A/N: For ABlackSuicide! I honestly did not expect to write for this one anymore. Again, my readers show me that they know better than I do. Perhaps I should stop assuming that I won't write for a certain drabble? As always, folks, enjoy this chapter! Also, been a while since I posted a chapter for this. You might want to go back and read them again.
DISCLAIMER: No matter how much I wave my wand, I will never own Sev and our favorite green-eyed Wizard. *sobs*
WARNING: Yaoi is an important part of these. Please desist in flaming.
-Ryder
P.S. There may be more than one title that gets a continuation; Dragon's Might, Dragon's Might II... etc.
-Previously On...-
Lucius purred softly as he greeted his children. The visit had convinced him that he was more than compatible with them.
"Father, you look positively smug!"
"I think Da got laid." Harry chuckled as he hugged him.
"Brat." A giggle was all he got for the sarcastic drawl.
"You know you love me."
RPaS RPaS RPaS RPaS RPaS RPaS
Severus watched as the nuevo-riche Lockhart fop fawned over Harry's wings at a Ball in the Greengrass home. He hissed lowly, feeling his Creature half snarl at the mortal intruder. Harry started edging away from Lockhart less than halfway through the Ball. "Come now, Mr. Potter-Malfoy. Surely you would enjoy their company?"
"Really, Lockhart, I'm not interested in your proposal." Harry said politely as he tried to let the idiot down gently.
"May I help you with something, Lockhart?" he drawled as he wrapped around his Harry, the hissing tone a warning in and of itself.
"Severus!" Harry looked up with a thankful gaze, a beautiful smile lighting up his face. "I've been looking for you."
"Have you now?" he chuckled dryly as Lockhart stood there with the most foolish expression.
"Yes. Da mentioned you wanted to talk?" Emerald eyes shone with a happiness that he was hard-pressed not to enjoy. He allowed a small smile to indulge his Garuda, ignoring the gasps of the society matrons and several unmatched women.
"I did want to speak with you." he confirmed as Lockhart outright fainted on the floor. Bright emerald held amusement as Harry bit his lower lip to keep from laughing. "Come. The Greengrass's have set up lounges." He guided Harry through the crowd with serpentine ease, settling down with a glass of cognac and handing a glass of deep red wine to Harry. He knew his Garuda preferred the sweeter wines. "I did not like the fact that Lockhart was near you." he admitted with a rumble, reigning in his jealousy as best he could manage.
"I couldn't get away from him fast enough, Sev! That man has some issues with taking no for an answer. I was awfully glad you showed up." Harry murmured before taking a sip of the wine, lacing his smaller fingers with Severus's larger. "What did you want to talk about?" Severus flicked his wand out of its holster before casting several privacy and Warding spells.
"I would like to Court you." he answered. "Your Da and I have discussed this. I insisted you be included in the discussion since it is your future, after all." he said after a comfortable silence. Harry hummed as he leaned into his side, watching the other couples spinning around on the dance floor.
"I'd like that, I think."
"Would a year be suitable?"
"A year it is, Severus."
He adjusted his cravat for what seemed like the twentieth time in the past ten minutes.
"Why on Earth am I so nervous?" he muttered to himself.
"Harry's perfectly alright with waiting."
"Sev!" Harry enthused, hugging him and crooning softly. "You're being silly, you know. I like you a lot more than is entirely proper." his Garuda hummed as he tweaked the cravat to the left a little. "Perfect. Where are you taking me?"
"It's a surprise."
He escorted a blind-folded Harry into the Aviary in Tyntesfield.
"Am I hearing things?" Harry asked as he guided his Garuda to the very center of the building.
"No." He tugged off the blindfold, pleased when Harry released his wings with a happy sigh. "Welcome to the Aviary in Tyntesfield."
"It's amazing." Parakeets, lorikeets, swallows and even two leucistic* peacocks settled near Harry as he groomed his ridiculously soft feathers. The haunting call of a phoenix deep within the Aviary had Harry screeching a response. The scintillating wings beat the air as his intended took off. He quickened his stride, shock written all over his face when he saw the black, green and blue magical bird trapped in a small cage. Without thought he undid the magic surrounding the majestic bird with the snap of his fingers.
"Oh my Merlin... Who would do that to such a beautiful bird?" Harry breathed as the startling blue eyes of the bird met his own obsidian gaze. It trilled softly as it brushed its massive wings against Harry's.
"She's been here for at least three weeks. Look at her plumage... Where is the owner?" His intended's eyes had hardened into frozen chips of jade the absolute fury in his tone making Severus shiver slightly. She trilled again, this time softer as Harry listened. "She'd rather not go back in. She likes you."
"Likewise. We may be naturally at odds but a cage is something I would not force onto my worst enemy." Harry chirruped and screeched lightly, obviously conveying his words. "Her name?"
"Dhan'ya dila. It translates as 'blessed heart' in English." He and Harry stiffened as they saw a wizened figure slowly wound his way towards them.
"Greetings Pheonix of the East. I see you have freed her. Please, take her far away from here. The young Master has no idea what he was keeping contained."
"Why was she in there in the first place?" Harry asked coldly, still soothing the slightly damaged bird.
"A hunting trip in India yielded her. The other is a Naga skin in the python pattern."
Severus hissed at the mention of someone hunting his kind, "Who is this wizard?"
"Master Dumbledore is, as I said, a foolish youth." They glanced at one another in agreement, Harry crooning where the Malfoy Manor gardens were. "I apologize for slighting you kind, Honored Naga."
"No need; the Dumbledores will learn not to hunt us again."
He slithered along the Tyntesfield grounds, fully shifted to his massive fifty foot form; he hissed irritably when a light danced across his iridescent black scales. Severus flicked his tongue out as he tasted the air for the scent that had caged the now recovering phoenix. Gliding across the marble hall with the rasp of his sharpened scales scraping over the stone, he wound his way up the stairs. Tasting the air again lead him to discover that the adolescent was up late under a Disillusionment Charm. He hissed out his laughter at the ease of scaring the boy. Using his tail first, Severus slid around the unaware teen, tightening his grip as the boy lost the hold on his wandless magic and rumbling deeply in the back of his throat.
"Merlin, what is this?" the boy whispered, helplessly pushing at his slowly constricting scales.
Your worst nightmare. he whispered into the un-Occluded mind. A cage where you cannot get out, no light in the dark.
"Why? What did I do?!"
A caged animal is never truly happy. Something you held is free. Any ideas? he purred, tightening his coils a bit more to hear the squeak of air as it slipped past dry lips.
"Pheonix! You found it?!"
Indeed I did, little Wizard. Care to guess what I am? Severus flicked his tongue out to taste the fear. Hmm, just a little bit more and then he'd leave the boy alone.
"No. Father said you died out here years ago..."
Lies, of course. Say it. Say what has you reeking in fear and terror.
"Naga."
Yes. Capture or kill anything again and my coils will be the last thing you ever feel. Do we have an understanding?
"Yes, please just put me down..."
Very well.
-Three Months Later-
-PoV-
Harry was delighted as Severus presented him with a pair of gloves made from the shed skin of his other form.
"Sev, they're beautiful." he caressed the sharp scales of one, hissing as he scratched his palm on the armored hide. He went to lick it as Severus rumbled softly.
"May I see? I have Mediwizard training as well as a Potions Mastery." Harry absently offered his hand as he browsed through the Prince Library, fingers sliding over leather bound books nearly three times his size.
"Really? I was under the impression you preferred Potions."
"I dabble occasionally in Mediwizardry. I specialize in Magical Creature ailments; bites and such." the self-depreciating tone was not one Harry heard often around the Naga.
"You dabble? Well, you've fixed my hand up admirably." He laced his fingers with the Naga kissing the other man's hand with a smile. Severus's cheeks pinked a bit and Harry tugged him along, bumping into a broad chest. "Excuse me."
"Severus who is this?"
"Galen, I told you, my surname is the only thing to come off of your tongue. This is Harry, my intended." Harry looked up to see a man who looked tired, worn out and in failing health. Streaks of silver were clear in the still dark hair as the man also took the time to give him a once-over.
"Ah. Potter-Malfoy, I believe?"
"You're dying." he murmured softly, his Garuda senses telling him the magic disease was killing this proud man slowly.
"You told him?"
"No one told me anything, Lord Prince. I can feel it just fine." Harry finally had connected the face to the name. Thrumming just beneath the tension between Galen and Severus was also a faint Familial Line. "You're related."
"Harry, that's-Oh Merlin, you're seeing the Line." Severus whispered as the grip on his hand tightened.
"It's not too thick and I think you know why." he reached for it, his fingers brushing past the petty arguments to get to heart of the problem. Harry watched as the elder Prince cut off his daughter, how she had taught Severus not to trust his grandfather in return. How Galen knelt at her graveside each anniversary of her death and begged for forgiveness only to encounter cold silence.
Severus visiting the same grave that had a light and airy feel to it, warm winds caressing his hair and swirling his robes. Galen's terminal illness and the Raven's Nest Wards failing as he succumbed to it. "Of course it's her. Why the bloody hell not?" He encountered a blockage in the very center. Pushing and tugging, he finally unblocked the Line.
"Eileen."
"Mother."
Harry's wings snapped out as he saw the ghost.
"Hello, little Pheonix." the voice was soft, smooth as it apparently was for all Princes. "I see you dug to the root of our problems rather quickly."
"I want Sev to be happy." Severus brushed his free hand down Harry's wings, making him shiver lightly. "Stop that, you."
"I thought you wanted me happy?"
Harry laughed as he retaliated by caressing right above the scale line, "I do. Just stop harassing my wings."
"They're soft."
"Yes, I use them as blankets often enough to know my own wings." he chuckled dryly as she hummed thoughtfully.
"You pulled me from the Line?" she asked gently as she floated over the chair in a sitting pose.
"The block was you? Why would you dampen the only link left to them?" he murmured, rocking heel to toe as he thought. "There's something you know that one of them doesn't..."
"Very clever, little Pheonix. What is it?"
"The cure."
"Precisely. I needed them in the same location, but they were too stubborn to heed my hints."
"Where do you want them?"
"As they are little one. They can barely stand each other as it is."
"Manipulation has a way of biting you in the arse. I told Da the same thing the first time he tried it with me." he muttered back, snagging Galen's much larger hand as Sev's Mum completed the circle.
"A wise Pheonix for sure. Release the geas, bound by price, of Prince's generation thrice. Release the geas, free the eyes, rebirth as the Phoenix takes rise. Release the geas, break the ice, take me as fair maiden's price. As I will it, so mote it be." The edges of his vision turned black as he saw Eileen disappear with a sad smile. "Take care of my son, little Phoenix."
He gasped as something cold was placed on his forehead.
"You're awake." Severus murmured softly, taking away the cold and replacing it with something warm.
"Warn me next time you want to put a compress on my forehead... It's cold." he scolded lightly as he sat up. Putting his glasses back on, he wriggled his wings, straightening and/or pulling out itchy stray feathers. He offered the feathers to Severus who took them reverently.
"You do realize that you're giving these feathers to a Potions Master who has been search everywhere for them?" Severus drawled as he put them into a pouch pulled from his volumes pockets before secreting them away again.
"Da and Drake have a pair of primaries. It's the freely-given part that scares most people into not using them for experiments. I know they'll be put to good use with you." he replied. "How's Galen?"
"Cured." the warm tone made Harry look up into amused grey eyes. "No thanks to your meddling with the Familial Line."
"I'm so-"
"I did not say that to reprimand you, Mr. Potter-Malfoy." Galen placed a hand over his lips, a dark brow raised exactly like Severus did sometimes. He giggled a bit before looking over to see his intended narrowing his eyes at his Grandfather. With a smirk worthy of a Slytherin, he licked the man's palm using the flat of his tongue, knowing it had spikes that hurt if he forced the move. "Ouch!" He ducked under the protection of Severus's arms to see the shallow scrapes his tongue had left behind. "How in Merlin's name did you manage scratch me with your TONGUE of all things?"
"I have little spikes called papilla on my tongue. They're normally on cats, but Garuda and phoenixes have them on their tongues to groom their feathers when not in human form. I just barely licked you. Trust me." he grinned, sticking out his tongue so that the clear backwards spikes showed.
"That's why... Hmm, no wonder you lick my fingers in your sleep." Severus murmured as he straightened feathers Harry couldn't reach.
"I do what?" He almost turned around but a firm hand on his shoulder prevented him.
"You lick my fingers. It's entirely unintentional on your part, I'm sure, but it carries a subtle scent marker. I can taste it in the air after you sleep-groom me."
"Oh that is embarrassing..."
"On the contrary. I rather like it when you mark me."
"Sev! Your Grandfather is here." Severus smiled against the back of his neck and he hitched in a breath. Galen side-stepped them, mouthing at Harry, 'We'll talk later' as he shut the library door behind them.
"Did you like that?"
"Nngh... Stop it." Severus pressed butterfly kisses along his spine until he was a crooning, shivering mess.
"Only if you promise not to get along with Galen." came the murmured response.
"I like people. I can't just not like someone." he huffed as Severus massaged right beneath his wings. "Ohhh, you cheat."
"Can you at least not get along so well...?" His Naga grumbled into his shoulder.
"Who said I couldn't prank him and still be genteel friends?"
Ending A/N: Mwahahahahahahaha! That's four down, two to go. Oh so much fun. I missed doing these! As always, folks, REVIEW!
*reduced pigment in animals; NOT albino