Harry stilled. "And if I cared little for my human life?" he asked.

The surprise was slow and cautious on Draco's face. He studied Harry, still cradled in his embrace. "You have no loved ones to return to?" Harry shook his head.

"I took to the sea yearning for a new life, but it was just as wretched as my last. Can your magic help me try a third time?"

Disbelief remained on Draco's face. "You would wish to become like me, to join the merfolk?"

Harry swallowed, not daring to hope too hard. "If it is possible?"

"There is no reversing it," Draco warned. "And our lives can hold just as much struggle and toil as the Uplanders."

Harry took a deep breath, feeling the water swirl in his lungs. It was funny, after that first, unnatural inhale, it now felt as if he had been surviving his whole life under the water. Like he could survive the rest of his life that way too. "Would you be there to guide me?" he asked.

He reasoned he had nothing to lose. If Draco could not, or would not promise that, even if just at the start, he would return to The Fair Petunia and take his chances. But the gloom of his features was once more replaced by delight, and he flicked his tail, swimming closer to Harry. "I would be honoured," he said, happiness clear in the voice resonating through Harry's head. "Are you ready? The Breath is soon spent."

Harry nodded, eager and excited beyond anything he had every experienced before, even when escaping from the poorhouse and signing up to Dursley's crew. He had known in his heart that life at sea was truly where he belonged, it had obviously just taken him a little time to discover it was below the sea, not above it where he would eventually call home.

Harry had always thought magic came from the hands, in great bursts of colourful light, like Merlin and the Lady Morgana from the legends of King Arthur. But instead, Draco wrapped his tail and his arms around Harry's form, drawing him near again, pressing their mouth together once more to cast his spell.

Except this time it was no chaste brush, but a hot, intense embrace of strong lips and tongues. Harry had dallied with barmaids before, allowed a few sloppy kisses, but this, this felt like it was giving him his very life, renewed from the flesh and blood of his darling mother.

But lo – it was giving him life! The hotness spread through him like fire catching on oil, spurring across his skin, making him twist in shock. Draco released him from the kiss, but held him as if protecting an infant from the elements, soothing Harry as he gnashed and wailed, the transformation burning away his legs, reforming his lungs, even stripping away his clothes. He was not sure how long he writhed, bordering between agony and ecstasy, but never once did Draco relinquish his hold, whispering in a tongue Harry did not quite comprehend, but finding himself holding onto a peacefulness all the same.

And then, as soon as it had begun, it was done. Harry gasped, his lungs and eyes even more improved than when the first spell had taken effect. The waters were bright as if sunshine was spilling down from above, the taste now sweet in his mouth. And his ears! He could hear the thrum of life the ocean had to offer, the way Draco's heart and soul ebbed from his chest. Now he understood, he saw how Draco had found him, how his own body had called out through the tides.

"You," said Draco, pulling away just a little and looking Harry up and down. "You have such beauty."

Harry pulled his hair forward with his hands, enough to see it was still black and coarse, but then he realised that was not what Draco had meant.

Looking down, his clothes had been stripped down to rags, revealing a body far stronger than he had ever been as a human. There were soft spines he could feel drifting all the way up the centre of his back, longer and more slender than Draco's fins, pleasurably sensitive to his touch. And then there was his new, glorious, tale. Scales, shimmering a golden copper, petered off at his navel where his skin began. The tail was longer than his legs ever were, and as he gave an experimental swoosh through the water, he could feel it also had power he could never had hoped for on land.

He raised his eyes and grinned like a buffoon. "It worked," he breathed, lifting a little into the waters, discovering his new freedom from gravity's pull.

"My magic always works," chided Draco playfully. His fingertips were skirting tentatively up and down Harry's arms, drifting along his collarbones, evidently admiring his work. Admiring Harry.

"Your magic," Harry began as Draco very carefully brushed his fingers along the first of Harry's new spines on his back, sending sinful shivers all along his skin. "Must it always be administrated by kiss?"

Draco bit his lip again, though this time the smile was coy and Harry found himself reflecting a matching one back. "Any skin to skin will actually suffice," he admitted, looking up through long, pale eyelashes. "I thought I would never have another chance, that you would return to the Air Above."

"And the second spell?" Harry challenged, giddy and brave with happiness.

The blush returned to Draco's cheek. "You were none the wiser," he said, peeking up in embarrassment. "Do you mind?"

Now it was Harry's turn to draw the other near, to wrap him in his new, spectacular tail and skim his fingers across the silvery green fins along Draco's spine. He too shuddered, and Harry knew he must feel the same as he himself had.

"On the contrary," he said leaning in closer together. "Teach me your magic," he uttered, before sealing the gap, and pouring his life into Draco, just as Draco had poured his life into him.

The End

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