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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- 28
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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Twenty-Eight—Rumored

            “What have you done?”

            Draco opened one blurry eye. He’d gone back to his house last night, although he much rather would have spent it at Harry’s. Harry had confessed that he needed some time alone after everything that had happened that day—the revelation about Pansy, the decision to seek Draco’s parents’ help, the long waiting period—and Draco could have used it, too, after his confrontations. So he had come back home and fallen asleep in front of the fire without a care for his crumpled clothes.

            Now a voice was demanding his attention from the flames. But there was no need for him to spring up immediately, because listening had already told him that it wasn’t Harry’s voice. Draco took his time about yawning, sitting up, and stretching, then reaching back to smooth his mussed hair flat.

            “Draco, answer me!”

            His slow awakening had another advantage: it allowed his brain to catch up with his ears. Draco smiled lazily at Pansy’s outraged face, hovering in the flames in front of him, and crossed his legs. “I don’t know what you mean,” he drawled.

            “There are rumors flying everywhere.” Pansy was scowling in the way that had always made her face look pinched and unattractive. “Rumors about Laurent and about other relatives in the du Michel line. The records you gave me said that Laurent was the only one still surviving!”

            Draco showed her his teeth and said nothing.

            “You can’t—you can’t have given me the wrong records,” Pansy said, but now there was a thread of uncertainty in her voice. “That doesn’t make sense. The ones you gave me had all the people in all the correct places and everything.”

            “Ah,” Draco said, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. It had pleasant patterns in the mingled firelight and light of early morning, he noticed absently. He’d never seen that before. Of course, he usually wasn’t up at this hour. “I’m sure that you know our genealogical records are the most complete of any of the pure-blood families’.”

            Pansy was silent—suspicious, Draco knew, though he didn’t look down to see the expression on her face.

            “We’ve always kept records of families that have gone extinct, or lost their honor, or married Muggles and lost their magic.” Draco looked down and smiled at her. “It’s all part of a long project to prove that Muggleborns really come from the inheritance of magic along Muggle lines from pure-blood ancestors. Now, of course, that won’t make them part of our world or our culture; it won’t entitle them to the honors their ancestors possessed. But it could undercut this rhetoric that magic is something that simply happens and isn’t inherited from anybody. That in turn would undercut some of the Muggleborns’ political ambitions—”

            “Draco.”

            Draco turned his hand up and wriggled his fingers in dismay. “But, Pansy, I was explaining why we have lots of records stored that show du Michel relatives in other branches. I wouldn’t want you to think we were lying about it, after all.”

            “Are you lying?” Pansy leaned nearer, though from Draco’s perspective her head seemed to bob in the flames as though someone had wrenched it by the hair. “That’s the reason I firecalled in the first place.”

            Draco dropped the smile. “Continue threatening my chosen and you’ll never know.”

            “I told you we were alike,” Pansy said, suddenly deciding that her voice would be more impressive if it was soft. “I told you that we would defend our loved ones. And I’ve decided to defend Russell. You can’t drive us apart with rumors and lies.”

            Draco said nothing. He had already expressed everything he had to say on that subject. In reality, he thought Pansy rather stupid for calling again and acting as though there was something still to be said between them.

            “Russell’s not a Veela,” Pansy said after a moment’s silence. “He hasn’t enchanted me. He hasn’t used any allure on me. I’m simply in love with him. I wonder if Potter can say the same thing about you?”

            Draco bathed for a moment in rage so hot that it felt as if he were standing in the middle of a volcano. The urge to attack and hurt anyone who suggested such a thing, who impugned his relationship with his chosen, was incredible.

            But because he was human as well as Veela, and because Pansy probably hoped to provoke an attack like that to wrest information from him or at least make the legal waters muddier, Draco forced himself to stop and think, to analyze her words. And then he smiled, because Pansy had been telling the truth with the phrases she used so far, a truth that could damage her.

            “You say that you’re in love with him,” he said, and his words were a low and soft tone he didn’t think Harry could have faulted, though Harry would probably have understood the danger better than Pansy. “That he doesn’t share Laurent’s Veela blood, and hasn’t compelled or corrupted you.”

            Pansy sniffed and tilted her head so far back that Draco was looking up her nostrils. “That’s right.”

            “But is he in love with you?” Draco asked quietly.

            Pansy’s head snapped down again.

            “I know that you’re scrupulous with your words,” Draco said. That you’re sometimes self-betraying, as I noticed when you began telling me that you wanted out of our relationship long before you actually said it. But there was no reason for him to mention that at the moment. “I know that you wouldn’t have hesitated to brag about his devotion to you if he had it. Instead, you’ve only talked about your devotion to him. Does he love you? Or is he only using you because you have access to the information that he wants? Isn’t he more in love with the ideal of his family, the idea of meeting Laurent again, than he is with you?”

            Pansy was breathing hard, and her eyes were hot with hatred. Draco tilted his head and gave her a winsome smile, and as he had thought it would, that spilled her over the edge and gave her something to prove to him.

            “How dare you—you say things like that when every love that you pick and choose is false because of your allure and your needs!” Pansy curled her fingers into claws and acted as though she would rake them across the hearth. Draco kept himself tightly under control, though he would have liked to reach through the flames and scoop her eyes out. “You can never know whether something’s real. Potter can’t know, either. Should I tell him?”

            Human weapons would defend his chosen better at the moment than Veela weapons, which was the only reason Draco didn’t grow claws. He shrugged, keeping his muscles loose and relaxed. “You can if you like, but I think you’ll find that he’s already considered that and decided against it. You have no idea how self-doubting he is.”

            Pansy practically shrieked the next words. “You have no right!”

            Draco stared at her and let his silence say all the things that she should already know. He had sworn that he would do anything to defend his chosen. He was simply doing it.

            Pansy snarled and shut down the Floo. Draco rose to his feet and cast a Tempus Charm, then set another charm that would ring when an hour had passed. He could give Harry that much time alone before he invaded.

            But he did need to touch his chosen, hear him, smell him. The metallic taste coating the back of his throat now and his immediate violent reaction to even the thought of Harry with someone else confirmed that his reactions last night hadn’t been chance. The Blazing Season was coming.

            Draco grimaced. Another wonderful thing that I somehow need to open in conversation with him.

*

            “Good morning, dear.”

            Harry blinked. He had expected to find Draco in his fireplace that morning, not Narcissa.

            She smiled at him, the scar brilliant across her face. “I hope that you don’t mind me calling you. I wanted to tell you that both sets of rumors, the one about the du Michels and the one about the victims of Laurent’s crimes, are in motion. You’re not completely protected yet, but we’re drawing the cloak about you.”

            “I—thank you,” Harry said, because that was all he could say to such an extraordinary pronouncement at eight-o’clock in the morning. He rubbed his eyes and sat down in the chair in front of the fireplace, wondering if this would be a long conversation. He did have a question he wanted to ask that might prolong it. “Mrs. Malfoy—”

            “You gave me permission to use your first name,” Narcissa said serenely, gathering what were probably the folds of a cloak around her, though Harry found them difficult to see from this perspective. “Why should I give you less?”

            “Um, yes,” Harry said, though what he really wanted to say was But you’ve given me so much already. “But—are you sure that you want to do this? Couldn’t it be dangerous for you? I know that you don’t have the protections that you used to.” That was as close as he could come to saying that he knew they had lost prestige and power in the war.

            Narcissa raised an eyebrow. “Unless you know an immediate source of danger, I wonder that you ask the question. Did you not approach us in the first place because you needed help?”

            “Yes,” Harry said. “But I didn’t think, then, about what it might mean for you to help me. I only thought of it later.” It was one of the reasons he’d slept badly last night. “I mean, you don’t have Draco’s obligations to help me.”

            Narcissa studied him in silence for some time. Harry found himself unexpectedly comfortable with that. At least he knew she was taking his objections seriously, which wasn’t something many people appeared to do.

            “Lucius and I do think of it in terms of obligation,” Narcissa said at last, “though ones that you may be unfamiliar with. We are bound to you by Draco’s choice. And I do believe that, this time, it is his final one,” she added, as though she could feel Harry’s objection that Draco had chosen once before and been wrong coming. “We wish to see Draco happy, and that means that we wish to see you happy.”

            “You’re right,” Harry said. “It wouldn’t have occurred to me that you’d see it like that. I mean, he could have chosen someone you disapproved of.”

            Narcissa sniffed. “He would never choose someone entirely unsuitable. He is our son, after all.”

            Harry found himself smiling. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed someone who could joke with him. He and Draco might make each other laugh more in the future, but for right now, their relationship was simply too fraught for that.

            “And we can overcome all lesser objections,” Narcissa said. “Besides, your power, your intelligence, your efforts to help our family, all create their own sort of obligation.” A small, sly smile tugged at the side of her mouth. “As does your beauty, though it is not the kind of thing I can say in front of Draco for some months yet.”

            Harry felt his face flame. He tried to clear his throat. “I don’t understand that, either. But I have—I mean, I hope I have months and years to understand it.”

            Narcissa’s smile was full-fledged this time. “You do indeed. I wished to tell you that you may receive startling news later today. I ask that you not react to it, other than to calmly nod and accept it. If you rejected it out of hand, or showed too much surprise, it would dishonor us.”

            “Uh—all right,” Harry said, wondering why she didn’t simply tell him what the news was beforehand. But maybe, like delaying the revelation of her plans, this was simply a little quirk that he needed to put up with.

            Narcissa smiled once more and then vanished into the flames. Harry shook his head and went to make himself breakfast.

*

            Draco knocked twice on Harry’s door, and then again. His hand was moving quicker than he liked, and so was his mind. He could imagine Harry wrapped around someone else all too easily. Not that Harry would really want to cheat on him, Harry wasn’t that kind of person, but other people would want Harry, of course. How could they help it?

            The relief when Harry opened the door, alone, and Draco could clearly see and smell no else in the house, was like a cool bath. Draco reached for his hand and kissed it twice on the back before he stepped in.

            “Are you all right?” Harry’s gaze was bright and curious.

            Draco hated to dim it by speaking the truth, but hiding that truth would be even worse. He swallowed and said, “I’m sorry. I’m feeling these intense jealousies, rages that make no sense, and the need to touch you even when I’m certain that you don’t want me to do so.”

            Harry stiffened at once, smile vanishing, though Draco could see that he’d fought the impulse to move away. “The Blazing Season,” he muttered.

            Draco nodded, trying not to lick his lips as he watched Harry’s face. Harry might take that as threatening at the moment, and besides, if Draco gave in and went with the impulse, he’d probably also go with the impulse to lick the whole of Harry’s face, and then his body, and then his cock.

            Harry turned his back and paced a few steps, back and forth. Despite that, he remained as close to Draco as before. Draco felt his shoulders relax. Either Harry was thinking carefully about what he could do to help Draco or he was doing it instinctively, and either was a good sign.

            “I’ve read the books, of course,” Harry murmured. “And I remember some of what Laurent told me.”

            “Don’t judge anything that I do by him,” Draco said, snapping the words with a viciousness that he didn’t consider at all until they were spoken.

            Harry only gave him a long, slow look, and then a brilliant smile, though Draco didn’t know the reason behind it. “I won’t,” he said. “But I have to know what you need from me during the Blazing Season. I’ve tried to guess and tried to think about it rationally and tried to disentangle the knowledge I already have from my memories—” his voice shook for a moment “—but it isn’t working. I need you to tell me. I thought at first that I could lock myself in my bedroom for three weeks, but that isn’t going to work, is it?”

            Draco became aware he was hissing like a teakettle, and probably had been from the moment Harry spoke of locking himself away. He stopped the sound with an effort. “No,” he said. “I think—I could get through it, Harry, but I’d end up—” He tried to think of a word, and made a weary gesture instead.

            “I know,” Harry said. “So we have to think of something different.” He clenched his hands, and with his every sense focused on him, Draco heard him softly counting to three under his breath. Then he appeared to hurl himself into what he had to say next, though it made his cheeks burn even more. “I—look, the two hardest things for me to bear are going to be the jealousy and you topping me. Let’s discuss the jealousy first. What can help reduce the displays of it?”

            “Being close to me,” Draco said, and it felt as if the anxiety in his chest had turned to honey. His chosen was trying. “Not touching anyone else for too long. I’m sorry, but even hugs are going to strain me.”

            Harry nodded. “Would you kill someone if they hugged me?”

            “Not if you keep your hands at your sides and don’t encourage them,” Draco said, and then realized, from Harry’s sharp stare, that that wasn’t the best answer to the question. “Probably not kill,” he admitted. “But I’d hurt them badly.”

            Harry frowned and rapped his fingers against his elbow. Draco wanted to stop him and take the fingers one by one into his mouth. “All right,” he said finally. “We’ll see what we can do. And the—how essential is it that you be in control during sex?” He was trying to speak like Granger, Draco thought, distant from the subject, but his eyes turned away and his nails dug hard enough into his palms that Draco could smell blood.

            Carefully, Draco stepped forwards and uncurled Harry’s fingers. Harry watched him, blinking now and then. Draco lifted Harry’s left palm to his face and began to lick at the shallow, bleeding scratches.

            Harry seemed frozen, watching the motions of Draco’s tongue with gratifying attention, shivering and sweating before the end. While Draco attended to Harry’s right palm, Harry shut his eyes and froze between pleasure and anxiety.

            Draco nuzzled his face into Harry’s neck and returned his mind to the question. “I can tolerate some giving up of control,” he said. “If something else compensates for it. If I can direct your movements, for example. Or if I can ride you, which would gratify the Veela instincts by having you beneath me.”

            Harry made a sudden gagging noise and ripped away from Draco. Then he covered his face with his hands and struggled for breath. Draco watched, longing to go to him, but not sure it was the best thing right now.

“Well, who knew,” Harry said at last, voice thick with sarcasm that almost concealed his humiliation. “Apparently being held down beneath someone bothers me more than having something up my arse.”

Draco smiled, caught so strongly between conflicting emotions at the moment—distress at his chosen’s distress, which he could feel through the influence; an anxiety to promise whatever was needed so that Harry would stay with him; desire and anger that he himself might be hurt during the Blazing Season—that he couldn’t move.

Harry made a few gulping noises, and then turned to face Draco. His face was pale, but composed. “We’ll fight this,” he said. “We’ll find a way, just like we found a way to get out of this nasty situation with Pansy and Oblansky because your parents helped us.”

            “That was your suggestion,” Draco said, moving a little closer again. He reached out, and Harry nodded, so Draco stroked his shoulder. “But I have to admit, I can’t see a way out of the situation right now. Can you?”

            “The only thing I can think of is to get me used to it a bit at a time,” Harry said, staring at the wall as if he was imagining horrors. “To practice, the way I practiced with seeing a Veela’s wings until I could do it.”

            Draco’s cock ached at the idea of “practice.” “When do you want to start?” he asked, and his voice was husky. He couldn’t help it.

            Harry gave him a startled glance, and then laughed. The laugh unwound still more of Draco’s tension. He rested his head against the hand on Harry’s shoulder and waited, confident his chosen would have the answers.

            It was an unexpectedly pleasant sensation, to be able to give up a bit of responsibility to someone else. Perhaps that was a good sign, and he would be able to do the same thing during the Blazing Season.

            “Not right away,” Harry said, which it took Draco a moment to realize was the answer to his question. “Not until I’ve got a better idea of what I should do, and how far is too far.” He bit one of his knuckles, and Draco claimed his hand so that he could lick it instead. Harry caught his breath, eyes widening, before he continued in a husky voice of his own. “I think we should wait a few days until we see how Parkinson and Oblansky are reacting to the rumors.”

            “I spoke with Pansy this morning,” Draco said, reluctantly stopping his task of learning what his chosen’s skin tasted like. He knew some of it already, of course, but every part of Harry’s body must be different. “She was infuriated. She seemed inclined to doubt that the rumors were true, but she won’t dare ignore them, just in case they turn out to be. And I learned that she’s in love with this Russell, but he doesn’t seem to be in love with her.”

            Harry raised his eyebrows. “You think there’s something to exploit there?”

            “Perhaps,” Draco said. “I was thinking of speaking with him face-to-face. Could you do that?”

            Harry’s color would have done credit to a ghost just then. “Not if he looks anything like Laurent. I can’t—King said that the reason I feel such rage for Laurent is magical, an aftereffect of his deep allure. I’m afraid I might feel that rage when I see his relative, and lash out.”

            He sounded terrified, of himself. Draco stood up and embraced him the way he’d been longing to since he got here, feeling the role of protector settle on his shoulders once more, not that he minded. “Hush,” he murmured. “There’s no reason that you should have to face him. I’ll go and speak with him. It’s possible that he’s more reasonable than Pansy.” Draco didn’t hold out much hope of that, actually, since Pansy was unlikely to fall in love with someone much different than she was. But the possibility existed, and mentioning it soothed Harry. There was no reason not to hope.

            Harry touched Draco’s neck and then his nose as if he was seeking some place to let his hand rest. Draco was about to offer a suggestion when Harry murmured, “I already find it hard to be without you. How did you do that?”

            Draco arched his neck again, though without spreading his wings, and even though there was no one in the room but Harry to display for. He says things like that, he told his invisible audience. He’s mine. I make him happy.

            Before he could reply aloud, a bird knocked on the window. Draco went without asking to retrieve its message, especially when he saw that the bird was a large raven instead of an owl. Ravens were used for communications from a very few specialized sections of the Ministry and Gringotts.

            Wondering, he handed the letter to Harry. The raven landed on the mantelpiece and proceeded to preen itself, cocking its head back and forth and fastening one intelligent eye on Draco as if it could sense his avian heritage and disapproved.

            Harry undid the seal on the letter and stared at the contents. He stared so long that Draco stalked towards him to read it over his shoulder, fearing what the letter might say.

            There was a lot of legal language and flowery congratulations that Draco knew he could dismiss; the real information lay at the heart of the third paragraph.

            We are pleased to inform you that you are now the owner of a property known as Mabinogion House, located in Wales. The exact location must remain a secret until you have come to Gringotts to personally claim the key to the wards. This property, a house of two floors and large cellars, contains numerous magical artifacts that…

            Draco took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He might have dreamed up such a gesture, but he hadn’t, and all thanks were due to the people who had.

            “What is this?” Harry’s voice was small and shaken, like a child’s. “Your mother said there was news coming that would startle me, but—what is this, Draco?”

            Draco, in the midst of his wonder and delight, felt another kind of delight that his chosen would turn to him for information now. He put his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “Mabinogion House belongs—belonged—to my mother’s side of the family,” he said softly. “No one’s lived in it for years, but it has house-elves that keep it up. Her mother willed it to her when she died. And now my mother’s chosen to make a present of it to you.”

            “Look,” Harry said in a clipped tone, wheeling around to face Draco so that Draco could see the spark in his eyes, “you can’t—she can’t just give me a—a house. I mean, what the fuck?”

            Draco laughed and hugged Harry, spinning him in a circle. Harry went along with it, though he was scowling. Draco dropped Harry back in place, smiled at him, and said, “Mabinogion House is the most heavily warded property we have, Harry. When you go in there for the first time and confirm yourself as owner to the house-elves, the wards will become responsive to you only. You can make it a fortress. You can hold anyone, even me, away.”

            Harry closed his eyes tightly and said nothing. Draco saw the faint light of a tear under one eyelid, but he didn’t remark on it.

            Partially because Harry had leaned forwards and kissed him with a desperate hunger, of course, but also because he knew Harry’s pride. He could be lustful and sensitive at the same time.

*

            nette: Thanks! I also think Narcissa is scarier, at least in this particular story.

            Lady_of_Clunn: Thank you!

            Having the Malfoys know about his secret may actually bring Harry closer to them. Not all of the Weasleys know about his rape, so that keeps him somewhat separate from them.

            qwerty: Thank you!

            SP777: Thank you! Narcissa and Lucius are going to do even more devastating things with what Draco has discovered about Pansy.

            polka dot: Russell isn’t a Veela. On the other hand, he may also not be in love with her.

            thrnbrooke: And even more of one, since Narcissa’s gift in this chapter.

            Caldonya: Thanks! I had fun with that reference, too.

            Night the Storyteller: Harry is appreciative, but also bewildered that they would go to such lengths.

            Harry is starting to ask now. He can’t just realize the needs Draco will have on his own, because Laurent has given him a Very Bad Example.

            Mia: Harry and Draco both certainly hope so.

            luvlustblood: Thank you!

            Sneakyfox: Thank you!
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