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Temporary Mate	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 17288 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Eight—Awakening
Harry opened his eyes with a long, slow groan. There were soft aches in most places on his body, as though he could stretch his arms and stand under a hot shower and they would all go away. Of course, he didn’t know if there was such a thing as a hot shower in the dimension he was escorting Draco through—
Then the source of the aches came back to him. Or the memory did. Harry bit his lip and sat up slowly.
Draco sat in the chair Harry had conjured last night, staring at him intently. From the dusky glow through the windows, it was almost evening, or what passed for it here.
“Um, hello,” Harry said. He shifted. One of those soft aches was coming from his arse, and another from his neck. When he reached up, there was a pattern on one side of his neck that felt like it might come from teethmarks. He thought about conjuring a mirror so he could see, but from the positioning of the mark, that might still be difficult.
And based on the devouring glance Draco was giving him, he probably wouldn’t be able to get a good look at it before he found himself flat on his back.
“Are you all right?” Harry added, remembering what Draco had told him about the possibilities of a denied bond.
“I’m fine.” Draco stood up. His wings were flaring behind him. He stalked a step towards Harry, then paused. “I think we should remain here tomorrow as well. We’ll need time to get settled into the bond.”
“Okay,” Harry said. From Draco’s tone, it wasn’t really a discussion, and Harry did know enough about Veela to realize it was better not to challenge a newly mated one. “Are you all right? Have you eaten?”
“One of those questions you’ve asked already,” Draco muttered, but he smiled before Harry could apologize for it. “Yes, I’ve had some of the cheese and dried meat we brought with us. But…” His claws were out on his hands as he flexed them. His gaze bored into Harry’s face. “I want to go out and hunt for you. A mate needs fresh meat.”
“Can we trust that any of those creatures we saw aren’t poisonous?” Harry asked. “That’s my only concern about it.”
Draco had opened his mouth as if he was about to continue, but now he snicked his jaw shut and blinked at Harry. “You—don’t object to me going out to hunt? Or eating what I catch?”
“Not as long as I know it’s going to be safe for you.” Harry forced his feet to bear his weight and stepped from the bed towards Draco, aware how naked he was and that his arse was aching and that Draco had already shifted towards him. “Is there any way to be sure that the meat isn’t poisonous?”
Draco nuzzled at him. “I would never feed you anything I wasn’t sure was safe. And I think those grazing creatures we saw are. If they’re not—well, my Veela instincts to keep you safe should tell me. I’ll perform spells to leach the meat of anything foreign to a human’s body after I catch one.”
Harry nodded. He started to step back, but Draco’s hands came down hard on him and held him. Harry suppressed a wince as the soft ache in one shoulder, where Draco had bitten and clawed him, turned into a sharp one.
Draco soothed him at once with a gentler brush of his hand, and said, “You’ll be here when I get back.”
Harry swallowed. “Yes, of course I will.”
Draco smiled at him. “Good.” Then he turned and burst out through the door of the house, already flying before he cleared the frame. Harry stood in the center of the house and watched him out of sight.
Then he searched for a stone to Transfigure into a basin and conjured water to pour into it. And he did create a mirror after all, and held it up so that he could see the rune, or mark, or whatever it really was, on the side of his neck.
It was made of teethmarks, as he’d expected, but Draco must have twisted his head or worried at it or something, because it was far different than the simple curved indentations Harry had expected a human mouth to be able to make. It did look like a rune, a curve like a crescent moon crossed with a straight line about halfway up. Harry blinked and touched it.
Pleasure rushed through him, and he sagged to the floor. Then he stood up, shook his head, put the mirror away, and stripped his robes off so that he could get into the water and lie down.
The water stung the scratches and bites, but all that did was make Harry hiss a little with more pleasure. How long had it been since he’d had someone to do that for him? Too long. And while Draco might not want to do that every time, he was at least enthusiastic about it.
For a minute, Harry’s hands stopped moving as he remembered that he and Draco were mates now, and he was going to have to ask lots of questions about preferences, and choices, and who knew what.
But in the end, Harry sighed and laid back so that his hair could float in the water behind him and he could watch a few flecks of dried blood make their way to the surface. He would deal with that, yes. But he wouldn’t make any hasty decisions, or any decisions at all until Draco had returned to the house and could share them with him.
Harry had learned his lesson about trying to assume things when it came to decisions about Draco.
*
Draco bent low over the grazing beast he had killed and sniffed. It was about the size of a large sheep, with a shaggy coat that had been blue when he swooped down on it but was turning a deep blue-black now. Draco closed his eyes, called on his Veela magic, and willed it to fill his senses, nostrils and eyes and ears.
Still, he could sense nothing dangerous about the beast, nothing like poison in its meat or fat that would harm his mate or compounds that Harry might simply find disagreeable. Draco nodded and began to carve up the beast’s haunches with his claws. It was much easier that way than trying to use his wand.
A soft screech came from above him. Draco immediately crouched above his kill and tilted his head back.
At first, he thought it was harpies circling over him, and his mouth opened to give a warning cry. But then he realized it was other Veela. The silvery color of their wings and their size proclaimed it.
Draco stood up slowly. He was able to sense the distance of the Veela enclave—still shining on the other side of hills and what felt like a large body of water—and he hadn’t imagined others would be out this far. He watched them carefully as they backwinged so that the taller man landed in front of him. The other one descended, but hovered some distance away.
The nearest man studied him for a second. He was pure Veela and had probably been born that way, Draco thought. His hair was silver, but not with age; his eyes glowed the same color. He had long, delicate fingers fringed with horn like talons, and claws that looked as if they had replaced his nails permanently.
“We were not aware of any Veela from Talinga who planned to travel to our territory,” the man finally said.
Talinga was the name of another Veela enclave that Draco thought was further away, and not the one he had planned to visit. He shook his head. “I’m not. I’m a human wizard—well, I used to be one. I was coming to deliver a message to you, if you’re Veela from Asovima.”
The man blinked. “What happened?’
“My Auror escort and I encountered a gang of harpies that killed most of them and wounded me. I had to use the spell that transforms me into a Veela and establishes a temporary bond with a human. That human is the last surviving Auror. And he’s my new mate.” Draco clicked his teeth to emphasize the need for them to keep their distance. He’d heard about other Veela doing stupid things around newly-mated Veela, sometimes stupider things than humans did, if they found someone’s mate desirable.
The man recoiled. He said, “You have made a temporary mate a permanent one? That is not done.”
“He was too compatible with me to let go,” Draco said, and spread his wings. “I’m taking this kill back to him. Our bond is permanent. You will leave us alone.”
“If you mean to come to Asovima, how can we do that?” The man who’d been hovering behind the speaker shook his head. “What you’ve done is disgusting. You will be separated when you come to our enclave.”
Draco screamed. The sound came welling up from inside his chest and echoed through the hills, making some of the beasts like the one he’d killed, who were on the other side of the slope, grunt in fear and run away. The hovering Veela leaped back in surprise. The Veela standing in front of Draco blinked.
“You will not take him away from me,” Draco said, and his claws clenched so that the hide of the beast under him tore cleanly. “He is—he is mine. He will be bonded to me for life now. He wears my mark. He submitted to me.”
“I suspect that you were neither his first choice, nor is he the best partner for you,” said the silver-haired man, shaking his head slowly. “An Auror is a violent creature. He was a guard. How could he be the right one?”
“He is.” Draco didn’t feel any doubt, despite what the Veela might say. He spread his wings and dropped into a further crouch over his kill, one that would let him strike hard at the Veela’s groin and femoral artery if he pressed this into battle. “You will not take him from me.”
The silver-haired man frowned for a moment. Then he glanced back at his companion and said, “We need not pursue this now. And it may be that you are irrational where you would not be otherwise, because you are in the first stages of a new bonding. When you come to Asovima, we will revisit the question again.”
He sprang up then, and hung over Draco, shaking his head. “A word of advice. Since you are a young Veela, you might not know how long it takes for us to find our mates. It is not a mere matter of looks or bloodlines, the way I know it often is among wizards. You could search for years and never find one. What are the chances that you stumbled on the right one immediately? No chance that he is truly the right one for you, rather than a convenience.”
He turned and shot upwards. Draco knew it was faster than he could fly himself. For a minute, it seemed the Veela who had never landed might say something, but then he turned and followed the other. Draco kept his claws unsheathed and his wings mantled over his dead prey until they had vanished into the far depths of the cloudy sky.
Then he went back to butchering the beast, even though part of him wanted to chase them and force them to recant their words. His mate was his first priority, far more important than a pair of Veela who, Draco suspected, were jealous. Neither of them had smelled as if they were mated.
Harry is mine. They will not be taking him from me.
*
Harry wrapped his robes back around him and raised his eyebrows as Draco came stalking through the door. Maybe he was upset because he’d been removed from his mate’s side for a while. “Did you find something for us to eat?”
Draco waved his hand, and a bloody haunch floated in behind him. “It’ll be fine as soon as we cook it,” he said. But he wasn’t looking at the food. He was moving around Harry, sniffing at his neck and his hair.
“I took a bath,” Harry said. “With no shampoo. That’s probably what you smell.”
“Not that,” Draco said. He rested his nose against the mark on Harry’s neck, and Harry shivered. Draco gave him a feral smile and finally moved back a step, although he looked as if he was arguing with himself while he did it. “I met a few Veela from the enclave we’re heading to. Asovima. They were unflattering about our turning the temporary bond into a permanent one.”
Harry tensed. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of, that Draco would regret this when they woke up. “Well, shit. That’s going to make it hard for you to deliver your message, isn’t it?”
“Don’t ever do that,” Draco said, and glided right up to him, lowered his head so that he was practically curved over Harry’s neck and his mark, and unfurled his wings to drape them in silver shadow. “Don’t ever tense and think that you’ve just made my life more difficult. You haven’t. Fuck them if they think that they’re going to get away with separating us. That’s what they said. I want you. I’m going to have you.”
Harry blinked. “So…not regretting it, then.”
“They’re probably jealous because they’re not mated yet.” Draco ruffled his wings and leaned further in.
“Maybe they were.” Harry gently raised a hand and pushed him back a little. “Meanwhile, there’s a piece of meat bobbing there and dripping blood, and we’re both hungry. Let’s eat first and then discuss what to do.”
Draco blinked and looked around as if he’d honestly lost track of the meat. Harry reckoned he probably had. He’d had an intense look in his eyes for a while there.
“Of course.” Draco waved his hand, and the meat bobbed further into the house. Harry raised his eyebrows. Draco was doing wandless magic. It was probably part of the same magic that had let him mark Harry and have the mark stick around, and made sure such a rough ride wouldn’t give Harry a lot of pain today.
Harry smiled privately at the thought of that ride, and drew his own wand to create the fire that would roast the meat. Draco immediately snapped around and rested his hand on Harry’s wand, shaking his head. “You don’t need that.”
“If we’re going to roast the meat, then we can eat, Draco,” Harry said, and tilted his head so that he was more solidly meeting Draco’s eyes. “I told you I was hungry. I don’t particularly want to wait.”
“I’m going to light the fire.”
Harry flicked his eyebrows up. It seemed like a silly thing to argue about—
But that made it silly for him to argue about, too, if Draco was that intent on building the fire and cooking his meal.
Harry took a step back and made a sweeping bow. “All right, then. Why don’t you go ahead and do that, and we’ll eat, and then we can talk about what we’re going to do when we make the Veela enclave and have to deal with Veela who are jealous of you for being mated.”
Draco nodded slowly. He was obviously trying to figure out if Harry was being sarcastic. Harry rolled his eyes at him.
“This is something you need to do,” he said. “I don’t understand everything about how Veela mating works, but I understand that much. Do what you have to do.”
Draco leaned forwards and gently kissed him. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” And Harry moved over to sit on the bed, feeling a little silly, but also safe and well-cared-for.
*
Draco kept glancing at Harry while he roasted the meat, using spells to turn it faster. His mate was hungry. Draco knew in a few days he would calm down and stop feeling as if his world would end when Harry became hungry, but just now, Harry was right. He needed this.
And Harry smiled at him, and the mating mark on his neck gleamed. Draco didn’t need to touch it right now. Seeing it was enough.
When he brought over the first plate of delicately roasted meat, he looked into Harry’s eyes. He was asking, but he didn’t know if Harry could read the question from his face alone.
Draco wanted him to, though. It would—matter.
Harry did. He murmured, “Yes, Draco, you may feed me,” and opened his mouth so that Draco could place the first bite of meat on his tongue.
Draco felt a deep shiver invade his wings in the moment before they relaxed. He breathed out. They would make it, no matter what the Veela of Asovima said. No one would separate them.
They were together.
*
Thunderbird: Thank you! They're still feeling their way, which is why more changes aren't showing up right now. But they will.
Apothic: Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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Temporary Mate