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
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- 27
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Seven—Warded

            Harry opened the door of Ron and Hermione’s house at the knock and found himself enfolded in Draco’s arms. He saw the wings out of the corner of his eye, but Draco kept them upright and trembling, rather than bringing them around in a full sweep, and for that, Harry was grateful.

            “Stupid of you not to cast a charm that would tell you who it was first,” Draco murmured. His voice was so drowsy, though, as full of contentment as a cat with a full stomach, that Harry did nothing more than roll his eyes.

            “My spells could only have told me that it was a Veela, and that might be a temptation to keep the door closed,” he retorted, bringing Draco further into the house. Automatically he looked over Draco’s shoulder to be sure that no press were lurking about the door, although Ron and Hermione’s house, like his, had wards that would active in the presence of a camera. “How did it go?”

            “It could have gone better,” Draco admitted in a mutter, burying his face in Harry’s shoulder. “I wanted to convince Pansy to stop the investigation, but instead she told me that she’s in love with one of the idiots who’s looking for Laurent, Russell du Michel. That means she won’t give up. She’s just as determined to protect someone she loves from harm as I am.”

            Harry shut his eyes and stood there, absorbing the news and trying not to feel as though he should throw up. “And Oblansky?”

            “That was better.” Draco opened his eyes and stepped back, bringing his hands up to frame Harry’s face. He wore an expression of anxiety that was probably, Harry thought, perfectly mirrored on Harry. They both wanted to be the protectors. “He was impressed with my display of my Veela heritage in public, it seems, even before I started dating you. That means he was willing to listen to me about keeping quiet and keeping the information away from Pansy, who after all, in his eyes, is merely human.”

            Harry nodded. He could feel relief. He could.



            But what he was most tired of feeling at the moment was useless. He grasped Draco’s hand. “We’ll need help if Pansy continues her investigation. We can’t watch all the people in the Ministry or all the people she might approach.”

            Draco frowned. “I thought of that, too. But who can we go to? Owen and Lucy live too retired from the world to have that many contacts in the Ministry. Your friends are busy. And the people I bribed can’t be trusted with a much more complex lie, or they might very well try to interfere.”

            Harry licked his lips, wondering if his notion was right or good after all. If Draco hadn’t come up with it on his own…

            But he would like to banish that expression of pain and worry on Draco’s face. He stroked Draco’s cheek with two fingers and said, “I was thinking your parents. I—thought we’d tell them the truth, though of course not many details. They could help watch Pansy for us, and that way—”

            Draco kissed him, in a rush that caught Harry off-guard and pinned him to the wall across from the door. After his first startled reaction, in which he almost lashed out with his magic, he managed to relax and tilt his head back, accepting the determined probe of Draco’s tongue, the movement of his lips, the way his hands rasped down Harry’s body to his hips. Harry answered, in fact, with a careful licking of Draco’s mouth and a squeeze of his arse.

            Draco pulled back at last, but still kept his hands and his eyes on Harry as if he couldn’t let him go. His face shone like the heart of the sun. “Harry? You’re sure? You’re able to bear this?” His hands still roamed, restlessly stroking through Harry’s hair and across his chest, lingering on a nipple. Harry smiled, struck, for the first time, by the fact that he could make Draco so happy.

            “I am,” he said. “I thought about it, and it’s the best thing to do. And I trust your parents if you vouch for them, because I trust you.”

            Draco lowered his head and carefully sniffed around Harry’s shoulders and neck, his nose finally coming to rest against Harry’s throat. Harry turned his head to look down at him, but Draco seized his nape and held him in place until he had apparently absorbed all the scent he needed to and Harry’s skin was damp with more than his breath.

            “What was that for?” Harry asked, and then scowled. It wasn’t a welcome discovery that arousal made his voice so breathy.

            “I want to know what you smell like when you trust me,” Draco said, and blinked his eyes as if awakening from a dream.

            Harry swallowed, both to keep from saying something embarrassing and to try and deal with the sense of pure power that he felt right then.

            I can affect him like this. If I want to.

            I want to.

*

            Draco hovered protectively, possessively, at Harry’s side as he escorted him through the front doors of the Manor. He could feel the wards falling into relaxation ahead of them, only to snap back into place behind, but that didn’t reassure him. He had to guard Harry from dangers inside the Manor as well as out of it, and he knew how little warded walls and sturdy doors would do against those dangers.

            “Draco.” Harry’s voice was gentle, but with that undertone of ash and steel that said he was pressing against the boundaries of what Harry would allow. “Step back, please.”

            Draco managed to retreat a few paces, but he could do nothing about his gaze nailed to Harry’s back or the way he reached out automatically to keep Harry from bumping into a sharp corner near the next doorway. Harry glanced back over his shoulder, his mouth tight in exasperation, but his eyes soft.

            “I understand,” he murmured. “But I really don’t think that there’s any monster that’s going to pounce on me between here and the room where your parents are waiting.”

            Draco opened his mouth to say that he knew that, and then realized he was about to say that Harry couldn’t know that for sure, not when someone might rediscover the lost ability of traveling between parallel worlds at any instant and open a portal right into the Manor, where they would unleash beasts that Draco didn’t know how to defend against.

            He shut his mouth and rubbed his hands on his trousers. He knew that particular itchy feeling that spread over his skin and made a taste like iron in the back of his mouth. He knew that particular irrationality that insisted the chosen had to be protected against everything, including highly unlikely configurations of chance and fate.

            It was a signal of the approach of the Blazing Season.

            Shivering, he followed Harry on, testing how many times and for how long he was able to look away before his eyes were pulled back to Harry. Both numbers were lower than he would have liked.

            Narcissa rose to her feet when they entered the room—wisely, Draco thought, not the room where they had confronted Harry before, though he didn’t think even his parents, who didn’t know everything about the situation, would be that tone-deaf. This one was decorated with rich shades of silver and green by someone who had probably never got over Slytherin and Hogwarts, and had doors, open doors, leading out into the garden. Draco appreciated that his parents had chosen to offer Harry an escape route if it got overwhelming.

            Lucius continued to sit down, his hands clasped over the head of his cane, and stared at Harry searchingly. Draco could practically feel the whizz and dance of his thoughts. He would have no idea why Harry had agreed to return and ask them for help when he had rejected them so violently before. That was what reassured Draco that his parents really could have no idea of what had gone on between Harry and Laurent.

            “Be welcome, Draco,” and Draco thought he was probably the only one in the room who noticed his mother’s hesitation before the next name, “Mr. Potter.”

            Harry gave her a strained smile. “Please, call me Harry. I’m going to be as close to your son-in-law as I can without marriage, after all.”

            Draco couldn’t help it; he stretched his wings, which he had never fully retracted since meeting Harry at the door of the Weasleys’, and arched his neck to the side, showing off like a swan. He’s mine. He said it.

            His mother’s gaze grew more speculative, and she shook Harry’s hand and embraced Draco before she sat down. “Draco said that you had some momentous news to tell us,” she said, wisely keeping her gaze on Harry and letting him take the lead. Draco stood behind Harry’s chair and rested his hands on his shoulders to give his chosen moral support.

            Harry flashed Draco a single terrified glance before he turned around and nodded. “Yes. Someone has been digging into the same mystery you did, the mystery of what happened to my former Veela boyfriend.” He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself, which made Draco ache, because those arms should be his wings. He managed to restrain himself, barely. “The reason I didn’t want you to know before, and the reason I want your help now, is that Laurent du Michel raped me.”

            Draco’s parents were quite still, and if someone unfamiliar with them had looked only at their faces, Draco thought, that was all they would have seen. Lucius and Narcissa had trained for long years to keep control of their expressions, because those were the clues to changing mood that enemies would look for first.

            But Draco knew to look at their hands, and Lucius’s tightened hard enough on the cane to earn a warning creak from the wood. His mother’s vanished into the robes piled against her waist. Draco couldn’t see her fingers digging into her palm, but then again, he didn’t need to.

            Harry paused, as if giving them the chance to say something, and then floundered on when they didn’t. “He used his Veela allure on me to ensure that I would cooperate, except I was immune to it, and so he went deeper and made me Veela-struck. I spent—three days under his domination, and then managed to break free and arrest him. He went to the Wizengamot for his trial, but it was secret. And now he’s in Azkaban under an assumed name.” He laughed, but it was a bright, false sound, and Draco wished he hadn’t felt he had to make it. “You can see why I was a bit reluctant to talk about it at first.”

            Draco’s parents exchanged glances, and in them a firestorm of emotions passed back and forth. Draco could read them, but Harry didn’t seem able to. He shuffled his feet and stared at his hands, and Draco could practically read his thoughts. They didn’t react, they didn’t care, or they didn’t think this was a secret worth keeping.

            “I’m sorry to have disturbed you,” Harry said stiffly, and started to rise from the chair.

            Draco pressed to keep him down, and whispered into his ear when Harry struggled against him, “They’re reacting to it. Or they will in just a moment. Sit still, keep your head, and you’ll see what I mean.”

            Harry licked his lips, but stayed seated, and Draco was reminded again that this man trusted him, as his own confession earlier had said. Draco wanted to screech his triumph from the rooftops when he remembered that moment. For now, though, it could stay private, and he waited for his parents to make their verbal response.

            “This is—unacceptable news, Mr. Potter,” said Lucius at last. His hands had relaxed from around the cane, but he was staring at the wall, and Draco knew exactly what visions of havoc were playing behind his eyes, because he had experienced them himself when he first heard about what Harry had suffered. “Unacceptable indeed.”

            Harry surged to his feet this time, despite all the calming touch Draco could exert. “I’m sorry if you think being raped means that I’m stained forever and not good enough for your precious son,” he began in some heat.

            Draco crooned to him, only realizing a moment later that Harry’s anger was probably a healthy thing, since he wasn’t apologizing for being raped. Harry turned and glared at him. “Don’t do that, please,” he said through gritted teeth.

            Draco shrugged his apology, and then, to his relief, his father began to speak again, his eyes sharply focused on Harry this time. Hopefully, they could correct the misconception.

            “I meant no such thing,” Lucius said, with enough quiet force that he attracted Harry’s attention. “I meant that it was unacceptable that such a thing had happened, and that there was no more severe punishment that could be inflicted. I assume that you had the chance to kill him and rejected that option.”

            Harry blinked and nodded. His body had relaxed again. Draco nuzzled into his neck and saw a small smile flit across his mother’s face, despite the circumstances. He answered her with a smile of his own. Yes, he had made his choice, and he hoped that his parents understood all the senses now in which it was both a wise and a difficult one.

            “Yes,” Harry said. “I was angry enough to kill him when I first broke free of the thrall, but I forced that rage down and remembered that I was an Auror. So I arrested him instead, and took him to the Ministry. His trial was immediate.” He glared at Lucius again, his head tilting in the way that told Draco he still felt a bit of defiance no matter how much support he was getting in the room right now. “That’s the reason why he didn’t come out of the Ministry again, and you couldn’t find where he had gone.”

            “My dear,” Narcissa said. “I think your response was entirely appropriate given the kind of person you are, though of course all of us wish that the solution could be more permanent.” She rose from her chair and came nearer. Draco tightened his hand again, because Harry had flinched as if he was going to bolt. “May I embrace you?”



            Harry gaped at her, and then nodded. Narcissa sighed and reached out, carefully folding her arms around Harry, as if she understood all about his issues with touch. Draco was the only one who could see her face over Harry’s shoulder, the only one who could see the cold rage shining in her eyes, though he was sure that his father had anticipated and approved it.

            Narcissa’s hands moved gently over Harry’s back before she stepped away from him. “Will you allow me to pay tribute to the strength that could make such an arrest, rather than striking out and committing murder?” she asked. Her hands framed Harry’s face, and Draco looked away to control his jealousy. “Of course that is the sort of man we would like for a son-in-law.”

            Harry nodded. His eyes were glassy and overwhelmed. Draco struggled against the impulse to simply spirit him away and hide him in a quiet room until he felt better. That wouldn’t actually do any good in the long run. Besides, he had been so proud when Harry suggested that they come here, and that it was Harry’s suggestion.

            “I would wish to, as well,” Lucius said, and came up beside Harry, taking Harry’s hand in his while staring into his eyes. Harry made a little pulling motion that Draco thought was involuntary, but Lucius ignored it and kept hold of his wrist—probably the best thing for now, Draco decided. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. I do not know anyone else with the strength of will to resist a Veela attack such as this. Nor do I know anyone who could bear to give a second Veela a chance to claim him the way Draco will surely wish to claim you.” There was a warning in his voice.

            Harry seemed to hear and understand it. He nodded and stood taller. “The Blazing Season is going to be hard,” he said. “But I’m committed to going through with this. And we need your help, since Pansy Parkinson is investigating the case because she’s in love with a relative of Laurent’s who wants to find him.”

            “He can do nothing about that,” Lucius said at once, quickly and angrily. He stepped away, followed by Narcissa. Draco leaned back in and wrapped his arms around Harry in his mother’s place. Harry gave him a faint, amused smile, which Draco understood but didn’t appreciate. Why shouldn’t he touch his chosen if he wanted to? “There is no law that can bring your rapist into the light again. Why do you fear that it might happen?”

*

            They accepted him.

            That was what was strangest to Harry. They wanted to touch him. They acted angry on his behalf, and not simply embarrassed or glancing away or trying to decide how they would live with the knowledge. It was the most amazing thing.

            Even in the Wizengamot courtroom, with Harry’s testimony on full display before them, there had been people like that, who acted as if being raped was a catching disease. They fidgeted and stared at their fingers. They said they were sorry, but gave him the kind of sidelong glances that said they were trying to figure out how this had happened and why it wouldn’t happen to them. There had even been a few open, hostile murmurs about how of course Harry Potter should have expected something like this, celebrity as he was, bed-hopper as he was, it was bound to happen and why should it be tried in a secret trial? Everyone understood the way Veela were. Though of course rape was still a crime. It wasn’t that they were saying it wasn’t, but the circumstances affected it, of course they did.

            Harry had seen every finely-graded variation of that sort of behavior. It was the reaction he had expected from Draco at first, too, and how he had counted on driving him away when he first revealed his secret. What Veela would stand for damaged goods, after all?

            He tried to push away the impulse to gape at them, or to retreat so that he could deal with this revelation in some kind of privacy. Lucius had asked him a question, and he had to answer it. Cautiously, Harry decided that it was probably all right to address him as Lucius instead of Mr. Malfoy.

            “Because there are people who won’t believe my version,” Harry said. “It was a secret trial, and one of the witnesses there, Curtis Oblansky, argued that it was impossible for Laurent to have raped me. And because, whether or not they can free Laurent, they can set the rumors free. I don’t know that I can deal with the speculation that’s going to come out of this, about whether I liked it or why the trial was secret or—”

            “We can’t bribe everyone,” Draco said, pressing down with his hand in a way that showed how upset he was. Harry reached back to stroke his arm. He reckoned that he wasn’t the only one in this partnership who could read his partner’s emotions fairly well. “We can’t entirely stop the rumor. And now Pansy is more stubborn and intrigued than ever, because someone she loves is involved and because I told her that Harry was my chosen. I don’t know what to do.”

            “That seems fairly obvious to me,” Narcissa said. “You allow us to protect and defend you. You allow us to help you. That is why you came to us in the first place, isn’t it?” She leaned forwards, as if Harry’s response was important in a way he couldn’t fathom.

            “Yes,” Harry said, looking at her warily. He wondered whether she would be insulted that they had only told her the truth when they needed help.

            On the contrary, Narcissa gave a faint shadow of a smile. “And I assume that you will allow us to protect you in the way we see fit? No matter how much they might be tactics that you wouldn’t condone as part of an Auror investigation?”

            “No killing,” Harry said. Would he have to explain his case for why he hadn’t killed Laurent all over again? He didn’t think he could stand that right now. Draco nuzzled closer to him, as if sensing his tension and wanting to dissipate it.

            “Of course not,” Narcissa said, eyebrows rising as if she wondered what was going through Harry’s brain. Harry flushed, but felt better, a little. “But the immediate plan I can think of is going to cause hurt to this lover of Pansy’s. Does this matter to you? Will you interfere? I think that the less involvement you have with this, the easier it will be for you.”

            Harry shook his head. “I won’t interfere, but I have to have some part in it. Sitting back and waiting for other people to rescue me isn’t something I can do.”

            “How frustrating that must be for Draco,” Narcissa said, with a grave look that made Harry blink, not knowing how far she was teasing. “You can help us with it, as long as you do not care if one member of Laurent’s family, or more for that matter, are bewildered.”

            “I—yes, I can bear that,” Harry said. He was still half-braced, he realized, for a bad reaction or an overreaction. He tried to make himself stand a little calmer and looser in Draco’s arms, but that just caused his adrenaline level to rise. It was too much like forcing himself calm under combat conditions. “What are you going to do?”

            “I want you to speak to Pansy again,” Narcissa said, looking at Draco. She reached out a hand, and her husband was there to take it. Harry waited, realizing that delaying the revelation for the sake of drama was apparently something she liked to do, and mostly harmless. “Find out how much du Michel’s family knows about their various branches, and how much access to information about it they have.”

            Draco, Harry was pleased to see, looked just as puzzled as he did. “I had the impression that they didn’t know very much,” he said slowly. “For that matter, I don’t know why Pansy didn’t offer them what she had in the Parkinson records. Why come begging to us?”

            “Because Pansy knows that we have unmatched genealogical records,” Narcissa said. “Including information from centuries ago, on families that are extinct. I plan to change these records slightly.” She smiled, and the smile burned in a way that made Harry feel abruptly sorry for Russell du Michel. “Enough to suggest entire branches out there that Pansy’s lover doesn’t know about. If he wants family members to chase, then we will give him ones who do not exist.”

            “And while he charges about grasping at clouds and air,” Lucius murmured, expression alight, “we will have time to act in other ways. Such as by making sure that rumors of Laurent’s real crime reach the right ears.”

            Harry whipped his wand out, an entirely instinctive motion. Lucius looked at him with no hint of fear, and that as much as anything else made Harry pause long enough for Lucius to say soothingly, “The right ears, in this case, are people who will not tell all the world, because that would make the information lose its secrecy and exclusiveness. And of course we will not tell them who he raped. But I would imagine that calls for Laurent’s retrial are less likely to fall on sympathetic ears with rumors circulating.”

            Harry hesitated. He could see why it made sense, but he kept thinking—“You can’t control a rumor once you release it,” he muttered.

            “No,” Narcissa said. “But just as I intend to fill du Michel’s world with imaginary relatives, we will fill the air of the Ministry with rumors of imaginary crimes. Multiple crimes. Only no one will be able to say just who Laurent hurt. Undoubtedly your name will arise in some minds, in some mouths. We cannot control that, especially if anyone else who was at the trial decides to speak. But with so many names about, who can say which is the true one? Anyone speaking the truth will only release one more stream of polluted water into a swamp.” She smiled. Harry had thought that the scar on her face made her smiles more frightening, but in reality, he thought with a little shiver, they added nothing.

            “And under the cover of rumor,” Lucius added softly, “we plan our next move.”

            Harry blinked. “You mean that wasn’t it?”

            Draco kissed the back of his neck. “Of course not,” he said. “The Malfoys protect their own, Harry. All their lives.”

            Lucius and Narcissa nodded at the same time.

            Harry shut his eyes. He had thought he would feel ashamed with more people knowing about his secret. Ron and Hermione were the only ones who could make him feel otherwise, and lately Draco.

            Instead, he felt as if he had stepped, at last, into a second house of friends.

            And as if it wouldn’t be a mistake to trust them.

*

            Lady_of_Clunn: Thanks!

            I’m afraid the showdown will be a bit less dramatic than you might expect. This is a quiet fic and will stay that way, with a lot of the action on the emotional level instead.

            SP777: Draco does feel restricted, but on the other hand, he knew that when he started dating Harry. And the allure really isn’t meant to be used as a weapon, any more than the Memory Charm is.

            MiCD stands for Minor Character Death.

            polka dot: Draco has claws (when he wants to). He’d win.

            qwerty: Harry is finally starting to lean on other people, and even other’s people decisions, such as the one about how he would need more time off.

            Thank you.

            Night the Storyteller: For Draco, the Veela is integrated with the human, and the two together make up who he is. So he can be Harry’s loving, tender Veela and also the punisher of enemies. Harry doesn’t really realize this yet.

            nette: Draco no longer really feels sorry for Pansy, though he’ll avoid hurting her if he can.

            luvlustblood: Thanks!

            thrnbrooke: Thanks for reviewing.

            elfqueen114: She’s in love. It’s her reason for doing a lot of stupid things, just as it is Harry and Draco’s.

            SpiritOfBeyond: Thank you! Pansy is the main antagonist at this point, unless you count the memory of Laurent.
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