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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.

Chapter List
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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty—Draco’s Holiday
“What do you want to do today?”
“Besides look around the ‘cottage’?”
Draco snorted a little as he watched Harry devour the scones on his plate, the thick elf-made ones drizzled with as much as honey and butter as wouldn’t actually make them float away. He wondered idly if Harry even realized that he was eating far more than he usually did in less luxurious surroundings. Granted, Draco had only seen Harry eat in the other dimension thus far, and maybe he’d been too cautious there to feast. But being at Draco’s Home was good for him, whether he realized it or not.
“Yes, besides that.” Draco spread his wings, wanting to draw Harry’s attention to them. Sometimes he just wanted to enjoy the praises of his mate. From the obedient way Harry’s eyes followed the feathers, he was going to get plenty of attention.
“Well, I’d like to go flying. Maybe explore this part of France that you said the cottage is in. I’ve never been to France.” Harry sopped up some butter from his plate with the side of a scone and looked thoughtful.
Draco forcibly prevented himself from reacting. Of course he had been to France multiple times as a child, but Harry couldn’t be the only wizard who had never gone abroad. A provincial lot, most British wizards.
It was still a bloody shame, and one that Draco intended to correct as soon as possible. “Let’s go to the village, then. As far as they’re concerned, we’re only a lot of bloody rich people who come here to spend the summer holidays sometimes.”
“And even though it’s not summer?”
“Bloody rich people can be eccentric all they want.” Draco stood up, grinned at Harry, and Summoned one of the heavier robes that he had here in the closets. It was one that had fit him a few years ago. He carefully made some Transfiguration adjustments to the cloth, and then held it out to Harry. “Wear this.”
“Won’t the Muggles stare?” Harry asked, but he wrapped the robes around his shoulders. It made something in Draco ache, softly. He could imagine that Harry didn’t often do what other people wanted him to.
“No,” said Draco. “Watch.” He flicked his finger against the collar of the robe, and watched smugly as it began to shrink and waver. It was good to know that the spells he’d put on the clothes hadn’t decayed in the last few years. Then again, with the amount of Preservation Charms he’d cast on them, they might not have dared to.
Harry blinked a second later when he found himself wearing a heavy dark coat, almost as long as he was, with a trim of dark fur around the collar and plenty of pockets. He shook his head at Draco. “The fur? Seriously?”
“Just say it’s fake if anyone asks,” Draco told him airily, as he Transfigured his own robes. He had to leave holes for the wings, but a Blurring Charm around them would make anyone looking straight at him only see a curl of warm air and then what they thought was his back.
“What is it really?”
“Part of the spell.”
Harry rolled his eyes at him and then tucked his wand down inside one of the coat’s pockets. “You realize this is absurdly heavy for the weather?”
“It won’t feel any heavier than the robes,” Draco promised him, and took his arm, and Disapparated.
*
Harry had to hide a smile as he watched Draco watching him eat. Apparently seeing his mate feeding himself was a Veela’s next favorite thing to feeding his mate. Draco hadn’t given up pushing little cups of chocolate and croissants and delicate sliced tropical fruit at him until Harry had told him his stomach would burst if he had to finish it all.
And then he leaned back and fastened his eyes on Harry’s fingers and watched him picking up the slices of bread that he dipped in the chocolate and ferry them to his mouth as if there had never been anything so fascinating.
Harry swallowed and chewed and wondered that he didn’t find it more unnerving. Then again, he hadn’t had lots of people interested in watching him eat, unless they were trying to poison him. And the Dursleys had had a vested interest in seeing him not eat.
It was rather pleasant, to think that perhaps he had someone in his life now who was as unlike the Dursleys as it was possible to be.
“Do you want anything more?” Draco asked when he finally pushed the plate away.
“No. It’s going to burst, remember?” Harry stood up from the café table and waited obediently for Draco to finish fussing over his Transfigured robe, adjusting it for reasons best known to a Veela. It made his stomach feel heavy and warm, which was one reason to allow it. “Now, come on.”
The village was old and quiet. Harry didn’t see a lot of children. There were heavy branches hanging over stone walls, and dusty streets, and people who watched them pass with raised eyebrows before they disappeared into small shops. It could have been a place in Britain, but Harry was listening, and he caught whispers and snatches of French, and that was enough to content him.
I might have time to get used to this. I might come here again.
It made the heavy warmth in his stomach even heavier. Harry leaned against Draco and sighed.
“Are you tired? Do you need to go back to the cottage?”
Harry laughed a little. That was the bad side of Draco’s constant watching over him, but on the other hand, he truly couldn’t bring himself to mind right now. It would probably only become tiresome later. “No. But I was wondering if we could get outside the village and go flying?”
“We’ll have to Summon the—”
“No. I meant, you take me flying.”
Draco paused, and although it was hard to tell under the charm he’d cast over his wings to keep anyone from seeing them, Harry thought they quivered. He licked his lips and murmured, “All right.”
After that, Draco practically hurried him out of the village and to the low russet hills. Harry laughed as they climbed up them. Draco was breathing hard, and Harry didn’t think it had anything to do with being out of the shape. He simply couldn’t take his eyes from Harry, and his mouth was gleaming with water at the corners.
“Now,” Draco said, turning when they were as near to the top of the hill as made no difference, “I’m going to cast enough charms that no one will notice us when they look in this direction. It won’t affect the view you get when we fly, I promise.”
“I know,” Harry said, and smiled at him. “I trust you.”
Draco shivered again and cast the charms without taking his eyes off Harry. Harry watched him and wanted to shake his head, but Draco might misunderstand that, so he didn’t.
It really matters, the fact that I’m letting him take care of me. Not so much the actual caretaking. That I want it, that I asked for it.
Do I really have that much power over him?
It made Harry feel a different kind of shiver in his stomach, one that was cooler and that made him want to cradle Draco close and protect him in his arms, since he didn’t have wings. He would protect that vulnerability. He would take good care of it. He wanted to lean up and nuzzle Draco’s neck right now, but he thought that might disrupt the charms more than Draco’s concentration on him would.
In the end, he stood there and extended his arms so Draco could hold him under his armpits. But Draco shook his head. “I’d like to hold you by the sides,” he said, half-bowing his head and extending his wings. “Will you let me?”
“Of course,” Harry said, dazed a little by his manner. Draco kissed his cheek and gripped him on either side of his ribcage, then extended his wings and flapped so hard that Harry could feel small currents of magic traveling past his temples.
They lifted straight up off the top of the hill as if Harry was riding in a Muggle helicopter. He laughed aloud with joy as they swept over the small grass-clad valley beneath them and Draco’s wings fluttered and trembled and then beat. They lifted higher, and Harry tilted his head to watch green and gold and brown pass beneath.
It was so different from being on a broom, although he hadn’t thought it would be, at first. This wasn’t so much under his control. He had to relax and trust Draco, and he could lean his head back at any point and feel Draco’s soft, panting breath on his ear. He could almost drape himself over Draco’s arms, and still Draco would hold him tenderly and not let him fall.
He never will.
*
Draco led Harry back into the cottage with insistent hands. They’d soared over the valley until even Harry, he thought, had to be satisfied, with his lungs full of rich scent; he’d laughed until his throat had to be sore. And his fingers were chilled when Draco finally landed and felt them, and tried to rub some life back into them.
But Harry lingered in the doorway of the cottage, and laughed some more, and kissed Draco. Draco gently pinned his cold hand against the door and shook his head. “Kiss me all you like when we’re back in the cottage. You’re too cold right now.”
Harry blinked and then smiled, slowly, lazily, instead of resisting the way Draco had thought he would. “You worry about me all the time, don’t you?” he whispered, his hand cupping Draco’s chin for a second.
Draco nodded and kissed him gently on the forehead, finally urging him inside to stand near the fire. “And there are plenty of rooms in the cottage that I haven’t shown you yet, you know.”
Harry suffered Draco to wrap him in a new, dry pair of robes—not that there was much moisture out there, but there had been some—and cast Warming Charms on his hands. Draco also had him stand in front of the fireplace in the small drawing room. Then he turned and escorted Harry up the stairs
Harry gasped a little when Draco swung open the first door, into a bedroom that he might have had Harry sleep in if he hadn’t thought it would be overwhelming. “Holy shit. How much gold is in here?”
“I don’t know the exact weight,” Draco admitted, wrapping his arms around Harry and resting his chin on Harry’s shoulder. The room glittered, as well it should. The bed was draped with swathes of cloth of gold, and the walls were either solid gold or—as Draco suspected—stone beneath thin sheets of gilding. The frames of the mirrors on the walls were golden as well, but at least the glass of the mirrors themselves provided a few pleasant breaks from all the ostentation. There was a mosaic on the ceiling that Draco didn’t think had gold in it, since it was mostly gleaming ocean-blue glass, but shining phoenixes soared through it, and there might be real rubies in their eyes, if nothing else.
“It’s overwhelming.”
Draco grinned, because there wasn’t awe in Harry’s voice. “Decadent as hell, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Harry turned around and laughed up at him. “Did you have ancestors who actually slept here?”
“I think they mostly used it to impress guests they felt were getting above their station.” Draco could feel himself relaxing more and more the longer they stood there. Harry didn’t seem upset. He wasn’t rejecting Draco, the way Draco had imagined he would. He was only interested, fascinated, a little disgusted. “But I wouldn’t put it past some of the people whose portraits I’ve met to claim it for their own.”
Harry’s hands clamped down on his arms. “I wish I had that,” he whispered.
“Golden bedrooms?”
“No, ancestral portraits. I really have no idea what my family is like. I mean, my father’s ancestors. I know well enough what my mother’s relatives were like and what they thought of me. And I know my grandparents’ names, and one great-grandfather. But beyond that…nothing.”
Draco leaned in closer, enfolding Harry. He could provide comfort in this moment, and he was grateful for it. “It’s possible that you do have ancestors with portraits, in some out-of-the-way place. We’ll look. And as for names, I know that my parents would have genealogical records listing them.”
“Names of Potters?”
“Why not? We intermarried with them, too.” Draco traced a line down Harry’s cheek, rejoicing in the confused expression he wore as he stared up at Draco—not because it was confusion, but because it was him depending on Draco, focused on him. “And they had to keep track of who they’d intermarried with recently, in case it turned out that the relationship was too close for another wedding to take place so soon.”
Harry shuddered and leaned harder against Draco. “I hope that isn’t the case with us. I mean, I know we won’t have blood children together, but it would be disturbing to be married to a close cousin.”
“Together,” Draco said. “Bonded.” He let his mind spin with happiness and leaned harder over Harry, then pulled him gently back into the corridor and shut the golden bedroom’s door. “Come on. Let’s look at some other rooms that actually have some taste to them.”
“I would believe your ancestors have taste even if you didn’t show them to me.”
“I promise they aren’t as bad,” Draco said, and led Harry to his own favorite room, the one he’d spent the most time in when his parents brought him here as a child. When he opened the door, Harry flinched as if in anticipation of more gold, but then relaxed and sighed a little, looking around and nodding.
Draco smiled. This room’s theme was glass, but it had only one mirror, high on the wall where it was the perfect height for his mother to look herself in the eye. Instead, there were large windows, and gleaming glass tanks set into the walls and alive with curls of magic that formed the images of water and fish. Draco had believed they were fish until he was five or so and realized they never responded when he tapped on the glass. Those tanks were deep and gleaming, mysterious, full of blues and greens that Draco had never seen anywhere else.
There was also a vitrine, and Harry went across to it at once. Then he caught his breath. Draco stood to his side this time, since standing behind him would have blocked the sight of most of the figures in the large case.
“You have ancestral figurines as well?” Harry asked.
“Yes.” Draco leaned in closely enough that his breath fogged the glass. The vitrine was taller than he was, and the only parts of that weren’t made of glass were made of gleaming black ebony that vaguely reflected his face. “There’s only a spark of magic in them, though. Nothing like the portraits. Just enough to make them move and look like the ancestor they’re supposed to represent.”
Harry was still watching as a Malfoy woman with a high crown of blonde hair invited a wizard who Draco knew was Rigel Black to dance. He accepted, and they waltzed across the glass floor. The other Malfoy figurines, and the spouses they’d married, moved out of their way as if it were a coincidence. “It’s still amazing.”
“Yes.” Draco leaned in closer so that he could see Harry’s face. His expression was wistful. “I’d like your permission, eventually, to create a figurine of you and invest it with a bit of your magic.”
Harry jumped as though Draco had actually poked him. Then he swallowed and said, “Of—of course. I’d—be honored. Do you have one?”
“No. Traditionally, they’re made when a Malfoy gets married.” Draco sought for a moment, and finally located the miniatures of his parents over on the far side of the vitrine, on its third “floor,” seated together on a lacquer bench that loomed beside tiny and exquisite poppies made of faceted garnets. He chuckled to see them facing away from each other. “They can reflect the state of the marriage, at times.”
Harry followed his glance and blinked. Then he chuckled. “That is amazing.”
The depth of the reverence in his voice made Draco reach out and squeeze his shoulder. “We’ll have them made soon. Unless you want to wait on the ceremony itself? The figurines have to be enchanted as part of the marriage ceremony, or whatever else a couple does to substitute for it.”
“If you have a date you’d choose, then we can use that one.” Harry turned towards him, and his eyes shone as clear and steady as they had right after their temporary bond became a full one. “Otherwise, I’m happy to bond, or marry, or whatever you want to call it, as soon as we return to Britain.”
“Merlin,” Draco said. His mouth was overflowing with sweetness, as if he’d chomped on too much candyfloss for him to swallow. His vision was fuzzy as he reached out and cradled Harry’s face in his hands.
“What? What is it?”
Draco leaned in and kissed him lingeringly without answering, for a moment. Then he pulled back and shook his head. “Just that you’re so sweet. And brave. And everything I don’t deserve.”
“Don’t think of deserving,” Harry whispered, his hand resting on Draco’s forehead for a second. “Think of what we’re going to do.”
And Draco did, and Harry was right, he thought smugly as he swept Harry into his arms and carried him back towards that more modest bedroom where they’d spent the night and already made love once.
This is much better.
*
SickPuppy: Thank you! Narcissa is quite exasperated with Lucius, but she thinks it's better if she handles it. And I'm glad that you liked Draco understanding Harry better. This chapter advances both their understandings, I think.
Thunderbird: Thank you! As for the holiday, the only temptation I have to avoid is writing chapters and chapters just about that.
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Temporary Mate