Reality twists 30/39
Oct. 30th, 2011 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
herumtreiberChapter: Draco's detour
Author:
Genre: Post DH, romance, adventure, time travel
Rating: PG-13
Epilogue compliant? No
Chapter length: ~3,069 words
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or related characters, nor do I make any money from writing these stories.
Warnings for the fic: Angst, threesome, violence, noncon, character deaths (not the protagonists)
Summary: Harry/Draco/Daphne. Draco in Azkaban, plus time-travel. Explores the idea of powerful magic pitted against a nuclear bomb and the implications for the world. Noncon - evil Hermione and Ron – Atlantis may appear later on, and another meaning of the Prophecy. How a Time Turner can win a game. Very ecological use of the Fidelius charm; Dementors abound, but...
Table of contents
29. Canadian journey
Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
'Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here
We satisfy our endless needs and
justify our bloody deeds,
in the name of destiny and the name of God
And you can see them there, on Sunday morning
They stand up and sing about what it's like up there
They call it paradise
I don't know why
You call some place paradise,
kiss it goodbye
(The last resort, Don Henley, Glenn Frey)
In the morning they made their way to the airport and boarded the Learjet. Draco unceremoniously pulled out a laptop and started to type in it, sending messages to the main office.
Daphne was curious, and after Draco tried to explain how it worked, and failed miserably, she turned to Harry for an explanation. The Gryffindor valiantly explained the concept of the web and personal computing, when he'd gotten to a good part, he was chagrined to note that Daphne had fallen asleep.
The flight was long, and they stopped in Puerto Rico to refuel. Draco eventually stopped working and took Daphne and laid her to rest on the bedroom.
They landed in Rio. After checking with the Muggle authorities about the timing of the flight continuing to Manaus, they got off the plane and into the Brazil night. It was full of life, smell and sounds. People seemed to be especially raucous, or maybe that was a side effect of the Translation charms Draco insisted they use.
Daphne was at first a little leery of mingling with the Muggles, but after visiting the seaside she was won over fairly quickly. In fact, she and Draco made a striking couple in the beaches. Their alabaster skin hardly tanned, their blond locks invariably attracted the attention of the people. Draco had a chiseled look, and Daphne got a wonderfully slim and yet voluptuous figure, together with the golden-hued, black-haired and muscular Gryffindor, they made a striking Silver trio.
Harry was delighted with being in the seashore, sunbathing, and swimming in the ocean. He'd never been able to do any of those things. When the blonds noticed his glazed looks and inquired why he was so spaced out, he told them the reasons why. The Slytherins fumed and wanted to personally AK the Dursleys and Dumbles.
When they calmed down they encouraged Harry to do all those things he'd read about. He made a small sand castle, even tried to bury Draco under sand. Later Harry asked his blonds to go with him on a swim. He realized that his constant urge to seek danger seemed to be abating. Before, he would've swam without a care in the world, but now he recognized that it might be dangerous, and wanted to have back-up. Draco offered to go with him, after Daphne – suspiciously – complained about pain.
They swam for half an hour, and when they were getting back and walking on the beach, Harry suffered cramps. Immediately he was scooped up by Draco's strong arms and taken to Daphne. She cast a diagnostic spell on him and gently chastised him, "Harry, you shouldn't have eaten all those things. I know you like Brazilian food and Nhoque, but if you're going to swim you have to be more careful with this."
They spent that day in the beach. When twilight came, they retreated to a small brook that emptied into the sea. The Silver trio sat quietly with their legs in the water, as the night slowly came into view. Draco cherished these Southern nights because he was able to see many stars he would not normally see, like the Southern Cross. Astronomy was one of his favorite subjects, especially considering his family's penchant for naming offspring after stars or constellations.
Harry suddenly noticed that the water of the brook seemed to be filled with light! Maybe there was a spell being cast, and maybe some unknown wizards were waiting to do mischief to them!
When he alerted the others about the problem and offered his suspicions, Draco calmly stepped in. He said, "Do not worry, Harry! The light is not caused by our type of magic. What you are seeing is the product of microscopic animals called plankton, which in this case turns out to be luminescent. It's entirely natural, and it is a stark reminder that the magic of Nature supersedes ours quite easily."
HRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHR
The next day they left their hotel and boarded the Learjet on a flight to Manaus. After the uneventful journey, they changed planes and went to a dilapidated-looking private plane. The owner looked surprisingly like Hagrid, if he were of normal size. His name was Ernesto Jobim, and he was a warm fellow. They transferred their belongings, which were minimal on Draco's instructions, boarded the plane and promptly were airborne.
After Harry decided not to care anymore about the wild see-sawing movements of the plane, he was entranced by the land they were flying over. He saw the greenest color of the world, perhaps even more than his and Daphne's eyes, and the silver markings of a river flowing below them.
They landed in a makeshift landing strip. They got out, took up their baggage and Ernesto heartily shook their hands and offered his wishes for a good stay. They boarded a Jeep which was waiting at the side of the landing strip. A woman saluted them cockily, he was María Asunción Peres, and she would guide them where they wanted to go. María was easygoing, gentle with her questions and a fountain of knowledge about the region.
She drove for two hours, taking care in handling the seemingly impassable roads, and the perilously leaning trees. Eventually they reached a clearing, María stopped the Jeep, got them out with their luggage, and handed Draco an old map of Brazil. She said, "That's your portkey. It will take you where we agreed when you say 'forest.' To get out you have to touch it again and say 'Rio,' it'll take you to your hotel in Rio."
Harry was angry, "We could have taken the portkey since the beginning and saved us all the trouble of the different planes!"
María answered unemotionally, "The portkey can only operate within the forest itself. We laid the strictures ourselves when we were advised that the Dark Lord planned to send an army here and train it, seeing how no one would know anything until it was too late. With this safety clause, the forest lost its attractiveness to the Dark Lord, because he would have to send his minions and spend all that time and effort just getting here."
Harry blushed and just nodded.
Draco, Harry and Daphne grabbed their luggage and touched the map. Draco said, " Forest." They were transported, and Harry again felt the lurch and the pull on his navel.
They appeared in a clearing, they could see all around them a verdant wall, touched with brown and in the distance they could hear the rumbling of a mighty river.
Draco started taking something out of his endless bag and put it in the ground. He swished and flicked his wand as he said the incantation that would cause the tent to erect itself. Draco would have done it himself, but his last attempts at manually building it ended up with him getting almost suffocated and being trapped by several parts of the tent. Only Daphne's help had got him out scot free, and her smirk had been too much to bear.
When the tent was ready, Draco bade his mates to enter. He busied himself preparing coffee. He served a clearly dumbfounded Harry and Daphne and had to rib them a little, "Why are you looking so surprised? I have known how to do chores for years now, and I don't mind preparing some refreshment for my mates."
Draco continued, "All around us is the green forest, the Amazon Rainforest. We have spent some wonderful times in the cities of North America. They depict civilization at its utmost peak, the industrial will of the New World. They show what the world can aspire to some day."
"However, in the heart of South America lies the land that ultimately will determine the fate of the world. I'm sorry, Harry, but the fate of the world was not decided when you got rid so effectively of Voldemort, and neither was it assured when I disarmed the Protection Charm. That fate is solved every day, all over the world. Yet the world needs this Rainforest. It is here that the battle to ensure the survival of the species is waged as we speak. It is an old battle between greed and wisdom, between expediency and true far-seeing."
"I have set plans in motion to preserve part of the forest. Political pressure will be brought to bear. Still, I'm convinced it won't be enough. Politicians will surrender the position of their constituencies for money or power, statutes will be forgotten or broken, and the hungry developers will lay claim to the forest. If they do, it is a harsh world that waits for us when the forest cannot do its job, which is simply to provide us with clear air."
Draco carefully led them out to the clearing. He continued, "You may wonder why we are here. I intend to do something practical and sneaky about this." Draco rubbed his Malfoy signet ring and asked for the presence of Griphook to discuss some affairs.
There was a pop of Goblin apparition and Griphook appeared next to Draco, he bowed to him and to Daphne, but when he saw Harry, he gritted his teeth and merely nodded.
Although the presence of a goblin on the Amazon was sobering, Draco went on as if it were business as usual. He said, "Griphook, I have need of your help. I know circumstances have changed somewhat concerning my companions, but I know that I can count on the goblin's sense of honor. Has the land been bought?"
Griphook replied, "As you instructed me, Lord Malfoy, we bought the plots of land you wanted. Upon a map they form a checkered pattern, no one suspects that all the land was bought by one individual."
Draco smirked and continued, "Then we will proceed."
He spoke to Daphne and Harry, "When I was a little child, Mother would sometimes grab a book at random and read from it whatever struck her fancy. One day she read me a memoir of Santiago Malfoy, where he speaks of the ancient tale of Atlantis. This ancestor was convinced that the stories were correct and Atlantis had really existed, he postulated that a tiny part still remained. It later occurred to me to wonder how a whole island could disappear."
"Later in life I was able to do some checking onsite and found that the island of Azkaban may have been part of Atlantis once. I submit to you that Atlantis was put under a charm quite similar to Magnus Fidelius. The outside world could not accede to the island, and the legends of it sinking into the sea grew. Incidentally, any outside observers present in the moment the charm activated would report their impression that the island visibly shrank and disappeared."
"Obviously you have to consider what the Fidelius charm would mean to the whole island. It could not communicate outside, because if the people ever left, they wouldn't be able to come back. No news from outside was ever heard. The inhabitants must have grown cold and distrustful. Perhaps Atlantis lingers on, its residents having developed a civilization completely different than our own, perhaps their evolution has been so different as to defy comprehension."
"I mention this because I want to put under the Fidelius charm a sizeable portion of the Amazon Rainforest, approximately the size of Wales . Thus protected, the forest would be free of the rapine of the developers. They would not be able to get there. I also intend to make the charm add 10 kilometers per year."
"There are no people living there, so there would be no disruptions."
Harry asked, "You mentioned that the charm would grow larger every year. Isn't it a little like the Protection Charm and its relentlessness?"
Draco answered, "The charm would grow, but when it reached the size of a major country, it would stop. At any rate in 150 years it will start to decay."
Draco called on his House elf Trini to come here, and together she, the goblin and Draco started the ritual.
When the time came to choose the Secret-Keeper, Draco chose himself, Daphne and Harry.
They felt the wash of magic as it set the limits of the charm.
Draco courteously said goodbye to Griphook and Trini. They went inside the tent, after setting up a magical zone around it to keep it free from jungle animals.
They were knackered, and promptly fell asleep. The strange sounds of the jungle didn't bother them much, because they were tired.
The next day, they all got up at approximately the same time. Apparently Daphne and Harry were eager to explore the forest, and Draco was curious too. He didn't take the usual time to get ready, seeing how the others were pestering him.
Daphne and Harry opened the tent and walked out laughing loudly – probably at him, he thought morosely - and then they suddenly shut up. This caused disquiet in Draco. He mentally chastised them and ordered them to show they were alive. Soon he could not take the suspense anymore and rushed out of the tent.
He found Daphne and Harry in the floor; they were covered by cloak-like beings, completely black. He shuddered as he recognized the Lethifolds. These creatures that smothered and ate their victims were impervious to magic, except the Patronus charm.
With a deep sense of foreboding, he took out the Elder wand and got ready to use the charm he hadn't used in the last 10 years. He mentally prepared the scene he wanted, of him and Harry and Daphne making sweet love in their Toronto home. The home he'd built with Green Eyes and Harry. He was ready to cast the spell when a memory rose up in his head, completely unbidden: Daphne and Scorpius and him, when he'd given Scorpius the broom. How happy Scorpius was, how they took that photo, to crystallize that moment forever. Now, instead of being disheartened by the betrayal that would occur, he was expecting a second chance to be a father. The memory brought then all the happiness that he always searched for desperately.
Draco swished elegantly and said lazily, "Expecto patronum!" A large silver shape shot out of the wand and slowly coalesced into an animal.
Draco looked at the figure and commanded it to help Daphne and Harry. Inwardly Draco congratulated himself on having an imposing Patronus. He couldn't bear to think what he would have done if it had been, let's say, a doe, or a puppy or a squirrel.
Draco's Patronus made quick work of the Lethifolds and soon they were destroyed. Harry opened his eyes and gulped fresh air. He could see beside Daphne a silver figure, a magnificent bull. Harry sighed and muttered, "it figures."
Draco moved the two figures to the bed and forbid them to leave it. For lunch he brought pizza he'd kept frozen in the tent.
After he gave them a clean bill of health, he said, "It's obvious that now we have to get back. We are ill prepared to stay in the forest, there are magical and non-magical animals that would kill us. We did what we needed, and there is only one more thing to do. We know how resourceful our enemies are. The location of the land that acts as the world's lungs would seem to be a tempting prize. They might pressure us or break us into telling them this. I want us to use Obliviate to forget that information."
"Don't worry, the Obliviate will only cover the location of this part of the forest. We'll still remember everything that happened, just not that."
With Daphne's and Harry's consent, Draco cast Obliviate minor on each of them, erasing only the location of the Amazon Preserve. Harry eventually cast the other one on Draco.
They still remembered everything, just not the location of the Preserve.
Harry and Daphne stood still, nervously looking around them as if waiting for the other animals to pounce. Draco, with a swish of his wand, used the incantation that would fold the tent. After everything was correctly packaged and put away, the Silver trio embraced each other and their luggage and concentrating on the map, Harry said " Rio."
The portkey took them away from the Preserve they had created. That place would remain undisturbed by Mankind, perhaps becoming a source of legends with time, as happened with Atlantis.
HRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRHRH
Draco knew it was time, time to respond to the pull of home and blood and return to England . His mother would go into labor soon, Lucius and Andromeda could really use his help. He missed dreadfully his little brother Antares, and he was curious about Severus and Iolande. Hopefully they would get together soon.
They spent their last day in South America on the beach, they stayed up until the sun had retired and the moon risen, playing with the luminescent plankton. They spent a tranquil night, too wistful and contemplative to engage in other activities.
In the morning they took the Learjet and left the continent. It was a long journey, and they stopped at the Azores to refuel.
They reached Heathrow and parked in the section of executive jets. They passed customs, where a surprised-looking individual hastily stamped their passports and muttered that it was all right. Clearly he had recognized the Boy Who Lived and Lord Malfoy.
They got to a lounge and the Silver trio, after arranging with a Malfoy House elf to come and fetch the luggage, decided to Apparate to the Manor. They left.
They reappeared in the Manor, and were stunned. Antares was crying inconsolably, Lucius was downcast, and it was Andromeda who saw them and came over.
She said seriously, "I'm glad you are here, Draco. Your mother is having trouble with the birth."
