Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Veela-Struck	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 52830 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this writing.

Chapter List
- 1-Veela-Struck
- 2-Changed
- 3-Thought-Through
- 4-Met
- 5-Challenged
- 6-Snapped
- 7-Struggled
- 8-Lost
- 9-Dazed
- 10-Worried
- 11-Shamed
- 12-Hidden
- 13-Dazzled
- 14-Astounded
- 15-Marked
- 16-Damaged
- 17-Chosen
- 18-Shuddered
- 19-Broken
- 20-Spoken
- 21-Influenced
- 22-Gifted
- 23-Promised
- 24-Distressed
- 25-Held
- 26-Tempted
- 27-Warded
- 28-Rumored
- 29-Fought
- 30-Flayed
- 31-Identified
- 32-Practiced
- 33-Enchanted
- 34-Blazed
- 11
- 12
- 13
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twelve—Hidden

            “You all right, mate?”

            Harry started and looked up. He hadn’t realized that Ron was watching him so closely, or that he was showing any signs of distress. He had come back to work today and dived into his reports and the files that had accumulated for him. When Ron came in, he’d been reading, and only grunted a little when Ron told him about Hermione and the baby. This was the first time they’d spoken directly to each other.

            “Yeah, of course,” Harry said, shaking his head a little, so that he wouldn’t speak the next words of the report he’d been scribbling. “Why? Do I have dried blood on my face or something?” He touched his cheek and grinned.

            Ron smiled back, seeming reluctant but doing it anyway. It was a private joke between them that Ron had gone through an entire case last year, including building wards to keep Harry safe when he broke his leg and then chasing down the criminal, without realizing that he had a streak of dried blood around his eyes that made him look like he was wearing a mask. The Healers who had shown up on the scene had actually been more interested in Ron at first than at Harry, sure he must have a wound somewhere that hadn’t stopped bleeding.

            Harry snorted softly and rolled his eyes at the memory. That only proved Healers couldn’t see what was right in front of them. It had been dried blood, and they had still fussed around Ron like bees around a flower.

            “No,” Ron said. “But sometimes when you come back from a holiday, you’re—well, you seem angry or hurt.” He shrugged, watching Harry carefully. “Not physically. Just mentally, like you can’t imagine separating from work for a minute.”

            “No,” Harry said, though he was trying to think of what Ron meant and couldn’t call a coherent picture to mind. I’m not physically or mentally wounded. I just need to adjust when I’m forced away from work for a while and have to look at old files instead of active ones.

            Then he remembered the Sandys case, and smiled. This was one situation where he thought he could make a difference, and he intended to do a bit of investigating this evening when he was done with his regular workload.

            In the meantime, he thought Ron might like to hear about his visit to Owen King.

            “Just the opposite of wounded,” he said firmly, and told Ron about Apparating to the house and a few of the less personal things King had said to him. As he had thought would happen, Ron relaxed and smiled when Harry talked about letting Draco Side-Along him, and seemed impressed that Harry had entered a house that belonged to a Veela, even if the Veela in question wasn’t there right then.

            Ron shook his head when Harry finished and said, “It’s wonderful, mate. Things are changing for you, and I’m glad to see it. It’s just that—”

            “Yeah?” Harry asked. He was surprised. Since Ron had been the one to bring Draco’s letter to him and seemed determined that Draco and Harry get together, Harry wouldn’t have expected him to be cautious or hesitant about it, the way he looked now.

            “I don’t want you to go too fast, and strain yourself, and then never muster up the courage to face it again,” Ron said quietly. “Tell him if he’s making you go too fast. You don’t need to see him every day or do everything he likes just because I’m sure he’d want that.”

            “I know,” Harry said, laughing slightly. “If anything, we’re going slower than I want to. But my stupid reactions control that, not him.”

            Ron nodded as if half-reassured. “All right. If you’re certain.”

            “Certain,” Harry said firmly, and picked up the report. “And now, I have to finish this, or Kingsley will want to know what I did on the days that I spent away from work.” He felt a stir of excitement. He had been doing something more important than these stupid reports, and if he could find out who had killed Sandys or how, then Kingsley would have to admit that.

            Ron laughed, and the rest of the afternoon passed peacefully.

*

            “Hello, darling.”

            Draco settled back into his chair, staring at the face in the fire and trying to decide how he felt about it. “Pansy,” he said at last, which was safe and neutral and true. It was her name, after all. “How are you?”

            “Fine.” Pansy smiled at him and twirled a lock of hair around her fingers. Then she sighed and seemed to give up the pretense of casualness. “Not really, Draco. I need your help, if you’ll give it.”

            Draco nodded. It made his neck hurt, he was holding himself so stiff.

            He didn’t fear that he would want Pansy again; he had Harry now, and the presence of another chosen was more than sufficient to hold longings for a wrong former choice at bay. But he still didn’t like to think about how stupid he had been. He had been sure that Pansy was all he needed. He had committed himself to her the way only a Veela could commit, pouring his magic and his strength and his time into making her safe and happy.

            And he had been an idiot. Pansy hadn’t been looking for that from him, and had needed more independence than Draco’s instincts wanted to give her.

            Well, you’ve chosen a wonderful target if you want someone who will be able to lean on you and let you do as you like with him.

            Draco winced, told his conscience to shut up, and nodded again when he realized that Pansy was waiting for some further confirmation. “If I can. Of course.”

            “I have a few new friends,” Pansy said, her face relaxing into a smile. “They’re pure-bloods, but they were raised by an aunt out of England, and they don’t know much about their family here. They’re trying to track down several relatives who they know lived here at one time. I’d like you to put the Malfoys’ genealogical records at their disposal.”

            Draco relaxed so fast that his muscles felt as if they had melted. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll go over and fetch them from the Manor.” He didn’t want Pansy disturbing his parents. There had been a few—unfortunate things said on either side when Draco had let Pansy go. “What names am I looking for?”

            “du Michel and Tirannan,” said Pansy, looking absurdly grateful. “My friends are searching specifically for a woman named Miranda who would be—oh, in her nineties, I suppose. She’s a grandmother’s sister or something of the sort. And a cousin named Hugo who would be slightly younger, in his seventies. And a much younger cousin, named Laurent.”

            Draco froze. He felt as though someone had just turned his eardrums to ice. “Laurent,” he repeated softly.

            “Yes,” Pansy said. “He’s the most mysterious one, because they know he was in his twenties, and they assumed that they would have the easiest time locating him, while Miranda and Hugo might have vanished into sharing a house with an older wizard or witch, or died. Miranda might even have married. But apparently Laurent vanished a few years back, and they don’t know what happened to him. No recent letters, no one who’s seen him. He might have changed his name and appearance. If they can locate him precisely in the family, they’re hoping that they can lure him out by telling him he has relatives, or representing their willingness to share the inheritance with him.”

            Draco’s shoulders twitched violently. But he managed to nod, so that Pansy wouldn’t think he was too strange. “Of course,” he said. “I hope they find him.” Oh, I hope so.

            Then the cold wind of reason blew across his thoughts. Harry said that he was in Azkaban under an assumed name. It doesn’t matter much if you discover who he originally was, if he’s not registered under that name.

            But still, the temptation was there inside his mind, glowing like an opal, and Draco barely waited until Pansy’s face was out of the fire before he cast a handful of Floo powder into it and called, “Malfoy Manor!”

*

            Harry sighed and leaned against the wall beside the plain wooden door, listening to the fading echoes of his knock.

            He’d found nothing at the point where Sandys’s body had been discovered. He hadn’t really expected to. But unfortunately, it limited what he could do without alerting Kingsley that he was digging about in the old cases.

            And he didn’t want to alert Kingsley, because, given Harry’s recent injury, he might pull him off the case or at least insist that he spend all his leisure time on the cases actually assigned to him. And then Draco might hear about it.

            Harry shifted his weight and knocked again. The cottage he stood in front of was a small stone building, with only three windows and probably three rooms at most, certainly no more than one floor. The woman who lived there ought to have heard him by now—unless she was so pissed she was unconscious on the floor. Harry had to admit that was possible.

            You dread what might happen if Draco learns about it. That’s a good sign that you should stop your research, isn’t it?

            Harry stubbornly ignored the voice in the back of his head. Draco only wanted Harry’s safety, he knew, but if they had strongly differing opinions about that, Harry was still going to trust himself more.

            And it wasn’t as though this was actually dangerous—probably less dangerous than spending all his free time on active cases. The other Aurors who had tried to reopen it in the past had never received so much as a threatening letter or a hex.

            The door opened just when Harry was considering knocking for a third time. A woman’s face poked slowly around it, and for a moment they stared at each other. The woman had dark circles so large under her eyes that they looked like reverse glasses, and her hair hung around her face in straggly brown strands.

            Harry silently touched his scarlet Auror robes over his heart. They might carry more weight with this particular witness than his scar and face did. “Auror Harry Potter. Are you Hilda Jenkins?”

            Jenkins gave a jerky little nod, and then seemed to realize what he’d said. “Oh,” she murmured, and then louder, “Oh!” She slapped her forehead as if she were ashamed of not having a scar like Harry’s and backed away from the door, bobbing her head. “Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t know—come in, please, Auror.”

            Harry stepped into the house. The dimness made him blink and rub his eyes. In front of him was one of the cottage’s rooms, or perhaps its only one, sprawling further back than he would have thought it could go. There were signs that someone had knocked out an original wall. The wooden walls were bare except for one shelf filled with books that huddled together as if for protection, and the sunlight didn’t seem to get very far. Harry didn’t know if that had to do with the griminess of the windows or a deliberate enchantment.

            “Have a seat, Auror.”

            Jenkins was pushing a chair forwards, the legs scraping over the floor and disturbing both the silence and Harry’s temper with how loud they squeaked. He nodded and sat down, noticing that there were only two other chairs in the room, and no carpet. Jenkins pulled up another chair and sat down, leaning towards him until Harry thought she would fall over.

            “This is about Sandys, isn’t it?” she asked. “Poor fellow.”

            Harry blinked. “Has someone else been asking about him lately?” He was sure he had the original file, but someone could have copied it, he reckoned. It had certainly lain in the Ministry archives for years without any close watch kept on it.

            Jenkins laughed. “No, not since that bloke four years ago, but Aurors never ask me about anything else.” Harry could believe it. She looked like the kind of person who drifted through her life indulging in petty crimes that mostly harmed herself. She pushed her hair back behind her ears now and gave him her full attention. “What do you want to know?”

            Harry hesitated. He had already got most of the details about the disappearance from the file, and he didn’t think Jenkins had anything new to add there. “Do you know if he was familiar with the spot where his body was found?” he asked, almost at random.

            Jenkins took a deep breath and sat up. “Well,” she said. “No one has ever asked me that before.”

            Harry licked his lips and tried to ignore the accelerating beat of his heart. It was silly to believe that he had stumbled on the key to this mystery, when so many Aurors had tried and failed. “Did you tell anyone else this?” he asked.

            Jenkins gave him a patient look. “No, because they didn’t ask me.”

            Harry held back the retort he wanted to give, because Jenkins seemed like the kind of person who would clam up and refuse to help the Aurors just because, and she technically wasn’t obligated to give any information on a closed case. He waited.

            Jenkins nodded impressively. “Not a lot of people know this, but Sandys was always in trouble at Hogwarts,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Disappearing into the Forbidden Forest, playing pranks on people that could have hurt them, things like that. His family hushed it up after his death, of course. No need to have people showing up at the funeral and reciting bad things about the deceased.”

            She looked at Harry as if she expected a response, so Harry nodded and murmured something. He had no idea what it was, and Jenkins didn’t seem to care.

            “One time, he was out all night,” Jenkins said, with a relish that told Harry more about how little she’d had in her life since Hogwarts than words ever could. “He came back the next morning grinning like a lunatic, and none of the professors could make him tell where he’d gone, even though he got detention for a month.” She closed one eye in a slow wink. “I think I’m the only one who remembers that a girl called Mariella from Ravenclaw disappeared at the same time.”

            “Mariella?” Harry asked, hardly daring to breathe. There had been no hint of any lead like this in the original investigation. And it might not be a lead, he rebuked himself sternly in the next moment. This would have been years before Sandys died. “What was her last name?”

            “I don’t remember that,” Jenkins said, touching her head and sighing loudly as if to indicate that even the best memories faded. “But you could go and ask the Headmistress. She’s a sort of friend of yours, isn’t she? And I’m sure that she still has the student records from the years we were there.”

            Harry nodded and put the idea away for later. “Did they go to the same place?” he asked. “How do you know?”

            “Oh, Sandys told me certain things he didn’t tell others,” Jenkins said, waving one hand. “His family was too hard on him, if you want the truth, and that’s the reason he behaved the way he did. I smuggled him Firewhisky, and he would get drunk and maudlin and brag about all the things he’d done that he kept a secret.” She nodded impressively at Harry. “He kept them secret, but he had to have some audience, you know?”

            Harry nodded back, although he was more familiar with the attitude from his fans than for himself, and asked, “And are you sure that it really was the same meadow? In Warwickshire, two miles outside the village of Antimony?”

            “Certain,” Jenkins said. “He told me all the details about the night they passed there, and he described it well enough that I recognized the description when the papers were full of it and squawking about the body being there.” She sighed again. “Poor Sandys.”

            Harry restrained his exasperation—it would have saved a lot of time if she had just told the first Aurors to work on the case this—and smiled, standing. “Thank you. That was what I came to ask.”

            “Just be careful,” Jenkins said. “Mariella had a bad reputation.”

            Harry raised his eyebrows. “Was she a Dark witch?”

            “Oh, no,” Jenkins said. “But people she disliked had bad things happen to them—getting bitten by snakes, or falling down stairs, or losing the sight in their right eye. No one ever caught her casting hexes on them, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t.”

            Harry nodded thoughtfully. He suspected that Jenkins wasn’t the most reliable witness, but if he was going to accept some of her advice at face value, he would be a fool to discard the rest simply because it didn’t seem likely.

            No, you’re a fool because you know that you’re doing something Draco wouldn’t like.

            Harry ignored that piece of advice from his conscience. This was much less dangerous than most of the active cases. It had to be. And if Draco didn’t know he was investigating it, so what? Draco didn’t know the details of most of the crimes that he looked into. If he did, he would probably have a heart attack and demand that Harry stop.

            And Harry wasn’t going to stop being an Auror, not even for someone who cared for him as deeply as Draco seemed to do. His work was his lifeline, and helping people gave him a deep satisfaction—a conviction that he was doing the right thing—that nothing else could. Besides, he would need it if things worked out badly with Draco and he needed to bury himself in something distant from romance.

            “Thank you for coming to see me,” Jenkins said, following him to the door. “And thanks for being smart enough to ask the right question.”

            Harry nodded at her and Apparated home, planning to spend the night writing the right kind of owl to McGonagall, so that she would either let him look through her records or do it herself and owl the results back to him. Hope was pulsing under his heart; he thought he was heading in the right direction now.

*

            Laurent du Michel.

            Draco traced the words with one finger, staring hungrily at them. Laurent’s parents’ names were on the parchment as well, as long with the names of cousins and aunts and uncles—perhaps even the friends Pansy had made—but Draco didn’t care about them. It was impossible to tear his eyes away from that first one.

            It was impossible not to want to grow claws and shred the paper.

            But he folded it and put it away with a tremendous effort of will, and then sank onto the top of the trunk that the house-elves had solicitously cleared of dust before they let him use it as a seat. All around him were the other trunks, sets of drawers, boxes, desks, and other containers that held the Malfoy genealogical records. Generations of past Malfoys had wanted to know how they were connected to other pure-bloods, how marriage and political alliances might play out if they went in different directions…and what blood curses they might need to use on someone who had displeased them.

            Now we’re above such things, Draco thought automatically, as he often had since the war. It was a matter of pride not to be like the idiots who had thought his parents should vanish from the world.

            But his eyes went back to the tray where he had put the papers that he intended to take to Pansy, and he shivered.

            It’s not as though it’s a betrayal of Harry, he reasoned to himself, standing up and striding around the attic to relieve his feelings. He banged his shin on a trunk and swore as he limped, but he wasn’t ready to sit down yet. He doesn’t know about it. And it’s not as though finding out Laurent’s last name would help me find him now. If the Wizengamot kept his trial and disposal in Azkaban secret from the press, then his long-last family probably won’t be able to learn what happened or command his release. Why would they think that he’s committed a crime? Why would they try to look in Azkaban? There’s no harm in passing on the information to Pansy and seeing them try and fail.

            Draco’s back itched. He reached back to scratch it, and his face itched in turn, as though it was about to split open and let a beak through, or at least feathers.

            But remember that your parents learned at least part of the truth—that Harry’s last lover vanished. Surely his family could learn as much. And then they might find out more, and they might visit him in Azkaban.

            Draco’s mouth watered.

            He prowled in another circle and tried to reason with himself. He couldn’t stop Pansy’s friends from looking for Laurent; if he refused to provide the information, she would only get it somewhere else, from another well-connected family, and Draco would probably lose control of the aftermath. If he was the one to give it, then he could at least hear of what happened next. He knew Pansy. She would be willing to talk endlessly about her friends if given half a chance.

            What happened after that was up to fate, and these cousins, who might or might not have the money and the cleverness to discover anything about Laurent.

            And it’s up to justice, Draco thought, flexing his nails once to ease the pressure building up behind them before he scooped up the tray of papers that he planned to take to Pansy.

*

            “Are you all right, Harry?”

            Harry looked up and blinked. Draco was in the fire again, no surprise, but the concern in his tone really did seem unwarranted. Harry laid down his report and came to sit in front of the hearth, in concession to Draco’s sharp tone. “I’m fine. What’s the matter?”

            Draco stared at him as if he could see the scar from the healing wound under his clothes. Then his eyes darted away and he muttered something.

            “Beg pardon?” Harry asked, though his worry was relaxing into amusement. Draco was probably suffering from some excess of protective Veela instinct, and had had to contact Harry because he couldn’t rest until he did.

            “I said,” Draco murmured now, his face soft as he turned back to regard Harry, “that you were wounded just three days ago. It takes some getting used to, to realize that you’re walking about although you didn’t go to St. Mungo’s.”

            Harry rolled a shoulder and said nothing. He didn’t understand this obsession people in his life had with making him go to St. Mungo’s, or at least lecturing him about how he should go when he had managed to survive just fine on his own. After the way the Healers had treated Draco’s own parents, it seemed that he would have known better than to think Healers were always the solution. “I’m fine, yes.”

            Draco plucked at something invisible from the perspective Harry had on the flames, and then looked up suddenly with wide eyes. “Can I ask you something?” he asked, and when Harry nodded, he blurted, “Are you sure that you don’t want Laurent dead?”

            “Of course I want him dead,” Harry said.

            Draco’s mouth fell open slightly, and Harry could have sworn that he saw his teeth lengthen. He averted his eyes, so that if Draco went Veela, he wouldn’t have to see it, and continued in a stronger voice. “But what I want is irrelevant in this conversation. What I want is for the rape not to have happened. That won’t come true. And just because I wanted to kill Laurent in the first moments after I broke free doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.”

            “What if you need it?” Draco insisted in a whisper, his voice so hot that Harry could have sworn he felt it through the more general heat of the fire. “What if you need killing, suffering, a clean end, to move on with your life?”

            Harry took a deep breath. “That’s a decision I would need to make,” he said. “No one else. And I already made it. No.”

            “You don’t know how badly I want to kill him.”

            Harry blinked. Draco’s face wavered, and superimposed over that wasn’t the unearthly beauty of a Veela, but the image of a huge raptor, feathers standing on end as it stretched its wings. Harry had never seen Laurent do that. He suspected Laurent hadn’t ever gone into a bloodthirsty rage over him.

            “I appreciate that,” Harry said quietly. “But I’ve killed Dark wizards, and it really doesn’t help, Draco. I promise.”

            Draco said nothing for so long that Harry wondered if he had vanished completely into his instincts and wasn’t listening anymore. Then he was himself again, sitting with his head bowed.

            “If you say so,” he whispered. Then he looked up, with eyes so fierce that Harry leaned back on his heels. “But you. Keep yourself safe, and at least go hunting with Weasley when you’re on cases.”

            Harry winced. He almost wanted to tell Draco everything right then, and listen to what he said, and accept his scoldings.

            But—he couldn’t.

            I still can’t let anyone else control my life. He’s already talked as if he’d like me to stop being an Auror. And it isn’t dangerous. Not yet. I’ll tell him when it is.

            “I’ll try,” he said instead. “Good night, Draco.”

*

            Draco sat still, eyes fastened on the last of the smoke dissipating from the hearth, and felt his conscience squirm within him.

            I shouldn’t be making even vague gestures that might free Laurent.

            But there’s no guarantee that Pansy’s friends are close to finding out what happened to him. Not yet. I’ll tell him when they are.

*

            Sarah: Thanks for reviewing!

            SP777: Thanks!

            Harry will visit Owen again, and though he will be stubborn about what he leans and how fast he learns it, he won’t be able to avoid learning some things.

            Lady of Clunn: Harry is not really inclined to accept King as neutral, since he lives with a Veela himself, but he is more likely to listen to him on some topics than he would be to Draco.

            polka dot: He might even think that was wrong! He does have his panic room where he imagines ripping Laurent apart, though.

            mrequecky: Thank you!

            luvlustblood: Thanks!

            Night the Storyteller: Oh, Harry understands Draco’s feelings pretty well—intellectually. But mentally and emotionally is another story.
- 11
- 12
- 13
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

Veela-Struck