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

Chapter List
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Chapter Thirty-Two—Learning to Be Alone
“I think the incident with Lavaliere reversed some of the progress you had been making in acting alone.”
Harry blinked. When Testig had asked them to stay after her class and then seat themselves on the cushions in the center of her classroom, with glasses of tea that she’d made for them, he hadn’t thought this would be what she wanted to talk about.
“What do you mean, progress in acting alone?” Draco frowned at Testig, and let one wing drape over Harry’s shoulders, the way he’d been doing lately. The warmth and weight of the wing meant it was actually a little uncomfortable to have it there, but Harry ignored that for the feeling of solace it gave him.
“That. This.” Testig gestured between them. Harry looked down, but could find nothing except their entwined hands. “When you leave the school, you will no longer be able to be with each other all the time. This is an artificial period in your lives, one that involves you learning and growing. It is an important time, but when it’s done, you have to be able to stand on your own.”
“Of course we can! Professor Helios had Harry test his control over his allure the other day, and he could control it so it just influenced Helios a little.”
“The professor gave me a different report on that incident. He told me that you were visibly distressed to be apart from each other, and that you and Mr. Potter practically collided with each other the moment the test was done.”
Harry flushed. He could feel the way Testig’s eyes raked him, and he thought she must believe it was mostly his fault. Draco had been a Veela longer than he had, of course, and should have better control.
“I don’t see any reason why I should be apart from my mate.”
“I understand that you don’t, Mr. Malfoy,” said Testig, with a mild expression that made Harry’s spine prickle. “But if you are truly planning on the career that you told me you were considering today, he may see a reason to be apart from you.”
“I’m going to get some training so I can fight beside him.”
“And until you do? Will he hold your hand every step of the way, as you are doing now?”
Harry stirred, but he knew Draco would be hurt if he tried to take his hand away, and that mattered more to him than Testig’s disapproval. “I know we haven’t been perfect so far, Professor, but we’re getting better.”
“No, you are not. You are more dependent on each other now than you were a week ago, before Valena kidnapped you, Mr. Potter. You often sat apart from each other then, and touched each other only when you thought no one was looking. Now you touch each other constantly in class, to the point where you are distracting the other students.”
“Then we’ll leave the school! Anything to avoid disturbing the other students.”
“Stop issuing idle threats, Mr. Malfoy. You know as well as I do that you are not leaving until you get your Veela powers under control.” Testig moved her wings thoughtfully up and down for an instant. “You will get better, but not unless someone else forces you to get better. I don’t think it will happen if you sit here and hope for it.”
“You make us sound like children…”
“At the moment, Mr. Malfoy, you are behaving like children, acting as if I am threatening you by simply stating the facts.”
Draco hesitated an instant, but then leaned against Harry and put his chin on his shoulder. “I want my mate near me. That’s not unusual for a newly-bonded couple. You’re acting as though we’re—I don’t know, holding hands to bother other people. Not for the sake of it. Not because we need it.”
“But you are no longer such a newly-bonded couple. The rings that appeared on your wings did so more than a week ago. And your bond and your courting have taken longer than that.” Testig rolled her eyes, and even though Harry didn’t know for sure, he thought it was because of the stubborn set to Draco’s chin. “I would prefer not to address this, either. But as a professor at this school, I must speak when I see your education going in the wrong direction.”
“What do you mean, wrong direction?” Harry asked. That sounded more serious than just annoying the other students.
Testig looked at him, seeming glad for the distraction from Draco. “You are meant to be able to stand on your own when this is done—bonded to your mate, but also individuals, the best of both worlds. Instead, you are growing so close that I fear you will end up only bonded.”
“I—don’t feel like that when I’m apart from Draco,” Harry had to say. “I don’t feel like I’m going to collapse without him.”
“Really.” Testig sat back, arms folded and wings mimicking the posture across her back. “Then you won’t mind if you go to the far side of the room near the door and Mr. Malfoy goes to the other wall?”
“Of course not,” Harry said, a little baffled, and let go of Draco’s hand and moved away from his wing. He was thinking as he walked that they’d been apart plenty of times, other than for Professor Helios’s exercise and this. Testig was exaggerating. Every time they went to the bathroom they were apart, for one thing.
Harry turned around. He was startled to see that Draco hadn’t moved from his posture on the cushions, his wings huddled around him and his eyes so bright and piercing Harry reached out a hand.
“Come on, Draco. It’s okay. If I can do this, so can you.”
“As I thought,” said Testig grimly. “Through no fault of your own, Mr. Potter, your bonding has deepened to a dangerous point. It’s why we try to avoid separating our newly-bonded couples too soon. If they feel they’re being tugged apart, they cling to each other harder. Lavaliere accidentally did something that drove you into each other’s arms. I was willing to wait a few days, and see if you healed yourselves. But you have not.”
"But..." Harry trailed off. He was fighting so hard not to move back to Draco, pick him up, and never let him go again.
Which was probably part of the problem Testig was talking about, come to that.
"What can we do to fix it?" Harry finally asked, because Draco hadn't moved except to bring his wings up around him, as if they were a blanket he could hide behind for comfort, and Harry hated seeing him that way.
"You can spend more time apart," said Testig immediately. "Mr. Malfoy had made a few...friendly acquaintances here before you arrived. He hasn't spent any time with them since you became mated. And I know that some of the professors would enjoy the chance to talk with you more, Mr. Potter. The transformed Veela's perspective is not something we often get to enjoy."
Harry bristled despite himself. "Are these people who have the same prejudices as Lavaliere?"
"No," said Testig, so serious that Harry fluttered his feathers. "These are people, like me, who think Lavaliere's bigotry idiocy, but also recognize there are differences between born and transformed Veela. In the way you grew up, if nothing else. We would like to address those differences and see how we can make the next new transformed Veela's shift into our society smoother."
"Oh." Harry felt his feathers lying down. That was a concrete way he could help someone, and from Testig's tiny smile, she might have chosen it for that reason.
But then he looked back at Draco, who was entirely hidden from sight behind a wall of white primaries, and winced. "How can I just leave him like that?"
"He will not die from being left. In the end, he will grow stronger than he will if you coddle him so much that he can do nothing without you."
Harry winced again. That characterization, he understood and agreed with. "But in the first few moments...how can I do it?"
Testig did something complicated with her wings, and suddenly she was between him and Draco. Harry started back. She looked more serious than she had since they fought the duel, her wings flaring wide and her eyes narrowed as though she was going to strike at Harry's face any second.
"You leave him to the mercies of someone who will take care of him." Each of Testig's words was weighted like a silver ingot. "You do what you must, what one of your professors is telling you to do."
Harry shook his head and found his ears were full of noise. He had dropped into a battle crouch without realizing it, his wings spread around him. "I don't want you to hurt him..."
"I didn't say that I would. I promise by all I hold holy, by the circles on my wings, by the way I can fly, by the blood I was born with, that I won't harm him. Only heal him and help make him better."
Harry blinked and dropped his head back, eyeing Testig for a second. Testig let him do it, only watching him with such intensity that Harry was surprised he didn't have a sunburn. And it was easier to let go of his Veela battle instincts even though he'd never heard that oath before. Perhaps some of his different instincts recognized it, or the emotion in her voice.
"I just don't want you to harm him," said Harry, and backed one step away towards the door. It felt as though there was a string between him and Draco that he was pulling taut, and because it was only a string, it would snap soon.
"I would never do so."
With a swallow, Harry finally backed out into the corridor, and shut the door of the classroom behind him. But not before he heard an anguished scream that made him leap forwards again, claws out.
The door wouldn't open, flaring with silent, stubborn blue light at him when he tried. And before he could actually open his mouth and utter a shriek that would hopefully overwhelm Testig and make her let him back in, he heard footsteps behind him.
"Mr. Potter? What's wrong?"
"She has my mate in there," Harry heard himself say, in a voice so guttural he wasn't sure he would have recognized it if he hadn't felt his own breath in his throat. "My mate. I have to go to him."
"Would you think the same thing if he was receiving a Healer's treatment that made him scream but which would cure him in the end? I know that you've taken Skele-Gro yourself and suffered from it, but the alternative would have been worse, wouldn't it?"
Harry turned around. Professor Helios was standing behind him, wings fluttering gently and head cocked. He smiled a little, although Harry didn't think there was anything on his face that was funny, and reached out to take Harry's arm, guiding him away from the door.
"I understand that you're upset," Helios told him. "I was the first time I had to spend time apart from my mate, too."
"Why would someone make you do that?" Harry whispered. He craned his neck so he could see the door, but they went around a corner so rapidly that even the edge of the blue glow faded out of sight.
"Because she had developed a dependency on me that I couldn't reciprocate. Most of the time both mates want to be with each other all the time, but my mate was a Veela for several years before I grew my wings and found her. Her desperation and her fear that I would leave her was deeper than mine."
Harry shook his head fervently. “I never wanted to do something like that to Draco. But he was only here a few weeks longer than I was, right? Or a month. Not long enough to get his full powers trained, or he would have left.”
“I believe that Mr. Malfoy insisted on staying here because he thought he would find his mate here.” Helios’s voice was calm and unshakable as he guided Harry into a small room Harry hadn’t seen before. It had enormous circular windows on the walls, all of which framed enchanted vistas of blue sky and floating white clouds, and so many cushions on the floor that Harry had to flap his wings a little so he wouldn’t slip on them. There was no door, and the ceiling soared so high that Harry could only see it by tilting his head back and squinting. The walls were all white.
“What is this place?” Harry whispered, as Helios indicated he should sit, and then went back and brought a cup of tea like the one Testig had drunk with them. Or maybe it was something stronger than tea, Harry thought, as he smelled the scent rising from the cup.
“A place that we bring newly-mated Veela to calm them, when they’re angry that their partner is apart from them for the length of a meal or a class.” Helios handed Harry a thin cup with an orange flower on it, and then lowered himself onto a thick pile of blue cushions. He lounged comfortably even though it looked like he was leaning on his wings. I’ve got to get him to teach me that trick, Harry thought numbly. “Not surprisingly, they recover rapidly.”
“I still want to get back to Draco,” Harry muttered, trying to avoid the professor’s knowing smile as he sipped his drink. Yes, it wasn’t tea.
“Of course you do. We are not trying to cure you of all attachment to your mate. That would be immoral,” said Professor Helios seriously. Harry snorted to himself. Helios smiled a little. “To a Veela, it would. And I think you find yourself becoming increasingly Veela, Mr. Potter.”
“I want to. But how can I avoid becoming a mess, like the ones you were talking about?”
“Did you ever wonder why none of us mated professors seem to spend any amount of time with our mates?”
Harry had to blink. Now that he thought about it, that Inquisitor who had shown up to conduct Lavaliere’s trial was the only one who had apparently brought her mate along. “Do they all work here at the school?”
“No. We’ve trained in going apart from them, because just like human couples, we’re allowed to have different interests and jobs. My mate has no interest in teaching here, at all.” Helios smiled. “In fact, she hated school, and she keeps telling me endlessly that she has no idea why I chose this job.”
“So I need to train in going apart from Draco?”
Helios nodded calmly. “It is natural that you cling to each other right now. What Lavaliere did to you, and the strength of a newborn bond, and the fact that Draco wanted a mate so badly—”
“Why did he? He never told me why. He didn’t even seem to know for sure about the prejudices against transformed Veela.”
“Because Mr. Malfoy is afraid of failing. He is afraid of failing at being a Veela, and he thinks that all Veela must have mates and they must all act in a certain way. I do not think he is conscious of it, but I suspect his clinging to you is in some ways playing a part, showing everyone who looks that he is a successful, mated Veela.”
Harry had to snort. “And if he thinks that, doesn’t that undermine—I mean, it means I’m not as special to him.” He realized he was holding the cup so hard that there was a crack in the lip, and tried to relax his hand.
“It means you are. But there are mixed motives at play, and you do not have to lean on each other as hard as you have been doing to be a good mated pair.”
“That’s good to know,” said Harry quietly. And it honestly was. Not that he wanted to leave Draco behind soon, but there was the sense of being on display when he walked through the school, the scrutinizing stares that made him wonder exactly how much other Veela judged him for being transformed, and having a transformed mate, and mating with someone that clung to him the way Draco did.
“And you see?” Helios asked, spreading his hand out and wriggling his fingers as though he was about to play a magic trick.
Harry looked around, and didn’t see any colored scarves or rabbits hopping out of hats. He blinked and focused on Helios again. “What?”
“You have been here, apart from your mate, for fifteen minutes—well, counting the walk we took here. And you’re not yelling or sweating or looking as if you’ll break down.”
Harry set the cup firmly aside as Draco’s haunted scream seemed to echo in his ears again. “And fifteen minutes is long enough for right now. I want to see Draco again.”
“I’m here, Harry.”
Harry turned, his muscles going limp with relief as he looked at Draco. Draco was disheveled, his hair hanging around his shoulders as if he hadn’t brushed it that morning, but his face as he met Harry’s eyes was calm. And he reached out his arms, and Harry came and gathered him up.
And he wasn’t burning with fever the way Harry had half-imagined he would be. He was there, and as Professor Helios slipped silently out of the room, Harry knew lessons were over for the day. He and Draco had learned what they needed to, according to the professors.
Draco sighed against his shoulder. Harry kissed him. “You know that we’ll have to do it again, according to them.”
“I can put up with that,” Draco whispered against his skin, lips barely moving. “I only want to make sure that I’ll see you again after each trial.”
“I’m yours. Forever and always.”
Draco smiled and Harry kissed him again, softly. All in all, considering what could have happened to them with Lavaliere going after them, and the way Draco had screamed when he left him, he thought they were doing better than well.
*
SP777: As you can see, they're learning. And the story's almost done now, so they're going to have to stand on their own once they're away from the protective cocoon of the school.
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