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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.

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Thanks again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Six—Gifts and Graciousness
            “I need to know if we will be able to continue the profitable alliance that we had before my daughter propositioned you,” was the first thing Helena Greengrass said when her head appeared in the fire in front of Harry.
            Harry blinked a little and studied the woman for a moment. He had agreed to take the firecall because it was only a firecall, and because it wasn’t Daphne who was calling. But he had never expected Helena to be talking about something like this. He had thought it would be more threats about him turning Daphne down, in which case he would have closed the Floo.
            Draco was hovering near the door, literally, with his feet off the ground. Harry heard the thump as he settled back down, and turned to smile at him before he faced Helena again.
            “That would depend on your motivations for allying with me in the first place,” he said carefully. “Did you ever want to achieve what you said you did, the integration of some Muggleborns back into the wizarding world? Or did you only want a chance for your daughter to sleep with me?”
            Helena showed no embarrassment at his choice of words. Harry wondered if he should have been cruder. As it was, confronted with a face that looked almost exactly like Daphne’s except older and with a slightly different shade of green in the eyes, he felt as if he was the one who should have been embarrassed.
            “Daphne can be a difficult child,” said Helena abruptly.
            “Right,” said Harry. He wondered if the word “child” was significant, and then sighed soundlessly. Of course it was. Everything always was, with pure-bloods. “That doesn’t excuse her approaching me when she knew I had a Veela mate. And you didn’t answer my question.”
            For a moment, Harry thought he saw Helena’s hands wind around each other. Then she said, “It was Daphne’s idea to try and ally with you. I had nothing to say against it, but it was not why I originally approached you.”
            Ally. What a neutral word for it. From the way Draco shrieked behind him, he approved of it no more than Harry did. But Harry knew trying to discuss it with Helena wouldn’t get him very far, so he settled for studying her with icy eyes for a moment, and then drawling, “If you want to have an alliance with me, as you put it, then you’ll leave Daphne at home.”
            Helena hesitated for the merest second, and then nodded. “I don’t think she’d want to be with us, anyway,” she said. “She found the actual politics boring.”
            Harry said nothing about the blatant lying Daphne must have done to him, then, to pretend she found them interesting. He only nodded again and said, “Where shall we meet?”
*
            Draco smiled a little as he slung an arm over Harry’s shoulders and steered him into Flourish and Blotts. Helena had first suggested meeting at her house, and Draco hadn’t even had to prompt Harry for him to agree that was a bad idea. Draco knew why she’d wanted the meeting there, of course—beyond the advantages of home ground, like wards and traps ready to take Harry down in case he did something impressive. There was always the chance that Daphne might stumble into the meeting, and Helena was Greengrass enough to want to see what would happen if Harry had another chance to look at the “temptations” of her daughter.
            But they had finally hammered out a plan for meeting in Diagon Alley instead, in a small “shop” whose main business was providing private, neutral ground for feuding wizards or ones whose meetings might be politically unwise to see each other in privacy. And the meeting was half an hour from now, which meant Draco felt free to take Harry to the bookshop and spoil him with things he might want but would never buy for himself.
            “Why are we here? Draco?”
            Harry’s voice was uncertain. Draco smiled at him and murmured, “I know that you read all the books on Veela in the Manor library. But we only have books from a fairly pragmatic perspective, I’ll admit. Books that talk constantly about the honor it is to be chosen by a Veela as a mate, and books that discuss heirs and the chances that they’ll have Veela blood if they’re mostly human. You might want to look at books that talk about the more romantic side of the bond?”
            Harry blinked and looked up at him. “Well, yeah, but I need to know right now—am I doing something wrong? Is there something you need that I’m not giving you?”
            A few people in the shop looked around when they heard that. Draco snorted with an amusement he couldn’t control and bent over to gently put an arm around Harry’s shoulder. “You’ll want to remember what you sound like when you say that,” he murmured. “The dried-up old sticks we met with won’t tell anyone about your submissive act because they basically don’t communicate with the wizarding world, but other people might think it’s real.”
            Harry flushed brilliantly and nodded. “Fine, but I still need an answer to my question.”
            No, this isn’t the perfect submissive mate that I thought nature and destiny were promising me, Draco thought, as he smiled into Harry’s eyes. This is better.
            “No,” he whispered. “I think that you might still not understand everything about Veela, though. Things that would help you. Things that might make you more comfortable with the way I act sometimes. So you can browse to your heart’s content.” He swept his arm along the shelves around them; they were in the section that mostly contained tomes on Magical Creatures, the sort that would never be assigned in classes at Hogwarts in case they told someone something useful. “And it’s a gift.”
            Harry looked over his shoulder with sharp eyes. “One thing that I can do, Draco, is pay for my own books.”
            “You could,” Draco agreed, enchanted with the way Harry’s cheeks flushed. “But why would you want to, when I can do the same thing, and I have more money than I could ever spend? Thanks in part to you,” he added pointedly. He knew well enough the Ministry would have taken it away if Harry hadn’t spoken up at his trial.
            Harry scowled at him again, but he did turn to the shelf of books with a thoughtful expression on his face. Draco smiled and spread his wings, “accidentally” sealing off the aisle where Harry stood. He didn’t want anyone to disturb Harry while he was looking for something that would turn into a gift for him.
            Harry spent a few minutes pulling down books and looking at them. Then he turned around with a scowl on his face. “They’re romantic, all right. They keep talking about natural submission and all the rest of that shit.” He shook his head. “I appreciate what you want to give me, Draco, but I think they might as well stay where they are.”
            “All of them are the same?” Draco asked in a soft, thoughtful voice. “You can’t learn anything by looking at some of them?”
            “I don’t see how,” said Harry, staring at him. “Not if they’re going to give me rules for a life we already decided I wasn’t going to live.”
            “Think again,” Draco whispered, leaning past him and putting his hand on the spine of the nearest book. He recognized this particular one, because his mother had had him read it when he was younger. But she had borrowed it from somewhere else—maybe the Black library, or a friend’s house—and Draco had never seen it since. “What about this? You haven’t looked at this one.”
            “The Veela Way,” Harry read, with a quick glance at Draco. “That title sounds familiar. It’s not the same book you have in your library? The one about how Veela customs have never changed and dominant Veela can’t survive unless their every whim is catered to?”
            “This is the second volume,” said Draco, and smiled a little. He could see why Harry would be offended by some of the silly things that had been in that first book—the same way he could see why he had believed that book himself when he was younger. “The one written by a Veela mate, instead of a Veela in the bond.”
            Harry grunted and flicked the book open. A second later, his eyebrows were climbing upwards. “Yes, I know,” he muttered. “It does seem strange that a human being could lay an egg.”
            “That’s not what happens, and you know it,” Draco breathed, leaning over him. Harry looked up at him, and Draco felt his wings tremble as he realized the sort of position they were in and what it could lead to if they weren’t careful, even here in the middle of the bookshop. He pulled himself back with a small cough. “You know that it’s not like one of us simply lays the egg. I’m bird-like, but not a bird.”
            “I know.” Harry regarded the book thoughtfully for a second, then nodded. “I’ll take this one. It honestly looks as though none of the others really have anything to tell me.”
            Draco sniffed, a little disappointed. He had hoped that Harry would want more books if only because that would mean he could give him a bigger gift, but this was all right. Draco would only have an excuse to give him more at a later date. “Fine. Let’s go pay for it.”
            “Draco? Thanks.”
            It was a quiet pair of words that he might not even have been intended to hear, but Draco heard them anyway. He had sharp ears when it came to anything his mate might say. He extended one wing back and brushed it along the nape of Harry’s neck in response, gently lifting up his hair.
            Now, the quickening of Harry’s breath in response to the touch, that he heard without effort. Smiling, Draco went to pay for the book.
*
            “You should know about the new bill that a few of my colleagues are trying to get the Wizengamot to pass,” said Helena, and she was staring at Harry with her face like a placid pool of water, the same expression she had worn when Harry had thought he could trust her. “It’s not as bad as suppressing Muggleborns’ magic, but it’s along the same lines. They want to make Muggleborns register when they leave Hogwarts and be under a ‘watch’ for several years to make sure they aren’t going to the Muggle world.”
            Harry sighed. It was good to feel the warmth of Draco’s wing around his shoulders and know he wasn’t facing this alone. “Fine. But you were in favor of things like suppressing Muggleborns’ magic the last time I looked. What changed your mind?”
            Helena waited so long that Harry thought she wasn’t going to answer after all. He occupied himself with looking around the room instead. He had never actually been in this place before.
            This particular room had dark red velvet panels on the wall that muffled sound, or maybe they were tapestries. The room was so dim, lit only by candles on the mantel and a few flames flickering lowly in the fireplace, that Harry couldn’t tell. He did know that the table beneath their hands was scarred, despite the glamour of a perfect surface, because he could feel the scars under his fingers. And none of them had anything to drink or eat right now, meaning there was no distraction from the simple furniture.
            Round table, three chairs. All of them made of wood. Harry found himself categorizing possible escapes and exits from the room, like whether the fireplace was hooked up to the Floo network and whether the tapestries covered solid walls or not, and shook his head sharply to wake up from the mood and memories. Draco uttered a concerned croon behind him and reached out to touch his shoulder.
            Helena had come back to gazing at his face when Harry turned to her. He tried to be as calm and brisk as he could. “Are you going to tell me why you’ve changed sides?”
            “I have realized that perhaps the Muggleborn side holds more practical advantages than I believed.” Helena inclined her head. Harry supposed he would have to accept her words unless he could prove she was lying. After all, this was the woman who had admitted a few hours ago that having her daughter seduce him was a matter of political convenience for her. “After all, I can find allies there as well as here.”
            “You can find allies who want you to suppress their magic?” Harry was glad that Draco had spoken. He’d hit the right tone of amused incredulity that Harry probably couldn’t have, with outrage choking his throat.
            “No,” said Helena. “I can find allies who agree that integration of Muggleborns into pure-blood culture is a good thing. And they’re willing to demonstrate their commitment to that integration on a personal level.”
            Harry blinked. That sounded almost like…
            “You’re marrying a Muggleborn?” he asked, and flushed under the glance Helena cast him. He had known she was widowed, but he hadn’t ever inquired into the circumstances that Daphne’s father had died under. For all Harry knew, he’d been murdered by a member of the Order of the Phoenix during the first war.
            “Yes,” said Helena. “There are some among them who appreciate the political benefits of such an arrangement, as I think I mentioned. I would never have thought that, but they do.” A slight, amused smile played around her lips. “They do go on, sometimes, but they have good minds underneath it all.”
            She should have known that from meeting Hermione.
            Harry was hardly going to blame someone for finally doing something that would benefit his side, though. He ended up inclining his head and murmuring, “Good luck with the marriage. It sounds like you’ll face your own challenges.”
            “Yes.” Helena’s eyes were shining, exultant. She sat up and spent a moment thinly smiling at nothing, as though daring an invisible person to challenge her. Then she paused and looked at Harry. “My thought was that we could use the similarities between our bondings to our advantage.”
            “I’m not Muggleborn, though,” Harry said, blinking, and Draco’s wing settled along the edge of his shoulder, stroking. Harry reckoned that was supposed to tell him that Draco didn’t think Harry was only bonded to him out of convenience, either. Harry reached back and gently grasped a feather between two fingers.
            “No,” Helena agreed. “But you are someone who was raised outside pure-blood culture, and you’re now trying to find your place within it, because of who you bonded to.” She leaned forwards with her fist beneath her chin and her eyes fastened on Harry. ‘And so is my Howard.”
            Harry spent a moment scouring his memory for traces of a “Howard,” but he couldn’t find any. Well, he knew that Helena had attended some negotiation meetings without him. She had probably met this man at one of them.
            “Harry is mated to a magical creature,” Draco murmured. “Will the similarities be enough to even make an impact on other people, without our constantly mentioning them?”
            “Why not constantly mention them?” Helena turned to Draco now and shared some kind of deep glance with him that Harry wasn’t privy to. He reckoned that he was experiencing the feeling of being shut out of pure-blood culture. “We want to emphasize them, and the papers like large, obvious things that they are told over and over again. So we will do this.”
            Draco blinked, looking struck. Harry decided that he probably did think it was a good plan; he was just reluctant to compare Harry to this Muggleborn man and Helena to himself in any way.
            “We can make it work, yes,” Harry said, and drew Helena’s attention back to him. “As long as you don’t expect me to act submissive like a traditional Veela mate in public. That might be what some people expect if I talk about how I’m learning to respond and work my way into pure-blood culture.”
            Helena gave him a frosty smile. “Believe me, Mr. Potter, no one could think that you were submissive if they had met you.” She paused for a moment, keeping time to an inner beat with one finger. “And I think…yes, I do think that we should emphasize even the ways in which you may be struggling to accept your status as a Veela mate, and how you and Mr. Malfoy are coming together anyway. The public loves a good romance. I can only present a limited side of that in mine with Howard, because I met him so recently and the public isn’t as interested in me as it is in you. But this is something we can work on. Yes.” She was smiling by the time she finished, and she turned around to look at Harry. “You’ll agree to publicize some of your struggles with the Veela role and explain to people what was difficult for you in your relationship?”
            Harry’s throat burned. This was a different kind of exposure for him. He hadn’t minded throwing himself into the peace process and doing all he could for it because it wasn’t personal; it was just what anyone would have to do to be politically successful and achieve his goals. But this was parading his private life in front of the public.
            Draco looked at him, eyes patient and waiting. He was going to let Harry make this decision.
            He probably doesn’t have that many objections, Harry decided abruptly. He probably doesn’t mind showing me off because it means that he gets to flaunt his perfect mate in front of people.
            And knowing Draco didn’t mind, and would be there to protect him if he needed it, decided Harry. He extended a decisive hand, and shook Helena’s. “We have a bargain,” he said. “So long as you can keep Daphne out of it,” he added.
            “I will.”
            And really, Harry thought, judging by the gleam in Helena’s eyes, she probably will. I suppose we should be grateful that her daughter is less important to her than political advantage.
*
Ciara_D: Yes, they’re much better-balanced than they were.
Meechypoo: Yes. And more than cuddle time very soon!
eros: Sorry I didn’t depict them this time!
SP777: Draco is going to ease him out of this role with people who are less hidebound than the ones they talked to.
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Nature of the Beast