Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Wondrous Lands and Oceans	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10108 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Chapter Seven—With This Hand

            Harry immediately looked at the wrist of the hand, even as he used his winds to pluck it gingerly from the water and hold it up in front of his eyes. Yes, it looked as though something had gnawed it off, the way he had thought. There was bone sticking out from the wrist, and slivers of mangled flesh.

            “How can you stand to look that closely at it?” Draco mumbled behind him.

            Harry blinked and looked at him. Draco stood with his arms wrapped firmly around himself and his eyes closed, his mind so thick with disgust that Harry reached out and ran a hand down his arm from his shoulder. Draco had killed well enough since they came here, he thought, but seeing a human dead was something else again.

            “We have to know how they died,” Harry said quietly. “And who they were, if that’s possible. Not one of Primrose’s group or ours, but that’s all we can say right now.” He turned the hand over, and then shook his head. He had hoped there might be a tattoo on the wrist, or a ring, or something else, but any evidence like that had been worn away by the water or the teeth of the creature that had killed it.

            “You’re so casual.”

            Harry touched Draco’s shoulder again, trying to ground him by rubbing back and forth, although he had to admit that Draco had a reason to flinch away from him as long as the hand was nearby. “Just practical,” he said. “Just trying to find out. The more we know about this person, the better we can keep our own people out of danger.” He crouched down and studied the beach again. “Did you find lying it here, or was it bobbing in the water?”

*

            Draco had to clear his throat several times before he could respond. He didn’t know how Harry could stand it, to hold the hand of someone who had been living a short time before, and look casually around the beach for some sign of what had caused it, instead of running away to vomit.

            Then he reminded himself that Harry was holding the hand with wind and not his own hands, and that helped him turn around and come up with the memory of how he had seen the hand in the first place, and what he had done when he realized what it was.

            “It was in the waves,” he murmured, nodding to a place where the water curled up to the edge of the beach. Harry immediately walked over to study it. Draco shuddered and told himself that Harry was not going to fall in and drown, or fall victim to whatever had eaten the person whose hand they’d found. “Caught against a rock. It looked like it’d been there for a long time.”

            “Not with the dried blood on it,” Harry pointed out in a distracted tone, his eyes on the sky now, instead of the sea. Draco didn’t know why, when the most dangerous creature they had seen since coming here was definitely a water-dweller, but Harry’s mind flashed images of birds back at him. “That wouldn’t last with the waves battering it back and forth. The blood would flake and come off eventually in the water.”

            Draco grimaced, but nodded. “Then it was the color that made it look as though it had been there for a long time. At first, I didn’t believe it was real. I thought it was some form the wild magic might have taken to batter our minds into submission.”

            Harry hummed beneath his breath. “The wild magic on Hurricane doesn’t work like that, I don’t think,” he said, leaning forwards and bringing his face closer to the waves than Draco was comfortable with. “It wants to change people, but it also wants them to use it, and it wants new creatures to be born. It would destroy people riding the storm out of carelessness, but not because it was malicious.”

            Draco rolled his eyes. “Clearly you’re the expert. My mistake.”

            “I think I know a lot about wild magic when I’ve wielded it since before we got here.” Harry turned around and stared at him.

            “That was Earth wild magic, not Hurricane’s.” Draco stepped closer to him, his hands clenching with the impulse to reach out and punch or claw the smirk off Harry’s face. “Don’t you understand? We’re at the mercy of the wild magic here, and it could do whatever it likes. That’s why so many wizards have hated it in the past and decided that they would rather use wand magic even though it meant that they’d never be as powerful. They couldn’t stand the threat of what would happen if the wild magic worked on their minds.”

            “Why are you angry at me?” Harry whispered. The winds around him seemed to carry the sound further than they should, and Draco laughed hysterically, hoping they would do the same thing with that sound, too.

            “Because I’m frightened, Harry,” he said flatly. “And you’re looking at this as if it’s just another mystery, like the ones you solved at Hogwarts, when to me, it means someone died and the same thing could happen to us.”

            Harry blinked, once, and then nodded. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I just thought—we’ve faced death already, and you didn’t react like this when it was the snake-shark. I thought you wouldn’t be bothered by finding someone’s hand, either. Hurricane has killed so many of the people who came here.”

            “I didn’t find the bodies of the people Primrose was talking about,” Draco said. “And this is a hand. And I don’t think the shark-snake ate this person, because I saw its mouth. It wouldn’t leave this small a part of the body behind.”

            Harry paused. Then he said, “You’re right. Unless the hand came so near the shore that it couldn’t follow without beaching itself?” He turned around and looked at the slope of the sand up to the beach as though trying to estimate how much water the snake-shark would need to thrash its way back out to sea.

            “I don’t know,” Draco said. “I think it might try, and its fins might let it fly in.” He didn’t really want to talk about this anymore. He wrapped his arms around his chest again and turned away, feeling extremely cold.

            At once, Harry was there, wrapping his arms around Draco’s waist in return and murmuring into his ear. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how much it was upsetting you to hear me talk like that. I’m sorry.”

            Draco was silent, although he smoothed his hands around Harry’s arms and sent back a pulse of acknowledgment so that Harry would know he’d accepted his apology. But he couldn’t help asking, “How can you treat it so casually? I know death frightens you. The first thing you thought of when Primrose came and told us about the bird killing her people was that the bird might kill Teddy.”

            “I’ve seen enough of it that it doesn’t bother me the way it does other people,” Harry mumbled. “And the rest—well, yeah, anything that happens to Teddy bothers me. Or anything that happens to you. I just didn’t see that this time, I was the one causing you to feel bad.”



            That didn’t constitute an answer as far as Draco was concerned, but Harry had fought a war and been willing to abandon the wizarding world for the sake of living in a wild, dangerous, magical world with no guarantee that he would survive past a few weeks. Perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that he was a bit fucked-up.

            Harry laughed into his ear and stepped away from him. “That’s a better explanation than any I’ve come up with for myself,” he said. “Now, can you stand to help me look around for the body, or would you rather stay here?”

            Draco swallowed again to calm his stomach, and nodded. “I’ll come with you,” he murmured. “I would rather be with you if we find trouble.”

            Harry leaned in and kissed him, light and fast but no less a salute for all that. “Thank you,” he whispered against his lips. “Let’s take to the air. I think we’ll see the patterns of the currents better from there, and unless the killer was a bird, then we can defend ourselves better against hunters.”

            Draco nodded. He was happy to let Harry take charge for the moment. He was limp and shaking still, and he had to keep his eyes turned away from the hand as they took off.

            But Harry didn’t try to reproach him for it. He did glance back at Draco from time to time, to make sure that he was resting comfortably on the wind, and Draco could smile at him and let him know the effort was understood and appreciated.

*

            Harry bent his head and stared at the large rocks that guarded the entrance to the beach, then sighed. It seemed he would have to give up hope that the killer hadn’t come from the sea. A snake-shark could fly over those rocks, and so could a wizard on a broom, but he could see signs of approach on the stone, where a person with two feet had climbed over.

            A person with two feet, Draco said to him, the words stinging and leaping like lightning.

            The mummidade are people too, but they have four feet, Harry said, studying the marks. It looked as though someone had walked on the rocks for a pretty good distance, from a sandbar that lay off the island’s north shore. There were little scores and dints in the stone, and small white marks that might come from someone’s hands scrambling for a hold. Harry did wonder why the wizard hadn’t used some spell to make the journey easier, but perhaps this was as well as they could have done without a broom.

            You don’t make much distinction between us and them. You can accept them as people.

            Harry looked up, blinking, and turned his head, even though he already knew how Draco looked hovering behind him from the pressure of the wind against his body. There was another of those undercurrents in Draco’s mind and words that he didn’t comprehend. What do you mean? Of course I can accept that they have intelligence and we’re allied with them. After the ceremony we watched them perform, I think we can acknowledge that they love their children, too.

            Wizards wouldn’t think of magical creatures like that, back on Earth. Draco met his eyes deliberately. But you were always more open to house-elves and centaurs than most wizards I knew back on Earth. And that half-giant.

            Harry shrugged with his shoulder high. He hated thinking about Hagrid, who had begged Harry not to leave, tears streaming down his face. Harry had asked Hagrid to come with him to Hurricane, but they couldn’t have got Ministry permission for all his creatures, and Hagrid wouldn’t leave them. It’s probably just because I didn’t grow up in the wizarding world and absorb all that nonsense about them.

            Draco said something else, but Harry didn’t hear it. His head had snapped up and to the side.

            At all times, he kept a cocoon of scouting winds rippling around him, seeking out information in a steadily widening spiral. Back in camp, they would keep an eye on Teddy and Andromeda and let him know if there was anyone in danger or an unusual scent coming from anywhere. But so far, they had told him nothing about the sea that he had not noticed for himself, and he had almost ceased to pay attention to what they said, even though he kept them moving.

            Now, they told him of a broom’s magic somewhere over the sea to the north.

            Someone is coming, Draco said, and Harry honestly wasn’t sure whether he had made his mind up about that from watching the expression on Harry’s face or if he’d snatched the edges of the thought from Harry’s mind.

            Yes, they are, Harry said, and turned to the side, balancing against the wind, as he felt what the air was telling him. Coming closer and closer, instead of flying further away, which he thought likely if they had spotted him and Draco. Do you think you could conjure the illusions of brooms beneath us?

            Astonishment from Draco was bursting white and gold, edged with small sharp shapes like arrows that struck to the sides of Harry’s vision. Why? What good would it do?

            Because it would reassure them that we are flying with brooms, and not on our own, Harry said, half-cautious. He had thought Draco would agree immediately, and he turned to face him again, although his attention remained on the broom drawing near.

            Why should we hide our wild magic? Let them see how well we’ve adapted to Hurricane. It might make them more likely to want to join us, if they see that we can resist the influences of the storms.

            I don’t want to frighten them, Harry said softly, head still twisted. There was a panting silence from that direction now. The magic waited, but it had stopped moving. The rider probably had seen something that frightened them, Harry thought. Perhaps they would flee now, and Harry would lose track of them.

            They can bloody well deal with the reality that we live with.

            Harry glanced at Draco. That sounded more serious than he had expected Draco to be about the issue. But he was floating with his arms crossed and his emotions still diving and swooping around his mind, which Harry had to accept meant that he was serious, he reckoned.

            “Maybe they can,” he said. “Would it be such a big deal to conjure the illusion for them right now, though, and get them used to the other things we can do later?”

            Yes.

            Harry half-smiled. Draco was making a point by speaking to him through the bond at the moment rather than aloud, and not a subtle one.

            All right, he said. The winds had told him the broom had begun to move again, the bristles scraping against the breeze, riding them, stirring them, irritating the wild magic that danced on Hurricane with the assumption of wizardly control over its power. Harry wondered if Draco had done that before he acquired his own magic. Or perhaps some of the people they had left behind in the camp were doing it still. Then we should at least try to face them and look as welcoming as possible.

            There were a number of wordless uncomplimentary mutters in the back of his head at that, but at least Draco let his folded arms fall to his sides. Harry nodded and faced the newcomer, noting with one part of himself that Draco’s disgust and revulsion at the sight of the hand had faded entirely. He had no dislike of welcoming someone who might be a threat to them, as long as they were alive.

            As long as we are together.

            Harry reached out without looking and sent a breeze to ruffle Draco’s hair. Draco’s claws sliced apart the air beneath him in retaliation, and Harry tumbled several meters before the next wind caught him. It had happened too quickly for him to feel fear. He ended up shaking his head at Draco and facing the distant broom instead, his hands closed into tight little fists at his sides.

            The broom appeared, and Harry squinted. It looked as though only a single wizard rode it, though it was one with black robes whipping so hard around it that Harry found it difficult to tell how big the person was, if they were male or female, and how old they were. The broom pulled up immediately at the sight of them, as Harry had thought would happen.

            For long moments, they sat there. Harry silently called some of the loose winds to him and set them rotating between his palms so that he could get a better glimpse of the figure. A woman, almost certainly, sitting so straight on the broom that it made Harry’s own spine ache. Long grey hair hung down her back, and her hands were straining around the broom. Harry got the impression that she wasn’t a very good or natural flyer, and he wondered why her encampment had sent her out to look for whoever had died.

            She might be the only one they have left.

            Harry nodded in response to Draco’s assessment, and that seemed to decide the woman. She flew cautiously closer, her eyes snapping from one to the other of them in a way that reminded Harry of McGonagall. Lucky that there were no points to take or detentions to assign here.

            Teddy will never go to Hogwarts.

            Harry had known that before, of course he had, but it still struck him more strongly than it had. He swallowed hard. The woman seemed to note it, eyes narrowing in thought before she leaned forwards along her broom and spoke.

            “Who are you?”

            Draco’s mind glowed again, and Harry gestured once, silently pulling him up to Harry’s eye level. Draco touched his hair, which billowed, and the woman’s eyes widened in recognition. “Draco Malfoy, at your service,” Draco said, with the shady drawl that Harry had thought he’d left behind.

            Shady? came the word like a flung bomb from Draco’s mind.

            I can think what I want, at least, Harry thought back, and gave the woman a resigned smile, brushing back his fringe to show his own recognizable symbol. “Harry Potter,” he added. He grimaced as the woman’s eyes rolled back in her head and she nearly slumped off the side of her broom, setting up quick walls around her to catch her if she fell.

            You can’t think what you want without me objecting to it.

            Harry snorted. Good thing that I never mentioned that as a condition, did I?

            The woman had recovered herself by now, and she drew the broom closer. The wind whispered to Harry about how easy it would be to block its flight, to hold it, and her, at a distance. Harry tightened the grooves the wind ran in and nodded to the woman. “What is your name?”

            “You wouldn’t know it,” she said, never moving her eyes from his scar. Harry dropped his hand, and his fringe swished back into place, but that didn’t alter her gaze. Harry’s eyes were starting to water from the sheer effect of being stared at.

            “Be familiar with it? No. Know it now? No.” Harry offered her a temperate smile. “But that’s no reason not to tell us.”

            The woman said nothing, now studying the way he hovered on the air as though she assumed he had an invisible support she would be able to cut. Harry felt a feral shiver travel through him, but didn’t know if it originated in him or Draco.

            Kill her.

            That was Draco’s voice, not the voice of the wild magic, as Harry had thought it was for one shocked moment. What? He turned his head towards Draco, wanting to see his face, glad of the excuse to look away from the woman’s stare. What in the world—

            Down! Draco cut the wind beneath Harry at the same moment as a curse sizzled towards him from the woman’s wand.

            Harry tumbled, cursing aloud, and yelling silently at Draco that he could have taken care of himself, and that he should leave the mastery of the winds to Harry, and trust that to save Harry next time. But by the time Harry had got control of this fall and soared back up to the height he had been at at first, Draco and the woman were trading fast spells, Draco cutting his winds to fall, the woman adjusting her broom with breathtaking skill. Harry wondered how he could ever have thought she wasn’t a natural flyer.

            Stop wondering and help me!

            Harry started, remembered that Draco could only go lower and not higher without Harry’s help, and returned to the battle with a blast that both lifted Draco like thistledown and bowled the broom over. The woman recovered at once and fired another curse, but Harry was there this time, rising behind Draco, covering them both with a shield of dancing wind, and wondering if they would be able to explore anywhere on Hurricane without immediately stumbling into danger.

*

            Draco would have to be closer to make sure, but he thought he recognized that fighting style, the way the woman swept her arm around to curse them, and in particular the bright purple and green edge to the magic, there and then gone, flaring around the beginnings of her spells, remnants of a curse she had suffered from Aurors during the first war.

            This was Helen Rasatis, a Death Eater like his father when the Dark Lord was first rising. She had claimed to be under the Imperius, and had used up most of her money persuading and bribing the Wizengamot to let her go after that. Draco had never seen her at the Manor when the Dark Lord had his inner circle there save once or twice. She had been out of favor in the second war, he thought, not least because without her money, she was much less useful to the Dark Lord than she had once been.

            She had never been tried after the second war; there were too few witnesses to her activities, whatever they had been. Draco had forgotten about her.

            And here she was, and apparently she still had enough loyalty to the Dark Lord left to try and destroy his destroyer.

            Draco could feel the frustration rising in him, building in him, as he thought about that. They ought to have left the rivalries and frustrations of Earth behind when they came to Hurricane, but they had not. His aunt still hated him, the Weasleys still blamed him, and even he and Harry had had to struggle harder than they should have when the wild magic bonded them.

            But this was the first time he had seen someone hate Harry so fiercely.

            He hated it, in return.

            He lifted his hand, bristling with claws. He wanted to stick them through Rasatis’s body and destroy her that way. He wanted to bring her down. He wanted her to go away and stop bothering them.

            He reached out, his claws flexing, and then Harry was in the way, so suddenly that Draco jerked back, badly startled. Harry shook his head at Draco and caught his arm, cradling him close, while doing something with his other hand that made Rasatis’s broom spin end over end and drop her. Rasatis shrieked in rage, but other winds caught her and held her as if in a net.

            “No,” Harry whispered. “I’m flattered, Draco. I like it that you want to protect me. But we need her alive so we can get answers.”

            Draco shuddered once, and pulled the rage back into him. It helped that Harry was right there, manifestly still alive, his skin warm and his heart beating and his breath tumbling fast and faster out of his lungs. He nodded and leaned his head on Harry’s shoulder.

            “Good,” Harry whispered, and turned to Rasatis.

            Draco followed, silent but for the hammer of his heart, and the echo of Harry’s thoughts in his head. He was going to make the woman pay for nearly destroying them. If he had to leave her alive, he would, but she was going to pay for disturbing his peace.

            And he would enjoy it.

*

            SP777: No, it was just an idea I had when I was trying to imagine a more dangerous version of a shark for Hurricane.

            And it’ll be a while before I write that scene. Harry is still cautious about providing a new sibling for Teddy out of nowhere.

            unneeded: Draco would hate the idea that it would take more than just the two of them to do the dance. Hate it.

…Someone should suggest it to him.
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Wondrous Lands and Oceans