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Fairest Creatures	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 22177 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 4
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Three—An Open-Ended Request

            “There are lots of things about Veela that you don’t know. Things I could tell you, but I didn’t because they really aren’t important. Or because I knew you would learn them in class soon.”

            Harry watched Draco pace, with his wings arrayed around him like huge banks of flowers. “That’s fine,” he said. “I understand you can’t tell me everything. You might forget some things, and you don’t want to step on the professors’ toes.”

            “You understand?” Draco turned to him with a face so bright that Harry winced before he could stop himself. “Then—”

            “I understand that about small things,” Harry interrupted. “But what I asked about wasn’t something small. It should have been mentioned the first time I talked about wanting to go back to Auror work. Why didn’t you tell me that doing that could kill you?”

            Draco frowned and looked away. “Because you kept telling me about how many people had always tried to control your life. I didn’t want to do the same thing. I mean—I knew that you would probably forgive me, but it’s pretty controlling, isn’t it, to say right away, ‘And you shouldn’t take any risks, because you could cause my death.’”

            Harry didn’t answer. That did make sense. But something else was preying on his mind now, and when Draco began to turn back to him with another smile, as if hoping they had got past the worst of it, he said, “Then you didn’t play by the same rules.”

            “I should hope that I wasn’t playing by the rules of people who were trying to control your bloody life!”

            “No,” Harry said, barely managing not to roll his eyes. “Not what I meant. You broke the rules and put yourself in danger when you went after the Dursleys. Someone could have harmed you. Muggles who had no idea what a Veela was. Maybe even an overzealous Auror or Hit Wizard who thought you were some kind of attacking magical creature.”

            Draco’s small feathers were standing on edge all over his wings now, like a cat’s hair on the ridge of its spine. It would have been funny if Harry hadn’t been so upset about Draco’s blatant hypocrisy. “You can’t—”

            “Can’t I?” Harry folded his arms. He felt both weary and exasperated. He had given Draco chances, and still things like this happened. “Listen, Draco. We’re in this together. That’s what you kept telling me at first, but now I find you’ve been ignoring a huge ‘rule’ all the time, and it is annoying.” He brought his wings in on the downbeat of that word, finding huge satisfaction in the way Draco flinched and leaped, his own wings fanning out. “So. Either you avoid danger in the future, just like me, and you care more about protecting my life than avenging my honor, or you explain to me why going after the Dursleys for you is different than going into danger as an Auror is for me. You have ten seconds to start,” he added, because he thought, at the moment, that Draco’s dangling jaw might dangle for a while.

            Draco used nine of them gaping at him and swinging his wings back and forth as if they might give him an answer. Harry was opening his mouth to comment on it, when Draco finally said, “I have to be able to attack your enemies. It’s the only way that I can defend you and, yes, avenge your honor.”

            Harry moved a step forwards. “Then I have to be able to defend you.”

            “I never said you couldn’t.”

            “And I have to be able to defend myself.”

            “That’s different than being an Auror and arrogantly seeking out people to challenge.” Draco’s large feathers were standing on end now. Harry snorted, which brought Draco towards him in a rush that stopped when Harry turned a sardonic eye on him. Draco seemed to struggle with his thoughts for a second, and then flung out a sharp hand. “It is.”

            “But with the enemies I have, then people might still come after me and you. Especially once they find out that you’re my mate.” Harry folded his arms, thought about some of the threats he’d received in the past, and then added, “No, they will come after me and you. So why didn’t you consider that kind of thing when you flung yourself into battle?”

            Draco did some more glaring. Harry looked at him, still standing with his wings spread in front of the door. He’d moved away a little when he realized what a hypocrite Draco had been with his attack on the Dursleys, but not that far, and now Draco had to decide what the hell he was going to do.

            “It was instinct,” Draco said finally. “You can’t tell me that you behave instinctively as an Auror the way I behave instinctively as a Veela.”

            Arrogant little pissant, Harry thought. “The kind of training they put us through does become bloody near instinctive. And that doesn’t excuse it. You could say the same thing about any instinct I might have to defend you, and I reckon you still wouldn’t excuse it in the same way. So. Cough up an answer. What’s different about you being in danger from me being in danger?”

            Draco’s feathers had flattened again, but his face showed how caught he was between emotions. Harry had to grin at him. He’d felt damn uncomfortable, even ill, when he realized that going back to his job could put Draco in danger. So now Draco got to experience it.

            Draco finally looked away and muttered something. Even with his hearing—which Harry thought had improved since he became a Veela—Harry couldn’t make out what he’d said.

            “I’m sorry, what was that? You need to go slower and use smaller words. Remember, I’m just your stupid mate that you think you can fool.”

            Draco gave a growling noise and jumped straight at him. Harry, utterly stunned, caught him and staggered under his weight, only for Draco to snap into his face, “I won’t listen to you say that about yourself. No one has the right to disparage my mate. Not even my mate himself.”

            And then he slammed his mouth into Harry’s and grabbed his ears as if he thought Harry would manage to withdraw.

            Harry had to kiss him back, with the heat flaring everywhere between them and all around, so thick that Harry felt as though someone had slammed his hands into the stove at the Dursleys’ again, the way he had once when he was small. But this was sweet fire, not punishing, curling around his limbs and tugging him towards the bed the way he’d been tugged the other day when they’d got each other off—

            Harry fought free. He knew suddenly what Draco was doing, or what had almost happened. He dodged when Draco reached for him again.

            Draco stared at him, shaking his head a little. “Harry, what are you doing? I know you want this.”

            Yes, even without any special sense of the bond between mates, Harry reckoned that much was pretty obvious. He set his feet, though, and dodged again when Draco reached for him. “No, Draco. Think about this. Think,” he added, when Draco opened his mouth to say something.

            Draco stopped moving, but Harry didn’t think he was thinking, either. He only waited, his wings stirring slow blasts of shimmering air around them. A croon was building in his throat, even though he didn’t utter it.

            “You can’t use sex to get out of serious discussions,” Harry said, and regretted using the word when he saw the way Draco’s eyes flared. Like sunlight on water this time, Harry thought inanely as Draco reached out a hand. He almost couldn’t bring himself to dodge it, but he did. That bright.

            “I wasn’t—trying to do that.” Draco sounded a little calmer than before, but his wings still beat without him seeming aware of them, and he watched Harry, ready to leap like a hawk on prey. “I only wanted to make you feel good.”

            “I know. But you need to think about this. Do we both risk our lives? Or neither? Because that’s the only way it’ll work.”

            Draco slid his hands down to his kneecaps and bent over. His wings meant Harry could no longer see his face. But he controlled his own impatience to do that, biting his lip so hard that he could feel blood trickling down his chin. He only hoped the sight wouldn’t distract Draco. They needed to have this conversation more than anything else.

            “I want to protect you,” Draco finally said, in the tone of someone saying, “Gravity exists.”

            “And I want to do the same thing,” Harry said instantly. “But that’s different from saying that it’s an instinctive Veela thing, and that we have no choice but to launch ourselves into danger the minute something happens.”

            Draco’s wings twitched and then fell back to his sides. He stood up. The flush had faded from his face. He looked like he was actually concentrating on his words. Harry approved.

            “This is the truth. I want to protect you. And I think I’ll do it better because you just—fling yourself straight ahead and don’t plan at all. You do things that could get you killed. You put yourself in danger just because. You would risk everything to protect another person, even if they weren’t your friend or they were annoying you at the moment.”

            Harry stared at him. Draco seemed to think he’d made his point, which only proved the special Veela bond between them didn’t tell him the truth of all Harry’s emotions. “You’re hard,” Draco added, with the words that warbled and trilled at the edges, and took a step forwards. “We should do something about that.”

            “You utter and absolute prick.”

            Draco stopped. Harry wasn’t sure if it was the words that stopped him, or the tone, which was soft and, Harry knew, probably affectionate. “What?”

            “You just flung yourself straight at the Dursleys and didn’t plan at all. You did things that could have got you killed, especially if one of the Muggles had had a powerful weapon along.” Harry wasn’t sure how much Draco knew about guns. “You put yourself in danger just because. After all, the Dursleys abused me years ago—”

            “You admit it was abuse! You admit they should die!”

            Draco had a kind of shimmering shine around him that Harry eyed uneasily. It was the sort of corona that he thought could burst into flames at any moment. “I’m not admitting anything,” he snapped back. “They shouldn’t die for something that happened years ago. But it happened years ago, that was my point. I have wounds from Testig that are a lot more recent than anything they gave me, but you didn’t go after her.”

            Draco paused, then shook his head like someone who had water in his ear. “That was in the formal structure of a duel—”

            “So were some of the things Snape did to us in sixth year, but that didn’t make them hurt any less.”

            “Professor Snape hurt you, too?”

            “You’re getting distracted.” Harry took a deep breath and tried to speak in a soothing tone, for Draco’s sake. The last thing he wanted Draco dwelling on was insults years old and mental wounds inflicted by someone years dead. “Listen to me. You have more control over the way you attack people to defend me than you were pretending. And you took risks to protect me, too. I didn’t even know if I wanted to mate with you at the time. But what did you do? Dashed off to attack the Dursleys. I tried to stop you. You knew I didn’t want you to. You ignored me.”

            Draco fluffed his wings out again. “I ignored you because it was right that they should suffer as repayment,” he muttered.

            “I don’t think so.”

            Draco glared at him. “But you would never think so unless they did something to someone else.”

            Harry could see he wouldn’t get anywhere pursuing that line of argument. So he changed it. “You care about what I want?”

            Draco lowered his head and stared at Harry as if he was waiting for the trap in his words, but he evidently didn’t find it. He finally nodded. “And I care if you’re in danger, of course,” he added.

            “Of course,” Harry replied soothingly. “But if you care about what I want, you should care about me not wanting the Dursleys hurt. Or the Healers. Or the professors, if they do something else you think hurts me and it doesn’t result in a duel.”

            Draco shifted back and forth on his feet, from heels to toes, and finally lowered his head and grumbled, “Who does that leave me free to attack?”

            “Not many people,” Harry had to admit. “But can you understand what I mean when I say that I don’t want you to attack any of them? I just—I want both of us to be safe. And I want it to be fair.”

            Draco put that into his own words while Harry was still thinking about how to do it. “You want us both to obey the same rules, or it’s not fair.”

            “Exactly.” Harry reached out with one wing and stroked Draco’s cheek with the feathery edge for that.

            Draco was squinting and frowning, apparently trying hard not to look pleased. “You can’t get around me like that, though,” he said, as if Harry was deliberately trying. “You can’t just say that and settle the argument.”

            “No,” said Harry. “But if you’ll agree that we both need to be more careful about the trouble we get into and how we fight, then that’ll be enough for now.”

            Draco paused and rocked back and forth on his feet again. Then he inclined his head and muttered something that sounded like, “Fine.”

            “Thank you.” Harry kissed him on the cheek and moved aside so Draco could get to the door. If he wanted to leave, Harry couldn’t blame him.

            But Draco only lingered where he stood, watching Harry with a frown. “What are you going to do about putting your life in danger?”

            “It probably isn’t going to come up with the Aurors, unfortunately.” Harry sighed, an exhaustion he hadn’t acknowledged when he was talking to Hermione dropping on him. “No matter what Hermione wants, the Aurors aren’t going to accept me back.”

            Draco opened his mouth in the prelude to a screech. Harry held up a quick hand. “Not because I think she’ll lose the case, but because it would be suicide for me to go out with a grudging partner.”

            “Partner with Weasley, then.”

            “Thanks for showing that you appreciate Ron’s value.” Harry had to grin at the way Draco rolled his eyes. “But I can’t just stay with Ron all the time. The Aurors are cooperative hunters. If I kept refusing to work with other people, it would get noticed and condemned pretty bloody quickly.”

            Draco suddenly snapped his wings out. Harry leaped and looked around for the threat, but there was nothing there. Only empty bedroom. Harry turned back, knowing his eyes were questioning.

            “Cooperative hunters, you say?”

            “Well, yes. I always thought of myself as hunting Dark wizards, and the whole point of Auror training is how to work with other people and learn the laws and procedures and the ways Dark wizards act against you…”

            Harry let his voice trail off. He could see that he was still not really getting Draco’s point. Draco leaned forwards with his eyes so filled with malevolent glee that Harry had to control the urge to flinch.

            “But Veela can also be cooperative hunters,” Draco purred. “That’s the way that some who don’t want to associate with humans still live, in fact. Not in groups and partnerships that are constantly changing, but in pairs that hunt together. They protect their territory and their families and keep them safe.”

            “Right,” said Harry slowly. He didn’t want to try and damp down Draco’s excitement too quickly, but he did have to point one thing out. “But you see, that’s not the same as what I’m trained to do.”

            “Name one thing that’s different. Besides the size of the group.”

            “I don’t have a territory or family to defend. I have to go wherever there are Dark wizards and act to bring them down. I don’t think I can just restrict myself to a small area and protecting a single group of people and be happy.”

            Draco laughed. Harry had to admit that at the sound, a thrill danced through him, even though he had no intention of agreeing so soon. “But that just means expanding our instincts a little. Until you think of all the people who you want to help as your family and the British Isles as your territory. Or even more than that.”

            Harry felt his heart bound. And then he thought of the paperwork and the rules and restrictions and the Healers and the Wizengamot, and he sighed. “We might hunt them down, but we would never get them arrested. The Aurors don’t accept arrests by people who act on their own.”

            “But they accept people holding Dark wizards at bay until they get there?”

            “Well. Yes. We always encouraged people to learn to defend themselves, and—”

            Draco went blithely on, trampling all over Harry’s careful words. “Then they have to accept us doing the same thing. Or just chasing Dark wizards away from the targets they’d trying to get to, or saving the people they want to harm. They can’t have any objection to that.”

            Harry stared. Draco actually came forwards after a minute and slid his wing worriedly out to brush against Harry’s jaw, his feathers a soft prickling touch. “Harry?”

            Harry grabbed him and spun him around. Draco squawked, his wings flaring out again. Harry put him down then and laughed. Laughed loud and long, making Draco look at him in indulgence that turned to irritation.

            “Well?” Draco demanded finally.

            “That’s the perfect solution. Of course it is. It lets me do all the things I love about Auror work and none of the things that I really dislike, even.” Harry grinned at him. “I could kiss you for that.”

            “Absolutely no one,” said Draco, with a little snap of his wings, “is stopping you.”

            Harry blinked and stared at him, and then moved forwards and grabbed Draco again. Draco tilted his head back and looked Harry straight in the eye, a more seductive glance than any fluttering lashes.

            Harry didn’t resist the thrill that ran through him this time, and leaned into the kiss.

*

            SickPuppy: Poor Hermione. ;)
SP777: Probably, but he found his way out of it.
            Hestia; This story was being updated on Sundays, but it’s been a while since that was true. Getting ready to move + regular Internet outages is not a fun time.
            I have tried to make a master list, but it was taking literally hours of my time, and there was no space (profile or journal post) big enough to hold it, plus it was getting outdated crazy fast. It would have to be broken up into separate documents as it is. With the Eighth Year Professor Series, I haven’t written the last one yet.
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