Chapter Twelve of 'An Offering of Dragons'- Peruvian Vipertooth
Chapter Eleven.
Title: An Offering of Dragons (12/13)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Warnings: Light angst, established relationship
Rating: R
Summary: Harry decides that he really needs to take a holiday. He hits on the idea of touring the respective dragon sanctuaries of the world, and invites Draco, who he’s casually dating, to come with him.
Author’s Notes: This story will probably be relatively short in terms of total numbers of chapters. It should update every Sunday.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twelve-Peruvian Vipertooth
“It’s not very likely that you’ll get Dragon Pox.” Gabriela Quispe paused as though she was thinking about it, and then repeated, “Not very likely.”
“I would prefer not to get it,” Draco said, so dryly that Harry smiled. But Draco added, “My grandfather died of it,” and Harry lost the smile. His own grandparents had, too, he thought. He’d only learned that when he did a little looking into the Potter family after the war.
“Well, that’s why I said not very likely. We do make some attempts to protect our guests.” Quispe leaned her arms on the stone wall in front of them and studied them with one dark eye, like a bird. “But it’s not a certainty. Dragon Pox first spread from wizards working with Peruvian Vipertooths. Do you want to go on?”
Harry looked over the stone wall in front of them. They were at the top of a “small” cliff-given some of the mountains, it probably was small to Quispe-that fell away into stone steps in front of them. Trees corkscrewed along the sides and reached out with vines and flowers to drape the steps. Quispe said it was a ruin that the Muggles hadn’t found and might never find, since it was invisible from further than a few meters away on the ground.
It was exactly the kind of place that Peruvian Vipertooths liked to hide, apparently. Harry imagined one of them lunging from under one of the steps, and winced.
“I do,” Draco said, and his eyes had a sheen to them that made Harry blink. Apparently Draco had his own version of recklessness sometimes. “I made a Vipertooth figurine for a client once. He scolded me for not making it realistic enough. I want to see how they move.”
“You might not see that until they lunge at you.” Quispe swung herself over the wall. She wore her hair hanging halfway down her back, but Harry had already seen she had spells on it that made it melt harmlessly through the branches and stones. “Come on, then.”
“Comforting, isn’t she?” Draco muttered at Harry’s back as they followed her onto the steps.
“Dragon-Keepers aren’t supposed to be comforting,” Quispe told them, without even looking back at them.
“But it’s a good thing for them when they have sharp hearing,” Harry said. Quispe gave a little grunt of acknowledgment. Harry had to pay attention to his footing then, since the steps were sometimes tilted and always rough.
As they descended into the ruin, other sounds than human voices rose up around them. Harry heard distant, sharp screeches that Quispe had told them were monkeys, rather than birds. There were hard thumps, the shaking of branches, the rustling of leaves, the steps of small animals scuttling out of the way. For a moment, large wings blocked the sun, but Harry looked up and found out it was a condor, not a dragon. Even Peruvian Vipertooths, although they were smaller than a lot of other dragons, were larger than that.
Then Quispe paused. Harry drew his wand before he thought about it. Perhaps he was being paranoid, but he trusted a Dragon-Keeper to be attuned to the dangers of this place as most people couldn’t.
“Down!”
Harry was already on the step before the first letter left her lips. He felt a jaw pass for a second over his head, close enough to ruffle his hair. Then he was grasping Draco and rolling himself up next to Quispe, who sat with her wand out and her eyes darting back and forth.
A Peruvian Vipertooth coiled three wide steps below them, mouth open to show its fangs. The copper scales flashed in the sun, sleek and dazzling. Harry shook his head in a daze. He could see black markings on the dragon’s back, and he knew from his reading that they were supposed to be there naturally, but he didn’t think they usually formed what looked like the symbol of a masked face.
The dragon hissed and spat something. Harry thought it was fire for a second, but then he saw the incredibly fine drops that arched towards him.
“Venom!” he called, even as he flung up a Bouncing Shield against it, surrounding them all in a dome of green light. The Bouncing Shield was better against physical threats than a Shield Charm, which mostly blocked magic.
Quispe nodded to him and leaned close enough to murmur, “A rogue. I didn’t know there was one when we came here. But they like to hide in places where humans once lived. They favor human prey.”
Harry didn’t say anything, simply watching the dragon. It moved forwards far enough to dart out its tongue and flick it against the Bouncing Shield. Although it wasn’t a harsh attack, the shield still read it as an attack and glowed sharply, sending the tongue flying back into the Vipertooth’s mouth. The dragon squealed in pain and drew in its breath.
“This time it will be the fire. And I do not think the shield can survive the flames.”
Which meant neither could they. Harry began to spin his wand in a circle, lowering the shield enough that he could aim over it but not so far that he couldn’t snap it back up if the dragon decided to go for venom instead. Then he called out, “Aguamenti altus!”
His spell got there before the dragon’s fire, luckily, and shot straight down its throat, soaking the flames before they could be born. The Vipertooth snarled and slithered forwards, wings beating furiously. Harry snapped the shield up again.
“We can’t simply sit here behind a Bouncing Shield for the rest of the afternoon, you know.” Quispe sounded amused.
Harry glanced over at Draco. He was white to the lips and sat with his hands clenched on his lap. Harry reached around behind Quispe’s back and took Draco’s hand. She twisted to watch them, but only raised her eyebrows instead of saying anything.
“I know something else that might stop it,” Harry said, and again lowered the shield enough to cast a spell over the top of it. The Vipertooth seemed to have been waiting for that, though, and it charged with its neck waving and an enraged screech breaking from its throat. Harry only changed his stance a little and cast the spell he had thought of anyway.
One of the trailing vines from a leaning tree got bigger and coiled like a lasso. The Vipertooth stepped into it, and Harry pulled his wand up. The vine wrapped in a tight loop around the dragon’s hind foot, tugged it into the air, and kept it bouncing there. The tree it hung from seemed to be pretty springy.
The dragon breathed fire again. Harry raised the shield, then glanced at Quispe. “Do you know spells that can Stun a dragon? Or the equivalent?”
“I might,” said Quispe, with a faint smile that Harry returned.
“You could have handled the rogue on your own, couldn’t you?”
“Oh, but you seemed to be having so much fun,” Quispe murmured, moving past him and lifting her own wand. There was an intensity to her gaze as she studied the dragon that Harry thought meant she knew exactly how long it was and how big its wings were and how hot its fire would be.
Then she spoke a single incantation Harry didn’t know, although he thought he heard ignis, fire, in it. Her wand scraped the air in a swirling motion. The Vipertooth focused on her and acted as though it was going to pull its head back and breathe some more flame, but it didn’t get the chance.
A second later, its head was dangling on its limp neck, eyes glazed in deep sleep. Harry watched as clear eyelids slid shut, and nodded to Quispe.
“I have been remiss as a guide, you know.” Quispe clasped her hands and shook her head in what Harry knew had to be mock sorrow. “I promised to show you dragons, and so far you’ve only seen one rogue that you had to find yourself.”
“We don’t mind.” Draco had calmed down, Harry knew, or he would never have been able to walk even as near the dragon as he had to then, coming down the steps and passing the tree it hung on with a glance of distaste.
“I want to show you a situation that’s not that dangerous.” Quispe’s voice was soft and she leaned against the tree, reaching out to tickle the side of the dragon’s neck. It stirred and thrashed but didn’t wake up. “Will you trust me to do that?”
“Hatchlings, you mean?”
Quispe shook her head. “Something else. Will you let me?” She gave them a smile that Harry found himself returning. It certainly hadn’t been her fault that a rogue dragon had come out of the ruin, and she had warned them about the danger before she led them down the steps.
But he turned to Draco first. Because he did have to make sure it was okay with Draco.
For a long moment, he thought Draco would disagree. He was staring at the rogue dragon with such a set mouth that Harry knew he was imagining what would have happened if it had got past the shields or the other guards that Harry and Quispe had tried to raise. And Vipertooths had the additional attacks like venom as well as the fire and the general danger of a dragon to make their reputation ferocious.
But he finally turned around with a slightly sickly but determined expression on his face. He nodded, once.
“Good, then,” said Quispe, and started down the steps into the ruin again. Harry shot Draco a concerned glance and reached for his hand.
Draco caught it and held onto it so ferociously that Harry eased towards him. Draco murmured, “I’m not fond of the part where we almost die. Constantly.”
Harry smiled. Of course Draco wouldn’t be, and it wasn’t as though Harry could blame him. “I’ll tell you what. If what Quispe shows us is more dangerous than a hatchling, then we’ll leave.”
“Even though you want to see it?”
“My wants don’t matter as much to me as your needs. And right now, I think you need to be away from dragons for a little while.”
Draco was silent long enough that they covered most of the distance to the ground on the steps. Then he sighed and murmured, “Not-precisely away. I enjoy seeing dragons. I enjoy seeing your face when you watch them. But that was a sharper reminder of the danger than I’m comfortable with.”
Harry nodded in agreement. “Then we’ll go back to the hostel and look at those pamphlets of dragons that I saw them selling out in front. That way, at least we can see them from a safe distance.”
“You were the one who told me not to buy them because-”
“I thought we would be seeing the real thing in a few minutes, and you should save your money. But it’s not going to work that way.”
Draco considered him from a corner of one eye. Harry made sure to keep Quispe in sight, and said nothing. He thought Draco was more shaken than he’d admit to, but Draco was also the only one who had the right to make up his mind about something like that.
“Then we’ll go on,” Draco said at last. “But the least glimpse of venom or flame, and I expect you to honor your promise.”
Harry smiled and kissed him on the tip of his nose. Draco flushed and cast a silent, indignant glance in Quispe’s direction. But since she was still moving ahead of them and watching out for more Vipertooths with an experience Harry knew he couldn’t match, Draco finally relaxed and leaned on his shoulder a little.
“You assume that we’ll see something worth seeing this time. Something peaceful. Or safe.”
Harry nodded. “Probably nothing to match what we found in the Opaleye sanctuary. I doubt they hunt with hatchlings here.”
*
But they did do something else, Draco thought, staring.
They had come to the end of the steps at last, and out into the middle of what Draco thought of as a stretch of undifferentiated jungle. At the very least, there was no sign that humans had once lived here. But then Quispe had led them around what was unmistakably a corner, even if it was a wall buried under a tangle of vines, and come to a halt. Draco looked around.
In front of them was a large stone with flowers trailing up it from invisible trees on the other side. On the ground was the tangle of old plants and shady, leafy things that Draco didn’t know enough Herbology to identify. He didn’t see what was particularly significant about the place, though, and tried to tell Quispe that with his eyes.
Quispe only reached up and started scratching the stone.
Draco stared, and then his eyes seemed to realign. The stone was a coppery color if you squinted, although more like copper with verdigris. The flowers draped over what could be cracks, or could be scales. And when the dragon lifted its head and yawned, showing off its fangs, Draco had no trouble in seeing the danger.
But the dragon made no move to attack. It only turned and burrowed its sleek muzzle further back into the earth, wings curling around it. Quispe walked beside it, stroking one hand up and down in what Draco supposed were soothing motions. He wouldn’t know. No one had ever taught him how to soothe a dragon.
“How?” Harry’s voice made the dragon’s ears twitch, and Draco shivered, braced for a bark of flame.
But all Quispe did was smile at them in serene understanding. “This is Birdcatcher, as we call him. He’s so old that he can only really catch birds that land on him now. Sometimes he lies there with his mouth open so water collects in it, and when a bird lands in it and tries to take a bath…” Quispe trailed off, shaking her head.
Draco gave a soft swallow, staring at the dragon. “Does he not mind you touching him because he’s old?”
“And clever. He realizes that humans are easier to take food from than eat. And he spends more time basking in the sunlight than hunting, anyway. And we’re good at scratching itches that he’d have to roll over to reach. This way, he gets to spend more time sleeping.”
And you get to spend time touching him, Draco thought. He’d been watching, and as Quispe turned back to the Vipertooth, he saw the worshipful expression she wore. Apparently it was never far away from a Dragon-Keeper’s face.
“Would you like to touch him?” Quispe added then, so softly Draco knew she might not mind if he just ignored the request.
“Is he only relaxed with people he knows?” Harry asked at once. Draco bit back the temptation to scoff. Of course that would be Harry’s main question.
“He barely glances at me when I’m here. Or anyone else, either. As long as people have hands, they can scratch him.”
Draco glanced at Harry. Harry was already looking back at him, waiting. He was obviously going to let Draco make this decision.
Which meant Draco had to be the one to guess, too, whether Harry would be horribly disappointed by the chance not to touch a dragon. He had done more of it than Draco had, that was for sure, Draco thought, shuddering a little at the remembrance of Harry running up the Hebridean Black’s spine.
Draco had done it only once, with the Antipodean Opaleye hatchlings. And he wanted…
He wanted to show Harry he wasn’t afraid. He wanted Harry to have his desire. And he wanted, too, to see what the difference was between an old Peruvian Vipertooth and a young Antipodean Opaleye.
“All right,” he said. His voice didn’t waver. He was remembering, too, how he had learned about elemental magic from Li Jun and species-specific glamours from Annie Wilson. He was more than just Harry’s tagalong in this trip. And he wanted to show people that, too.
Quispe moved a little out of their way, walking further down the dragon’s side. Draco came up next to the wing, and Harry to the dragon’s face. Of course he would go there, Draco thought, trying to hide the way his hand shook as he touched the dragon on the side.
For an instant, he decided that it wouldn’t be as spectacular an experience as he’d thought after all. The scales felt like nothing under his hand except warm stone. Maybe there was a chilly touch of metal, too. The only warmth was the sunlight.
Then Draco felt as though his awareness had traveled deeper and he could tell the difference between sunlight and the dragon’s heat, between scale and stone, after all. There was a light, flexing material beneath his fingers. Draco curled them and felt the wing respond, shivering as though it was going to unfurl.
He prepared himself to jump backwards, but in the meantime, he stood there, stroking.
The wing didn’t unfold. It curled closer against the dragon’s side instead, and the dragon sighed in a way that made Draco think about times when he was a child and his mother scratched the middle of his back for him. He smiled and rested his hand harder against the wing.
The Vipertooth shifted a little. Draco looked towards Harry, and saw the dragon opening its mouth.
“The venom!” Draco shouted, but his voice cracked like a stone into the middle of the calm air of the clearing, and both Harry and Quispe looked at him with small disapproving expressions.
“It’s not coming out,” said Harry, and waved his hand up and down in front of the Vipertooth’s jaws. “See?”
“Then why did he open his mouth?”
“Dragons sometimes do that to take in more air. It can be a struggle for them to breathe in the traditional fashion.”
Draco flushed and ignored the patronizing tone in Quispe’s voice. He hadn’t known.
And as he watched, Harry did take a step back from the teeth. He was stroking along the top of the dragon’s nose, whisper-light touches that Draco thought were more likely to irritate the Vipertooth than help him.
But even as he watched, the dragon closed his eyes again and turned his head towards Harry. His face didn’t alter much; nor did Draco think that he would necessarily know what a dragon’s happy expression looked like even if he saw it. But he thought he saw the relaxation of some lines that had been there, and that the dragon was probably as near happy as they ever came to feeling.
Then the dragon’s head dropped straight down, and he lay there, jaws open and panting a little, as Harry continued to stroke him.
Draco turned his attention back to the wing in front of him. It was delicate only in the middle, he realized, where the skin and leather sometimes flexed as if it was a butterfly wing that might rupture at a single touch. The bones were as firm as stone when Draco touched them, which was one reason he had been fooled at first into thinking there was no difference between the dragon and a rock.
And the colors were much more varied than Draco had thought they were when he looked more closely. Copper, yes, but also brown, and dull, variegated gold, and delicate splotches of tan and honey and black. The black markings on its back might make a pattern if you could see them from above, but this close, they simply made a delightful, broken scattering of darkness.
“You’re enjoying this.”
Quispe’s voice was low. Draco glanced at her and nodded. Now that he had started a regular stroking pattern on the dragon’s side, he didn’t intend to let up with it.
“Good,” said Quispe, and smiled, and moved around on Birdcatcher’s other side, presumably to continue stroking him.
But you’re not really Birdcatcher, are you? Draco thought. You might not have a name. Or other dragons might know you by your scent or your behavior, but you don’t think of yourself by a name at all. You’re you. Why do you need to distinguish yourself from anyone else? You always know the difference.
The dragon breathed softly out. Draco didn’t even need to look towards Harry. He knew the breath wouldn’t carry any flame, and he was a little busy right now.
It seemed like hours that he stood there, stroking, feeling the deep warmth that he supposed came from banked fires, and then Harry put a hand on his shoulder and stunned him out of it. Draco turned around, blinking and shaking his head.
“Quispe says we should leave before it gets dark.”
Draco blinked slowly, and let his mind return from thoughts about dragons to thoughts about going back to the hostel. “Okay,” he said stupidly, and let Harry lead him back towards the ruin’s steps.
He did look back, though, to watch the sleeping dragon as he lay reclined in the last, fading beams of the sun.
I suppose I understand a little more about what a Dragon-Keeper feels than I thought I did.
Chapter Thirteen.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/798397.html. Comment wherever you like.