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!
Chapter Five--The First Day
            Harry stood in front of the bathroom mirror and stared at his wings in horrified silence. Then he moved them back and forth and turned to stare at them from another angle, in the desperate hope that things would change if he did that.
            Nothing happened, of course. Because this was no subtle color change, the sort of thing that would have made the Healers argue about whether the new color was cerulean or cyan. This was much more obvious and much worse.
            This was the appearance of black bars around the blue stripes on his wings. It looked as though someone had dipped dirty fingers in a pot of black paint and run them up and down in bold strokes in every direction. Falling into the pot of black paint with his wings wouldn’t have looked worse.
            Harry stared at those gloomy signs of having Malfoy as a potential mate for long enough that he lost track of time. Suddenly someone was hammering on his door and bellowing in the less-than-musical voice of a pissed-off Veela.
            “Come on, Potter! You’ll miss breakfast!”
            Harry felt his wings flutter as though someone had grabbed them. Hastily, smoothly, he turned away from the mirror and picked up his wand. When in doubt, turn to the magic that had got him through so much so far.
            He had to face the mirror again to cast the spell, which was the only problem. He kept wanting to turn his head to the side to avoid the ugly evidence of those black bars instead of looking at them.
            Another hammering bellow made him finally do it, and he whispered, concentrating as hard as he could, “Commuto album.”
            With a long, slow shimmer, the black bars faded, covered up by the simple charm that made them look as white as the rest of his wings. Harry sighed and put his wand away, then swiftly flung on his robes, ignoring the way they made his wings fold down and constrict. The charm was simple and wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. He would be just as glad if no one had the chance to look at his wings.
            Of course, beyond the ache that came with having them bound was the annoyance of opening the door and having Malfoy’s look change immediately from seductive to concerned. “What happened to your wings?”
            Harry shrugged a little and set off down the corridor towards the dining hall. But Malfoy came up beside him and stroked his elbow in a gentle way, complete with ringing chirp that seemed to command Harry’s feet. He stopped without meaning to, and faced Malfoy equally without any direct command from his brain.
            Malfoy moved his face forwards, eyes enormous. Harry didn’t dodge, and that meant he had to endure the humiliation of Malfoy gently rubbing his cheek against Harry’s.
            Well, later it was humiliating. At the time, Harry closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek back and uttered a little chirp in response.
            “Not terrible, then.” Harry hastily opened his eyes to see Malfoy smiling. He didn’t look as though he was about to move back, either, instead watching Harry happily from his close perch. “But what happened?”
            “They--drag on my back muscles and hurt my shoulder blades,” said Harry, which was true. “I thought binding them would at least make a different part of my back carry the weight.” He blinked, shook his head, and stepped away from Malfoy as naturally as he could. What the hell had the chirping been about? His, not Malfoy’s. Malfoy actually wanted to be a Veela git.
            “They’ll teach you how to manage them soon enough.” Malfoy looked utterly content, his lips and his face all soft. He nodded and moved ahead of Harry to lead the way to the dining hall. “I had to spend a week here before I could even stop them from touching the floor all the time.”
            He paused a second later and tilted his head back at Harry. “But I wish you would have left them free. Your wings are beautiful.”
            Harry gaped at Malfoy’s back. Malfoy just kept going, as if he hadn’t said anything particularly unusual, and his steps softly jounced his wings and made them flare out so Harry could see the blue bars around the central black one.
            The first thing Harry thought of was that they looked a lot nicer than the corresponding marks on his own wings.
            The second thing was, What the hell is happening to me?
*
            “My name is Professor Philomena Testig, and I teach Veela Mate Culture. I expect you to try to grasp the significance and beauty of mating. It doesn’t mean you will until such time as you are matching wingbeats with someone who, for incomprehensible reasons best known to nature, has chosen your small personality to match theirs. But I expect trying before then.”
            Harry blinked and looked around the classroom. It was a strange, severe, beautiful room, with walls that shimmered in different shades of white: hypnotic cream, rippling ivory, coruscating seashell. Harry thought the walls were round, but they blended so seamlessly into each other that it was difficult to be sure. They sat on cushions arranged in a circle, with each cushion a different color until they reached a sixth cushion, at which point another color began.
            Black, silver, blue, green, red, Harry counted. He was sitting on a blue cushion by chance. Malfoy had settled beside him on a silver one. That at least reassured Harry that Veela culture didn’t go so far as to think you should only sit on a piece of furniture the color of the bars in your wings.
            Although Malfoy could have sat on a blue one just as well. And you on a black one.
            Harry hoped no one noticed his twitch. Testig’s eyes did land on him, however, although she didn’t say anything about the twitch. Instead, she murmured in a tone that was pleasant like the walls were white, “Mr. Potter, why do you have your wings bound?”
            It was strangely more difficult to lie to her than it had been to Malfoy, despite Harry actually liking Malfoy more. Maybe that was because her huge, softly blue eyes made the spit dry up in Harry’s throat, like some of the Auror instructors they’d had during training. But Harry made himself say, “The weight dragged at my shoulders and made them hurt.”
            “You should take them out. So that we can rejoice in being Veela, instead of making ourselves look like caged birds.”
            “I don’t see why me having my wings wrapped up has to keep you from rejoicing in being Veela,” Harry said before he thought about it. Then he remembered and added hastily, “Professor Testig.”
            From the way the rest of the class had sucked in its breath, it was already too late. Testig moved slowly towards him, her head cocked to one side and her steps as slow and deliberate as those of a heron stalking frogs.
            Before Harry had even decided what his response should be, Malfoy reared up beside him.
            Malfoy had his wings flapping and his neck extended so he almost looked like a goose. Or a swan, Harry thought in awe, staring at the whirling reflections Malfoy’s wings bounced off the walls. He swayed his head back and forth and then snapped his wings straight. He was hissing.
            Testig stopped and eyed him for a moment. Then she asked, “Has he returned the gift?”
            Harry didn’t know what that meant, and it seemed to take a while to get through to Malfoy, too. But the instant it did, he stopped hissing and sat down. His face was paler than usual, not Veela-pale but sickly. Harry found himself reaching out with one hand.
            Testig stopped him with a simple snap of her head to the side. She said, “You can’t touch him if you haven’t returned the gift.”
            “What if he’s trying?” Malfoy asked, looking at Harry. His face was still pale, but his eyes blazed. He flicked out his own hand before Harry could ask what was happening.
            The tips of his fingers touched Harry’s.
            The blaze seemed to reach out from Malfoy’s eyes and surround Harry, curl around him and swallow him up. He couldn’t see the room anymore, or the cushions. There were only swirling dots of color and an enormous, ringing whiteness. Harry swayed on gentle rocking waves and slowly let his head fall back. He had never felt this way.
            Mind you, he wasn’t entirely sure it was a good way to feel. But still, he wanted to experience it until he could make up his mind.
            The whiteness cleared away as slowly as his body seemed to move. He rolled to the side and found his elbows on cushions. His head was resting in somebody’s lap. With a sense of inevitability, Harry let his eyes trail up.
            Yes, it was Malfoy’s lap he lay in. And Malfoy spread his wings and hissed again, more confidently this time, when one of the Veela women tried to lean around him and catch Harry’s eye.
            “I know a claimed mate is always more attractive than one that has yet to prove his potential,” Malfoy said, in the sort of snotty voice Harry had always heard from him in Hogwarts. “But you need to leave this one alone. He’s mine.”
            Harry struggled to breathe for a second. That voice set up such a confusing clash of feelings in him. On the one hand, he felt harmonics of melody curling in his head, and they were all singing, Yes, yes, yes.
            On the other hand, he remembered Malfoy’s face the day he had called Hermione a Mudblood, and the mere thought of belonging forever to someone like that sent Harry weakly struggling up into a kneeling posture. Malfoy sat there and stared at him when he got to that position. His hands were still positioned as though to stroke invisible hair.
            “You reject the claim, Mr. Potter?” Testig’s voice had an echo to it.
            “I don’t even know what he means by ‘claimed,’” Harry said. “Professor Grunnell told me that the colors in his wings show that we’re compatible. But that’s not the same thing as—as being mates.” He turned instinctively to her. “You’re the expert. Right? What does claiming mean?”
            Professor Testig watched him so long that Harry was unsure he’d get an answer. Then she nodded and said, “A claimed, compatible mate is one who has responded to the touch of someone who bears bars of her--his--color on their wings.”
            “You’ve been claimed since now,” said Malfoy, and bowed his head to nuzzle his cheek along Harry’s hair. It made a flurry of sparks leap through Harry, and he bit his lip savagely. The sensation wasn’t necessarily pleasant, but it was so consuming that Harry had a hard time thinking of anything else.
            Then Malfoy added, “Or even since you touched my cheek this morning,” and the smugness of his voice woke Harry up from what was starting to feel more and more like a trance.
            He sat up, glared, and moved away from Malfoy, heaving his body off his lap and hunching his back in when Malfoy tried to touch him there. “I am not yours,” Harry snarled, and suddenly wished his wings were free to bring up and beat Malfoy back with. They twitched wildly under the robe where he’d confined them. “If all it takes is a touch and a few bars of color, then I could have mated with almost anyone who was here since I came!”
            “That’s not the way it works, Mr. Potter.” Testig’s voice was even more smug than Malfoy’s. “Not just anyone will respond to you and develop bars of your color on their wings. Not just anyone’s touch would cause you to react to them. The fact that this happened so soon means you could have a very strong mating bond.”
            “Could, but won’t.” Harry moved away when Malfoy tried to touch him again, clambering to his feet. He felt oddly breathless and his face was cold, but so what? Those were temporary sensations. Being mated to Malfoy would be for life.
            “Why won’t you?” Testig sounded now as though she was talking to a sulky child.
            “Because I won’t mate with him,” Harry said.
            The next second, he gasped. It felt as though someone had picked up a pail full of sadness and poured it over him. He went cold the way he would be when he was in the middle of a Disillusionment Charm, and his hands trembled, and he turned to Malfoy without even realizing it.
            Malfoy stood with his head bowed and his wings wrapped around himself protectively. He was crooning a little, as if trying to soothe a wound.
            “You don’t even want to give it a chance.” Testig was back to emotionless. “You don’t want to allow your new instincts to manifest. You want to be a normal human, not a transformed Veela who has a mate.”
            “Yes,” Harry said, and spun around to glare at her. He felt worse when he did that, weaker and paler, but so what? “That’s exactly what I want.”
            “How stupid,” said one of the young Veela women sitting on a blue cushion. She had shining white wings and a bar of gold in them, and pretty pale brown hair and hazel eyes. Harry looked at her in silent despair and wondered why he couldn’t have mated with her instead. “Most of us have been looking for and dreaming of our mates for years, and you have your chance within a few days of becoming Veela and reject it?”
            “She’s right,” murmured a Veela with shining gold hair and huge violet eyes. “I would give anything to have my mate immediately.”
            There was a chorus of agreement, and Harry’s wings beat inside his robes. “But you grew up with that!” he finally cried out, making people stop and stare at him. “You knew you were going to have mates, and you knew you wanted them. That’s the difference! I never did!”
            “But you went through a change.” Testig’s voice had altered again. Harry turned towards her, wondering as he did whether she was a musician or something, who’d had training in making different emotions come through. “It’s natural enough that you should still feel loyalty to your human identity, and that human identity never wanted a mate.” She paused a moment, as if she was going to say something different, then continued on. “But it’s also natural enough for you to have Veela instincts that want one for you.”
            Harry closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on nothing but his own breathing, heartbeat, and wings. If he reached back towards Malfoy, even mentally, he found a piercing sadness that made him recoil as if from a needle.
            “So you’re saying I have no choice but to be a Veela,” he said.
            “Oh, there’s a choice.”
            Testig was standing right in front of him now, but she didn’t go on. Harry had the feeling she wouldn’t until he was looking at her. He finally opened his eyes and met hers head-on, ready to defend himself.
            Testig looked him in the eye and spoke disarmingly, instead of with the yelling that he could have done something about. “You made the choice when you came to the school. You could have had your wings cut off and taken the potions that would push against the pain and depression for the rest of your life.”
            Testig took a step forwards. Her own wings had formed on her back now, and Harry stared at their white shimmer to avoid looking her in the face. “You would have suffered continual pain with that choice. You think the pain you suffer now will be worse. But I can tell you, I’ve seen both the transformed and those with an unexpected Veela inheritance have their wings severed, and they are miserable for the rest of their lives.”
            Another step, and now she was almost looming over him. Harry’s wings wanted to burst out. He shook his head hard.
            Testig caught his chin and held him still. Her eyes were more luminous than Malfoy’s and seemed to loom overhead like the moon.
“You can still have a full life,” Testig told him outright. “You can have a life that’s not defined by your wings and your instincts. But you have to learn how to control those instincts. Not just huddle down in front of them and howl.”
That went far enough that Harry surged to his feet. “I’m not a coward, and I’ve never huddled down and howled in front of anything in my life,” he told her. His own voice had an unexpected, ringing depth to it. “I had to deal with Dark wizards hunting me for most of the time I was in school and now! I can do this.”
“Then do it,” said Testig quietly.
Harry shuddered a little. “But if my mate is someone I dislike, what am I supposed to do? Just live the life you were talking about with a little extra added misery, because it’s better than cutting off my wings and taking the potions?”
“It would still be better than that,” said Testig. “But your instincts don’t want you to be miserable. If they chose Mr. Malfoy as your mate, there’s a reason.”
She turned Harry around so that he faced Malfoy. Harry made himself do it, even enduring the waves of sadness that pressed around him when he was three-quarters of the way into the turn. He could do this. He would. He was stronger than Testig had said, braver than to cower over something his body had done to him.
But he still nearly crumbled when he saw the way Malfoy stood with his wings wrapped around most of his body, shoulders and head bowed, not looking up at Harry even when he took a step forwards and extended his hand.
“Why?” Harry mouthed to Testig.
“He is still experiencing some rejection from you. Try to mean it. Try to really want to be his mate, or to get to know him.”
Harry looked back at Malfoy with a deep breath, and decided to try. Malfoy hadn’t insulted his friends in years; Harry had testified for him after the war; he wasn’t the person Harry would have chosen to spend the rest of his life with, but he was a person, and maybe Harry knowing him was better than finding himself bonded to a stranger after coming here.
I’m not even gay, though. How’s that going to work?
But there must be a reason his instincts had picked Malfoy--
The minute he thought that, a cloud he hadn’t noticed before seemed to withdraw from around Malfoy, and the pulsing waves of sadness stopped. Malfoy’s wings fell to his sides, and he blinked. Then he looked at Harry, and blinked again.
“Yes,” Harry said. “I can--choose you at least temporarily. My instincts chose you. It’s all right.”
Malfoy leaned towards him, wings fluttering, hands still extended. Harry scooped up those hands and pressed them against his heart.
Malfoy crooned, a sound that seemed to make windchimes play in Harry’s head and his hips sway. Then he suddenly realized he was crooning back, and his wings had actually burst out of the cloth he’d tried to confine them in and were projecting into the air, lazily flapping up and down.
“There,” said Testig, with a sigh that Harry thought was the first satisfied sound he’d heard out of her, “you have a better demonstration of why you need to know how to respect your mate than I could ever give you. Class dismissed.”
*
Eleanor: Thank you!
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