Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!
Fair warning: This chapter is happy (for the most part) and sappy.
Chapter Eighty: Calling Up the Wild Magic
Harry rubbed irritably at his ears. It was all very well for the wild Dark to run around singing, but when he started hearing the song even in the middle of Arithmancy, then something had to be done.
"Mr.—Harry? Are you all right?"
Harry managed to give Vector a pained smile. "Yes, Professor." He bent over his work again, trying to disregard the glances that other students were giving him. He could hardly blame them. After all, if something was wrong with him, then Voldemort might be about to attack the school, or an immense beast might appear out of nowhere and crash into it. Harry wondered how many of them considered him a ward, blaring before a danger actually reached them to give them time to hide.
A flare of irritation surged through him, and a white dove appeared out of nowhere above his head and fled towards the window, wings clattering. When it couldn't find exit there, it wheeled around and then flew up towards the ceiling. It perched there and began to coo. Professor Vector stared at it, and then at him. The other students said nothing, their hunched shoulders more eloquent than their mouths could be.
"Harry," said the professor at last, voice clipped. "Do attempt to control yourself."
"I will," Harry whispered, feeling his ears burn. "It's Walpurgis." He turned a sharp glance on Draco when he realized that Draco was snickering behind his hand and not even trying to hide it. Draco gave him an innocent look, shaking his head.
"A dove, Harry?" he whispered. "And you can't do anything better than that, then? At least a dragon wouldn't raise doubts about what sweet and innocent dreams you have at night."
"Shut it," Harry muttered, and went back to his calculations. The dove uttered a few more experimental coos before tucking its head under its wing and going to sleep. Harry reminded himself to capture it after Arithmancy so he could release it outside.
His magic was creating birds and scents and miniature lightning storms any time he experienced a strong emotion, and it was still five days until Walpurgis. Harry dreaded to see what he would be doing by the time the last day of April actually arrived.
Draco tapped the book with his finger and leaned over it one last time. The words it contained were practically etched with acid into his brain by now, but there might be one thing he'd forgotten, one requirement of the ritual that he'd let lapse from his mind because it wasn't as interesting as the others. So he read it again.
The formal courting ritual takes three years in total. It is best to begin on Walpurgis Night, for then not only is the wild magic close to the earth to see the lovers and give them its blessing, but emotions otherwise buried may also rise. Walpurgis calls to the magic in the blood and bone, and wizards and witches sing back to the sky. Even Light wizards are restless on that night, sensing the ancient communion that pertained to all before some turned their back on the spaces between the stars and proclaimed they would follow only the starlight.
Draco raised his eyebrows, as he always did. That was the only point on which he really distrusted this book. It claimed that all wizards had once been Dark and the Light came later. Draco didn't think so. Some people had always been afraid, which meant there must always have been Light wizards in the world. He rolled over on an elbow and continued reading, unafraid that Harry would find him. Harry was off brewing potions with Snape. They did that more often now that they'd finally settled the stupid argument between them.
On such a night, those who do not know each other, the newly introduced lover and beloved, may be more amenable to the marriage or joining than otherwise. Their parents should introduce them, and then leave them alone. A coupling on this night between new lovers would not be wise, but those performing the ritual will not wish to bed each other in any case.
"That's what you think," Draco muttered. Of course, the ritual had been intended to match partners in arranged marriages and joinings, initially. It made sense that two people suddenly forced together wouldn't be that interested in leaping into bed.
The purpose of all the smaller rituals that are part of this courting—save the thirteenth and last, which is the actual marriage or joining, and should take place on the Walpurgis three years after the beginning of the ritual—is to create intense experiences that the partners may share together. This is the true purpose of the absence of parents, siblings, and other traditional guards for a young man or woman of marriageable age. If they participate, the ritual will go subtly awry, and attempt to include them in the partnering. Save in the case of Flora, Pomona, and Tertius Guile, such joinings are not usually successful.
Draco gave a shiver of distaste at the thought of getting Connor pulled into the ritual, or anyone else who might follow them in curiosity to see what was happening. He would definitely make sure that he and Harry were alone before he started the ritual after the dancing.
The lover will need to present his beloved with a gift important to the lover's maternal bloodline, symbolizing the birth of a new and momentous link. This gift must be secured while the beloved is nearby, but not seen beforehand. The beloved will need to accept it and speak the required words that allow the ritual to proceed, "In blood we begin this marriage/joining, on earth, in the sight of the dark spaces between the stars."
Draco nodded. He'd memorized the words, and he could easily prompt Harry, who knew nothing about them yet—Harry had not demanded to know any details of the rituals—to say them.
The rest of the details of the ritual were as he remembered them. Draco gently put the book aside and lay back on the bed, fighting the urge to laugh giddily and wrap his arms around himself.
Three days until Walpurgis Night.
Harry sat straight up in bed, and blinked at nothing. The dream tattered through his head, not having the clarity of a vision come from Voldemort, but not fading the way that most of his ordinary dreams did, either.
In it, a shining black wyvern with silver wings had threatened him. It had stalked him through a dark green clearing, and tried to sting him several times with its scorpion tail. Harry had avoided each strike, and said the most nonsensical things to the wyvern in turn, scolding it, as if it were a pet that he needed to hold back from hurting either him or itself. The wyvern had shrieked like a kettle in irritation each time he did so.
"Well, that was different," he said aloud.
"What was different?" Draco's voice just outside his bed-curtains made him start, Argutus blink and hiss sleepily, and the Many snake lift her head from the blankets, ready to bite anyone who threatened Harry. Harry swallowed and told himself that startlement was not the same thing as fear.
"A dream that was, for once, just an ordinary dream," he said, keeping his voice low, and opened the curtains. Draco stood there with his wand in his hand and Lumos glinting on the end of it. Harry rolled his eyes. "Come in, for Merlin's sake, before we wake Blaise up." Blaise had tended to look particularly martyred in the past week whenever he was deprived of sleep, though that could be because he and Ginny were still having an ongoing argument, and he lay awake at night thinking up retorts.
Draco crawled into the bed with him, and let the curtains fall closed. He reached out to stroke Argutus's head, and Argutus hissed happily. "His hands are always warmer than yours," he told Harry.
"That's nice," said Harry absently, and turned back to Draco. "What's the matter? Did you have a nightmare?"
Draco gave him an odd look. "No. Why do you ask?"
"Because you were standing outside the curtains as if you were waiting for me to wake up," said Harry. "A bad dream might cause that, but I don't know what else."
"Because I heard you talking in your sleep, of course." Draco abruptly grinned and leaned closer to him. "I thought I'd come over here and make sure that you weren't moaning anyone else's name but mine."
Harry felt his cheeks flush, and knew from Draco's satisfied look that he'd seen it. He didn't really understand that part of their relationship yet, Harry had to admit. If anyone had asked him, he would have said that Draco would want a partner who could keep up with him in witty flirtation, rather than, as Harry did, only achieving it in certain moments. He had done it at the alliance meeting, but only by taking Draco utterly off-guard with the public announcement of their courting ritual. Instead, Draco seemed to enjoy provoking any reaction he could out of Harry, whether that was stuttering or flushing or a poleaxed stare.
Well, if I am not equal to him in that, I can try to be. And perhaps he's not as obsessed with it as I think he is. He has never said anything to indicate that he wishes I'd be wittier.
"No, no one's name but yours," said Harry, and lowered his voice as he said it, to see what would happen. Draco blinked at him, his expression bearing a distinct hint of That's not fair. Harry cocked his head at him and leaned in closer. "Or were you making sure of that, instead? I've seen you reading all those books lately that you've been refusing to show me the titles of. Have you been studying incantations for certain kinds of dreams, Draco?"
"Of course not!" Draco exclaimed, as if he thought the accusation was serious. "Those are books about the ritual, Harry, and I just want to make sure that I'm doing everything right and that I'm surprising you. That's all."
"Hmmm." Harry told his impending panic, present mostly because he was sure to mess this up, to bugger off. "And what kinds of surprises do you have for me, Draco?" He let his eyes flicker down Draco's body, and abruptly Draco was the one looking poleaxed. Harry grinned at him, unable to maintain the front for much longer. I can see why he likes doing this. This is fun—when it goes right.
"Um," said Draco, and looked at him some more. Then he said, "I think I'll go back to bed now," and opened the curtains, though he looked as if he wished that Harry would invite him to stay.
"I think that's a good idea," Harry agreed solemnly. "After all, we wouldn't want to wake Blaise up with all our nocturnal activities."
Draco blinked. Then he said, "Flirting isn't a necessary part of the ritual, Harry."
Does he really think that I'd only do this because of that? Yes, he does, from that expression. Harry sighed and reached out, letting his hand glance along the side of Draco's cheek. "I know it's not," he whispered. "I'm doing this because I want to, Draco, and for no other reason." He raised his eyebrows. "Do you really think that you could force me into doing something I didn't want?"
"No, but your training—"
"My training has nothing to do with this part of it," said Harry. "Go to sleep, Draco. After all, you'll need all your strength tomorrow night."
He watched in satisfaction as that made Draco stumble a little on his way back to the bed. Well it might. This was the first time Harry had ever tried to flirt seriously, and that he was choosing to do it the night before the courting ritual began would make it all the more significant to Draco.
Well, good. I want it to be significant.
Harry slid back under the blankets and closed his eyes, to the delight of both Argutus and the Many snake.
One day until Walpurgis.
Harry tensed when he received the Daily Prophet the next morning. The headline on the front page concerned "shock tactics" that a werewolf group had used to try and force people to pay attention to them: vandalism on several shops in Diagon Alley, and enchantment of objects in each shop to chant slogans supporting werewolves' rights. The story contained a quote from "former Minster of Magic Cornelius Fudge" on how awful the vandalism was, though, from the descriptions that Skeeter had chosen, Harry thought it sounded minor.
But that's not an excuse, is it? Harry thought, as he handed the paper over to Draco and began eating his sausages, with Argutus's earnest help. No, it's not. Biting people might be their worst tactic, but they wouldn't limit themselves to causing chaos and damage on the full moon nights alone. Of course not.
What they're doing is dangerous and irresponsible. How long before it escalates from night raids and vandalism and minor spells to an all-out curse war? The werewolves might not even start that, Aurors might, but it would still result in dead people. And the moon is full again in two days.
He started to push his plate away from him, but Argutus was hanging off his shoulder, a bond that connected him to the plate, and objected with hisses loud enough to make several students look over at the Slytherin table. Harry flushed and let the Omen snake take a few bites from his fingers. Argutus immediately started crooning that he was the best friend a snake could have, and wrapped his tail securely around Harry's throat while he feasted. He'd grown long enough now that he flowed over Harry's shoulders like some kind of mirrored drapery, and though he still preferred to ride with some part of himself touching Harry's left wrist, he couldn't expect a loop of his tail around it to support his weight any longer.
"What's the matter?"
Harry, surprised, turned his head. He would have expected Draco, if anyone, to comment on his reaction to the article, but it was Pansy, her head cocked to watch him. Harry couldn't see her face in the confines of her hood. That was all right. He'd finally got used to Pansy as a black-wrapped presence, he thought, with the robes billowing and drifting around her as the dead played with them, and the scent of rotting flesh growing stronger every day. And of course she could talk aloud to him now, since today was Walpurgis.
"I don't know what the best course is, with the werewolves," he whispered to her. "If I knew who they were, I might be able to stop them, but I only have the name of a leader, not a location or a description."
Pansy paused for so long that Harry wondered if she'd retreated into communion with the dead, or found what he said boring. Then she said, "Is it your responsibility to stop this, Harry? They've chosen their fate."
"I would like to stop it, at least," said Harry. "They're dragging innocents into a second war, and they're dividing the attention of the Aurors and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, which should be focused on stopping the Death Eaters as much as possible. Add to that the fact that they only got so bold in the first place because I made that oath to help them, and, yes. I think at least part of it is my responsibility."
Pansy inclined her head. "And what do you think their ultimate plan is?"
Harry shook his head. "I have no idea whatsoever. Remus told me what they want and the general outline of what they've decided on, but not the details of how they plan to achieve it."
"Do you think you'd know the werewolves who did this to Diagon Alley, to look at them?"
"Not unless I could use Veritaserum," said Harry.
"Then stop fretting," Pansy ordered him softly. "No one else expects you to stop this, Harry. They'll look to the Minister and Madam Bones and blame them. You should enjoy Walpurgis. The wild Dark and the dead both wish you well, you know, and your courting begins tonight."
Harry blinked at her. "The wild Dark wishes me well?" he asked stupidly. "How do you know that?"
He had the impression that Pansy smiled, though only the tilt of her head said so. It was becoming hard to remember how her gestures had looked without the robes, he thought, and that idea pierced him with a pang of sadness. "I know because it's decided to talk to the dead this year, to ruffle them like wind blowing through the leaves of the trees, and the dead pass that restlessness on to me, Harry."
"But I fought it at Midwinter," said Harry. He had expected to have to spend Walpurgis Night with an eye on the heavens, waiting for an irritated black lightning bolt to come down at him.
"And that was Midwinter," Pansy whispered. "Harry, honestly, do you think the wild Dark is consistent? It's both like a great, spoiled child, and like the magnificence the Light showed on Midwinter, and right now it's decided to be magnificent. And it approves of you, even. It likes the way that you stood up to it. This is the time of year when it's happiest, and it wants you to be happy, too."
"All—right," said Harry slowly, trying to get used to the idea.
Someone claimed his hand, and he turned to see Draco smiling at him.
"You deserve to be happy, Harry," he said fiercely, "and to think about something other than the fate of the world for one day. Now eat your breakfast, and then I have something planned for us."
Harry raised his eyebrow, and started on his eggs, since Draco was watching, and Argutus had finished the sausages. Meanwhile, Draco kept up such a flow of chatter that Harry lost the specifics of the werewolves' story under it.
He had his doubts about how good an idea this was, though. The last time he had stepped back from the world and absorbed himself in his own happiness, after his parents' trial, Bellatrix Lestrange had taken over Durmstrang.
Harry did not expect that Draco's surprise would involve skipping Defense Against the Dark Arts. Draco firmly took his hand when Harry turned towards Acies's classroom, though, and steered him up another corridor instead. Harry stumbled, and looked at Draco with a frown.
"Don't you have History of Magic now?" he whispered.
Draco snorted, never looking away from the corridor he'd been dragging Harry up, his eyes intently studying the stones ahead of him, as if he intended to take Harry to a place inside the walls. "As if Binns is going to notice that I'm gone, Harry."
Harry shook his head. "Well, Professor Lestrange will definitely notice that I'm missing," he whispered.
"Why are you whispering?" Draco lifted his eyebrows at him. "No one else is here. I've cast an aversion charm on the hallway. Ah!" He reached out and flicked his wand against the stones, and the wall softly rumbled and slid aside to reveal a small room Harry couldn't remember seeing before, even on the Marauder's Map.
The room was—ordinary, a bare stone box with four walls, and yet not ordinary. Harry cocked his head uneasily in several directions, trying to identify the source of the magic. It circled the chamber like the patrolling current of power in Woodhouse, but this was not a single, smooth, uninterrupted flow. Instead, it darted about like flashes of lightning, and evaded his eye. Harry thought it was place magic, though.
"Draco, what—"
"Shhh, Harry." Draco hissed the words directly into his ear, as if he'd forgotten his own words about no intruders coming into the hallway. "Will you trust me for a moment? Let me show you what this is?"
"I'd trust you for a lifetime, Draco, and you know it," said Harry. There went another flicker of magic, and he jumped. "I just want to know what this place is."
"A room that my mother and father used when they were courting," Draco said, and leaned his cheek against Harry's. Harry realized in startlement that his arms were linked around his waist, and that they stood much closer together than Harry usually felt comfortable with. The magic of the room had distracted him so much that he hadn't noticed. "Just watch. Please?"
The tone in the last word made Harry realize how long it had been since he and Draco had shared a moment like this. He was always worrying about something else, and surely Draco must find it wearing. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax with a tiny nod.
The moment he did, the magic of the room seemed to notice them. Harry heard a deep sound, which might have been a purr or an amused chuckle, and then the air in front of them opened. Harry blinked as it bloomed with color, the tiny jabs of magic darting out from the walls to create an image of deep red, gold, silver, and green. The colors played around each other, refusing to assume solid form.
"I don't see how this is of use to courting couples," he muttered.
"Patience, Harry," Draco murmured back. "You'll see in a moment. And aren't they beautiful enough in and of themselves?"
Harry had to admit they were. Some of the colors were similar to ones he'd seen in the skies while he watched the Light's violent dawns, but they were all deeper, more jewel-toned. He let himself watch them and think of nothing else, and was surprised, when he next attended to it, by how relaxed his breathing had become. He leaned back against Draco, enjoying the warmth and pressure on his shoulders, neck, and spine.
The colors abruptly stopped brewing and scrambling, and then snapped into focus, forming an image so perfect that Harry caught his breath.
He saw himself—well, it had to be himself, because of the lightning bolt scar on his forehead and the messy black hair, even though he looked about ten years older—leaning back in a stone chair, his head against the supporting post of what looked to be a canopy made entirely of jade. The chair was molded to his body, as if it'd grown there. Older-Harry had his eyes closed, and Harry assumed he was asleep. The ground around him was patterned stone, traced with glowing blue; it might have been marble, but had a glossy sheen that didn't resemble that rock.
Beyond the canopy post were plants that Harry didn't recognize, though the greenery and their enormous red flowers were lush enough to bring tears to his eyes. Something sang lazily through the bushes, song wandering and dipping as if it had all the time in the world to reach a conclusion, or didn't ever want to come to an end. And sunlight, sunlight, sunlight poured through the open sides of the—building? house?—he sat in, making the unfamiliar robes he wore shine like sunlight back. Harry could almost feel its warmth from here.
An older version of Draco paced into the image from the left, and paused, staring at the sleeping Older-Harry as if he were a vision. Harry blinked and stared in turn. He had always assumed that Draco would look like Lucius when he grew; they had hair and eyes the same shade, after all, and it made sense that Draco would shed some of his childish gestures over time. Instead, Draco looked more like Narcissa, as if grace were written in every fiber of his being. He himself wore deep red robes tinged with gold, and Harry wondered what they signified in that place, since he doubted Draco would wear Gryffindor colors unless he could be sure of no one associating them with Gryffindor.
Draco touched the sleeping Harry's shoulder and whispered something. Older-Harry must not have been asleep after all, because he reached his arms up, without opening his eyes, and wrapped them around Older-Draco's neck. He pulled him down and engaged him in a kiss that was neither gentle nor fierce, but had an air of permanence as great as the stone around them. Older-Draco closed his eyes and leaned into it, and around them the sunlight slanted and the hidden creature sang and sang and sang.
Harry closed his eyes to block any unfortunate tears, and opened them to find the colors had melted, swirling, back into the walls, and the room had returned to its lightning jabs of magic, apparently content to ignore them again.
"What—what was that?" Harry whispered.
Draco swallowed several times behind him, then cleared his throat, as if he had been too choked up to concentrate for a moment. "That was a possible future, Harry," he said. "A future where we could be happy. The room sees them and shows them to the courting couples who come in—or to other people, too. I've heard generals used it to show possible outcomes of war strategies "
"But there's no guarantee that'll happen," Harry said, and shut his eyes once more.
He felt the rustle of soft hair beside his cheek as Draco shook his head. "No. When my parents used it, they saw my father as Minister of Magic and my mother raising twin daughters." Draco snorted. "You can see how that turned out."
"Well, it'll be our responsibility to make what we can of that joy real, then," Harry said firmly, and turned, mimicking the gesture of the older version of himself as best as he could, wrapping his arms around Draco's neck and kissing him.
Draco wasn't prepared for the sudden shift in weight, and he stumbled, landing with his back against the wall. He didn't hesitate to return the kiss after that, though, and while it wasn't quite the kiss the older versions of themselves had shared—those two men had known each other for so much longer—it was good enough, Harry thought, to be going on with. He stepped away from Draco and opened his eyes.
Draco was panting slightly, shifting around as though he didn't know where to put his hands. He locked his eyes on Harry's.
"Thank you," Harry said quietly.
"Any time you want to repeat that," Draco responded, "feel absolutely free. No need to ask permission."
Harry laughed softly, and the sound seemed to mingle in his mind with the sound of remembered song.
Draco had to admit, he was eager to see what a relatively normal Walpurgis Night looked like, without the accompaniment of Voldemort trying to chain the wild Dark and Harry having to fight him. He studied the faces of those students gathered around Millicent as she held aloft the dark green stone that would transport them to the largest collection of Dark magic in Britain that night, but could see nothing save a kind of calm excitement. Harry was the exception, of course, but Harry was always the exception. He had a listening look on his face. Now and then he stirred and glanced about. Draco asked him once what he was hearing, and Harry smiled absently at him.
"A horn," he said.
Well, that doesn't make sense. But Draco didn't say so. Harry had relaxed for the rest of the day after their morning encounter with the courting room, and as the night drew closer and closer, Draco had been able to remember that tonight was the first of his joining to Harry. That contented him for all his boyfriend's odd behavior.
Now, as the silver traceries on the dark green stone began to rise and spin around them like falling stars, Draco thought the only thing he had to regret was the absence of his parents. Lucius had refused flatly to attend Walpurgis, with the first cold tone in his voice that Draco had heard for months, and Narcissa had told him she thought it would be best if she didn't, either. They would appear for the beginning of the ritual afterwards, when they would "introduce" Draco to Harry, but then leave again. The dancing and the other, wilder parts of the night were not for them.
But Professor Snape was coming with them—of course—and he watched with narrowed, suspicious eyes as the magic of the stone spun them through nothingness, and then deposited them. Draco looked around in curiosity. Last year, they had landed in a flower-covered field.
This time, they stood in the middle of a deep wood. Draco shivered a bit. The trees around them felt almost too alive, insisting on acknowledgment and recognition of their status as living beings. Their dark green leaves, the color of the stone Millicent still held, rustled and whispered and dipped. Draco thought that normal until he realized there was no wind to toss them.
Then silver light struck through the trees, nearly blinding him. Draco raised his head and saw the moon soaring lazily overhead. It was not quite full yet, but even so, its light shouldn't have been that brilliant, Draco thought. This was more like the kind of moonlight Draco had imagined when his mother read bedtime stories to him, limning everything with a tracery more delicate and perfect than frost, turning the sky a deep blue in comparison to it.
Well, for that matter, is this wood a real wood? Draco had his doubts. For one thing, now that he was looking more closely at the trees, he could see that their bark was also dark green, though a paler color than their leaves. He didn't think any living trees looked like that.
And then he realized it didn't matter.
Joy had been stealing up on him for the past few minutes, and it overwhelmed him at the same moment as laughter broke from the other students around him. Even Snape loosed a chuckle, and then looked horrified at himself. Draco tilted his head up blindly, seeking the sky. He thought he knew what this was. He'd ridden some of the same immense emotions when Harry freed the wild Dark from Voldemort's control last year.
But now the wild Dark didn't have anything to worry about, and it poured down on them from the heavens with savage happiness.
Draco found himself trotting through the woods, and then running. He had no idea how he was managing to avoid the trees; he would never have run that fast at night normally, let alone in a strange place. But the moonlight and the trees spoke to him, and he ran, as if he were a werewolf. The air was thick with scents—not flowers, Draco thought, though he didn't know what they came from if so. Birds, maybe. Birds flashed past them overhead, and ringing notes came down, sharp answers to their laughter.
Draco wondered for a moment if he should get control of himself, and then wondered why. His father wasn't here to see him. The other people around him were too involved in their own joy to sneer at him for his. Blaise was actually pirouetting in a circle and humming under his breath. Draco turned forward and let himself run, delighting in the way his body responded as if he'd been doing this all his life.
They arrived so suddenly in a glade that Draco stumbled, trying to get used to the suddenly clear ground. The glade was entirely empty, as if the trees had been razed from it long ago, except for two things. One was a stream of water—silver, of course—which seemed to flow from a tree root on one side of the clearing and vanish into one on the other. The other was a white deer, just jerking its head up with a snort from the stream.
Draco froze as the deer's golden eyes swept over him. Old, confused tales of white hinds and white stags jumbled in his head, and he didn't know how to breathe or what to believe. This deer had golden antlers, presumably marking it as a stag, but they were higher and heavier than Draco thought they should be, and curved inward, making the dark space between them into a gaping void.
The deer curved away from them in the next moment, and Draco found himself following, along with all the others.
It was impossible prey to chase, and impossible to leave off chasing, because the wild Dark drove them. Every time Draco thought he was about to stumble and fall, he would look up and catch a glimpse of a ghostly coat as the deer ran ahead, or golden antlers blazing in the night like meteors, and find a new surge of strength. He didn't know what would happen if he did catch the deer. He only knew that he wanted to run until that happened, that the creature seemed to have imprinted itself on his heart.
He had to slow at last, though, stumbling and gasping. Most of the others around him were doing the same thing; they used the breath they had left to laugh. Draco glanced around at them, and then frowned.
Harry was missing.
When he saw the white stag, Harry realized why he'd been hearing a hunting horn at odd moments all day. He was meant to follow it, and capture it, though what would happen after the capture he didn't know.
He ran on after the others had stopped, following that glimpse of white and gold. He could only compare the experience to the way he'd traveled the Forbidden Forest in third year, when Adalrico had just told him that Draco was in danger from what turned out to be a Black magical artifact. Roots parted around his feet like shadows. Trees slid past him, wavering. The ground itself seemed to support him and urge him back into the air. Harry felt wind cooling his brow when he started to sweat, easing the ache in his muscles.
He was in the presence of magic wilder and stranger than he had felt on any other Walpurgis Night, and he was not sure why. But his own magic answered it, coiling off his body, and the emotion he felt was not fear, but nearly pure happiness.
And determination. He was going to catch that deer.
He halted in another glade, as abruptly as he'd entered the one where the white stag had been drinking. The stag had stopped running and was waiting for him, head up, cocked to the side as if the golden antlers were no heavier than light.
Harry swallowed. He wondered if it would charge him, and attempt to kick him with those enormous hooves or bury those deadly antlers in his heart.
Instead, the stag came gravely forward and stopped in front of him. Harry stared into the golden eyes.
Strange, that they're golden. Shouldn't they be dark green or silver? Those are the colors that shine most often tonight.
The stag stamped a silver hoof, seeming irritated that Harry didn't understand. Then the golden eyes widened, and Harry found himself swept away within them, into a pinwheeling corridor of light and grace.
He understood in moments, then. The wild Dark did ordinarily favor the shades of dark green and silver on Walpurgis Night, but it was giving him gold and white tonight, as a gift, a thanks, an apology, a token, for facing it on Midwinter night.
Harry understood in that moment that the wild Dark held no grudges. It could not have done so; that was against its nature. It had struck back at Voldemort less for trying to hold it captive than because his trying to hold it captive had stung it, sent its power recoiling, and given it a good excuse. Or perhaps that was what it said to him now, and it had believed a different thing four months ago.
Harry put out his hand. He felt the stag's cool nose touch it, breathing a breath like hoarfrost over it, and found himself out of the golden eyes again, standing on his own two feet before it.
The deer breathed again, and traceries of dark green and silver coalesced on Harry's fingers and palm. He stared at them, dumbfounded. He recognized the insubstantial magic—flowers, birds, light—that Hawthorn had tossed into the air on the first Walpurgis Night he'd attended. She had tossed them up and invoked the wild Dark because she'd survived the Darkest magic that year, Fenrir Greyback's bite.
Harry supposed this meant that he'd survived the Darkest magic on this particular year. Midwinter, again.
Phoenix song stirred in him as if in response. Harry suppressed it. The song of a creature of Light wasn't appropriate right now.
He raised his eyes to the stag's face again. "Thank you," he said quietly.
The stag reared in a long sweep like a wave, and then turned and plunged into the woods. This time, Harry felt no urge to follow. The stag was beautiful precisely because it would never be caught, could not be taken alive. It could be killed, but then the hunter would find that the beauty had fled where he could not follow and left only a lifeless corpse under his hands. Harry suspected that the moment any white stag died, a new one came to life in the woods and began to run.
A bit bewildered, he shook his head and turned back to find the others, hearing Pansy's words in his head again. This is the time of year when it's happiest, and it wants you to be happy, too.
It certainly seemed to want that, Harry had to admit, staring at the mass of what looked like dark green leaves and silver petals in his hand.
Draco's breathing eased when Harry came back out of the woods, his hand clasped around a shining mass. He smiled at each of the people there, the grave, sweet smile Draco had once thought reserved for him alone. But he was so happy tonight that he didn't mind other people seeing it.
"This is Walpurgis Night," Harry said clearly, holding up his hand. "This is the night that the magic returns, the night when the magic renews, the night when the Dark cries out in its power. I claim the right to speak by virtue of having survived the Darkest magic of anyone here this year."
That caused most of the other people around them to lean forward and pay attention. No one disputed Harry's claim, Draco thought. Good. They had better not. If anyone else had survived Darker magic, it should have been a matter for Daily Prophet headlines.
"I am trying to understand both Dark and Light, and what they mean," Harry said softly, almost as if he were talking to himself. "And I tend to think all the fixed definitions we use—wildness, compulsion, free will, solitude, cooperation—are wrong, at some level. Or they interact with the wild Dark and the wild Light in ways that we've ignored.
"Living in a fixed world is easier, I know, but it's not real. I'm going to try not to ignore reality any more."
He looked at Draco as he spoke. Draco stared back, enchanted at the joy in Harry's face.
Harry cast his hand up, and the silver and green flurried from them, becoming a series of lightning bolts. "May we all be unbound!" he cried.
The green and silver lightning bolts swarmed over everyone there, encircling their wrists and their throats and their heads. Draco, staring in every direction, saw Blaise crowned as a king, Millicent with a torque around her throat, Hawthorn Parkinson with bracelets of wildness.
Harry smiled, and then the music came welling from nowhere, and the dancing began, and Draco did not have time to think of individual sights anymore, not when he was whirling with multiple partners, snatched apart and bound back together again by invisible magic, and the world had shattered and shivered into slivers of joy.