Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns Harry Potter.
Summary: Portkeyed to a savage northland wilderness, Draco and Harry must survive. Draco becomes inexorably bound to the wild and to Harry. Slash.
Aurora
Chapter Three: To Gabriel: A Song
It was several hours since Draco had eaten, and he was actually keeping it down. He was even hungry again, but the idea of catching and eating further raw fish made him more queasy than just eating it had. Looking back, he didn't know how he managed the task. It was clear and slippery and flavored with the metallic taste of blood and the deep waters. Harry had an equally difficult time with each bite, but where Draco remained calm, Harry ate with a trembling agitation.
Clouds swarmed about the sky, so high and distant, like angels passing over the land. It was a relief from the impending starkness of the clear skies, yet warned the world of snow and alerted Harry and Draco to the need of immediate shelter. They realized most caves would already contain inhabitants; in fact, while trekking down the river, Draco passed the cave he'd gazed so longingly at the previous day, only to peer further inside and see a huge bear sleeping cozily.
"Maybe it stored berries for the winter," said Harry. "If we can ever get over there, we should look."
Draco gazed incredulously at him. "A sleeping bear is still a bear, Harry." Then he shook his head. "I think you're the one with the death wish."
Harry's following chuckle was hollow and devoid of humor.
They were on a quest for wood. Dead branches, fallen branches, anything that could be used to build a makeshift shelter for the night. Or for longer – Draco was beginning to develop the slightly exhilarating feeling that they were going to be stranded there for no short period of time. Harry seemed to be aware of this as well, but he welcomed the news with curt sentences and a distant manner. Not that Draco expected Harry to react any differently towards him: they were, after all, accustomed to rivalry. But because Draco had found such solace and respite and absolute freedom from his normal life in this wild country, he naturally expected Harry to feel the same. It was shocking when he didn't. It was shocking that, instead of stopping to watch a herd of caribou, Harry trampled on, his head turned the ground and his eyes turned inward. It was shocking that he obtained such a look of fear in his eyes when he gazed upon the distant mountains. For somebody who had battled a dark lord, it was shocking that Harry was petrified by a factor so seemingly harmless as isolation.
This was their third trip. Harry carried armfuls of sticks as long as his legs, while Draco used both his arms to transport larger, sturdier wood, wood that would provide the frame of their structure. Draco stumbled a few paces and then stopped, his breath ragged.
"Let's rest."
Harry dropped his load and sank into the snow. He then began work on removing his boots, his fingers working numbly at the ties. "I don't know how much longer I can stand to wear the same clothes," he said. "I – we're both going to start to smell soon. And it isn't as if we can hop in the river for a quick rinse. We'd bloody drown, and we'd freeze. Oh, shit. My sock is starting to rip." Harry angrily shoved his foot back into his shoe and laced up. He then reclined, closing his eyes against the weak sunlight.
Draco was frustrated. He wanted to make Harry understand. He wanted to make him, the only person around for miles, understand the simple beauty all about them. Draco had been raised to admire things, and he never could comprehend why others so pointedly chose to ignore magnificence.
Farther away, the subtle hills of snow gave way to sharp, severe mountains, cold and grey and capped with ice. They were ancient, more ancient than Hogwarts, more ancient than all of wizarding kind. When Draco looked upon them, he felt a rumbling in his spirit. Not the acidic bite of heat he felt when he stared at Harry for too long, but a delicate lure, a connection with something old, solid, and everlasting. He imagined himself climbing the mountain crags and seeing the whole world spread out below him. He imagined the river reduced to the size of a thin pencil sketch. He imagined every human that lived before him and every human that was to live after him. As he looked at the ancient landscape, he felt like he was part of something huger than himself. It was a cold, deep feeling.
He also recognized an importance that lay just out of reach, something he was missing, something he wanted to scratch at like an itch.
He saw Harry shift and open his eyes.
"Would you have killed me?" Draco asked evenly. He didn't expect to ask that. "If I hadn't said anything, would you have?"
Harry sat up, surprisingly pained by the question. "I... I don't think I had the power to."
"Would you have completed the curse?"
Harry was still. Then, slowly, he shook his head. "No. I wanted to. I hated you enough. But I don't think I could ever – kill – you." Silence. Then, slowly, and in a voice hardly above a whisper: "I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad your here. I wouldn't want to be alone."
His eyes were open, honest, frank. Draco held his gaze. Then, lifting himself from the ground, he strode over to Harry and extended his ungloved hand.
At Harry's intake of breath, Draco feared he would reject it. But he didn't. His hand embraced Draco's and Draco pulled him from the ground. Their skin should have been cold, but all Draco felt of Harry was a spreading warmth and that strange, half-asleep, washed-over sensation. His eyes swam with dark hair and emerald.
Harry was watching him as well, but his expression was nervous and flighty. His arm barely trembled as he smiled tentatively. Draco wanted to grin back, wanted to get under Harry's cloak, wanted to –
But he remained frozen, amazed at Harry and what such simple contact could arouse. Harry, unsure now, dropped his hand and gathered back his woodpile. Draco breathed his name, Harry, but the only residue of it was a soft flush into the wind.
Thick marshmallow clouds blotted out the light of the sun. The further they walked, retracing their own footsteps, the quieter the wood became. Birds found their nests, small animals dove into underground tunnels, and Harry and Draco shared a nervous look. They increased their pace.
When they finally sank back into the comfort of the grove, the wind was howling through the branches overhead and the sky was murky.
"Something wicked this way comes," quoted Harry.
"There's nothing magical about this storm."
Harry looked at Draco seriously. "I don't think you quite understand the danger we're in, Draco. You kept us from starving. That's wonderful. But do you realize that if we are going to survive, there are so many more factors we'll have to overcome than just hunger? You don't seem entirely together, like your mind is half with me and half in the sky. You can admire the land, but don't shrug off the threat of it. That's arrogant, and it will get you killed."
Draco furrowed his eyebrows and opened his mouth to speak, but a clash of thunder ripped through the sky and blew away any form of response.
"We need to get to work," said Harry.
They worked for the better part of the hour, laying the longer branches they gathered parallel on the sturdy tree limbs above. The smaller branches were placed between the gaps in the other wood, providing a formidable ceiling. Draco was rather impressed. The walls were made of the large branches and several thick, wide slabs of bark. Lastly, the floor was lined with pine needles. Harry said this was for insulation.
The thunder had grown more fierce and the sky was as dark as late evening. The winds brought with them the scent of snow and ice and a bitter chill that boasted of a blizzard. Draco crawled through the small opening they left for an entrance and hunched over in the corner. The shelter was only maybe the size of his four-poster bed, and rose to the height of his shoulders.
Harry scrambled in after him and sank down by the opposite wall. It was even darker inside. Only small sections of brightness peeked through the spaces in the walls, and even that light was dim and the shade of iron. If possible, the world was growing colder.
Draco caught Harry's eyes. "I do understand the danger. It's part of why I am happy. This is the sort of danger that is not unjust, the sort of danger that doesn't pick favorites."
Harry grinned. "I thought you enjoyed being the favorite."
"Yes. Immensely. But this is different. I can't explain it; I don't think I want to."
"Fair enough," Harry said. But it wasn't. Now Draco had to explain. He didn't know why. It was that itch again, an obligation to make somebody beside himself appreciate his thoughts.
"You've had to prove yourself your whole life, Harry. I've been expected to do nothing except win. It bothered me that I didn't, but now I realize that doesn't matter. Nothing that trivial has to matter, out here. I have no obligations. I have nothing. In the end, you know, we all return to the wild."
Harry watched him silently for so long that Draco thought he'd frozen to death. Then, his voice matching the low pitch of the wind, he said, "Maybe that works for you, but I could never be free of those obligations. They aren't obligations for me. I want to do them. I never stop thinking about my friends, and no amount of snow is going to wash that out of me. They are the reason I'm so scared."
That burning feeling mixed with despair. How could he have expected Harry to understand?
Then the snow came. It seemed impossible that it could reach their overgrown grove, but it did. The flakes built and built and the wind roared and the lightening cracked above them and showed each boy's countenance to be stark white. The wood around them shook. It was like heaven itself was ripping open and the Gods were snarling and wailing, bringing havoc upon them.
Both Draco and Harry moved to the center of the room, their backs pressed firmly against each other, watching the storm rage outside. The wind was now so loud that they couldn't hear anything else. It was the sound of a plane's engine, circling around them. There was nothing to see outside except for the white of the snow that piled around them, in the small entrance and on the roof, weighing it down and threatening to collapse. And through this fury Draco could have sworn he heard a song, a song invented by the wind and the creaking of the wood, a song to the angels, a song whose music was lost by time and human distortion and was being revived with every gust. Draco listened, his eyes wide open and his body quaking with shivers, and he didn't think about anything else. He was lost within the storm. It was tragic, and treacherous, and Draco, he fucking understood. This wasn't about him.
A few logs blew away from the side of the wall, and snow flooded in. The temperature dropped.
"We have to do something," cried Harry, who stood and removed his cloak.
"Are you insane? You'll freeze!" Draco hollered. But Harry continued. He fastened the cloak around where the wood had fallen and tucked it into the ceiling. It was dark crimson, the color of blood, and mocked them from where it hung.
Harry dropped to the ground and curled up. He was now only wearing a sweater, and his lips obtained a tinge of blue. Draco didn't even think about it. He reached out and drew Harry near him and wrapped him in his cloak.
Even in his condition, Harry was warmer than anything Draco had ever touched. His face flushed with heat as Harry turned his eyes to Draco's in a stare that was both grateful and frightened. His skin was colorless. Draco reached his hands to his cheeks and felt his fingers burn where they touched, and felt the hot acidity in the back of his throat and in his gut. His insides swam, his lungs constricted, and the longer Harry held his gaze the more Draco felt he would be consumed.
Harry pulled the cloak more tightly around them, and it grew warmer. Draco could hardly breathe. It was almost painful. Was that Harry's heart racing ever faster, or his own? He didn't know. It didn't matter. Another gust of wind blew through the space and Harry wrapped his arms around Draco, burying his face in Draco's shoulder. "I'm so cold," he whispered. Draco's was face close to Harry's neck, allowing him to feel every tremor of his voice.
Draco was truly, openly afraid. They both were shivering violently and the wind would not relent. Draco shut his eyes, lay his face against Harry's hair, and listened to the song of the storm. It was terrifying and solemn. Draco was afraid to die; he was afraid for Harry to die, but he understood he didn't have a choice. Not anymore. So he just listened, and somewhere deep inside of him, he prayed.
It was an eternity before the storm died down. But, Draco thought, his arms twined around Harry's waist and Harry's breath coming feverously against his neck, an eternity had never been better spent.