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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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Chapter Thirty-Nine—Questions and Quietude
            “Ready?” Harry was the one asking the question this time, which felt strange. But Draco had remained near him most of the morning, and in contact with him at all those times, even if it was only with one feather at the end of his wing brushing against Harry’s arm. The Harry of a month ago might have put that down to the room at the Leaky Cauldron they’d taken over to prepare for this question-and-answer situation being small and cramped.
            But that Harry was gone, and Harry rather liked the person he was becoming. That meant waiting patiently until Draco’s gaze came back to him, wide and unfocused, and it meant also waiting until Draco’s eyes lit up and he made a sharp gesture with one hand.
            “Yes, I am,” said Draco. “Ready to show them that you’re all mine.” His voice had taken on a deeper, rumbling undertone most of the time since they’d had sex. Harry found he didn’t mind it when it made tingles of pleasure run up his spine and skin—and Draco touching him made that happen almost all the time.
            On the other hand, Draco was stalking towards the door from the room like a long-legged bird, and Harry could all too easily envision what would happen if someone tried to touch him, even accidentally.
            “Draco?” Draco halted at once, his body twitching responsively at Harry’s voice. “Promise me you won’t attack anyone?”
            Draco reached out and slid a casual hand up the wall. Shavings of wood curled away from his talons. “As long as no one touches you. Or insults you. Or lies about us. Or implies that you would be better off with another partner.”
            Harry stepped up beside him and took Draco’s hand in his, smoothing away the talons, the way he always could when he was touching Draco. “You know it’s more complicated than that. We called this meeting to discuss our bond. You can’t be angry at people for being curious.”
            “Can’t I?” Draco’s smile was dangerous, and Harry saw the ghostly flicker of a beak around his lips and teeth.
            “No,” said Harry. “Not when we called this press conference, and said that we would tell the press the truth about our relationship. It would only encourage them to write even more rumors about us, about how you’re an animal, or holding me prisoner, or can’t be trusted out in public. Do you want to make things worse for other Veela?” He paused, since Draco still didn’t look convinced, and added appealingly, “Do you want to make things worse for me?”
            That worked. A shimmer of white light seemed to run in reverse up Draco’s face and hair and wings, and he crowded close to Harry and touched him again, but softly. “I was doing that?”
            “Not right now,” said Harry, and gave him a reassuring smile. “But it might turn out that way. Remember how many people still have those views about submissives needing to soothe their dominants if they get upset? I don’t want anyone thinking I should be doing that and getting angry at me because I haven’t.”
            Draco hesitated once, then nodded. “You don’t need that on top of everything else,” he said, and then cupped Harry’s face. “But I can’t stand to have anyone else touch you or imply they have a right to you.”
            “Don’t worry,” Harry said. “We’re going to be at enough of a distance from the crowd that I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”
            “They could still call things out that imply they have a right to you.” Draco’s wings gave another violent twitch.
            “You have my permission to stand behind me and look regal and pissed off.” Harry turned towards the door. “I’d think that would discourage them before they could start. Think of it as a preemptive strike.”
            “That’s probably true,” Draco said, and strode forwards with his stride springy and elastic.
            Harry hid a chuckle as he followed.
*
            Mine.
            Draco could feel himself calming down now that Harry had reminded him, gently, of where they stood, but that was still the word humming in the back of his head when he looked at Harry standing in front of the Leaky Cauldron, ready to address the other reporters and Muggleborns and curious pure-bloods they had called together.
            No one else should try to touch Harry. No one else should claim him. No one had better start a rumor that they had been Harry Potter’s lover on the side. Or before the war. Or during the war. Or ever in his life.
            Draco arched his neck and spread his wings. There were some people in the crowd who would take that as evidence of a satisfied dominant Veela, and think that therefore, he and Harry must have a completely traditional relationship. They were welcome to. Draco would laugh at them, and use their assumptions to take care of them before they could become dangerous.
            Yes, as much as meetings like this one increased the chances that someone would try to claim or touch Harry, and thus infuriated Draco, it did mean that Draco would also have the chance to see who the people interested in his mate were, and neutralize them before they could become problems.
            Foremost of the crowd, of course, was Rita Skeeter, spinning her quill between her fingers and eyeing them like a hungry shark. There were several other reporters, both women and men, who Draco didn’t know. The only one who looked a little neutral and unruffled was Xenophilius Lovegood of the Quibbler, and from the way his eyes immediately went to Draco’s wings and stayed there, he was probably only here for the magical creature angle.
            The crowd sprawled across at least half Diagon Alley, and was accumulating new members all the time from wizards who had come out to go to the shops or for some other reason. They were gaping like fools, too, even the ones who went past the crowd by edging up against the buildings. Draco sniffed. They might say they would have been as curious and a-goggle about any Veela mating that went against their expectations, but he thought it was all down to Harry being famous.
            They never want to leave him in privacy, even when they would get upset about anyone intruding into their lives.
            Draco fluffed out his wings a second later. Well, he had the power and the right—according to the hidebound—to make them leave Harry alone now. He would use it as long as Harry permitted him to.
            No violence, was all Harry said down their bond, brushing his connection across Draco’s mind like a handful of feathers, and Draco was happy, because that still left open lots of irritating and damaging ways for him to act.
            Harry rolled his eyes at him and turned back to face the crowd. Draco kept their link open, soft, and relaxed. He could send emotions as a warning if someone got too familiar with Harry and he was building up to an attack, and that would give Harry an opportunity to restrain Draco if he wanted to.
            “So,” Harry said, and looked from face to face. “I know that you’re here to hear about our bond, and how it will affect the peace process to have a Veela mate with me.”
            There was some stirring, and a few confused murmurs. Draco grinned viciously. They had thought they were coming here to ask questions about the bond, and nothing else. They would want to know how Harry could turn this into a political tool.
            And he was going to do it, and in such a way that it would function as a strangling chain about the neck of anyone who tried to make them act in a way they didn’t want to act.
            “I see our bond as special,” Harry said. “Private. No is one is ever going to know exactly what thoughts and emotions my Veela and I exchange, and that’s the way it should be.”
            A warm haze descended on Draco, one in which he might have agreed if Harry had asked Draco to let Daphne touch him. To hear Harry describe him that way, when he had never thought they would come that far…He glowed as Harry smiled at him, and then Harry turned back to their audience and spoke with a polite, determined expression.
            “But at the same time, it is also a bond between someone who has a high profile for fighting on Dumbledore’s side during the war, and someone who had a high profile in the Death Eater trials. Between someone with a Muggleborn mother, raised in the Muggle world, and someone who’s been in the pure-blood world all his life. I think those things are valuable, and can do some heavy lifting on the representation side to make it normal for everyone involved.”
            Dumbledore’s side? Your side, Draco told Harry.
            It’s not like I would want to claim credit for it anyway, especially considering how inefficiently he handled some of the war.
            Draco didn’t get the chance to ask what Harry meant, because Skeeter chirped, “But we can ask questions about private matters? We have to, if your bond is symbolic, you see. What else will permit our readers to understand it?”
            “Oh, we’re symbols,” said Harry, before Draco could explain exactly what he thought about that and where Skeeter could put her eagerness. “The way I’ve had to be for so long. But we’re also living people. Which means that we don’t have to answer your questions if we don’t want to.” He smiled at Skeeter. “And if we’re upset about something that we never said, which you choose to print in the papers anyway, we retain the right to sue. Like all living people.”
            Skeeter opened her mouth as if to say something, then grimaced and clapped it shut. It was Lovegood, of all options, who asked the next question in a slightly dry and dusty voice. “What would you say your bonding means for magical creature rights, Mr. Malfoy?”
            Draco arched his neck. “I would hope it would encourage other Veela with nontraditional bonds to think about whether they want to let others know. At least half our misery came from the implication that we were wrong or unusual for doing what we did. Or just plain unnatural. If others who might have been hiding under the usual dominant-submissive masks but are really different can take some power and hope from us, then explaining like this will have been worth it.”
            Lovegood smiled and wrote things down. He was the only one who looked perfectly satisfied with the answer to his question so far.
            Skeeter spoke up again. “What about the perception that Veela like their mates virgin? And the fact of Harry Potter’s numerous girlfriends before he bonded with you?”
            Harry’s cheeks flamed, but Draco caught his hand and answered before his mate could be overcome by the torrent of emotion gushing down the bond—or, worse, decide that he was going to be “honest” and tell Skeeter and her audience about things they had no right to know. “We don’t intend to address that. As far as his girlfriends went, some relationships are a matter of public record, and others are a matter of public rumor.” He couldn’t help giving Skeeter a scathing glance. “Harry and I have discussed all the ones that he feels I should know about. The matter is now closed.”
            We never did really discuss them.
            I know you were never attracted to Daphne, and that was the one that mattered the most at the time, Draco answered curtly. And I know you aren’t going to go back to be with—Weasley, or Chang. It was easier to bring himself to say Weasley’s name, now that he and Harry were bonded and he could feel Harry’s hurt when he insulted her. So we can discuss them later.
            All right.
            There it was, the slow, honey-gold curl of Harry’s delight in being with someone who would accept his statements at face value. Draco smiled at him. Yes, that was wonderful, but still better was being with someone who could discuss things with him down the bond and know in an instant what Draco really believed and didn’t believe.
            “Someone might want to be with the Great Harry Potter, though,” murmured Skeeter provocatively. “Or even you, Mr. Malfoy.”
            Draco looked at her, bored. He thought the bond settling had calmed him down, too. It wasn’t long before that he would have been spreading his wings and trying to fly into the audience at the implication that he didn’t deserve to be walking around free. “Of course they could. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to get the chance.”
            “Let someone else talk, Skeeter,” said a woman Draco didn’t know, with a distinctive part in her hair, as Skeeter was opening her mouth to speak again. “Honestly, not everyone wants to know about their love lives.” She turned and addressed Harry directly. “Do you not mourn for the freedom that you lost when you became part of the bond?”
            Harry blinked. “No.”
            “But earlier, you were insistent about not knowing anything about Veela, and you hoped to be free and not caught in the toils of an archaic bond.”
            She’s for real, right? Harry asked Draco.
            I’m afraid so.
            “I never used language like that,” said Harry, and didn’t hide the roll of his eyes, despite how much it made the reporter look offended. “And I did resent the idea that everyone expected me to be overjoyed about the bond. I was resigned to doing the best I could and trying not to cause trouble, or cause Draco pain.”
            Draco had to extend his wing and brush it against Harry’s shoulders, because things were so different now. Harry smiled at him, and went back to staring at the woman in the audience. “But I’ve realized now that Draco isn’t some stereotype of a dominant Veela, either, wanting me to stay home all the time and control me. If he had been, then yes, I could never have done this. But he’s not.”
            Yet another reporter demanded, “Are you going to stop attending the political meetings now that you’re bonded? Take up the role of the Veela submissive?”
            “I just told you I wouldn’t,” said Harry. Patiently, but Draco could feel the snap in his voice, even though it was hidden, and the pressure roiling in the bond. “Please stop failing to listen to my words.”
            “What contribution do you think your bond can make to the peace process?” asked someone else. “Is this something you’ll have to explain to the Muggleborns who don’t understand it?”
            Harry smiled. “I hope it can help them come to some understanding of the wizarding world. After all, what happens if a Muggleborn wizard like me ends up bonded to a Veela and has no idea of what to do? That story might end tragically. They might not be able to figure out a way to handle the bond like Draco and I did, or they might have a more traditionalist mate. I hope we can provide a sort of role model.”
            The questions settled down after that, but Draco remained carefully poised at Harry’s side, alert, looking from face to face. They could look, as long as they didn’t touch. And they could ask questions, as long as they weren’t asking ones that pried too much into things he and Harry wanted to keep quiet.
            We already said what we would do then. We would just refuse to answer.
            That doesn’t mean we can’t feel angry about it.
            Harry snorted, and answered another question. Draco let his wing glide over Harry’s back again, to reassure them both.
*
            Having someone that much in his corner, someone who wanted to fight for him, was exasperating sometimes. Harry occasionally felt that he spent more time curbing Draco’s instincts than he did indulging them.
            On the other hand, too much indulgence would have led to the sort of bond he’d wanted to avoid.
            And at bottom…
            Sometimes, it was good to have someone that much in his corner. Someone who trembled and bristled with anger when he was insulted, someone who wanted to fight for him at all times, someone who would fight with him but never urge him to do something solely for the good of another person, or be able to manipulate him—because the bond would let Harry know what Draco was really thinking and feeling at all times—or hold grudges against him because of who his father had been.
            Tell me you never thought about dating Snape.
            Harry had to laugh in his head. No, but he was someone I had to rely on more than I wanted to. You’re someone I can rely on without reservation.
            That made Draco puff himself up more than ever and his feathers stand on end while the shimmering silver glow ran across them. More than one person stared. But no one said anything, probably realizing already that that was one of the questions they wouldn’t answer, and Harry was able to go back to talking about the peace process.
            We can have some quiet time together, tonight.
            Looking forward to it, Harry admitted, and leaned back so he could feel Draco’s wing more strongly behind him, and smiled.
*
SP777: Well, Harry, at least, isn’t ready to become a parent just yet!
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Nature of the Beast