Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

Nature of the Beast	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 48976 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

Chapter List
- 31
- 32
- 33
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Two--Holding Up and Holding On
            "I find it interesting that you're still here, Mr. Potter."
            Harry turned around on the stairs, wincing. Draco had been the one who wanted to play this particular game, setting it up so that it looked like Harry was by himself and Draco was out of sight further up the stairs. He wouldn't leave Harry alone in front of his mother, of course, he had reassured Harry, as though he thought Harry was shaking in his boots from fear of Narcissa Malfoy.
            But Harry disliked the feeling that he was essentially helping to set Narcissa up.
            Draco had discarded that objection as so much rubbish, and while Harry understood why, it was still a tight, unpleasant ball of irritation coiling in his stomach as he turned around.
            "I thought about it," he said quietly. "And I decided that I need to talk to Draco before I make any decisions. After all, he's the one who's most involved here. It's his future that I'm abrogating it to myself to decide."
            Narcissa moved a single, quick step forwards, her head tilted back and eyes so wide it was almost funny. Almost, Harry reminded himself, and stood straight and still with some difficulty. Even though he found the way Draco had assumed he was afraid of Narcissa insulting, there was also some basis to such a fear. A little.
            "You know I am going to bring his mate into this house in a little while, and yet you linger here." Narcissa shook her head in seeming wonder. "Do you like to torture yourself as much as you do other people?"
            Harry winced, but reminded himself that Draco was also the one who had to decide if what he had done in the library that day was worth the rupture of the bond. And Harry hadn't thought of it as abuse until Narcissa dripped the idea into his mind, and it had been the only way to get Draco to back off at the time.
            “I didn’t know you were going to bring his mate into the house in a little while, no.” Harry sincerely doubted Draco had known that. He shifted his weight so that he was standing braced in front of Narcissa, and folded his arms. It was for the best to appear at least a little defiant, and that way, Narcissa wouldn’t suspect any of the plans they had. “Does she know he has one?”
            “She knows that he was matched with someone who hasn’t managed to make him happy.” Narcissa’s voice was so low it sounded deadly. She had her head bowed, her hands rubbing back and forth as if she stood before a fire that didn’t really warm her. “How much more than that she may know, she will have discerned. I have not told her more than that.”
            Harry felt his resolve harden. It did sound as though Narcissa was intent on picking what she thought of as the ideal mate for Draco, not someone who would actually be ideal. How could this Camilla Hughes, no matter how submissive or meek in temperament she might be, do anything right without knowledge?
            You managed.
            But I flailed around for a long time doing things wrong until I got some more knowledge, Harry answered that impertinent part of himself, and then replied, “It sounds like she’s walking into this totally ignorant. I’m sorry for her.”
            “She will be giving Draco what he wants,” Narcissa said, and her voice rose slightly. Harry twisted his hand behind his back. He could feel the way Draco drifted to his feet at the top of the stairs, even though he was still shielded from anyone’s sight by the banisters. It felt a little, to Harry, like he was feeling a second heartbeat outside his body. “Someone who looks up to him, someone he can dominate—”
            “And that only proves that you haven’t listened to me for the past few weeks,” said Draco’s voice from behind them.
            Harry flinched a little at Narcissa’s widened eyes. For a moment, he was sure that he did see straight into her soul, and she was utterly stunned by the fact that she hadn’t given her son what he most wanted, and she reached out a hand as if she would clasp and hold his wrist. Harry would have encouraged Draco to go to her and reconcile if he’d thought it would do any good right now.
            Considering the way Draco flowed down the stairs and held Harry against him, Harry knew better than to suggest it at the moment.
            “I don’t want someone I can dominate, someone who will give in and do whatever I want because they’re afraid of me,” Draco said, and his voice was sterner than Harry had thought it could become. He rested his chin on Harry’s shoulder, his hands smoothing up and down as if he was cupping invisible wings Harry didn’t know he’d grown. “I want someone who fights me and challenges me and tells me that sometimes I can take what I want.”
            “Sometimes,” said Narcissa. She was looking so hard at Draco that Harry thought she wouldn’t notice if he slipped out of the room. But when he shifted, wondering if he should try it, Draco lowered his head and hissed into his ear.
            “You’re here. You’re part of this. You can’t pretend you’re not.”
            Harry wanted to say that he wasn’t a Malfoy and this should be between the people who were, but he knew how much that would hurt Draco. And he could never put into words what he meant, anyway. He nodded and stood still, and Draco’s hands smoothed once more down his shoulders before he lifted his head.
            “Sometimes,” Narcissa was repeating. Already her voice was clearer, and she cast Harry one eloquent glance that said how little she understood his attraction for her son. Harry forced himself to look blandly back. It was the only way he could leave the argument mostly between Narcissa and Draco for right now.
            “Why not all the time?” Narcissa asked, turning back to Draco. “Why not have what you want on every occasion, without struggle, without fight? You sound like a philosopher claiming that sorrow and suffering are necessary to enjoy happiness, but who complains when he has to go through the same sorrow and suffering. You may tell yourself that you’re happy with battle. Are you, after the war? Why do you want it?”
            That was a good question, Harry thought, and he turned, a little curiously, to see what Draco would say as a result. Draco’s tight hold still let Harry face him, and he would have been disturbed if Draco was clasping him too tightly for that, honestly.
*
            He has no idea what he means to me.
            But Draco couldn’t fault Harry for that. Their past, and Harry’s treatment at the hands of those disgusting Muggles, and being used as a sacrifice and rubbish bucket by the entire wizarding world, had a lot more to do with Harry’s withdrawal than a deliberate attempt to irritate Draco or keep himself away.
            Draco stroked Harry’s cheek and shoulders for a second and held his eyes, simply smiling. Then he turned to Narcissa and responded, “I want the struggle because it’s the best way to ensure that Harry gives himself to me.”
            “And why do you want him?” His mother had a lot of poise, which was probably fooling Harry at the moment. You had to know her well, the way Draco did, to see how she felt as if she was standing on sliding, cracking, thinning ice. “Only because the Veela bond suggested he was destined for you. You would never have paid attention to him if not for that.”
            “But that the bond suggested him to me means I do want to pay attention,” Draco said calmly. He smoothed down Harry’s shoulders again, and put a hand in the middle of his chest, feeling the heartbeat that surged and danced there. Harry wanted badly to be out of the middle of this situation.
            Why? He shouldn’t be afraid of either me or Narcissa.
            Draco disregarded the question for the moment, but he would want Harry to talk to him, to be open with him, when this conversation was done. Keeping things from Draco resulted in situations like this one with Narcissa that they were still struggling through.
            “It’s only a bond,” said Narcissa. “It can be replaced by another, and you will be so happy with Camilla.” Her hands didn’t work over each other, but they clasped each other hard. Draco knew it was only her formidable self-control that kept them still. “I have seldom met someone so charming, Draco. You couldn’t help loving her, bonding with her.”
            “She sounds like Daphne,” said Draco honestly. “Someone who wants to replace my mate in some way, someone who’s pure-blood and should know better. If she’s all that submissive, she should also believe in nature destining one Veela to a mate, and I have to wonder why she doesn’t think that way.”
            “She knows that sometimes things need to be corrected, and we cannot leave nature to take an unruly course.” Narcissa already seemed to have calmed down again. Draco wondered why for a moment, until Narcissa turned towards the front door and added, “And she is here to make the case in her own voice, which she hopes—and I hope—you will listen to.”
            Even as Draco turned with his wings ruffling up and an angry hiss creeping down his throat, a pale woman stepped through the door and sank into a low curtesy on the floor. She wore white, a lace gown that challenged her face for color. She bowed her head, and long wan gold hair swept forwards around her face and brushed the floor.
            “My lord,” she said, her voice as colorless as the gown. She didn’t move, and she didn’t look up. “I can only pray that you will accept me. I think you can offer me more than any other dominant Veela would.”
            And Draco had his answer, right there. When was the time that a pure-blood who should know better would neglect their cultural knowledge and do something this stupid and self-destructive? When they stood, or thought they stood, a chance to gain something out of it, something so important and special that any outrage they created would be nothing to it.
            He wished she would look up. If she had only seen his face, she would have known there was no chance he would accept it, and she would have gracefully retired.
            “Don’t you think I ought to be consulted?” Harry asked.
            His mate’s voice was soft, mildly curious, not outraged. For a second, Draco started to draw back upstairs in hurt. He wanted to demand why Harry was suddenly so resigned to losing him.
            Then he realized that the tension beneath his hands hadn’t diminished at all. Instead, Harry felt as if he wanted to explode away from Draco and grow wings of his own to do it, because his own leap wouldn’t carry him far enough.
            Draco smiled, a little, and nestled his head against Harry’s neck, content to watch and let his mate have some part in determining how this conversation went, too.
            “Yes,” he said. “We didn’t have the decency to wait until you were out of the room, did we? So let’s have your perspective.” He squeezed Harry’s shoulder encouragingly.
*
            I can do this. Despite my own misgivings.
            Camilla Hughes really did look a lot like Daphne, but that was only one of the things that was unbalancing Harry. Honestly, the worst was the frozen look on Narcissa Malfoy’s face as she looked at Draco.
            No matter how strongly he wanted to stay right where he was, Harry couldn’t bear to ruin Draco’s relationship with his mother. Family was important.
            On the other hand, there was a bare chance he could save that relationship, which was what had inspired him to speak up in the first place. Desire for his own comfort couldn’t motivate him enough. If he could help Draco, though, he would do anything he could.
            “I’ve already changed Draco’s thinking,” he told both women, although he didn’t know if Camilla was listening to him, or looking at anything except the pattern of the tile beneath her feet. He did gain confident as he went on speaking, though. No, Draco wouldn’t want someone that meek. Not anymore. “So you should have spoken to him before I got that far. Now it’s too late.”
            “You’ve altered it with a spell,” said Narcissa. “That I know.” Camilla’s shoulders lifted once as if she was trembling.
            “No,” said Draco, in a growl high enough that Harry was sure that it was going to become a screech at any second.
            He was also sure that he couldn’t stop that, though, so all he did was reach a soothing hand backwards. Draco grabbed it in his teeth. It felt as though they had a sharper edge than normal. His mouth was probably transforming into a beak.
            Harry didn’t try to take his hand back, though. He trusted Draco not to hurt him. “I haven’t,” he said. “You know I didn’t want this at first. I might have tried a spell to get away, but not to make Draco want me. And anyway, I didn’t want to do any magic that might be interpreted as rejecting the bond, because I wanted to keep him alive.”
            “This is a matter that must be settled before things can proceed the way they should,” said Narcissa, as if she was trying to deal with a legal affair and make the rest of them think she was, too. Hell, Harry thought, eyeing her, she probably would have preferred a legal affair to this. Something she could classify and it would stay classified. “You can have the freedom that you wanted, Mr. Potter. And my son will have what he desired. And Camilla will have what she desires.”
            Looking at Camilla, Harry wondered how Narcissa could be so sure that Camilla wanted anything at all. She resembled a breathing statue, crouched there, and that was the end of it. Harry looked back at Narcissa.
            “And Draco?” he asked. “If he tells you that he wants me now, and not the picture-perfect mate he was raised to expect, how long will it take you to believe him?”
            Draco’s hand settled on his throat, gently drawing his head backwards. Harry let it happen, his eyes on Narcissa. He would have worried about looking weak in front of her, but he knew she wouldn’t take this as weakness. If anything, her eyes widened the more the more she watched them.
            “I want him,” said Draco. His voice was so sensual that Harry half-closed his eyes. There were things Narcissa needed to see, and things it would do her no harm to see, and…
            Things she didn’t need to see, that was all.
            “You had never been with another male when the bond chose you, Mr. Potter,” said Narcissa. “What makes you think that you will want to be with one now?”
            “Because Draco’s fought to defend me, and he cares about my safety, and it feels good when he touches me,” said Harry, so honestly that he felt Draco wince a little behind him. Well, Harry wasn’t good at lying, and he also didn’t think he could put it in more eloquent words than that. “And he’s tried to get along with my friends, and he’s done special things with me, and he tries to compromise instead of order me around all the time. I can be with someone who respects me and someone who attracts me.”
            “What attracts you has nothing to do with sex?” Narcissa looked now as though she had opened a door to a room in her house and found it replaced with a tossing ocean.
            “I told you that you didn’t know much about me,” Harry said, and smiled at her. He kept to himself that he hadn’t known that much about his own preferences, until he started realizing that he didn’t think of having sex with Draco—even when he had thought it would be painful and boring—as disgusting. He didn’t object to men as much as he’d thought he would.
            “And my son prefers,” said Narcissa. She left the sentence there.
            “I prefer Harry,” said Draco, and his hands curled harder around Harry’s neck and shoulders, and he leaned forwards, over Harry and towards his mother. “I prefer my mate.”
            His mother looked back and forth between Draco and Camilla, her hand for a moment tapping her fingers away so distractedly that Harry found the rhythm irritating. Then she said, “If you will not agree to a perfect arrangement, on your head be it. You will be stuck with one less than perfect.” She snapped her fingers at Camilla.
            The girl stood and walked out of the entrance hall. The whole time, she didn’t say one word. Harry shivered, feeling sorry for her. He wondered if her parents, or whoever else she lived with, had given her an actual choice about coming with Narcissa, or not.
            Or did she just do whatever someone else told her, as the kind of automaton that Harry had once feared Draco wanted?
            At least Draco was suppressing his own shudder behind Harry. That meant he was even less interested than Harry had assumed he was. His hands tightened protectively on Harry again. Narcissa was looking at both of them with a dim light in her eyes.
            “You want me to leave,” said Narcissa, at last.
            “I don’t want you to leave the house,” said Draco, because Harry had reached back and squeezed his arm just then. “But I want you to understand. Harry is mine. And I won’t be accepting any substitute.”
            Narcissa said nothing. But she stood there a moment before she turned and walked away. Harry supposed that was progress, of a sort.
            He turned and began to speak to Draco, but Draco kissed him before he could.
            Harry gasped and lifted his hands, gently encircling Draco’s wrists, but didn’t try to stop him. He knew Draco needed this right now, and from the intent, almost frightening way Draco ravished his mouth, he might also need it so he didn’t fly after his mother or the hapless Camilla. His tongue was everywhere, and Harry’s head spun by the time Draco drew back and whispered to him. Harry had to concentrate to make out what he was saying.
            “I need you close to me. To stay with me, after they tried so hard to get you away from me. Come?”
            It was still a question, at the end. Harry nodded, and smiled at him, and accompanied Draco up the stairs. Draco practically hovered over him, his wings drumming.
            Harry, mouth heavy and full of sweetness, and knowing Narcissa wouldn’t lose her son or Draco his mother, didn’t mind.
*
Meechypoo: Thanks! That’s one reason Harry insisted on being there, honestly. He didn’t want it to get that ugly.
SP777: Next chapter!
- 31
- 32
- 33
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Nature of the Beast