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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 Nine—Wings and Words
            Draco cleared his throat twice before Harry started out of his deep staring at the speech and turned to look at him.
            He looked beautiful like that, framed against the light of the enchanted window that looked out over a deep expanse of sea. Draco felt a tug at his heart, an ache, as though someone had reached in, and wrapped their fingers around strings there, and pulled.
            He approached Harry with his head low, his wings spread, the kind of posture that a dominant Veela would adopt after he had angered his submissive over something not worth fighting about. He came to an uncertain stop when Harry just watched him, nodding a little. He was neither welcoming nor unwelcoming.
            “Did you need me to touch you again?” Harry asked.
            So direct, Draco thought. That was like the Potter—the Harry—that he remembered in school, except different somehow. Then he would just blurt things out and Draco could decide how to respond. Now there was one possibility left open to him, and if it wasn’t the one Harry decided it should be, Draco would scrabble against the wall in vain.
            When in doubt, go over the wall. “No,” Draco said. “I came to apologize.”
            That at least made Harry blink and look at him instead of faraway political horizons. “For what?”
            Draco paused again. He had thought Harry was likely to want, even to demand, an apology for acting the way Draco had towards Daphne. He didn’t know what else he would want, if not that.
            “The way I acted around Daphne,” Draco said, and then something that was instinct-like if not actually instinct clogged up his throat. He coughed and continued. “I just—I need to know if you do want to sleep with her.”
            He spoke the words, instead of snarled them, and didn’t lash out and claw someone else’s head off. Honestly, Draco was impressed with himself.
            “No,” said Harry, and glanced back at the parchment in his hands, sighing a little. “Was that all you needed to hear?”
            “No,” Draco snapped, having no idea why Harry was so bloody annoying. He couldn’t extend even a little of that compassion that was driving him to save the world to pay attention to Draco? “I want to know why you don’t want to sleep with her, and why you stopped me from attacking her if you don’t care about her.”
            “Wanting to sleep with someone isn’t the same as caring about them,” Harry said, and put the parchment he held down on the desk and turned his full attention to Draco. Draco silently reveled in that even as he swallowed a little at the way Harry’s eyes narrowed. “And I can care that she’s alive without wanting to sleep with her.”
            “You don’t want her? In any way?” In truth, Draco thought he would have sensed the desire before now if Harry felt it, but their bond was so damaged that it was hard to be certain.
            “No.”
            “Why not?”
            Harry rolled his eyes. “I already told you why.”
            “You told me why you wanted her alive,” Draco said, and took another sliding step forwards. Harry only watched him without pushing magic at him the way he had before. Draco decided he could take some comfort from that. “That’s not the same thing as saying why you don’t want to sleep with her.”
            Harry glanced away from Draco and out the window. The bond was like a crystal ball that someone had filled with grey water, for all the sense Draco could make out of the swimming patterns in the middle of it.
            “I don’t think that romance is going to be an important part of my life,” Harry said. “Not the life I chose for myself. Maybe the life that I would have lived if I wasn’t part of the war and all the rest of it.” He shrugged. “But not this one.”
            Draco jerked to a halt. “So that’s why you aren’t that worried at the idea of sleeping with me,” he said. “Because you don’t care about sleeping with someone else.”
            Harry’s eyes came slowly back to him. “Not much.”
            “How can you—how can you not?” Draco held out one hand, his claws curving up from it. They looked like blades of grass at the moment, no more harmful. He would attack whatever enemy was causing Harry to feel this way, but he thought it must be intangible. “It’s the best thing in life, to be at the heart and center of someone’s desire that way.”
            “Not really,” said Harry, and he was smiling in a way that emphasized his teeth and the corners of his face. If Draco hadn’t known better, he would have thought he was looking at the face of another Veela, someone in full attack mode. “I’ve been desired. At the heart and the center of attention, for a long while. I don’t look forward to it anymore.”
            “But you have to realize that doing something like this is going to put you even more at the center of everyone’s attention,” Draco said, the only argument he could think of.
            “Doing what? Politics? Trying to stop another war?” Harry shrugged as if the notion didn’t interest him. “Yes, I know. But as I told your mother, I’m selfish. I’m doing this so that I don’t have to fight another war. And I don’t care if I make myself desirable or likeable to anyone right now. I’ll do this on my own terms.”
            “People have to like you to listen to you, to want to stop short of open warfare.” Draco thought they were speaking two different languages. Harry was on the other side of his desk, and it was like being on the other side of the desk from a professor.
            Harry half-shrugged. “Oh, sure. But it’s still for a purpose. They’re not admiring me just to admire me anymore. I can take charge of that attention and manipulate it. I just don’t want it focused on me uselessly, with people expecting me to bask in it.” He passed a hand briefly in front of his eyes, as if they stung. “I’m so tired of the basking.”
            “How much of it did you actually do?” Draco’s intention to apologize had vanished along with the apology itself. He didn’t know how well he could pick his way along and whether this was something he should do. All he knew was that he and Harry were in the same room and conversing like human beings at the moment.
            Not like a Veela and his mate. That was still the painful part to Draco. And there were things that he didn’t understand and thought Harry was deliberately obscuring. But this was still a better beginning than he’d anticipated.
            “Basking? Not much, I suppose.” Harry shrugged and shuffled through some more sheets of his parchment. “I couldn’t have been what they wanted me to be. Not at first. I’m trying now, but even then, some people would prefer for me to be motionless on the pedestal, not running around and actually doing things.”
            Draco blurted out the first thing that came to him, maybe because of a reluctant swirl of colors in his mind. “Is that what you think I want? For you to be motionless on the pedestal?”
            Harry paused and looked up at him. Draco snapped his wings open and shut in agitation. He didn’t want to startle Harry, or really remind him that Draco wasn’t human, but he couldn’t help himself.
*
            At least he managed to put it in words that we could both understand.
            Harry was holding himself ready, the way he always did when he was in public these days. Ready to move, ready to use his magic if he had to, ready to use words if he had to. He couldn’t negotiate with Malfoy the way he could with Muggleborns or pure-bloods like the Greengrasses—
            Assuming the Greengrasses will ever trust me again.
            But he thought he might be able to negotiate a different way. These new words suggested it.
            “Yes,” Harry said at last.
            Malfoy shook his head, smiling at him sweetly, so sweetly. Harry wondered what kind of mate that would have worked on. Only the traditional ones, or was Ron right that lots of people would think it was an honor to be looked at like that, desired like that?
            But I’ve had lots of people look at me like that. And they had never seen him. Only the Heir of Slytherin and the Boy-Who-Lived and the perfect boyfriend and the hero who would save them and the enemy who it was okay to hate because he represented everything they despised. The only difference now was that Harry acknowledged he couldn’t stop people from looking at him that way, any more than he could ever have a normal life, so he was happy to use those impressions for a greater struggle.
            “I would never require perfection of you,” Malfoy began.
            He had to stop, because of the laughter choking out of Harry.
            Harry raised his hand to his mouth, shutting off the laughter. He hadn’t even meant to do that. He felt a little guilty, though that was because he hadn’t planned the stricken expression on Malfoy’s face. If he was going to cause pain, it had better be for a good reason, and something he could use later on.
            “You’re shitting me,” Harry said, because he had to, because the laughter had started him down that path. “You wouldn’t require me to be the perfect submissive you were talking about when you came to ‘claim’ me in the Ministry? You wouldn’t want me bowing to you and waiting on you and falling helpless at your feet with desire? Really?”
            Malfoy blinked and blinked again. At least the stricken expression had disappeared. Now he just looked puzzled.
            “That’s not something most submissives ever have to worry about,” he whispered at last. “They know everything they have to do by instinct.”
            “Really.” Harry propped his elbow on his desk and his chin on his fist, so he could look at Malfoy. “And I don’t. Now do you see why I’m going along with this as much as I have to, and no more than that?”
            “No.”
            Harry rolled his eyes and replied as calmly as he could, “Because I haven’t the slightest fucking clue what these instincts are, and why it feels good, and why I should go along with them. Because I didn’t grow up with this kind of tradition, and no one ever bothered to explain it.”
            “I could teach you,” said Malfoy, and then held a hand up and examined it if as if he was waiting for the claws to disappear.
            Harry eyed him for a second. “What would you know about it, though? You said that this is part of instinct, and you either have the instincts or you don’t. I do think this is a shitty situation, for both of us, but I don’t see how you can teach me anything based on instincts that you don’t have.”
            “I mean, I can tell you about the traditions.” Malfoy passed his hand over his hair for a second. The claws flickered and disappeared. Harry was just as glad that Malfoy and not him was the one who was part-Veela. He would hate being stuck with weapons you couldn’t rely on for the rest of his life. “And—do you have dominant instincts?”
            He sounded as though he was dreading the reply, but Harry leaned forwards and replied, “No. I don’t have any sort of instincts.”
            Once again, Malfoy paused, and his eyes were so uncertain. Harry wondered why. As far as he was concerned, he had proposed a reasonable compromise. After all, it wasn’t as though he was going to date anyone or sleep with anyone else, and put their bond in jeopardy. He just didn’t have time for that shit. Maybe he could learn the traditions and that would be enough.
            “But you have to have one set,” Malfoy said. He twitched for a second as though someone was pulling on his wings, then set his jaw and continued. “My mother told me that she thought I might be the submissive. Even with the wings. Then it would make sense that you would take over the role of the dominant.”
            “Do you want to know what I think?” Harry had checked on his watch while Malfoy was rambling on. He had seven minutes before he had to Floo. He thought that might be enough time to make it clear to Malfoy what he was dealing with here.
            “Yes,” said Malfoy, and his voice was so desperate and his eyes were so hopeful.
            Harry experienced a familiar sinking sensation in the center of his chest. It was the same one he’d got when he realized that a lot of people were still depending on him to save the world after the war, to guide them into peace and happily ever after. No matter where he went, he couldn’t escape those expectations. At least he had learned to embrace them on his own terms.
            He didn’t understand why Malfoy was different, why he couldn’t embrace those requirements on his own terms.
            “I think the whole idea is mental,” said Harry. “Let’s assume for a second that this is a loving relationship. You did say that love is part of the arrangement?”
            “For the dominant and the submissive both.” Malfoy sounded firmer when he was discussing something he absolutely knew. Harry thought that was good. It meant he felt less sorry for the poor bastard.
            “Then I’d think that two people who love each other wouldn’t just do the same thing all the time,” said Harry. “I mean, sometimes they would. But sometimes one of them would make love to the other person, and sometimes one of them would cook dinner—”
            “I told you, you won’t have to do chores like that. That’s why I have house-elves.”
            “Do you want to know what I think or not?” Harry snapped, with another sideways glance at his watch. Five minutes.
            “Yes,” Malfoy said, and his wings drooped a little.
            Harry sighed. “Sorry for snapping at you.” At least that brought the wings back up, and relieved a little of his guilt. “My point is, I think that people who are in a marriage with each other, or love relationship, or whatever this is supposed to be, would do different things. It would depend on how much they loved each other, and who was tired, and whether someone wanted to be quiet that night or talk a lot, and whether they both wanted to sleep together or not. How comfortable they were around each other. How big their house was.”
            “Yes?” Malfoy’s face had gone polite and smooth the way Harry had sometimes seen it when he was speaking to professors at Hogwarts.
            “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Harry said. Three minutes. “Listen. I can’t have a normal relationship, I accept that, there’s too much going on, but if I could that’s what I’d want. Not one where things are the same all the time. Not one where someone was always commanding and always protecting and the other person lay back and massaged their feet. Or got their feet massaged,” he added, because Malfoy was opening his mouth again, probably with another advertisement for the services of his house-elves. “I don’t care about being dominant or submissive. I’m neither because I reject your whole crazy system. I stand outside it, and I’m going to go on standing outside it.”
            “Even if you sleep with me?” Malfoy’s wings quivered again.
            Why is that so important to him? Yes, it had felt nice when Harry was able to kiss Ginny, and maybe it would even feel nice when he kissed Malfoy. But there were more important things than who was sleeping with whom. The Prophet and its constant stories about him had dulled any appeal gossip like that had for Harry, and some people’s obsession with it had dulled for him as well.
            “I’ll do what I need to do to make sure that you’re all right,” Harry said. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to enjoy sex the way I suppose a submissive would.”
            Malfoy shook his head. “But when Veela mate—”
            “I know it’s usually different,” Harry interrupted, and gathered up his parchments. Thirty seconds. “But you usually get a pure-blood who’s been raised in the wizarding world or at least has some idea it exists before they’re eleven. This time, you got a half-blood. Sorry. And I have to go or I’ll be late to deliver this speech.”
            “That’s the worst fate you can think of?”
            “No, war is the worst fate I can think of,” Harry snapped at him, and began to bustle towards the stairs. “And sometimes Kingsley hints that wars could start over the color of my robes, so my being late would really give them a reason.”
            “I can fly you down the stairs,” Malfoy offered, spreading his wings. “And that way, you’ll probably arrive on time.”
            Harry wanted to think about it, but there was no time to think about it. It seemed like there were no time for anything these days, except frantic work. “Sure,” he said, and extended a hand, thinking Malfoy would snatch it and whirl him into the air, like Side-Along Apparition except a longer distance.
            Instead, Malfoy picked him up, cradling him close. His breath was warm in Harry’s ear, and his wings unfolded and they rose into the air with a powerful but gentle bound, as though they had floated off a cloud, and landed next to the Floo in the nearest sitting room at the bottom of the stairs. Harry hadn’t actually noticed them swooping through the doorway of that room, so swift and soft had it been.
            He blinked, nodded to find his feet on the floor, said, “Thanks, Malfoy,” and tossed in the Floo powder.
            Malfoy came with him, holding his wings carefully to his sides and away from the sides of the fireplace. He didn’t try to touch Harry other than the necessary pressing when they stumbled out of the Floo together, though. Harry found himself relaxing.
            Maybe he’s thinking about this and why I don’t fit in, a little. Maybe he is.
*

MoonlightVampiress: Harry doesn’t think the demands on him will stop anyway. At least this way, he’s doing something that he thinks will make the situation better.
delia cerrano: Harry would admit that he’s self-centered. The problem is that he doesn’t see any way to approach Draco except the way he’s doing. To save Draco by becoming his slave would drive Harry literally crazy.
Hestia: Thank you! No, the Veela and mate together create the egg via a magical ritual. Veela eggs are too hard and different from human eggs to be nurtured in a human body.
Wölkchen: Heraclitean Fire is one of those I’ll have to go back and reread to see what happens before I can write the next chapter.
And Harry doesn’t give a fuck if Draco is dominant or submissive; he just knows that he, himself, isn’t either.
Benek: Harry is reluctant to do something so bad for his political image.
BAFan: It’s already changed a little from where I planned for it to go. We’ll see.
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Nature of the Beast