Deep Magic 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia, nor do I make any profits from posting this fanfiction.
Summary: Non-Epilogue compliant. Harry, mid fight against remaining Death Eater factions, finds himself somehow transported to a strange world, Narnia. He learns to live, to love, and eventually to be a little bit selfish.
Warnings: Slash. Cross dimension travel. Character death. Murder, violence, fighting.
Pairings: HP/EP. Potential PP or LP with a HP character.
Chapter 4
Narnia year 1002
"But it's Christmas! We've got to have decorations!" Lucy insisted with a small stamp. Her stubborn look complete with childish stamp was the closest Harry had ever seen the girl get to a tantrum.
"Lucy, there isn't time for that. There have been more attacks from the Witch's army recently because of winter and the people are low in spirits because of it."
"So what better way to cheer them up then by having a party?!"
"Did you not hear Peter? Factions from the Witch's army are hurting and killing Narnians. We need to protect our people and all our efforts need to go into that not into decorating Cair Paravel for a party!" Edmund insisted and Lucy pouted.
"But it's Christmas! They need something to look forward to, and so do I! We've got to do something!"
Peter threw his hands into the air with a put upon huff.
"I can't deal with this right now! I have battle plans and battalions to sort out. I'm going to the war room. Ed, you coming?" Peter stormed off, throwing the doors open as he went.
"Yeah, I'm coming." Edmund shook his head at Lucy and made to follow his brother. "I'm sorry Lu, but protecting our people comes first."
"I will help you Lucy." Susan valiantly offered and Lucy gave her the barest hint of a smile looking very disappointed. She tugged at her blonde hair and twiddled it with her fingers.
"Thank you, but I wanted Peter and Edmund to help too so we could have a family Christmas like we used to." Susan ruefully half smiled at her sister.
"Maybe they will help you." Harry offered making his presence known and shutting his book. The girls jumped and looked around at him in shock.
"Harry! I didn't see you there. Have you been here long?" Susan asked with an embarrassed flush that was matched only by the blush on Lucy's cheeks. Harry laughed.
"Long enough. I was talking with Ed until you came in."
"Oh. I'm sorry." Lucy mumbled contritely.
"Don't worry about it. Anyway, as I was saying. The boys might help once they have finished their planning."
"But planning battles takes ages and they've been planning it for weeks already."
"Decorating an entire castle takes ages too."
"Yes, so we need all the help we can get." Lucy still looked disheartened.
Harry nodded solemnly. "You are absolutely right. We do need all the help we can get. Lots of hands make light work…unless of course you have a wizard to help you."
Lucy frowned as the words processed inside her brain then she beamed and perked up immediately. "Oh Harry! Are you going to help us?! Oh thank you, thank you, thank you! This is going to be the best Christmas ever! Father Christmas might even come and then it will be perfect!"
Lucy ran from the room calling out about how she was going to get some parchment so they could draw up some plans, leaving a very bemused Harry behind with a patiently waiting Susan.
"Um…does she know about Father Christmas?" He asked, alluding to the truth.
"Oh yes." Susan said and Harry breathed a sigh of relief. "We met him last year."
"OK…wait – you what?! Father Christmas is real?!" He gaped at the young woman who suddenly got a very Edmund-esque smile on her face.
"Oh yes, just as talking animals and wizards are real. This is Narnia after all."
"Ah yes…of course…Narnia."
They planned Christmas to within an inch of its life then Lucy set everybody to work. Susan was going to collect various flora and fauna to put around the castle as well as sew some decorations. Lucy was going to find different things to paint and string up around the place. It was Harry's job to put up magical decorations. Once Susan and Lucy learned he knew the charm to make sparks of light stick to various places, and make other things hover around the place, they had drawn up plans and ideas just for him.
By that evening he all but collapsed with exhaustion, his wand arm shaking so badly he couldn't even get his wand away, and a light sheen of sweat formed all over his skin. He had used so much magic to decorate the castle that it was almost as if he had taken part in a five day long magical battle…or one very arduous day of Auror training.
"You look exhausted." Edmund said, walking into Harry's room unannounced and without so much as a knock. Harry would have minded that a few weeks ago but Edmund had visited Harry's rooms every night for the past however many months for a chat about various things so he was more than used to the boys' presence.
"I am."
"The castle looks amazing. I love the lights along the hallways. How did you charm snowflakes to float in the air in the throne room?"
"With some very complicated spell work." Harry groaned and rubbed a tired hand across his face.
"I'm sorry I didn't help you and the girls to decorate. There was so much to do with the-"
"It's fine Ed. Susan, Lucy and I have it all sorted, although I am sure Lucy could find you something to do if you asked because Aslan knows we have several more days of decorating ahead of us." Harry carefully stood up and made his way over to the bed, sitting on the edge of it and pulling off his boots.
"The battle plans are nearly finished I think then Peter and I will ride out to meet the faction in a few days. I will help you after that."
"Sounds good. Am I needed in the battle? Because you haven't told me anything."
"I think we can do it with our army alone, but if you come along we would win the battle a lot easier. I don't want to underestimate them but we didn't plan you in because we weren't sure if you wanted to help." Edmund confessed looking a little shifty.
"Ed…of course I want to help if I can. Whatever made you think otherwise?" Harry didn't understand what could have led the king to the conclusion he wouldn't fight. Harry hadn't been training with his sword for the exercise! He had done it so he could fight.
"After your stories about the war you were in I didn't want to just assume you would fight for us."
"Ed. Narnia is my home. You are my friend. Of course I will fight to see my home and my friends safe and protected." Edmund's dark eyes searched his face for signs of his earnestness and Harry tried to implore him with his eyes alone that he was being one hundred percent honest. Eventually Edmund nodded.
"OK. After training tomorrow we can go over our plans with you. I'm sorry. I was just…"
"Looking out for me?" Harry finished for him and the boy nodded. "Well thanks for that but I am a lot older than you. I can take care of myself. I don't need you to look out for me."
"Like you said, you are my friend. I look after my friends and my family." Edmund's eyes took on a steely glint and he set his jaw stubbornly. Harry opened his mouth to counter those words but a yawn took control instead so Harry couldn't.
"Do you mind if we skip the story telling tonight Ed? I'm shattered and I'd really like to get some sleep before Phorcys thrashes me in training tomorrow."
"Oh. OK then. Good night Harry."
"Night Ed." Harry gave a wave to the boy without even looking at him and then pulled off his shirt. He couldn't be bothered to strip down all the way, he was that tired. Once his shirt was off he tossed it aside and threw himself down onto the covers with a groan.
The door clicked shut behind Edmund as Harry flicked his wand to extinguish all the lights in the room.
Narnia year 1006
Harry glanced over at his riding companion when he groaned in annoyance at a group of blushing, giggling Narnian's. They were visiting a neighbouring kingdom and so far they had only been bored by the various speeches, giggled at by various women and girls, or paraded around ball rooms.
"Please just get me out of the gates. By Aslan I swear I will not say a mean word to Lucy for a year if you just get me out of the gates." Edmund muttered through gritted teeth.
"Aww Ed, it's not that bad."
"It is! Haven't you noticed their staring?! They never stop! And that! That point and giggle thing! It's annoying." He hissed and Harry couldn't stifle the laugh that time.
"They just think you are handsome, that's all."
"Then why can't they just say that instead of giggling?!"
"Sometimes people find it hard to say those things."
"Well you don't have a problem saying it." Edmund grossed then breathed a sigh of relief as they finally finished passing by the girls. Harry scoffed.
"Of course I don't. I'm mature enough to not be embarrassed by finding somebody attractive."
"I notice they giggle at you too. Don't you find it annoying?"
Harry frowned in thought. "They don't giggle at me."
"Yes they do."
"When?!"
"All the time."
"Oh no. They are only giggling at you, I just happen to be with you most of the time."
"Rubbish. They giggle and point at you too."
"Why?!" Harry gaped and Edmund laughed, his mood improving.
"Because you are attractive and powerful, why else?" Edmund muttered and then his mood darkened again. "Maybe if they looked more at you then I wouldn't get so irritated by them all."
"Rubbish! If I am getting stared at then at least five times that amount are looking at you because I am not half as attractive as you."
Narnia year 1006
"Knights of the Noble Order of the Table! Today we celebrate yet another victory in the Name of Aslan! We all did well on the battlefields today and I, personally, would like to thank each and every one of you for your contributions to our victory. In Aslan's name, we should be proud!" Peter announced, holding his goblet aloft and grinning as cheers went up around the group of warriors gathered. Harry lifted his own glass and sent up a few sparks imitating fireworks with his wand.
"It has been my honour to fight alongside you, and it has been my specific honour to fight alongside my brother whose great plans led to this auspicious victory. I thereby bequeath the title Duke upon my Brother, King Edmund! Long live Kind Edmund the Just, Duke of the Lantern Waste, and Knight of the Noble Order of the Table!" Peter announced and a flushed but proud sixteen year old Edmund bowed to his subjects as they rapturously applauded. Lucy whooped and cheered while clapping furiously. Susan politely smiled and clapped while Peter clapped his brother on the shoulder and gave him a warm brotherly smile full of pride.
Harry laughed at the look on Edmund's face, the look that said he was trying to be humble but absolutely loved the recognition for all his efforts. If there was one thing Edmund feared over everything it was falling into obscurity, of not being useful, and of not being valued for who he was; the highly intelligent, caring, strong young man who only turned sixteen a few weeks previously.
Harry aimed his wand high into the sky and set off reels of spells to send sparks of all colours and behaviours into the air in celebration.
"Long Live King Edmund!" He shouted and cast a final spell to make a lion head out of sparks that even roared with the sound effect to go with it.
"You perfected that spell then?" Mr Tumnus asked after the cheering had died down.
"Yes just about. I thought it was fitting to use it tonight." Harry grinned and slid his wand back into the holster.
"Oh yes, very fitting. If there were any enemies around they would have surely been cowed by that spell."
"Cheers, Mr Tumnus! To peace in Narnia." Harry offered and the faun grinned, lifted his glass and they toasted.
It was late that night when Harry had finally retired that once again Edmund turned up at his door, or this time tend flap.
"Come in Ed." Harry called as soon as he heard the tell-tale sound of the young man's footsteps. The flap opened immediately and in stepped Edmund, stooping a little to get through the door. At sixteen years old he was 5ft10inches, a fact that peeved Harry off to no end because Harry was still stuck at 5ft6 and, at 24 years old, was not going to grow any taller.
"Harry." Edmund said by way of a greeting. Harry nodded to him and continued pulling at his shirt ties. Annoyingly they had become tangled and weren't coming undone.
"Blasted thing!" Harry cursed and tried picking at the knot. "What can I do for you Ed?"
"I was just coming to talk…here, let me do that! You are making a pigs ear out of it." Edmund crossed the room in a few strides, lightly slapped Harry's hands out of the way then set about undoing the knot himself.
"Seriously?!" Harry asked, gaping a little. Edmund nodded and gave Harry a quailing look.
"Yes, seriously! How you ever manage to fight the way you do and yet you still can't undo a simple knot…! There! All done." Edmund declared and indeed the pesky knot was undone.
"Thanks. Anyway, how can I help you Ed?" Harry asked and tore off his shirt over his head and walked across the room to the chair where he had a bed shirt to change into.
"I was just here to talk, as we always talk."
"Huh." Harry shrugged. That was right, even three and a bit years later they still met each and every night to talk. Without fail they would end up chatting. Most often it was Edmund who sought out Harry, occasionally it was the other way around, but sometimes they just naturally walked together to one of their rooms for their evening chat then went their separate ways. "The battle went well didn't it? Not too many casualties? I went by the healing tent to offer my services but the healers seemed to have it all in hand. Lucy had been by with her cordial so that had helped."
Harry dropped his shirt onto the chair and picked up his bed shirt, unfolding it.
"The potions I made that I didn't think would work were also being used and, strangely, they did work. Snape would keel over in shock if he wasn't already dead."
Harry slid his arms into the sleeves of his shirt then pulled it over his head.
Cool fingers brushed along his back.
Harry froze.
"Ed?"
"Harry, I…" Edmund started to say, voice no more than a whisper but it was so close Harry could feel air from Edmund's lips puffing against is hair. The hand on his back swept over his shoulder blade then down his spine slightly. Harry spun around, breathe catching in his throat at the dark look in Edmund's eyes. Emotions were swirling around there like a raging volcano fit to burst. Edmund was looking at him intently but also with a little bit of fear.
"Ed? What are you doing?"
"I just…Harry, I've been meaning to say something for ages I just didn't know how."
Now they were face to face Edmund's hand was only millimetres away from touching Harry's chest. Harry looked down at the hand then quickly snapped his gaze back to Edmund who had also flicked his eyes down to glance at his own hand. The teenager licked his lips then cleared his throat lightly, looking back up at Harry with emotion swirling in his eyes.
"I like you Harry." Edmund eventually breathed.
Harry frowned, discomfort clawing at his throat and heart hammering wildly in his chest.
"Well I like you too Edmund, you know that." Edmund shook his head.
"No, not like that. I mean I like you…" Edmund trailed off and clenched his jaw as if dissatisfied with what he had just said. His eyes flicked down but before Harry could follow the gaze fingers touched his chest then spread out until a whole hand was pressed against him. Warmth radiated from that palm and seeped through Harry's chest setting a thousand nerves ablaze. Harry's breath caught in his throat.
Edmund's eyes flicked back up to Harry's. "I mean I like you, like this. I like you so much that I want to-"
Harry gasped as Edmund's hand brushed his nipple. Pleasure from the touch spiralled through him then Edmund's hand came to rest on his sternum. Harry looked up into the young man's eyes…the teenager's eyes.
He flinched back, stumbled away as every cell in his body smashed into a conflict.
"Harry?" Edmund looked bewildered and hurt where he stood with his hand stuck in the air like its puppet-master had abandoned it. A moment ago that hand had touched Harry's chest, bringing warmth and tingles and also immense discomfort.
"Edmund you can't." Harry eventually breathed. Edmund withdrew his hand from the air sharply as if he had been slapped. He got that stubborn look in his face and set his jaw again, his body tensing up in readiness for a fight.
"Why? Because it's wrong for a boy to love a boy?" He demanded. No, Harry thought, no that wasn't the reason. Edmund stuck his chin a little higher in the air in defiance. "It isn't wrong, the centuars Moeris and Duro are together and they are both male, so are Saas and Mr Ursuss. Achilles and Patroclus were together and they were both men. Antinous and Hadrian were lovers too, they are from Earth's history! It is not wrong."
"I wasn't going to say that!" Harry exclaimed rather loudly. "Of course it isn't wrong, although I don't know that it's entirely right either and Moeris and Duro are only together because they lost their wives. I don't even know who Saas and Mr Ursuss are so I can't comment on them and you know I never read muggle history."
"It isn't wrong. What I feel isn't wrong." Edmund insisted almost angrily and stepped up to Harry with blazing eyes. Harry stepped backwards away from the teenager…Merlin!
"It isn't wrong." Harry agreed. "I never said that it was wrong. I just…Edmund you can't just…you're young! You're only a teenager! You can't know what you want."
Harry winced immediately upon saying the words knowing how Edmund would react.
"I don't know what I want?! Harry, I have been a King of Narnia for five years! I have waged wars to protect my people and to bring peace to Narnia. I have trained each day to make sure I am one of the best swordsmen in Narnia. I have earned titles, I have earned respect and I have earned the right to be King. I am a very intelligent strategist; I know Narnia like the back of the hand and let nobody ever say I was stupid. I know myself very well Harry so trust that I know what I want."
"Sorry I just. Ed you can't really…"
"Don't you think me attractive then? Is that the problem?"
"You are very handsome, you know that!" Harry argued trying his best to edge around making any definitive remarks but at the same time get a word or two in edgeways. Edmund's lips twisted a bit and he looked away, fists clenching at his sides.
"You do not find men attractive then. I assumed since you refused all those women who threw themselves at you that you were uninterested in women on the whole and perhaps I had a chance." He continued with bitterness staining his words.
"God damn it Edmund! Would you let me speak?!" Harry exploded, throwing his arms up and glaring at his friend, his best friend from the last five years. The friend he had stood by through thick and thin, had watched grow into a handsome, clever and just king. The friend he had watched grow up.
"What then?!"
"You are too young!"
"I am not!"
"Yes you are! I watched you grow up! I met you when you were eleven for heaven's sake! Eleven! You are now only sixteen. I am eight years older than you. I have never even thought about you in any other way than my friend, my king. I never considered liking you beyond that, and even if thoughts on your appearance did cross my mind I shoved them away because I am not a paedophile! You are sixteen, for Aslan's sake! You are incredibly young. And even if you did know your own mind, which I don't doubt you do, you are young enough that this is a foolish fancy, a passing whim. I'm not going to even contemplate following your attraction to me when you are this young, this unknowing, and when a false step in this could ruin our friendship forever."
"A passing whim?!" Edmund yelled completely outraged. "A passing whim?! This is no passing whim! You think I woke up this morning and said 'oh, I'm attracted to Harry'?!"
Harry flushed but that was indeed what he thought. "Yes!" Edmund spun around on the spot as if he was so angry he couldn't bear to look at Harry any more. "There were no indications before today! Just suddenly, out of the blue, you started touching me and telling me all these things!"
"Out of the…How was I supposed to show you my attraction to you before now?! I already spend all my time with you, I speak with you every night before bed, I spend any free minute with you. We play chess more frequently than I do with anybody else. I spend more time with you than my own family! Today may have been the first day I touched you, as you say, but don't for a minute think you haven't been one of the biggest forces in my life."
"Maybe that's the problem then. Maybe we have been around each other too much." Harry muttered feeling desperate now. Edmund looked murderous though, he glowered.
"Don't you dare!"
"What?"
"Don't you dare tell me that!"
"What? All I was going to say was that…"
"Was that I spend too much time with you! Like I'm blinded by you." Edmund finished for him and Harry clenched his hand into a fist feeling very out of his depth.
"Well yes. Maybe if you spent some time around others you would feel an attraction for them."
"Around giggling girls whose only form of communication is a point and a giggle?! Or how about around people too blinded by my age to see who I really am and treat me with the respect I deserve?! Or how about the people who only see my position as king?!"
What could Harry say to that? Yes? No?
"I just think it's a bit sudden."
"It has been five years Harry." Harry blanched at those words, the image of an eleven year old Edmund flashing before his eyes.
"You did not feel attraction at eleven. Aslan knows I certainly didn't!"
"Not at eleven no, but I've spent the last five years of my life with you. This is perhaps a natural progression of those feelings that drew me to you in the first place."
"You've been with Peter for over five years."
Edmund pulled a disgusted face and Harry ran a hand through his hair. He felt like he was floundering.
"That is disgusting. I cannot believe you just said that." Edmund spat. Harry clutched at the material covering his stomach. Nausea clawed at him, anxiety and discomfort set his every nerve into a raging frenzy.
"Neither can I." He gagged out. He had to put one hand down on the table next to him and lean his weight down onto it he felt so out of sorts.
Inside his tent was quiet for a few moments. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of their breathing, ragged and uneven as it was. Edmund's was shaky and harsh with raw emotion while Harry's was shuddering and shallow, weak with his shock and fast with his anxiety.
Eventually it was Edmund who broke the silence.
"Tell me Harry, do you have any attraction to me? You know we are compatible! We wouldn't be able to spend so much time together if we weren't." That was true, Harry supposed. He had not even spent as much time with Ron and Hermione without one of them needing space. "But are you attracted to me?"
How could Harry answer that? If he said yes, would he be lying? Wouldn't it make him a paedophile? Wouldn't it be wrong in many senses of the word? Was he being unfaithful to Ginny, a girl he had barely thought of in five years? If he said no, would he be lying and betraying the honesty of his and Edmund's friendship? If he said no, would he be lying to himself as well? Would their friendship be ruined forever regardless of his answer?
Even if being homosexual in England in the twenty first century wasn't wrong, it was against the law in England 1940. And they had no idea what the views were in Narnia. Even if the various beings accepted it as part of life what would Aslan say? Would the great lion approve or disapprove? And if the Narnian's didn't approve? Would they rebel against their king? What of Edmund's siblings? Would they turn on him? What would he, Harry, do then?
Was he attracted to Edmund?
Edmund was intelligent, funny, sarcastic and an unending realist. He was always challenging Harry with little things or making Harry laugh. He pushed Harry and Harry pushed back. His sense of justice was a bit skewed at times and Edmund had a gigantic temper that was only getting more volatile as he went through the latter years of being a teenager. Harry remembered being that angry at sixteen…he was only sixteen. His height, maturity, mannerisms, demeanour and confidence could have you mistake him as someone far older. He was all charm and wit with a perchance for manipulation when the situation arose or when he just felt like it. But he had such a brutal honesty about him and never failed to let his opinions be heard which Harry found most…intoxicating. If only more people could speak like that.
He was handsome too, with mature features and a strength that belied a lot of time training. He carried himself with confidence and assertiveness that could have nobody doubt that Edmund was in control. His eyes were, as many people said, the windows to his soul and all his emotions were held swirling and clashing in the darkness. He was fair skinned, though tanned because of the Narnian summers, and his hair was far more golden because of the sun and salt. He was radiant, but even with all his quirks and anger nothing detracted from his glow.
But was that attraction? Was he attracted to Edmund? He had done his best not to consider that over the years, it was completely inappropriate and Harry had other uses for his time than to consider something as wrong as that.
He was drawn to Edmund…always had been.
How did he answer that question though?
"I don't know." Harry settled on.
The silence that stretched between them was physically painful.
It went on and on and on. Eventually Harry felt like he had to say something, anything, just to break that oppressive silence.
"You are so young Ed…" And he was so much older.
"I am old enough to know what I want." Edmund responded stiffly. "But perhaps I am not the one who doesn't know his own mind."
The sound of fabric upon fabric reached Harry's ears. Then something slapped against fabric, the wind rustled it. Harry looked over his shoulder.
He was alone in the tent. The door flapped uselessly in the wind.
Edmund was gone.
Had he done the right thing?
…The right thing for who?
Author's Note: I feel a little cruel leaving the update at that, however I have yet to break down the rest of the story into chapters so you will have to be patient. Thank you to those of you who have reviewed, and for the prompts to update. I hope this two chapter update on Christmas Eve makes up for my neglect. Best Wishes! Enjoy the Winter Holidays!