Temporary Mate | By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 17288 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story. |
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Chapter Sixteen—Confrontation at the Ministry
To Harry’s astonishment, they actually managed to get through most of the Atrium without attracting attention. He supposed that people weren’t really looking for a Draco Malfoy with Veela features or a Harry Potter with a silver wing draped over his shoulder.
He glanced at Draco from the corner of his eye. Draco’s face looked like he was fighting between relief and indignation.
Of course. He wants people to pay attention to us. He wants to show me off.
Harry had to duck his head to hide a smile. Most of the time, he would have been irritated by such a thing in a lover. But it was part of Draco’s nature, and—
Harry had never had someone powerful enough to make other people back off and tell them to look but not touch. Witches had approached him all the time when he was dating Ginny, and then wizards after he started dating Michael and they learned that he also liked men in his bed. But all Draco would have to do was glare and snap his wings, and they’d turn tail and run.
Let’s make sure that that is all he’s going to do, and I’ll be satisfied.
“Auror Potter!”
There was Kingsley himself, striding through the Atrium past the replaced fountain. For a second, his eyes gleamed, and then he looked beyond Harry and seemed to realize there were no Aurors following him into the Ministry. He immediately came to a stop and drew his wand, conjuring a Patronus messenger.
“Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger-Weasley,” he murmured to the lynx, who tilted its head to him. “My office, at once. Harry’s returned and it’s urgent.” As the Patronus sped through the wall, he approached Harry and Draco more slowly, finally seeming to notice Draco’s wings.
Other people turned around then, and some excited screams began. So did some frightened ones. Draco stretched his silver wings slowly, arrogantly, and looked around as if he was imagining some way to take flight and smash all their mouths shut.
“Behave,” Harry managed to warn him in a low voice before Kingsley came close enough that it would look as if they were trying to keep from being heard.
“I have impeccable manners,” Draco said. “The rest of the world doesn’t always recognize that.”
Kingsley smiled a little as he halted in front of them, but he did say, “I was under the impression, Mr. Malfoy, that you didn’t intend to become a Veela yourself. And that your Veela heritage was not close enough to the surface to present an issue in any case.”
Draco inclined his head. The silver wings remained in place, but everything else had melted back into his skin. He really did look like a winged man, Harry thought.
Or an angel.
That was a thought he was absolutely not going to share with Draco, and he tried to make his face stop burning as he listened to Draco and Kingsley speak. Draco watched him out of the corner of his eye in a thoughtful way that Harry knew meant the interrogation would begin as soon as they were alone.
“The mission was a success in some ways, and an unexpected failure in others,” Draco said. “Can we go to your office now, Minister? There are ways in which this news might spread that I don’t think you want.”
Harry winced, but Kingsley didn’t seem to find the tone threatening the way Harry had been afraid he would. He nodded slowly, and glanced again at Draco’s wings—or maybe just the way his left wing fit snugly across the top of Harry’s shoulders, in the shape of his collarbone. “I can see that. Yes, please, come up. I think Auror Potter’s friends will arrive soon anyway, and they won’t want their photographs on the front page of the paper.”
*
“Harry!”
They’re his friends, Draco repeated firmly in the back of his head as he watched Granger and Weasley launch themselves at Harry and hug him as if they had a right. Not his mates, not his lovers. I am the only one who has that right.
The words enabled him to stand there, blandly smiling and not even snapping his wings, while Harry hugged his friends and then shook Shacklebolt’s hand. But when Granger put her hand on Harry’s shoulder and started to pull him into the chair next to her, Draco snarled and surged forwards. A wave of his wand transformed one of the chairs into a long couch. He sat down next to Harry and tucked him under his wing again.
Harry shot him a slightly exasperated glance. Draco glared back. If Harry had wanted him to back off, he should have said no to the bond in the first place.
“What the hell is going on, mate?”
Draco snapped his glare back to Weasley. He could feel his fingernails already turning into claws, curving in a way that would shear flesh. His right wing flapped. Harry grabbed hold of him and said firmly, “We had to use a spell to save Draco’s life from harpies, and it turned him into a Veela. The only way we could survive was by bonding. Can you not call me mate, Ron? I’m sorry, but that name’s reserved for Draco now.”
Draco couldn’t help trilling smugly when he saw the way Weasley’s jaw was now hanging halfway down his chest. Then he leaned back against Harry and relaxed completely. Harry was going to fight for him. Draco could sense that much. That meant he didn’t have to worry about the coming conversation.
“If—you only bonded so you could save his life,” Granger said slowly, as if contemplating a complicated Arithmancy problem, “does that mean you could dissolve the bond now that you’re back in this world?”
“When it was temporary, we could have done that.” Harry was calm, resting his own curled fingers gently against Draco’s side. “But we made it a full bond. Now Draco needs me to stay alive. And I need him.”
“Why did you make it a full bond, Harry?” Shacklebolt’s voice was neutral, but Draco could see the tension of his shoulders where he sat behind his desk. He wanted Harry free for something. Perhaps he just wants him not to leave someone behind when he goes on Auror missions, Draco thought.
Harry flushed as red as some of the ground sunrises in the Veela dimension. Draco decided that he’d kept silent long enough. “Because we both needed it,” he said, and took up Harry’s hand.
“What is that going to do to your mission?”
Shacklebolt seemed to think they’d come back with it undone. Draco waved a careless hand. “It actually aided it. I think the Veela of Asovima, the enclave we found, were more willing to listen to me because I’m a Veela now. We discussed a time when some of the French Veela could arrive.”
“And Harry’s presence wasn’t a hindrance?”
“If you thought it would be, why have me go on the mission in the first place?” Harry asked.
Shacklebolt’s face tightened. Draco, dipping his head to smooth his cheek against Harry’s, wanted to snort. He was there to protect me, and nothing else.
“What happened to the other Aurors you went with?”
Harry’s face darkened, and Draco crooned softly to him, sensing the rising of his emotions. Harry touched Draco’s hair in silent thanks. “All dead in the harpy attack that wounded Draco.” He shook his head. “We’re going to travel directly to Asovima next time. You have no idea how dangerous that dimension is, Kingsley.”
“You don’t think—” Granger started, looking at Shacklebolt in alarm.
“I want to know,” said Shacklebolt, looking between Harry and Draco, and speaking in a loud, clear voice, “whether you were lovers before you went to the dimension.”
Draco stared at him. But then he saw it, in a flash of insight as clear as Harry’s eyes. He thinks that Harry murdered his fellow Aurors in jealousy over me. Or maybe he thinks that I killed them all to keep them away from Harry.
“No, we weren’t,” said Harry, and his voice was soft with fury. The other people in the room were relaxing, which Draco thought was stupid, but perhaps they weren’t used to hearing Harry speak that way when he was angry instead of shouting. “I never would have left Aurors I was working with to die. Never. It’s insulting of you to think it, Kingsley.”
“I know. I’m sorry, Harry.” Shacklebolt at least sounded sincere as far as Draco could tell. “But I also know that Veela charms can cause—”
“On someone who can resist the Imperius Curse?”
“I would never have used such magic against my mate without his permission.”
They spoke with their voices overlapping each other, but Shacklebolt nodded again after waiting a minute as if he was trying to figure out echoes. “All right. It’s a question that the general public will probably ask, though. I can’t think of the last time any mission killed all the Aurors involved except for one.”
“Really?” Harry asked at once. His voice was low and ugly. “You aren’t thinking about the Remoortel mission, then. Or the one when we were supposed to capture a bloke who was dabbling in breeding of ‘harmless’ experimental creatures and ended up facing a half-grown basilisk. Or the one where—”
“That only makes it worse, though.” Shacklebolt was sitting bolt upright in his chair again. “Because each time, you were the only survivor of that mission, and this time you are again, Harry.”
“Can my mate help it if he’s more skilled than other Aurors?” Draco asked in irritation. He had to wonder exactly what Shacklebolt expected Harry to do. Kill himself so it would be fair? “Or if he faced a basilisk before?”
Shacklebolt blinked a few rapid times. “I think you forgot to mention that, Harry.”
“I thought most people knew about it, and it’s not like I enjoy reliving the memory.” Harry would have got up from the couch to pace, Draco thought, but Draco held him in place with a calming chirp and a little pressure from his wing. Harry finally relaxed with a frustrated sigh. “Anyway. I wanted you to know that the mission was a success. And I’ll give one interview to the papers about becoming Draco’s mate. One. After that, they can speculate all they want, as usual. Giving multiple interviews wouldn’t shut them up, anyway.”
“I know ways to do that,” Draco said, and leaned more heavily against Harry when he gave him a skeptical look. Well, he did. And just because they were underhanded means that Harry would have hesitated to use before didn’t mean they would be beyond his reach forever.
“You do have to think about what this is going to do to your job,” Shacklebolt told Harry, in the kind of unconscious condescension that he seemed to project everywhere. “We had only one Auror mated to a Veela before this. It—didn’t go well.”
“Because the Veela didn’t want her mate venturing into danger?” Draco shrugged when Shacklebolt stared at him. “I’m a Veela now. I know the way it feels.”
“You seem to have heard of this before.”
“Of course I knew there must have been Veela mated to Aurors before. And I only guessed that it was a woman because most Veela are.” Draco had actually been surprised to see as many males in Asovima as he had. “Anyway, Harry and I have discussed that. I’ll be able to let him work. He can defend himself well.”
“Other people might not think so.”
“They can go—hang.” Draco would have said something else, but Harry’s hand was firm and gripping on his thigh, as if Harry might be able to grow claws himself. Draco settled for a stiff nod at Shacklebolt.
“All right. All right.” Shacklebolt sat back in his chair with a sigh. “Harry, I’ll expect you to give that interview to the papers soon.” He looked at Granger and Weasley, who both looked a little red-faced, and smiled. “And now, I suspect that you’d like to talk to Harry without anyone else interfering. Mr. Malfoy, do you want to accompany me outside and tell me about the mission?” He stood.
“I’m comfortable where I am, thanks.”
“Mr. Malfoy. I said that Mrs. Granger-Weasley and Mr. Weasley would like to talk to Harry alone.”
“I heard you.”
Draco gave Shacklebolt a lazy glance from under his eyelids. He could sense a bit of resistance to his power; it was possible that Shacklebolt either knew Legilimency or had a strong will. But it didn’t matter. If Draco wanted to, he could push and have Shacklebolt a drooling mess at his feet.
“Draco.”
And he knew that tone. Draco fluttered his wings and said nothing.
Harry turned his head and pinned Draco with the full force of his shining eyes. “We agreed that we would still be mates,” he said. “And mates trust each other, the way you trusted me to deal with Elentaeri.”
After a long moment, Draco sighed and stood. He took his time untangling his wing from around Harry’s shoulders, and deliberately slid his fingers through the messy black hair when Harry blinked up at him. “I hope you remember what else mates do,” he murmured, and turned to walk out into the corridor with Shacklebolt.
At least the man wasn’t likely to ask any awkward questions about the way he and Harry had become mates. He would want to know the politics of Asovima and how the mission had resolved, and Draco could recite those dry facts.
And he trusted Harry to tell him the contents of the conversation with Weasley and Granger later.
All the contents.
*
Ron hugged him again the minute the door shut behind Draco. Harry made sure that he didn’t tense up. This was perfectly normal, his friends hugging him like this. Just because it had seemed for a few days in the other dimension like no one but Draco should ever embrace him again…
Those were irrational mate feelings. Harry would deal with them because he had to, but he also loved his friends.
That made him finally able to pat Ron’s back before he released him. “You were all right while I was gone?” he asked quietly, looking back and forth between Ron and Hermione. If something big happened, they would tell him, but they might have waited until now.
Hermione hugged him in turn. “We were waiting for you. Dealing with some rumors about where you were.” She sighed and let her head rest on his shoulder. Harry shoved away the slight feeling of that being wrong, and stroked her hair. “It was tiring. Of course, nothing like as big as what happened with you.” She stared up at him pointedly. “What really happened, Harry? How did the temporary bond turn into a permanent one?”
It didn’t surprise Harry she would have heard of the spell to create a temporary bond with a Veela. “It needed to.”
“I know what that means,” Ron said, and shook his head in the mournful gesture that Harry thought he’d probably perfected when they were twelve. “It means that Malfoy was in trouble, and you went too far, because you thought you needed to.” He leaned over to thump Harry on the shoulder. “Your bloody people-saving thing.”
“It would have been enough to just bond yourself to Malfoy temporarily if he was wounded badly enough to bring his Veela heritage forth,” Hermione murmured, her eyes darting back and forth a little as if she was reading an invisible book. “What changed it?”
“Draco did,” Harry said. He thought of the moments when they had bonded, and found himself smiling. Maybe his friends would think he was mental. He honestly didn’t care. “He was battling dangers in that dimension—we both were, you have no idea how hard it is to survive there—and he needed to take care of me, and prove he could protect me, and seduce me.”
Ron squeaked and covered his ears. Harry smiled, waited until he took them away again, and then drawled, “Seduction,” in a voice he thought Draco would have been proud of.
Ron clapped his hands over his ears again. Hermione frowned at him and pulled them away. “Honestly, Ron!”
Harry had to smile again. How many times had he heard that tone back in Hogwarts, and since?
“So he wanted to, and he convinced you it was a need,” Hermione said, turning back to Harry.
Harry held his hands up. “Don’t make it sound like it was all his fault and I gave in out of pity. That’s not what happened at all. I allowed it to go far enough that he could have died if the bond wasn’t made permanent. So that’s what we decided to do.”
“And you didn’t want to try and wait until you came back to Earth?”
“When I knew he would die if I didn’t? No.”
“Oh, Harry.” Hermione’s eyes were wide and bright, and filled with tears as Harry watched in astonishment. “It means that you gave up the chance to fall in love with someone else, to have a less jealous—”
“Draco can control his jealousy,” Harry said firmly. They kept trying to take the wrong road, but considering they thought of Draco as “Malfoy,” he could see why. He had to shut off that road forever, though. “Otherwise, he never could have left me alone with you. And I wasn’t pining for someone, Hermione. I wasn’t yearning after an impossible love. I can care for Draco. I do. I love him. I’d do things for him I wouldn’t do for anyone else.” He smiled at her expression. “And just think, being his mate means I can’t bond myself to any other Veela who needs me.”
Hermione didn’t seem reassured, and Harry sighed a little. “I will do what I can,” he said, and pressed a hand firmly on her back as she relaxed against him again. “But that doesn’t mean giving Draco up. Never that.”
“All right, mate,” Ron said, finally staring at him. “And if I have to stop calling you ‘mate,’ I will. But this is going to be bloody weird, being in the same room with Malfoy and knowing he’s not going to turn up his nose and start insulting us any minute.”
“He won’t, because then I’ll punish him.”
“How?”
“Refusing to have sex with him.”
Ron clapped his hands over his ears again, while Hermione poked him. “If you keep asking questions like that, then you deserve the answers,” she told him in all seriousness.
Harry smiled at them. He loved his friends. He loved Draco. Not the same way, but they were both there.
And somehow, he would make this work.
*
SickPuppy: Hey, they've had sex at this point! Who's teasing?
Thunderbird: There will still be some arguments, but for the most part, things will go smoothly. Notice the most part.
SP777: He can push back, definitely.
Jan: Yes, most people aren't as accepting as Harry's friends.
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