Fic: Old Souls (PG)
Author: yura_slash
Title: Old Souls
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry and Draco have prophetic dreams that compel them to seek each other out.
Warnings: non-explicit mpreg
Total word count: 5,317
Original prompt request number: 013
Disclaimer: This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: After kawanale’s prompt. I tried to stick as close as possible to it, but I had to change a few small things. Hope you enjoy!
Beta: My sis, Laura (Love you, hon!) and Angela Snape. Thanks!
Old Souls
Harry awoke gasping for breath.
What?
Images jumbled in his head: a man with fiery red hair and a scraggly beard, a runic circle on a field of endless green, Draco Malfoy, expression fierce and angry, a locket...
Before he could make sense of it all, it was gone, leaving only the faintest of impressions and the feeling that he had forgotten something important.
He fell back asleep shortly after.
********************
On the other side of the castle, deep in the dungeons, Draco awoke panting and sweating as if he’d just finished a marathon. There had been...
A man with dark, lank hair and a long goatee, a runic circle on a field of endless green, and Harry Potter, expression full of determination and a frightening level of resolve, thrusting downwards with a jewel-encrusted sword.
Draco sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. What else? Desperately, he tried to remember more-the dream had been so intense as to seem prophetic-but it was no use. The images slipped through his consciousness like water through a sieve. He was left feeling, however, as if he were on the wrong path, and that some greater force was trying to push him in the right direction.
He pushed the sheets off of himself and got out of bed-there was no use in trying to fall back asleep now. Maybe breakfast would be laid out already; he’d always thought better with a full stomach.
********************
The dreams didn’t stop. Hadn’t stopped in more than two weeks. Harry was starting to go mad, the dreams were so intense and all-encompassing. He’d fallen asleep in class just that day, too exhausted to stay awake, and immediately been plunged into a scene of himself, Draco and four others standing in a runic circle. The outlying land was green, lush, and devoid of any other life, and the four figures around them had all raised their wands and pointed them upwards -
“Harry!”
Harry came to attention just before stepping off a landing and into empty space.
“Harry, the staircase just moved-we’ve got to go the long way back to the Tower. What’s the matter with you lately?”
“Not getting enough sleep,” he mumbled, turning to follow Hermione and Ron.
“Voldemort?” Ron asked with a pained expression.
“No, just dreams,” he said. “Keep having them. Too intense.”
“Harry, you never know,” Hermione said. “They could be prophetic if they’re particularly intense and repetitive. What are they about?”
Harry shrugged. “It’s not important. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay, Harry,” Hermione said, giving Ron a concerned look.
Harry ignored them in favour of heading to the tower and his bed.
********************
Neville, Harry and Dean watched silently, each for his own reasons, as the confrontation escalated.
“This is ridiculous! Why should that snake be allowed in our room? What if he takes it in his mind to strangle Harry in his sleep?” Ron shouted.
“Yeah! What then?” Seamus added, face turning red.
Ron nodded. “I bet that was his plan all along! And now you’re making it easy for him by -”
“Mr. Weasley, that is enough!” Professor McGonagall interrupted him sternly. “Mr. Malfoy is at the bottom of the stairs with his things, and he will be moving into this room and you will welcome him into your dormitory or suffer the consequences!”
“I’ll bloody well suffer them, but there’s no way -”
“Ten points for language, Mr. Weasley!” McGonagall snapped. “I’m disappointed in you because I know your mother raised you better than this. If you protest further, you will be assigned detention. And if I hear of any ‘hazing’ or what have you, do not be surprised to find yourself suspended from the Quidditch team, no matter how loath I may be to do it.”
Ron bit off his next protest, his face going from red to white in seconds.
“Do I make myself clear?” McGonagall prodded.
“Yeah,” he answered petulantly.
“Good. Now everyone please welcome your new dorm mate,” McGonagall said with a flourish, opening the door she’d closed behind herself earlier.
When Draco entered the room shortly after, bags floating behind him, nobody said a word. They just stared at the yellow bruises on his face and arms as he headed for the new empty bed beside Harry’s own.
“Yes, well. Have a good night boys,” McGonagall said before departing with one last stern look over her shoulder.
The moment the door closed, Dean pulled Seamus to his bed and closed the bed hangings around them. Furious whispers could be heard behind the thick material, and Neville glanced across the room at Harry and Draco before walking over to talk to Ron quietly in an attempt to calm him down.
Harry sat on the side of his bed and watched everyone silently for a moment before focusing on Draco. He stared as Draco slowly unpacked his things-it was like his bruised arms gave him a great deal of pain.
After a few minutes, Draco turned to glare at him. “What?” he asked, gritting his teeth against the pain of even that movement.
Harry continued to watch him stoically. Then, “What happened? Professor Dumbledore wouldn’t say -”
“None of your bloody business,” Draco spat, before turning back to his trunk.
“Okay,” Harry answered, settling back into bed and pulling his bedclothes up around him. “Fair enough.”
When everyone had settled into their own beds, the lights went off. Harry imagined Draco awake in the bed next to him until late into the night.
********************
“Shit!” Harry shouted, coming awake at the same moment as his uttered curse.
He heard an answering voice to the right of him, and he threw open the bed hangings on that side.
“Malfoy? You awake, too?” he hissed into the dark. It had been a week since Draco had started living with the Gryffindors and going to classes with them, and this was the first night that Harry had had another weird dream since then. Maybe...
“Fuck you, Potter,” Draco answered, muzzy and sleep-addled.
Some things never changed. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Harry muttered under his breath, turning onto his back again and closing his eyes.
“What was that, Potter? Don’t make me come over -” a yawn interrupted Draco mid-threat.
“Shut up, Malfoy, before you wake up everyone in the room,” Harry answered, turning over onto his side.
“You’re the one who woke me up,” Draco said. “Dropping that damn sword sheath on my foot. Must weigh close to a stone.”
Harry was instantly wide-awake. He sat up so fast that he got dizzy and could hear the blood rushing in his ears. “Wait - what did you -”
Draco suddenly sounded more awake, as well. “Nothing. It was a dream. Now fuck off -”
Harry had kicked away his bedclothes and was across the room in seconds, throwing open the bed hangings around Draco’s bed.
Moonlight from a nearby window slanted across Draco’s face and naked torso, and he shrieked and snatched at his sheets in an attempt to cover himself.
“I don’t think it was just a dream,” Harry said, voice serious. “And that burn on your chest - I’ve seen it before. In a dream.”
Draco’s eyes went wide. “It’s from the - the attack last week. And it’s been bandaged until just now, so you couldn’t have -”
“I think we need to talk -”
“Harry, would you shut the hell up? A man’s gotta sleep!” Dean shouted. Neville and Ron gave particularly loud snores in response, so Harry lowered his voice. “We need to talk. I’ve been having these dreams... There’s a man with a red, shaggy beard, and another man with a black goatee and ... and you. And you’ve got this locket, and I’ve got Gryffindor’s sword, and we’re doing something in a field -”
“A ritual,” Draco breathed.
Harry nodded. “Yeah, a ritual.”
“Okay,” Draco whispered. “Let’s talk, then.” He sat up slowly and Harry sat on the bed where his legs had been.
“Silencing charm?” Harry asked, pulling the curtains shut around them and raising his wand.
“Yeah,” Draco agreed, grabbing his wand from under his pillow and casting a weak Lumos. He was impressed when Harry managed the charm wandlessly.
“Okay, so let’s start with what happened to you last week. I’m guessing the brand you got on your chest wasn’t self-inflicted?”
Draco shook his head. “No. When I notified my Aunt Bellatrix that I wouldn’t be joining Voldemort at the end of this year, she ordered Crabbe and Goyle to punish me. They got some help, obviously-they’ve never been very creative or good enough at using magic to cause pain. Madam Pomfrey doesn’t know if she’ll be able to heal the burns well enough to get rid of the brand and keep it from scarring, but I’ll live.”
Harry nodded, no sign of pity on his face. “We all have marks of some kind or another,” he said, looking at the brand on Draco’s pectoral muscle again. “And they could have chosen worse for you -”
“Being branded ‘a lion’ is the ultimate insult to a Slytherin,” Draco interrupted wryly, rubbing the lion brand on his chest and causing it to sit back on its haunches and roar silently.
Harry watched it move with fascination. “Wicked.”
“Yeah, it hurt like hell, so don’t even think of getting a matching one. Anyway, I suppose I can live with it, given where I’m staying now.”
“Did they break both your arms, too? It seemed like they were giving you trouble before.”
“Yeah, had to regrow the bones. And a few teeth as well,” Draco said, not without some bravado.
Harry smiled at him. “So you’re on our side now, then. Sorry to make you talk about it, but I had to know if I could trust you.”
Draco grimaced. “I don’t know about it being your side. Just whatever side isn’t behind that madman -”
“Okay, well ... when did your dreams start?”
********************
For the rest of their seventh and last year at Hogwarts, Harry and Draco became something like friends. Not only that, but Hermione didn’t mind having Draco around when they studied, and Ron had taken to ignoring him instead of spoiling for a fight every time they were in the same room.
Then NEWTs came, and graduation parties, and goodbyes ... and something just didn’t seem right about parting ways. “I think these dreams we’ve been having mean something, Draco, and I’m not going to let your stupid pride get in the way of us staying together, at least until Voldemort is dead and gone.”
Draco sneered at him. “Aw geez, Harry. I didn’t know you cared.”
Harry scowled. “Stop that. I know you only get prickly when you feel vulnerable, so give it up. Stay with me at Grimmauld Place, at least for the summer. The house should have been yours, really. And it’s big enough that we can all train together, and even Ron and yourself can avoid each other the whole time, if you’d like.”
“Ron’s going to be there, too? Count me out, then. I’ll figure out something else -”
Harry grabbed his arm just as he moved to turn away. “Don’t make me choose between you, Draco.”
Draco stared into his eyes. “Let me think about it.”
********************
Harry still couldn’t believe that Draco was here, unpacking his things in the spare room across the hall from his own.
“I’m glad you decided to come.”
Draco turned around quickly, startled, and Harry saw the worn, stuffed dragon in his hands. “Shit, Harry! You scared me!”
Harry grinned at him. “What’s that then?” he asked, pointed at the stuffed animal.
Draco hid it behind his back. “Nothing! Now get out, and don’t even think about telling Ron what you just saw!”
Harry left, laughing.
********************
They trained hard for the three months they lived in Grimmauld Place together. Dumbledore, Snape, and an odd assortment of other Hogwarts teachers and Aurors pitched in to teach them various spells and fighting styles. Ron and Hermione came over most days, and only spent the night on weekends-usually in the same room. Harry didn’t ask, nor did he want to know, what they got up to together.
With all the hard work they’d been doing-most of it without complaining too much-they could feel themselves getting stronger each day. Mentally, physically, and magically stronger.
Everything was going well, and Draco hadn’t even mentioned leaving, when things suddenly took a turn for the worse. The dreams, which had been mostly dormant since Draco had moved into Grimmauld Place, returned and intensified at an alarming rate.
********************
“Dammit, Snape, I don’t know!” Harry shouted, gesticulating wildly. “Usually we’re in a field. Um ... it seems familiar somehow, but there’s nothing else around. Then these two people -”
“Four people, Harry. There are four -”
“I know!” Harry snapped. “But there are two main ones. And they look kind of like -”
“They are not the founders, Potter, for bloody sake,” Draco interrupted again, face turning red as his temper rose. “Just because you think you’re the centre of the universe doesn’t mean the four founders are going to come back to life just so you can perform a ritual with them and save the whole damn Wizarding world!”
Severus slammed the book he’d been perusing against the nearby table. “That’s enough!” he shouted. “I realise that you’ve been getting little sleep, but we will get nowhere if you do not calm down.”
Both Harry and Draco let out large sighs and collapsed back against the opposite sides of the parlour-room couch.
“So please, continue. Draco?”
Draco breathed in and out once before starting in a calmer tone of voice. “There are four people with Harry and me. They’re standing around us in a circle, one at each of the compass points. We help them perform a ritual and -”
Harry put a hand on Draco’s nearby shin. “And the most recent dream shows stones rising in the air. They start stacking on top of each other, building something insanely fast all around us. But before we can see what it is, the dream is over.”
“Yeah, but before the dream ends we get a repeat of our earlier dreams, with a locket and Gryffindor’s sword,” Draco added. “I put the locket around the hilt, and then Harry’s swinging the damn thing around.”
“And then I shove it hard into the ground, right in the middle of the circle.”
Severus sat up straight. “You’re certain? You drove the sword into the ground?”
Draco nodded along with Harry. “Yeah, but why is that -”
Severus stood up and headed for the fireplace swiftly. “I’ll be back. I must speak with the Headmaster about this at once.” He grabbed a handful of Floo powder from the pot on the mantel. “I’ll be in touch,” he added, before vanishing into the green flames.
Harry turned to Draco. “What do you think that was about?”
Draco shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m sure he’ll tell us all about it soon enough. Then maybe these dreams will start to make some sort of sense.”
Harry sighed. “Yeah, I sure hope so...”
********************
Severus never had a chance to tell them what he’d confirmed with the Headmaster. Death Eaters waited until the worst possible moment-about an hour later, when both Harry and Draco were alone-to launch an attack on Grimmauld Place.
“Shit! We have to keep them out of the room!” Draco shouted, throwing a curse over Harry’s shoulder.
“I’m trying!” Harry shouted back, turning to curse the Death Eater coming into the parlour through the kitchen door.
“How are they getting in? I thought the place was under the Fidelius Charm!”
“I don’t know!”
And there was precious little time for talking, after that. Harry and Draco scarcely managed to take down each of the advancing Death Eaters, only because they were stupidly trying to enter the room one at a time through the limited entrances. After a few minutes of fighting, unconscious bodies had begun to pile up in front of the three doors, and there was still nowhere for Harry and Draco to go. Except for the -
“The Floo!” Draco hissed, turning to curse yet another Death Eater.
Harry’s eyes darted to the fireplace. “Fuck yeah!”
There was a pause in the advance, and they both dashed to the fireplace and Harry grabbed a handful of Floo powder -
Just as Voldemort himself made an appearance in the parlour.
“Enough!” he shouted, halting the progress of the dozen or so Death Eaters coming in behind and on either side of him.
Harry’s one hand dropped to his side, Floo powder still gripped tightly in his palm. “Voldemort,” he spat. “How the hell did you get in here?”
Voldemort grinned, his deformed face becoming even more disturbing with the gleeful expression. “A fancy bit of Charms work, and now I have not only Harry Potter, but also the blood traitor at my mercy.”
Draco pointed his wand at Voldemort. “Not at your mercy yet, you bastard.”
Voldemort frowned at him and then waved his masked Death Eaters forward. “Surround them,” he ordered. In seconds, Death Eaters had formed a half circle around them and the wall with the fireplace. Harry thought he recognised Bellatrix among them, and two large, bulky shapes that could only be the elder Crabbe and Goyle.
“And just so you don’t go anywhere,” Voldemort added, pointing his wand and Banishing the pot of Floo powder on the nearby mantel wordlessly. “You were saying?” he asked Draco pointedly.
Draco clenched his teeth and a wild sound not unlike a growl escaped him. Harry put the hand with his wand on his shoulder and Draco dropped his own wand to his side.
“How did you get past the Fidelius Charm?” Harry asked Voldemort calmly, meeting his blood-red eyes easily. “There’s no way that Dumbledore gave us up.”
Voldemort chuckled. “That’s the brilliant part - he didn’t have to.” He waved his hands and arms about dramatically as his Death Eaters tittered. “Welcome to the year 1972; for the house, at least,” he said, manic glee evident in every tick of his facial expression. “By altering time only for the house itself, we’ve managed to circumvent that pesky charm and -” he fluttered his hands about some more and then pointed his wand at Harry’s head again. “And now we’ve got you alone and helpless.” He began to chuckle again, this time throwing back his head and laughing even harder. Harry squeezed Draco’s shoulder and, in not even half a second -
“Avada Kedavra! they shouted together, wands pointed straight at Voldemort’s heart. A flash of green light filled the room, blinding themselves and the Death Eaters around them, but Harry didn’t hesitate. He threw the Floo powder still in his hand into the fireplace and shouted, “Three Broomsticks!” before pulling Draco into the flames with him.
********************
After what felt like at least half an hour, Harry and Draco tumbled out of the Floo and onto a sooty hearth.
“Fuck!” Draco groaned. “Is he dead? Is he - did we kill him?”
Harry vomited into a nearby spittoon.
“Shit, Harry! Harry, are you okay? Did we kill him? Did we -”
A hand landed on Draco’s shoulder. “I believe your friend is ill, sir. Perhaps such inquiries could wait until later?
Draco look up quickly, wand in hand and fear in his eyes.
“Now, now, no need to be hasty. I feel as if we’ve met before, and it wasn’t antagonistic in the least. Shall my friend and I help the two of you get yourselves together?”
Draco stared at the man’s fiery red hair and bushy beard, then looked beside him at a man with dark hair and goatee and a pale complexion. “Holy shit -” Draco exclaimed, right before fainting dead away.
Godric and Salazar looked at each other with concern. “Do you think they’ll be okay? It sounds as if they succeeded -” Godric began.
Salazar put a hand on his swollen belly and sighed. “I don’t know, but you’ll have to be in charge of clean-up. Just the sight and smell of them is making me nauseous -”
“Yes, dear,” Godric said, rolling his eyes. Salazar left the small pub with an exaggerated sigh of relief and Godric moved to pull the two collapsed teens from their respective piles. At least the spittoon hadn’t fallen over when the dark-haired one had collapsed over it. “Tell Augustus it’ll be a few more minutes before he can have his pub back!” Gryffindor called after him.
********************
When Harry awoke, he had an awful taste in his mouth. He opened his eyes groggily and was confronted with a familiar blond head of hair. He groaned and buried his face in it. “Thank Merlin you’re okay!” he sighed.
Draco stirred. “Leave me ’lone, Potter, m’tired. Training later.”
Harry smiled. “No, Draco. Voldemort’s dead, remember? And -”
Draco swatted at his face. “Go ’way. M’sleepin.”
Someone chuckled, causing Harry to startle and Draco to come awake.
“Please tell me he’s not who I think he is,” Draco said, staring at the man in the doorway.
“I’m pretty sure that’s Godric Gryffindor, which would mean that we’re not in the year 1998 anymore.”
Draco closed his eyes. “Would this have anything to do with going through a time-altered house’s Floo? Because so help me, Potter -”
Harry shoved him. “Hey! How else were going to get out of there? We were surrounded!”
Draco fell back against the bed. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be -”
“I see our guests are finally awake. Find out anything useful, Godric?”
Draco’s eyes snapped open. “Holy shit, it’s Salazar Slytherin.” His eyes dropped to the man’s swollen stomach. “Holy shit, it’s a pregnant Salazar Slytherin. Harry, we’re hallucinating. Or we’re dead. Or possibly both.”
Harry was speechless.
********************
“We’ve been trying to make contact with you, but I’m afraid we only confused you both. Rowena has been having visions that worried us greatly, so we used the Elder wand to send you dreams across the span of time. Dreams that would compel you to seek each other out, and to try to reach us.”
“Um -”
Salazar picked up where Godric had left off, speaking over Draco. “Yes, we’ve been making plans to build a school, but Rowena’s visions have been staying our hand. We needed to wait for the appearance of two teenage boys, who as far as we could tell were future students of our school. A conundrum to say the least.”
Harry gripped his cup of tea, grateful for its warmth. “Hogwarts.”
Godric sat up straight. “Yes! That’s what I’d wanted to call it -”
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” Salazar sighed. “Now I’ll never talk him out of that horrible name.”
Draco snorted with laughter. “It could have been better, yes, but we’re used to it by now.”
“What did you need us for, anyway? We had these dreams and there was this ritual -” Harry began.
“Yes, a ritual,” Draco interrupted. “I’m guessing that we’re somehow central to the ward-building of the castle. But why? Why us?”
Harry’s eyes grew big. “Draco, you never said anything like that before -”
Draco turned to him. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? They haven’t built Hogwarts yet, and our dreams focused on us in the middle of a ritual circle commonly used in ward building. It follows that -”
“A sharp one, he is,” Godric whispered to Harry, who was sitting next to him at the small kitchen table. “Hold onto him. Blokes like us need someone who’ll stop to think every now and then.”
Harry sputtered. “We’re not - I mean ... we’re not!” His face was bright red and Draco turned towards him.
“What’s the matter, Harry?” he asked, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder.
Harry turned even redder and Godric laughed uproariously. “Not yet, eh? Well, give it time.” Godric turned to his lover at his other side and smiled. “Did you tell Draco why we need them in particular?”
Salazar nodded. “But I think he’s having a hard time believing me.”
“It’d be more obvious if they’d experienced their ‘special powers’ already. But according to Harry, they’re not as far along that path as we’d assumed ...”
Harry gulped down the rest of his tea. “Okay, then. Get on with it.”
Draco jabbed him with his elbow. “Be more respectful, Harry,” he hissed in Harry’s ear. Harry’s face went red again and Godric chuckled into his hand.
“As I just told Draco,” Salazar said, “you are both our ... spiritual descendants, to put it simply. Harry, you are distantly related to Godric, and Draco to myself. In fact, you both may be related to each other distantly, if you are descended from our mutual progeny. That is, however, mostly inconsequential. It is your spirits that are so similar to our own, and because of the strong connection that we share you were able to travel through a large span of time at just the moment we needed you to boost our own magic levels and create the wards necessary to keep the school safe from whatever future perils you have been facing.”
“And defeating!” Godric added boisterously. “We were worried for a moment there-Rowena said she saw you training very intensely, and then a battle. And then she told us to get to the Three Broomsticks in a hurry. Well, right when we’d managed to clear the place, out you tumbled from the Floo!”
“Yes, it was very fortunate that you were able to appear just when we needed you. If I had given birth before you appeared, well...”
Godric put a hand on Salazar’s swollen belly. “One up-side to male pregnancy is that it gives you a huge boost in your magic. Afterwards, though...”
Salazar put a pale hand over Godric’s own. “Afterwards, I will be quite weak.”
Godric moved closer to him. “I’ll take care of you, Sal. Don’t worry.”
Salazar looked between Harry and Draco, expression serious. “You must be aware of your special powers, or you could find yourself in a similar situation without warning. As our spiritual descendants, you are destined for each other just as we are. And your powers are such that either of you could become pregnant. Male pregnancy is very rare, and -”
“Rare?” Draco exclaimed. “I’ve never heard of a case of it! And if you think that I’d let Potter get anywhere near me without his skivvies ... well, you’re delusional.”
Godric chuckled. “Me thinks the lady dost protest too much.”
Draco squawked. “And just who are you calling a lady? And there isn’t anything going on. Tell him, Harry.”
Harry coughed. “Yeah, um ... there’s nothing going on.”
“Well, it is a strong likelihood, in any event, that you will both -” Salazar began.
“What did I just say?” Draco exclaimed, banging a hand on the table.
It was some time before everybody was calm enough to discuss the actual ritual and when they would need to perform it.
********************
They were gathered on a large field in the middle of nowhere. Hogsmeade was a ways off, not visible over the knoll to the east. Now that Harry was looking for it, he could see similarities in the lay of the land that had endured over the centuries.
“Everybody ready?” Salazar asked.
They all nodded and Harry gripped Godric’s sword tightly. Draco stood next to him, Salazar’s locket in his hand. “I can’t believe we’re doing this, Harry,” he whispered. “The founders! It’s unreal...”
“On the count of three,” Salazar instructed, and the four surrounding them raised their wands in readiness. Salazar to the East, Godric to the South, and Rowena and Helga, whom they had just met, to the West and the North respectively.* “One. Two,” Harry and Draco stood still and both flinched when he reached, “Three!”
A web of light arched over them, and Draco moved quickly, wrapping the locket around the hilt of Godric’s sword. “Do it!” he shouted. A high wind had picked up under the arch of wandlight, making it difficult to hear each other.
Harry nodded and gripped the sword with both hands. “Stand back!” The moment Draco was out of range, he hoisted the sword up and then thrust it downward into the grass. Although the ground was cold and hard, the blade hit and then slid in for another thirty centimetres, as if moving through butter.
Once it stopped moving, Harry let go of the hilt. He looked up and met Draco’s eyes. “Now?” he shouted.
Draco reached forward and grabbed his hand. “Yeah!”
They linked fingers and then wrapped their joined hands around the gleaming blade just under the hilt. “Shit!” Harry shouted, wincing in pain as the blade cut into the palm of his hand. Draco winced, too, and their blood spilled down the metal, mingling together and hitting the ground.
A flash of light and then ... stones appeared all around them, floating in mid-air. They could scarcely hear the chanting of the four founders around them as the stones whizzed past in the high magical winds. Draco pulled their joined hands off the blade and jerked Harry towards him, away from the stuck sword.
“Merlin, this is insane!” he shouted, trembling slightly.
Harry put his arm around him in an embrace and pulled him close. “How much longer do you think this will take?”
“I don’t know! I can’t take much more, the way the magic is pulling us -”
Harry put his hand behind Draco’s head and leaned close. “Draco,” he whispered, too quietly for Draco to hear. And then he was kissing him, deep and passionately.
Draco, after a moment of hesitation, put his arm around Harry’s waist and pulled him close, joining in the kiss with fervour.
Another flash of light, and then -
It was completely silent. Harry and Draco broke apart with a gasp.
“What just happened?”
Draco looked around them. “Harry, I think that we’re inside -”
“Thank God you’re okay!” Hermione’s voice sounded.
Another voice joined hers. “Wait a minute, Hermione. Did you just see what I saw?”
Harry blinked a few times. “Ron?”
“Our resident hero has returned, I see,” Snape said, emerging from the shadows behind Hermione and Ron.
Harry looked down and noticed that he and Draco were standing on a raised dais. The room around them was mostly dark, but a beam of light was shining down on them from somewhere, making a slit in the earthen floor beneath them visible.
“Welcome back to Hogwarts, boys. The castle is glad to have you back,” Dumbledore said, coming out of the shadows next to Severus.
It was too overwhelming. “But ... what?” Harry asked, dazed.
Draco gripped his injured hand tightly and pulled him close for another kiss. “We’re back, Harry,” he said, once he’d released Harry’s lips. “And we’re heroes.”
The End.
*According to Celtic symbolism:
East = air, communication, new beginnings, new growth
South = fire, energy, passion, creativity
West = water, emotion, psyche, movement
North = earth, home, security, fertility
Title: Old Souls
Pairing(s): Harry/Draco
Rating: PG
Summary: Harry and Draco have prophetic dreams that compel them to seek each other out.
Warnings: non-explicit mpreg
Total word count: 5,317
Original prompt request number: 013
Disclaimer: This story/artwork is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros. Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: After kawanale’s prompt. I tried to stick as close as possible to it, but I had to change a few small things. Hope you enjoy!
Beta: My sis, Laura (Love you, hon!) and Angela Snape. Thanks!
Old Souls
Harry awoke gasping for breath.
What?
Images jumbled in his head: a man with fiery red hair and a scraggly beard, a runic circle on a field of endless green, Draco Malfoy, expression fierce and angry, a locket...
Before he could make sense of it all, it was gone, leaving only the faintest of impressions and the feeling that he had forgotten something important.
He fell back asleep shortly after.
********************
On the other side of the castle, deep in the dungeons, Draco awoke panting and sweating as if he’d just finished a marathon. There had been...
A man with dark, lank hair and a long goatee, a runic circle on a field of endless green, and Harry Potter, expression full of determination and a frightening level of resolve, thrusting downwards with a jewel-encrusted sword.
Draco sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. What else? Desperately, he tried to remember more-the dream had been so intense as to seem prophetic-but it was no use. The images slipped through his consciousness like water through a sieve. He was left feeling, however, as if he were on the wrong path, and that some greater force was trying to push him in the right direction.
He pushed the sheets off of himself and got out of bed-there was no use in trying to fall back asleep now. Maybe breakfast would be laid out already; he’d always thought better with a full stomach.
********************
The dreams didn’t stop. Hadn’t stopped in more than two weeks. Harry was starting to go mad, the dreams were so intense and all-encompassing. He’d fallen asleep in class just that day, too exhausted to stay awake, and immediately been plunged into a scene of himself, Draco and four others standing in a runic circle. The outlying land was green, lush, and devoid of any other life, and the four figures around them had all raised their wands and pointed them upwards -
“Harry!”
Harry came to attention just before stepping off a landing and into empty space.
“Harry, the staircase just moved-we’ve got to go the long way back to the Tower. What’s the matter with you lately?”
“Not getting enough sleep,” he mumbled, turning to follow Hermione and Ron.
“Voldemort?” Ron asked with a pained expression.
“No, just dreams,” he said. “Keep having them. Too intense.”
“Harry, you never know,” Hermione said. “They could be prophetic if they’re particularly intense and repetitive. What are they about?”
Harry shrugged. “It’s not important. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay, Harry,” Hermione said, giving Ron a concerned look.
Harry ignored them in favour of heading to the tower and his bed.
********************
Neville, Harry and Dean watched silently, each for his own reasons, as the confrontation escalated.
“This is ridiculous! Why should that snake be allowed in our room? What if he takes it in his mind to strangle Harry in his sleep?” Ron shouted.
“Yeah! What then?” Seamus added, face turning red.
Ron nodded. “I bet that was his plan all along! And now you’re making it easy for him by -”
“Mr. Weasley, that is enough!” Professor McGonagall interrupted him sternly. “Mr. Malfoy is at the bottom of the stairs with his things, and he will be moving into this room and you will welcome him into your dormitory or suffer the consequences!”
“I’ll bloody well suffer them, but there’s no way -”
“Ten points for language, Mr. Weasley!” McGonagall snapped. “I’m disappointed in you because I know your mother raised you better than this. If you protest further, you will be assigned detention. And if I hear of any ‘hazing’ or what have you, do not be surprised to find yourself suspended from the Quidditch team, no matter how loath I may be to do it.”
Ron bit off his next protest, his face going from red to white in seconds.
“Do I make myself clear?” McGonagall prodded.
“Yeah,” he answered petulantly.
“Good. Now everyone please welcome your new dorm mate,” McGonagall said with a flourish, opening the door she’d closed behind herself earlier.
When Draco entered the room shortly after, bags floating behind him, nobody said a word. They just stared at the yellow bruises on his face and arms as he headed for the new empty bed beside Harry’s own.
“Yes, well. Have a good night boys,” McGonagall said before departing with one last stern look over her shoulder.
The moment the door closed, Dean pulled Seamus to his bed and closed the bed hangings around them. Furious whispers could be heard behind the thick material, and Neville glanced across the room at Harry and Draco before walking over to talk to Ron quietly in an attempt to calm him down.
Harry sat on the side of his bed and watched everyone silently for a moment before focusing on Draco. He stared as Draco slowly unpacked his things-it was like his bruised arms gave him a great deal of pain.
After a few minutes, Draco turned to glare at him. “What?” he asked, gritting his teeth against the pain of even that movement.
Harry continued to watch him stoically. Then, “What happened? Professor Dumbledore wouldn’t say -”
“None of your bloody business,” Draco spat, before turning back to his trunk.
“Okay,” Harry answered, settling back into bed and pulling his bedclothes up around him. “Fair enough.”
When everyone had settled into their own beds, the lights went off. Harry imagined Draco awake in the bed next to him until late into the night.
********************
“Shit!” Harry shouted, coming awake at the same moment as his uttered curse.
He heard an answering voice to the right of him, and he threw open the bed hangings on that side.
“Malfoy? You awake, too?” he hissed into the dark. It had been a week since Draco had started living with the Gryffindors and going to classes with them, and this was the first night that Harry had had another weird dream since then. Maybe...
“Fuck you, Potter,” Draco answered, muzzy and sleep-addled.
Some things never changed. “I’ll take that as a yes,” Harry muttered under his breath, turning onto his back again and closing his eyes.
“What was that, Potter? Don’t make me come over -” a yawn interrupted Draco mid-threat.
“Shut up, Malfoy, before you wake up everyone in the room,” Harry answered, turning over onto his side.
“You’re the one who woke me up,” Draco said. “Dropping that damn sword sheath on my foot. Must weigh close to a stone.”
Harry was instantly wide-awake. He sat up so fast that he got dizzy and could hear the blood rushing in his ears. “Wait - what did you -”
Draco suddenly sounded more awake, as well. “Nothing. It was a dream. Now fuck off -”
Harry had kicked away his bedclothes and was across the room in seconds, throwing open the bed hangings around Draco’s bed.
Moonlight from a nearby window slanted across Draco’s face and naked torso, and he shrieked and snatched at his sheets in an attempt to cover himself.
“I don’t think it was just a dream,” Harry said, voice serious. “And that burn on your chest - I’ve seen it before. In a dream.”
Draco’s eyes went wide. “It’s from the - the attack last week. And it’s been bandaged until just now, so you couldn’t have -”
“I think we need to talk -”
“Harry, would you shut the hell up? A man’s gotta sleep!” Dean shouted. Neville and Ron gave particularly loud snores in response, so Harry lowered his voice. “We need to talk. I’ve been having these dreams... There’s a man with a red, shaggy beard, and another man with a black goatee and ... and you. And you’ve got this locket, and I’ve got Gryffindor’s sword, and we’re doing something in a field -”
“A ritual,” Draco breathed.
Harry nodded. “Yeah, a ritual.”
“Okay,” Draco whispered. “Let’s talk, then.” He sat up slowly and Harry sat on the bed where his legs had been.
“Silencing charm?” Harry asked, pulling the curtains shut around them and raising his wand.
“Yeah,” Draco agreed, grabbing his wand from under his pillow and casting a weak Lumos. He was impressed when Harry managed the charm wandlessly.
“Okay, so let’s start with what happened to you last week. I’m guessing the brand you got on your chest wasn’t self-inflicted?”
Draco shook his head. “No. When I notified my Aunt Bellatrix that I wouldn’t be joining Voldemort at the end of this year, she ordered Crabbe and Goyle to punish me. They got some help, obviously-they’ve never been very creative or good enough at using magic to cause pain. Madam Pomfrey doesn’t know if she’ll be able to heal the burns well enough to get rid of the brand and keep it from scarring, but I’ll live.”
Harry nodded, no sign of pity on his face. “We all have marks of some kind or another,” he said, looking at the brand on Draco’s pectoral muscle again. “And they could have chosen worse for you -”
“Being branded ‘a lion’ is the ultimate insult to a Slytherin,” Draco interrupted wryly, rubbing the lion brand on his chest and causing it to sit back on its haunches and roar silently.
Harry watched it move with fascination. “Wicked.”
“Yeah, it hurt like hell, so don’t even think of getting a matching one. Anyway, I suppose I can live with it, given where I’m staying now.”
“Did they break both your arms, too? It seemed like they were giving you trouble before.”
“Yeah, had to regrow the bones. And a few teeth as well,” Draco said, not without some bravado.
Harry smiled at him. “So you’re on our side now, then. Sorry to make you talk about it, but I had to know if I could trust you.”
Draco grimaced. “I don’t know about it being your side. Just whatever side isn’t behind that madman -”
“Okay, well ... when did your dreams start?”
********************
For the rest of their seventh and last year at Hogwarts, Harry and Draco became something like friends. Not only that, but Hermione didn’t mind having Draco around when they studied, and Ron had taken to ignoring him instead of spoiling for a fight every time they were in the same room.
Then NEWTs came, and graduation parties, and goodbyes ... and something just didn’t seem right about parting ways. “I think these dreams we’ve been having mean something, Draco, and I’m not going to let your stupid pride get in the way of us staying together, at least until Voldemort is dead and gone.”
Draco sneered at him. “Aw geez, Harry. I didn’t know you cared.”
Harry scowled. “Stop that. I know you only get prickly when you feel vulnerable, so give it up. Stay with me at Grimmauld Place, at least for the summer. The house should have been yours, really. And it’s big enough that we can all train together, and even Ron and yourself can avoid each other the whole time, if you’d like.”
“Ron’s going to be there, too? Count me out, then. I’ll figure out something else -”
Harry grabbed his arm just as he moved to turn away. “Don’t make me choose between you, Draco.”
Draco stared into his eyes. “Let me think about it.”
********************
Harry still couldn’t believe that Draco was here, unpacking his things in the spare room across the hall from his own.
“I’m glad you decided to come.”
Draco turned around quickly, startled, and Harry saw the worn, stuffed dragon in his hands. “Shit, Harry! You scared me!”
Harry grinned at him. “What’s that then?” he asked, pointed at the stuffed animal.
Draco hid it behind his back. “Nothing! Now get out, and don’t even think about telling Ron what you just saw!”
Harry left, laughing.
********************
They trained hard for the three months they lived in Grimmauld Place together. Dumbledore, Snape, and an odd assortment of other Hogwarts teachers and Aurors pitched in to teach them various spells and fighting styles. Ron and Hermione came over most days, and only spent the night on weekends-usually in the same room. Harry didn’t ask, nor did he want to know, what they got up to together.
With all the hard work they’d been doing-most of it without complaining too much-they could feel themselves getting stronger each day. Mentally, physically, and magically stronger.
Everything was going well, and Draco hadn’t even mentioned leaving, when things suddenly took a turn for the worse. The dreams, which had been mostly dormant since Draco had moved into Grimmauld Place, returned and intensified at an alarming rate.
********************
“Dammit, Snape, I don’t know!” Harry shouted, gesticulating wildly. “Usually we’re in a field. Um ... it seems familiar somehow, but there’s nothing else around. Then these two people -”
“Four people, Harry. There are four -”
“I know!” Harry snapped. “But there are two main ones. And they look kind of like -”
“They are not the founders, Potter, for bloody sake,” Draco interrupted again, face turning red as his temper rose. “Just because you think you’re the centre of the universe doesn’t mean the four founders are going to come back to life just so you can perform a ritual with them and save the whole damn Wizarding world!”
Severus slammed the book he’d been perusing against the nearby table. “That’s enough!” he shouted. “I realise that you’ve been getting little sleep, but we will get nowhere if you do not calm down.”
Both Harry and Draco let out large sighs and collapsed back against the opposite sides of the parlour-room couch.
“So please, continue. Draco?”
Draco breathed in and out once before starting in a calmer tone of voice. “There are four people with Harry and me. They’re standing around us in a circle, one at each of the compass points. We help them perform a ritual and -”
Harry put a hand on Draco’s nearby shin. “And the most recent dream shows stones rising in the air. They start stacking on top of each other, building something insanely fast all around us. But before we can see what it is, the dream is over.”
“Yeah, but before the dream ends we get a repeat of our earlier dreams, with a locket and Gryffindor’s sword,” Draco added. “I put the locket around the hilt, and then Harry’s swinging the damn thing around.”
“And then I shove it hard into the ground, right in the middle of the circle.”
Severus sat up straight. “You’re certain? You drove the sword into the ground?”
Draco nodded along with Harry. “Yeah, but why is that -”
Severus stood up and headed for the fireplace swiftly. “I’ll be back. I must speak with the Headmaster about this at once.” He grabbed a handful of Floo powder from the pot on the mantel. “I’ll be in touch,” he added, before vanishing into the green flames.
Harry turned to Draco. “What do you think that was about?”
Draco shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m sure he’ll tell us all about it soon enough. Then maybe these dreams will start to make some sort of sense.”
Harry sighed. “Yeah, I sure hope so...”
********************
Severus never had a chance to tell them what he’d confirmed with the Headmaster. Death Eaters waited until the worst possible moment-about an hour later, when both Harry and Draco were alone-to launch an attack on Grimmauld Place.
“Shit! We have to keep them out of the room!” Draco shouted, throwing a curse over Harry’s shoulder.
“I’m trying!” Harry shouted back, turning to curse the Death Eater coming into the parlour through the kitchen door.
“How are they getting in? I thought the place was under the Fidelius Charm!”
“I don’t know!”
And there was precious little time for talking, after that. Harry and Draco scarcely managed to take down each of the advancing Death Eaters, only because they were stupidly trying to enter the room one at a time through the limited entrances. After a few minutes of fighting, unconscious bodies had begun to pile up in front of the three doors, and there was still nowhere for Harry and Draco to go. Except for the -
“The Floo!” Draco hissed, turning to curse yet another Death Eater.
Harry’s eyes darted to the fireplace. “Fuck yeah!”
There was a pause in the advance, and they both dashed to the fireplace and Harry grabbed a handful of Floo powder -
Just as Voldemort himself made an appearance in the parlour.
“Enough!” he shouted, halting the progress of the dozen or so Death Eaters coming in behind and on either side of him.
Harry’s one hand dropped to his side, Floo powder still gripped tightly in his palm. “Voldemort,” he spat. “How the hell did you get in here?”
Voldemort grinned, his deformed face becoming even more disturbing with the gleeful expression. “A fancy bit of Charms work, and now I have not only Harry Potter, but also the blood traitor at my mercy.”
Draco pointed his wand at Voldemort. “Not at your mercy yet, you bastard.”
Voldemort frowned at him and then waved his masked Death Eaters forward. “Surround them,” he ordered. In seconds, Death Eaters had formed a half circle around them and the wall with the fireplace. Harry thought he recognised Bellatrix among them, and two large, bulky shapes that could only be the elder Crabbe and Goyle.
“And just so you don’t go anywhere,” Voldemort added, pointing his wand and Banishing the pot of Floo powder on the nearby mantel wordlessly. “You were saying?” he asked Draco pointedly.
Draco clenched his teeth and a wild sound not unlike a growl escaped him. Harry put the hand with his wand on his shoulder and Draco dropped his own wand to his side.
“How did you get past the Fidelius Charm?” Harry asked Voldemort calmly, meeting his blood-red eyes easily. “There’s no way that Dumbledore gave us up.”
Voldemort chuckled. “That’s the brilliant part - he didn’t have to.” He waved his hands and arms about dramatically as his Death Eaters tittered. “Welcome to the year 1972; for the house, at least,” he said, manic glee evident in every tick of his facial expression. “By altering time only for the house itself, we’ve managed to circumvent that pesky charm and -” he fluttered his hands about some more and then pointed his wand at Harry’s head again. “And now we’ve got you alone and helpless.” He began to chuckle again, this time throwing back his head and laughing even harder. Harry squeezed Draco’s shoulder and, in not even half a second -
“Avada Kedavra! they shouted together, wands pointed straight at Voldemort’s heart. A flash of green light filled the room, blinding themselves and the Death Eaters around them, but Harry didn’t hesitate. He threw the Floo powder still in his hand into the fireplace and shouted, “Three Broomsticks!” before pulling Draco into the flames with him.
********************
After what felt like at least half an hour, Harry and Draco tumbled out of the Floo and onto a sooty hearth.
“Fuck!” Draco groaned. “Is he dead? Is he - did we kill him?”
Harry vomited into a nearby spittoon.
“Shit, Harry! Harry, are you okay? Did we kill him? Did we -”
A hand landed on Draco’s shoulder. “I believe your friend is ill, sir. Perhaps such inquiries could wait until later?
Draco look up quickly, wand in hand and fear in his eyes.
“Now, now, no need to be hasty. I feel as if we’ve met before, and it wasn’t antagonistic in the least. Shall my friend and I help the two of you get yourselves together?”
Draco stared at the man’s fiery red hair and bushy beard, then looked beside him at a man with dark hair and goatee and a pale complexion. “Holy shit -” Draco exclaimed, right before fainting dead away.
Godric and Salazar looked at each other with concern. “Do you think they’ll be okay? It sounds as if they succeeded -” Godric began.
Salazar put a hand on his swollen belly and sighed. “I don’t know, but you’ll have to be in charge of clean-up. Just the sight and smell of them is making me nauseous -”
“Yes, dear,” Godric said, rolling his eyes. Salazar left the small pub with an exaggerated sigh of relief and Godric moved to pull the two collapsed teens from their respective piles. At least the spittoon hadn’t fallen over when the dark-haired one had collapsed over it. “Tell Augustus it’ll be a few more minutes before he can have his pub back!” Gryffindor called after him.
********************
When Harry awoke, he had an awful taste in his mouth. He opened his eyes groggily and was confronted with a familiar blond head of hair. He groaned and buried his face in it. “Thank Merlin you’re okay!” he sighed.
Draco stirred. “Leave me ’lone, Potter, m’tired. Training later.”
Harry smiled. “No, Draco. Voldemort’s dead, remember? And -”
Draco swatted at his face. “Go ’way. M’sleepin.”
Someone chuckled, causing Harry to startle and Draco to come awake.
“Please tell me he’s not who I think he is,” Draco said, staring at the man in the doorway.
“I’m pretty sure that’s Godric Gryffindor, which would mean that we’re not in the year 1998 anymore.”
Draco closed his eyes. “Would this have anything to do with going through a time-altered house’s Floo? Because so help me, Potter -”
Harry shoved him. “Hey! How else were going to get out of there? We were surrounded!”
Draco fell back against the bed. “This can’t be happening. This can’t be -”
“I see our guests are finally awake. Find out anything useful, Godric?”
Draco’s eyes snapped open. “Holy shit, it’s Salazar Slytherin.” His eyes dropped to the man’s swollen stomach. “Holy shit, it’s a pregnant Salazar Slytherin. Harry, we’re hallucinating. Or we’re dead. Or possibly both.”
Harry was speechless.
********************
“We’ve been trying to make contact with you, but I’m afraid we only confused you both. Rowena has been having visions that worried us greatly, so we used the Elder wand to send you dreams across the span of time. Dreams that would compel you to seek each other out, and to try to reach us.”
“Um -”
Salazar picked up where Godric had left off, speaking over Draco. “Yes, we’ve been making plans to build a school, but Rowena’s visions have been staying our hand. We needed to wait for the appearance of two teenage boys, who as far as we could tell were future students of our school. A conundrum to say the least.”
Harry gripped his cup of tea, grateful for its warmth. “Hogwarts.”
Godric sat up straight. “Yes! That’s what I’d wanted to call it -”
“Oh, for Merlin’s sake,” Salazar sighed. “Now I’ll never talk him out of that horrible name.”
Draco snorted with laughter. “It could have been better, yes, but we’re used to it by now.”
“What did you need us for, anyway? We had these dreams and there was this ritual -” Harry began.
“Yes, a ritual,” Draco interrupted. “I’m guessing that we’re somehow central to the ward-building of the castle. But why? Why us?”
Harry’s eyes grew big. “Draco, you never said anything like that before -”
Draco turned to him. “Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? They haven’t built Hogwarts yet, and our dreams focused on us in the middle of a ritual circle commonly used in ward building. It follows that -”
“A sharp one, he is,” Godric whispered to Harry, who was sitting next to him at the small kitchen table. “Hold onto him. Blokes like us need someone who’ll stop to think every now and then.”
Harry sputtered. “We’re not - I mean ... we’re not!” His face was bright red and Draco turned towards him.
“What’s the matter, Harry?” he asked, putting a hand on Harry’s shoulder.
Harry turned even redder and Godric laughed uproariously. “Not yet, eh? Well, give it time.” Godric turned to his lover at his other side and smiled. “Did you tell Draco why we need them in particular?”
Salazar nodded. “But I think he’s having a hard time believing me.”
“It’d be more obvious if they’d experienced their ‘special powers’ already. But according to Harry, they’re not as far along that path as we’d assumed ...”
Harry gulped down the rest of his tea. “Okay, then. Get on with it.”
Draco jabbed him with his elbow. “Be more respectful, Harry,” he hissed in Harry’s ear. Harry’s face went red again and Godric chuckled into his hand.
“As I just told Draco,” Salazar said, “you are both our ... spiritual descendants, to put it simply. Harry, you are distantly related to Godric, and Draco to myself. In fact, you both may be related to each other distantly, if you are descended from our mutual progeny. That is, however, mostly inconsequential. It is your spirits that are so similar to our own, and because of the strong connection that we share you were able to travel through a large span of time at just the moment we needed you to boost our own magic levels and create the wards necessary to keep the school safe from whatever future perils you have been facing.”
“And defeating!” Godric added boisterously. “We were worried for a moment there-Rowena said she saw you training very intensely, and then a battle. And then she told us to get to the Three Broomsticks in a hurry. Well, right when we’d managed to clear the place, out you tumbled from the Floo!”
“Yes, it was very fortunate that you were able to appear just when we needed you. If I had given birth before you appeared, well...”
Godric put a hand on Salazar’s swollen belly. “One up-side to male pregnancy is that it gives you a huge boost in your magic. Afterwards, though...”
Salazar put a pale hand over Godric’s own. “Afterwards, I will be quite weak.”
Godric moved closer to him. “I’ll take care of you, Sal. Don’t worry.”
Salazar looked between Harry and Draco, expression serious. “You must be aware of your special powers, or you could find yourself in a similar situation without warning. As our spiritual descendants, you are destined for each other just as we are. And your powers are such that either of you could become pregnant. Male pregnancy is very rare, and -”
“Rare?” Draco exclaimed. “I’ve never heard of a case of it! And if you think that I’d let Potter get anywhere near me without his skivvies ... well, you’re delusional.”
Godric chuckled. “Me thinks the lady dost protest too much.”
Draco squawked. “And just who are you calling a lady? And there isn’t anything going on. Tell him, Harry.”
Harry coughed. “Yeah, um ... there’s nothing going on.”
“Well, it is a strong likelihood, in any event, that you will both -” Salazar began.
“What did I just say?” Draco exclaimed, banging a hand on the table.
It was some time before everybody was calm enough to discuss the actual ritual and when they would need to perform it.
********************
They were gathered on a large field in the middle of nowhere. Hogsmeade was a ways off, not visible over the knoll to the east. Now that Harry was looking for it, he could see similarities in the lay of the land that had endured over the centuries.
“Everybody ready?” Salazar asked.
They all nodded and Harry gripped Godric’s sword tightly. Draco stood next to him, Salazar’s locket in his hand. “I can’t believe we’re doing this, Harry,” he whispered. “The founders! It’s unreal...”
“On the count of three,” Salazar instructed, and the four surrounding them raised their wands in readiness. Salazar to the East, Godric to the South, and Rowena and Helga, whom they had just met, to the West and the North respectively.* “One. Two,” Harry and Draco stood still and both flinched when he reached, “Three!”
A web of light arched over them, and Draco moved quickly, wrapping the locket around the hilt of Godric’s sword. “Do it!” he shouted. A high wind had picked up under the arch of wandlight, making it difficult to hear each other.
Harry nodded and gripped the sword with both hands. “Stand back!” The moment Draco was out of range, he hoisted the sword up and then thrust it downward into the grass. Although the ground was cold and hard, the blade hit and then slid in for another thirty centimetres, as if moving through butter.
Once it stopped moving, Harry let go of the hilt. He looked up and met Draco’s eyes. “Now?” he shouted.
Draco reached forward and grabbed his hand. “Yeah!”
They linked fingers and then wrapped their joined hands around the gleaming blade just under the hilt. “Shit!” Harry shouted, wincing in pain as the blade cut into the palm of his hand. Draco winced, too, and their blood spilled down the metal, mingling together and hitting the ground.
A flash of light and then ... stones appeared all around them, floating in mid-air. They could scarcely hear the chanting of the four founders around them as the stones whizzed past in the high magical winds. Draco pulled their joined hands off the blade and jerked Harry towards him, away from the stuck sword.
“Merlin, this is insane!” he shouted, trembling slightly.
Harry put his arm around him in an embrace and pulled him close. “How much longer do you think this will take?”
“I don’t know! I can’t take much more, the way the magic is pulling us -”
Harry put his hand behind Draco’s head and leaned close. “Draco,” he whispered, too quietly for Draco to hear. And then he was kissing him, deep and passionately.
Draco, after a moment of hesitation, put his arm around Harry’s waist and pulled him close, joining in the kiss with fervour.
Another flash of light, and then -
It was completely silent. Harry and Draco broke apart with a gasp.
“What just happened?”
Draco looked around them. “Harry, I think that we’re inside -”
“Thank God you’re okay!” Hermione’s voice sounded.
Another voice joined hers. “Wait a minute, Hermione. Did you just see what I saw?”
Harry blinked a few times. “Ron?”
“Our resident hero has returned, I see,” Snape said, emerging from the shadows behind Hermione and Ron.
Harry looked down and noticed that he and Draco were standing on a raised dais. The room around them was mostly dark, but a beam of light was shining down on them from somewhere, making a slit in the earthen floor beneath them visible.
“Welcome back to Hogwarts, boys. The castle is glad to have you back,” Dumbledore said, coming out of the shadows next to Severus.
It was too overwhelming. “But ... what?” Harry asked, dazed.
Draco gripped his injured hand tightly and pulled him close for another kiss. “We’re back, Harry,” he said, once he’d released Harry’s lips. “And we’re heroes.”
The End.
*According to Celtic symbolism:
East = air, communication, new beginnings, new growth
South = fire, energy, passion, creativity
West = water, emotion, psyche, movement
North = earth, home, security, fertility