Stealing the Stars

Harry spent only as much time in Bulgaria as it took to pass through into Turkey. The magic there was old, and deep; the land was positively steeped in it.

Harry began practicing to draw on the magic around him, rather than focusing his own magic through his wand. To his great surprise, he found that it was easier - there was less of a drain when he pulled from the land, and his spells were stronger, lasted longer, and did more damage.

He accidentally let loose a stunner on a terrified passerby who'd happened upon a sleeping Draci, and the man had been put into a coma for three days. From then on, Harry began working on focusing his pull rather than just throwing everything available into whatever spell he happened to be casting.

He never stopped in any one place very long, always feeling as though he were being followed or watched wherever he went, and it wasn't until he was near Malatya on the eastern side of the country, that he caught a glimpse of his follower. A flash of white blonde hair, and a familiar sneer, and Harry was up on Draci, riding her into the nearby forest cover. She couldn't fly yet, but she could support Harry's weight on her back, and as she moved faster, he often used her as a mount, much to her own delight.

He ran into Malfoy again outside of Akcakale, on the Turkey/Syria border. This time the man nearly stepped on Draci, who was practicing her chameleonic talents and doing her damndest to pretend that she was a rock. When Malfoy made a near miss with her tail, she stood up and snarled at him, startling a few decades off the blond's life, Harry would have bet anything.

"Draci! Come! We're leaving!" Harry snapped, and she left Malfoy where he'd fallen, barely slowing to allow Harry to jump onto her back as she passed him. Malfoy watched them in complete surprise, not having known he was so close to his quarry.

"Damn!" Draco swore, and Harry grinned as he raced away. Harry paused outside of Saluq in Syria, realizing that the magic around him was getting stronger. Draci was increasing in size almost daily, it seemed, and had now begun flexing her massive wings, attempting to lift herself off the ground. Harry often sat on her, hoping to train her to fly with him, and her vocabulary increased as she aged. At Abu Kamal on the Syria/Iraqi border, she'd surprised him by turning her head and forming a complete sentence.

"James, why does that man follow us?" Harry blinked at her in surprise before laughing. "Is this funny?" she asked, looking put out.

"No, not funny," Harry replied. "I just hadn't realized you'd gotten so good with talking."

"I practice, while you sleep. I sometimes listen at doorsteps, like in Home. I would like to learn English, but first, why does he follow?"

"He follows, I think, because he doesn't like me, and he wants to kill me. Or at least, he used to. I don't know any more. I know that I'm not going to let him get near you."

"I protect you, James. Now, english. Teach me to talk in your tongue, James."

-o0o-

Months passed quickly. Draci grew stronger, and more intelligent, and Draco Malfoy was never more than one or two cities behind them. Harry figured it had been approximately four years since he'd left England, and he missed it less and less every day. With Malfoy on his heels and Draci at his side, he felt he had everything he needed to just keep going. He developed an amazing aptitude for languages, picking up words here and there until he managed coherent sentences. He still picked up a dictionary wherever he went, adding it to the collection in his back pack.

He'd almost forgotten that his name was Harry Potter; he'd been James Evans for so long that he responded automatically, rather than forcefully, and even the few Harry's he'd met no longer made him nervous. Because of Draci, he spent much of his time on the outskirts of cities, roaming forests and deserts, keeping out of the way of every one who might kill him.

Because of this forced exile, he was surprisingly behind the times when it came to events in England, and when he came upon a magical community, he was shocked at the headlines they'd brought him.

England was under Martial Law, Voldemort taking the opportunity to take over. Harry's flight from his homeland had spurred him on to greater heights of destruction and madness, and England was slowly breaking down. Dark Creatures roamed the streets untamed, people were dying by the thousands, and not even the Muggles were safe. More and more people were siding with Voldemort, if only to be out of his target range - if they were on his side, and unimportant, he rarely noticed them, which by definition made it safer.

Harry had fled the small town as fast as his feet could carry him, and he nearly went right past Draci, who caught up to him shortly after he'd fallen to the ground breathless. The night air was cool in his lungs and against his heated skin, and though she pressured him to reveal what had happened, he simply clung to her and cried.

He was halfway through Saudi Arabia, trying to push thoughts of England from his head, when he saw the road sign leading to Riyadh. He knew of the city from the small community he'd settled with for a few days, and knew that Draci would be welcomed there, and turned towards it. He'd picked up more arabian looking clothes, though they did nothing to hide the sun from his skin. He was burned as brown as any Arab man, and with his dark hair and contacts, fit in quite well. It was in Riyadh that his next great surprise sprung itself on him.

Draci tugged him out into a deserted section of the city, mostly ruins of the old country, and flashed him a draconic grin before lifting herself off the ground, and flying. Whooping and hollering, Harry ran with her as far as his feet would take him, celebrating. "You did it, Draci! You're a real dragon now!" Later, she curled around him to keep him warm in the desert night air.

"I am glad to fly," she said quietly. "Now we do not need to walk so far." Harry laughed.

"You've still got a bit of training to do before you can fly with me, sweetheart," he told her. "You may not think much of flying with me, but you'll have to strengthen your wings and your back, and learn to balance me so that I don't slip off - don't worry, I'll learn too, but it'll take some time. Do you know where you want to go?"

"I do not like this desert air. I long for the forest, where it is green, and everything is not burned brown by the sun. Even you are brown!"

"It helps," Harry whispered. "It helps me to escape my past." Throughout their journey, he'd told her of his life, and she'd done what she could to tell him it was alright.

"No one could have expected you to stay," she whispered as he told her of his exodus. "Not after that. If I lost you here, in this miserable desert, I never again would come back. You are my only friend, James."

Harry gripped her neck firmly, hugging her tight. "You are my friend, too, Draci," he whispered. Neither slept well that night.

-o0o-

Aware that Draci was sick of the desert, Harry turned them east again, towards the greener places. Gradually, he became aware that he was no longer being followed, and wondered what had become of Malfoy.

"Perhaps he stood too long in our dust and was struck down by lightning," Draci suggested, amusement colouring her voice. Harry had laughed for hours over that, and Draci took every opportunity to needle the blond for his entertainment.

"I know what happened to him," she announced one day as they were crossing the border into Yemen. Harry, on her back, rubbed his hand along the spines at her neck.

"Oh?" he asked curiously. She turned her head, nodding at him.

"He realized that I was not stone, and his jaw fell to the ground, and while it was there, the drool fell out and stuck him fast."

Harry howled with laughter at the images she created. When she wasn't thinking up dire fates for Malfoy to have befallen, she was telling stories. Draci told wonderfully imaginative stories, with princes and princesses and fairies and merpeople, and unicorns, and dragons, and wizards, and witches, and muggles, and snakes. Anything she saw was liable to become another tale, and Harry swore that one day, he was going to write them down and sell them as childrens' books. The credit, of course, would go to Draci Evans, and no one would ever need to know that the author was in fact, a dragon. Draci found this a fantastic idea, and pressured him into buying a notebook and pen so that he could begin immediately with writing them down.

-

In Yemen, near the city of Aden, Draci surprised a few decades off of Harry's own life by suddenly stopping and lifting them both into the air. Harry clutched at her shoulders, but didn't fall, and thumped her for scaring him.

"Don't ever do anything like that again!" he said, and laughed. She laughed with him, and took him across the Gulf of Aden towards Somalia, in Africa. Harry realized he'd been six years on the road with his dragon, and wondered where the time went. It seemed only a few months ago he was struggling to communicate with the French woman at the bus station.

So much had happened in the interim that he hardly felt like himself any more. He liked the nomad he'd become much more than the boy hero everyone had expected back Home. Without his friends, he would have failed anyway, and running, while cowardly, was his best hope for surviving.

He and Draci spent almost a year in and around Mogadishu in Somalia, when Draco Malfoy finally caught up to them, catching them in the act of bathing.

-o0o-

Harry stripped to the skin, leaving his clothes and backpack in a neat pile beside Draci's stone form. She'd discovered a small oasis in the middle of a large forest that reminded Harry of the Forbidden Forest outside of Hogwarts.

Briefly, he wondered if they'd burned it to the ground, or if it just stood silent guard around the ruins of his beloved school. Shaking off the bad memories, Harry dove into the waterfall-fed pool, floating calmly. He swam for a while, then stood on a ledge near the waterfall, and dipped his head under it. His hair reached his knees now, and he often braided it to keep it out of the way. His hard living and constant travel had worn away the slight flab he'd developed doing nothing but Quidditch, and he was almost slender in his thinness.

In fact, he often thought that if his chest were bigger, or if he chose to wear a padded bra, he'd be mistaken for a woman! It was an intriguing thought, and he often entertained ideas of strolling back into England disguised as a Turkish woman, covered from head to toe in veils and secrets. He shook the notions away as quickly as they came; he never wanted to return to England, and that was that.

Tilting his head back into the spray of icy water, he wondered what had happened to Malfoy. Had he indeed been stuck to the ground in his own drool, or been struck down by lightning as Draci had suggested? The ideas made him smile, and it was only Draci's surprised shout that gave him enough time to dodge the streak of red light that came his way.

Floating in the water, he dredged up all the natural energy he could from the pool, and cast it at whoever had sent the stunner at him, effectively canceling out the next one.

"Who are you?" he demanded, standing up despite his nudity. He had nothing to be ashamed of, and his clothes would have hampered him if it came to a fight. "Come out!"

"You asked for it," came a vaguely familiar voice. "I was trying to do this the easy way, however." Draco Malfoy emerged from the trees, and Draci was on her feet immediately, snarling and showing her teeth. Malfoy held his hands up, his wand dangling loosely from his fingers, and he set it by the waters edge and backed away from it. To Harry's surprise, he stripped off his shirt and trousers, explaining after he'd clothed himself. "I'm entirely unarmed," he said. "The same cannot be said for you. I know you don't have a wand on you. How did you stop my magic?"

"Why should I explain to you?" Harry asked. The years and travel spent hunting him down hadn't been as kind to Malfoy as they had to him. He looked a touch sunburned, and his clothes were filthy, as if he'd been wearing the same ones for days on end and rolling in mud.


His hair was short, but long enough to be pulled into a dirty ponytail at the nape of his neck, and he looked as though he hadn't slept well or eaten a decent meal in weeks. "You look like hell," he added against his own will.

Malfoy gave him a look that was pure interest. "You don't," he said speculatively, and Harry felt the ridiculous urge to cover his body.

"James," Draci said softly, and Malfoy jumped back several feet.

"Sweet Morgan, mother of Mordred!" he shouted, looking up in unadulterated terror at the dragon that had come from seemingly nowhere. "The last time I saw you you were tiny!"

Draci gave him a snooty look, and turned back to Harry. "James," she said again, and switched into Romanian. "I don't like him. He smells like he's been sleeping with sheep, and from what you've told me, the fact that he's followed you all the way here cannot bode well."

Malfoy watched the words flow easily from the mouth of a dragon, and though his mouth hung open in surprise, he managed to keep his comments to himself. When Harry answered back in the same tongue, he wondered again if it had been wise not to learn the languages of the places he'd been, as Harry obviously had.

"I know, Draci," Harry was saying. "But I'm stronger than him now, even when he has his wand, and if need be, you can pick me up out of the water and we can get away. If he's followed me HERE, of all places, then maybe it's time I stopped running." Turning to Malfoy, he narrowed his eyes. "I'll talk to you, but you leave your wand with me while--"

At Malfoy's confused look, Harry blinked, and then blushed slightly under his tan. When was the last time he'd blushed? Switching to English, he repeated his words. "I'll talk to you, but your wand is mine while you're here. Draci doesn't trust you, and neither do I, but if you're here, you must have something to say."

Malfoy nodded, then fell to his knees. "Please, Harry, please come back!" he whimpered, and Harry felt the blood drain out of his face. "We need you! It's terrible back home. Voldemort has taken over everything. He's destroying England. No one can stop him, and most of the Order is gone."

He'd come all this way - followed me all the way here - to beg me to return? "Why should I believe you? The last time I saw you, you were running like a coward away from the Death Eaters and Dumbledore's death - that you couldn't even do yourself!" Harry couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"I was pardoned before Voldemort destroyed the ministry. I've joined the fight against Voldemort! He killed my family - not just my mother and father, but my aunts and uncles, grandparents. Everyone is gone."

"Then get your scrawny white ass back to England and take your revenge! Don't follow me around like a lost puppy!" Harry snapped, his patience fraying. Seeing his old nemesis on his knees and begging so piteously was upsetting the world order he'd created for himself. It was him and Draci versus everyone, and now Malfoy was trying to bring that apart.

"I can't. The prophesy. You're the only one who can take him down. And now, I know you can do it. I'm one of the strongest wizards still left to the side of the Light, but you stopped my spell as though it were a noisy bug near your ear. You've got to come back and help us! Please Harry!"

"Shut up!" Harry shouted, even as Draci reared up, smoke falling from her nose.

"Why does he call you Harry, James?" she asked in English. "Why? Who are you, Malfoy, that you can come here and expect him to return with you? We are happy! Leave us to it."

Malfoy looked as though he were about to wet his pants, he was trembling so hard. Harry took an almost pity on him, even as his heart hardened against Malfoy's pleas.

"Look," he said. "I'm not going back. Not for anything, or anyone. There's nothing there for me anymore. Nothing!" Malfoy looked like he was about to open his mouth again, but Harry silenced him with a look, rising out of the water. Malfoy's mouth dropped open at the sight of him, and he stared unabashedly as Harry dressed. "I'm never going back, Malfoy, so you can just go back and fight your own fight."

"I'm not going without you, Potter," Malfoy said, getting to his feet as soon as Harry was covered. "I followed you out six years ago to bring you back, and I'm not going back without you."

"Then you can keep following me forever," Harry snapped, turning to Draci and switching into Romanian. "He calls me Harry, because that used to be my name. Harry Potter was a boy who lost everything, and everyone dear to him. I am James now, because James is stronger, and the only thing I have to lose is you."

"You'll never lose me!" Draci said, flames leaping from her nose as she spoke. "Never!" Malfoy leapt back, thinking that she was about to attack. Harry leaned up and hugged her tightly. "Lets go, Draci," he whispered, and pulled on his back pack even as he wrapped the scarf around his face to protect him from the sun. He jumped onto Draci's back as she lifted off, the downdrafts flattening Malfoy into the ground.

"Wait! Potter! Harry!"

Draci circled a few times before flying off back towards Mogadishu. Draco Malfoy watched them go, tears prickling at his eyes. He'd caught the name James, and Harry Potter in the rapid language that flowed smoothly from Harry's mouth, and wondered what they'd discussed that had the dragon so inflamed.

He retrieved his wand, and apparated back into his hotel at Mogadishu, calling Snape's mobile phone to report.

"Snape," came the voice at the other end. Draco finally allowed the tears to fall.

"I found him, Severus," he whispered, wetness coating his cheeks. "I found him, and that ruddy dragon. She's massive now. I tried, I tried to talk to him, but he said he's never going back." Actually, now that he thought about it, Harry had said there was nothing there for him. Maybe he just needed a reason to go back?

"Is he well?" Severus asked, after a brief pause. Draco fell back onto the dingy bed he'd sat on.

"I'll say. I've never seen anyone more well in my life."

"Draco, tell me you didn't waste time ogling him," Severus said, sounding bored.

"He was naked!" Draco said in his own defense. "And excuse me for needing a moment to compose myself, my entire life has only revolved around him for the past fifteen years!"

"Compose yourself now, Draco," Severus said. "Tell me exactly what happened."