Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

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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Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last chapter of Fairest Creatures. I hope you’ve enjoyed it.
Chapter Thirty-Five—Fairest of All
Harry walked slowly around the school for the fourth time, his head high. He could have spun and pointed straight through the window, and through all the walls between them, to where Draco was standing. But that wasn’t the point of this particular test.
The point was to keep his eyes focused forwards and his feet moving steadily. Testig didn’t even look that critical when his wings stirred and lifted several times, feeling the wind that blew through their bond rather than the physical one.
Finally, Harry reached the line that had been drawn with glowing white magic on the grass, and turned and studied Testig evenly.
“Impressive, Mr. Potter,” she said, with a slow nod that she turned into one of those gestures almost like a bow, her wings spread and fluttering around her. “I don’t think I could have ignored my mate like that when I was your age.”
I wasn’t ignoring him. I was keeping my attention on something else. But saying that might destroy the respect Testig had for him, not something Harry was anxious to do. He gave her a patient smile and asked, “Does that mean I can go back to him?”
“Of course, Mr. Potter.”
Harry immediately rose into the air. But before he could dart to the entrance that would bring him most quickly to Draco, he saw a winged shape streaking towards him. Professor Grunnell’s count of the time must have been a little less strict than Testig’s.
Harry put out his hands, and Draco slowed instinctively, because his mate wanted it, and reached out to interlink his fingers with Harry’s, instead of spinning them around the way he had the other day in the corridor. He even managed to wait until Harry leaned forwards and kissed him instead of the other way around, although fine tremors ran through his wings and body. Harry smoothed a feather gently to the end, and smiled.
“I love you,” he said.
“And I love you, and I hate spending time apart.” Draco grimaced down at the professors. Testig was standing and looking smugly up at them, and Grunnell had come to join her. Harry saw her say something to Testig that Testig responded to with a little snap of her head.
“I know. But we’ve proven to them that we can. And they believed me when I told them that our bond wasn’t strained anymore.”
“I can’t believe that you told them before me.”
“What? I did not!” All of Harry’s feathers bristled, because now, he understood how serious an accusation that was for one Veela mate to make to another. “I told you in the bathroom that morning when we were under the shower and you were at my feet deciding that I could shag you with—”
“You should have known I was hardly going to be listening to anything other than your voice,” Draco snapped, and fanned his wings.
“Well, I told you,” said Harry, and then they heard the professors’ voices calling them to come down.
Harry tossed Draco an indignant glance, and swooped to the ground. Draco was right behind him, but he didn’t bother complaining where there were other people who could hear them. He did hold out a wing and touch Harry with the tip right in the middle of his back, though.
Harry shivered despite himself.
Testig nodded. “I think it’s gone well. Your bond has developed away from the strain that might have caused it to be malformed, and I saw you arguing a moment ago. That’s excellent.” She smiled serenely at Draco’s visible outrage. “It is, you know. If you’re confident enough to disagree with each other, that means you don’t think someone’s going to come in and separate you any second. Or that one of you might leave the minute you get angry.”
Draco looked away and mumbled something so uncomplimentary that Harry could only be glad Testig hadn’t appeared to hear it. “Does that mean we’re going to be able to leave the school?” Harry asked.
Testig considered, looked at Grunnell, and then ran her fingers through her own feathers as if that would be enough to let her answer the question. “As long as you have your allure and any other powers under control, I don’t see why not.”
Harry felt a sharp grin break over his face, and ignored the slight chiding expression on Grunnell’s. He turned to Draco. “Imagine showing me off to other people,” he murmured. “People who aren’t here and don’t understand all the Veela customs. Think about all the times you can snap at people for intruding then.”
Draco wore his own certain kind of joyful expression. Harry saw Testig shaking her head out of the corner of his eye, and widened his smile at her innocently. “What?”
“You shouldn’t encourage him. Particularly not to be angry at those who don’t know about the depths of a Veela bond.”
“Better than encouraging him to be angry at me.”
From the way Testig rolled her eyes, she had already accepted that they wouldn’t agree, and she moved on to something that interested her more. “You have decided not to accept the Ministry’s offer of employment?”
“It wasn’t an offer of employment as much as an offer to fit in and try to be human again,” said Harry bluntly. He had spoken the truth to Testig and the others when they asked what his plans were, but not as openly as this. “All the little dances around the truth about what would happen if one of us got injured, and how we had to be careful, and we had to let other Aurors say whatever they wanted…I don’t care for going back to that.”
“Neither do I. I want to be able to proudly claim my mate in public. Not hold back because there are Auror sensibilities to offend.”
Testig inclined her head as if she was giving Draco’s words serious consideration. “But both of you must understand that you can’t always attack those who might be offended by you proudly claiming your mate in public, either.”
“How many of these people are there going to be, compared to Aurors?”
From the small smile Testig gave them, Harry thought she might have been secretly angling to produce that response from Draco. “Quite. Well, I will recommend to the other professors that you be officially released from the school into a position of responsibility for yourselves.” She gave them a small bow that tilted her head so far forwards Harry couldn’t see her face, only the silvery hair tumbling between her wings. “And congratulations for managing a bond I didn’t think would work.”
Harry would have said something indignant, but Testig launched herself into flight from the bow, meaning he didn’t have the chance to catch her eye and scowl at her. He turned to Draco, only to find him smiling.
“You realize what this means?” Draco asked softly, trailing his fingers along the front of Harry’s shirt.
“Not really.” Harry was breathless for no good reason.
“It means that we’ll be away from people who might be prejudiced against transformed Veela.”
“And among people who might be prejudiced against Veela just for being magical creatures.”
Draco rolled his eyes at him. “Not everyone.”
“Well, not everyone here is prejudiced against transformed Veela, either—”
“My point,” Draco said, so firmly that Harry jumped from the pressure of Draco’s wing against his back, “is that we’re finally going to go back into the wider world. This world is nice, but it’s so small and sheltered. And now we’re finally—leaving the nest, so to speak.”
“Ron and Hermione will accept you. You know that.”
Draco’s face changed in an instant, from a smile to astonishment. And then he laughed softly and leaned against Harry. “I’m not afraid of not being accepted, you berk. I’m excited about seeing something other than the walls of this school.”
Harry could understand that. He thought he had strong enough control of his powers now that he wasn’t worried about hurting anyone, and although he might flinch from some of the words people would speak to them outside the walls of the school, he wasn’t afraid of not being able to defend himself or Draco.
He wrapped his wings around Draco and bent to share a kiss. Draco murmured and scratched up his shoulders with the nails that had become talons, and Harry shoved him gently towards the bedroom. They had more than one thing to celebrate, and more than one way to do it, too.
*
“I, Philomela Testig…”
“And I, Miranda Grunnell…”
“And I, Justin Helios…”
The list of professors naming themselves went on, but Harry didn’t know most of the others, and didn’t bother to listen. Neither did he really look at the other Veela ready to leave the finishing school sharing the marble portico with them. His gaze caught on Draco, and held there.
Draco was so beautiful. His face was lightly flushed, and his wings moving softly on either side of him, and he was tilting his head back as if the breeze that soared above them had been made especially for him to watch the fluttering leaves of the trees.
Most of the other young Veela who had achieved adulthood seemed to be fighting the urge to hop up and down, but Harry only wanted to watch Draco, and reached out to cup his cheek. It was a pain to have to pull his attention away from Draco as the professors finished reciting their names, and handed the speech back to Testig.
“We all declare,” said Testig, looking around like a fierce hawk and lofting her wings so that the glowing bars and rings on the undersides flashed, “that these young Veela are young adults now, fully able to control their powers, and provide responsibly for themselves and their mates.” She brought her wings down.
Harry jumped as he felt an actual spark travel through him. When Testig and the others had talked about this ceremony, he had thought it was purely symbolic, and not really magical. But from the way his face flushed and Draco’s did the same, and then red faces moved all down the row, he had been wrong.
Testig cupped her hands as if around a tiny flame, and smiled at all of them. Harry thought she gave him a particularly meaningful smile, but he wasn’t sure. Her hands closed in harder and harder, until Harry found himself arching his neck to try and spot the light he was sure was there.
She opened her hands suddenly, fingers splaying out, and there was no light. But there was a magic that chased up Harry’s body and soothed the flush away from his face.
“I declare this group of young adults ready to fly!”
Harry heard a wild screech come from his own throat, even though he hadn’t been ready to do that. The same screech echoed all along the row, too. And Draco was beating his wings hard enough that his heels rose a few centimeters from the portico.
Harry snugged a wing around him, even though he wanted nothing more than to fly himself. He knew the ceremony wasn’t done yet.
Testig looked around at all of them, nodding, but it was Professor Helios who spoke the final words. “Winds of blessing stroke your wings, bear you up, and carry you to your destination. If you have your mate already, winds bless your union. If you are looking for them, may the winds carry you home to them soon.”
And he bowed his head and drooped his wings at the same moment as all the professors did theirs, and Harry found himself flying beside Draco with no more plan than when he had screeched.
“I hadn’t realized how strong the professors’ magic was,” Draco panted, his eyes blinking as he looked down at the portico, and then the six other young Veela flying beside them. “I didn’t know it could throw us like that!”
“They’ve always been able to do that,” said a Veela woman with eyes so pale a blue that they looked almost white.
Draco bristled at the condescending tone, but Harry waved a hand and drew Draco’s attention back to him. “So now what do you want to do?” he asked. “Go back for that feast? Or away?”
Draco raked his gaze slowly across the grounds of the school, as though it was taking him time to appreciate the fact that they were truly free. Harry remained quiet, although he could make out Draco’s thoughts from the flickers of emotion in his eyes. He was looking at the place where they’d first met as transformed Veela, and the windows of the classrooms where they’d suffered through lessons they thought were useless, and the portico where they’d stood just now, ready to fly.
Draco turned and smiled at Harry. “Part of me will always treasure our time together here because it’s where we became mates,” he said quietly. “But we don’t need to stay here forever because of that.”
Harry grinned and spread his wings. “Good choice.”
Instantly Draco was suspicious, tilting his head back and beating his wings faster even as he followed Harry. “What do you mean by that? Why did you leave me the choice and then act like you were happy I chose one thing over the other?”
Harry gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look. “What, I’m not allowed to have my own preferences even if I abide by yours?”
“Harry.”
Harry did duck his head once to hide his grin, and then reached out and caught Draco’s hand. “Ron and Hermione really want to meet you—properly. And that means a meal they’ve prepared and in their house, with us together.”
“And not half-naked,” Draco said with a scowl, probably remembering Hermione’s intrusion through the Floo that night.
“Exactly.” Harry raised Draco’s knuckles to his mouth and kissed the back of his hand. “Think you can put up with that long enough to get to know them, too?”
Draco looked down at the clouds passing beneath them. Harry had taken the lead, since he was the one who knew the way to Ron and Hermione’s house, but Draco didn’t object to following him. He was thinking.
“They’re going to have to be special to me, too, because they’re your friends,” Draco said, in a tone of reluctance so great that Harry turned upside-down for a moment specifically to keep from smiling. “Just as long as neither of them try to touch you or claim you like you’re a lover. And tell your Weasley not to call you mate.”
“Will do,” Harry promised. He didn’t think it would be that hard. Ron would have had a month to listen to Hermione on the subject of Draco’s new sensitivities, and he always learned fast when he wanted to—which meant, mostly when it came to Harry and Hermione. And it wasn’t like Ginny would be there.
Not that he and Ginny had dated in years. Somehow, Harry thought that wouldn’t matter to Draco.
“Where do they live, anyway?”
Harry grinned again and led the way, rejoicing in the movement of his wings and the soft pressure of Draco’s feathers against his whenever they flew close enough together. Flying on a broom would always be grand, but his own wings—and his mate’s wings—were better.
*
“Hi, m—I mean, Harry.”
Ron was leaning forwards with one arm out in the kind of half-hug he liked to use with Harry, and Draco was already bristling, but at least Ron had stopped himself from saying the dreaded word. Harry leaned in, let Ron hug him, and patted him on the back, all the time keeping his focus on Draco so he could see how different Harry was when he was with his mate.
In some ways, their bond was still new and fragile. But they would work on making it stronger every day.
“Hello, Harry, Draco.” Hermione was standing in the doorway of the small house she and Ron had bought in Hogsmeade, lit by the radiance of the kitchen. She studied them both as if to make sure they hadn’t come to any harm in their flight, and then she nodded and sighed a little. “You know, you deprived me of a battle I really wanted by backing out of joining the Ministry again.”
“There’ll be other battles,” Harry pointed out. “Especially since you’re working with house-elves.” Draco had smoothed his feathers down. He seemed to think of Hermione as less of a threat, maybe because he’d met her more times already.
“True enough,” said Hermione, with a faint smile, and came out to hold Harry in her arms. Still Draco stayed relaxed—although he jumped when Hermione turned to him and held out her hand. Then he hesitantly clasped it, staring down as if he thought that his hand might grow wings of its own and fly away.
“Come on in,” Ron added over his shoulder as he led the way into the house. “I’ve been cooking most of the day, and the vegetables are tender enough that you’ll have to struggle to keep them on your fork.”
“Is it too late to tell him that I mostly eat with my fingers?” Draco muttered into Harry’s ear.
Harry wrapped an arm around his shoulders instead of responding, and led Draco into the house. Behind them, Hermione was muttering something that sounded like practice for an argument about house-elves. In front of them, Ron was pouring water out of a huge cauldron into another that would drain the water and leave only the tender, steaming carrots and potatoes and others behind.
Beside him, Draco leaned against his side like a huge, warm cat.
Harry sighed out slowly, and flapped his wings in sheer, perfect contentment.
The End.
*
SP777: Marriage requires having a strong plot first. I haven't got one in mind for marriage at the moment.
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Fairest Creatures