Title: Wings of Jewels, Wings of Flame

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Pairings: Established Harry/Draco, Lucius/Narcissa, and Ron/Hermione

Warnings: Angst, off-screen violence

Wordcount: 7000

Rating: PG-13

Summary: Rumors of mysterious creatures appearing in the Atlantic Ocean prompt Lucius and Narcissa, and then Ron and Hermione, to search for Harry and Draco.

Author's Notes: The first of my Advent fics this year, for germankitty: A sequel to "Image of Lethe", please - I'd love more of political!Harry, maybe a few years down the line. How is the WW dealing with the aftermath of the Lightfinder? Do they ever redefine Dark and Light magic? What's happening to Pansy and Astoria? How do Bill and Fleur react to the revelations? Are the Unseen really gone, or just in hiding? What's going on now with Lucius and Narcissa? How does Harry deal with what he had to do while pretending to be Voldemort Reincarnated? Does he ever create more creatures like the dragon?While this can't answer all the questions, it does answer a few.

Wings of Jewels, Wings of Flame

The rumors spread slowly.

There were mermaids off the Irish coast. No, dragons. No, they couldn't be, they were too small (decided the Ministry after it had already dispatched a full team of Dragon-Keepers and Obliviators to Ireland in a panic). There was no sign that dragons had eaten Muggle livestock or raided the coast and flamed various trees to a crisp, anyway. And there certainly would have been.

More reliable reports came in a week after the first ones. The creatures did resemble dragons, but they were much smaller, only the size of large dogs, and they didn't seem to fly as much as skim from wave to wave. They were beautiful, though, with green wings and blue bodies that flashed the deeper colors of emeralds and sapphires. Their long necks curved like swans' necks as they vaulted in and out of the water, said the ones who had actually seen them. They curled flame around themselves, but blue-green flame that didn't extinguish when the water brushed across it and didn't burn the ones who got closest to them.

Many wizards went to the Irish coast in the next month, curious to see the phenomenon for themselves, but only a few got to see it before the dragon-like creatures vanished altogether.

And, of course, the rumors meant different things to different pairs of ears listening for them.

"You think this is the time to go find our son?"

"I do."

Lucius folded down the corner of the newspaper and spent a long moment quietly contemplating the print on the front page. It was less enthralling than the photograph, to his taste. The photo showed the dragon-like creatures vaulting in and out of the ocean, entwined around each other as they snatched fish.

He would have to live much longer than he had so far before he forgot what Harry Potter's dragon looked like.

He folded the newspaper over altogether and leaned back to look at his wife. Narcissa was the one who would have to make the decision. Lucius trusted her more than he did himself, after his own decisions had gone so disastrously awry in the last few months. If he had had his way, he would be dead and Draco and Narcissa would be—

Alive, probably, but in even poorer straits than these, with Lucius as a fugitive and the both of them separated from their son.

Narcissa only glanced at him, though, with mild eyes that conveyed their own sort of scolding. "Were you waiting for something, Lucius?"

"Telling me where we're going, what kind of clue you think the dragons could be." Lucius shrugged and laid his hands palms-up on the table. "Anything like that."

His wife laughed. Lucius loved to listen to that laugh. It was soft, trilling, and capable of swelling up the scale or falling low and intimate. He'd had few enough occasions to hear it since the war. He was glad this could be one of them.

"You know it's Harry as well as I do, Ron."

Hermione waited for her husband to read the paper, and then nod. But from the way Ron slowly laid the paper down, he hadn't decided what to do about that yet, while Hermione already had.

Ron waited long enough to realize she wouldn't talk about something else, then snorted a little. "That's fine, Hermione, but do you really think he's going to welcome us if we go out there and—what? Try to capture a dragon?"

Hermione shook her head. "I'm sure that the dragons are gone by now." It was probably only coincidence that they'd come to Ireland at all, she thought. If Harry was creating magical creatures for the fun of it and releasing them into the world, they could have gone anywhere. "But I think that more people than just us will know it's Harry."

It was wonderful to see the way Ron's face changed and he sat up. Hermione knew some people still thought of Ron as bumbling and slow, probably because he didn't always show off his intelligence. Why should he? Lots of people knew Ron was a good Auror trainee, and he only played chess with people who asked.

But when a friend was in danger, then he would risk everything to save them.

"You think the Unseen are going to do something?" Ron asked in a sharp hiss.

"I don't know if they're organized to do anything. I mean, as a group. Harry destroyed them pretty thoroughly. But some of the same people who wanted to see Harry in prison or dead for playing Voldemort might do something."

Ron nodded. Hermione thought he was probably thinking, as she was, of the colorful dragon that had sat on Harry's shoulder throughout his last few days in Britain. These creatures had been different from it, but clearly akin, in a way that defied the Ministry's classification of magical beasts and beings.

"That's good enough," Ron said, and looked up at her. "But where do we begin?"

Narcissa paused at the sight of the two figures ahead, and then nodded and picked up her pace. Of course they would be here, near the site where wizards had last seen the dragons. Great minds thought alike.

And even an inferior mind could come up with the idea of coming to this place. It was one reason Narcissa and Lucius had Apparated in at a distance and then concealed themselves under Disillusionment Charms until they were close to the beach. Draco's enemies, Potter's enemies, or both of them might be near, trying to find out if they could use the dragons to track them down.

"Mrs. Malfoy."

For someone raised by Muggles, Narcissa supposed, the girl was polite enough. She had harder eyes than eighteen years of life would seem to warrant, and frizzy brown hair hardly tamed with a spell. She glanced behind Narcissa as Lucius approached, and then turned away and stared out into the waves.

Her companion wasn't as restrained. Then again, Weasleys never were. "We're going to trust them, Hermione?"

"At least we know they don't want to hurt Harry and Malfoy." Granger's voice was distant. "We can't say that about everyone else yet." She tilted her head back, and her eyes were bright as stones when they fixed on Weasley. "So stop kicking up a fuss about it, Ron."

Weasley shut his mouth. Granger turned to look at Narcissa and Lucius. "Do you know tracking spells you planned to use?"

Narcissa could admire a woman who was straight to the point. They had little in common, and there was no grace in making small talk. She nodded. "I have a bit of Draco's blood and hair that he left behind. It should lead us to him."

Granger only nodded. Lucius had folded his arms and turned his gaze to the side. Narcissa did not mind being the one left to deal with Potter's friends, however. Lucius would have wasted time blustering, much like Weasley. "What were you planning on using?"

"A trace connected to Harry's magic," Granger said, shrugging as if she hadn't just said something revolutionary. "What he did to create the dragons is unique. I knew I'll be able to locate the trace among any natural magic or spells cast by people who came to watch them."

"You cannot track someone's magic. Unless you mean by his magical signature, and that only works for shorter distances than Potter has probably traveled."

Granger only gave her a bland smile, and drew her wand. "Would you like to see the spell at work?"

Narcissa would, actually. She did not think that a single Muggleborn girl had managed to turn the whole of magical theory on its head, but possibly this spell would prove useful even if it did not work in the way Granger thought it would. "I would."

Granger nodded and turned away, her wand sticking straight out in front of her for an unusually long moment before she brought it down in a motion that looked as if she was severing the strands of a spiderweb. "Potestam invenio Harry Potter!"

The spell curled out along the beach, along what Narcissa could only hope was the trail. For a moment, it hesitated, and Narcissa opened her mouth, ready to speak her triumph. But then the light coiled and turned back along itself, and sprayed out across the waves, golden and gleaming, with a thread of green in it.

"There we go," Granger said, with a soft sigh. She took something else from her pocket, a clump of what looked like stones and dirt to Narcissa, and tossed it to the ground. "Accresco!"

The clump began to grow, until it was sprawled over the edge of the beach and what looked like almost a small island lay in front of them. Granger picked it up and added, "Since the trail goes over the ocean, we'll have to have a place where we can stop and rest as we Apparate along it. Better to take the island with us as we go."

Narcissa slowly inclined her head. She might deplore Draco's choice of lovers in privacy, but it was obvious that at least one of that lover's friends had some brains and had considered how to solve the more intractable problems of finding her son.

"Come on, Ron," Granger added, and walked towards the edge of the island, aiming along the trail of light with her eyes.

"Is your island big enough to hold four?" Narcissa asked behind her. She heard Lucius stifle an indignant grunt, but she didn't turn to look at him. Finding their son was more important than the people they did it beside.

"I wouldn't have made it grow to this size if I didn't plan on you coming along. Ron and I could have used a smaller space."

Only if you wish to press up against each other most intimately. Grimacing at the mere thought of a Weasley and sex anywhere in the same vicinity, Narcissa nodded and said, "Then wait a moment. We did not come prepared for a long journey."

She Apparated from the beach back to their safehouse and gathered some food, thicker clothes, cloaks with Impervious Charms against cold and water on them, and a few indispensable comforts, like the warmed blanket Lucius liked to wrap around his shoulders at night now. Then she Apparated back.

Granger was still waiting for her without any sign of having moved, and with no sign of impatience, either. Apparently she could be as stoic as Narcissa herself when she wanted something.

"Shall we?" Lucius stepped up beside Narcissa and offered his arm. She smiled at him as they stepped onto Granger's makeshift island and Granger fixed her sight along the glowing line of magic and prepared for the first jump.

The Apparition was exhausting, the presence of silent but disapproving Malfoys next to her on one side and silent but violently disapproving Ron on the other was worse, and Hermione hadn't realized how long the line of magic would lead them on. She had vaguely hoped that Harry and Malfoy would have found sanctuary in Ireland or something, or maybe an island nearby.

But what snapped her back to full alertness was landing on an island that had such an aura of powerful magic around it her teeth seemed to ring in her head, the way they would from loud noise or vibrations.

"Hermione?"

Ron was a different man now, the one he had been during the Horcrux hunt, and those horrible days when Harry was missing and they didn't know what was happening. He had his wand in one hand, his back plastered against hers, and he turned his head from side to side as he sought out the threat. Hermione put a hand to his elbow and turned around.

This particular island didn't look as though anyone had lived on it in a long time. It had a sloping beach with no sign of boats or docks, much less the kinds of high buildings Muggles would raise in such a perfect-looking spot. There were trees marching down to the edge of the water, too. Hermione looked upslope and only saw more trees, no houses.

But there was the magic there, wobbling and reaching out with more purpose now, as if it could sense wizards on its land and wanted to pull them there.

"Lucius, check for Dark Arts." Narcissa Malfoy's voice made Hermione jump, but at least there was some purpose to bringing them along. Lucius Malfoy began to recite spells Hermione didn't know, but which she was sure would reveal Dark magic if there was any on the island with them.

"None," Lucius reported at last. "But there's wild magic here."

His voice was wary. Hermione knew why. Wild magic was essentially accidental magic escaped from a wizard's body, either after they died or after they underwent some Dark ritual that was supposed to make them more powerful. Or sometimes it resulted from places magical creatures had been massacred.

"You're sure Mr. Potter stopped here?" Narcissa turned to Hermione.

Hermione didn't respond for a second, only turning her head by slow degrees around a circle. She still couldn't see any sign of inhabitation. But now she did see something that shouldn't be there, something large and green and round, with yellow specks on it, among the gnarled roots of a hunched evergreen. She held her hand up to keep anyone from following her and went towards it.

It was a stone, she thought at first. Then: a stone carved and put here by human hands. But when her fingers touched it and she felt the searing warmth, and then saw the shadow of something curled up inside it, she changed her mind again.

An egg.

"I'm sure," Hermione said, and smiled.

Narcissa could not see what would inspire her son to make even a temporary home here. Then again, she had never been sure either of what Draco saw in Potter, or what kind of magic Potter was capable of.

She could see the shape of a dragon against the egg, and only hoped it wouldn't hatch while they were here. Potter might have imbued the dragon with friendliness towards his friends and people of Draco's blood, but then again, he might not.

"I think he came on something here that he rooted out," Granger said, standing up. She didn't bother about the dirt on her robes, but from the distant look in her eyes, she thought other things were more important. "Something that he changed. There's too much magic in the air for this egg to be the only thing he left here." And she drew her wand and began to climb up the slope.

Weasley followed her without hesitation. Narcissa glanced back at her husband.

"If we must," Lucius whispered, disgruntled but not protesting. Narcissa squeezed his arm and climbed after Weasley.

The slope only had trees on it until the top, when the forest abruptly gave way to stone buildings. Cottages, Narcissa thought, with oddly-shaped, irregular walls of rock in front of them.

The single step she had taken forwards, she checked abruptly. The rock "wall" was, in fact, the body of some stone creature that lay there, sleeping.

Granger seemed undistressed. She shook her head. "Harry," she said.

"That is not enough explanation." Lucius perhaps sounded a mite haughty for Granger's taste, from the glance she cast back at him, but Narcissa understood why he would do this. The creatures looked like misshapen lizards, with human hands instead of forelegs and tails that ended in spiked clubs. "What did he do? Did he create these beings?"

"No, I think he turned them to stone," said Granger. "Well, probably him and Malfoy both," she added, and Narcissa felt more gratified than she should have done that Granger had remembered Draco. "There's no doubt humans built these cottages, but I don't think they were living in them lately."

She stepped around the first lizard lying on its side, and Narcissa followed. She nodded when she saw what Granger meant. The doors of the cottages had been smashed wide, and there were holes in the roofs and scraped-out cavities instead of windows.

"This was probably a wizarding village once," Granger murmured. "But when Harry and Malfoy came here, these creatures had taken over." She turned, and Narcissa followed her gaze to see another stony lizard lying on its side up the street.

Narcissa shook her head. "Why would Potter waste magic and time combating these things? If the people haven't lived in them for a long time, he could not have thought he was avenging the dead."

Granger glanced at her with such an expression that Narcissa felt as if she had missed something obvious. "They probably threatened him, or Draco," Granger said, then turned towards the beach. "Maybe he even left that dragon egg there because it could come back to life and kill the lizards if they tried something else."

"Or he did it for another reason," Narcissa said.

"There's also that." Granger looked up and down the middle of the silent village. "In any case, he and Malfoy obviously aren't here now."

Narcissa held back the temptation to point out that she could have told Granger that all along. She simply nodded, and, with Weasley's help, they drew Granger away from the village that she probably would have remained in for hours, if only to study the fallen stone lizards.

A few minutes later, they had left the island and were moving steadily away on the track of the beam that would lead them to Potter's magic.

Hermione took a huge drink from the cup of water Ron passed to her. She was glad that she knew the enchantment to make the cup keep filling on its own. No matter how much got drunk or splashed around, there was always more rising from the bottom. It was one of the first things she had known she wanted to bring when she and Ron decided to go look for Harry.

She handed the cup on to Ron and looked around, pressing sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes. They were on the shore of yet another island, the little one she'd made to Apparate on hanging off the edge of its beach.

So far, they hadn't found many traces of Harry and Malfoy. A few places with charred embers where they might have camped. Some traces of magic, although more Light than Dark. Once, a cracked eggshell that Hermione picked up and held while she looked around. But there was no sign of the creature that had hatched from it.

Maybe this is just a waste of time. Maybe Harry and Malfoy are happy wherever they are and won't even welcome us. Or maybe they've decided not to settle down and to tour the world for a while. I don't want to chase them from island to island.

"Miss Granger?"

That was Narcissa, of course. Lucius did his best to avoid talking to her and Ron, or even looking at them. Hermione had shrugged the first time Ron pointed that out. She would rather not talk to him than get into arguments.

"Yes?" Hermione asked, as she took another look around this island. It honestly wasn't much more than a bare spot of rock and sand, with sun hitting it glancingly at the moment. They wouldn't have stayed here, Hermione knew, but the light of Harry's magical trail had pointed her little group straight at it.

"My husband knows a spell that has the ability to take us straight to Draco." Narcissa spoke as slowly as though they stood on a much more jagged beach and she was picking her way over the volcanic rocks. "We cannot be sure that your Mr. Potter is with him, of course, but I think it likely."

Hermione crossed her arms. "What about the spell do you think I'll object to?"

Narcissa looked briefly startled, before she folded the expression back into the neutrality that Hermione thought she carried around with her most of the time. "It involves blood."

"Whose? How much? Do you need to cast any other Dark Arts spells on it before you use it?"

Narcissa drew back a little and considered Hermione. "You know the theory behind Blood Arts and what makes the Ministry classify them as Dark."

"Yes, I do." Hermione thought of all the many, many things she could say about why she'd studied that and how of course she had to know theories so she could change the Ministry's laws, but that would probably just lead to arguments between her and the Malfoys. She kept her voice smooth as she added, "And you haven't answered my questions."

"It would take blood from my husband and me. Enough that it would leave us too exhausted to Apparate, and we would need your help. And yes, there is one spell that will cause pain to my husband at the same time. It is necessary to stir up his soul and make it reach out for sympathy to others—like Draco—who would feel for him."

Hermione opened her mouth to explain why the theory of souls reaching out when under pain spells was a load of bollocks, but Ron came up and put an arm around her shoulder. "I have a lot more important question. Why didn't you just use this when you were in England and wanted to go straight to Malfoy?"

Narcissa looked through Ron as she said remotely, "The effect only lasts a short time. Without anyone else around to Apparate us, it would be useless." She hesitated, then added, "And it works better over shorter distances."

"At least we're closer," Hermione finished with a nod, and she sighed and looked at Ron. "Do you mind Side-Along Apparating someone?"

"No."

Hermione hugged him. Even though Ron's nose was wrinkled with distaste and he had stiffened his back as though he'd been brushed by something disgusting, he still said that. Getting Harry back must matter to him even more than Hermione had thought it did.

"Then let us begin." Narcissa turned aside and reached for her wand. Hermione braced herself. She didn't really want to be around Blood Arts at all, but if both victims were willing and it would help them find Harry faster, then she would do it.

I hope Harry will be happy to see us, when we get there.

Narcissa grimaced as she watched her blood collect in the bowl Granger had conjured. Granger was watching everything with wide eyes and the determined expression that said she would remember it all. Narcissa didn't really care if she did or not, but did cherish a faint hope that it might make the girl less blind in the future to what Dark Arts and Blood Arts really were.

Lucius had already gathered his blood and sat still, his hands flat on the sand, as shudders of pain rippled through him. Narcissa placed the bowl near his right hand and dipped his fingers in it, one by one.

When there was a clinging red crust around his nails and streaks of gore down each side of his palm, Narcissa wrapped his hand around her wand. She was the one who moved both of them in the necessary motions of the spell, though, aiming carefully along Granger's trail of light. "Invenio cruorem!"

For a moment, there was no response. Narcissa gritted her teeth. It had been long since she performed the spell. Perhaps she had left out a crucial step—

But then she felt as though the blood was once again flowing out of her veins, and nodded in relief and acknowledgment. The spell had gone deeper than normal, which meant Draco must be nearby. As she watched, the red liquid in the bowl hardened and rose, and then a braided chain shimmered in front of them. If they touched it, kept hold of it at the same time as Granger and Weasley were Apparating them, then they would find their son.

"Ew," said Weasley.

Narcissa ignored him. She was convinced that the Ministry had banned the Blood Arts out of disgust more than any moral outrage. If the blood came from willing volunteers and exhausted them so much they could not attack or even travel to the location of the one they sought, there would be no cause for outrage.

"Come on, Ron," said Granger, and she came up to Narcissa's side as Ron reached for Lucius. Narcissa rolled her eyes the smallest amount. They would have been better-advised to try it the other way around, as Granger had no blood feud with the Malfoy family.

But at least Lucius appeared to have forgotten the blood feud, eyes fixed only on the blood chain as if he was dreaming of the chance to see Draco again, and Granger's arm was firm around Narcissa's. "Now."

Narcissa leaned forwards and touched the chain, and felt the tug of Apparition pull them through space at the same moment.

Hermione blew hair out of her eyes and looked around. They were on another island, or so she thought. There was definitely a slope of stone in front of them, the sea lapping not far behind them, and the stretch of land she could see in the distance didn't look very big. There seemed to be a huge mountain there, though, so maybe it was just that she couldn't see flat land.

Narcissa stepped away from her. Hermione let her go willingly. She thought she could feel the Blood Arts magic crawling through her, slick and heavy and intimidating. It might be interesting to observe, but she would never want to use it for herself.

"Where are we?"

Before Hermione could answer Ron's question, a shape moved off to the side, definitely human. Hermione grabbed her wand and dropped into a defensive posture she remembered from the war. Then she moved backwards until her back bumped into Ron's. They could fight side by side well enough to take down most opponents.

"Granger?"

But it wasn't most opponents walking across the sand towards them. It took Hermione a moment of squinting and thinking to remember the face of this woman, but a second later, she felt her eyes widen. "Parkinson?"

"Yes." The woman put her hands on her hips and stared at them. She had dark hair that was curled lightly at the ends, but Hermione couldn't tell if that was the cold air or a spell or natural. "I suppose you've come to see Potter." Then she turned and looked at the Malfoys. "And you, Draco. Although it would be nice to know how you got here."

"A spell that traced Harry's magical signature from some dragons he let loose," said Hermione, seeing no reason to lie.

"And a Blood Arts spell that transports us to those who share Malfoy blood." Narcissa seemed able to stand on her own just fine despite the claims of weakness she'd made earlier, and she folded her arms and looked down her nose at Parkinson.

Parkinson just shrugged and said, "I suppose that as long as you haven't left clues for anyone else to follow you, it's fine." She turned and walked towards the mountain, then looked over her shoulder. "Are you coming or not?"

Hermione hurried after her. Between one step and another, they passed from the beach into a house that seemed to sprout out of the air. Hermione stopped and stared around, but they were definitely inside now. The house was handsomely built of stone, although the floor and walls were a little bare.

"Yes," said Parkinson, one eyebrow rising as she watched Hermione. "There's a house here. Draco was the one who disguised it. Disillusionment Charms and anti-Muggle charms. There's also a spell on the whole island that makes it look deserted and uninteresting."

"Just Disillusionment Charms wouldn't hide the house this well," Ron said, and reached out tentatively to rap his knuckles on a wall.

"Well, there was other magic I didn't pay attention to." Parkinson turned down a windowless corridor that almost looked like a tunnel. "Coming?"

Hermione followed Parkinson further into the house, staring around in wonder. There were indeed solid walls there, but even from the inside, they shimmered as if they weren't real. And then she saw a creature moving down one wall, and jumped away with a squeak.

The creature, which resembled a tiny leopard with jewel-blue eyes and crumped, bat-like wings that were also bright blue, yawned at her and went back to creeping down the wall.

"That's just one of Potter's creations," said Parkinson, holding open a door. "He does like them winged."

If I lived here, I wouldn't be that jaded, Hermione thought, and stepped through the door into what she could already tell was an open area, from the sunlight and air beaming down on her.

But a moment later, she thought she understood Parkinson's attitude a bit more. There are enough wonders here that you might have to be a bit jaded if you wanted to survive.

She had never seen a more beautiful place in her life.

Narcissa sat on one of the benches that ran along the edge of the flowerbeds in the central courtyard of the house. She had only to turn her head to see the products of her son's labor.

She didn't even have to do that to feel his magic. It probably had to do with the magical exhaustion and other aftereffects of the Blood Arts spell, but she felt as though Draco's power was pressing on the very pores of her skin.

Draco stood among the flowers, stripes of red and yellow and blue and even grey running across the furiously green grass, and smiled at her. Narcissa knew from the feeling on her skin how much magic it must have taken to conjure, or grow, those flowers, and the only thing that puzzled her was the question she asked next. "When did you become so interested in Herbology, Draco?"

Her son picked his way over the grass to sit beside her and give her a kiss. When she and Lucius had first come into the courtyard, Draco had stared in silence from a flowerbed where he knelt, and then he'd risen with crumbly dirt still under his fingernails. He'd been running by the time he crossed the last distance.

Narcissa would treasure the feeling of his cheek against hers and the soft wetness of his tears for the rest of her life.

"It's not Herbology, Mother," he said now, shaking his head a little as if he wanted to show her he still had hair that would feather softly around him instead of dangling limply in the heat that filled the courtyard. "Harry taught me how to make a machine like the Lightfinder he was using during his conflict with the Unseen. I can pour my own magic and desire into it and make flowers like these."

"But why flowers?"

"Well, sunlight, too."

Narcissa turned her head towards the motionless warmth that seemed to brood around them, and the blazing sun in the sky above them that definitely hadn't been there when they had followed the trail of Potter's magic to this island. "But why that?"

Draco sat down next to her. Narcissa put a hand on his knee. Lucius sat on her other side, simply watching and listening. Narcissa knew he probably didn't want to mess up again, as he had multiple times before Draco had left to be with Potter. He would wait until he was sure that his words could not be misunderstood.

"Harry makes animals because he wants them to go out and shine and live their lives." Draco looked at the flowerbeds, eyes wide and almost transparent, Narcissa thought, with his own power. "I make flowers because they're beautiful, but they'll stay in one place. They don't have consequences we don't know about." He turned to Narcissa and gave her a half-smile. "You're here because of Harry's animals."

They hadn't told him that, but it was a reasonable guess. Narcissa nodded, and saw that Lucius had trusted himself to do the same thing. "A flock of dragon-like creatures that came to the coast of Ireland. Beautiful beings, but they did stir up much interest."

"I can't be sorry about it if they brought you here." Draco leaned over and kissed her forehead, and Narcissa closed her eyes and bowed her head a little.

"But it is a risk. And I don't want to even spread seeds outside this garden until I know more about what they do."

"Tell me," said Narcissa, and pulled back to look him full in the face, "are you happy?"

The smile that welled over Draco's face and up into his eyes made the last of Narcissa's fears die. Draco kissed her forehead again, then leaned around her to embrace Lucius. The last stiff tension that had haunted her husband's shoulders, Narcissa saw, was fading away.

"I'm happy as I've never been," Draco whispered. "Harry and I stay here a lot, but we've also traveled to other islands, and other countries, and never been recognized. The Unseen aren't as powerful as they thought they were, or they didn't have as many allies as I feared they did. And Pansy and Astoria have become even better friends than they used to be." He paused, and a faint smile touched his mouth. "Well, to me. I don't think Pansy will ever trust Harry unless he dies without doing any more to hurt me, and even then, she'll probably point out all the wasted months he spent with me."

"What kind of life will this be for you in the long run?" Lucius asked then, his voice rough. Narcissa knew that he was thinking—without saying it—of the Malfoy properties in Britain, and the fact that he, at least, would never be able to come out of hiding unless he was willing to go back to Azkaban.

Draco's eyes turned to them, untroubled. No, Narcissa thought a second later, the kind of eyes that see trouble and rise above it. The eyes of a young hawk.

"I don't know. This isn't the long run. Harry and I are still young. I'll see if we can go back to Britain eventually. But it's not home right now." Draco swept a hand around the garden. "This is."

Narcissa leaned her head on Draco's shoulder, and felt Lucius place a hand against her side, low and warm on her ribs. She had been concerned, when Draco seemed willing to give up his ancient home and honors and bloodline for the sake of Harry Potter, that it wouldn't last. A useless sacrifice was far worse than a mere short time of infatuation followed by unhappiness.

But they were here now, and Draco was talking to them, and he was alive, and well. Healthy. Rejoicing in his work.

She could stop worrying about him.

Hermione said, "You really want to show us how you're creating an animal right now?"

Harry gave her a laughing glance. That was the only way Hermione could describe it. His lips didn't really move, but his eyes were alight, and fast, and funny. "I'm not making an animal especially for you," he explained. "I was already creating one, and you happened to show up at the right time to see it released."

"If you say so, mate," Ron muttered. Hermione could tell from his tone that he was already poised to run the other way, as if she was ready to give him a long lecture on magical theory that he didn't want to listen to.

Harry, who had hugged them so fiercely when he first saw them that Hermione still felt a little winded, turned and crouched in front of a cage of copper and silver. Hermione supposed it looked a little like the old Lightfinder, if you were generous and squinted. There was a wisp of light turning back and forth in it. Hermione had thought it was the actual sun, or the conjured one, reflecting off glass.

It seemed she'd been wrong. Harry held his hand towards the light and clucked, the sort of sound Hermione thought you would make to a reluctant horse.

For a moment, the wisp still hung there, turning like a bead on the end of a necklace. Then it suddenly leaped towards Harry and fastened on his wrist. Hermione cried out in spite of herself.

Something else flew down and landed on Harry's shoulder. Hermione recognized this one. It was the dragon Harry had created and brought along to her and Ron's house. Harry had said his name was Sal.

The dragon wrapped his tail around Harry's throat and crooned. The cheerful sound helped Hermione turn back to face the wisp of light that was actively sucking blood from the back of Harry's hand. Hermione tried not to put her hand over her face.

"Hawk!"

Hermione didn't know who Harry was talking to until he turned and held up his hand. There was a hawk crouched there, a miniature one about the size of a big dragonfly. And it had blazing blue wings and a body as emerald as Harry's eyes and a brilliant red head.

It was beautiful, but Ron eyed the blood on its beak and said what Hermione was thinking herself. "That isn't dangerous?"

Harry laughed and spun around. Hermione stared at him, and didn't really care if he thought less of her for it. It wasn't that Harry had changed so much as to be unrecognizable. It was just that he had changed.

"Up!" Harry barked, and once again, Hermione knew he wasn't talking to them.

The hawk spread its wings and flew over Harry's head, soaring to one of the walls that surrounded this broad garden, where it landed and turned to preen its feathers. Harry shook his head and faced Ron. "Not to people. To the things it'll hunt, sure. It'll probably feed on the same sort and size of prey that a vampire bat does, but the only human blood it wants to taste is mine."

"But you're changing the world, each animal you release," Hermione said. "What if one of them ends up messing the world up, or the balance of some prey species?"

Again, Harry's face was gentle when he smiled at her. "That's why most of them only feed on magic, or something like blood that's available from lots of animals, not just one. And I usually release only one of them or a few that are the same sex. The dragons you saw off Ireland were an exception. They feed on foam. I don't think they'll run out of space or food or anything else soon. They'll spend most of their time at sea."

"You really love this, don't you?" Hermione asked. "This—releasing animals into the wild and creating more of them."

"Yes, I do." Harry focused on Hermione with a little frown. "Why do you sound so upset about that?"

Hermione thought about it, standing there in sunlight that was created, surrounded by flowers that were created, with a created dragon peering at her over Harry's shoulder. And finally, she thought she knew the answer.

"Because it's something we had nothing to do with," she muttered. "Because it's something you learned away from us, and something we can't help you with."

"You're welcome to stay as long as you like. I'll teach you anything you want to know." Harry reached out and caught her wrist in a strong grip, one that looked as strong as the curl of the dragon's tail around his neck. "But Hermione, this really is helping. I don't have nightmares about the time that I played Voldemort anymore. I can eat better and sleep better. And love Draco better," he added softly, his gaze straying down the garden to the part where Malfoy sat with his parents.

Hermione felt as though a clenched fist in her had finally opened. "If it's helping…"

"It is." Harry looked back at her and smiled.

"Then I don't mind it."

Ron nodded vigorously. "You needed something, mate. Something more than Malfoy. I'm glad you've got it."

"Good." Harry turned away from them to lead them back inside the house. "Why don't you come and see what Astoria's cooking? She's learned to make different kinds of food the way Draco has with flowers, and…"

Hermione looked around once, missing nothing. The empty patch of wall where the blue-winged hawk had been. The jaunty posture of Sal on Harry's shoulder. The blazing dance of sunlight on flowers.

The glance that Malfoy and Harry exchanged before Harry walked into the house.

It really did seem like everything Harry needed for happiness was here.

Except us, and we're here now.

It might be nice, to…stay a while.

The End.