Chapter Twenty-Four of 'Wondrous Lands and Oceans'- To the Gate
Chapter Twenty-Three.
Title: Wondrous Lands and Oceans (24/about 30)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco, Ron/Hermione, George/Angelina, Bill/Fleur, others possible.
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, angst, bloody animal death, bonding.
Summary: The emigration to the wild magic world of Hurricane is complete, but not the settling-in process. Harry and Draco struggle to solidify both their own bond and their bonds with their family and allies-while setting out on journeys of exploration that prove there is more to Hurricane than storms.
Author’s Notes: This is a sequel to Reap the Hurricane; that one should be read first. This story will probably be somewhere between twenty and thirty chapters long.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Four--Back to the Gate
"She could only have gone in a limited number of directions."
Harry's voice was quiet but intense, and he kept his eyes on his hands as if they were one of Granger's maps. Draco kept quiet himself. He could feel of all of Harry's emotions through the bond, and anyone who might think he was blasé about this was wrong. The hostile stares coming at them from every direction were almost comforting, by now. They couldn't do anything right in the eyes of those who hated them, so they might as well not try.
"That doesn't help." The Dragon-Keeper was chewing one nail. He seemed fonder of Teddy than Draco had realized. Perhaps he felt the same affection for any young thing that could be raised from a hatchling, as he would think of them. "What could help is knowing whether or not she knew the country well enough to Apparate across it to the gate."
Harry looked up. "And you think that's the kind of thing she and I commonly discussed?" He shook his head. "Our main topic of conversation was Teddy."
"Well, someone must have known her well enough," the original Weasley said, pushing thick red hair out of his eyes. He turned to the matriarch. "Mum?"
Mrs. Weasley stared down at her own hands and shook her head. Draco stirred. He was getting tired of that useless, helpless gesture. If no one else took the problem into their hands soon, he would, and he doubted any of them wanted him doing that.
"I knew she wasn't happy here, and that she missed her daughter and husband," Mrs. Weasley whispered. "But most of the time, she seemed resigned to living on Hurricane, and she delighted in Teddy." Draco held back the snort at that pronouncement; he felt the stirring, blurred agreement from Harry, and that was enough to content him. "That doesn't mean I ever thought she would do something like this."
"I don't think anyone anticipated it." Harry's voice was gentle. "It's possible that she's already Apparated to the gate and gone through it. In that case, we can't do anything but go there and rescue Teddy, if he had to remain behind." He stood up. "But I'm going to assume that she hasn't yet, either because she doesn't know the country between there and here well enough, or because she doesn't actually remember where the gate is. My winds can get me there faster."
"You know where it is?" Draco tilted his head back to watch Harry's face. He knew the answer already, of course, thanks to the bond, but he asked the question aloud for the benefit of the Weasleys. See? I can be kind. "It let us all out into the middle of a featureless plain. Why should you have any more luck finding it than she could?"
"The winds will tell me the sources of all the wizarding magic on Hurricane, if I wanted to ask them," Harry said. "It feels different from the wild magic. They'll take me back to the gate, especially since they would probably be most familiar with it. It's the point where wizarding magic first showed up on this world." And yes, you're kind, and smug with it. Shut up.
"Wait, wait, wait." Granger stood up. "You mean that you could allow us to find other villages, or camps, that people have set up? Harry, that's wonderful. All we would have to do is wait for someone to use a spell, and then we could join up with more people!"
The rest of the Weasel tribe was opening their mouths, too, and Draco knew they would get distracted with something that, in the end, wasn't all that important, and force Harry away from retrieving Andromeda and Teddy. He half-raised his eyebrow, and Harry gave him a slight nod. I get to be the mean one because they already think I am.
"When we have less pressing matters to attend to, I'm sure Harry will be happy to help us find other people," Draco drawled. "Bearing in mind that they might not want to see us, or might be former Death Eaters."
That shut Granger up for the moment, and allowed Harry to step into the breach, making plans with a smoothness that they doubtless allowed him because of the way he'd led them in the past. Harry and Draco would head for the gate, watching for signs of Andromeda and Teddy along the way. Harry would send winds scouting not only for signs of wizarding magic but for Teddy. They had watched out for him before and would be familiar with him.
Ginny would take a broom and fly a zigzag path around the camp, hoping to locate Andromeda. The rest of them would mount an increased watch in the camp, and Hermione would start mapping out intense patches of wild magic nearby, so that they would know where the closest dangers to them were.
And maybe help, as well, Harry told Draco. The best thing we can do now, I think, is expose everyone to the wild magic and hope they develop it so they can stop feeling inferior.
Draco privately agreed, but sent an image of Bodiless--or the non-image of power and arrogance that he had received when Bodiless tried to imprison him--and a question mark.
Harry pressed silence back firmly, and then his winds swept Draco off the ground and into the center of the hurricane. Draco got a little of his own back by cutting some of them and dropping down to a lower level than Harry so he could scan the ground more effectively. Then they were gone, flying for the gate.
*
Harry could feel the winds all around him when he concentrated.
It wasn't like that was a new thing, and from the way disgust rose like steam from Draco, he didn't find being subjected to Harry's thoughts about the wind very interesting, either. But Harry hadn't noticed before how much the winds would change and arch in new directions if he let his mind ride them. He could tell them to guard, and they'd do that. Or they'd bring back sounds to his ears, or let Ron and Hermione ride safely above the ground, or carry him without a broom.
He'd grown so used to that, he no longer really thought about the way they bonded his mind to Hurricane as well as Draco, moved him through the ecology of winds, let him dance and round up perceptions that weren't available to the others, because their magic didn't extend so far.
Yes, you're very special, Potter. Shut up.
Harry shook his head and smiled. Right, sorry. We're supposed to be looking for Teddy and Andromeda anyway, not singing my praises.
He received a wordless response from Draco about which he would rather be doing. Harry only nodded and reached out with his winds again, sending them tracking away from him in huge spirals. It seemed to be the way that most natural winds on Hurricane--assuming anything on this planet was natural given the amount of wild magic--wanted to move, and it would cover a lot of ground, with enough repetitions that they might catch Andromeda as she popped up from an Apparition.
Assuming she could. Harry would have had trouble navigating the rippling plains beneath him if the winds didn't pinpoint the gate for him as an eddy of unfamiliar power in the airscape of Hurricane. Perhaps Andromeda had memorized some point near the gate or left a signal for herself, but Harry didn't think so. She had been pretty dazed in those first days, lost in her grief with only the need to care for Teddy overcoming it, the way she had been for the last two years in the wizarding world.
What happens if we get there and she's already gone through?
Draco's question made Harry swallow, though primarily because he'd been trying to avoid thinking about it. We're moving fast, Harry said, to dodge it. I don't really think we would get there and find out she's not present.
But it might happen, and I want you to face it. Will you go back to Earth to look for Teddy?
Harry set his jaw. He had come to Hurricane for Teddy. Focusing on Teddy, raising him and protecting him, had been his only reason for existence, it sometimes felt like, in the two years since the war.
But then again...
He had cared when Bill and the other Weasleys would be randomly arrested, stopped and searched, or harassed by the Ministry because of their connection to him. He had tried sometimes to get Andromeda to let go of her grief and stop living again. He had taken all the precautions necessary to try and find out about going to Hurricane safely, and he had worked on his wandless magic--as he had thought his abilities with wind were then--and he had subtly and not-so-subtly threatened enemies into backing off.
His life hadn't been wholly Teddy. It had only seemed like it at the time, and sometimes his friends had said so, so Harry had run into the bad habit of letting his mind rewrite the past.
That's what I mean. Draco's voice was soft in his head, and at the same time as loud as the thunder of hooves. If I go back to Earth, there's every chance I'll lose my wild magic. What sustains it is the environment of Hurricane. You would probably retain yours since you had it before you came through the gate. I don't want to go back, Harry.
You'll make me choose between you and Teddy? Harry could have shouted, but his voice would have tattered in the wind anyway, unless he willed it to carry the sound to Draco's ear. He might as well push his anger down the bond instead.
I mean that if we get to the gate and find signs that they've already passed through, then I'm staying behind.
Harry shut his eyes and nodded. Draco's fears made sense, and Harry had no reason to think he was wrong. Draco wouldn't risk losing the bond and his magic. Those things made Hurricane home for him now, livable, in a way that the wizarding world would never be.
And they only knew that as many people could pass through the gate to Hurricane as possible, but that there were a limited number of returns back through the gate to the wizarding world, mostly used by the Unspeakables who had explored it. They didn't know, not for certain, what would happen if someone who had become used to Hurricane passed back through to Earth and then attempted to return home to Hurricane again.
I don't want her to take Teddy through. I don't want it to have happened.
But that wouldn't prevent it from happening if it had. Harry bowed his head and flew, tugging with the wind on Draco until Draco reminded him sharply that there were some people here whose power was different. Harry nodded and slowed them both a little bit, reaching back through the bond now and then to touch Draco's mind.
Draco's mind was always steady and solid, like a boulder made of gold, lit from within, pulsing his reassurance.
We will find them. Your winds will bring you word, and I think it unlikely that Andromeda knew enough landmarks to Apparate. She wasn't paying much attention to anything except you and Teddy and your baggage then.
And Harry nodded, and leaned on his partner. Even knowing Draco wouldn't come through the gate with him if he decided to go was, in its own way, a comfort. Someone who knew what they wanted and didn't rely on him to make all the decisions always was.
*
The gate was visible from a distance, once Draco knew what he was looking for. It was a ragged hole in the air, as white as though it opened onto one of the corridors of St. Mungo's, beaming with light that died a few meters away from it. The grass near it was trampled as though their walking over it had permanently flattened it, although Draco supposed that could also be from wizards who had come back to step through it or mummidade coming to investigate it.
And there was no one in sight, and no convenient scraps of cloth or recent footprints to indicate someone had gone through it in the last few hours.
Draco sighed and restrained his hopes. They didn't know what time Andromeda had left during the night, and there had been no storm in the last day. Too, Hurricane's dawn came early and its twilight lingered late, in all the corners of the sky, so she would have had more light for traveling than during the equivalent hours on Earth.
It's so comforting how you imagine all the worst possible scenarios so that my imagination doesn't have as much work to do.
Draco smiled and brushed one hand down Harry's shoulder as they landed in front of the gate. "One of the reasons I'm here," he said aloud. "Also because you're a good fuck."
Harry snorted at him, but couldn't conceal a smile, and since that had been all Draco was trying to achieve, he didn't find it that awkward. They turned to face the gate, and Draco blinked against the white light, which was even more piercing close.
"How did you want to set up the guard?" Draco asked quietly, not looking at Harry. "She's hardly likely to approach openly once she sees we're here."
"I want to make it as difficult as possible for her to get through," Harry said. "And we'll have to do something that I think is horrible, but then, her taking off in the middle of the night without knowing if she could even take Teddy through the gate is pretty horrible, too." He switched to the bond. I want you to remain in plain sight, as if you plan to stop them on your own. I'll be up and hovering. If necessary, I can dive down and take Teddy from her, or lend weight to your arguments.
You won't try to stop her from going through?
If she has Teddy.
Draco just raised his eyebrows at him, and Harry brushed his hand down his face. What else can I do? We've tried multiple times to persuade her that staying in Hurricane is the best thing for everyone. She won't listen. Or I thought she had, and then the news of this wild magic coming to everyone proved too much for her. I can't hold her prisoner here, and it's true that she would be safer in the wizarding world than she would here.
You don't want Teddy to miss out on having his childhood with his grandmother, either.
Harry nodded choppily. Yes, but I think it would be worse to keep her here and force her to try to do things against her will. That's asking for her to sabotage us. I don't want to do that. I just want--I want to have Teddy have both of us. All three of us, he added, before Draco could even think to question the numbers. All the Weasleys, for that matter. But if I have to make the choice between Andromeda and Teddy, then I know which one I'm choosing.
Draco sent a current of emotion like a purr back at him, and saw Harry turn his head to the side, a flush patterning his cheeks. That was all right. Draco patted his back, and then watched Harry rise above the gate while he sat himself in the grass right before it. He cast a few spells as he did, spells that would make him more sensitive to glamours and other charms that Andromeda might use to conceal herself.
And they waited.
*
It was afternoon, even slanting towards the long, blue-dusk twilight, before Andromeda showed herself. Harry had stopped paying attention to all the winds that circled back to him, because none of them had news, but then one of them bore a familiar murmur, and he snapped up, staring to the north.
Andromeda appeared a moment later, slogging through the grass. She must have Apparated part of the way, Harry thought, or she would never have come so far so quickly. She carried a bag slung over one shoulder and Teddy in her arms, probably with a charm on him to lighten his weight.
She was murmuring words of safety and peace and comfort to him. Teddy wasn't crying, but he kept twisting his head from side to side as though he expected to see someone else coming along behind him.
Well, he would. Harry pulled himself higher still, so he wouldn't be visible to a searching glance, and touched the bond. He could just make out Draco sitting up below, and nodding towards him.
Together, they awaited the moment when Andromeda would look up and see Draco, but it didn't happen for a long time. Consumed in Teddy and the need to reach the gate, she staggered through the grass until she reached the bottom of the last small hill that blocked her from the gate's light. Then she looked up, and stared. Her lips parted in a little, gasping huff.
Then she began to run, and Harry knew she must have lightened Teddy's weight. There was no way she could have managed that pace, at her age.
Draco stood up and waited in front of the gate. He didn't stretch his arms out to block it or anything so obvious, but Andromeda couldn't have dodged past him to get inside the narrow stretches left open, either.
She staggered to a stop, this time. She faced Draco in silence, and Harry only knew that Draco was tense from the privileged information of the bond; he looked almost relaxed as he stood there.
"You can't prevent me from going through," Andromeda whispered. The winds carried the conversation to Harry as clearly as if he stood beside Draco, including the little hitch in her voice. "You don't have the right."
"I have a blood relation to Teddy," Draco said. "And I think you're being an idiot. You don't even know if he can go through the gate, but you're willing to risk it anyway? What kind of grandmother are you?"
Andromeda flinched, but her voice was alive in a way that Harry hadn't heard her speak since the end of the war. "I'm someone who has seen my entire family killed, and I'm sick of sitting back and waiting for the day it happens to my grandson. Hurricane is more dangerous than Earth. If I go home, he'll live."
"Because the wizarding world is so kind to the children of werewolves, and to people with wild magic," Draco murmured, shaking his head.
"If I don't tell anyone about it, then how would anyone know?" Andromeda asked. "Harry made his wild magic visible. That doesn't mean Teddy's needs to be."
"The Ministry has records of his birth," Draco said flatly. "And then there's his last name. I assure you, someone will make the connection with Remus Lupin and know this is his son, and fear him because of that."
Andromeda nodded. "But there are still things I can do to protect him from that," she said, cradling Teddy against her chest. Harry watched Teddy stir again, blinking at Draco and then back along the path as though he expected to see Harry come that way. Andromeda didn't seem to notice. "And I can protect him more easily on Earth than on Hurricane."
"Here, no one fears werewolves in the same way," Draco said, his voice so low that Harry didn't think he could have heard it without the winds. "He has the chance to grow up without being feared at all. Why would you try to change that?"
Andromeda shook her head. "I can't protect him here. I want to go home. He'll grow up more easily in a world with wands, in a world where there aren't huge predators that can kill him every time he turns around."
Draco sighed patiently. "Because, of course, the wizarding world has no Dark wizards, or dragons."
"It's not the same thing, and you know it." Andromeda's hands tightened around Teddy, and she took a deep breath. Harry touched the bond in Draco's mind again. He knew what Andromeda looked like when she was readying herself to do something. "He'll be safer in the wizarding world, guarded by more people. Those dangers might not ever happen to him. Here, he'll be killed."
"How do you know?" Draco asked. "He's survived so far, and he has two of the most powerful wizards on Hurricane protecting him."
Andromeda sneered at him. "You can't seriously imply that you don't understand the differences."
"I don't," Draco said. "Especially when you agreed once that you should stay here, that Teddy needs all of us as part of his life, and now you're ignoring your own words and trying to leave."
"I'm tired of arguments."
Harry whipped the warning down into Draco's head an instant before Andromeda cast her spell, but that was still enough time. Draco raised his hands in front of him, growing those invisible claws, and they caught and chopped the blow. For a moment, Draco looked as though he would hurl something at Andromeda in return, and Harry prepared himself to charge down there. He had never meant the violence to get this far.
"You can't do things like that," Draco said, his voice brittle. "Not when we've guarded your back, and you agreed to come here, and Teddy needs all of us."
"Cousin Draco!" Teddy was leaning out of Andromeda's arms, and she seemed as if she would drop him. After a second, she juggled him back into position, but Teddy was kicking and squirming now, and didn't look as if he would stop anytime soon. "Cousin Draco! Cousin Draco! Cousin Draco!"
Harry hovered down and into view. Things hadn't worked out the way he had wanted them to, and he didn't see the point in staying out of them now.
Andromeda stared up at him, then down at Draco. "This was a trap." Her voice crackled. "You set it up."
"We didn't know whether you would want to listen to reason," Draco said, his voice almost inaudible under Teddy's continuing cries. "Look, I agree with Harry that you should be able to go through the gate if you're that determined to make a fool of yourself. But you're not taking Teddy with you. He belongs here, and you didn't take care of him once before when you lived on Earth. You might do the same thing again."
"He comes with me," Andromeda said.
"He doesn't," Harry said, making his voice boom so that Andromeda wouldn't be able to ignore him. "I don't want to fight with you, Andromeda. I don't want Teddy to remember that nightmare for the rest of his life. But I will if I have to."
Andromeda turned to the side and lifted her wand. Draco immediately moved to counter her.
And Andromeda darted for the unguarded gate.
Chapter Twenty-Five.
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