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Here to Live and Die	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 5833 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Six—Teaching, Learning

            “Andromeda’s asleep.”

            Harry, his hand raised to knock on the lintel of the silver house that Andromeda had built for her and Teddy, turned around and blinked at George. He knew that George had been the last one to hold Teddy, but it was still odd to see him standing on duty like this, his arms folded. He bit his lip when Harry looked at him, and didn’t back down.

            “Okay,” Harry said, and looked up at the sun, hanging in the bright blue glare of Hurricane’s noon.

            “Oh, shit, right,” George said, suddenly relaxing and giving Harry a much more familiar smile. It made Harry smile back, despite the way his throat tightened with the remembrance that he wouldn’t ever see the grin that matched it again. “You wouldn’t have been able to see it, with the way you came out this morning. Well, here.” He took Harry’s arm and dragged him across the grass to a big flat patch of the meadow where the riders’ antelope usually grazed and Harry and Draco had often gone to herd them.

            Teddy was there, sitting with two silver bricks clutched in his hands, laughing. Harry felt his stomach tighten as he watched. Unless he was badly mistaken—and he didn’t think the winds encircling his head could ever be that mistaken again—Teddy was holding two pieces of pure, solidified wild magic.

            But he dropped them when he saw Harry and ran right over to him. “Uncle Harry!” he yelled, stretching out his arms.

            Harry picked him up and swung him around, even though he wanted to stand still and gape at the sight on the grass beside him, because he had come to Hurricane for Teddy and he never, ever wanted to ignore him. Teddy laughed. Right now he had hair as white as a mummid’s wool and golden eyes like theirs, too, but his eyes turned green as Harry watched.

            “Andromeda started building it earlier this morning, after you’d gone back to bed,” said George’s voice from behind him. “I’ve never seen someone work so hard with the wild magic since we got here.”

            Harry turned back to the sight before him. “Don’t let Draco hear you say that,” he said mildly. “He doesn’t think anyone works harder than I do.”

            Teddy interrupted him by pulling on his hair. Harry yelped and held him out. “What did I tell you about pulling on hair, Teddy?” he asked.

            “Not do it,” Teddy muttered, after a long silence in which he realized that squirming and sticking his thumb in his mouth wouldn’t get him out of trouble. He didn’t suck his thumb much anymore; Harry swore he did it now just to try to make himself look cuter and avoid the kind of yelling that might be headed his way.

            “Right,” Harry said. “Say sorry.”

            “Sorry.” Teddy’s voice got smaller and smaller when he was apologizing, but Harry could still hear it.

            “Good enough,” Harry said, and patted Teddy on the shoulder, and this time he got to look.

            Andromeda had laid the foundation of a huge, circular building that looked like nothing so much as an Earth sports stadium, Harry thought. The silver blocks gleamed and shone like they were streaked with rainwater—which they probably would be by mid-afternoon, as the winds told him. They were enormous themselves, and exactly regular in size and shape. Harry didn’t really know why, because he didn’t know that much about Andromeda’s magic. Maybe they were easier for her to shape that way.

            Well, she is a very regular person, Harry had to admit. He thought maybe a lot of her depression in the past few years had come from her life turning out to be so much the opposite of normal: people dying, her grandson raised by Harry Potter, the Ministry turning on her. Coming to Hurricane wouldn’t have helped.

            The ground inside the building’s foundation was stripped of grass, leaving dirt. Harry considered it thoughtfully. It wasn’t stamped flat yet, but he thought it should be, since otherwise it would turn to mud every time it rained until the bloody thing was finished. Or maybe Andromeda would replace it with silver flagstones.

            “It’s going to be bloody brilliant,” George breathed from behind him.

            Harry turned around and grinned at him. “What? You’re not thinking about putting spells that explode in the doors?”

            George met his gaze with unexpectedly sober eyes, and shook his head. “I know what it means that she’s doing this,” he breathed, softly enough that Andromeda probably wouldn’t have been able to hear them even if she had come out of her house and crept up behind George. “I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that.”

            Harry clapped George on the shoulder, unable to say a word. Luckily, Teddy filled in the silence for him. “I’m hungry now,” he said loudly, and rubbed his stomach in case Harry had forgotten English.

            Then he made a noise Harry had never heard him make before, sharp and twittering. Harry jumped and looked around, thinking for a second that one of the riders had managed the creeping trick. But there was nothing there except Teddy, who had clutched at Harry’s shoulders to keep from falling and was scowling at him.

            “Hungry,” he said, and repeated part of the twitter.

            “He’s learning the riders’ language?” Harry asked George, who shrugged and grinned.

            “I reckon so. I don’t think Andromeda was exactly happy about that, but she was busy strengthening one of the houses last week and gave him to Hermione to baby-sit for a while. Hermione was talking to the riders and making notes.”

            Harry smiled and shifted Teddy to his hip as he twittered again. “Well, I didn’t think it would be easy for a human to pronounce, but Merlin knows there are sounds in other human languages I can’t make. It would probably be easy for someone who grows up speaking it like any other language.”

            Teddy butted Harry’s shoulder with his head. “Hungry!” he said.

            Harry touched the back of Teddy’s neck, and kept his hand there until Teddy looked up at him again. “Listen,” Harry told him. “You can ask for food, but you have to be polite about it. Okay?”

            Teddy scowled at him. George chuckled. Harry rolled his eyes back. “Thanks for the effort at maintaining discipline,” he mouthed.

            George shrugged. “He said he was hungry, and you kept ignoring him. I don’t know that I wouldn’t have resorted to the same thing, about now.”

            Harry turned around and walked away with what dignity he could muster. Teddy calmed down and beamed at him again as soon as he saw that they were heading away from the silver house. He probably hadn’t expected to be served food there, Harry thought.

            Draco’s mind came fuzzily awake as Harry ducked into their tent, and Harry nodded to him and set Teddy down on the floor beside him. “What kind of food do you want?” he asked Teddy.

            “Peanut butter!” Teddy was poking the moss bed, but he looked up and focused on Harry like a hunting dog the minute he said the words.

            Harry grimaced a little. They had brought some peanut butter with them from Earth, but not much, and Teddy had already eaten most of it. Hopefully he would be satisfied with what Harry could scoop out from the last jar they had.

            He’s a kid, Draco’s voice said tolerantly in the back of his head. In six minutes he’ll be wanting something else. You’re making a bigger deal out of this than he will.

            You have more tolerance for him than you used to, Harry said, watching Draco fall to his knees in front of Teddy and make a face at him. Teddy giggled and altered his own face back, to the point that he could easily return the grimace.

            I know you love him, Draco said, turning his head briefly to look at Harry. And I’ve at least started. I wouldn’t have panicked so much when Andromeda was trying to take him back to Earth, otherwise.

            Harry nodded and used his winds to float the last peanut butter jar over to him. Luckily, it was in the tent from last week, the last time Teddy had demanded it.

            Look at it this way, Draco said. He was lying on his back now, holding Teddy above him and trying to wrinkle his face into some configuration Teddy couldn’t imitate. He’s asking for it less often, so maybe he’ll be reconciled by the time that we don’t have any more of it. Or maybe we’ll discover some native plant that can substitute for it. Or those experiments Granger’s making in growing peanuts will actually work.

            You could call her by her name, Harry told him as he successfully scraped some peanut butter out of the jar onto one of the plates that George had successfully Transfigured from a stone about the same size. You know she’s a lot friendlier to you now than she used to be.

            I am calling her by her name. One of her names. It’s certainly no less her name than the other one.

            Harry rolled his eyes and gave that up, instead setting the plate on the bed and scooping Teddy from Draco’s arms to put him down beside it. “Come on, Teddy,” he said. “Time to eat.”

            Teddy squealed and stuck his fingers in the peanut butter, then into his mouth. Harry snorted when he felt Draco’s disapproving stare. It wasn’t as though there was really a point in teaching Teddy proper table manners. They had no table, no formal silverware, and the moss that made up the bed was easy to clean. Plus, Teddy actually liked bathing in the pools and streams of the meadow, while he had shrieked every time Harry tried to clean him in the bathroom when they were still on Earth.

            It isn’t about the specific manners, Draco said, sniffing so hard their bond vibrated. It’s the principle of the thing.

            Anything you want to teach him, you can, Harry said, shaking his head as he went to fetch himself and Draco some of the pressed grass-cakes that Fleur had experimented with making yesterday. They didn’t taste as good as bread, but they had a light, crisp taste that Harry thought they could grow used to. Draco, of course, was determined not to. But it’s not going to be easy when we have none of the artifacts that are necessary to really practicing those skills.

            Listen to you. Artifacts. As if that word didn’t mean a different thing. Draco accepted another plate, a pitcher of water, and the grass-cakes from Harry, staring at him intently enough that Harry turned to glance at Teddy. But he was chattering, although it was hard to understand most of his words with the peanut butter sticking his mouth shut, and he didn’t seem to have noticed Draco and Harry’s silent argument.

            “Have you considered that it might not?” Harry said aloud, because sometimes their conversations down the bond went so fast it was hard for him to think about what he said. “That someday we might have words in our language—or our children might—that don’t mean the same thing as they do today? That someday they might not speak English anymore? That things will change?”

            Draco blinked a little. Then he said, “Yes, I have thought of it. But we’re still alive, and we still speak English, and we distinguish between silverware and something like the Sword of Gryffindor.”

            Harry smiled and held up his hand to acknowledge the hit, then applied himself to his lunch. As long as Draco didn’t expect things to be utterly the same in the future as in the past, then Harry thought he could live with his attitude.

*

            Draco picked up Teddy and tickled him while Harry washed the plate free of the last traces of peanut butter. Teddy giggled and squirmed against him, and Draco couldn’t help frowning a little as he got traces of peanut butter and snot all over Draco’s shirt. But that was what Cleaning Charms were for.

            And if they were going to have their own children, then Draco knew he would have to get used to messes.

            He felt the back of his neck warm, along with the inside of his head, and knew Harry was gazing at him approvingly. He grinned back at him over the top of Teddy’s head and began to cast those Cleaning Charms.

            “Your spells tickle,” Teddy said, and tried to wriggle away from him, towards Harry. Draco held him still until he was sure that Teddy’s face was only wet with a few traces of spit, and then let him go. Teddy ran into Harry’s arms and stood there with his finger tucked into his mouth, studying Draco.

            “I didn’t mean to tickle you,” Draco said gravely.

            Teddy drew himself up and changed the color of his hair a little, to a deeper black. It was only when he said, “You’re forgiven,” in a deep, magisterial voice that Draco realized he was imitating Andromeda.

            “Thank you,” Draco said, and bowed to him, and then settled back on the bed to watch Harry play with Teddy. This involved wooden animals that Teddy had brought with him from Earth, a horse and a unicorn and a complicated game where the unicorn, it seemed, was trying to take over the world and the horse didn’t want him to. Harry sprawled on the grass and sometimes made neighing noises when Teddy wanted him to, but for the most part, Teddy talked both voices and came up with the complex, half-incoherent plot that reminded Draco of dream logic.

            You’re more patient with him than you used to be, too, Harry’s voice murmured down the bond. Good. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few years, it’s that children try your patience.

            Draco rolled his eyes. Why can you say some things aloud in front of Teddy and you keep other things quiet?

            Because there are some things I don’t care if he overhears, but talking directly about him in front of him is rude. Harry galloped the horse up and down the stretch of ground that was now apparently a racecourse.

            So instead you do it silently so he can’t hear. What a shining example of politeness.

            Harry winced in the way that told Draco the blow had gone deeper than he meant it to, the dart transforming into a lance. Draco sighed and stared up at the ceiling of the tent as it billowed in the wind.

            “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said aloud.

            I know, Harry said, probably because he could flood the bond with rosy forgiveness that would have been difficult to express aloud. It was just—you’re right.

            “Cousin Draco sorry,” Teddy said, and smiled up at Harry with such a smug expression, as though to say he was happy he wasn’t the only one who had to apologize, that Draco laughed aloud.

            Harry cast him a tragic glance, murmured, “Must you encourage him?” and then turned and called up a smile for Teddy. “Yes, he is. So that means you must always apologize when you hurt someone, because adults have to do it, too, okay?”

            This time, it was Teddy’s intensely skeptical look that made Draco laugh, because Teddy was too obviously thinking of all the other things adults got to do that he didn’t. But he nodded, and then he and Harry went back to their game.

            It wouldn’t be so terrible, after all, having our own children, would it? Draco asked, when several more minutes had passed and the loudest sound was Teddy’s voice, constructing the unicorn’s dialogue, mingled with Harry’s neighs.

            Silence, and then Harry said, in a voice like a caress down the back of Draco’s mind, Not so terrible.

            Draco stretched out and fell asleep, smiling.

*

            Harry jerked his head up. He had been working, as always, at the endless weeding in the greenhouses that Hermione had helped set up. Hermione, who’d been muttering and fiddling to herself on the other side of the bed, looked up at once. “Something wrong?” she asked.

            It took Harry a minute to realize why she was clutching her wand. Most of the time, he only reacted like that if someone was in danger and his winds brought him word.

            He managed to smile at her and rip up the next handful of weeds he had designated as invaders. “Not immediately,” he said. “But a storm is coming from the north, and it’s going to be a huge one. I want to make sure the others are prepared.”

            “I’ll just raise the charms around the greenhouse, and then I’ll follow you,” Hermione said, with a quick nod.

            Harry used a breeze to whisk the weeds away, raised a hand to her, and began trotting into the meadow. He could see the wings of the antelope flickering past overhead, while the riders’ beasts herded them high. In big storms like this, they flew above the clouds, their own magic keeping them able to breathe the thin air, and returned to the earth only when the storm had mostly blown itself out.

            Harry could feel a similar tugging in his own heart. To venture up, to confront the storm on its own ground, as it were, and see if he could ride it.

            But he didn’t have wings, which would have helped him bear some of the brunt, and he couldn’t fly in a group of similarly-sized people, the way both the antelope and the riders could, which would have helped blunt some of the wind’s force. Gather enough riders and beasts together, Harry knew, and they could even soar supported mostly by the bodies on either side of them, without using their wings as much.

            If he flew, though, he would face it alone.

            He shook his head impatiently and cupped his hands around his mouth, calling the winds at the same time to form a narrow tunnel that would channel his words. “A storm coming! From the north, approaching fast, a strong one. Shelter in the houses or in those caves that the riders showed us the other day!”

            The humans were the only ones who really needed the warning, Harry thought, as he began running again, to weave bindings of wind around the tents and other, more fragile structures of the human camp. The mummidade were already trotting, forming together in a circle or pile of bodies that would let them stand up to the wind’s force, their heads and horns turned in towards the center of the circle. The riders were out of sight, and the last shadows of the antelope following them. Left to itself except for gaping humans, the meadow grass began to bend.

            Harry turned sharply as he felt the brooding stir in the north, and heard the sudden shriek of gathering air. The storm had felt as if it was at least half an hour away, and now it seemed that it would overcome the meadow in ten minutes at the most.

            “Run!” he shouted, his tame winds broadcasting his voice all over the meadow.

            That at least shook them out of their stupefied staring. Draco came out of their tent with Teddy in his arms, and passed him off to Andromeda, at the entrance of their silver house. Andromeda fixed them both with a single stern glance that could have meant anything before she turned and disappeared inside. George and Percy and Angelina followed her, with Bill and Fleur and Victoire and Molly and Arthur already safely inside their own houses. Harry glanced around, searching for Ron and Hermione and Charlie.

            You know that they should be smart enough to find shelter by now, Draco said, placing one hand on Harry’s left shoulder.

            Well, you should have been, too. Harry gave him a strong push in the direction of Andromeda’s house, which held the people most sympathetic to him right now. He sighed in relief as he saw Ron hauling Hermione away from the greenhouses, with Charlie hard on their heels.

            I want to know why you’re waiting.

            Harry hesitated. He hadn’t really realized he was; if someone had asked him a second ago, he would have said that he was only trying to make sure everyone would make it to shelter in time. But now he stood there, and the winds billowed around him, and the north grew stern and dark, and he found his legs seemingly rooted in place.

            “Maybe it has something to do with being the gateway?” he said aloud, confident Draco could hear him with the wind on his side. “I feel compelled to watch the wild magic and the way it manifests?”

            “Maybe Bodiless could do that,” Draco said grimly, pulling at his arm. “It couldn’t exactly be hurt by the storms. But you have a human body, no matter how much power is in it, and you have to come on.”

            Harry followed the pull, but he couldn’t help the reluctance in his legs, or the weight that seemed to have settled in his belly, trying to anchor him to the plains. He tilted his head back and squinted at the sky. The blue had darkened to a color he had never seen before, not merely purple but overcome with livid veins of purple. Bruise-like, Harry thought.

            Draco followed his gaze, and snarled. Yes, yes, it’s different in summer, they told us so, he said, and shoved Harry so hard towards Andromeda’s house that Harry stumbled. Will you come?

            A wind curled down from that purple-stained piece of sky, and Harry recognized the magic that powered it. Not Bodiless, not exactly, he told the first frightened leap of his heart, but something similar, something powerful and hostile and self-willed. It would hurt them if it touched them.

            Draco yanked again.

            Harry ran beside him, but he kept his head turned up towards that piece of sky. The wind reaching towards them had wavered as if it had lost track of them, and now it whisked up and down, waving like a ragged banner in the wind. Harry was starting to wonder. What if the storm wasn’t one force, layer of power wrapped on top of layer of power, as he had thought before, but really all separate layers, and most of them didn’t know what the rest were doing?

            If that was true, he might be able to divide them, pull them apart, and lessen the power of the storm by draining its magical strength.

            “Harry!”

            Draco yelled it in his ear. Harry startled and shoved Draco ahead of him. He stumbled through the entrance of Andromeda’s silver house and disappeared inside.

            Harry stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. Two winds under his control dodged down and blocked the entrance of the house, forming a flexible, invisible, indestructible wall that at once prevented anything from entering and anyone from leaving.

            “Harry!” Draco shouted again from inside.

            I’ll be all right, Harry said down the bond. I’m the only one the storm can’t really hurt. But I have to see whether it’s possible to make it less strong. That would protect us in the future.

            And he turned around, reached up to the purple-stained air and the breezes he could sense wandering around it, and yanked.

            There came a shriek, and winds reached down towards him.

            Harry laughed and hurled himself up from the ground, into the heart of the storm.

*

            Sasunarufan13: George doesn't really want to live the rest of his short life in unbearable pain, now. ;)

            Draco and Harry are both relieved that other people are stepping up to lead. Though, as you point out, if Harry hadn't been so eager to take over the leadership position, it might not have been as necessary.

            SP777: The Tssisid are flying serpents. They don't have legs. But they behave like birds, yes.

            I'm not sure I understand your question about Draco.

            Andromeda's houses have stood up to storms before.
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Here to Live and Die