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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.

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Chapter Six—Wing Management
            “You would think you’d never had anyone fussing over you in your life before.”
            Harry simply shrugged when Malfoy spoke. He didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound snide or trite or cruel. And Malfoy had a strange echo of fondness in his voice, as though he didn’t mean to tease, anyway.
            Or maybe he’s only teasing instead of making fun, Harry thought, sitting back a little as an enormous plate of bread and butter got put in front of him. There was some cheese off to the side and a few fresh strawberries, but not more than that. Harry blinked as he tore off a hunk of the bread and swallowed. It was delicious, with crunchy crust and the swimming taste of melted butter in his mouth, but he did wonder why Malfoy hadn’t got him any vegetables.
            “These seemed to be what you liked best,” said Malfoy, with a wave of his hand at the bread and the fruit.
            And it’s strange that he’s reading my mind, Harry thought. He raised an eyebrow, though, in case it wasn’t mind-reading, and Malfoy answered him with a smile.
            “Your face has always been easy to read. Especially for someone who’s your mate.” He reached out and let his hand slide down the length of Harry’s cheek, so lightly that it was hard for Harry to feel. “It’s going to be so good,” Malfoy added in a breathy voice.
            Harry dropped his eyes to the plate and went on eating, while his mind had a battle in it that Malfoy apparently saw nothing of.
            On the one hand, all right, he had Veela instincts and they seemed to have picked Malfoy out for him. That was undeniable, after the strange sensations he had experienced in Testig’s class.
            On the other hand, Harry still wasn’t as into it as Malfoy. Malfoy was treating it all like a dream. This was more like a nightmare for Harry, or at least a surreal dream. Maybe it could be good, but he didn’t have the same faith it would that Malfoy did.
            He sneaked a glance at Malfoy’s plate, but Malfoy caught him at it, and smiled indulgently while his wings gave a little flap. Harry didn’t think it was a coincidence that you could see Malfoy’s black stripes and blue bars better that way.
            “I thought I’d feed you for today because you’re still unsteady on your feet and suffering shoulder pains from those wings. But I do expect some care in return. Later.”
            Malfoy had an even more sultry tone in those last words than he’d had before, and Harry had to twist his head to the side and swallow. The further they got from Testig’s class, the weirder this started seeming again. Everyone talked about courting and wings beating in time and how lucky someone was to have their mate right away, but weren’t they also talking about sex? Harry thought so, and the thought of having sex with Malfoy made his skin crawl, still.
            He could hold hands with Malfoy and lie on his lap and touch his hand, but there were limits even to his instincts.
            “Are you listening to me, Harry?”
            Harry turned back to Malfoy and shook his head a little. “I’m sorry. This is still a shock, and I—I understand some things, all right? That you’re my mate or a potential one, and that our wings have changed to reflect that, and that you’re jealous of other people who might claim me. But so much else is still hazy.”
            Malfoy clapped his wings softly together, moving them backwards. Harry stared. He wished he could do that.
            Malfoy seemed to misunderstand the reason for the stare as much as he had for the question, and he turned his neck coyly to the side before he reached out and caught hold of one of Harry’s hands, rubbing it warmly. “You don’t need to be afraid,” he whispered. “I’ll do right by you. I’ll explain it to you. Anything you want, today after class.”
            “Why not just skive off class?” Harry asked, looking at Malfoy’s smile.
            Malfoy chuckled and sat back. “Because it’s Wing Management. And I think you need that more than anyone.”
*
            “Yes. You let your wings droop and brush the floor. It’s no wonder that they’ve been giving you pain.”

            Harry clenched his jaw and stared at the far wall of the classroom. He would not snap at Professor Helios, he would not snap at Professor Helios…
            “You have to leave them and hold them there.” Professor Helios paced slowly around Harry and paused in front of him, raising his eyebrows. He was the only other transformed male Veela that Harry had seen in the school, his wings bearing solid stripes of gold, with small purple bars around them. His mate apparently wasn’t here, though. He had white hair and huge blue eyes, and he had seemed sympathetic.
            Now, though, he reached out and grasped Harry’s right wing and wrenched it into a new position. Harry hissed and ducked his head, all the feathers on that wing ruffling in response.
            “I shouldn’t have to do that. You can’t let all the weight just hang from your shoulder blades. You have to use the muscles to bear it. See?” And Professor Helios turned to the side and held up his wings so Harry could admire what was apparently a perfect curve. Harry couldn’t see what he meant, though, and shook his head.
            “You have new muscles,” Professor Helios said, and faced him with a frown. “They appeared and started growing when you grew the wings. You should be able to use them to brace the weight and not let it tire you.”
            “No one told me that.”
            “They probably thought the appearance of new muscles wasn’t an easy thing to mistake,” said Professor Helios dryly, and reached out and touched Harry’s chest. “Feel that? You weren’t that muscular before, I think.”
            Harry inhaled. The muscle seemed as though it moved naturally under Professor Helios’s touch, and he shrugged. The wings bounced when he did. “I don’t know. The Healers were running around me and arguing with each other, and then I got packed off here. I didn’t have time to just stare into the mirror.”
            “Staring into the mirror is what most new Veela do. A fair proportion are enchanted by their own reflections.”
            Harry couldn’t help his dropped jaw this time. “That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”
            Professor Helios stepped back and studied him again, then said, “Yes, perhaps you would think that. In the meantime, Potter, I want you to lift your wings and balance them using the band of muscle that crosses your chest. Not your shoulder. I’ll help Lily for a moment, and then I want to come back and see you doing it right.”
            He turned away to the only other student in the class, the only other Veela new enough to need help with her wings. Lily Gamble was apparently sixteen and far more scared than Harry, and Harry had tried to keep from staring at her since he’d heard her name, which would probably frighten her more. Professor Helios spoke to her more softly.
            If I’d pretended to be that scared, then would I have got some actual sympathy and instruction instead of being shoved at the goal?
            Harry sighed and walked over to the mirror on the one unpadded wall of the classroom. He had ducked his head when he first came in and looked away, not wanting to see the telltale black bars around the blue. Now he ignored them and tried to focus on the shape of his wings instead.
            “Most men find it easier to take their shirts off.”
            Harry grimaced. Well, he supposed his shirt already looked awful, given that he had ripped the back of it to shreds when his wings burst out of their confinement earlier and his Reparo only did so much on cloth. He shrugged off the remains and gasped a little as he felt his wings suddenly stretch. He had thought they were at their fullest extent, but apparently not.
            And now that he was looking at himself half-naked, he could see perfectly well what Professor Helios had meant. There was a huge band of muscles across the front of his chest. Flight muscles, Harry supposed. They looked taut and as if he had spent a lot of time exercising them, but then, he had only had wings for a few days. Professor Helios had started out the class by telling them both sternly that lack of exercise would make flight muscles sag as much as the rest.
            Harry started to lift his wings with his shoulders, then shook his head. Focusing on his muscles in the mirror, he tried to use those muscles to flex and lift his wings. Really lift them, spread them, not just get the tips off the floor.
            For an instant, it was like struggling with the remains of his shirt, although this time, Harry couldn’t see the restraining pieces. Then, suddenly, the bonds seemed to fall away, and Harry’s wings lifted and blazed around him. He stared.
            They were—
            Harry immediately shied away from the word “beautiful,” even in his own mind. He wasn’t going to stand there smiling foolishly at his own wings and deciding they were beautiful. But he did have to admit that they looked nicer than he’d thought, and when he held them as if he was about to fly, they didn’t feel so much like a burden.
            “A good start,” said Professor Helios, pausing behind him. “But look for a moment at me, and the way I carry my wings so the weight rests fully on my chest muscles.” He turned to the side and arched his back. He’d removed his shirt at some point, although Harry hadn’t heard him do it. “That’s a much less exhausting way to do it.”
            Harry frowned a little and studied the mirror. “I thought I was doing that.”
            “No. You used your muscles to spread them—which is good, since they’re not meant to spend all their time folded—but now you’re trying to support them on your shoulders only again. See?” Professor Helios held out a finger and        traced a curve that Harry had to admit was invisible to him. “Your wings should be standing further out from your back. Higher. Can you do that? Good.”
            Harry still couldn’t see the curve Professor Helios had pointed out, but he supposed he didn’t need to. He could see the difference, how he was holding the wings out and up from his back, and yet he was still less tired.
            “Practice holding them there without tiring yourself,” Professor Helios commanded, and then moved back over to Lily. Harry heard his voice murmuring, but he lost the sense of the words in his fierce struggle to hold his wings up.
            They felt better when they were spread, except for the aching iron band over the top of Harry’s chest. He grimaced and rubbed at the band of muscle, and his wings started to droop again. Harry swore.
            “Try to do it without swearing,” Professor Helios advised him without turning around. “Veela have a reputation for decorum to keep up.”
            “I’m not a Veela,” Harry muttered, even as he stared into the mirror and studied the black bars blazing around the blue stripes he had. He supposed someone could say they were striking, even handsome. It was just hard to think of himself that way. Harry didn’t think he was ugly, but he thought he was ordinary. An ordinary Auror, who worked hard to get people to take him on his own merits, instead of deciding he was—
            A hero. A savior. Now, a Veela. Someone remarkable.
            It helped, a little, to think of them as someone else’s wings he just happened to be holding up and keeping clean, instead of belonging to him. Harry learned how to shift them back and forth in accordance with the band of muscles. He worked out what would feel good instead of exhausting, namely flapping them. Some unsecured parchments blew around the room, and his feet rose off the floor.
            “Not yet,” Professor Helios called to him. “I understand you’re an excellent flyer with a broom, but flying with wings is different, and you’re not used to it.”
            Harry blinked and landed on the floor again with a thump. “Who told you that?” he called over his shoulder. “The part about me being a good broom-flyer?”
            “Your mate.” Professor Helios was crouched down in front of Lily and talking to her now, and Lily was wiping away something that looked like tears. That made Harry turn back to the mirror, even though he wanted to gape.
            Why would Malfoy go around randomly bragging about Harry’s flying skills, when those same skills had let Harry beat him more than once? Maybe he had complained about it before Harry even got here. That made more sense.
            But Harry didn’t think Malfoy would have any reason to complain about Harry before he got here, either. That was years in the past. Harry had received lots of different impressions of Malfoy over the last few days, but he didn’t seem like someone who spontaneously brought up old grudges from Hogwarts.
            If he had gone around bragging about Harry after he had found out they were mated, however…
            Harry lowered his head, and shook it. Looking at himself in the mirror like this, with black hair and weird eyes for a Veela, but shining wings, he could almost understand why.
            But he slammed the door in his mind on that understanding. He blocked it. He wouldn’t let himself start thinking of Malfoy as a real mate any more than he would start thinking of his wings as beautiful.
            There were certain instincts that had taken over in Testig’s classroom, ones that Harry couldn’t allow out again. All right, it was pretty harmless to lie with his head in Malfoy’s lap and croon when the git touched him. But what would happen when the classes ended, when the month that the professors had told Harry he would need had passed?
            It was all too easy to imagine what would happen, at least for Harry. He would leave and go back to his normal Auror job. Maybe his wings would be useful for some of the cases he’d have to take, or criminals he had to pursue.
            What kind of place would his life have for Malfoy?
            Harry shook his head a little. He couldn’t imagine it, and he thought that was a bad sign. If his mate was going to be present in his mind and his aura and whatever other Veela powers he had from now on, shouldn’t he be able to imagine him more easily?
            His wings were standing proudly out to the sides now, and Harry sighed and pulled them back in. He wanted to see if he could fold them, and where they would land. Maybe he could come up with a position that would allow them to be more comfortable and yet still let him wear clothes.
            Just as he finished folding them, there was an odd, golden shudder in the air. Harry backed up, spreading his wings instinctively. He scowled as they appeared in the corners of his eyes. Until he could actually use them to fly, the damn things would be a liability.
            But when he looked around the room, nothing appeared to have changed. Professor Helios was still kneeling in front of Lily, staring at her half-spread wings. There was a Veela woman standing in the door of the classroom, probably someone who had come to talk to Professor Helios.
            Then Harry realized one thing had changed. Both Professor Helios and Lily were motionless. They appeared to have stopped talking and even stopped breathing. And the Veela woman in the door looked the same way.
            Was it a spell that froze them? Harry panicked, running towards them and casting a Finite Incantatem in their direction that didn’t appear to do anything. Why didn’t it affect me? I’m a transformed Veela like Professor Helios—
            They moved again when Harry was halfway across the room. Harry sighed in relief. “Professor Helios?” he called out. “Was that a spell you cast?”
            Professor Helios faced him without answering. His wings were beating slowly in and out, in a rhythm as slow and steady as a heartbeat. Lily was doing the same thing. Harry blinked and looked at the Veela woman in the doorway. Yes, she was also beating her wings that way. And he doubted Professor Helios would have recommended that to her as an exercise.
            “Professor?” Harry called. He had stopped.
            Professor Helios moved forwards and made a soft sound. Well, at least it started soft. Then it spiraled up into a shrill birdsong. Harry winced and put his hands over his ears. Lily was standing beside him and making some weird gesture with her arms. She appeared to be trying to put her hands on her hips and dance at the same time.
            The Veela woman flew over both their heads and landed in front of them, between Harry and Professor Helios, but facing Harry. She spoke to him in a voice that sounded like she was about to start whistling. “I am willing to fight for the honor of claiming you.”
            “I—what?” Harry hadn’t known that a Veela claimed by someone could be claimed by someone else. Malfoy had seemed pretty sure that he was Harry’s mate and that was it.
            “Your mate,” the Veela woman breathed. “I know you have one, but he must not be taking proper care of you, because your allure would not be so strong otherwise.”

            The golden shudder in the air, and the way everyone was acting—
            My allure’s manifested. Shit.
            The Veela woman started towards him at the same moment as Lily and Professor Helios, who seemed to have given up on singing. Their eyes were blank and hungry. And Harry could see only one escape from the lot of them.
            He leaped, his wings unfolding, straight up.
*
            SP777: I suspect you would get different answers as to the question of Harry’s beauty depending on whether you asked Draco or Harry.
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