Speaking in Tongues – Chapter 4 – Celticas

Reading Time:
8 Minutes

Draco looked around wildly to find the threat that had revrberated down their naiscent bond. For a second he thought Harry was the only other person in the room. His gifts was screaming at him that there was someone else there though. Keeping his wand up he edged further into the room.

“Are you okay?” He asked without looking at the Gryffendork.

“Um, yeah?” Harry didn’t sound at all sure about his answer.

When Draco risked a glance at his sentinel he found confused green eyes staring at him.

“I don’t think the shadow lady can hurt you.” Harry reassured him perterbingly.

“What shadow lady?” Even as he asked, his gifts were settling down. He knew there was someone else with them, but realised they weren’t a threat.

“I don’t know. Who are you?” Harry asked the air.

Fucking Gryffendors! Talking to shadow people as if that was normal!

“Oh cool. She is Professor Emily Fleurie, she was the alchemy professor before Professor Wilson who was the last one before they cut it from the curriculum.”

“I hate you.” Draco informed Harry, finally putting his wand away.

“Sure.” Harry agreed magnanimously. “What’s the school saying about me?” Harry hopped onto the one of the low cabinets that ran around the edge of the classroom. The moonlight streaming in the window behind him edged his dark hair in silver and shaded his eyes enough that Draco couldn’t see them.

“That you’re crazy.” Draco hopped up on the other side of the window and swung one foot up as well so that he could face his sentinel.

Harry waved a hand as if shooing away a fly, that he was crazy was old news.

“That you are the next coming of Merlin.” Draco added. “Pansy thought it was hot, Blaise is of the opinion that it was all a trick and your spirit animal was a conjuring of some sort, I’ve encouraged that rumour but I don’t think it will take hold.” He thought about the other whispers he had heard. He had spent all afternoon arguing himself into, and then out of, telling Harry about the conversation he had overheard at lunch. “Did any of your friends visit you in the hospital wing today?” Hopefully one of them had, and had told the other boy about the drama in Gryffendor the night before.

Harry shook his head even before Draco could finish talking “No. A group from the SG centre came and saw me, but that was it. Madam Pomphrey wanted me to rest.” He fiddled with a corner of the book he was holding. “I… I’m not sure that was a bad thing. They can be a lot at the best of times, and my hearing was going a bit wonky. I didn’t realise at first. I could hear the SG group talking and I just thought they were right outside the cubicle I was in, but then I realised they had been in Pomphrey’s office.” He finally looked up at Draco again.

Draco wasn’t surprised about anything that Harry had said. The Gryffendores were the lourdest of all of the houses, throwing their emotions and their noise all over the place. He also wasn’t surprised that with only a partial bond, one of the Sentinel’s senses had spiked. “What did the group from the SGF want?” It was the only part that wasn’t self explanatory.

Harry flicked his wand and silently sent a pale lumos to hang in their air above them. The moon had risen enough to no longer be streaming into the room.  Draco watched his Sentinel’s face. If it wasn’t for the swirling emotions down the bond that was threatening to bring up his dinner, Draco would have had no idea that Harry felt anything more than vaguely curious.

He wondered how much he had missed out on over the years of their rivalry.

He might have been an online Guide for years, that didn’t mean he was automatically able to identify each of them. Maybe if he had gotten the training that he should have… But he hadn’t. All he could do was pick at them as he waited for Harry to start talking.

He thought one of them was anger, and another a deep sadness before the silence was broken.

“They wanted to run a bunch of tests.”

In his deep dive of the bond, Draco had missed that the book had been replaced by a pale scroll. Biting his tongue was the only way to stop himself from asking what it was.

“It was a fight.” Harry told him about the argument he had had with Pomphrey and the SGF team and the tests he had allowed them to run.

“That’s the scroll?” He finally asked.

Harry handed it over even as he explained. “Yeah, I have no idea what it means. Or what it should even possibly be telling me. I just didn’t want them to have the original, let alone only, copy! It’s about me.”

As his Sentinel continued to mutter to himself, Draco flicked the top of the scroll open. It was filled edge to edge with a long arithmantic equation. With only a year and a bit of the class under his belt it meant almost nothing to him. The first bit was about power rating, but there was something wrong with it. It wasn’t magical power, or not just magical power. And some of the numbers were too high and some were way to long.

It would never balance.

The magic and not magic powers should be pulling apart the construct it was describing at the seams.

“What did they say about the spell for the scroll again?” Draco interrupted the mumbling that he absolutely was listening to. Maybe.

“To take a psyonic signature.” Harry scratched a hand through his unruly curls, making them stand up even more. “To compare to signatures from Guides.”

Draco’s face scrunched up in distaste. Other Guides would never be right for Harry. Even if their signatures were a better match. They didn’t know how fiercely loyal he was. Or the spark of intelligence that almost no one noticed and he hid as if his life depended on it. They would see the reckless bravery and never look beyond it for the cunning that drove as many of Harry’s actions.

“They aren’t going to find a match.” Harry waved off Draco’s concern before he could even voice it. “Do you know what it means?”

“Maybe. No. Maybe.” Draco unrolled a bit more of the scroll hoping that would make it make sense.

It didn’t.

“Can I have a few days with this?”  Draco rolled it back up. He wasn’t going to get anywhere with it until he could get some references together.

“Sure.” Harry flicked a gemini at it and Draco tucked the copy into his satchel. “The other spell was the gifts one. Have you done that one?”

Draco nodded. His godfather had cast it for him at the end of first year. “I have three gifts. Astral Projection, ayremaj and kimenna’at.” Draco listed off easily.

“Kimena’at? What’s that?” Harry asked. Confusion and curiosity coming down the bond in a wave.

“The translation can mean a lot of things, but what it means is that I can read dead languages.” Draco smirked. It was  rare for a Guiide or Sntinel to have more than one gift. Muggle SGs sometimes didn’t even have that! It spoke to Draco’s magical power as well as Guide rating. “And you?” He hoped their ifts lined up, it would be another confirmation that they were magically and psyonically matched.

“Three as well. Parseltongue, fyremaj and I think they said kimenna’at for me as well?” Harry jumped at nothing. “Apparently it isn’t kimenna’at, it was kiment’aan. Which is spirit talking.” Harry was nodding at something Draco couldn’t hear or see.

Draco pushed his empathy until something flicked at the edge of his awareness. 

“Yeah, sure. Professor Fleurie says she can help with that, and your kimenna’at, if you want.” Harry offered. “She says we should get on with finishing the bond. People are going to start missing us soon.”

Draco frowned and cast a quick tempus. He jolted. He hadn’t realised how much time had passed since he burst in. “Yes, of course. Do you have a sense of which senses you have bonded?”

“Sight and hearing definitely. I’m not sure about smell, and definitely not taste.” The blush barely showed on his dark skin.

Draco knew a much more obvious blush was blooming across his pale skin. “That doesn’t… we don’t….” Draco stammered for the first time in his life. Lucius would have killed him if he heard.

Although, he would kill him for being here, with Harry Ploody Potter, talking about bonding because he was a guide.

“And if I want to?” Harry’s blush hadn’t abated at all. “If you don’t, that’s fine!” He hurried to say. “I know there are other-”

Draco surged forward and stole the words.

The kiss was short. Draco felt Harry’s tongue flick out and gather the taste he needed. Almost following when Harry pulled away, Draco sat back and ran a hand through his hair as he tried to breath. Getting himself back under control he shot his cuffs and shook his shoulders to resettle his robes.

Harry was smirking at him knowingly. “Shut up.” He scowled.

“I didn’t say anything.” Harry said, laughing at him.

The boarish boy took hold of his wrist, without asking, and brought it up to his nose. He sniffed along the pulse point for a moment. Draco supposed he should find it rude, but he could barely suppress the shiver of want and acceptance that was swirling up and down the quickly strengthening bond between them.

A snap echoed down the bond.

It stole both of their breaths. Leaving their chests heaving and Harry’s face was scrunched with pain.

“What the hell was that?” Harry gasped out.

Draco couldn’t answer because he was doing his best not to cry. A thousand emotions were punching down on him. The world stuttered around him, it wasn’t anything he had felt before. Either from himself or from anyone else.

“Harry? HARRY?!” 

The Sentinel was zoning. His eyes were glazed over and he was panting with his mouth hanging open to draw in every smell or taste in the whole castle.

Draco tumbled forward and crawled into the other boy’s lap even as he was struggling to get his own shields back in place. He pressed as much of himself as he could against Harry. He framed the too thin face with his hands and shoved his neck against the other boy’s face. Trying to surround him with his scent and his warmth.

They stayed pressed together for a long time. Draco’s legs were asleep under him before Harry started to stir.

“Draco?” His voice was weak and confused.

“I’m here.” Somehow he managed to crowd in even closer.

A hand wove into Draco’s hair and held him close without pulling the delicate strands.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m here.” He murmured into the unruly hair as he waited for Harry to calm down.