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Reap the Hurricane	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 11499 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Nine—Memories of Blood

            Harry was bent down the next morning, flattening the grass for another greenhouse with the help of his winds, when he saw a stranger approaching. She had just come down the side of one of the small foothills that led up to the great mountains their camp sheltered under, and now she ran towards them across the flat earth they had laid their houses in, her eyes wide and her robes billowing behind her.

            Harry straightened up and stared. He had no idea who she was, and although he knew that she must have come through the gate, that only made him all the more cautious. He filled his hands with wind and went out to meet her. Most of the Weasleys were on the other side of the camp this morning, helping Hermione sort through the seeds they would plant or trying to find another trace of the white creatures, and none of them would have noticed her yet.

            The woman slid to a stop in front of him. Harry twitched his head to the side so that she could see his scar under his fringe and kept walking. He wondered if she had seen the display of his wandless magic near the gate to Hurricane. Perhaps so. She might fear him.

            But, on the other hand, she must be desperate if she had left her people to come here in the first place. The groups had scattered widely the moment they were through the gate, keeping apart from each other. Harry nodded to her and said, as soon as he was close enough not to shout and not to need the wind to carry his voice, “What’s your name?”

            The woman stopped and swallowed. She had a wand in her hand, so pale that Harry thought the wood must be birch. Her eyes went over his shoulder into the camp, then returned to him. She was a tall woman with white hair and grey eyes, but someone less like Malfoy could scarcely be imagined.

            “I need help,” she said softly. “We all need help. My name—my name is Hetty Primrose, and you’re the first wizards I’ve seen in days.”

            Harry stood still, and let Primrose’s breathing calm down. “I’m Harry Potter,” he said. “Most of my friends are here with me. Won’t you come with me to find them?” He turned, and lifted his hand as he did, sending a wind spiraling away to lock onto Teddy and surround him. If Primrose represented any sort of danger, then at least she wouldn’t be able to strike at Harry’s godson without alerting him.

            “I hoped that,” Primrose whispered, treading behind him close enough to catch her shoes on Harry’s. “I hoped that I would find you. You stood against the Dark Lord. Maybe you can stand against this—beast.”

            Harry inclined his head, but said nothing. He wanted Primrose to only tell her story once. He thought that was all she had the strength for.

*

            “I can conjure food that tastes like plain bread and not sawdust,” Draco said calmly. He had found that it paid to sit on the ground during arguments and look up at the person standing over him. That used their advantage of height against them, rendering them more ridiculous in the eyes of the people watching.

            His father would never have consented to abandon his pride like that. But there was a reason his father had never come to Hurricane.

            “That doesn’t matter,” said the werewolf Weasley, rubbing his face and turning away from Draco. “We need meat. Fresh meat. And conjured food is never going to taste the same as something newly killed. I want fish, not fish that tastes like bread.”

            Delacour-Weasley rose slowly to her feet from where she had been sitting, like Draco, with a pile of seeds in front of her, gathered on her gown. She approached her husband and laid her hand along his shoulder. “You can be quiet for a little while, Bill,” she said gently. “I ‘ave some dried strips of meat in my packs, and I know ze spells to soften them—”

            “It’s not the same!”

            As Weasley broke away from her and walked across the grasslands, Draco knew that he wasn’t the only one trading glances back and forth. He had thought this particular Weasley bore scars on his face and perhaps his soul, not that he had the lycanthropic infection. Draco had been sure they would leave that behind when they went through the portal; no registered werewolves could travel to other worlds. Potter must have had a struggle to get Teddy through, given his father.

            “We can’t catch the creatures yet.” It was Granger as voice of reason, the way she had become more often in the last few days. Draco was at least glad to see that she would stand up and do her part when Potter began to withdraw himself from participating in the Weasleys’ concerns at every breath. “We need more experience in hunting them. Bill, if you want to take an expedition out and try to find one—”

            “And then Harry would just make us refrain from hurting them anyway,” the werewolf interrupted, shaking his head and giving a dry laugh that reminded Draco forcibly of Fenrir Greyback’s. “Why try that?”

            “Because we can’t afford to have someone going off and searching the grasslands himself, without backup,” Granger said steadily. “If nothing else, how are you going to find your way back? You don’t have Harry’s ability with the winds to make them lead you here.”

            That at least got through to the Weasley, who paused for a while, then snorted. “Fine. But I want to know that someone is going to do something about our lack of meat, not put it off.” And he flopped down beside his wife to count and sort seeds.

            Granger exhaled in a shaky way, and turned around to find Draco watching her. At once she flushed and turned back to the seeds with extra violence. Draco wondered what she thought. That he despised her for not putting Weasley down more forcefully? Of course not. People who had grown accustomed to someone pampering them would object for a while to the idea that they were now expected to take care of themselves.

            “We have a guest.”

            That was Potter. Draco looked up quickly, feeling the thrum of wild magic between and through his bones. Potter it was, but a stranger behind him, a woman in long grey robes that made Draco think of how bulky they would be as she struggled through the grass. And yes, she bore rents in them and dirt on the hem.

            The werewolf wandered back as the woman took a deep breath and said, “I’m Hetty Primrose. We were—we were setting up camp in the hills to the north, where we found a large creek of water. It was hard to protect ourselves from the winds, but we worked together, and we did pretty well.”

            She cast an agonized glance at Potter. He took a step forwards, and as if that was protection, the words burst out of her in the next instant.

            “I’m the only one left. A huge bird came down from the sky and—” She shut her eyes. “The tents we had were no protection against it. It burst the wards. It snatched up the goats and chickens we had in one claw and used the other and its beak to kill everyone it could. I only survived because I was digging a grave for Mr. Clay, who’d already died, and I was down in the grave and it didn’t see me.” She wrapped her hands hard around the sleeves of her robe, and then she looked at them. “I d-don’t know what anyone can do about the bird, but I came here to find out if there was something.”

*

            Harry felt the weight in his belly change its nature. Now it felt as if he were carrying a bowl of water, and he knew that he would have to do something about this. He hadn’t wanted to hurt the bird in case it was an intelligent creature, but if it had slaughtered one whole group of wizards, maybe even bigger than theirs, there was nothing to stop it from coming after Teddy. And his friends.

            He caught Malfoy’s eye. He could understand the reason that Bill was looking almost gleeful; he wanted to hunt the animals on Hurricane, not accept them as sentient beings. But why had Malfoy stood up and watched Primrose as though he assumed there was something in her story that was specific only to him?

            Harry dismissed the idea and turned back to Primrose. What mattered most was getting other facts she might not know she knew. “What did the bird look like?”



            “It blotted out the sky,” she whispered, and closed her eyes. If she had walked on foot from the encampment, Harry thought—and she would have had to do that some of the way, looking for signs of human habitation, instead of just Apparating and hoping—then she would have had time to put her memories together and step through the first moments of shock. “It had brown feathers on some parts of its body, white and black on the others. And it used the wind. I remember feeling pinned to the ground, and I thought it was just fear, but I really think that it was sending wind through the camp, and making people stay down so it could strike at them.”

            Harry nodded. That fit with his memory of the great bird as a creature that could wield the wind as a weapon, and it increased his suspicion that he would need to be one of the ones who hunted it. Only those with wandless magic of their own, probably, would be able to stand equal to it. “How long ago did this happen?”

            “Five days.” Primrose started playing with the sleeves of her robe again, then dropped them limply and took a breath so shaky that Harry could hear tears in the back of it. “I al-always thought it would know it missed me and come back, but I didn’t see it again while I was walking.”

            “Which direction did it go in?” Malfoy interrupted. Harry nodded to him. It was a practical question that he hadn’t thought to ask himself.

            “What directions does this world have?” Primrose snapped, and then paused and answered herself. “Towards the setting sun. It was at s-sunset that it attacked, too.”

            Harry nodded to her in turn and opened his mouth to ask another question, but Molly stepped past him and wrapped her arm around Primrose. “You can interrogate her later,” she told Harry, firmly but gently. “Can’t you see that she’s about to sit down in the grass from exhaustion? She needs something to eat before she leads you to the bird.”

            “I can’t go back,” Primrose said, mouth twitching and face pale. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but I can’t. Please.”

            Molly looked shocked, but Harry knew what that meant. “No one was going to ask you to,” he said quietly. “I promise. We want to know what damage the bird caused, and where it went, and how it fought. But then you can stay here. And you’ll be able to rest and recover with us, I promise.”

            Whether it was because he was Harry Potter or because of the multiple promises, Primrose seemed to believe him. She leaned on Molly’s shoulder and whispered, “Then let me finish the story. I can rest later, and r-right now I want to get it out.”

            Molly sighed, but supported her. Primrose talked on, about how the bird had come from the west and made multiple passes to be sure that everyone in the camp was dead, then gulped the bodies down its crop. Harry raised his eyebrows. When he caught Malfoy’s gaze, he nodded, and the magic flowing between them grew thick.

            That might mean the bird had nestlings. Of course, perhaps it wanted to save the food for later, for itself, but it did attack and return in the same direction, and there was no real reason for it to do that if it had no territory; it could just as easily have flown east. They would find it by hunting that way, Harry thought, and Malfoy moved towards him and stood next to him in response to the certainty in his bones.

            “I hid,” Primrose whispered. “There was so much death, and noise. I heard them all screaming. The bird swept up and down. I thought it would get its wings tangled in our tents, but it blew them all over. Except o-one that it went right through.”

            The certainty inside Harry, and beside him, grew deeper. Yes, that sounded like a bird with wild magic in its wings, able to simply sweep around obstacles if it wanted to.

            “I don’t know why it didn’t see me.” Primrose had her sleeves knotted so fiercely that Harry thought they would be tatters by morning. “I don’t think it h-has a good sense of smell. It snatched all of them and rose up, and it didn’t leave anything behind. But it didn’t touch the crops we’d planted.” She closed her eyes and stood there, then snapped them open again as if she was too horrified to face what was behind it.

            “It’s a meat-eater,” Malfoy said, though Harry knew that was to tell the rest of them, and not because Harry hadn’t already figured it out himself. “All right. How long did you wait before coming out of hiding?”

            “The rest of the day.” Primrose shielded her eyes this time. Harry thought she was looking west, but it was hard to tell when her face was in shadow like that. “I didn’t know what else to do when I came out but to start walking. Someone said you were here.” She looked at Harry with that complete faith that he’d hated when people showed it in the wizarding world. “I knew you could do something about it.”

            Harry checked the impulse to argue, because she was probably right in this case, and nodded. “I’ll try.”

            Molly bustled Primrose away, and Harry turned back to face the arguments that were rising from the Weasleys. Charlie thought he should go, and that Harry should take him with him, since Charlie had experience in capturing dragons. Bill was all in favor of a new source of meat, and ignored the way that Fleur tried to remonstrate with him. Hermione reminded everyone that the birds could be as intelligent as the white goat-like creatures had seemed to be, but was roundly ignored. Ron said simply that they needed to take care of the bird, but he thought it was too dangerous for Harry to go right now. It was several days since the bird had destroyed Primrose’s encampment, he pointed out, and it was probably hungry again by now.

            Harry cast a glance to the side when Ron said that, and yes, Malfoy was standing there, his face as bright as the first time Harry had seen Hurricane’s sun.

            “But I won’t be alone,” Harry said. “And Malfoy flies as well as I do, and he has magic as deadly.” The words came out of him as if he knew that, as if he had thought them before, though he was certain that he hadn’t. But he fell back a step and gestured to Malfoy with a raised hand, for all the world as if he were presenting him before the Wizengamot.

            The faint flush on Malfoy’s cheeks showed that he felt the force of that comparison. But he lifted his hands and assumed the position of a bow for a moment, his eyes half-shut. Then he jerked, and Harry turned his head, along with everyone else; the performance had been so convincing that they couldn’t help looking for the flight of an invisible arrow.

            Only Harry, he thought, and perhaps Teddy, felt the way that arrow actually rose and flew. And Teddy was too young to tell anyone what he felt, if he did.

            The force plowed into the ground, flattening the already short grass here and creating a furrow that reminded Harry of the one the bird’s talons had made when it came to get him that evening a fortnight ago. He whistled appreciatively and clapped his hands. Malfoy turned his head to look at him, and Harry felt for a moment as if they were alone, the way they had been the other day, hovering high above the earth.

            Bill broke the spell. “Can you be sure that that’s enough to slaughter the bird?” he demanded of Malfoy.

            “I cut one of its claws off before,” Malfoy said, his voice high and the flush retreating down his cheeks. “And that was the first time I used my magic, before I understood what it could really do. I just reached out and flailed around, and what I wanted happened. I think that’s enough proof that I can do more now, when I have the magic under control and I shape my imagination around it.”

            Or the other way about, Harry thought, and Malfoy again turned to look at him as if he had heard the silent thought.

            “We don’t know that this is the same bird,” Hermione interrupted. “It could be larger, stronger. Primrose never said that she noticed a broken claw on its foot.”

            “We’re still ready to face it,” Harry said, absurdly calm. No visions of Teddy hunted by the bird while he was away would come to mind; the thought sat on the surface of his mind for a moment and then sank down into the pool. “You know we can do it, don’t you, Malfoy?” A struggle to call him that, to not just leave off the name altogether and seek the sky in his company right now.

            “We can,” Malfoy said, and walked towards him, facing the Weasleys. Harry realized the unfortunate implications of that a moment later, as though they were on one side and his family was on the other, but Malfoy was the one who could help Harry bring down this threat. That made him more immediately important than his family’s good opinions. “Will you lend us the brooms?”

            He was looking at Ginny as he said that, treating her cordially as being in charge. Harry couldn’t help beaming at him for that. Malfoy’s eyes half-lidded, but he didn’t flush, just kept his eyes on Ginny and his silence as he waited for her answer.

            Harry glanced back at her. “Will you?” he asked. “I promise that we’ll bring them back safely.” If nothing else, he and Malfoy could send the brooms to the ground, out of harm’s way, and then dance on the winds the way that Malfoy had shown he could the other day.

            Ginny sighed and looked around in a way that said she would have liked to vanish into the still-long grass on this side of the camp and escape the staring eyes. But she nodded. “I think you’ll do the best job hunting the bird, if it has to be hunted,” she said.

            Harry darted forwards and shook her hand. He would have kissed her cheek, but there was more than one person around him who would interpret that gesture wrongly. “Thank you,” he said, and then turned and ran towards the place where the brooms were kept. Malfoy was beside him, and Harry knew without asking that he would keep up and they could run and fight and cast as one being.

            It was insanely satisfying.

*



            Draco sucked with greed at the sensation inside him, the one that said he was connected to Potter, that he could do anything as long as Potter was there beside him.

            It was something he’d never felt before. His father had sometimes spoken of it when he cast next to other Dark wizards, and his mother when she was young and worked with one of her sisters. They had said that it was addictive, dangerous: dangerous to be that dependent on someone else, that anxious to have their good opinion.

            Draco thought, as they swung their legs over their brooms at the same time and leaped into the long slow twilight, that his experience must be different from his parents’. He didn’t want or need Potter’s good opinion. He knew he already had it.



What he wanted was the sureness that someone was fit to hunt beside him, and he knew Potter was. The image of Potter spinning in the embrace of the winds, flying without a broom, from the other day came back to him, in colors as vivid as if it were happening at the moment.

That only confirmed Draco’s idea that the wild magic was changing them in ways beyond the obvious, and that they would soon be better than human.

He wanted to share it with Potter, but refrained. For one thing, Potter probably knew, if the way he slanted a look at Draco was any indication. And for another, they had something more important to talk about.

            “How are you going to kill the bird?” Draco asked.

            “I was thinking that I could break the wind out from under it while you cut off its wings.”

            Draco smiled. It hurt his lips. “A simple matter. But the bird might not hold still for long enough to make it simple.”

            “Then we deal with flying blood,” Potter said, and hitched himself sideways on his broom. Draco wondered if it should have made him nervous, Potter sitting like that as the brooms hurtled along far above the ground, but it didn’t. “A more pressing question is whether we should kill the nestlings as well, if it has them.”

            “We should,” Draco said. “They might starve without their parents at any rate, and we need meat.”

            Potter inclined his head. “You’re not worried any more about them being intelligent?”

            Draco laughed. The wind tore the sound away, but they could hear everything up here, at least as long as they were together. “Less worried than you ever were. I’m worried about the difficulty of killing them, and their sentience only concerns me in that they might be the kind of creature who can seek vengeance.”

            Potter hesitated, then inclined his head. “I think you’re right—”

            “Of course I am.”

            “Well need to hunt them and then worry about bringing the meat back and testing it for safety reasons later,” Potter finished.

            “I think the werewolf might want to eat it without even checking it for poison,” Draco noted.

            He had meant the eldest Weasley, but Potter’s winds yanked at him hard enough to make his trousers billow. Then Potter said, in pained tones, “Teddy is not a werewolf.”

            “I meant the one with the scars on his face,” Draco said. “And he’s doing an excellent acting job if he isn’t.”

            That produced a thoughtful silence, and then they both looked up at the same time. Draco felt it: something gigantic moving through the winds of Hurricane, against the wild magic, something with power and ferocity of its own.

            Something like them.

            He flicked a single glance at Potter. Potter flicked one back.

            And then they rose, and flew after it together.

*

            moodysavage: Thanks! Really, Harry was just upset at feeling like he’s being forced to deal with everything, and Malfoy also interrupted his private time.

            RRose: Definitely, Harry’s relationship with Malfoy is different from his relationship with anyone else in the camp.

            unneeded: All the answers to those questions are ones that they’re going to try and find out.

            Silverkitten: They also don’t like that he’s there mostly because of Harry rescuing him, and that he refuses to go elsewhere now that he’s healed.

            Asami_Akihito: Thank you! I’m glad that you find the number of characters fascinating instead of boring.
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Reap the Hurricane