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Nature of the Beast	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 48977 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 5
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Thirty-Seven—Ashes and Alliances
            Harry made a face at himself in the mirror, and heard Draco hiss softly behind him with agitation. A second later, his hands rested on Harry’s shoulders and smoothed down the cloth as if he wanted to make sure that Harry hadn’t ruined it with his scowl.
            Harry turned around and deliberately rolled his eyes as hard as he could. Draco looked back at him, calm and simple, with a hint of disappointment in his expression, until Harry huffed and faced the mirror again.
            “You know this is ridiculous,” he said under his breath, but not so far under it that Draco couldn’t hear.
            “I don’t know that at all.” Draco’s voice was deep and solemn. He touched Harry’s shoulders again and let his hands linger this time, bowing his head so that he could look at Harry in the mirror. “Besides, you were the one who agreed to publicize our struggles with the Veela bond. It would be wrong to give them the impression that we’re still struggling with it, wouldn’t it?”
            “That doesn’t mean you have to dress me up like a doll!”
            From the pressure of Draco’s hands on his shoulders, Harry knew that his shot had gone home, and probably harder than he’d intended. He opened his mouth to apologize, and Draco’s voice cut in instead, simmering.
            “Listen to me, Harry. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with letting me spoil you. You agree with that, don’t you?”
            “Yes,” said Harry, a little grudgingly. The book on Veela that Draco had bought him was fascinating, and Harry had buried himself in it for most of the weekend. It wasn’t like Harry minded gifts. He let his friends buy him whatever they wanted for his birthday, and he had stopped worrying about the cost, especially since the twins’ joke shop was doing so well.
            George’s joke shop, now.
            Harry took a deep breath and exhaled his grief for Fred. It couldn’t help him, not right now.
            “Then clothes are only another gift, and you should be able to accept that.” From the way that Draco’s hands tightened this time, Harry wouldn’t have been surprised to be shaken back and forth until his head was flopping. “You understand?”
            Harry lowered his eyes. “All right,” he muttered. “But it’s still—it’s too—it’s not too expensive,” he added, as he saw Draco’s reflected mouth open. “But it is pretty rich for me, isn’t it?” He plucked at the sleeve of the silken shirt and glared once again at his reflection in the mirror. He looked like a Muggle dressed up and playing prince.
            It wasn’t that there were ruffles or something, or Harry would have looked like someone playing princess, but he didn’t think Draco would do that to him. There was silver, though. And the shirt was dark green. And Draco had also got him trousers made of something dark and soft that moved when he moved, so flexible he scarcely noticed it. And he had thought Draco would buy him a pair of expensive robes, which he could have lived with, not this.
            “I’m sorry that comfortable trousers make you uncomfortable.”
            Harry glared into the mirror. Yes, now Draco was on the verge of laughter. Harry shook his head. “Listen. I agree you can buy me gifts. All right? But it just—it doesn’t look right on me.” He pulled at the shirt again.
            Draco bent over him, and his voice was soft. Harry found himself relaxing against his will, just listening. “You were wearing Muggle hand-me-downs. I know that. And then you wore school robes, and sometimes dress robes if someone demanded that you do it. But you haven’t ever had clothes that were tailored just for you and make you look nice at the same time. It’s all right. You’ll get used to it.”
            Harry glanced once into the mirror, and then turned his head aside. “But they don’t make me recognize myself,” he said. “I look different.”
            “Explain to me how you look different.” Draco’s hands had come to rest on his shoulders again, motionless.
            “I—I don’t think my eyes are that color,” said Harry, and glared into the mirror again.
            They weren’t. In the mirror they looked like they were glowing from the inside or something, and Harry heard enough about his eyes being this vibrant, unnatural shade of green. He really didn’t want to wear something that would just drag that color out more.
            Draco’s hands fussed and fiddled and flexed for a few minutes, and then he gave a mixture of a grunt and a sigh, and muttered, “Your eyes are beautiful, Harry. That shirt brings them out. That’s all.”
            Harry watched himself flush for a second before he closed his eyes. “And you don’t think they’re glowing from the inside?”
            “No. Why would I have got you this shirt if I thought that? I don’t want you to look as though your brain is on fire.”
            Harry burst out laughing, as much at the tone of honest bewilderment in Draco’s voice as anything else, and the moment passed. He turned around and smiled at Draco, who relaxed and bowed his head to nuzzle at the back of Harry’s neck. “Yes, all right, I understand. Thank you.” He clenched Draco’s hand for a moment before he let it go and moved to the door. “We need to go or we’ll be late for the meeting, right?”
*
            Harry didn’t even notice all the people watching him.
            But Draco did, and as long as none of those people replicated Daphne’s mistake and tried to touch, Draco was content that it should be so.
            Harry walked into the meeting, which was as much a discussion with reporters as it was a discussion with Muggleborns and pure-bloods, with no more than a murmur to Draco for holding the door for him. They were in the Three Broomsticks, and Madam Rosmerta was fluttering around getting drinks and placing meals on tables. Draco winced at the sight of her before his gaze went back to Harry.
            Harry hadn’t said anything because he was studying faces and probably trying to figure out alliances. Other people hadn’t said anything because it was hard to talk with your jaw halfway down your chest.
            Draco spread his wings, knowing that would lure some eyes to him, but not caring. The experiment was a success, and he was smug. Harry might protest all he wanted that he didn’t know about being handsome, that he looked like someone in a costume, that the clothes were too expensive for him. What they made him look like, and Draco had to admit his bias, was royalty. That was clear when Harry inclined his head to the man sitting at the end of the largest table, a pompous pure-blood, and the man practically bowed back.
            It’s not all my bias. Other people can actually see what’s there, and they’re not his mate.
            No one tried to touch Harry. They made way for him, and Harry, although with a blink that might have indicated he’d noticed how unusual that was, sat down and started talking. Draco moved up and stood behind him with his wings spread and the tips framing either side of Harry’s head. Other than a single roll of his eyes, Harry didn’t indicate he thought there was anything wrong with that.
            Draco’s bones ached with his pride.
            At one point, Helena Greengrass stood up and tapped her hand on the table, and silence fell. Greengrass turned towards Draco and Harry and opened one hand. “We came here together to discuss the peace process, of course,” she said, and her voice was a touch away from the kind of sliminess Draco would have found objectionable. “But we also came here to witness an announcement of the sort of Veela bond that Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter have found together.”
            Draco’s wings quivered once, then stabilized. She hadn’t said anything that was actually objectionable. He was a little amazed.
            “As you know,” Greengrass went on, turning in a circle as if she was displaying before a much larger audience, “Mr. Potter and Mr. Malfoy hardly have a traditional Veela bond. Mr. Potter was raised by Muggles, and didn’t know what honor a Veela bond was supposed to convey. Mr. Malfoy was raised entirely in the wizarding world and thought everyone would know and want to be a submissive to his Veela.”
            And then she sat down, leaving them with that slightly too-honest introduction. Some of the pure-bloods were staring at Harry, and Draco was sure they wondered how he’d been suffered to grow up in the Muggle world.
            “So,” said Harry, and nodded to everyone who was staring at him. “This bond was hard for me to accept. I knew I could never stay at home all the time and simply defer to Draco. Luckily, we found out that wasn’t what he wanted, either.” He turned and smiled up at Draco, with warm and glowing affection, and Draco found himself smiling back without planning on it.
            “No,” Draco said. “I wanted what I thought was the ideal mate. But I also wanted Harry. And to have the one that ultimately mattered most, I had to let the ideal go.” He rested his hand on Harry’s shoulder for a moment.
            Harry stiffened, but Draco didn’t think it was from his touch. He decided that Harry was probably fighting against the urge to duck his head and let his hair fall over his scar. A second later, he nodded and cleared his throat, then looked around and asked, “What are your questions?”
            “You’re one of the most famous wizards in the world,” said the pure-blood man who had bowed back to Harry at once. “There’s really no doubt that you’re going to stay in our world for the rest of your life, is there?”
            “No,” Harry said slowly. Draco could feel puzzlement, which felt like little silver chimes, from the back of the bond.
            “Then why put up such a fuss about being submissive?” The man doubled down his fists on the table. “Learn the truth, if you didn’t know it, accept it for the honor it is, and go along with it.”
            “I couldn’t think it was an honor even when I learned about it,” Harry said, and the man almost tumbled back, as if his chair had rockers on it. “I was used to fighting for myself. I was involved in politics. What about that, sir, made you think that I could so easily let someone else manage my life for me?”
            “A submissive would just naturally want to, though,” the man said. He glanced at Draco’s wings. “And he has all the marks of a dominant.”
            Harry shook his head. “I didn’t naturally want to. I think we should rethink Veela bonds. Maybe they can still be honors, but not in the same way they always have been.”
            “You are assuming there will be others in your situation,” Greengrass said, which made Draco turn to her with his wings spread until he realized what she was trying to do: give them a solid basis to push back and argue against. Draco managed to tuck his wings behind his shoulder blades and give her a strict nod, although it was hard.
            “Of course there will be,” said Harry, with a bored shrug. “Other Muggle-raised submissives, other Veela who don’t have perfect bonds to their mates. We’ve already found some evidence of them in the books I’ve read.” He turned to Greengrass and gave her a patient smile. “There have to be bonds like this that happened before. It’s simply hard for most people to acknowledge that they might have to change their minds about an ancient and cherished tradition, so it makes sense for the reality to have been buried in the flow of history.”
            Greengrass paused long enough that Draco thought she might be planning to turn on them after all and betray them to other allies of hers. In the end, she nodded, murmured, “Planning for the future, as usual, Mr. Potter,” and sat down.
            “My grandmother was a Veela,” said a woman on the end of the table. Draco turned towards her. He knew she was related to the Selwyns—had to be, with that horsey face—but he couldn’t remember her name. “She said that the bond was the center and mainstay of her life, and she couldn’t have survived without my grandfather looking after her. How can you defend a different way, Mr. Malfoy? Don’t you need to same level of care from your submissive?”
            “And here I thought dominants were supposed to take care of their submissives, not the other way around,” Harry muttered to himself.
            Draco pressed gently down on his shoulder for a second, then faced the woman. “I would rather have a bond that can make me happy,” he said. “I can fetch my own food or have the house-elves do it.” He sniffed a little. “To a family with house-elves, why should a submissive be a slave?”
            “But it would be all right if they didn’t have house-elves?”
            The horsey-faced woman gave Harry a satisfied look. “You see what comes of letting them talk back, Mr. Malfoy? My grandmother would never have tolerated that.”
            “No, but your grandmother wasn’t mated to someone politically active, who tries to take care of the wizarding world even now,” said Draco, and sighed a little when he saw her blank expression. The most tiresome part of what Greengrass had asked them to do was simply repeating and repeating the explanations. “Your grandmother wasn’t mated to Harry Potter,” he tried to explain.
            “How could she be? He hadn’t been born yet.”
            Draco sighed again and turned to Greengrass. “We have your permission to go on and spend a bit more of the meeting discussing the bond?”
            “You don’t need my permission.” Greengrass gave him a sweet smile and gestured around at the other pure-bloods behind her, the ones who hadn’t spoken yet. “I’m sure they’ll find this all fascinating.”
            Draco grimaced a little. Yes, fascinating in the sense that they’ll look for weaknesses and try to tell themselves that I’m Harry’s.
            But it was much better than their simply disregarding them or attacking them outright, the way Maundy had tried. Draco turned back to his audience, determined to explain what he could.
*
            The woman who reminded Harry of Aunt Petunia spoke up again, as though she didn’t like the way Helena had been controlling the meeting so far. “Surely you wouldn’t mind taking care of your dominant Veela, Mr. Potter? It would be easier than trying to take care of and heal the whole wizarding world.”
            “I wouldn’t mind it, maybe, if your descriptions of the bond made any sense,” Harry said, and felt the flickers in the back of his mind that he thought meant Draco was surprised. And pleased, hopefully. Harry wasn’t going to say anything bad about him, but he wasn’t going to hold back, either. “I was supposed to take care of him, you say. Well, he told me that a submissive was supposed to lean back and let the dominant take care of him. And I would have to guard the Malfoy houses, and never venture outside them, and never do anything political, and raise the children. Except Veela also raise and make their children with their mates, and I never felt the kind of connection to the Malfoy houses that the bond was supposed to give me.” He cocked his head. “The bond is destined, his mother said, but then she seemed to think that I could be replaced with another mate. I don’t understand. What exactly is it supposed to be? How many of you think different things about it and don’t even realize that?”
            He felt Draco’s hand pressing down on his shoulder and stopped, panting. Only now did he remember that they hadn’t agreed they would reveal Narcissa’s part in trying to give Draco another mate. Harry grimaced. He could hope Draco didn’t feel betrayed by that.
            Leaning back against Draco and concentrating on the bond, Harry didn’t think he was. The bond was still quicksilver and faint and hard to read, but at least Harry knew he hadn’t made Draco rage.
            “Yes, those things happened,” Draco told the audience quietly. “I didn’t know what I wanted the bond to be. I was proud that I was mated to Harry Potter and then shocked when he didn’t react like any other mate. Well, what would have been the point of him if he did that?” Draco shook his head, a faint smile on his lips when Harry glanced up at him. “I couldn’t simultaneously have a mate unlike anyone else’s and a mate the same as everyone else’s.”
            Harry relaxed and nodded to the audience. “And I couldn’t have had a bond that was entirely unlike any other Veela bond, not if Draco was going to survive.” He turned to Helena. “Tradition should always command a certain amount of reverence, but we have to change and move forwards, don’t we?”
            “Yes, we do,” said Helena, and rose gracefully to her feet. “And therefore, I must announce my own unexpected bonding and marriage. To someone who is an equal I never expected to find, but can help the peace process, and thoroughly understands the traditions we revere.” She paused. “And who is Muggleborn.”
            That brought down the storm of controversy, but more muted than it would have been if she had simply stood up and announced that without giving them the example of Harry and Draco to mull over first, Harry knew. He sighed and sank back in his chair, glancing at Draco as he waved towards the seat next to him.
            Draco shook his head and remained standing. Harry shrugged, squashing down the warmth that opened up inside of him. I suppose if he wants to be ready for someone trying to hurt me, it makes sense for him to stay in that position.
            Draco looked directly at him, and nodded. I do.
            Harry bit back the exclamation of wonder. If their thoughts had just touched each other’s, they weren’t going to alert anyone else of it.
            But he promised himself they would explore this the minute they were out of the meeting.
*
Meechypoo: That, and Harry thinks most people already know a lot of this stuff anyway.
Daphne is not very happy about it.
Hestia: Yes, I had a few bad things happen in the last weeks that left me pretty sick and exhausted, but hopefully that’s not going to be an issue from now on.
A: Thanks!
Kain: No. Part of their reaction is going to be in the next chapter.
Ciara_D: Draco would be so offended to hear them described that way. Even though it’s true. ;)
Thank you!
SP777: Oh, it probably will.
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Nature of the Beast