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Veela-Struck	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 52830 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, and I am making no money from this writing.

Chapter List
- 1-Veela-Struck
- 2-Changed
- 3-Thought-Through
- 4-Met
- 5-Challenged
- 6-Snapped
- 7-Struggled
- 8-Lost
- 9-Dazed
- 10-Worried
- 11-Shamed
- 12-Hidden
- 13-Dazzled
- 14-Astounded
- 15-Marked
- 16-Damaged
- 17-Chosen
- 18-Shuddered
- 19-Broken
- 20-Spoken
- 21-Influenced
- 22-Gifted
- 23-Promised
- 24-Distressed
- 25-Held
- 26-Tempted
- 27-Warded
- 28-Rumored
- 29-Fought
- 30-Flayed
- 31-Identified
- 32-Practiced
- 33-Enchanted
- 34-Blazed
- 3
- 4
- 5
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Four—Met

            “Harry? Where are you going?” Ron sounded half-injured, and Harry knew why. It was the first day he’d been back to work in a week, since he’d reluctantly acknowledged that Hermione could give him notice when the baby was coming and didn’t need him to hover around her bedside twenty-four hours a day. He’d assumed Harry would come out with him to a pub and they would get into a friendly argument over whatever philosophical topic Hermione had assigned him to think about this week.

            “I’ve got someone to meet,” Harry said, with a careless little shrug. He still hadn’t told Ron about Draco, partially because Ron was more protective of him than even Hermione, but more because he had no idea what he was supposed to call this—thing between him and Draco. It wasn’t a date, because Harry wouldn’t let it be. Nor was it a therapy session or a simple night out with a friend, but it was closer to those things, Harry thought.

            “You do?”

            The tone in Ron’s voice was utterly unexpected. Harry blinked at him. His friend was leaning towards him with brilliant eyes and cheeks that had actually flushed. Harry frowned, and then understood.

            “No.” He said it sharply, because the alternative was screaming the words of rejection like a banshee. “Nothing like that, Ron. Not a date.”

            Ron blinked in turn and sat down heavily behind the desk. There was silence between them for a minute, while Ron played with his quill and Harry kept his eyes stubbornly averted.

There was no reason to stand here and feel guilty, Harry argued with himself. It wasn’t as though Ron had taken any particular interest in Harry’s dates when Harry was still dating, or as though Harry was accountable to him for his love life. Ron’s only stipulation was that he didn’t want to hear any details of Harry’s buggering, and that Harry was to tell him if he ever thought about dating one of Ron’s brothers, so Ron would have time to get out of the room and find a basin.

But he felt guilty anyway, or at least enough to stand there, compelled to listen to what he knew Ron was about to say.

            “It’s been two years, mate.” Ron’s voice was gentle. “Almost three.” Harry shuddered; he didn’t need the reminder that the Blazing Season was only a few months away. “I think you should try.”

            “I don’t want to try.” Harry folded his arms and glared back at Ron. “I’m the only one who can say when I’m ready to have sex again, and trying to rush me is really, really not the answer.” And there’s no reason for you to care, anyway, not about that one particular thing, he added in the back of his mind. Why do you care? “I’ve tried so hard on everything else. Leave me alone about this.”

            Ron winced and lowered the hand that he’d lifted as if he wanted to reach towards Harry. “I know that.” His voice was low. “I’m sorry, mate. But I think—you deserve to have everything. That’s all.”

            And that’s why he cares, Harry reminded himself, as he exhaled shakily. “I know,” he said. “I do know, Ron, really,” he repeated with a weak smile, when Ron looked at him doubtfully. “I just—there’s no way that I can hurry this, and having other people tell me that I should feels like everyone just cares that I have sex, not who with or if I want to wait longer.”

            Ron nodded earnestly. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I didn’t mean that. But when I think about how eager to go on dates you used to be—”

            “Things change.” Harry kept his voice as light as he could. He knew that his friends didn’t really want the “normal” Harry back, that they weren’t criticizing him when they reflected on the way it used to be, but damn it, he felt as if they were, and there was no point discussing the subject when he couldn’t be rational about it. “Anyway. I’m meeting this person, and there’s not going to be a date involved. All right?”

            Ron tilted his head in acceptance. “Sure. Who is it?”

            Harry grinned then, taking some delight in saying, “Draco,” and slipping out of the office before Ron could react one way or the other.

*

            Draco glanced around with a baffled expression. He had thought that Harry might want to meet in his own home, or (but this was a dream and Draco hadn’t spent much time indulging it) in Draco’s. His second choice would have been Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, big and bustling places where they would have plenty to do and no chance to talk intimately, the way Harry seemed to want to avoid doing.

            But a Muggle park? More, a small Muggle park with unkempt, shaggy shrubs and leafless trees and dark, still ponds that looked like people committed suicide in them every day of the week?

            Sometimes Draco thought he would never understand Harry.

            But that’s one of the reasons I’m here, he reminded himself, his hands reaching out automatically when he saw Harry striding towards him through the trees.

Draco managed to make sure his arms fell back to his sides by the time Harry actually reached him. A Veela would have the right to embrace its partner, but he didn’t have that right, not yet.

            It was unexpectedly frustrating. Draco had never been in a situation where he had assumed that his chosen would not make the decision to choose Draco back. He had expected rejection at the beginning of the process, not in the middle.

            It made him wince as though lactic acid had built up in his muscles, not to exercise his instincts. But he had accepted this, and he would give up only if the situation became really intolerable, rather than uncomfortable.

            “Draco.” Harry gave him the same kind of brisk smile he had used when Draco first came to him for help. “Thanks for agreeing to come here.”

            “Why here?” Draco asked before he could help himself. He had promised that he would go slowly, do what Harry needed, and not hurry him. But the park seemed to press more and more in on him the more he thought about it. There wasn’t a single person about, at least not in direct line of sight. Draco thought he could hear dogs barking beyond the trees, but it was strangely muffled and quiet.

            “I like it here,” Harry said, pacing across the small clearing where Draco had stood, towards one of the paths that ran under the trees. Draco reluctantly followed him, coming up to walk by his side when he saw Harry’s shoulders tense. Sure enough, Harry relaxed the minute he could see him. “There’s privacy, in a way that there’s not in most wizarding locations,” Harry continued meditatively. “And, even better, no one can put eavesdropping spells on a place like this, with so many trees and so much natural magic to disrupt them.”

            “Natural magic?” Draco stared in several directions. He hadn’t sensed any, but now that he thought about it, the foreboding feeling might well come from that. Ancient magic, born from the waters and the wild, didn’t always play well with wizards.

            Harry nodded, giving him the sort of half-smile that Draco wanted to see all the time. “Yeah. We had a suspect that ran here one day, apparently because he’d discovered it and assumed that it could protect him. It couldn’t, but we did discover where it came from.” Harry suddenly stooped at the foot of a tree that looked no different from any other to Draco and pulled back a pad of what Draco would have thought was ordinary grass and walked past without a second glance. “Here.”

            Draco stared, his mouth falling open. There were three stones piled on top of each other, in a way that could have been accidental but more than likely wasn’t—especially considering the rune carved into the top stone.

            “Danger,” Draco whispered. Harry cocked an eyebrow, and Draco cleared his throat. “The rune says danger.”

            Harry nodded and stood up. “We don’t know what this was, though Hermione suspected that it might be the cairn over the last of a race of extinct magical beings when we told her about it. Wizards definitely carved that rune.” He kicked the moss and grass back over the cairn, with seemingly casual movements that nevertheless hid it well. “The main feature of it is that it’s meant to be unchanging. No matter what happens around it, Muggle cities or wizarding wars, it’ll always be here.”

            He took a deep breath and looked over at Draco. “I wanted to show you that so you’ll understand what I’m talking about when I say that’s one of my ideals. Not to change, not to be—less than I am.”

            Draco licked his lips. He hated to disagree with Harry during one of their first intimate conversations, but he wouldn’t be less than he was, either. “Everything changes, Harry.”

            “I said it was an ideal, didn’t I?” Harry laughed, a light sound that made Draco ache.

            Fuck, he hadn’t realized how hard this would be. A Veela’s magical powers were meant to defend the Veela, yes, but they were also meant to serve, protect, and defend the chosen one, one of the reasons that Veela were less tightly-regulated by the Ministry than other magical beings.

            And to possess. Draco wanted to be the one who caused all Harry’s laughter, who caused all his moans, who held and cherished and guided him.

            And that wasn’t going to be possible. Not for a long time.

            “Realizing how hard it will be?”

            Draco blinked and looked up. Harry had turned to face him, his face so serious that Draco automatically backed up a step. Harry had looked at him that way before shortly after he had driven away someone intent on attacking Draco.

            “It is,” Harry said, and there was sympathy like fire in his voice, which warmed Draco and made him think uneasily about burning at the same time. “It’s going to be very hard. I’ll say things you can’t understand sometimes, and you’ll get sick of the explanations. I’ll have to talk about myself for months on end, and that’ll make me upset and unreasonable. You’ll have to resist these instincts that I—I know you have, because of my experience with him.” He paused, catching his breath, though he hadn’t spoken long enough to be out of it. “Are you sure that you want to do this?”

            Draco watched him steadily for some minutes. Then he nodded.

            Harry was the one to step away this time. He tried to pretend it was only about shifting his weight, but Draco knew better. “Why? It can hurt you as much as me—”

            “Because I feel bound to you,” Draco whispered. “There’s no way that I can walk away now. No way. I don’t want to suffer through the agonies that you’re describing, no, but I would suffer through much worse than that to help you.”

            Harry looked at him, his eyes shadowed. How can he go through so much suffering and still be so beautiful? Draco wondered. “What if you don’t gain back enough to make up for your trouble, though? That’s what I’m worried about.”

            “You help other people, including my parents,” Draco said. “Do you ever feel as if you’ve done too much work for too little reward?”

            Harry blurted out, “No!” When Draco raised his eyebrows, he flushed and turned away, kicking at the grass and scratching the back of his neck. “It’s just what I do,” he mumbled. “If I had thought I’d ever get tired of it or unable to do it, I wouldn’t have tried to become an Auror.”

            “And you can maintain that spirit despite everything that’s happened to you,” Draco said, moving slowly nearer so that Harry would have plenty of time to hear him coming. Harry tensed, but didn’t look around. Draco wasn’t sure what that meant. “That’s one of the things I could fall in love with you for, one of the things I want to fall in love with you for. Yes, you need healing, but you’ve accomplished so much already. You haven’t made your whole life one of fear or resentment or nursing your wounds. I admire that.”

            He let his hand rest, open-palmed, on Harry’s back, and waited.

*

            Harry stiffened his shoulders and practically pranced away from Draco’s touch before he could calm himself. Then he shut his eyes and shook his head. His flush had turned into a heat that must make his cheeks look like Ron’s when he was caught stuffing his foot in his mouth yet again.

            He’d been able to let Draco touch him only a month ago, when he didn’t have to think about dating him. Yes, he’d still been poised on an edge of quivering tension, because he knew that Draco was a Veela and could use the control of the allure, but at the time he hadn’t thought Draco would have any motive to do so.

            “I’m sorry,” he said.

            Draco sighed. “Is there anything else that you want to do in this park, or could we go somewhere more cheerful?” he asked.

            Harry turned around again in sheer surprise, and then smiled. He had forgotten how the brooding magic of the cairn would cause other people to feel. He liked it because he understood, here, exactly where the danger was coming from, and he didn’t have to worry about unexplained Dark magic.

            “Yes, if you want,” he said. As long as I know where we’re going in advance, he didn’t say. He was all right with giving up control in this one instance because he had accompanied his friends to shops and other public places in the last few years. “What were you thinking of doing?”

            Draco glanced at him with dark, liquid eyes, and Harry winced. He really should have thought better before he phrased his question that way, because of course he knew exactly what Draco was thinking of. But an apology would make it more awkward still, so he lifted his eyebrows and waited.

            “I thought a pub,” Draco said. “But I remember what you said about liking to cook your own food.”

            Harry tilted his head. “I don’t mind beer I didn’t make.” After two years of experimenting with that, he still hadn’t managed to master the spells or the recipe that would make butterbeer he’d concocted on his own taste good, never mind stronger drinks. “As long as you don’t mind me testing it with every spell in the known universe.”

            Draco looked at the ground as if he wanted to hide the sorrow in his eyes, then nodded and extended his arm. “Side-Along Apparition?”

            It was a test and a challenge. Harry knew he could bear it long enough for a Side-Along, as he had borne Hermione’s hold on his wrist the last time he visited her. He nodded shortly and moved closer to Draco, although his mind spun and a long line of sweat broke out down his back.

            Laurent had liked to drag him about, Side-Along Apparate him and stand with his hand on Harry’s back or shoulder or arm in public. It had taken Harry a long time, thinking things over in the after, to realize that even that was a manifestation of Laurent’s possessiveness, a way of saying that Harry was his.

            He gritted his teeth and stood still as Draco draped his arm over Harry’s shoulder, drawing him in. Draco’s breath touched his neck. He sighed, and Harry wondered if he was breathing in Harry’s scent, something he knew Veela liked to do.

            His stomach spun to join his mind. But Harry had had a lot of practice in controlling this particular reaction, since Hermione, in particular, seemed to need to cling to him every so often. He didn’t vomit as they Apparated and arrived outside the Leaky Cauldron, although there was no way that he would be able to eat anything.

            Draco glanced at him with a triumphant smile, which faded, probably because he’d seen the expression on Harry’s face. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Will it always be this hard?”

            “I hope not,” Harry answered, lifting his head and trying to step away. Draco’s arm tightened automatically, but Harry gave him a level glance, and Draco let him go with a little hiss. “I hope it’ll get better,” Harry added, and shook his head when he heard the despair in his voice. “I do.”

            Draco paused as if he wanted to say something more, then bowed his head and gestured Harry into the pub. Harry smiled at him. Not even Ron and Hermione always remembered that he liked to go into a pub first so that he could choose a table.

            Draco stared at him. “For a smile like that,” he said, in a murmur that Harry might have been meant to hear and might not have been, “I’d do a lot more than restrain myself for a while.”

            Harry felt his cheeks flush, but this time, it wasn’t as a prelude to vomiting or because he was upset that someone had seen how hard he was still struggling. Draco had spoken the words as a compliment, and Harry could accept them that way.

            Are things changing already? he asked himself hopefully while he took a table from which he could see the door and Draco went up to the bar to order. Then he shook his head while he cast a number of spells around the table that would show him if someone had spilled poison or done Dark magic there lately, as well as alarms that would warn him when anyone approached. I don’t think it can happen that fast.

            He still found it easier than he thought he should have to take his drink from Draco, and although he had to test it, Draco sat and watched him with a patient expression, not even swinging his leg the way that Ron sometimes did when this happened. Harry finally took a drink of the warm butterbeer and leaned back against his chair, as contented as he could remember being in a public place since that had happened.

            “Will you tell me what you need?” Draco asked.

            Harry blinked at him. “Control. I’ve told you that.”

            Draco shook his head. He was tracing one finger up and down the side of his own bottle of Firewhisky. “More than that. What does it mean? I know that you don’t like to be held close. Is that something you want to work on? Is it another expression of the desire for control? What else do you need or what else can’t you do because of this?”

            Harry found himself relaxing even more, which was odd. Still, he’d listed these things before, for Ron and Hermione. That made it easier to tell them to Draco than if he’d had to come up with the list from scratch.

            “It’s hard for me to tolerate someone holding me close, yeah,” he said. “I have to make my own food. I’m very cautious about who I invite into my house, and my wards are a lot stronger than they used to be.” He gestured to the door, and Draco turned around to stare at it before he realized what Harry was doing. “I have to sit where I can see the door. I tend to flinch a lot more at loud noises and unexpected touches than I used to.” He had to smirk a bit. “Some of the blokes in the Department thought that was—funny, for a while. They competed to see who could prank me and get me to jump the highest. But it stopped the first time I turned some of them into mice and brought Crookshanks in to work.”

            “Crookshanks?” Draco echoed blankly, staring at him in fascination.

            “Hermione’s cat,” Harry said, and then rolled his eyes and snorted. “Well, she claims cat. Ron and I are pretty sure he’s part Kneazle. Anyway. So I don’t like pranks. I don’t like it when people try to heal my injuries. I can do that myself, thanks.”

            Draco’s fingers tightened on the side of his bottle of Firewhisky, but he gave a short nod.

            Harry tapped his butterbeer. “No drink stronger than this for me. It might make me start losing track of where I am. Similarly, unexpected potions forced down my throat are a bad idea, as a Dark wizard last year found out.”

            “What happened to him?” Draco asked, with a faint smile that showed he expected another amusing story.

            “They don’t know exactly,” Harry answered simply, meeting his gaze. “They never did find the body, you see.”

            Draco swallowed, his face turning pale. “I see,” he said. “And no sex?”

            “No sex.” Harry narrowed his eyes, another memory coming to him. He didn’t know if this applied simply to Laurent or to other Veela as well, but he would have to warn Draco just in case he was still around when the Blazing Season started. “Another thing. I can’t stand it anymore when people try to act possessive of me, or claim that I belong to them. Don’t do that.”

            Draco’s mouth fell open slightly. He stared at Harry with wide eyes, and there was a click in the back of his throat when he tried to speak. Harry sat watching him, hands clasped around his bottle, and said nothing. If this was going to be a deal-breaker for Draco, better they know now so that he could leave.

            On the surface, Harry didn’t want him to go. He did want control of his life. He did want to heal completely. But in the depths of his being, he had to admit that it would be easier. He wasn’t looking forwards to the inevitable moment when Draco lost control.

            And he didn’t like the idea of someone trying to take care of him when he wanted, needed, to take care of them instead.

*

            Draco had no idea what to say. Possessiveness was perhaps the core of a Veela’s relationship with their chosen one. They were driven to protect and do all they could for that other being out of the sense of belonging.

He had known that Harry wouldn’t like it. He had known that intellectually. But what it really meant hadn’t come home to him until now.

Draco lowered his eyes to his fingers, while Harry watched him steadily. But Draco’s hands gave him no help, as they simply writhed together and then lay there, silent. So he started listing to himself all the things that he wouldn’t be able to do instead.

Not call Harry “mine.”

Not take over the little, simple, everyday chores that I’d like to do to spare him as much bother as possible.

Not hold him still and sniff him when I need to, to make sure that he hasn’t been with anyone else.

            All of those were things an ordinary human might have done. Draco had resigned himself to not using his wings or the croon or the trill or the experience of flight that he could give a partner’s mind. But all of these things, too…

            “Yeah, it’s hard,” Harry said, his voice soft with compassion. “That’s why I need to know now if you’re serious about this.”

            Draco looked up. Harry was leaning towards him, eyes bright and gentle, the way he had been the day Draco had first come to his office and Harry had thought someone had hurt him. This role was the easier for him to assume, doubtless—the role of caretaker. Draco was sure that Harry’s tendencies before the rape had melded with what had happened during it to make him what he was now.

            “I can bear it if you’re serious about it, too,” he said, mouth dry.

            Harry cocked his head, a line forming between his brows. “What do you mean?”

            “If you try to learn to get closer to me,” Draco said. “If you work on putting up with possessive talk and gestures and someone touching you. If you do your best to let someone take care of you when you need it.”

            Harry frowned and looked away. “Some of that doesn’t have to happen,” he muttered.

            “Yes,” Draco snapped, leaning forwards. “It does. For a Veela, it does. I’m not going to think you’re serious unless you show me that you’re serious about all of it. This is going to be hard enough for me. I need to know that you’re not taking the easy way out.”

            For endless moments, Harry played with his butterbeer and didn’t respond. Then he glanced up, and Draco thought his eyes looked the way they did when he’d gone to face the Dark Lord.

            “Yeah,” Harry said. His voice was a dry whistle of air. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah, I’m game. I promise.”

            Draco reached out and took his hand, running his thumb gently across the back of Harry’s knuckles, unable to do anything else just then.

            Harry stared at his fingers. Draco gave him one more squeeze, and let go.

            Slowly. It will have to be slowly.

*

            paigeey07: Yes, though perhaps not his final one.

            luvlustblood: Thanks! I will try to keep this updated fairly regularly.

            polka dot: They haven’t been very clearly described yet, no.

            Sneakyfox: Thank you!

            Sarah: Thanks for reviewing.

            SP777: Thanks!

            Being Veela-struck is what Laurent did to Harry—forcing him into being a sex slave, basically. Draco gives a more detailed description of it in the first chapter.

            momoko: Thank you!

            mrequecky: Thanks.

            Lady_of_Clunn: Harry needs the support at least one of his friends to consider that this is the right course.

            Harry is afraid that Draco doesn’t know how hard it will be, either—hence his concern about whether Draco wants to leave now.

            Night the Storyteller: Harry steeled himself to tell these things, and he’s not really afraid of losing hope, since he thought he was doing all right as things were. He’s more afraid that he’ll cause Draco lots of pain for very little reward, as he admits in this chapter.
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