Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Nature of the Beast	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 48977 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 9
- 10
- 11
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Ten—Speeches and Spectators
            “Thank you for coming here today.”
            Draco spread his wings involuntarily as he saw glances traveling towards him. Yes, he understood that they were surprised to see him here; there were probably people who hadn’t heard about Harry’s Veela bond, and others who were surprised that a dominant had let his submissive appear in public at all, and some who wanted to sneer at him. But he only wished they would stop staring so much. They had seen now, there was no reason to go on thinking that Harry was alone or unmated, could they stop looking at him?
            Of course, there were also people he wished would stop looking at Harry. Daphne Greengrass was in the front row of chairs before the little stage set up in front of Dumbledore’s tomb, which still loomed, huge and white, behind them. Daphne might have been looking at a patch of blank air instead of Draco, but Harry also might have been a blazing comet.
            Draco shifted in his chair. He, Granger, Weasley, Shacklebolt, and several Ministry officials Draco didn’t recognize had seats behind Harry. Draco had looked around for a chair Harry could use, and didn’t find one.
            He turned back to Daphne. There was no doubt that it was deliberate, now. Before, she might have wanted Harry without knowing he had a Veela mate, since Harry hadn’t known it himself. But this was a pointed insult. A biting insult.
            Draco showed his teeth, the one concession to instinct he could make in front of an audience, and got ready to spread his wings if she kept on. At least Harry wasn’t far from him, and his voice was calm and measured, and Draco could sweep him off his feet and carry him away if she tried anything.
            “I know that the man buried behind me would rejoice to see the first motions towards peace we’re making.” The day was overcast, humid, and Harry looked like the brightest thing in the world as he slowly looked around. He wore a set of green robes Draco had to grudgingly admit looked nice, although he would have prepared to dress Harry with his own hands. “He trusted a man who had the Dark Mark on his arm to murder him, and play a long game. He trusted someone who had a connection with Voldemort to walk into the Forest and sacrifice himself. You could say he made mistakes, not enough contingency plans, too many opportunities for things to go wrong.”
            Harry paused, and rifled his papers. Draco wondered if he was the only one who saw the taut muscles in his mate’s back and neck, if he was the only one who knew what that meant.
            “But I say, that’s what trust is.” Harry’s voice was muffled. He craned his neck around to look at the tomb, and Draco blinked. The expression on Harry’s face didn’t match the deep, reluctant emotions that Draco could feel crawling down the bond towards him. “To reach out and tap people on the shoulder and ask them to join with you in some grand enterprise, without the ability to force them.”
            Draco’s wings twitched again. What Dumbledore had done, as far as relying on Harry, went a lot further than trusting him.
            But those were things to argue about later. Draco wanted to prove that he could be a political asset, if politically was the way that Harry meant to deal with him. So he sat still, and only his hands driving into the chair might have told someone what he was feeling.
            From the gleam in her focused eyes, they told Daphne.
            “He trusted me,” Harry continued, and he leaned forwards, as if he had wings of his own to spread that would let him loom over the audience. “He wanted me to do as he’d asked, but he couldn’t make me. Well, I can’t make you, either.” His gaze was fastened on the enthralled audience, and Draco thought he could have asked them to charge the Ministry en masse and they would have done it. “But I can ask that you consider peace, that you ask yourself whether being able to live ordinary lives in the wizarding world is really worth less than what you might believe about blood purity.”
            The words were ordinary, the moment not so. Draco could feel it trembling like a soap bubble, shimmering with tension and beauty, and he didn’t think it was only his mate bond with Harry that made him feel that way.
            Harry stepped back and popped the bubble himself, with a soft smile that Draco could feel the effect of even though he wasn’t seeing it full on. “That’s what this is all about. I’ve had some people tell me that I could command people to stop fighting, and they would listen to me. Or I could command them to start being nice to werewolves, or listen to the Ministry and let them mediate disputes instead of turning them into duels, or I could tell them to free house-elves.” Draco didn’t think he mistook the flickering glance Harry turned towards Granger. “But it doesn’t work like that. What I want is for people to do this of their own free will.”
            He spread his hands. “You don’t have to do it for really good reasons. I’m doing this because I’m so selfish that I never want to fight another war.”
            A few other people in the audience laughed, although not Daphne, who was leaning forwards with her hands folded as though in prayer. Draco shook his head. Harry was telling them everything they wanted to hear, sure, but also the truth. He wondered idly who was going to get into trouble for ignoring it.
            Daphne. She was already in trouble with Draco himself, but Draco doubted that she would have got any satisfaction out of Harry even if he wasn’t Draco’s mate.
            (And he was doing well, he knew he was, by being able to think about the political implications without trying to rip her apart).
            Harry didn’t want someone who wanted the Chosen One. He might accept someone who offered a partnership to the political man—Draco was rather counting on that—but that would always stop short of that person becoming besotted with him.
            “Your own free will,” Harry said again, snapping Draco’s attention back to him. Once he was looking at him again, Draco wondered why in the world he had ever wanted to look away. Harry was beautiful in everything, from the line of the arm he raised to the pure and unwavering way he met the eyes of the people looking at him. “That’s what’s most important here. More important than anything else. What matters is that you commit yourselves to this fully, if you do.”
            “Not all of us can be crusaders like you are, Harry,” said Kingsley Shacklebolt, standing up and giving a little bow to Harry. Draco started a snarl, but from the way Harry turned around and smiled, this interruption was totally planned.
            “I know that, but you can decide that your ordinary lives are worth more than any temporary satisfaction you might get out of killing your enemies,” Harry said, and turned back to sweep the crowd with his gaze. “Think about it. What would have happened if the war had continued, or if Voldemort had won it?” Some people still flinched at the name, but not as many as Draco would have thought, so enraptured were they. “Could you have continued going shopping in Diagon Alley and feuding with your neighbors and complaining about the Ministry and raising your children and sending them to Hogwarts?”
            Draco could feel the mental recalibration in some of the audience. That was clever, he had to admit, to make them think about it that way, not in terms of the great abstractions they would have lost, but the general activities, the small things that actually made up their lives.
            “That’s right,” Harry said, and made a sweep in front of him as though he was splashing water away. “He would have changed everything, because he couldn’t stand not being worshiped and the center of his followers’ lives. He probably would have exiled all the half-bloods from Hogwarts, Marked the pure-blood children at sixteen, and driven the Muggleborns into hiding. He’d already taken over the Ministry. And he wouldn’t have been content with the British wizarding world, either. He would have insisted on conquering other countries and taking over the Muggle political scene.” This time, the gesture he made was of dumping water on top of something. “Nothing ever satisfied him. You would have spent your lives in service to him, and wondered how it happened this way.”
            The audience nodded again. Draco looked around at them, forcing his gaze away from Harry and then from Daphne, and realized something that made him open his mouth, then close it again. He wasn’t about to interrupt Harry’s moment.
            Harry might think he was getting through to them with his speech. In a way, he was. He was at least making them rethink the desirability of war. But dozens of the people here, if not the majority, would change their minds because it was Harry Potter asking them to.
            Not because they really believed in what he was saying.
            Draco raised a hand to his mouth so that he could muffle some of the squeaks that wanted to escape. He would look undignified, sitting there and fighting back silly noises while Harry wrapped up his triumphant speech.
            But that was real. It was true. Harry thought he could persuade everyone to do what he wanted and leave them absolutely free to make the decision. And it was true that he sounded more rational than Draco had thought he would, not using as many emotional appeals or the plain, blunt demand that they agree with him that most Gryffindors would have.
            It was impossible to leave people completely free when you had the degree of fame and power that Harry did, though. (And Draco would probably add his beauty to that). Daphne wanted him even though Harry didn’t want her to.
            (Draco stripped off a few bits of wood from the chair).
            There would always be someone who did what they did because they dreamed of Harry’s approval, dreamed of meeting him and seeing that smile. Draco wondered if Harry had any idea that most of those shining eyes in the audience didn’t shine because of the peace he was preaching, but just because of him.
            “So,” Harry finished, and flung out an arm so that he was pointing to the tomb behind them. “Pay attention to the sacrifice that Dumbledore made for us. Please. He was the major one who stood against Voldemort. Not me. He was the one who organized the Order of the Phoenix and fought a whole war before I was even born. And he was the one who achieved the victory in the end, even though he had to take risks to do it.”
            He played with your life to do it, Draco thought, his own thoughts clear enough to make him start, because Veela normally didn’t think that way in opposition to their mates. And Professor Snape’s life. Even if you can forgive him, have you asked Snape’s portrait if he could?
            “So let’s celebrate what he did, what he stood for.” Harry lifted his head, as if looking straight up to the sun hidden behind the clouds. “The peace that he would have wanted, and the chance to let everyone make their own choices. He did what he had to do during the war, and so did I. But ideally, no one will ever again have to make the choice to walk into the Forbidden Forest and stand there in front of a Killing Curse. Let’s—let’s try and make sure that we preserve that freedom for other people, too.”
            His voice caught on the last words, and several people rose to their feet, applauding. Draco shook his head. Harry was incredible, but more in his presence and his deeds than his words. He could probably be an exceptional speechmaker someday, but right now, he wasn’t.
            Harry, though, stood there and accepted their tribute as the tribute to his words, and probably to what he thought were Dumbledore’s ideals. Draco didn’t need their bond to know that, although the bond leaped and thrummed with enough thoughts that he knew it with the greater clarity.
            Draco was proud of Harry, though, for being so understandable—Draco understood him better than he had only a few minutes ago—and for being so humble. He said that he didn’t have the instincts of a submissive Veela mate, but Draco thought he did, kind of. They were simply turned sideways. Instead of being humble and grateful for the protection of a dominant against a harsh world, Harry was humble about achieving great things.
            Draco thought he would grow used to it, and understand it, in time.
            People were coming forwards to ask questions and tell Harry what a great speech he’d made. Draco kept himself sitting there, relaxed. None of them seemed to be a threat to Harry.
            And then Daphne climbed up on stage.
*
            Harry tensed the minute he saw Daphne coming. He had been thinking about the speech, which seemed to be a successful one, and he thought he might have reached some of the people who had been the most stubborn about listening to him before. They were certainly coming up to shake his hand and ask questions about how they could help with the peace process.
            And then someone he had thought was an ally, and now had to accept had probably just pretended to ally with him in order to get into his pants, was right there, smiling sweetly into his eyes.
            “No,” Harry said to her, instinctively. He thought it was the only thing that might have made her pause in the way she reached out to him.
            “Has the Veela got hold of you so quickly, Harry?” Daphne looked past him. Harry didn’t have to turn to know that Malfoy was coming out of his chair; he could see the shadow of those wings moving on the stage. “I thought you were resisting him. That you had something less than desire for him.”
            “It has nothing to do with me wanting him, and everything to do with the fact that you provoked him on purpose.”
            That made Daphne turn back to him, a new look in her eyes. Harry half-nodded. Yes, she had thought he wouldn’t catch that. She had underestimated him.
            Lots of people did that, but then again, they tended to be Death Eaters and Dark Lords. Harry didn’t want to think about Daphne inside either rank.
            “I didn’t,” Daphne said, but even if Harry had believed her before, he thought he would have laughed now at the lame way she said it.
            “Yes, you did,” Harry said. “There’s no way that you didn’t know what a dominant Veela looked like, as a pure-blood.” He moved back a step from her, not because he thought she would try to touch him again, but because he could hear Malfoy standing. He didn’t want any casualties there, the same way he didn’t want allies who lied to him. “And if you want me, then you were lying about your primary motive for being in the alliance. If you provoked him for another reason, then you were lying about wanting peace. You could have got someone killed.”
            Daphne just stared and stared. Harry was starting to hope that she hadn’t been trying to seduce him after all. Why would she want a stupid husband?
            “I lied about neither,” Daphne finally murmured. Malfoy was right behind Harry now. Harry could feel the brush of a wing against his shoulder. He still didn’t turn around, because he couldn’t see the need. “I—Harry, the only thing that I want is you, at my side. And then together we can turn the wizarding world around.”
            “I don’t want to turn the wizarding world around on anything except the issue of peace,” Harry said tiredly. This is always the way it is. Except with Ron and Hermione. So many people who turned out to only want to use him. Malfoy might put himself in a different category, but the way he had described the bond he wanted to Harry, it was the same thing again. At least he was being quiet about it right now, though, and not tearing Daphne to small and screaming shreds.
            “That embraces everything else.”
            Malfoy tried to lunge. It was probably the word “embraces,” Harry thought.
            Harry leaned backwards and cast a Shield Charm at the same time. The Shield Charm shut off that part of the stage from Malfoy’s reach, and Harry nearly fell until Malfoy turned and caught him. Harry had hoped that would happen, that Malfoy’s supposed instincts would push him to protect his mate before anything else. If Harry had to live with this bond he didn’t want, then he was going to use it just like he used his fame.
            “It doesn’t,” he told Daphne, and turned to Malfoy. “Do you want to go home now?” Diverting Malfoy’s heavy-lidded attention from Daphne was a good thing, he thought.
            Malfoy’s response was a noise that reminded Harry a lot of Dudley. Harry sighed and stepped backwards, away from Daphne, softly crowding Malfoy back from the Shield Charm.
            “She wants you,” Malfoy whispered into the back of his neck, which at least meant it wasn’t aloud, and therefore embarrassing.
            Harry only nodded. It wasn’t something he could dispute when he had the evidence living and breathing right in front of him.
            Even if he would have liked to dispute it, because he had wanted to think that things had changed. But it was better to accept bitter reality and work with it than hope for too long.
            “You won’t let me destroy her?”
            Harry shook his head sharply. No matter what Malfoy thought, Harry still had a political life. He would accept the bond with Malfoy because it was there and it existed. But he wouldn’t let him commit murder. There was some way that someone would take this and twist it around to blame Harry. The Greengrass family, if no one else.
            One of the things that Harry had had to give up was revenge, at least for personal reasons.
            “Then let’s go,” Malfoy said, and wrapped his arms around Harry, and spread his wings.
            This time, he seemed to spring straight off the stage. Harry leaned back in his embrace, for a second tightening the hold of his hands on Malfoy’s arms. He wanted to fly under his own power, he wanted to be on a broom, he had to wonder what the people watching from the crowd would say if they saw them—
            But then they were soaring, passing as fast as a shadow over the ground, over any and all obstacles, and it was wonderful enough to choke off some of his objections.
            Malfoy sighed and nuzzled into his shoulder. Harry reckoned that he could feel Harry’s relaxation and was letting him have some thanks for it.
            Harry said nothing. There wasn’t much to be said right now. But he gave Malfoy his relaxation the way Malfoy had given him his acceptance of not killing Daphne, and they flew back to the Manor at least in companionable silence, if nothing more.
*
SP777: Draco is now considering that Harry might be the dominant, or be somewhere in between, but he really can’t get the idea of zero submissive or dominant tendencies when he’s always had this concept of one or the other floating around his head.
BAFan: Ron maybe needs to be driven. Hermione herself is as committed to the peace process and the freedom of house-elves as Harry could desire.
heartstar: Thanks for referring!
- 9
- 10
- 11
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Nature of the Beast