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
- 30
- 31
- 32
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Thirty-One—Identified

            “I don’t see why I should have to explain anything to you.”

            Harry offered Russell a thin smile as he settled into the chair across from him. He had been the Auror who made the formal arrest, so he was the one who would get to interrogate him. Kingsley had tried to object to that, pointing out Harry might not want to speak with someone who had attacked him and that he was still technically on holiday, but Harry had turned his head and looked at him. After that, Kingsley couldn’t leave them alone in one of the warded rooms fast enough.

            Harry himself had worried about whether he would feel upset, confined in a small space with someone who looked like Laurent, but Russell didn’t have the same kind of dangerous grace or lightness about him that Laurent did. Besides, Harry had just survived Draco’s full transformation. He felt calm and smug.

            “Because,” Harry said, “it might have escaped your notice, but you’ve been arrested now, for assault on an Auror and conspiracy to take hostages and commit blackmail. It’s to your advantage to cooperate.”

            Russell, who sat with his hands bound behind his back, only turned his head away. Harry rolled his eyes. He isn’t a Veela, but he has Laurent’s pride.

            As moments passed and Russell still didn’t speak, some of Harry’s anger and excitement faded. He wondered if he should think about this situation as an Auror, rather than a victim.

            “Something intrigues me,” he said casually. “Pansy told me that there was more than one of you, members of the family that Laurent belonged to. But you’re the only one we’ve heard of who’s tried to pursue him to this extent. What motivates you, what could motivate you, to spend so much of your time seeking out a cousin whom you don’t know?”

            Russell glared at him, but didn’t respond. There was a tightening of the lines around his mouth that made Harry sure he was going in the right direction, though.

            “Family,” he said. “Family means a lot to pure-bloods, I know. But I also know that disgrace means a lot to most of them. They won’t seek out someone they find was in trouble with the law or did something stupid. In fact, if possible, they prefer to disassociate themselves from the person as much as possible and pretend that they never existed. That would be easy for you to do, since you never knew Laurent in the first place. You could have come back to England and lived without the shadow of his crime. Instead, you tried to make sure that it would be cast over you, to the point of getting arrested yourself. Why?”

            “You can’t speak as though pure-bloods were a single monolithic entity,” Russell said, apparently stung into speech.

            “Why not? You do it with Muggleborns,” Harry murmured. “And anyway, you don’t need to look so upset at what I’m saying. Just thinking aloud, you see.”

            “I demand someone else speak to me.” Russell managed to look as though he would stand up and storm out of the room at any second, despite his arms being bound. “It’s surely not Ministry policy to let the Auror who weathered an attack speak to his attacker.”

            “There are times when that’s not allowed,” Harry said, and adopted an earnest expression. They were actually skimming close to one of those times right now, but he saw no reason why Russell should know that. “But Aurors do have the right to interrogate Dark wizards who dueled them. Otherwise, they would continually have to bring in Aurors who didn’t work those cases.”

            “I’m not a Dark wizard!” Russell’s eyes were practically bulging out of his head.

            “And yet you used Dark spells.” Harry linked his hands together over his stomach and let himself slump back in his chair. “I wonder. What could be the motivation to make you do that, when you must have known what would happen if someone from the Aurors managed to corner you?”

            Russell’s glare grew sharper, but he finally seemed to have realized that anything he said might count against him. He was silent.

            Harry nodded. “We have the combination of a motive that drives you to seek out a disgraced member of your family, attack an Auror, and try to blackmail Draco Malfoy—member of a family that happens to have the most substantial genealogical records of any of the pure-bloods. You want to know what I think?”



“I don’t, but I can see that I’m going to hear it anyway,” Russell said, with an attempt at a bored drawl that Draco could have bettered on his worst day.

“I think that this was about Draco all along, not about me,” Harry said. “Pansy approached him for help. You asked for him to come to that meeting, not me. You figured out that I would come along anyway, I’m sure, and that’s why you knew to have Pansy search the lawn for me under the Invisibility Cloak until she found me.” He paused, then added, “I would like to know how she located me and where you got the Cloak she was under. I know everyone knows about mine by now, since it’s been in the Prophet numerous times.”

“I used to work with the French Aurors,” Russell said. He leaned forwards, as if he had decided that surrendering this particular information might benefit him after all. “They had a rash of criminals using the Cloaks to commit crimes, and they developed spells that could detect them. When they captured the criminals, they gave out the Cloaks to those who understood their proper use.”

“Was that where you also picked up those Dark spells?” Harry asked sweetly, while making a mental note of what Russell had said. It would be easy enough to contact the French Aurors and ask if it was true.

            Russell looked suddenly wary, and didn’t respond.

            “So,” Harry went on, when he had waited a few minutes to give Russell a chance to pick up some good sense (an effort that was probably doomed). “You really wanted to see Laurent. And then you were desperate to know the truth behind those rumors. I think you wanted to know whether or not he was mad, whether or not he was a criminal. And why? Why not accept the word of those who knew him better, who had known him for far longer than you did?” Harry felt his breath catch, but he didn’t think Russell noticed. “Why did it have to be your own eyes?”

            Russell curled into himself a little.

            “I think I know,” Harry said. “Shall I tell you?”

            Russell tried to make some response, but his voice squeaked and dried up in his throat. Harry nodded. “I think it’s about a will. Inheritance. Someone along the way left money to you and to other members of your family that were still alive, or possibly to you and to Laurent specifically. But many pure-blood families will leave a codicil that says a legatee can be cut out of the will if they turn out to be criminals or otherwise in disgrace. That desire of separating themselves from people who can harm the family again. If you could prove Laurent had done something specific and heinous enough, then you would be able to take for yourself whatever was left to him, or other living relatives, under the will.”

            “You know nothing,” Russell whispered, but his face was white. “You don’t know anything about this particular situation.”

            “Particular situations often respond to general rules.” Harry stood, shaking his head. “Of course, I might be wrong. There are a few other explanations that could make sense. Do you want to give them?”

            Russell glared at him in silence. Harry smiled, not caring that the smile was cruel, and left the room. He would ask someone else to speak with Russell in turn, in case he was more forthcoming with others, but he had the explanation that satisfied him.

*

            Draco had noticed something strange when they brought Pansy into the Ministry. He had said nothing, but asked if he might sit in on her interrogation.

            The Aurors had stared at him warily, and then exchanged glances. They were a blonde woman with a nose like a ferret’s and a tall man with glasses that looked as if they might fall off his face at any moment. Draco knew he could charm them. It would be so easy to change the doubt in their eyes to trust that his back teeth ached with not doing it.

            But Harry was the powerful one in this environment, something Draco had forgotten. He leaned around Draco’s shoulder and raised an eyebrow, and suddenly the man and woman were stumbling all over themselves to give Draco a place in the interrogation room, though they warned him he would have to keep quiet.

            Draco nodded innocently. He had called his feathers back into his skin, and his claws and wings were retracted. He could look calm and normal. Pansy had been so deeply under his thrall that it was unlikely she would remember to be afraid of him.

            Her arm had been healed by the Aurors immediately, something Draco saw with regret. But then, he would have liked to do even worse to Russell, who had actually attacked Harry, so he was already resigned to not having perfect satisfaction of his feelings.

            He noticed the strange thing again as he sat in his chair behind the Aurors. Pansy raised her head and stared at them, but her left eye focused over their shoulders, and it was darker than the right.

            Draco narrowed his own eyes. Veela heritage, but not fully manifested, and Russell certainly wanted to see Laurent enough. I wouldn’t have thought she was susceptible, but then, I wouldn’t know, since I’m full Veela.

            The Aurors asked Pansy a few preliminary questions to begin. She answered the ones about her relationship with Russell and her desire to see Laurent easily enough, but when they asked why she’d attacked Harry, she stared and said, “I didn’t do that.”

            Draco leaned forwards. “I think I know why,” he murmured.

            Pansy looked at him and then away, as though to say that no one could punish her for a quick glance. Her hands locked together as she peered at the knuckles. “I don’t remember everything, but I know enough,” she said. “You shouldn’t have any part in this, Draco.”

            “Were you aware that because Russell has Veela heritage in his family, he might be able to influence you, even though he couldn’t use the allure?” Draco asked calmly.

            The Aurors shifted their weight, and the woman, who’d been introduced to him as Auror Penhollow, suddenly looked thoughtful. Pansy flinched once, and then sat up and met his gaze with the calmness that meant she’d decided not to react visibly. “I don’t believe that,” she said. “I know what allure feels like, thanks to having dated you. He couldn’t have used that on me without my noticing.”

            Draco sighed. “I’m not talking about the allure. I’m talking about something else, which doesn’t have a proper name. It’s rare, and I’m not surprised I didn’t think of it at first. It needs someone with Veela heritage and a burning purpose, as well as a susceptible person, to come together, and that doesn’t happen very often.”

            Only the slight tick of Pansy’s head showed that she was listening. The Aurors looked fascinated, and Penhollow was scribbling notes on a piece of parchment Draco hadn’t realized she had with her.

            “That ability isn’t conscious,” Draco said. “I’m sure that du Michel didn’t realize he was doing it. He didn’t know he could; most of those who wield it don’t. But he transferred his burning purpose to you, and made you desperate to accomplish it in turn. That explains why you went as far as you did in trying to find out the truth about Laurent du Michel, when you should have been satisfied with the fact that he was in Azkaban.”

            Pansy sighed out between her clenched teeth. “Let’s say that you’re right,” she said. “Why am I here?”

            Draco almost smiled, and could have if he didn’t remember her holding the wand against Harry’s neck. Pansy had recovered enough balance to try and throw her captors off-guard, and she would insist on her rights.

            “Because you still did things under that influence that could be considered criminal,” he said. “Such as provoking a Veela by threatening his chosen. Near the Blazing Season, no less.” Pansy knew the date of the Blazing Season as well as Draco did; Draco had always suspected she had left him when she did partially to avoid it. But the desire Russell had implanted in her head would have driven her far enough for that not to matter.

            “Then I’ve been punished, haven’t I?” This time, Pansy looked at her tightly bandaged arm.

            “That’s for the Aurors to decide,” Penhollow said, apparently having decided that Draco had gone far enough in controlling the interrogation. “Of course, if you acted under the influence of this—this,” she said, after a look at Draco that invited him to contribute a name, “all charges will be dropped, the same way that they would be if you had acted under an Imperius Curse or a compulsion potion.”

            “Thank you,” Pansy said with some dignity.

            Draco unfolded his wings. He’d repaired his clothes in the front with quick charms, but used only an illusion across the scraps on his back, because he’d known that he might have to free his wings again. The two Aurors both reared backwards in their chairs. Pansy kept herself still, but Draco could see how hard that was for her.

            “A warning,” Draco said, staring into her eyes. “You’re still my friend. And if you acted under this binding from Russell, without knowing what it was, then I can forgive you—eventually.”

            Pansy raised her eyebrows. Balanced on the edge of a threat, she still retained more of her composure than Draco thought he might be able to. “Then what is the point of your looming at me like this? I assure you that I don’t find it impressive.”

            “You still threatened my chosen,” Draco said. “I won’t forgive that. And the Blazing Season is about to start. Veela have got away with murder when defending their chosen during that time before. Keep that in mind, if you start thinking that you require vengeance for what happened today.”

            Pansy clenched her hands down in her lap, started to reply, and then seemed to remember that Draco hadn’t been punished for what he did to her arm. She nodded with pinched lips. “You needn’t fear,” she said. “I don’t have an intention of coming near you or your precious chosen again.”

            “Jealousy doesn’t become you,” Draco said, and furled his wings and bowed to the Aurors before she could reply. As he strode out of the room, he heard her voice raised in protest. He smiled.

            Harry was waiting for him in the corridor, and it made Draco’s heart quiescent for a moment when he realized how much weariness fell away from Harry’s face as he saw Draco. “Russell was doing what he did because of the du Michel inheritance,” Harry said. “One of those cases where he could have got Laurent disqualified under the law, as long as what he did was sufficiently criminal. He won’t admit it, of course, but I’m virtually certain. And right now, I think I’ll let someone else handle the more detailed questioning.”

            “Good,” Draco said. “Pansy was acting under an unconscious impulse from Russell because of his Veela heritage. Not the allure, but something like it, something that only those who are the carriers of Veela traits without having my most glorious accoutrements can use.” He spread his wings so that they filled the corridor from end to end and fanned them towards Harry, watching for his reaction.

            Harry shut his eyes for a moment, but nodded and managed to speak without a stutter. Draco knew he was sensitive right now because the adrenaline had diminished without giving him any support in its place. “That sounds about right. I’m glad that she’s unlikely to go to Azkaban, then.”

            “Are you?” Draco murmured, stalking a little closer. He lowered his wings from their arched position and held them at his sides. “Why?”

            “Because she wasn’t the one who tried to hurt me,” Harry said. “That was Russell. And because she’s your friend.”

            “She threatened you,” Draco said. “That’s enough.” He cocked his head and studied Harry. Yes, his hands had started to shake, and his face was a bit grey. “You need to get home.”

            “Yes,” Harry said. “And I don’t—Draco, you can come with me, but please, can you put the wings away?”

            Draco folded them back into his shoulders, though it was hard. He wanted to defend his chosen, and Harry actually looked as if he needed defending more now than he had on the battlefield with Pansy and Russell. Of course, he knew how to handle a fight, Draco thought. He didn’t think Harry had ever really known how to handle the recovery.

            “Thank you for thinking that my friendship with her matters,” he said.

            Harry blinked at him. “Of course it does.” He held out his arm, as if he thought Draco was the one who might need to lean on him. “Let’s figure out what we’re going to tell your parents and my friends. Ron’s probably heard about it already, but Hermione and your parents will appreciate details.”

            “Yes, they will,” Draco said, dipping his head so that his face briefly rested against Harry’s shoulder. “If only to know where to send the poison.”

            Harry didn’t give him a lecture about morality, as Draco had half-expected, or a shocked denial that his precious friend Granger would ever do such a thing. Instead, he gave Draco the beginning of a glare and then sighed and grabbed his arm, tugging it. “Come on.”

            That so pleased Draco that it made up for not being able to parade through the Ministry, wings stretched out and draped over Harry, at once sheltering him from harmful gazes and courting the envious and covetous ones.

            Yes, the Blazing Season is coming.

*

            “But have you seen someone?” Hermione’s voice was so serious that Harry winced. “I know most of the Healers at St. Mungo’s aren’t good for you, but what about that Healer Malfoy said you’d been to see a few times? You might have been hurt, Harry.”

            “I wasn’t,” Harry snapped, and then tried to calm down. He knew that the only thing wrong with him was shock, but he couldn’t expect his friends to, when they hadn’t been in the battle themselves. Hell, Draco had made him sit down when they got to Harry’s house, brought him fruit drinks—ones that Harry had had to cast a few spells on—and then watched him like a hawk until he went into the bedroom to use the Floo connection there.

            “It was unexpected,” he said. “And dealing with Draco in full Veela form was hard.” He hadn’t elaborated on all the details of that, because he didn’t want to hear, at the moment, how Draco was wrong for ripping Parkinson’s arm apart. Harry had come to terms with that on his own. “But neither of us was so much as scratched.”

            “If he used Dark spells, you might be affected by something that you don’t know about until it starts showing up,” Hermione began authoritatively.

            “He’s well, Granger. Do you think I would let him simply sit here, arguing with you for minutes at a time, if he wasn’t?”

            Harry jumped badly. He had assumed, without knowing why, that Draco’s conversation with his parents would take much longer than his own conversation with Hermione, and so he hadn’t paid attention to any sounds that would have indicated he was coming out of the bedroom. Draco put a hand on Harry’s shoulder as he tried to move away and bent down, supposedly watching Hermione but eyeing Harry at the same time.

            Harry could feel the silent question that beat between them like strokes of Draco’s wings: Do you need me to leave?

            He settled down again and shook his head. He knew his cheeks were flushed, and Hermione’s eyes were darting curiously back and forth between him and Draco. Harry hoped that she wouldn’t try to figure out—whatever it was that she thought she should figure out. Draco walked around the couch to sit beside him and loop an arm about Harry’s shoulders, and that was enough to deal with.

            “No, I suppose not,” Hermione said at last. “But I think someone should stay with him tonight.”

            “I will, if he permits it,” Draco said, and looked at her until Hermione nodded a little. Harry didn’t understand what was so funny, but she wore a faint smile.

            “Good,” she said. “If you’re sure that Russell du Michel is in custody and Ron doesn’t need to go and beat him up, then I’ll end the call.” She shook her head at Harry. “Stay as safe as you can.”

            “I will,” Harry said, and smiled at her. Hermione ended the firecall with a chuckle that he didn’t understand and a mutter that sounded as though she had begun speaking to someone else, probably Ron. The last thing he heard was a wail from Rose, abruptly cut off as the flames disappeared from the hearth.

            They sat in silence for a minute or so, until Draco stirred and Harry turned to look at him.

            “There are things we need to talk about,” Draco said.

            Harry nodded. He recognized that. “One of them is that you aren’t sorry for what you did to Pansy,” he said, “and you would do it again if you thought someone put me in danger.” He paused. “I don’t understand why you didn’t react the same way to Russell, though.”

            Draco grimaced and raked a hand through his hair. “Because the Veela instincts aren’t rational,” he said. “I didn’t see him dueling you, although I was aware that it was happening, and I would have known at once if he’d hurt you and turned around to deal with that. But Pansy was the visible threat.”

            “And you probably felt more betrayed by her than you did by Russell, right?” Harry touched his arm, trying to imagine what he would feel if it turned out that Hermione or Ron had attacked someone important to him—Draco, for example. “I’m sorry. It can’t have been easy to lose her friendship.”

            Draco jerked, as though Harry had drawn attention to a hidden wound after all, and then shook his head. “It does now. It didn’t at the time. I was only thinking about you and how she might have hurt you, despite all the precautions we took.” He gripped Harry’s hand and squeezed it, hard. “That’s the worst thing about the Blazing Season, Harry. I’m going to focus on you whether the focus makes any sense or not, whether it’s what I should do, or whether it’s what I would do if I was in my right mind. That’s why the jealousy isn’t rational and I might get upset if Granger or Weasley touches you. Most of the time, I would know they were no threat. But this isn’t most of the time.”

            Harry nodded. “I know,” he said. Easy to discuss, hard to live with. But he ignored the temptation to scoot away from Draco and push himself into a corner of the couch. He had seen Draco in full Veela form, felt those wings wrap around him with intent to hide, and had survived. That would make future victories a bit easier. “I’m prepared to do what I have to to help you with that.”

*

            Draco closed his eyes. He had thought Harry’s instincts would push him away from Draco during this approach to the Blazing Season. After all, he still insisted on testing the food Draco brought him for spells. What were the chances he would understand, emotionally as well as intellectually, what Draco had to ask of him?

            But he should have remembered those other instincts Harry had. If he could help someone, protect them, or at least think he was, it was always easier for him.

            “Thank you,” he said, taking Harry’s hand and kissing the back of it. Harry flushed and flinched in the same moment, but kept still, watching him with bright eyes. “Then I think we’ll start the practice in a few days, once we can be assured that Pansy and Russell aren’t any more danger to us.”

            Harry must have caught a hint of smugness in his tone, because he frowned. “Why can we be sure of that in a few days?”

            “Mother and Father will make sure,” Draco said, with a casual shrug that he knew didn’t fool Harry.

            “I don’t want them to go to prison for murder,” Harry said.

            Draco had to snort at that. “Do you think they’re so crude? No, it will only be a little bit of temporary suffering, less than what I did to Pansy.”

            Harry didn’t look convinced. Draco pulled him close, resting his chin on Harry’s head and hoping that would soothe the restlessness that continually darted around the center of his chest like a hummingbird made of fire.

            “They’re going to protect you,” Draco whispered. “That’s one thing you’ll have to be aware of and accept. No, their protective instincts aren’t the same as mine, but they’re still part of the bargain.”

            Harry inhaled so long and deep that Draco was sure he was going to shout a protest. Then he released it and muttered, “I can live with that.”

            Draco kissed his ear. “I hope that I can help you go beyond living with it, and show you how to desire it, as well,” he whispered.

            Harry turned his head and kissed him back, on the mouth, fingers digging into his shoulders. Draco shuddered, and Harry caught his eye with a fierce look that didn’t disguise the fear in his face, but which Draco loved all the better for that.

            “You won’t be the only one doing the teaching,” Harry said.

            Draco didn’t extend his wings to wrap around Harry. He didn’t have to, when the contentment, triumph, and pride of possession could be expressed by his hands and mouth.

*

            Lady_of_Clunn: Thank you! Draco probably would not have killed Pansy, but it’s hard to tell; he might have stopped before the point he fantasized about reaching even if Harry didn’t intervene.

            And Harry is going to feel a few bad consequences later.

            SP777: No! I mostly combined the canon description of Veela with the one that I think has been established by this story and the fact that birds are related to reptiles.

            nekoyoka: Thank you!

            polka dot: Harry would have been much less merciful if they’d actually managed to injure him or Draco.

            nette: I hope you are satisfied with their ultimate fates, which might be more merciful than you were hoping for.

            Harry’s main worry right now is that he’ll have to get better much, much faster.

            Elizabeth Spiegel: Thank you!

            Wölkchen: Thank you! As Draco tells Harry here, he will do even worse than that as the Blazing Season approaches.

            And sorry, no confrontation between Draco and Laurent.

            Night the Storyteller: Thanks! Harry couldn’t imagine leaving now, and not just because it would distress Draco.

            SisterGryffin-SisterSlytherin: Thank you! However, at this point Harry has no reason to confront his rapist. He and Draco will have more than enough to do in the last few chapters as they get ready for the Blazing Season.
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