nowhere. Draco held his peace as best he could. He was beginning to get a little impatient with Potter’s antics, honestly. He acted as though someone was trying to trap him.

            Finally Potter said, “I think you’ve entirely misunderstood. I’m not coming back.”

            “Well, yes, I know when you thought the Ministry was going to arrest you, you ran, but—”

            “I mean, not at all. I’m learning earth magic because I’ll have to learn how to take care of myself in wild places, away from civilization. Well, civilization as wizards understand it. I would just have moved to the Muggle world, but there’s too much chance that a Muggleborn or an Obliviator would recognize me.”

            Draco felt his lip curl a little. He hadn’t expected this kind of melodramatic declaration from someone who had planned as well as Potter had, and had apparently solved a conundrum as old as magical theory. “You’re kidding, right? The Ministry would find you. Better me than someone else.”

            Potter sighed a little. “No. There’s no way I can just go back to being one of the normal people.”

            Yes, definitely melodrama. “It’s all right if you haven’t married your soulmate, Potter. It’s much less common than your Gryffindors might have made you think—”

            “Have you ever thought about what having a soul-mark implies?”

            Draco blinked. “It implies you have a soulmate,” he said. “Nothing else. For Merlin’s sake, Potter, mine’s half a flower. Do you think that means my personality is soft, or yielding, or pretty? The shape of your soul-mark says nothing about you as a person.”

            Potter gave him a bitter smile. “You haven’t thought it through,” he said. “And as for your offer, it would be tempting if things were completely different. Good-bye, Malfoy.”

            Draco whipped his wand up. He was faster than almost all the Aurors he practiced with, and certainly faster than someone who had only completed a few classes—

            But not faster than Potter, who bent over the white light and spoke a word to it. The earth rose up around him in a silent funnel, and pulled him under. Draco’s spell sped through empty air.

            Draco stared at the place where Potter had been in silent rage, and then spun on his heel. The dragon would stay with him for most of another day. He would use it to find Potter again.

            And then he would end this frustrating hunt.



*

            anon23: Thank you!

            SP777: If Draco can get past his own prejudices enough to listen. ;)
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The Rising of the Stones