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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 Six—Appearances and Artifices
            “You look sufficient.” Narcissa Malfoy stood at the bottom of the staircase Harry was coming down, appraising him with what Harry supposed was an expert eye.
            Harry gave the ghost of a smile. It had been a long few days since their meeting with the Muggleborns, while he and Malfoy tried to settle in around each other and decide what to do with other people’s expectations at the same time. Harry had at least managed to get Charis and the others to agree to a second meeting.
            And meanwhile, the news of him being Malfoy’s mate had got out in the papers, which exploded.
            Harry had read the articles, of course—it was his job to keep abreast of the political tenor of the wizarding world if he was going to try and affect those politics—but one thing he had noticed was that pure-bloods remained mostly silent. Almost everyone the newspaper quoted was Muggleborn or half-blood. Some members of the Ministry expressed shock, but they specifically said, “I feel…” Harry had had some education over the summer. He knew that meant they were speaking as private individuals, and not for their families.
            “I have never seen you look so before.”
            Harry returned to the moment, and the conversation with Narcissa. Another thing he was working on was keeping his mind on the present, since people got offended if he seemed to be thinking of something else. “You mean the clothes?” He looked down at the blue robes he wore, which seemed to shimmer around him. At least they weren’t heavy. Harry had worn dress robes that felt like anchors.
            “Yes,” said Narcissa. “You certainly had the money to afford robes like this before the war. Why did you never do so?”
            Harry snorted a little. “Because I didn’t care what I looked like, and what other people thought about me. Or, well, only when they were doing things like sending letters full of bubotuber pus to my friends because of articles in the paper.”
            “Why?”
            Harry decided that he was going to interpret that as a question about his indifference towards public opinion, and not as a question about why he cared about his friends. Everything would stay more peaceful that way. “Because I tended to get into these situations unwillingly. I didn’t know that people were going to believe I was the Heir of Slytherin, or I was going to be entered into the Triwizard Tournament. They could put up with me being me. But now I’m choosing to try and prevent another war. I have to care what I look like.”
            “I think Mother’s wrong. You look magnificent, not merely sufficient.”
            A little uneasy, Harry looked over his shoulder. Malfoy was standing at the top of the staircase, a few paces behind him, eyes devouring Harry. He had torn himself away from Harry that first night so they could at least sleep in private, and it had never been so bad since.
            He wore robes that Harry thought were white, then stirred and settled into deeper shades of gold as he came down the steps. When he got closer, Harry could see the robes were almost plaques in the front, nonexistent in the back, leaving lots of space for Malfoy’s wings. A sash did cinch around his waist and hold the robes up, so he would stay decent when his wings were down and folded.
            He had them up now, though, fluttering back and forth. When Harry looked up and met Malfoy’s eyes again, he saw that they were fixed on him, and a soft, bubbling croon had started up far back in his throat.
            Harry recognized this from something Malfoy had said the other day as a courting gesture, and he stood still while Malfoy came down the steps to him and brushed his hair back from his face with one hand. Harry still thought that was odd, the compulsion to touch him, but it was part of the Veela bond. A lot of things were. As Harry had told Malfoy, those things that he didn’t have to resist, he would go along with.
            “You’re beautiful,” Malfoy said, and dipped his head and stared at Harry from beneath dramatically lowered eyelashes.
            Harry knew what he wanted to hear. That he was beautiful in turn, and Harry wanted to touch him, kiss him, sleep with him, submit to him.
            It wouldn’t do any good to lie, though, with Malfoy apparently more tuned to his emotions now; he had known Harry was angry the other day about one of the articles without Harry having to say a word. Harry just nodded and said, “You look nice, too,” and then looked at the front door. “It’s almost time for our little demonstration. Shall we go?”
*
            Anxiety buzzed and bubbled in the back of Draco’s mind as he crossed the stretch of open ground between the gates of Hogwarts. The winged boars on the gates seemed to bristle with their own indications of danger. The people gathered in front of Dumbledore’s tomb, where it had been Potter’s idea to stage this, craned their necks almost immediately and started murmuring to each other with a sound like the tide.
            What if someone’s hiding in there who intends to claim Potter for himself?
            Draco tried to walk more threateningly. It didn’t work very well. For one thing, his wings were already spread to shelter Potter from danger and stares. He had to work on keeping his balance. A stalk didn’t really go along with that.
            For another, Potter wouldn’t cooperate. He walked beside Draco, within the curve of his wing, but his eyes were traveling from face to face, and he smiled now and then, acknowledging someone else in the crowd. Draco didn’t know who they were. Potter hadn’t spoken about that to him. He seemed to know an enormous range of people, and not all of them were the sort of visitors Draco would welcome coming close to his mate.
            But he also knew that this wasn’t the sort of thing Potter would compromise on. And he would endure a lot to keep the relative harmony that had flourished between them the last few days, without Potter retreating from him the way he knew how to do so well.
            “Malfoy.”
            Potter spoke quietly, only to him. Draco dipped his head and let his croon bubble out again. That made Potter shrug his shoulders as though someone had put a hand on them. Draco didn’t mind it, though. At least it was a reaction.
            “Yes, what is it?” Draco finally thought to ask. Potter had presumably spoken his name because there was something he wanted Draco to know.
            “You should know that I heard from Ginny yesterday.”
            Draco worked out the name. “The youngest Weasley?” he finally asked.
            “The girl I dated for a while,” Potter said, nodding. His eyes remained ahead of him, as though he hadn’t said a word just guaranteed to bring out a Veela’s possessive side.
            “The girl you are no longer dating,” said Draco. His hand had claws suddenly. He didn’t touch Potter, because of that, but he did hold his hand out to the side so Potter could make out the claws.
            “Of course not. It wouldn’t be fair to her.”
            What about fair to me? What about that? Draco held himself back from saying anything, though. Potter was at least saying that his relationship was in the past. Draco clicked his talon and pulled it back. “What did she say?”
            “She was bewildered,” said Potter. The crowd narrowed down to a tunnel of people ahead of them. Draco hissed softly and spread his wings, and some of them, because they were pure-bloods and knew better, sprang back so that they could open a pathway ahead of them. Draco wasn’t appeased. They should already have done that. “But she grew up the same way as Ron. She told me it was an honor and that she was proud of me.”
            “Why?” Draco didn’t think Weasley was proud of Potter’s behavior. Still shocked, if anything.
            “For not running away.” Potter’s mouth curved in a private smile that Draco couldn’t understand and wanted to, the same way he wanted to understand everything about his mate. “She knew—”
            But they had almost arrived at the front of the crowd, and Draco didn’t want to discuss private business in front of everyone. He waved his hand again, and Potter fell silent. There was a rippling of green robes in front of them, and a witch Draco knew moved towards them.
            Draco studied her face. This was Helena Greengrass, Daphne’s mother. Narcissa and Helena had once discussed a betrothal contract with either Daphne or her younger sister Astoria, to be enacted on Draco’s twenty-second birthday. When his mother found out that Draco would likely inherit his family’s Veela tendencies in full measure, of course, they’d had to give up the idea. There was no saying that Draco would choose either Daphne or Astoria as his mate.
            Maybe it would have been better if I had.
            But Draco shivered under the lash of those thoughts, and that gave Helena the chance to speak the first words. “This is a surprise, Mr. Potter,” she said, and her eyes passed over Draco’s face as if she didn’t know him.
            “I know,” said Potter. “It was a surprise to me, too. Both having a Veela mate, and all the traditions that came along with it.” He gave Helena a smile that Draco paused and examined with a little wariness. He didn’t exactly understand it, but it wasn’t what he’d expected. He thought that was important, somehow.
            Before he had the time to fully analyze Potter’s smile, though, someone else moved forwards at the side of his attention and claimed most of his awareness. Daphne was standing there, hands behind her back and a small, mean smile in place.
            “Did you know you were going to be Potter’s mate?” she murmured.
            “Not for long,” Draco said. He didn’t see the need to explain more. She understood all the things that Potter didn’t, all the traditions.
            “You do understand that we’re trying to do something important here,” Daphne continued without pausing. “Something that matters a lot more than who grows wings and who cowers at whose feet.”
            Draco had to pause again. He had never heard a pure-blood express sentiments like that. Potter had said he was dealing with the Greengrasses because they were amongst the more open-minded, because relatively powerless, of the pure-bloods. That didn’t make them ignorant, though.
            “I’m not planning to take Potter away from that,” he said, after some moments of silence that he realized he had to turn into speech. Potter was talking with Helena about some aspects of the presentation that Draco knew he didn’t have to manage. No one would expect him to cast the Sonorus Charms. “He’s told me about his political work, and he’s the only one who can manage that. I agree. For the moment, we’ve—come to a compromise about his being the heart of the house.”
            “But I know Veela,” said Daphne, cocking her head back as though she was looking down a long line of Draco’s ancestors as well as at him. “You won’t be content with the compromise for long, whatever you might tell Harry. You’ll want to take him away. And he’ll fight you on that, and you’ll get angry, and you’ll beat him or whatever it is Veela do.”
            “No Veela would ever do that,” Draco said, and his free hand had grown claws now.
            “But no Veela has ever had a mate like this,” Daphne said, and turned away from Draco to consider Potter. Draco might have thought it was simply dismissiveness, boredom, a few weeks ago.
            Now he saw the focus for what it was, the light in Daphne’s eyes as they rested on Potter, and he attacked.
            He moved like a springing vulture, rising from the ground, his wings beating strongly behind him, his claws aimed ahead. Daphne was spinning to face him with a shocked face, one arm coming up to defend herself, her fingers gripped around the wand, but too slow, too slow. And Helena’s mouth was open, and the thoughts were traveling through Draco’s head faster than his wings could beat, and he knew that he might lose Potter a political ally, but he simply couldn’t help this.
*

            Harry found himself reacting as though he’d expected it when Malfoy went crazy beside him, even though he hadn’t, not at all.
            But nothing except predicting it could have explained the way he swung around, grabbing Malfoy’s arms as he leaped into the air, and pulling Malfoy down into a half-hug. Malfoy fluttered his wings frantically, chopping and sawing with his claws at what Harry thought wasn’t him, but Daphne. The scream that broke forth a second a later made Harry flinch, but not as much as he would have if he didn’t have any war experience.
            “Hush, it’s okay,” Harry whispered, rocking Malfoy against him. It was a ridiculous position to be caught in, and he saw Helena’s eyebrows creeping up, but he had to ignore that for the moment. If his pure-blood allies didn’t know any more than he did about Veela traditions and instincts, this little demonstration wouldn’t impress them anyway. “She doesn’t really care about touching me. I don’t care about touching her. It won’t matter.”
            Over Malfoy’s head, through the wild mass of his hair sticking out like feathers, Harry caught a glimpse of Daphne’s narrowed eyes and tightly compressed lips, and wanted to groan. One thing couldn’t go my way? I had to have someone who’s decided on the basis of nothing that she wants me?
            But for right now, the truth was less important than calming Malfoy down. Harry talked to him in broken words about the necessity of honesty and communication and importance, and how it was okay, and how they would compromise even on this, and it was okay, and gradually Malfoy’s claws vanished and he turned his head. His cheek brushed against Harry’s, and his voice faded into another series of bubbling croons that became words as Harry listened to them.
            “I want to protect you. I want to take you home and get you out of this.” His hands closed almost tenderly on Harry’s, and he looked into Harry’s eyes. “Will you come with me?”
            Harry moved a hand up so that he could cradle the back of Malfoy’s head. He wanted to say something else, many things, but all the words were the sorts he would speak to a friend, and Malfoy wasn’t that.
            Then he thought of another way he could look at it. He could approach Malfoy as someone needing help, which was certainly true. He had been able to deal with all sorts of haughty pure-bloods and touchy Muggleborns since the war because of who he was, but also because he could see them as people who needed help.
            He was good at helping people. It was probably his greatest talent.
            “I’ll come with you if that’s what you’re certain you want,” he said. “If you’re certain that you don’t want to stay here and establish your claim in front of everyone.”
            For a second, Malfoy’s eyes flared as though he was imagining that. Harry hoped he hadn’t said something wrong, and Malfoy didn’t think he’d agreed to sex.
            But instead, Malfoy snapped his head back and forth with what looked like irritation, and focused again on Harry. “I’m certain that I want to go home.”
            “All right,” said Harry quietly. This would have been a chance to establish other kinds of political bonds as well as demonstrate his “mating” with Malfoy, but things didn’t always work out the way you wanted them to. He turned to Helena. “Will you excuse us, please? And excuse us to anyone else who’d like to know where we’re going. I’m sure you’ll know the right words.”
            “I know the right words,” said Helena, her gaze slowly passing to Daphne, “but why should I use them?”
            Ugh. Harry was startled by the surge of disgust that struck him. So they were just helping me because—what? They thought Daphne would date me or something, and they would get influence that way?
            Harry sighed. “Because you want the cause that we’re both serving to go forward as fast as I do?” he tried. “Because what we planned for today didn’t work out, but we can at least keep the day from being completely wasted?”
            Both the Greengrass women stared at him as though he was speaking in Mermish. Harry sighed again. He wished he could learn to stop overestimating people. Maybe he would be best served if he thought of most of them, except Ron and Hermione, as greedy bastards. Everyone wanted something.
            Malfoy said, softly but with tremendous strength into his ear, “Let’s go home.” And he unfolded his wings as if he intended to fly Harry there.
            “I don’t have time for this,” Harry said, and turned his back on Helena. “If you won’t do it for me, I’ll find someone who will.”
            “I will,” said a quiet voice from behind Helena, and Harry saw her younger daughter, Astoria, peering around her. She had been in the year behind Ginny’s at Hogwarts, Harry thought. He had learned a lot of information about pure-blood families who were willing to help him, but sometimes it swam and blended in his head. “I’ll tell them that you had to go and tend to your dominant. They ought to understand that.”
            Harry nodded. At the moment, he wasn’t in a position to quibble about how they understood it. “Thanks, Astoria.”
            Even Helena ought to be satisfied with that, he thought, as he made his way, supporting and speaking softly to Malfoy, towards the gates again. It still redounds to the credit of her family.
            As for Daphne…Harry shook his head. She wouldn’t be satisfied with anything except what he wouldn’t give her.
            “You’re thinking about her,” Malfoy breathed into his ear, and nudged him and bit his neck possessively. “I don’t want you to think about her.”
            Harry blinked a little. “Okay,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else. “I won’t.” It was easier to turn his attention to the sharp teeth sinking into his neck anyway.
            Malfoy sighed and leaned on him. Harry snorted as he helped them around the gates and the milling crowd, breaking up in confusion now. He’s kind of cute when he’s not trying to eviscerate people.
*
SP777: Yes, Draco has decided that. Although it was Draco who got into a fight, or tried to, I hope that you enjoyed this chapter!
moodysavage: Aw. :( I am sorry you lost your review, and I am sorry I never got to see it!
delia cerrano: Well, a lot isn’t going Harry’s way, either, like his plans for today. Hopefully having Harry comfort him is part of what Draco can use to comfort himself.
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Nature of the Beast