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Harry laughed as he pushed the broom handle down and dove, following the little gold ball with frantically blurring wings, fingers outstretched. His hand wrapped around the gold ball and he pulled up sharply, spiraling to bleed off speed. He crowed in triumph and let his trainer shod feet skim across the grass.
Polite applause had his head swiveling around. The Dark Lord stood in the sun, applauding. His gaze was lit with amusement. Harry nudged his broom in the older man’s direction. He grinned as he handed over the snitch. The elder man accepted the little gold ball and tucked it into his robe pocket.
“I now see why Severus does not...observe you while you fly. I believe the man is currently in my study trying to drown a tremor with absinthe. You fly superbly well, my Little One. However, the risks you take while chasing that little ball would turn any man’s knees to jelly. And the fact you trust that stick to keep you aloft….” Voldemort shuddered.
Harry frowned briefly, the broom had been a gift from Sirius. It had never failed him. He opened his mouth to say as much, only to find his lips covered by the Dark Lord’s own.
“Ah; however, trusting your flight to power is always an option. I could… teach you?”
Harry tilted his head. He slipped off the broom and let the House Elf that popped up take it from his grasp. The Dark Lord was offering to teach him flight by power, he’d take it. He could remember Remus and Sirius fighting that way, Tonks and Bellatrix locked in soaring spirals of white and black.
“All right. How?”
“First, do you trust me?” The older man asked, carefully pulling him into an embrace. Harry rose up on tiptoes and wrapped his arms around Voldemort’s neck.
“Of course.”
“Wonderful. Now, do you trust my grip on you?”
“Yes?” Harry responded, suddenly wary.
“I won’t let you fall.” The Dark Lord assured before power wrapped its tendrils around them both and they were suddenly airborne and streaking over the pitch Harry had just been soaring over. Harry laughed at the rush of wind, cradled in the Dark Lord’s arms and wrapped in protective power.
* * *
Severus stood at the window of the Dark Lord’s study, overlooking the pitch where Potter flew. The fingers of one long hand were wrapped tightly around a third of a glass of murky green liquid. He sipped again and shuddered. One day the fool boy would make a split second decision on that broom and be splattered across the pitch.
He heaved a sigh of relief when he watched the boy float over to where the Dark Lord stood observing the crazed chase, like a fruit bat after a fly. He shook his head when he saw the Dark Lord accept the snitch.
Severus raised the glass to his lips and then choked on the sugary wormwood based concoction when the Dark Lord blazed darkly and streaked across the pitch. He knew the trust it took to fly like that with another person. He’d never been capable of extending that much trust. He would have said the Dark Lord as well, yet he was seeing the proof against that fact.
Watching as they landed on the far side of the pitch he glanced away briefly, realizing that it was more than just an embrace. He would give the Little Lord, as Lucius called him, what privacy he could.
A streak of white caught his attention and his gaze snapped back to the window. His mouth dropped open. “Bloody hell, Potter. Like a seeker true. It took me three months to master this… and…”
Severus slugged back the rest of his drink, wordlessly shaking his head in amazement. The boy had picked up self powered flight amazingly fast. He just stood, watching as twin streaks of power, one blazing brightly the other burning darkly twined around one another as they chased through the sky and over the pitch, dark pursuing light, and light chasing the dark, two sides of the same coin.
Severus looked out on the scene and smiled. Anyone who watched this scene would be hard pressed to deny the fact that the two chasing streaks were anything but in love. Of course, he’d never mention that fact to either of the powerful men. He preferred to keep some knowledge to himself.