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
- 22
- 23
- 24
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Three—Promised

            Draco had trouble moving when he woke. His muscles were liquid with satisfaction. His head rested close to another head that actually seemed perfumed, it smelled so good. He didn’t want to do anything but nuzzle into Harry’s neck and go back to sleep.

            Harry, he thought then, and had to work hard to control his start. Harry really let me in the bed with him last night, didn’t he?

            The bed I bought for him.

            Draco shook his head in wonder. The memory of buying those gifts for Harry was hazy, cut through with drifting clouds of white and silver and black as he worked to come up with things that would help keep Harry safe from Pansy. It had seemed so important that he choose only the right gifts, and then that he bring them to Harry right away, that his memory of the night consisted of emotions instead of events. The frantic fear. The impatience when the shopkeepers who showed him items wanted to pawn off inferior imitations on him instead of the true jewels and silver and rich cloth that Draco wanted.

            The rush of cool relief, nearly as great as sexual relief, when Harry had accepted those gifts into his house and Draco into his arms.

            Draco rolled over, trying to be as delicate as possible. He didn’t want to wake Harry up. In fact, he would have given a lot to be able to watch him sleep, noticing the way his breath escaped his lips when he was relaxed and how his eyelashes fluttered when a dream chased itself across his mind.

            But Harry was already awake, grave, calm eyes fixed on Draco. He smiled a little, seemingly in embarrassment, when he saw Draco watching him, and ran a hand through his hair. “Hi,” he said.

            “Hello,” Draco returned, bending down so that he could sniff Harry’s neck again. Harry grimaced but tolerated it. Draco suspected that he would be a little more reluctant to indulge Draco’s Veela side this morning, partially because he had done a good job of sating it last night, but Draco would take what he could get. “Do you want breakfast?”

            “Of course,” Harry said, as if not eating breakfast was blasphemy, and sat up, stretching. “Do you prefer porridge, or something else? I usually just have porridge.”

            Draco stretched out one arm and placed it over Harry’s stomach, annoyed with himself. He had forgotten about that little tendency of Harry’s to cook which meant that Harry would have to prepare the food himself. He had wanted to pamper his chosen this morning. “Do you trust one of my elves to bring us toast and porridge?”

            Harry raised his eyebrows. “If you don’t mind me testing every ingredient for poison and charms.”

            Draco shut his eyes. The mere mention of that cut him deeply and disrupted the contented mood that had remained with him from last night. “No,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, but I can’t bear that, even though I know the reasons why you need to do it, and they’re perfectly good and valid reasons.”

            “I’m sorry,” Harry said, and then kissed Draco, his lips brushing over Draco’s gently, chastely. “But I can’t—”

            Draco’s arms came up blindly, and he grasped Harry and rolled him over, needing to have his chosen beneath him, wanting to shelter him with his body, wanting to keep him away from all the sorrows of the world. He had a confused, blurred sense that things would be so much better if only Harry would consent to let Draco take care of him in that sense.

            There was a long moment of warmth and pressure, Harry’s hips against his, Harry’s chest against his. Draco moved away from Harry’s mouth and to his cheeks and neck, using his tongue now, wondering if he dared to use his teeth.

            “Draco. Let me go.” Harry spoke in a flat, metallic voice, and there was a wand pressing against Draco’s chest.

            It was a struggle, but Draco managed to release the tight clutch of his arms and sit back on his heels, fighting to breathe. Harry sat up in front of him. Draco tensed, wondering if Harry would flee the bed now, but he only looked straight at Draco instead, his shoulders hunched and a little frown on his face.

            “There’s something I need you to explain to me,” Harry said. “Laurent did it all the time, and you’re showing signs of it, too, and I never understood it. If I did, I think I would be able to allow you to do it, if you really need it.” He puckered his lips as if he had bitten into a lemon, and Draco flinched, though he thought that was more about being compared to Laurent than anything else.

            But Harry was sitting there, Draco reminded himself, and that was a lot better than running away. He nodded and tried to look as composed and calm and enlightened as Harry needed him to be.

            “Why do you need to hold me down like that?” Harry frowned at him, folding his arms as if he wanted to keep in the magic that Draco could feel buzzing warningly around the room. “I could understand wanting to do it during the Blazing Season. I know your instincts go mad then and you have to do what you can to satisfy them. But why other times? Laurent liked—” Harry swallowed around an obvious click in his throat. “He liked to hold my arms down above my head and lie on top of me at night and restrict my freedom of movement. And that was a long time before I—before, and before the Blazing Season. Why? What’s the point of it?”

            Draco opened his mouth, and found he was without words. Harry wouldn’t be impressed with the simple words that usually sufficed when an older Veela was explaining things to a younger Veela, because those words depended on the corresponding instincts in the other Veela, the ones that said how right and necessary such things were. The advice sessions were mainly to convince Veela to listen to those instincts instead of ignoring them.

            He spent a few moments thinking about it. He thought Harry would get impatient, but he remained in place, his folded arms actually relaxing.

            “Well,” Draco said at last, drawing the word out. He knew what he was going to say, but it sounded stupid even in his head. He didn’t think it would sound much better aloud.

            “It’s all right.” Harry spoke softly, reassuringly, and reached out to put his hand on Draco’s arm.

            That jolted Draco into action, because it was ridiculous that his chosen should have to reassure him, who was the stronger of the two of them. “It feels good,” he said, and he still whispered, because he couldn’t help himself. It did sound stupid, the way he had thought it would. “It makes us feel that we’re sheltering you against the outside world, even though of course no one can do that completely.”

            He held his breath and waited.

*

            Harry felt his face soften.

            He had been tensed to resist some explanation that would make the Veela superior to the chosen; Laurent had certainly seemed to think so. He had thought he would hear some vapid philosophical justification that would try to wave everything away. In the worst case he could imagine, Draco would try to pin him to the bed again instead of explaining.

            But this…

            “Of course I understand that,” he said, and rubbed his hand up and down Draco’s arm, hoping he could take away the apprehensive, waiting-to-be-hurt expression on Draco’s face. It hurt him to see Draco looking like that. I do, he thought, with relief. I do care about what happens to him. “It’s the same impulse that drove me to become part of the Aurors. I couldn’t stand back and do nothing when people were being hurt, and even though I know I can’t protect everyone, I still try, and feel best when one case is solved and I’ve caught someone or got justice for someone or returned a kidnapped child to his mother’s arms.”

            Draco crooned, his eyes widening and shining. Harry didn’t think he minded the sound as much as usual, and it was a lot easier to sit still when Draco reached out and embraced him. Harry rubbed his back in turn.

            “If it’s like that,” Harry whispered, glad that they weren’t looking each other in the eye at the moment, since the words would have sounded stupid, “I’ll do my best to let you protect me. Not everything yet, because I still don’t want you to pin me down and keep me from moving, but—I’ll try.”

            “I’m so glad,” Draco said, and the simple words made Harry’s eyes sting. He shut them. Getting sentimental, Potter, he scolded himself in his mind.

            But maybe that was the best thing he could do. One of the simpler things Laurent had stolen from him was a trust in his own emotions. He had to question what he felt, now, every single time, because what he had experienced when he was Veela-struck—the slavish devotion and panting desire—wasn’t real. If he could get over that and accept that some of his feelings were real, then maybe he wouldn’t be so reluctant to admit that he cared for Draco, or immediately dismiss it as the effect of pity.

            “Come on,” he said, tugging at Draco’s shoulders. “Let’s get up, and have breakfast, and you can tell me more about Laurent’s chances of getting free.”

            Draco seemed reluctant, as if he wanted to stay in bed and just gaze at Harry some more, but came along with another tug. Harry seated him at the table while he made porridge and toast, and sat down across from him with a genuine sense of accomplishment. Draco hated to let his chosen take care of him, but other than a few twitches and the longing stare that Harry remembered from the other day when he had made dinner, he hadn’t shown any of that hatred. And now he was gulping down his porridge with gratifying hunger. Harry watched him for a few seconds before he started eating himself.

            Their conversation waited until they’d filled their bellies, which Harry didn’t mind. Concentrating on food while he ate was something he usually did when he was bolting down meals in the middle of a case, anyway. He sat back, wiping his mouth on his napkin, and nodded to Draco. “How much do you think they’re going to find out?”

            Draco reached across the table and took Harry’s hand. Harry intertwined their fingers and nodded. Draco gave him a faint smile, then said, “They’ve learned that Laurent went into Azkaban. They knew he had a secret trial in front of the Wizengamot. I suggested to Pansy that it might have been because Laurent was using the allure to charm key people in the Ministry, and I think that’s the direction she’ll search in for a while. But I don’t know how long I can keep her off.”

            Harry shuddered and closed his eyes. Laurent loomed in the darkness of his mind like a nightmare, but he had someone to help him fight those now. “We’ll have to lay down a false trail,” he mused. “I think Kingsley would be willing to help me do it.”

            Draco caught his breath. “Why didn’t I think of that?” he said. “It’s so simple, but I got upset that she knew so much already.”

            “That’s understandable,” Harry said. “You were dealing with the instincts that said you had to protect your chosen.” He frowned, considering what he should do next. “I know some of the Ministry employees who can pretend that they were charmed by a Veela three years ago in exchange for a sum of money. They won’t need to know what it’s about. They’ll just assume it’s one of the many intrigues or power plays that no one really comprehends except for the people directly affected by them.”

            “Bribery,” Draco said, and his voice had become a purr. “What a wonderful idea.”

            Harry opened his eyes to make sure that he wasn’t being sarcastic, and decided he wasn’t when he saw Draco’s eyes literally glowing. He looked, now, like the Slytherin Harry had known at Hogwarts. “Well, then. I’ll need to visit Gringotts, but there’s nothing suspicious in that. And then I’ll go to the Ministry—”

            Draco leaned back, his nostrils flaring and his wings bursting out of his shoulders. Harry flinched, but managed to relax rather than bolt screaming for the bedroom, which he really wanted to do. “No,” Draco said. “I’ll bribe them.”

            Harry snorted and gestured at the bed behind them. “You’ve already spent enough of your money on me for one week.”

            “I want to,” Draco said, and his claws popped out on his visible hand, peeling a few strips of wood from the surface of Harry’s table. Harry stared at it to express his dissatisfaction with that, but Draco didn’t seem to notice or care. “I didn’t come up with the plan to protect you. I didn’t do anything but run to Diagon Alley last night and spend a lot of money on things that you might or might not have wanted. Let me at least do this.”

            “But I did want those things,” Harry said, reaching up to stroke the cloak still draped around his shoulders. “Even if I didn’t realize I wanted them. That’s all you need to do.”

            Draco snarled at him, his eyes taking on that glassy sheen again and a white haze settling into place around his hair. Harry thought, clinging to reason in the face of panic, that Veela emotions seemed to make them look even more decorative than they already were. He wondered if that was so they could attract their chosen or for some other reason. “You’re being stupid,” Draco said. “I’m the one with more money, and they’ll wonder what connection you have to the Veela if you start asking. I’m already part of the community. I can do it without rousing suspicion.”

            “No, you can’t,” Harry snapped, irritated that Draco was acting as though he didn’t understand the way Ministry politics worked. “It’s the Ministry. Someone’s always suspicious. The really important thing is that no one will connect me with Laurent—”

            “Someone might, if you bribe them and then Pansy and her friends ask around about him.” Draco’s eyes were flat. He leaned forwards in a way that suggested he was going to rise into the air and pounce on Harry. Harry stiffened his back against his chair and concentrated to get past his dizziness. “Let me do it.”

            “No,” Harry said.

            “Why not?” Draco’s voice held the edge of a screech. But he had asked for an explanation instead of attacking, Harry reminded himself. There was that.

            “You’ve already done so much for me,” Harry said—stubbornly, he knew, but if he had ever cared about that, then a lot of his relationships would have been very different. “I don’t want you to exhaust your money or your patience acting in my name. I should be able to do things that protect myself.”

            Draco, unexpectedly, laughed. He had unfolded his wings, but they flapped lazily behind him, and he regarded Harry with a gentle smile. “You don’t understand,” he said. “My vaults are much deeper than yours. The Malfoys are rich, Harry, and our lack of involvement in politics over the last few years means that we haven’t spent a lot. Please. Let me do this for you.” His voice was meltingly sweet, and he reached out and trailed his claws down Harry’s arm in a way that caused sharp sparks to burst in Harry’s groin. “Call it the influence, if you like, making me fixate on your safety. But I want to.”

            Harry gaped at him, then shut his mouth. It wasn’t all that hard to understand, after what Draco had explained to him about how good it felt for a Veela to protect his chosen.

            But it was still hard to allow.

            Harry struggled with his outrage in silence, and then told himself that if Draco enjoyed it well enough, there was no reason that he should object. There would be other times when he would assert his independence, he assured himself. In fact, he had won the argument about breakfast, so he could count that as a “victory” if he needed to keep score between himself and Draco. “All right.”

            Draco tilted his head back and trilled, a silvery sound that left Harry blinking back tears. That was purely a sound of joy, he thought, not meant for seduction. He’d like to hear it again.

            “You won’t regret this, Harry, I promise,” Draco said, bringing his head down and smiling at Harry. His smile was as much pure sweetness as his voice or his touch. He moved his claws again, and Harry gasped and shivered. He felt sweat start into place along his collarbone. Draco’s voice dropped. “You’ll never regret anything you let me do for you.”

            Harry’s vision swirled with color as if he were going through a Portkey. He was half-hard, and he wanted to lean across the table, kiss Draco, back him up against the wall, insinuate a knee between his legs—

            Harry tore himself free of the grip of desire with an effort, and put his hands over his eyes, pressing down.

            “Harry?” Draco’s voice was concerned.

            “That’s—that’s the first time I realized that I really want you,” Harry said. He knew his voice was raw and surprised, but he couldn’t help it. He only hoped that it didn’t hurt Draco’s feelings too much. “I haven’t been thinking much about what I felt for you, because healing and trying to let you have what you needed were in first place. But now I want you, and you haven’t even done anything but touch me.”

            Draco trilled again, and his voice no longer sounded human when he said, “I would do anything for you, Harry. Anything.”

            Harry looked up. Draco glowed and shone as if made of porcelain and then backlit by the sun. He was extending his wings, holding them high enough that Harry could catch glimpses of silver from the feathers on the edges. His trill cut through the whole maze of light, and Harry felt it like a rope of white silk, surrounding him.

            For the first time in years, the notion of a rope didn’t make him panic. Harry wondered what it would be like to lean back within it and luxuriate in the loose coils.

            He couldn’t do that. In a moment he was blinking hard and fighting his way back to control of himself.

            But that lapse had happened, and he hadn’t died or panicked.

            He looked at Draco in wonder, and smiled when he noted that Draco was regarding him with wide eyes. “I know you would,” he said.

            Draco caught Harry’s hand and kissed the knuckles softly. Harry flushed as he met his eyes—it was still hard to think of someone looking at him like that and not react defensively—but then again, there was no rule against flushing.

            When Draco had left, Harry sat beside the breakfast table for a long time, his eyes closed, and tried to think about what it would mean that romance was coming back into his life, now, when he had thought it was so long gone.

*

            Draco leaned against the table and regarded the clerk across the room—one of the numerous Undersecretaries in the Department of Magical Games and Sports—speculatively. Her name was Angelina Ramsay, he knew, and she had been a member of Slytherin House while she was in Hogwarts. But she had escaped any touch of the Dark Lord, and had proceeded to ignore anyone who knew her then as much as possible after the war.

            The way she was ignoring him right now.

            Draco smiled and reached out with the briefest touch of allure, too small to be registered by the wards around the Ministry that supposedly picked up things like that. And too small, Draco reassured himself, to count against Harry’s rules that he not use the allure on someone else. He wasn’t trying to enchant Ramsay, just get her to pay attention to him, the way he could have used a polite cough if the world was saner.

            Sure enough, she looked up with a faint frown, as if she thought someone had called her name. Draco started forwards, and it would have been against the rules of courtesy for her to ignore him once she’d caught his eye. She smiled tightly and folded her hands on the table in front of her.

            “Mr. Malfoy,” she said. “What do you want?”

            “To present an opportunity of some advantage to you,” Draco replied smoothly. He had chosen his time well. The other secretaries were gone from the Department on a gathering of some sort, to be followed by a lunch. Ramsay had volunteered to stay here and hold down the desk—supposedly a sacrifice, but Draco knew the power of being in charge of the entire Department thrilled her.

            “I can’t let you see any records.” Ramsay recited the words with the ease of long practice. Her green eyes, not as bright as his Harry’s because no one’s were, looked over his shoulder at the wall.

            “I know that,” Draco said. “Instead, we’re trying to create a trail that extends back three years.” He shifted and let, as if by accident, the bag of Galleons in his pocket clink.

            Ramsay wasn’t stupid, whatever Draco thought of her trying to deny her affiliation with Slytherin in later years. She sat up and paid more attention, with a professional smile that would convince most people peering into the room that she wanted to be in on the conversation. “Really? Let’s hear it, then.”

            “There was a Veela who spent some time about the Ministry three years ago,” Draco said, sitting down in the chair that she gestured him to. It was comfortably padded. Draco wondered if working in the Department of Magical Games and Sports meant more remuneration than he had assumed it did. “You might remember him. Laurent du Michel.”

            Ramsay made a face. “Oh, yes. That bastard.”

            “You knew him?” Draco hadn’t dared find out who had had a bad relationship with Laurent. It might give away his hand too easily. (Despite what Harry thought, he really did know how to play this game). He was able to put on an honest expression of surprise.

            “Yes.” Ramsay shook his head. “Jealous and possessive, and forever convinced that the people he dated were going to leave him. He dated my cousin for a short time, and restricted her movements and wanted to know why she was spending time with men who weren’t him. Any men, even her colleagues. It was intolerable for her.”

            “Well,” Draco murmured, “there was a problem some years ago, and we thought it had been taken care of. But now there are people—his family—asking around about him, and they might try to get him out of Azkaban.”

            “Azkaban?” Ramsay chuckled harshly. “Just what he deserved. What did he do?”

            Draco had to step carefully here. Technically, he probably shouldn’t have revealed that Laurent was in Azkaban, but he knew Pansy wouldn’t be shy about using the fact to arouse sympathy for Laurent if she could.

            “Charmed someone key.” Draco let his eyes flicker to the door that hid the office of the Head of the Department, and then back. “Someone whose name can’t be revealed, because then all his decisions for a certain period of time would have to be reviewed, and he might be sacked. I’m certain you understand.”

            Ramsay caught her breath, and Draco knew he had chosen rightly. Ramsay might have been ambitious to replace the Department Head, but since she’d just started working for him three years ago, her decisions could be subject to the same, fake review if it was made. She would be anxious to help protect the Head, and with it her position.

            “What do you need?” she asked tightly.

            Draco slid the bag of Galleons around the desk to her, and let her look into it. When she glanced up, blinking in a gratifying way, Draco said, “For you to imply that Laurent might have got into others’ brains, too. You don’t need to imply that you were a victim unless you want to. But we need rumors floating about so that anyone who asks won’t focus on the correct victim.”

            Ramsay smiled slightly. The temptation of money plus secret information plus a legitimate reason to gossip was too much for her, as Draco had suspected it would be.

            But because she had been Slytherin, she had to push the boundaries. “And if I don’t?” she asked.

            “Easy enough,” Draco said in a soft drawl, “to imply that other people were implicated in the decisions a certain key person made years ago.”

            Ramsay nodded. “All right. Just asking.” She grinned and tucked the money away. “I assume you’re approaching others about this?”

            “Never you mind that.” Draco stood. He had done all he could here. “But if you hear any rumors, it might do you good to confirm them.”

            Ramsay nodded, still grinning, and returned to work. Draco stepped out of the office and cast a Disillusionment Charm on himself just in case he ran into anyone whose attention he might need to avoid.

            One step begun.

            Lazy pleasure poured like honey down his spine. He was protecting his chosen. He was doing as he should.

            And Laurent might be punished. At the very least, he would be denied freedom.

            Draco strode out of the Ministry with his wings spread, and given the Disillusionment Charm, it wasn’t even a problem.

*

            Lady_of_Clunn: Well, Harry and Draco are making efforts to deal with the situation.

            And Harry was able to go through with it, mostly because he was asleep.

            Clau: Thanks!

            Well, she may not solve the mystery, after all.

            Harry’s romantic feelings are just starting to awaken from a long, enforced sleep. Harry distrusted them all after his encounter with Laurent, and locked them up. As he says here, he was concentrating on other things first, and only now does he have enough space and time to address them adequately.

            Kogas Hentai Luver: Don’t worry, you’re not as impatient and anxious as Draco himself is! From now on, he will push more, in part because of the influence and in part because he really is in a state of torment and longing. And the Blazing Season is coming up…

            polka dot: Harry is a bit intimidated by it, to be sure.

            qwerty: Harry will struggle, but his stubbornness will help him from this point on, because he wants so badly to keep going as he has been.

            thrnbrooke: Definitely trying, anyway.

            SisterGryffin-SisterSlytherin: Thanks so much! The story will end at about Chapter 34, so I hope you stay interested until then.

            SP777: Harry is just starting to see why other people might wish that.

            luvlustblood: Thanks! Draco used the gifts mainly as a way to channel his protective impulse, and didn’t stop buying until he felt calmer.

            Night the Storyteller: Harry would actually have been glad for some more explanation the night before, but he could see that Draco just wasn’t in the mood to give it.

            Melancholy Dreams: Thank you! It’s often a challenge for me to see if I can make the characters act realistically, and a compromise between canon and the way I’d like them to be and act. I hope you continue enjoying this.
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