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Fairest Creatures	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 22177 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Ten—First Step in Courting

            “Veela would never have come out of our hiding places to mate with wizards and others who don’t understand if our numbers had not started getting low and we had not come to understand that we had to look for mates elsewhere.”

            Harry hid a yawn behind his hand. So far, he wasn’t much enjoying the Veela History class, taught by Professor Emmeline Stone, a small woman with intense yellow eyes and yellow stripes on her wings. She was a slightly better teacher than Professor Binns had been for wizarding History, but at the same time, everything seemed to come down to mates, other than a few wars Veela had fought with the goblins.

            Do Veela do anything for other reasons? Harry decided he would ask.

            Professor Stone faltered visibly when Harry raised his hand. She seemed to assume questions should only happen at the pausing points along the process that she had put there. But she finally nodded to Harry, probably because it would look silly if she tried to put him off. “Yes, Mr. Potter?”

            “Could you teach us something that doesn’t have to do with our mates?” Harry put his hand down and smiled at her. “I mean, does everything only come down to mates? That seems a little mental. Humans don’t only do things because of sex.”

            “You’d be surprised,” Draco muttered from beside him.

            Professor Stone either didn’t hear him or liked Draco better than Harry. She moved a step forwards, and her wings fanned hard enough to make the parchment Harry had been trying to take notes on flutter. Of course, since half the parchment said only “Mates, mates, mates,” and since it was awkward to write sitting on a cushion on the floor anyway, that was no great loss.

            “But Veela are not human.”

            Harry gritted his teeth. “I meant, surely we must have motives unrelated to our mates?”

            “Why?”

            Professor Stone sounded genuinely baffled. Harry rolled his eyes, and didn’t bother disguising it this time. “Because everyone is more complex than who they’re mated to? Two of my best friends are married, but I don’t think their marriage is the only thing they’ve got happening in their lives.”

            “It isn’t?”

            Harry paused. Professor Stone wasn’t a ghost, but given the one hundred percent of two examples he had so far, Harry was starting to wonder if history teachers were just intrinsically damaged in some way.

            “I think,” Draco interjected smoothly, “that Harry means that we seem only to have gone to war, or made trade agreements, or lived our daily lives, because of our mates, when that is not true.”

            “Of course it’s true,” said Professor Stone, and looked at Harry as if she still didn’t understand his problem. “Veela are creatures of love and beauty. Why should our lives not be driven by love and beauty?”

            Harry tried to think of himself as a creature of love and beauty, and then bit his lip. He knew he would start laughing too hard to stop in a second.

            Draco catching his eye only made it worse. Harry bowed his head and bumped his chin against the floor hard enough to jolt his jaw a little and take his mind off it. He couldn’t help it. He remembered Dumbledore saying his great power was love, but he doubted Dumbledore had meant it the way the professors here did.

            Or otherwise he would have wanted me to fuck Voldemort to death.

            Harry did start snorting in spite of himself. Draco gave him a faint shove on the shoulder and faced Professor Stone with a winsome little smile. “But there are things in our lives that didn’t depend on mates. What about the Forfeit War we fought with the goblins?”

            “Started when the goblins took Angeline Jan’s mate as payment for work they’d done for her, because he was what she valued most,” Stone replied promptly.

            “The first diplomatic relations between humans and Veela?” Draco prompted, although his smile was strained. Harry jammed his chin against the floor again.

            “Veela needed mates, and a few fell in love with humans.” Stone peered at Harry. “Do you need to go the infirmary, Mr. Potter?”

            They’ll probably tell me I need to be a creature of beauty some more, and smear me with skin creams. Harry covered his mouth and shook his head. Stone only said, “You look as if you were going to be sick to your stomach.”

            Maybe I should have asked Voldemort to be my Valentine.

            He snorted again. Draco hastily overrode him. “But I remember the tale of Minister Delacour. That wasn’t driven by a mating bond. He had a mate at the time. He was the one who forged the alliance between magical France and magical Britain that preceded the end of the Muggle wars between them by centuries, right?”

            “Because his mate wanted a gown made specifically in Britain,” said Stone. “So you see, Mr. Malfoy, all a Veela’s decisions do come down to what his or her mate wants.” She gave Harry an indulgent smile. “Even if in this case, it’s your mate contributing to try to find a discourse he thinks is more sensible for you.”

            Harry flushed, his desire to laugh leaving. If she knew…

            “I want my mate to be sensible, of course,” Draco said, with a sideways glance that made Harry frantically stare at the ceiling. “But it’s worthwhile for him to think about human history and Veela history and how they’re different. And how they’re alike, too.”

            “It does seem a little restrictive to only talk about mates in history,” agreed one of the other young women, the only Veela Harry had seen so far with dark hair. “Can’t we talk about something else? Like, was it hard for Veela to integrate with wizards because they had women who were leading, while wizards had a lot of men leading, too?”

            Stone looked flustered, to the point that her wings were fanning up and down. “You children don’t yet have a sense of real history,” she said.

            “But we want one,” said the young woman. Janice, Harry recalled after a second, was her first name, although he couldn’t remember the last one. “The kind of history that isn’t just mates. You know that history, don’t you, Professor Stone?”

            Stone looked red enough that Harry bit his lip to keep from chuckling. Then she wrenched her wings up and said, “Of course I do, but I am here to teach you Veela history.”

            “What about the bits that don’t have mates in them?” asked a witch who had both bright red hair and red bars on her wings. “There must be some.”

            “But they aren’t as interesting. Veela are creatures of love and beauty—”

            “Even love and beauty get boring when they’re the only things you have to hear about,” said Janice, and the red-haired witch nodded vigorously. Harry thought about doing the same thing, but it might set Stone off. “Tell us some other parts, please, Professor Stone?”

            Stone glanced from face to face and then sat down with an abrupt bump on her cushion. “If you’re sure that you want to hear them,” she said.

            Everyone in the class, or at least everyone Harry could see, was nodding, and Draco had a secret little smile, as though he was personally responsible for Stone choosing to change her mind. Harry nudged Draco and Draco nudged him back, his lips still wrinkled smugly.

            “All right,” said Stone mournfully. “Then you should know there are a few wars the Veela fought with the goblins that didn’t come about because of someone’s mate…”

*

            “Will you let me perform the first step of the courtship today?”

            Harry twisted to look over his shoulder. It had taken him some time to get used to looking past the arch of his wing, but Professor Helios had worked with him on that and it was easier now. “What do you mean? I thought you couldn’t court me until the first gift manifested.”

            It was still odd to talk about magic like that, and Harry wasn’t sure he would understand until he saw the first one show up. But presumably that would show him exactly how different Veela magic was from human magic.

            Draco ducked his head, so he was looking at Harry through his pale eyelashes. “We can set up circumstances where the gift might manifest, though. And there are some rules about how we do that, but they have to do with mood and place, not with exactly what we can do. Will you come with me on a lunch away from the school?”

            Harry perked up. Anything not to eat in the dining hall with people watching him and speculating about his status as Draco’s mate right now. “Does that mean we can have some meat?”

            Draco blinked. “You’re not worried about your predatory instincts manifesting?”

            “Right now, they’re pretty far down on the list of things I’m worried about, yes,” Harry said dryly. “I’m much more concerned about the allure.”

            Draco smiled. “I thought we could practice in this place on how to get your allure under control, too.”

            Harry nodded. “Then I accept your invitation for lunch. But I still want to know about the meat.”

            “It’s a place on Malfoy grounds that haven’t been used in a long time.” Draco smiled at Harry in a way that had a thrill to it, and his wings extended and flapped heavily up and down. “I can tell my elves to prepare whatever you’d like to eat, including any kind of meat.”

            “A ham and cheese sandwich.”

            Draco’s wings stopped flapping. “I offer to get you anything you want, and that’s what you ask for.”

            “That’s what I want,” Harry said stubbornly, and held Draco’s disapproving gaze. He finally rolled his eyes a little, when it seemed Draco wasn’t going to do anything except gape, and said, “You can think of it as your first courting gift, if you want.”

            That had been the right thing to say; whatever luck had given Harry the ability to say the right thing to Draco the other day was back. Draco’s feathers smoothed down, and he gave Harry the kind of smile Harry liked best. Sometimes Draco tried too hard to be seductive, or sweet, or so wonderful that he seemed to think Harry would sit beside him and only think of him forever instead of other things. But like this, he was just happy.

            “Yes,” Draco said. “I’d like that very much.” He put out his hand, and Harry took it. He didn’t feel the urge to nuzzle his cheek against it the way he had when the claiming was happening, but maybe that would come back. And it would be better this time if it was under his conscious control.

            “Let me contact the house-elves, and then I’ll come back to escort you to our lunch.”

            Harry watched him strut off down the corridor. This time, his feet were definitely on the floor instead of floating, probably because he could walk more proudly this way. Harry chuckled and went to change his robes. He still wore his Auror ones, because some things were not going to change, but he didn’t want them to get torn or damaged by something outside the school.

*

            “A place on Malfoy grounds that haven’t been used in a long time” turned out to be a spot on a smooth green field that suddenly curved into a cliff. Beneath the cliff, the North Sea heaved and gleamed. Harry found himself so mesmerized by the way the waves broke on the rocks that he almost forgot to eat.

            Well, forgetting would admittedly have been easier without a mate who would push him into eating when he forgot it. Draco actually hit him with a wing when Harry leaned over the cliff to make out the foam better.

            “You’re making me nervous, and I don’t like that,” Draco explained when Harry glared at him. “You’re supposed to be paying attention to me and not the sea, anyway. What’s so fascinating about it?”

            “I’ve never seen it this close and where I could concentrate on it by itself instead of as part of a quest,” Harry answered. He wanted to lean over the cliff again, but Draco had brought him here and had the house-elves make him his ham-and-cheese sandwich despite the obvious inferiority of it. Harry sat back and stretched his wings. “How can you teach me to control my allure?”

            As Harry had thought would happen, referring to “Veela things” made Draco smile and forget about the cliff. “You need to focus it,” he said. “To think of it as a tool for attracting your mate, instead of attracting random people.”

            “But I’ve already attracted you,” said Harry, blinking. “Doesn’t that mean I can’t use it that way?”

            “You can always deepen my thoughts and my emotions about you.” Draco’s voice was rising in contrast, becoming a croon the way it had a few times in the past. “Always, Harry.”

            “Do you want me to do that, though?”

            Draco’s brow wrinkled, and some of the glaze in his eyes vanished. “No, I’m sitting here and almost begging you to do it because I hate it and it makes me feel like a slave,” he snapped. “Come on, Harry. Try.”

            “I don’t even know how to summon my allure, though. The last time, it just broke free. I don’t know what I did.”

            Draco raised his eyebrows and laid his own sandwich aside. “Well, finish eating and I’ll show you. I didn’t know you were in that situation, or I would have planned different lessons.”

            “I didn’t bring you here to be my minder, either.” Harry concentrated—he still had some trouble making his wings do delicate movements—and managed to reach out and scoop up Draco’s plate, offering it back to him on the tips of his feathers. “You finish eating, too.”

            Draco looked from the plate to Harry’s face, and for a second, seeing his odd expression, Harry was afraid he’d committed some other Veela faux pas. But then Draco smiled, and chirruped once, and took his sandwich and ate it.

            It was peaceful, and they didn’t speak for the rest of the meal. Harry even looked over the cliff again with no comment from Draco. He noticed Draco looking at the sky, too.

            If this is part of being mates, Harry thought, as he sucked a few thin slices of ham off his palm, then I think I like it.

*

            He didn’t like the allure lessons.

            “But you have to want me to like you. Really like you. Look at you and dream of you and desire you.”

            “I want you to like me. I mean, I can,” Harry babbled quickly, wondering if he should have phrased things that way when Draco was already looking at him with half-lidded eyes. “I can want it. But I don’t want to turn you into the kind of drooling maniac that my allure made those other people into.”

            “The first time, I probably will,” said Draco, as if it was normal and not something that should upset Harry. “But you have to keep going. Remember that I volunteered for this. Better than having anyone else help you learn.” For a moment, his eyes weren’t half-lidded at all, but flashing the way they had when he drove off the other Veela.

            Then Draco abruptly relaxed and smiled winsomely at Harry. “Try it.”

            Harry looked at him, and Draco continued to sit there and smile encouragingly. So Harry focused on him, shutting out the sight of the cliff behind him and the ocean below, and thought tentatively, I want to enchant him.

            Nothing happened. Draco’s wings stirred a little in the wind, and Draco gave him a chiding glance. “If you were doing this properly, I wouldn’t even notice that. You should make me yours.”

            Harry grimaced. “But I never wanted to do that with all the fans who chased after me. I just wanted them to think.”

            “Think what?”

            “That I was a human being just like them and they should leave me alone.”

            “Well, now we’re both Veela and I want to want you.” Draco gave him a faint smile. “I want you already, but the idea of this is to give it a little boost. Come on, Harry.”

            Harry tried again. He thought of the allure as a white glow around himself that he was throwing towards Draco, and how he would surround Draco with it and make his skin prickle. Then he tried to imagine it as an attractive force that would pull Draco towards him. When nothing happened with that, either, he tried in desperation to think of his own features as so beautiful that Draco couldn’t help but admire them.

            Still nothing happened, and Draco’s smile was a bit more on edge.

            “I know you don’t want to be a Veela, Harry,” he began in a patronizing tone that made Harry grit his teeth. “But that’s what you are. You had better master your allure, or you’ll attract even more fans to you when you leave the school. Is that what you want?” He paused, and something new came into his face, something Harry didn’t like. “Or do you secretly love the attention, and just think that you have to pretend you don’t so people will think you’re modest?”

            “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Harry screamed, and then focused his allure and his magic on Draco as strongly as he could. He wanted Draco drooling, he wanted him flying towards Harry, he wanted him—

            Draco shuddered and bowed his head. Harry paused, unsure. It would be just like him to have given Draco an upset stomach or something when he was going for allure.

            Then Draco’s eyes snapped open, and they were a mirrored silver blur, all the humanity gone from them. He spread his hands, which had turned into talons, and pounced towards Harry like a hawk towards its prey.

            Harry rolled away from him, squeaking and kicking, and his foot caught Draco in the stomach. But Draco only fluttered up and came down on the other side, trying to kiss or bite his face off. Harry wasn’t sure there was a difference at this point.

            He was so busy struggling with Draco and trying to take back his allure and shouting in his ear for him to stop that he forgot where they were.

            And the next thing he knew, they were rolling off the cliff, Draco too crazed with allure to even pay attention to his wings, and Harry trying to fend Draco off and fly for both of them at the same time.

            Bloody Veela magic!

*

            SP777: You can still squeal. I won’t tell anybody. ;)
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