Chapter Twenty-Seven of 'Wondrous Lands and Oceans'- The Hidden Valley
Chapter Twenty-Six.
Title: Wondrous Lands and Oceans (27/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-Seven-The Hidden Valley
Draco looked critically around the valley as they landed in it-the place Goldensway had gone to such pains to tell them about. It didn’t look like anything more impressive than the hills of the camp had when they first decided to live there. There were gentle slopes here, and high grass, and a small pond of water flashing at the sky in one corner. Draco shook his head.
Why is this an important place to them? he asked Harry as Harry landed beside him.
That’s a question you might want to ask the mummidade, Harry said, calm and soft as snowfall, and then turned. Goldensway had already broken through the grass at the top of the dell, and trotted all three of its bodies down until it stood before them, solid as boulders. Sometimes, when you saw mummidade standing still, Draco thought, you had had a hard time picturing them moving at all.
Harry reached out his hand. Draco knew what he wanted, but grimaced a little as he clasped Harry’s wrist. They had more important things to do than play liaison to the mummidade.
Like what? Bathe Teddy? Wait for Andromeda to stop being a recluse?
The first part is more important, if we’re ever going to have our own children, Draco retorted. I should have some experience, don’t you think?
And the mummidade are the only ones who can tell us how to conduct the ritual that would allow us to actually have children. We don’t even know if it would be possible for two humans to dance in the way they do, or call on the same magic.
Draco scowled, but stayed quiet. He though his and Harry’s bond would grant them all the connections they needed, but he had to admit that it might be just as well not to annoy the mummidade. So he sent to Goldensway the picture of some grass dancing in a gentle breeze, and waited for them to answer.
The three of them leaned their heads together in response. For long seconds, no solid image came to Harry and Draco, only shifting colors-golden, white, blue, grey-as though the mummidade needed to sort through the shades of Hurricane to find something capable of representing their thoughts.
Then the image became clear, darkening to black and grey without restraint. It became the four-legged beasts that the riders had bonded with, and Goldensway easily imagined the winds that had borne them up. Draco nodded without understanding.
Goldensway repeated the image of the riders, more insistently this time, or at least with more of them in the picture, which Draco could only interpret as insistence. Draco shook his head, then remembered the mummidade wouldn’t understand that signal, and in fact probably couldn’t pick up on human emotions through the wild magic, either.
Instead, he consulted with Harry for a moment, flickers of image and feeling too fast to be called thought, and together they sent an image of a human wandering through the tall grass, tilting his head back to gape at the sky overhead. It was the closest they could come to What are you talking about?
One more time Goldensway repeated the image of the riders, and then they paused and consulted their imaginations again. This time, though, they sent an entirely new picture the second Draco resigned himself to another long wait.
Dead riders lay on the ground, the wings of their beasts broken around them. Goldensway hedged the image around with swirls of green and gold, which Draco knew was uncertainty. Most of the time, he thought, the mummidade used real pictures of things they had seen and experienced. They became more hesitant when they had to imagine something.
Why do you want the riders dead? Harry snapped, but realized his mistake even before Draco could pluck the bond between them. Draco heard the hiss of his breath, and then he reached down the bond to Draco for assistance in painting their image.
In the end, it was easiest just to send back the dead riders, and surround them with the same swirls of gold and green that Goldensway had used when they wanted to talk about something strange.
This time, though, the response was much quicker. Once they had formed the image, Draco had to admit, the mummidade could be fast. They lofted the dead riders up and down, one minute lying on the ground, the next soaring into the sky with their wings intact. And when they lay on the ground, then mummidade walked among them in safety, but when they were aloft, mummidade ran away.
Harry, without really consulting Draco, came up with two paired pictures, their memory of the riders and the mummidade’s memory of the birds hunting them as they ran wildly across the plains. Then he held them out and drew a long blue slash between them.
Draco nodded. It did seem to him that the mummidade had confused the riders’ beasts with the birds, or at least thought both of them as enemies because they were predators that could fly.
Goldensway retreated a physical step, then stamped all three of their left forehooves. Again they sent the mummidade walking calmly among the dead riders.
This time, Harry responded with his own memory of hurling the riders about the sky with wind, and then the image of himself on the ground, facing Granger and Draco with bowed head.
You never looked like that, Draco told him.
That’s the way I felt.
Before Draco could argue further, Goldensway snapped back with an image of Harry hurling the riders to the ground and leaving them there. And once again, peaceful mummidade. This time, they followed it up with dead birds, as though Harry and Draco were a bit thick and needed the help.
Compared to them, we are a bit thick on this method of communication, Draco admitted, and felt Harry accede to him while at the same time pushing thick stands of clumped grass at Goldensway. He wasn’t about to give in and kill the riders with his winds simply because they wanted him to.
Goldensway came a step closer to them. Once again, they stared. Draco waited for more pictures, but none came.
Instead, Goldensway clicked their horns together again and then reared up in what looked like an effortless move, the grace of which might have surprised Draco before he had seen them dance on the shore. They touched their forehooves together in the middle of the space their bodies formed, and seemed to freeze, presenting a perfect trio. Only their eyes weren’t on their hooves, focused instead to the side on Harry and Draco.
“It’s an invitation,” Draco muttered. “But to what, I wonder?”
Harry grinned at him and leaned forwards to put his free hand on the hooves, while keeping his other hand clasped with Draco’s. “Why don’t we find out?”
I’m never going to get used to being bonded to a reckless Gryffindor, Draco snapped at him, but he was drawn along as much by Harry’s smile as by the grip on his wrist, which after all he could have resisted. He leaned in and put his hand next to Harry’s free one on the hooves.
The hooves felt as warm as real skin beneath their touch, and Draco wondered for a moment if the mummidade had lured them close to burn them to death. But there had been no indication that the mummidade were capable of such an elaborate deception, and on the whole, Draco would prefer to wait until they had proof before jumping to conclusions. They had just seen an example of what happened when the mummidade did that.
What happened, instead, was that the warmth burst into light beneath their hands, and they were swept away. Draco shut his eyes, but he had the feeling that it wouldn’t have made any difference. There was no blindness or seeing here, nothing but the intense golden-white of the light that enveloped them.
The light, and the memory.
*
Harry found himself in a body that sprang over the grasses-
No, he was in bodies, all of them scattered apart from each other but exquisitely aware of each other at the same time, kicking up their heels as they sprang and danced, the grass flying away behind them, the earth trampled beneath their hooves, and there was one to the side, and there was one above, and above the above-
There were the birds.
Harry understood it with his human mind somewhat lagging behind the intense impressions at first, the stamp and the flight and the wheeling as they tried to bury themselves in the dells, and the birds simply came down, and claws struck bodies and diminished them. He had lost limbs, he had lost minds, he had lost everything that was him, because what was him was many and living one at the same time, all running, all in flight.
The birds didn’t care. They flew, and in the shadow of their wings, the death they brought was mourned.
Harry felt himself lifting away at last from that experience, which he could never remember properly afterwards, except when he and Draco combined their memories in the bond. Humans weren’t meant to live like that, with different minds in different bodies, personalities as well as everything else scattered like seed to the winds and singing, rebounding from each other.
He opened his eyes, and stepped away from the mummidade, wringing, gently, the hand that had clutched their hooves. Draco leaned heavily on him, and swallowed a little.
It’s the same memory they used to tell us that they wanted us to go north and investigate the birds and the force calling them, Draco said, with the sound of a mental gulp. This time, they put us into it to try and overwhelm us, and make us agree with them.
I don’t think so, Harry said. They were trying to show us why they fear anything with wings and they want us to kill the riders.
Draco stood there for a few seconds, and then said, Maybe you’re right. Is there anything we can do back, to make them understand that we see a difference in the different kinds of birds, and we aren’t about to kill the ones with four legs?
Harry blinked, then smiled at him. You’re a genius.
Of course I am, Draco said, with a heavy little sigh, but I have yet to see how that relates here.
Harry turned back to the mummidade. Help me with the memories, he commanded, tightening his hold on Draco’s wrist. But this time, focus on the fact that those beasts the riders bond with have four legs as well as wings. If we emphasize their differences from the birds, the things that make them like the mummidade, then they might be more receptive to us leaving them alive.
I think we should share the credit for the genius, Draco said handsomely, and focused on the images of the beasts’ claws descending, the way their legs had rolled and waved helplessly when Harry sent them up and down the sky, and how they had stood, with their riders beside them, on the ground, watching the camp. Harry joined in as much as he could, adding other visions from different viewpoints, from the distances between him and Draco, which he thought the mummidade, with their multiple sets of eyes, would appreciate more.
Goldensway watched them, eyes luminous. But not with understanding, not yet. It wasn’t until Harry brought back the memory of the first beast they had fought, in the night near the camp, and how it screamed more like an animal or a force of nature than like a bird that suddenly Goldensway moved forwards, their heads bobbing urgently.
I think that’s it, Draco said.
So do I.
Goldensway moved in even nearer before Draco could respond with something sarcastic, the first body rearing to put its hooves on Draco’s shoulders, the second standing between them, and the third body leaning in and rearing against Harry. Harry breathed in the heavy, rank smell of the fur, and waited.
The one that stood leaning against him leaned nearer yet, to the point that Harry thought one curl of its horns was going to poke out his eyes. The slotted eyes themselves were wide, and the hooves were stronger than paws, although lighter.
If they hurt you, then they’ll be picking up pieces of themselves from the ground, Draco promised ominously.
Harry sighed at him. They don’t mean to hurt us, I don’t think. They’re only curious to see what we’ll do, and not eager to let us go when we might have the power to fight the riders and their beasts.
Oh, you don’t think. That makes everything better, of course. I’m sure that I won’t worry now.
Harry never knew how he would have responded, because the mummid on him pulled back and dropped, and all three bodies of Goldensway came together again, their horns leaning together with gentle clicks that almost made Harry forget how fearsome they had looked, close to. They focused on him for a second, then turned and looked at Draco, in a way that made Harry wonder if they had learned to see them as individuals.
But only for a second, because the next image came from them in that second, brilliant with confidence in spite of the fact that Harry knew it was something they were making up. It showed Harry and Draco on the back of a wind, hovering high above the green meadow where the riders made their home, and speaking with a rider on the back of a beast. The air was unclear where their mouths moved. The mummidade knew they communicated with sounds, but not much more than that. The speaking, the negotiating, Harry thought, was the important thing.
Then more pictures appeared, broader and also mistier. The green meadow Harry and Draco had shown Goldensway appeared again, but this time, grazing mummidade covered it. Riders and their beasts circled overhead, near the edges of the meadows, and when the shadows of birds came near, they dived at them and drove them away. And there was a cluster of human houses, obviously transplanted from the human camp, in one corner of the meadow, and shadowy humans walking among them.
Harry had hardly recovered from that daring picture-that plan, he thought-before Goldensway sprang away from them, and two mummidade Harry had never seen before trotted in from the edges of the valley. The two central bodies of the triangle Goldensway stood in joined with the two newcomers, and the third mummid pulled back, by itself, near the edges. Near enough to be intelligent, Harry thought, not enough to be actually part of the group.
“What’s going on?” Draco snapped. Harry thought he chose the audible words on purpose, as a reminder to himself that he could still speak, and dispel some of the spell the mummidade had cast over them.
“I think we’ve just been volunteered as diplomats,” Harry said, and rubbed the back of his neck, which felt as though it ached with all the thoughts trickling down from his head. “With this new mummid, or these new mummidade, who’s probably more adept at negotiating.” He nodded cautiously at the new quartet.
The image of a setting sun that blasted into his head was sharply edged with both clarity and shadows. Westshadow, sang the new mummidade.
Draco nodded to show Harry he had heard it, too. “I was more wondering why they bothered to bring us to this valley in the first place,” he muttered. “What’s so special about the bloody place?”
Harry hesitated, but there was no reason to keep this to himself, and more than enough to share it. “I think they can communicate more clearly here. You notice we knew that some colors meant uncertainty? And that this time, we didn’t have to argue about what we should call our new-ally?” He thought Draco might have some reason to object to “friend.”
Draco blinked and stared at him. “By Merlin, Potter,” he said a minute later. “That was almost inspired.”
Harry rolled his eyes, smiling. “Well, you can credit it to your influence and the way I’m acting now that I’m in constant contact with your fine brain, if you want.”
“I rather think I will,” Draco said, and faced Westshadow. “Why do they think this stupid thing is going to succeed, though?”
“Why not ask them?”
Draco gave him another sidelong look, said in his head, You needn’t get too worked-up about being a genius, and held out his hand again. Harry clasped it more than eagerly, and together, they turned to face Westshadow.
Westshadow’s images were still sharp and clear, combined with a brisk, bracing quality to them that Harry thought of as wind sweeping around the edges and stirring the colors into something like pointed plumes of smoke. Westshadow pounded home images of the meadow, and the riders, and the birds lying broken on the ground the same way that Goldensway had pictured the riders. It didn’t seem to understand why they should want to hesitate.
Harry, with Draco’s help, painted the image of the humans hovering helpless on the wind in front of the riders, their mouths moving. And then the riders attacked and hammered at them, and drove them away, and the image of the meadow with all three sentient peoples sharing it dissolved into nothingness.
Westshadow stamped all sixteen hooves at once and gave them the meadow again, this time in the middle of a golden sunset that made Harry catch his breath. He reckoned that was the way summer looked on Hurricane. Either way, it was heart-shatteringly obvious that Westshadow saw nothing that could go wrong.
Draco showed them the riders reeling up and down the air the way Harry had used them, and ignored the way Harry’s cheeks burned.
Westshadow showed the rider who had dropped the meat, and the one who had accepted food from them, part of the memories that Harry and Draco had shared of their journey. It seemed to feel that was all they needed to settle a truce.
Do we even know that they think of it like a truce? That’s a hard concept to convey through pictures alone.
They know enough about it to think we should have one, Harry said, shaking his head a little when he noticed how hard Westshadow was staring at them. And for one, I’m not really going to argue with them.
Do you think the second attempt to communicate with the riders is going to go any better than the first one?
We’ll have Westshadow with us. It might be able to come up with something.
Though they hadn’t reached out through the wild magic to touch Westshadow’s mind with pictures, it, or they, seemed to understand that they were agreeing with it. It turned towards the rim of the valley and scraped all four left front forehooves on the ground, glancing towards them over its shoulders.
We can’t just leave like that, though, Draco pointed out. We’re waiting for Andromeda to come out, and the last time, we had Weasley and Granger. We don’t know if we’ll even make it as far as we did last time, and I don’t think the mummidade would appreciate it if we tried to fly with them.
Harry cursed under his breath. That much was true. How fast could Westshadow run? Could it even keep up with them?
Westshadow scraped its hooves again, and then turned towards the far corner of the valley. Harry turned with it, wondering what it could have to show them that they hadn’t already seen. The valley seemed to be a marvelous place for conveying information, and that was wonder enough for him.
But Westshadow walked over and stood with its noses pointing at something, so Harry followed it, tugging Draco with him by the force of their joined hands.
It was the pond they had seen as they came in over the valley, which Harry had noted only because he thought it might be one of the mummidade’s few sources of water for some miles. But this close-
This close, he could see the glaze over the top of the pond, and realized that it was really one of the silver ovals they had seen beside the ruins on their journey to the north.
Draco’s breath escaped him at the same time Harry’s did, but Harry thought their churning thoughts had mingled in the bond even before that.
*
What would the mummidade be doing with one of these?
The only response was Harry’s quiet, draining confusion, which made Draco decide that he should probably focus on finding the answer himself. He knelt down as close as he could to the silver oval without touching it, and plucked a clump of grass from the ground near his foot. They could at least find out whether this oval did the same thing to the grass that the first one they had seen had done to a stone.
It did. The grass fell into the oval and twisted away, away, and down. Draco looked up before he grew sick watching it and glanced at Westshadow.
Westshadow tilted two heads right and two heads left. It was dizzying, and didn’t help Draco at all. He touched Harry’s wrist more strongly so he could project the image of the oval destroying the grass, the first oval destroying the stone, and his likely guess of what it would do to a human body.
Westshadow flung up its heads and snorted. Back came an image of mummidade floating through silver, flying through silver, their legs gently moving-
And landing on a black and rocky shore, their heads tossed back as they faced something looming and without form, something that felt through the memory like Bodiless to Draco.
Draco flinched, even as Harry murmured to him, Are they saying that they can use these ovals as ways to reach the north?
Draco nodded, even as Westshadow flashed pictures of the mummidade struggling against Bodiless and vanishing into the dark to him. Yes, I think so. And they probably stopped using them because every time they did, they just went straight into Bodiless and vanished there.
Then what left all the ruins all over the place? Who used those other silver ovals?
Draco shook his head. The question wasn’t important to him right now, and he didn’t see why it should interest Harry much, either. They had other things to do, things that required agreement with Westshadow, who had grown sick of waiting, apparently, and was scraping its hooves against the ground with gentle, persistent regularity.
Yes, he said, and knew that Harry was agreeing with him, if only because he wanted to solve the mystery that had so intrigued Granger. We’ll go.
Chapter Twenty-Eight.
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