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Nature of the Beast	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 48976 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Twenty-Two--Challenges and Choices
            Harry's post had the usual communications from Hermione that morning, letters relating to the opening of Hogwarts, letters from some of the Muggleborns he was trying to persuade to come back to the wizarding world and some of the pure-bloods who were thinking about allying with the peace effort--
            And a blood-red scroll sealed with a black lion's face that Harry didn't recognize. He couldn't mistake the dark aura that hung around it, though, almost palpable. The instant it landed on the table, he flinched back, and Draco's wings shuddered and beat down to his sides, as his hisses filled the room.
            "I think it's all right," Harry said, warily, although he didn't manage to take his gaze from the scroll. He wondered why whoever it was had chosen a lion's head when a lion was also the emblem of Gryffindor. Were they Gryffindors who didn't think that Harry was doing a good enough job with the peace effort? Not representing the ideals of his House well enough?
            In that case, they can sod off, Harry thought, as he cast a few spells that would make the scroll safe enough to touch. I never claimed to be acting for all Gryffindors, and it's their fault if they think I am.
            "Don't touch it," Draco said, when Harry reached for it.
            Harry felt a shudder travel through him. He suspected a normal submissive mate would have stopped immediately at that order, but he kept his hand moving calmly, landing on the scroll. His spells had blown away the dark aura, and while the seal still felt cold under his hand, that could easily have been because of the air at the height the owl had carried it.
            "Didn't you hear me?" Draco was arching his neck with the image of a beak outlining his nose in flickering radiance.
            Harry met him stare for stare, until Draco shifted and looked down at his hands. "Yeah," Harry said shortly. "I just didn't consider it worth obeying."
            Draco opened his mouth as if he would disagree, then nodded and said, "Right. I forget sometimes."
            It's not worth dwelling on further, Harry thought, and cracked open the seal. The last faint aura of menace dissipated the moment he did. Harry blinked. He wondered if the spell to make it seem dangerous had been implanted in the seal itself. And if so, why? They had to know he'd break the lion's face to open the scroll.
            Did they maybe mean to make it hurt more because I'd be opening something that seemed hostile to me and symbolized my Hogwarts House?
            Harry had to smile, although he suspected, from the way Draco chirped in curiosity, that the smile wasn't nice. He thought he knew who this was from, who would think that way, and sure enough, the handwriting on the scroll was the exact replica of the handwriting on the letter that Tamara Maundy had used to accept his invitation to the meeting at the Leaky Cauldron.
            To Harry Potter, if he is not a coward,
            This scroll is under the Aegis of the Order of the Dark Lion, a group that I have helped found. As you might notice from the name, the Order includes various Gryffindors as well as the Slytherins that you seem so eager to condemn.
            Harry's smile widened further. This ought to be good.
            The Order of the Dark Lion is registered with the Ministry as having Duel Authority, which means that a member may issue a challenge to duel to someone who is not a member of the Order, but is politically prominent and has opposed that Order member in the past. I fit the one criterion, and you the other. You will meet me for a duel on the 23rd at Hogwarts, near the tomb of the man you so revere, at noon, unless you are a coward.
            Maundy had signed her name with a flourish that Harry almost had to admire.
            He became aware of a low noise behind him, going on and on, bubbling, until it sounded as though someone was boiling a whole bathtub full of water. When he turned around, he discovered it was Malfoy, hovering behind him and beating his wings. It wasn't enough to make him rise from the ground, only cause a small breeze that fanned Harry's own hair, but he knew what it was about.
            "What do you know about Duel Authority?" Harry asked calmly. It was something he only knew about from what little Maundy had explained, but Malfoy had probably grown up quoting the books about it.
            Malfoy's feet touched the ground fully again, and he folded his wings back. "It's a sort of dueling code that was meant to tame blood feuds," he said. His voice was low and neutral, but Harry noticed that he was carefully looking away from the letter. "Instead of having them go on and on, the feud would be settled by a single duel. Single combat."
            "Is it to the death?" Harry asked, and this time handed the letter over. If Malfoy ripped it up, he remembered enough of it that it wouldn't matter. "What about when someone sends a challenge through an organization they're part of?"
            "The Dark Lion," said Malfoy, as though that name was a personal insult to Harry. Harry thought that was part of it, but he also thought Maundy wasn't that petty. Quite, anyway. "Yes. The duel is to the death. Unless..." His voice trailed off, and he blinked at Harry. "How good are you at dueling?"
            "I've barely done any formal dueling," said Harry, frowning as he considered. "The last time was during my fourth year."
            "I don't remember you dueling anyone during our fourth year."
            The emphasis wasn't subtle, but Harry reckoned he deserved it for forgetting that Draco had shared that year at Hogwarts with him. He gave Draco a distracted smile. "I was thinking of the duel that I fought with Voldemort in the graveyard where he came back. I didn't have much chance to do anything before our wands locked and the spirits of the dead came out of his wand."
            Malfoy was silent--too profoundly silent. "What?" Harry added. "You know that story. I told the particulars of it already."
            "It's simply," said Malfoy, and paused to draw in a breath before he continued, although Harry doubted those two words had exhausted his store of air, "that you've lived the sort of life where that sentence isn't remarkable at all."
            Harry smiled. He supposed he could see the humor when Malfoy phrased that way. "So. I don't know the rules other than that the duelers face each other within a certain defined area and they bow at the start."
            "There are other things that Maundy will probably try to make part of the traditions, since she won't expect you to be familiar with them." Malfoy's face was blank, but Harry thought he was feeling a sort of tiny spark, bubbling up and down in his blood, and in his voice no matter how much he was trying to keep it out. "For example, the person who issues the challenge gets to choose the kinds of spells that can be used in the combat."
            Harry whistled. "All she has to do is make it certain kinds of curses, and I'm doomed to lose for sure."
            "You sound cheerful about this." Malfoy peered at him.
            "So do you," Harry pointed out, but shook his head when Malfoy gave him a pointed look. "It's just that having someone try to kill me with spells is so straightforward compared to the kinds of tangles that I get into with these politics. It's refreshing."
            Malfoy looked as though he was trying to decide whether to pursue that line of reasoning, but in the end, he shrugged and said, "She can only choose a certain kind of spell, not certain spells by name. And she can't use Dark Arts, not when it's formal like this and from an organization registered with the Ministry."
            "What do I get to choose?" Harry asked, looking back at the letter. "It looks like she's chosen the time and the place, and she gets to choose the weapons."
            "You get to choose what kind of duel it is," said Malfoy, and his wings spread and flapped once, hard, so that he bounced lightly into the air to the height of the table. "It's called the stake. Usually, these duels are to the death, but you can choose first blood, or defeat after a certain spell, or something else, and the forfeit that the loser has to pay. So you can choose first blood and something that would make Maundy agree to leave your political effort alone, for example. Or some other forfeit."
            "If I win." Harry tapped the letter thoughtfully.
            Malfoy nodded. "If you win. But I think you will, or I'd be a lot more frantic about this."
            Harry spent a moment looking at him. "It must be hard on you, mated to someone who's always in danger," he said, as neutrally as he could.
            "It's a lot harder than I expected," Malfoy said. "But I didn't expect you." He paused, then gave a small shrug and shook his head. "I had my chance to do something else, even if that was just never acknowledging you and dying. I chose to keep going."
            That attitude was familiar enough that Harry felt his heart give a single, heavy beat in his chest. He reached out, took Malfoy's hand, and squeezed it once.
            He didn't release it when the squeeze was done, either. He turned back to the letter. "Help me decide what the stakes are?"
            Malfoy smiled.
*
            Draco looked back and forth carefully. They were standing on the grass in front of Dumbledore's tomb, the soft glow in the white stone adding to the wash of faint sunlight. The sky threatened rain and sun at the same time, the clouds a brilliant pale grey with the light always darting away behind them again. Draco wasn't sure which to wish for. On the one hand, rain might make the grass muddy and make Harry slip. But sun could dazzle him at the wrong moment and let Maundy get in a killing blow.
            Harry got to choose first blood, of course, which was what they'd agreed on. But Draco wouldn't put it past Maundy to try and kill Harry anyway. She might accept the Azkaban term in exchange for stopping Harry's peace process and hushing up the knowledge that her family had descended from Muggles.
            Draco could remember, if he thought about it, that at one point of his life he might have felt the same way. It was hard to remember being there emotionally, though. Surely he wouldn't have been that stupid?
            (Not that he would discuss it with Harry, either. It was hard enough to know how Harry would react in discussions of the present. The past was guaranteed to be explosive).
            Maundy wasn't here yet, which was as Draco had expected. She had made things more dramatic in the first place by issuing a challenge like this; she would put off as long as possible the moment of her entrance.
            But she couldn't wait past noon without forfeiting her own challenge, and soon Draco heard the creak of harness he had half-expected. A prancing flying horse landed near the lake, a handsome bay with a flowing black mane and tail. Draco shook his head. There was value in the traditions Maundy was fighting to defend, of course, but in other ways, it made someone far too predictable.
            "Hello," Harry said, as he watched other people land behind her. The only people he had brought were Draco and Granger and Weasley, who remained tense with tight misery behind Draco. They had been talking, but had stopped the instant they saw Maundy and the others arrive. "Is she going to fight on horseback? Can I demand my broom?" His eyes were bright.
            "Technically, she could mandate that you fight on foot while she was flying," said Draco, although he didn't take his eyes from Maundy as she trotted towards them. He didn't think she was actually going to do that. He thought she would want the satisfaction of killing Harry--or trying to kill him--up close and personal.
            "But then I could say that the first person to fall down is the loser, right?" Harry tilted his head at Draco as he nodded. Draco wondered if he knew how inexpressibly cute he was when he did that. "Why do so many advantages go to the person who makes the challenge?"
            "Because the ancient pure-bloods who framed the rules thought that the person who made the challenge first showed more honor," Draco murmured, watching critically as Maundy came to a stop next to the far edge of the tomb. Her horse's wings flared dramatically, white against the bay coat. Striking, Draco thought, and the audience that had inevitably gathered would remember that. "To them should go the extra advantages to celebrate their courage."
            "It's courage she wants, is it?"
            Draco glanced quickly at Harry. Harry's eyes were so bright that it was nearly painful to look at them--certainly painful to think about the duel that might close them forever. Draco answered cautiously. "I doubt she's thinking about that right now. She wants to use this duel to end your career as a political opponent."
            Harry didn't answer, but watched Maundy ride up to them with a faint smile. Draco winced a little as he turned around to face Maundy, too. He hoped that Harry knew what he was doing, and wasn't about to abandon the plan that he and Draco had worked on together.
            "Potter." Maundy stared down at Harry from the back of her horse and didn't get off to bow, which Draco knew was a major breach of etiquette when it came to duels. If you challenged someone to a formal contest like this, you were supposed to show them respect for appearing. But Harry only stared up at Maundy, and in a moment, she gave up the attempt to intimidate him and spoke more briskly. "I will tell you my choice of weapons in a moment. In the meantime, you have only to confirm that it is to the death--"
            "But it isn't to the death," said Harry cheerfully.
            Maundy's teeth clicked shut, and she gave Harry a blank look that made Draco hold back a chuckle. She should have guessed that. That she hadn't was only another sign that her hatred of Harry and what Granger's research had discovered was blinding her to the obvious. Of course Harry wouldn't want to kill another wizard when one of his main concerns in the speeches he gave was the small size of the wizarding community and how they had to get along instead of tearing each other apart.
            "What is it, then?" Maundy asked, when she could speak.
            Harry twitched a shoulder at Draco. "My mate explained to me that I could tell you what my stake is after you've explained the weapons. I can't be forced into giving up my one advantage until I understand all of yours."
            Draco nodded vigorously. Stating the weapons, the place, the time, or the stake was a formal maneuver that couldn't be taken back once the wizard had said it. Maundy couldn't have changed the time or place of the duel once she had sent the scroll to Harry. And the rules said that Maundy should now state weapons.
            Maundy's face was ugly as she stared at Harry. Then she placed her hand on her horse's neck and said, "I choose proxies."
            "What does that mean, please?" Harry looked as innocent as though he hadn't been instructed in all the duel rules. Draco smiled, mostly because the men and women who had come with Maundy--all of them with that black lion's head on their robes--had started whispering to each other, watching Harry and Maundy narrowly.
            "It means that neither you nor I will fight directly." Maundy slid off her winged horse at last and reached for a padlocked black iron box on the back of the saddle. Draco shifted, unable to help himself. He could sense a throb of magic from inside that box that worried him.
            Maundy gave him a nasty smile and opened the box. The thing inside whirred out and sat on her shoulder with a nose like several clocks chiming.
            It was a dragon, Draco saw, a dragon formed of metal and jewels. This one was dappled in silver and steel all over. The silver would give it some magical protection, and the steel would protect some of the more delicate spells inside it, making it work. Draco knew, vaguely, how to create such creatures, but they required anchoring the spells inside metallic circles and wheels that served as substitutes for internal organs. He had never really studied how to make them.
            This one also had rubies for eyes, rubies that immediately locked onto Harry and blazed with something like Maundy's hatred. The dragon crouched for a moment.
            "Oh," said Harry, nodding wisely. "Like the dragon that you used to attack me in the Leaky Cauldron."
            That made even more murmuring rise among Maundy's companions. Draco smiled blandly. He thought they probably hadn't known about that. Not Maundy's finest moment, that one.
            But Maundy didn't look at all concerned. "Yes. Only tougher. Much tougher." Her eyes shone, and she touched the dragon's shoulder. "Now. You must choose someone to fight for you. You cannot fight yourself."
            "Or use magic to assist the one I choose to fight for me, of course," Harry muttered, sounding deep in thought.
            "Yes, exactly," said Maundy, and looked around as if she thought Harry would hand Weasley a broom and tell him to get on it.
            Instead, Harry turned to Draco. "I choose my Veela mate," he said. "Draco."
            Draco felt his wings warm and twitch. He had wanted Harry to choose him, of course, and maybe it was inevitable, since he was the one who had destroyed the dragon at the last meeting. But there was still something special about Harry's unconstrained choice.
            Maundy was still a second, and then she looked back and forth from one of their faces to the other. "And the stake?" she asked.
            "The duel continues until one of them touches the ground," said Harry. "The ground only, not trees. And if you lose, you withdraw from politics and cease opposing me." He paused a second. "If I lose, then I'll pull the knowledge about your family and keep it from being published or referred to again."
            Maundy was wrestling in silence with that one, Draco thought. At last, she nodded. She probably knew that pressing Harry to make his forfeit higher would make him refuse, and then she would look like the worse one (as if she wasn't already) for flouting the rules of the duel.
            "Up," said Maundy, and unleashed the dragon from her shoulder. It promptly soared until it was a dot in the sky.
            Borne up by Harry's faith and choice more than by the wind, Draco unfurled his wings and took off after it.
*
            BAFan: Hermione got really worried about Harry in the immediate aftermath, because of his guilt. So she told him to keep from getting angry if he could, so he wouldn't have to suffer that guilt again. She meant well, but it was a bit short-sighted.
            delia cerrano: Yes. And although they had several minor disagreements in this chapter, at least they do get along when it matters.
            eros.pandora: Thank you!
            SP777: Thanks!
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Nature of the Beast