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A Black Stone in a Glass Box	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10351 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Seven—The Silver Horse

            Draco came out in the middle of a landscape that he thought was as unlike the jungle he’d been in as possible. Heat blasted him. He caught his breath and shook his head. If it was hot, then it wasn’t so unlike the jungle.

            But he was in the middle of a barren golden plain that stretched to the horizon in whichever direction he looked, and no matter how he squinted to make something else out, even the distant shimmer of a mirage, he could see nothing.

            Draco looked up and down at the sole landmark in front of him, a great black boulder, and wondered if it contained the creature responsible for guarding the next piece of Potter’s heart. But he saw nothing, no outline of a door or a building. The boulder provided a bit of shade from the hot sun, but it appeared to do nothing else.

            He had to hurry. Potter would be after him in a few minutes at the most. He was half-surprised that he wasn’t already here. But this place was probably far away from the dog’s jungle, Draco thought, and while his spell had brought him here directly, Potter would need a few Apparition hops.

            Because there was no reason not to, and it might reveal something to him, Draco whistled shrilly. “Hello, is anyone there?” he added in as loud a voice as he could when nothing responded to the whistle, making echoes bounce off the boulder.

            No one responded in a human voice, but hoofbeats sounded from behind the boulder. Draco turned his shoulder towards it and drew his wand. Too much to hope that this was a curious antelope attracted by his voice or something.

            Sure enough, the creature, when it came into view, looked as unnatural as the metallic golden bird, or the blocky brown dog. It was a horse made of silver, its hooves sparkling and glowing like the plate that Draco’s parents kept for special guests. Its mane flowed and lapped down its neck like water. Its head had fine, intelligent eyes like tarnished silver that it fixed on him.

            Draco had to smile in spite of himself. Either Potter had good taste in horseflesh, or his magic did. This was a silver Arabian.

            And the minute it saw Draco, it stopped and stared at him. It must have expected Potter, Draco thought. Who else would have a reason to visit this place? Or maybe his voice sounded a little like Potter’s—to the ears of a magical creature, although surely to no one else.

            Draco nodded to the horse. “Hello,” he said, and because they couldn’t simply stand there and stare at each other until Potter arrived, he took the dog’s tooth from his pocket and held it up to see the horse’s response.

            The horse shivered all over, and its muscles rolled like oil beneath its gleaming coat. Then it wheeled and kicked its hooves up sharply. Draco dodged out of the way so it couldn’t hit him.

            It didn’t mean to, though. The next second, while Draco was still recovering from the sand it had tossed in his eyes, the horse had taken off across the desert, fleeing from him, running so fast that Draco didn’t know if he could catch up even with a broom. Draco stared after it, and then down at the tooth, which seemed to have changed shape and weight in his hands.

            Yes, it had. Now it was a dull ivory-colored bridle, with striations down the reins that resembled the grooves Draco would expect to see on a tooth. Draco examined it, and then began to smile.

            So, he didn’t have to wrestle with the horse or kill it, did he? Just catch up with it, bridle it, and ride it. It was no wonder the horse had fled. No need to make the challenge too easy, and there were few wizards who would be able to keep up with its speed.

            But Draco wasn’t one of the many.

            Then there was a blast of thunder behind him, and Draco knew he had stood there too long congratulating himself on his cleverness. He reached down and tapped his wand against his boots without looking behind him, because he had seen anger on Potter’s face plenty of times. He whispered the Hermes Charm.

            Small wings immediately grew from his ankles, and hurled him into the air. It was difficult to control your speed like this, one reason it wasn’t often used, but Draco stood upright and laughed as he flew after the horse. A desert, wide and hot or not, wasn’t much of a challenge when you had done air-skimming over the Pyrenees.

            “Malfoy!”

            “It does me good to hear you so outraged, Potter!” Draco yelled over his shoulder, while the wings on his ankles beat steadily on and lifted and lowered him in a zigzag pattern. It was just something the Charm naturally did, but at the moment, Draco was glad, because it made him more likely to duck any curses Potter sent after him. He leaned to the left, to the right, and spun upside-down a little, because he could.

            He heard a scuffing of dust behind him, and did risk a glance this time, although it meant he had left off looking for the horse ahead of him.

            Yes, Potter had used the Hermes Charm, too. But he obviously didn’t have as much experience with it as Draco did, because he was fighting with the wings and trying to pursue a straight line after Draco, which wouldn’t be possible.

            Satisfied he had gained another few minutes, Draco turned around and searched for a racing shape in the midst of dust. A few minutes might be all he needed, he thought, winding the tooth-colored bridle around his fingers.

            At last, he saw a distant flash ahead, bright enough to nearly blind him, where the sunlight gleamed off the silver flanks of the horse. Draco saluted the sun with the bridle and crouched down, aiming to curve around to the right and get as close as he could before the animal saw him.

            Either it already had, though, or its speed was incredible even compared to the Hermes Charm. It was still running, head bobbing, its tail streaming behind it like the tail of a comet, and as Draco watched, it began to pull away from him.

            “No,” Draco said aloud. “That isn’t going to happen.”

            He looked around for any other sort of landmark, any barrier against which he could corner the horse, and had to admit that it wasn’t likely. Nothing but open land all ahead of him, and whether Potter had found this place or created it with illusions, that meant the horse had plenty of room to run.

            So Draco braced himself and bent down so that he was holding onto the sides of his boots. Around one hand he wrapped the bridle, as tight as it would go, until it felt as if it would draw blood from his wrist; in the other he clutched his wand.

            “Go,” he said aloud, and hurled himself into the tight spin that a friend had discovered, along with the unique effects it had on someone flying with the Hermes Charm.

            Draco spun in place like a corkscrew for a second, and then soared straight up, upside-down, around and around, sky and earth one great kaleidoscope of bright colors. A broom had nothing on it. Draco cursed breathlessly, and then clamped his mouth shut as his stomach nearly rebelled and shot away without him.

            But he came out of the spin in the place he needed to be, above and in front of the horse. For whatever reason, that particular trick made the Hermes Charm go faster than anything else—certainly than most inexperienced wizards still floundering with the magic, and yelling somewhere beneath and behind him.

            And faster, it turned out, than a magical silver horse.

            It hadn’t seen him, Draco judged. It was still tearing towards him, and in a straight line. Draco studied it, then nodded. He had thought there had to be some price the horse paid for its immense speed, and this was it. It couldn’t jig from side to side the way Draco could, the way a normal running horse could. It would just have to go full speed ahead and trust that nothing got in its way.

            Or falling on it.

            Draco measured the distance between them and then bent down and held his hands out in front of him. That made the Hermes Charm react with a dizzying drop. Draco laughed soundlessly, because doing it aloud might result in warning the horse.

            He fell, and fell, and fell. The wind was forcing his eyes almost shut, tearing tears from it that made Draco want to claw at his face. Still he didn’t move, still he didn’t try to break free of the roll, except at the right moment, which he felt the same way a Seeker felt the Snitch drawing closer, and—

            He reached out his hands, and a thick mane, heavy as bolts of cloth of silver, tangled around them. Draco winced a little as his arse came down in the middle of the horse’s spine, but then it was done and he was riding the horse, his legs locking around the barrel, the bridle he needed flapping right next to the head of the beast it was meant to tame.

            The horse went mad.

            Draco had known it would, but he had underestimated what it would be like, probably because the horse was a magical creature and he had learned to ride mortal ones, or at least winged ones. This horse bowed its head and tried to simply roll him over its neck onto the ground. Because of his grip on the mane, Draco wasn’t dislodged, and he clapped his legs to the silver flanks and laughed breathlessly.

            The horse then leaped straight up into the air, coming down on all four legs and rearing before the hooves had touched for more than a second, screaming as it danced on its hind feet, kicking out on the left and then the right, so that most of the time it was poised on only one leg. Draco swore and clung. One of his legs had swung free, and he hastily brought it back to where it should be—

            Just as the horse’s head came around and the giant teeth nearly clamped in his thigh.

            Draco cast sparks from his wand to singe the horse’s mane, and the beast pulled back in that direction and screamed again. At least it had dropped back to all fours, probably because not even a magical creature could pull off the feats of balance it would take to keep from falling. Now, though, it began to bounce, steady and swift, and so jarring that Draco nearly bit through his tongue the first time they came down.

            But at least he had learned something from the experience that made him grin grimly now as he reached for the bridle. The horse was doing all this as the best distraction it could, because the threat Draco represented was real. He only had to get the bridle on, and the horse’s freedom would end.

            Perhaps even its existence. The dog had faded when crushed by a boulder, the bird when its heart stopped; Draco would bet that the horse wouldn’t keep going past the imposition of a will stronger than its own.

            He had ridden through his thoughts and the horse’s continued bouncing without a pause, and now he knotted the bridle in his hands and leaned forwards, straps spread wide. The bridle had a bit, but only a crude one, made of iron and gawky. Draco would have hesitated at the size and roughness of it, but the horse wasn’t real and wouldn’t last long once the thing was in its mouth.

            The horse seemed to catch sight of the bridle from the corner of its eye, and this time it went forwards in a roll, neck aiming for the earth, forelegs folding beneath it as neat as you please.

            Draco turned sideways and hopped into the air, sustained by the wings still on his ankles, and the horse did nothing but jar its own spine as it hit the sand full-on. It whinnied in what sounded like pain and stood up, shaking its head so the mane bounced and sparkled. For a second, those huge shining eyes were staring at nothing.

            Draco dashed at it through the air and tossed the bridle at its head as he passed.

            The straps were around the neck, the reins almost settling into place, the bit snaking towards its mouth—

            And then the horse found its spirit to struggle again. It whirled in circle after circle, hooves waving up and down like the arms of frantically signaling Quidditch coaches. Draco floated on air, able to lift or lower himself instinctively to dodge the kicks, and let it drag him. It would tire out sooner than he would.

            For a moment, its head bowed and it stood still, and Draco thought he might have won. But his instincts, playing full force now, kept him from moving in, and it turned out that was more than a good thing.

            The horse came back up and turned its head, wicked teeth snapping. They missed Draco’s hands as he reeled out of the way again, but they closed on the strap of the bridle, and the horse began to wrench, neck cocked at an accordion-like angle.

            Draco snarled the spell he ought to have used before, but he’d been too caught up in the excitement of chasing the horse and the dream of bridling it and slowing it down. The Stunner caught the horse full in the chest, and for a moment it stood there as though it was too big to fall, or as though it would resist the magic.

            Maybe it would have. Draco never found out. That minute was what he needed to quickly loop the reins into place along the horse’s neck, pry its mouth open, and slide the bit back on the tongue until it wouldn’t fit anymore.

            The horse’s eyes dimmed the moment the bridle settled fully into place. Draco had to admit, as he watched the shine in the glorious coat turn fully tarnished, that he would have preferred a solution that left the horse alive and around to carry him.

            But it was a magical creature in the end, part of the chain ritual, not an independently existing animal. It wavered, and further tarnished, and finally collapsed into a little pile of ashes and metal shavings. Draco knelt down, brushing the strands of the bridle aside, and found two objects in the middle of the pile. One was the silver spoon the horse had presumably been made from.

            The other was a single short silver hair that Draco thought might have come from the forelock. He nodded and tucked it into a safe pouch on his belt.

            “Malfoy.”

            Draco turned around, and blinked. He had thought something must have gone wrong when Potter didn’t follow him.

            Something, it seemed, had. But for him, and not Potter.

            Potter hovered on the air, panting, and stared at him. He was magnificent, more than magnificent, Draco had to admit, with wings beating at the wrists as well as on his ankles—a variation of the spell that most people who used it for a few months discovered, but not those who had just been introduced to it. And if it had taken him this long to catch up to Draco, well, the way he wavered with the wingbeats, instinctively leaning his body in one direction or another, said that he would be more of a challenge now.

            Suddenly Draco wasn’t as sorrowful for the death of the horse, or its fading, or whatever it should be termed. He met Potter’s eyes head on, and smiled, holding out the pouch in which he’d put the horse’s hair.

            “You’ve had your fun,” Potter said, with a deep flash in his eyes that made Draco’s mouth flood with saliva, because of how deep it went and what it signified. “I know that you think you have to ruin everything I set my hand to just because it’s me and that’s what you do, but you don’t. Give me back the hair and we’ll count it as even. And I’ve set up anti-Apparition spells around this place,” he added, before Draco could even speak, “so you ought to know you can’t pull that trick you pulled with the tooth.”

            The “trick” Draco had pulled with the tooth hadn’t been traditional Apparition, but he saw no reason to disabuse Potter of the notion. He held out the pouch again, and nodded. “You really want this back?” he asked in a tone of distant wonder.

            “I do,” Potter said.

            “Then come and get it,” Draco said, and doubled down the way he had when he wanted to catch the horse, and fled for the sky.



*

            polka dot: Maybe an idiot, but an idiot who’s enjoying himself.

            delia cerrano: Harry is already being deeply affected, as you can see.

            Makoto_Sagara: Thanks! I hope you like how he handled the horse, too.

            Harry really has no idea what he’s feeling right now; it’s all chaos. Which he blames on Draco, too.

            moodysavage: And here, too, although he invited Harry to chase him.

            Insanity_FTW: Thanks! At least he’ll have the chance to react as himself.
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A Black Stone in a Glass Box