lomonaaeren

Harry turned in a circle, raising the shield that circumstances would ordinarily dictate for an attack like this. And then, since he knew this was no ordinary attack, he raised another shield behind that one.

The gargoyle-like monsters tore through his first shield, screeching.

They crashed into the wall of golden light behind that with noises like the bong against metal, and stumbled to the floor.

“What did you raise?” Nott asked into the ensuing silence.

“One of my own spells.”

“That sounds like you invented them.”

“Wow, Nott,” Harry said, keeping his voice low and husky as he watched the gargoyles start to stir, “you’re so clever.”

Nott scowled at him, and then the gargoyles sat up and screamed again.

Harry studied them dispassionately. He had time to do that now that they weren’t raining from the ceiling. They all appeared to be heavy and grey, to all appearances made of stone, with golden eyes that glowed fiercely in the masks of their faces. Their claws dug into the floor, or what was left of it. Beyond the collapsed walls was a waterfall of silver light and silence that made Harry think this antechamber wasn’t part of the Ministry anymore.

But. One problem at a time.

The nearest one, which resembled a leopard in body although its head was more like a dog’s, edged towards his shield. Harry calmly watched it come. When it hesitated just outside the shield, Harry stuck his fingers in his ears, wriggled them, and stuck out his tongue.

The gargoyle tried to leap through the shield.

It promptly began to jerk and seize, caught in the golden light that made up the shield as it was. Harry smiled a little as the jerking got worse. Then it abruptly blazed with golden light and burned into a fine rain of ash that fell to the floor.

The other stone beasts backed away from the remains.

“What is that?” Nott whispered.

“A shield.”

“Potter, I will—”

The gargoyles spun and tore through the collapsed walls into the silvery mist. Harry hefted his wand and stood waiting, listening. He thought he could hear distant footsteps walking towards them, but he didn’t know if that was real or not. He would just stand here and shelter behind his handy shield until he was sure.

The footsteps sounded again, louder and more present, and a Sidhe lord stepped through the collapsed walls into the room.

Harry had to admit this one was fit.

He didn’t look like an icicle the way Amarante had, or too human and supposedly harmless like Isolde. He was tall and had blonde hair braided away from skin that sparkled silver, like the rune on his forehead. And his eyes were green but not blank or so fierce that looking at them was like losing his mind for Harry. He gave them both a smile and then shook his head.

“It seems that your mission has failed after all, Theodore Nott.” His voice was musical, but ordinarily musical. Harry could compare it to a harp without thinking of the harp as being tortured.

“Why do you say that, Lord Jaelisdaen?”

“Because you have returned to the Court, where you promised not to return until you had a firm answer from your Ministry in hand. And I do not think that you have that answer.”

Nott gritted his teeth and didn’t reply. Harry looked at him expectantly, but he continued not to respond, so it was up to Harry to sigh, step forwards, and speak.

“We came here because of the assassination attempt that someone launched on Nott, not because we wanted to.”

The Sidhe man—Jaelisdaen—focused on him. He stared at Harry for a long moment, and then said, “Who are you?”

“My name’s Harry Potter.”

“Not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

Jaelisdaen looked at him in seeming incomprehension, which Harry felt ought to have been his role, but Nott snaked an arm around his waist and hissed into his ear, “He means that he wants to know who you are to me, instead of just your name.”

“Oh! I’m Nott’s bodyguard.”

“And?”

“And what? I protect him from threats.”

“And there is more. You stand too close together. Your souls have too many strands passing between them.”

Harry thought wistfully that he could have used a Sidhe with the ability to see that kind of thing when he’d been fighting Voldemort. But he nodded in response to the man. “I’m also his lover.”

Jaelisdaen gave a long, low sound, like a trumpet played the wrong way. Harry frowned at him and wondered why all the Sidhe he’d met had to be so loud and have voices like tormented instruments.

“You could have children?”

“Uh, no? That’s not possible for humans.”

“He could sire you. You could sire him.”

Harry squinted at the Sidhe. “I don’t know how much you know about human biology, but no. That doesn’t happen, either. We’re both adults.”

“You could sire him,” Jaelisdaen said, and his voice was thick with awful harmonies. He thrust a hand out towards Harry.

Harry promptly dived to the floor, and pulled Nott along with him. Something hot and silvery and crackling went over their heads and slammed against the far wall, what still stood of it. It fell apart, and Harry could see what seemed to be the shifting mist of the Court, or Faerie, or Sidhe-land, or whatever it was, beyond the cracks.

He looked up. Jaelisdaen was gone, but there was drifting fog where he’d been. It coiled slowly and then moved towards them with dreadful smoothness.

“Great,” Harry muttered as he flipped back to his feet, and nudged Nott behind him. “Fighting magical fog. Just great.”

“This fog isn’t like anything that might have been created by a wizard’s spell,” Nott began.

“Yes, of course I know that. And I wasn’t planning to fight it the way I would a normal curse,” Harry said. He had already seen the way that the silver coils twisted back on each other, and how they entwined. “I have something better.”

Nott made a tiny disbelieving noise.

Harry waited until the fog was perhaps half a meter from them, and then hissed. “Who are you, the serpents that come to intrude upon my domain, the territory of the King of Serpents?”

The fog stopped immediately. The coils twisted back on themselves, and Nott made a different kind of disbelieving noise. Harry would have asked him if he enjoyed being proven wrong, but he had more important things to do right now.

Then a voice spoke in Parseltongue from the cloud. “You are not the King of Serpents.”

Harry took a step closer to the fog and thrust out his right arm, drawing the sleeve of his robe back. There was the basilisk scar on full display, and he could feel the intelligence behind the fog looking at the round, puckered scar. “Tell me that I am not King when I survived the bite of a Queen. Tell me I am not King when I slew the Queen.”

The hiss this time was long and endless and wordless and angry. But when it faded, the fog had faded, too. Harry shook his head a little.

“Excitable fuckers,” he said, and turned to look at Nott.

Nott was sitting on the floor and goggling at him, but he managed to turn it into a scowl the minute Harry’s eyes landed on him. “How did you know that would work?” he snapped.

“I encountered a fog like this before when I fought some centaurs in the Forbidden Forest who wanted to kidnap a few Hogwarts students. Speaking to it in Parseltongue and showing it the basilisk scar made it go away.”

“But you couldn’t know this was the same kind.”

“Looked like it, moved like it, sounded like it. Why wouldn’t it be?”

Nott just closed his eyes in what looked like disgust, but he got up and walked towards the cracked walls. For a second, he stood staring at the landscape. Harry waited, but Nott didn’t turn around or say anything, so Harry walked over to join him.

Beyond the walls was a flat, gleaming lake that resembled a huge, melted silver coin. The shores it lapped on were silver, as well, although with some white and grey in the trees that stood on them; Harry thought he could hardly stand the excitement. The sky overhead was a silvery blue that slipped into other colors on the edges.

“This is Faerie,” Nott whispered.

“Not the Court?”

“No. But I wasn’t supposed to return at all to the realm until I had—the Ministry’s agreement to the diplomatic relationship in hand. You heard Lord Jaelisdaen say that.”

Several thoughts crowded Harry’s head, including the certainty that they had heard the same thing this time but different things when Isolde spoke, and what the monsters were that had attacked them there, and why Nott called the Sidhe “Lord” when he wasn’t here and had tried to kill them. But he asked, “Why did Jaelisdaen think we could have children?”

“Lord Jaelisdaen.”

“No.”

“What?” Nott blinked at him.

“I had enough of calling arseholes titles of respect in school. I don’t have to do it anymore, and you can’t make me. Why did he think that you taking a male lover meant we could have children? What did he mean by us siring each other?”

Nott blinked a few more times, and then sighed. “That’s one of the things the Ministry wouldn’t be very happy with anyone except me knowing, Potter.”

“I won’t tell Robards if you don’t.”

A longer sigh. Then Nott said, “Come on. I want to sit down and get something to eat from my pack. The food here isn’t safe to eat.”

“And then you’ll answer?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You haven’t so far.”

“I will this time.”

“Uh-huh.”

Nott gave him a long, cold look, but Harry had been coldly looked at by experts, and he just stood there. In the end, Nott shook his head, said, “You can trust me or not,” and walked out into the silvery landscape of Faerie.

Harry didn’t trust him, not completely, but he didn’t see the point of standing in a destroyed room where gargoyles had attacked them, either. He followed.

*

“It reminds me of dreams.”

Nott started and looked at him, and Harry felt his face burn. He honestly hadn’t meant to say the words aloud, and it stung him that he had. They were a private thought that he should have let echo around the inside of his head.

But instead of mocking him, Nott asked, “What do you mean?”

“As if I’ve dreamed about this place before, and part of me remembers it even though I’m sure I would recall a dream this weirdly specific.”

Nott hunched his shoulders against what looked like an invisible blow. For all Harry knew, it could be. They’d seemed to hear different things when Isolde spoke. Maybe there were Sidhe running around cracking invisible whips on Nott’s shoulders, too. Harry wasn’t going to help him with it unless he asked.

But Nott murmured, “All right. This relates to what we need to talk about.” He pushed the cheese sandwich he’d got out of a pouch with Preservation Charms on it towards Harry. “Come on, you need to eat.”

Harry didn’t disagree with that, and he’d got over being disappointed about food not meeting his every hope when he was very young. He sat down across from Nott on the silver blanket that Nott had got out and unshrunk, and ate the sandwich while he stared out across the silvery lake.

Despite the wind tossing the trees on the shores, it was very quiet. Harry hadn’t seen birds or insects or any other form of life except the Sidhe since they’d landed here. He wondered idly why people always said Faerie was so beautiful, if it was also sterile.

“Lord Jaelisdaen is afraid that one of us might take the powers of the Sidhe.”

Harry blinked and focused on Nott. “Is that possible? How? By harvesting their blood or skin?” He’d dealt with some cases where extremely stupid wizards thought they could harness the power of their enemies that way.

Nott winced and shook his head. “No. Because either of us might have Sidhe blood lurking in our backgrounds, and being true lovers with someone else with Sidhe blood might bring that to the fore.”

“All right. And it would threaten your mission somehow?”

“Did you hear what I said, Potter?”

“Yes, I did, and I assume it’s not a concern of yours because we’re not actually lovers. So I want to know what the Sidhe are so concerned about.”

Nott closed his mouth slowly. Then he said, “You’re not worried about becoming something other than human?”

“No, because we’re not lovers.” Harry made sure to speak slowly this time. “You want to tell me why they would be worried about it? I’d think they would be happy to welcome more Sidhe to their ranks.”

After another minute of staring, Nott cleared his throat. “It could actually upset the delicate balance of the Court to have new lines coming in.”

“Lines?”

“Families. Houses.” Nott waved a hand. “Each Sidhe who appears from a new bloodline has different gifts than the ones who already exist. The nobles of the Court who know how to face their enemies and counter their magic don’t know how to do that when new ones appear. It takes forever for the Court to settle when new Sidhe enter it. From what Amarante told me on my first visit, they’re still reeling from the entrance of a Sidhe family who came from another world, and that was several of our generations ago.”

“Glad that I’m not a Sidhe, then. All right. What do we have to do so that I can keep you safe and make sure your mission succeeds?”

“I’m honestly not sure, Potter.” Nott looked exhausted. “I wasn’t supposed to come back here until I had Ministry permission in hand.”

“And Isolde brought you back here to ruin the mission?”

“I’m not sure it was her.”

“Did you meet any of the Sidhe who had the power to summon gargoyle-like beasts?”

“I heard about them, but I didn’t meet any. And even speaking an accusation against them in Faerie without proof and the ability to meet them in a duel is perilous.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Right, then. So how did you return to Earth the last time that you left the Court?”

“They had someone whose gift it is to travel between worlds bring me.”

“And the time before that?”

Nott hesitated and looked uncomfortable.

Harry leaned forwards and tried to make his voice as soothing as he could, even though part of him would have enjoyed shaking Nott until his neck snapped. “We don’t have any reason to think they’ll help us, Nott. We’re on our own here. We have to do something. I understand that you don’t want to share these secrets with me, but they’re our only chance of getting out alive.”

“Fine,” Nott said, his voice hissing like a dying cobra. “They took me through a particular, permanent gate. But it’s in the heart of the Court. I don’t know how we can get there without dying or being noticed.”

“Do you know where that would lie from here?”

“I can feel the direction of the Court like a buzz in my ear,” Nott said, while Harry made a mental note that he appeared to be allergic to just answering yes or no. “So we can aim there, but the inside of the Court constantly shifts. Finding one spot in it is—not as easy as you might think.” He spread his hands. “But I don’t have any better ideas.”

Harry just nodded. “We’ll do what we have to, then. In the meantime, how much food do you have there? And what would be the effect of the food in Faerie if we ate it?”

“It would bind you here.” A shade of green seemed to dart through Nott’s eyes and vanish. “Make you subject to the Queen’s rule.”

“And the food you have?”

“For one person, about a week.”

“Then we’ll have to move faster than that.” Harry stood and extended a hand to Nott.

Nott looked at him, then slowly back and forth between his hand and the ground, as if the thought Harry would snatch him up and dump him. Harry didn’t roll his eyes, but it was hard to stand there, smiling, and not do it.

Nott finally gripped Harry’s hand and stood. “They won’t want us to come there. Various factions, for various reasons. How do you think we’re going to defeat them?”

“My relentless charm and good will.”

“Potter.”

“Fine. My fighting skills. Your skills in diplomacy if it comes to that. How likely do you think we are to be attacked on the way to the Court?”

“I have no idea. I came here before as an invited guest, not an intruder.”

“We’ll just point out that someone brought us here and we didn’t come on our own, and doubtless that will delight whoever it is into going to investigate Isolde.”

Nott shook his head and didn’t answer. He had a gloomy expression on his face. But then, he was naturally a gloomy bastard, Harry thought.

“Well, come on.” Harry picked up the blanket that Nott had spread for their impromptu picnic, shrank it, and handed it back to him. “I assume that you have water with you, along with the food?”

Nott nodded and extended a flask. Harry swallowed just a little before handing it back.

“Do Aurors train to handle situations like this?”

“Actually, my best training was childhood, followed by running around starving in a tent when I should have been in school.”

“What?”

Right, gloomy bastards don’t understand jokes. “Never mind.”

Nott gave him another gloomy look. That was probably because he assumed that they wouldn’t get out of here if Harry was joking. For some reason, Nott seemed convinced that only someone serious could conquer Faerie and find the gate.

Harry was starting to think that it would really take a lot to convince Nott of his talent. But he could at least hope that they wouldn’t be attacked by gargoyle-like beasts any time soon. That test obviously hadn’t proven to Nott that he could stand up against them.

Well, we don’t need a dragon or anything like that. You hear me, Sidhe country? Regular beasts will be just fine.

The silver country was silent around them as they set out.

*

“What a delightful surprise.”

Amarante was walking towards them, across what had been a stretch of dusky grey hillside up until that point and was now a flat floor of silvery tile. Harry gave her a reserved smile and made sure that he was between her and Nott.

“You don’t have to do that,” Nott hissed, low enough that Amarante might not have heard. But given that Sidhe senses were supposed to be superior to human ones, Harry wouldn’t bet on that.

“Yes, I do. It’s my job. To protect you.”

Nott made some sort of disagreeing noise, but by that point, Amarante was right in front of them. She wore a rustling blue gown that trailed off into the air, in curls of blue smoke, and made Harry wonder if she was the one who’d sent the fog after them. But he only bowed and said, “Lady Amarante, what a pleasure to see you again.”

“You’ve found your courtesy.”

“Yes. Did you find my eyes?”

Amarante laughed, low and intimate, sounding for all the world like a human woman. Then she leaned around him to look at Nott. “You weren’t supposed to return until you had Ministry permission or had founded a line.”

Harry glanced over his shoulder in time to see Nott’s fingers twitch. But he kept his voice level. “Yes, it’s unfortunate that someone else forced us back here.”

“You aren’t accusing any of my line, I hope.”

“Of course not, my lady. It was someone.”

“Human language. Also delightful.” Amarante turned to face Harry, her head tilting to the side like she was a raven about pick out his tongue. “And you? Are you going to accuse someone specific of bringing you here?”

“No.”

“What now? It does seem as though you’re in the mood for accusations.”

Her voice was heavy with some meaning that Harry was ignorant of. Given that, he ignored it and shook his head. “No. We’re simply going for a walk across Faerie and paying attention to the way the country changes.”

“Oh?”

She seemed to be intensely interested in that, swaying forwards like a snake. Harry smiled at her and spoke in Parseltongue. “It’s interesting that sometimes it’s grass and sometimes looks as if wants to change to something that would be more at home indoors, doesn’t it? So interesting and beautiful.”

Amarante hissed and snapped backwards. In fact, her whole body snapped, like she was made of cloth that had suddenly folded in on itself. And then she was gone.

Harry raised his eyebrows. He’d wanted to see how she would react to the Parseltongue, just because of the way she’d been acting, but he hadn’t thought that would happen.

“What did you say?”

Harry turned to look at Nott, who was closer to him, his eyes greener than they’d been before. “That it was interesting, the way the country changed. And beautiful.”

“That shouldn’t have made her react like that…”

Harry shrugged. “Who knows why Sidhe do what they do? I think that’s a point you’ve succeeded in convincing me of.”

“Yes.”

Nott still looked at him with a faint frown for a long while before turning away and leading him across the ground that had turned from silvery tile back into grey grass. Harry walked and thought, and for a moment concentrated to see if he could sense the distant buzz of the Court that Nott had talked about.

There was a pressure on his senses in the direction that Nott was leading them. But when Harry tried to listen more to it, it faded.

Harry shrugged. Maybe other people cared about turning into Sidhe and opening gates and understanding riddles and all the rest of it. He just wanted to go back home, and protect Nott on the way.

And maybe, once he was home, he would think about whether he really wanted to stay in the Aurors at all.