[one-shots]: Dies Irae, R, epilogue fic for 'Veela-Struck,' 1/2
Title: Dies Irae
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Rape (not in-story but described), creature!fic, angst, profanity, established relationship. Ignores the epilogue.
Wordcount: 11,500
Summary: An epilogue-fic to Veela-Struck. Startling news comes to Harry and Draco from Azkaban.
Author’s Notes: This is a one-shot in answer to
dameange’s request-as well as the request of several other people-for a story set after Veela-Struck. Obviously, this fic has spoilers for the other fic. The title is Latin for “day of wrath,” referring to the Day of Judgment.
Dies Irae
It was a grey letter, which came by a grey owl. Draco noticed it first when he came down the stairs from the bedroom in the Manor where he and Harry had spent the night. The owl sat dozing on a perch in the corner. It had laid the letter on the table.
Draco paused, his eyes locked on the bleak color of the paper, and found that he had extended his wings and moved them forwards without noticing. He always did that when there was a threat to his chosen. Of course, the letter by itself wasn’t much of a threat.
But he had seen letters like that before, in the falling days when he and his parents were struggling with the judgment of the Wizengamot, and he knew what seal would be on the other side. And what news it had to contain. There was only one person he and Harry knew at the moment who was in Azkaban.
Well, better to say that Harry knew him. If Draco had ever met him, he wouldn’t have been alive to receive news of.
Draco made his way carefully around the table and sank into the chair at the far end, his appetite gone, though he did pick up and peel an orange from the plate of fresh fruit that appeared a moment later. The task was made easier by the claws that had sprung from the ends of his nails. He had to be strong and focused for Harry’s sake, and that task would be easier if he ate something.
*
Harry shook his head as he came down the heavy oaken steps that led from the bedroom Narcissa and Lucius lent him and Draco. Once again, he had tried to count the number of steps, and once again, his count had failed. Harry didn’t know what it was about this particular staircase that was so baffling. After all, there had to be a limited number of stairs in it, and there wasn’t even carpeting on them to blunt their edges and make the task of counting harder.
Maybe it was just a symptom of how big the Manor was. If one flight of stairs was treacherous or inconvenient, the Malfoys always had another one they could use.
And so did Harry, now.
Harry shook his head again and leaped off the end of the stairs, rounding the corner into the small dining room where Draco liked to eat when they were guests here. It was all pale shining colors, because Harry had made the mistake of looking at the old, gloomy colors that used to be here with an expression of distaste one day. Draco was a Veela. The distaste was enough to have house-elves redecorating by the afternoon.
Not that Harry didn’t like the enchanted window letting in sunlight that danced on the birch-wood walls, or the paintings of aspens and curlicues of blue and gold on the frames. It was just-it was a reminder to him of the kind of power he held, how he had to consider what emotions he expressed because of how they might affect Draco.
Draco was a Veela, and Harry was still learning to understand everything that meant.
“Good morning,” he told Draco, who was sitting with his head bowed over an apple in his claws, and cast a few charms on the food in front of him. His need to do that had become less in the last three months, since he and Draco had gone through the Blazing Season that marked their acceptance of each other, but it was more comfortable to do it than not do it.
Then he saw the grey letter, and fathomed what it meant for Draco to have his claws and his wings visible this early in the morning.
Harry drove one clenched fist into the table and stood there perfectly still for a few moments. He had to control his breathing and look and sound normal and natural. He could do that when the alternative was getting Draco upset.
Draco, of course, already knew what he felt, and was up and moving around the table. He studied Harry for a moment, who nodded. Draco swept his wings forwards and enclosed Harry in a wall of feathers.
Harry soothed the automatic feelings of nervousness that sprang up by leaning against Draco’s chest and listening to his heart. Memories braided and bred in his mind like snakes. He knew what he would see if he closed his eyes, what he would see in his dreams that night.
Laurent, his old Veela ex-lover, shining white with power and passion as he drove Harry into the bed, broke his will with his allure, and then raped him.
Harry told himself that his back would not stiffen, and managed to keep that vow as he stepped around Draco with a small shake of his head. The wings shifted to keep up with him, but Draco let Harry reach the letter and pick it up. Harry glanced at the grey owl on the perch in the corner, which he hadn’t registered before, either. The Manor was full of owls coming and going on matters of politics and business. “Have you read it?”
He knew the answer before his fingers found the uncracked seal, but he asked anyway, because he needed to hear his trust in Draco confirmed, and reaffirmed.
“No.” Draco stroked Harry’s arms with his claws curled in. Small, soothing shivers of mingled pleasure and arousal ran up to Harry’s shoulders, and it was easier to relax after that. “I thought you’d want to read it first.”
“Let’s see,” Harry said. He was glad the letter had come before and not after breakfast. He knew he would vomit if he read the news he fully expected to hear, that Laurent had been freed. That was just the way things were.
He slit the seal, which was a silhouette of Azkaban on its island, and drew out a single sheet of paper. At least they weren’t going to befuddle him with nonsense about whose fault this had been, Harry thought. That made it more likely that this was news of an official end to Laurent’s sentence rather than an escape-or an end to the sentence of “Henricks Copley,” the false name they’d put Laurent into the prison under.
He turned the paper over.
Mr. Potter,
We were instructed to contact you as having an interest in the prisoner named Henricks Copley. We regret to inform you that he died during the night…
The letter slipped from Harry’s fingers to the table. He blinked and braced himself against Draco. He’d been so prepared for news of Laurent being freed, he realized now, though the thoughts felt too clear and dizzy passing through his head, that he didn’t know how to deal with anything else.
“Harry?” Draco’s head rested beside his neck, and his voice had gone shrill and sweet, almost the croon that Harry didn’t think he could stand to hear right now. “What is it? Is he coming for you?”
“No,” Harry said. “He’s dead.” He stared at the wall. Of course he had known, based on the books about Veela that Draco had had him read since they started dating, that a Veela forbidden his chosen suddenly, rather than by a mutual parting, could die, but he had never thought that applied to Laurent. He had always pictured Laurent living just to spite him. And, of course, if he was ever freed, he would come after Harry to exact vengeance for his imprisonment rather than because he still cared for him. Even at the end, Laurent had never understood why what he had done was wrong. He wanted control over Harry, he didn’t have it, so it was permissible to use the allure to get it. Harry could see him in the courtroom if he took the trouble to check his memory. Draco had never seen him in the courtroom…
Harry realized he was mentally babbling. He started to turn to the side, thinking he should be in bed if he was going to sound this mad to himself.
Draco caught him, crooning now, and held him back with gentle claws that could never hurt his chosen. His wings trembled, but Harry knew well enough how strong a barrier they formed, and he knew that Draco wouldn’t leave him alone to think about this. He would have to think about it in company.
It was with a complicated mixture of gratitude, love, and resentment that Harry leaned against Draco’s chest and felt his arms as well as his wings cradle him.
*
Draco hoped that Harry wouldn’t expect him to feel sympathy or pity. For Harry, of course; nothing was too much for Harry. But not for Laurent. Draco would have torn him apart if he could, and as far as he was concerned, death was what the bastard deserved.
Harry had gone back upstairs without much of a protest when Draco urged him, and now was lying on a bed, napping with any luck. Draco knew they didn’t always have that much luck, so Harry was probably staring at the ceiling and brooding on how he had caused Laurent’s death. It worried Draco, but as long as Harry wasn’t actively getting into trouble because of the brooding, then he thought he could set it aside.
Right now, he was reading the rest of the letter that the supervisors at Azkaban had sent to Harry.
We regret to inform you that he died during the night. Symptoms were consonant with those of a Veela in the thrall of disappointment over his chosen: extended wings that lost feathers, arched back, continuous coughing, internal bleeding. He said your name several times, but we do not know what this may be indicative of.
Draco sneered. He knew. Laurent had never got over losing Harry, because according to his warped view of the world, he shouldn’t have lost him at all. Veela could make the choice to survive when someone rejected them or the choice to die, and the unsettled state of affairs from Laurent’s point-of-view made death preferable.
Draco jerked his head to the side and controlled the urge to spit. His parents would hardly be understanding if he dirtied their floors.
The letter still had another paragraph, and Draco turned his eyes to read it.
He had asked several times about you, and about visits from you. We gave him no information, as per Azkaban’s usual policy when dealing with prisoners. The questions grew more frantic towards the end of his life. We give you this news so that you may decide what to do with it.
Draco sneered again. His hands trembled with the urge to shred the letter; his claws could already feel the tearing parchment around them. Those were the details that would cut into Harry, that would make him stare at the wall and frown and question himself extensively in a way he should never have to. Laurent had picked his own fate. No one should have had to suffer what he did to Harry.
But for Harry, Laurent’s Veela blood made it different-enough for him to be prejudiced against all Veela for a time after Laurent had raped him, enough that he was exquisitely careful with Draco even when there was no need to be. He would want to know what had happened. He would want the letter.
What Harry wanted was important, as long as it didn’t actively endanger him. Besides, Draco didn’t want rows over something that should, if their lives were sensible, be small. He reluctantly dropped the parchment back on the table.
“Are you all right, dear?”
Draco blinked and looked up. It was a rare day that he didn’t hear his mother entering the room. She looked from him to the letter and then gave a complicated smile, one that stretched the scar on her face which she’d received in a murder attempt by people who thought she belonged in Azkaban. “Something you wish to share?” she murmured.
Behind her came the thump of Lucius with his cane, no longer an affectation after the attack that had marked them both. Draco hesitated, then stood up to embrace his mother and kiss her cheek. “News from Azkaban,” he said. “Laurent du Michel is dead.”
He heard his father pause in the doorway, but his mother was the one he was holding, the one who went stiff and still for a moment, then sighed and put her hands on his shoulders. “It is a blessing,” she said.
“But Harry does not take it that way.” Lucius limped in and sat down without removing his gaze from Draco’s face.
Draco shook his head. He could feel his wings retracting into his shoulders and his claws curling and fading back into fingernails. He was no longer angry enough to take vengeance for his chosen, simply tired and frustrated. “I think the news itself startled him. The letter tells how Laurent died, in the usual manner of a Veela pining. I’m afraid Harry will take it personally and think he could have done something different.”
“Mmm.” Lucius looked at the letter, and Draco knew his thoughts. He shook his head again. If he had had even a faint hope that Harry would let him get away with destroying the cursed thing, then he already would have.
“Of course Harry will take it personally,” his mother said, assuming the chair next to his father’s. Lucius’s hand brushed her shoulder, in what one could have taken as an absent gesture unless one knew them well, like Draco did. “He always does. The only thing we can do is offer him the support he needs.”
Draco blinked. His mother didn’t have enough of the Veela heritage to manifest it, but her common sense was sometimes better than his. “I should have thought of that,” he muttered.
His mother’s smile was brilliant and sweet and condescending. “Well, dear, you’re still so very young, after all.”
*
Laurent had kissed with a darting tongue like a curl of flame, sour and hot. He had pressed Harry into the bed and straddled his thighs with an insistence that made Harry’s skin crawl, remembering it. He had swept his presence, his allure, in and out of Harry’s body like a blade on a pendulum, driving him deeper into the spinning emotions that being Veela-struck evoked: the helpless longing, the worshipful adoration, the desire to please and fuck and kneel and crawl-
Harry opened his eyes and lay still, wrapped in the beat of his heart.
The fear and anger remained. He no longer vomited or had to work his magic to exhaustion every time he remembered Laurent, and that was Draco’s doing. But the emotions were still beneath the surface, sharp as flaying knives.
They would be, Harry thought, until he let another Veela use his allure on hm. That was what Lucy and her chosen Owen King, the couple he had visited when he was trying to decide how to be close to Draco, had said. The memories were natural. So was the sense of shame and revulsion. But his emotions could not change and could not die because Harry was still affected by being Veela-struck.
Right now, Harry wished he’d had the courage to accept Draco’s allure.
He rolled heavily out of bed and deliberately stretched, focusing on the emptiness of his belly before anything else. He had to eat something. He didn’t want to faint. He would need his strength for the days ahead.
For the days ahead.
Harry paused and frowned. He was acting as though he would do something different than going to work as an Auror and being with Draco, his two most common activities. What else? He could hardly hunt Laurent down or fear his escape now, with him dead.
His mind was not long in telling him.
You have to research the way he died. You have to understand the full consequences of your decision to put him in prison instead of kill him. You thought it was the kinder thing and proved you were in control, but it may not have been kind.
Harry took a deep breath and held it, then slowly exhaled. He wondered what Draco would say if he announced that desire. Probably that it was unhealthy and Harry needed to let Laurent’s death go. He didn’t understand Harry’s need for understanding.
It was always possible that a full measure of comprehension would exonerate him, after all. And if it didn’t, still, at least Harry would accept the full consequences of his actions. During Auror training, he’d never been allowed to avoid knowing what would happen to someone he arrested, even if he didn’t agree with the penalty for the crime. This was more of the same thing. He had arrested Laurent.
He might have to keep it secret, but it shouldn’t be difficult to do that when Draco had books on Veela around anyway, including ones he had bought for Harry as gifts.
Resolved, Harry felt some of the odd sensations-shock and confusion-gripping him drop away. He was always at his best when he knew what he would do next. He went to wash his face and then go downstairs. Draco was probably frantic about him. He would have come up after him, Harry thought, but he knew that Harry needed some time alone.
Well, not right now. Harry found his feet urging him faster down the stairs towards the small eating room. Right now, he can hold me and coddle me and kiss me all he likes. I need that from him.
*
Draco knew Harry was up to something. The problem was, he couldn’t prove what it was, or even that he was up to something.
Harry went to work as usual. He came home smiling and shaking his head at Weasley’s jokes, as usual. He was calm and polite and deferential around Draco’s parents; although he would call them by their first names, now, he had never got as far as treating them like parents, though Draco knew his mother would have welcomed that. He let Draco hold him and was enthusiastic in bed.
But there was still a lack that Draco only gradually defined. Sometimes, when speaking with Harry, he felt as though no one was home behind those luminous green eyes. Harry’s mind went hunting in distant lands, and he couldn’t follow.
When Draco first sensed it, he bit his tongue even as his nails curved into claws. Hadn’t Harry learned by now that he shouldn’t keep things from Draco? Draco would either tear them both apart trying to find out what it was, or he would have a screaming row with Harry and sulk in the corner of their bedroom until Harry tiptoed up to mend matters.
But Harry didn’t seem to anticipate either a row or someone finding out his secret. On he went with his normal life, and if the times when his mind flickered away into the distance happened more frequently, it seemed that Draco was the only one who noticed. Harry’s friends and Draco’s parents, the others who saw him regularly, seemed relieved that no effect greater than a few days of disorientation had come from Laurent’s death.
When Draco first had that thought, it was in the middle of a dream, and he sat up hard enough to ruffle his hair. He turned and stared down at Harry, who was curled up beside him. Harry stirred and gave a sleepy murmur of protest, but was deeply dozing again in the next moment, a strand of hair dangling in his mouth. Draco reached out and mechanically moved it aside, while his mind bounded along this new track.
Yes. That was the problem. He knew Harry should have spent more time brooding about Laurent’s death. There should have been more moans of how it was all his fault, and how he had never wanted this. Draco had been looking forwards to the reassurance he would have to give, almost. It was another way to demonstrate that he was important to his chosen, meaningful in his life, and necessary to Harry in a way that Laurent had never been and that Harry had tried to deny for so long that Draco was.
But Harry had absorbed the death, accepted it, and then returned to normal life. He had done that so well that Draco hadn’t even thought about the way it should go for more than a few minutes at a time since.
Has he finally grown up and realized that he can’t play martyr? Draco draped his arms around his knees and studied Harry with a frown. Harry rolled into the spot of warmth Draco had provided and sighed out, as if that was enough to keep him comfortable and happy.
No, I don’t think so. He’s doing something else instead, something that he thinks he will staunch his guilt.
But here Draco ran up against another problem. Harry might like to think of himself as subtle and sly, but he wasn’t. When he wanted to conceal a secret, he ended up making references to it in casual speech and then backtracking hastily to protect them-which was all the more conspicuous. Draco didn’t think he had learned how to fool others any more than he had learned how to stop being a martyr.
What is going on?
Although Draco lay awake for enough of the night that Harry touched his face in the morning and frowned into his eyes, he couldn’t come up with an answer.
“Are you sure that you’re all right?” Harry lingered by the door that morning instead of going to work at once. He never stopped studying Draco. “You look stressed. I could stay home today if you’d prefer that. Kingsley doesn’t have a case I have to work on right away, or at least not one that Ron can’t handle alone.”
“I’m fine,” Draco said, and winced. His voice had croaked, a natural result of his worry. When he wanted to reassure his chosen, his voice grew high and sweet. Still, he could curse his Veela nature for making him sound like a frog with a sore throat right now. Harry took several steps back to him and rested a hand on his forehead, as if to feel for fever. Draco closed his eyes. Be honest with me, Harry. It would do me more good than all the medicinal potions in the world.
“You don’t sound like it,” Harry said. “Let me stay. I’ll firecall Kingsley and tell him that I won’t be in today. He can hardly fault me, when I haven’t take any time off lately. Since the Blazing Season, in fact.” He smiled at Draco, with only a trace of the wince he used to show each time he mentioned the season when Veela became most possessive of their chosen, and turned towards the hearth.
“No!” Draco snapped, provoked by the sight of Harry acting as though Draco was the one who needed extra worry and care. “I want you to tell me what’s happening to you.”
Harry frowned, looking over his shoulder with an unclouded brow. Draco’s trust in his certainty wavered for the first time. Did he know that something was happening with Harry? Perhaps Harry had simply talked himself into acknowledging that he held no regret for what had happened to Laurent and that he could move on with his life. “Nothing. Did it look as though something was? I haven’t been sick this week, and I’m serious about the lack of cases at work.”
“Since Laurent’s death,” Draco said. “You haven’t spoken about it. You’ve acted as though it didn’t happen. Are you all right?”
Harry flinched, the same full-body motion Draco had seen him give before only when he was still touch-shy and Draco had caressed him, and his face flushed with color.
“I knew it,” Draco said, and his voice was full of satisfaction, although he took no pleasure in being right. He stood up and prowled towards Harry. His claws were out, but he held back his wings for now. Harry didn’t need immediate defending or immediate embracing, and Draco had no reason to show them as a sign of joy. “When are you going to start telling me the truth, Harry?”
“In this case,” Harry said tensely, “I thought you would tell me that I didn’t need to understand what happened to Laurent. And I do.” He was braced in a stance that Draco didn’t recognize but thought came up in Auror training.
And he probably doesn’t even think I’m going to attack him, Draco thought with an aching sadness. This is just his usual response when someone confronts him. He can’t distinguish between one kind of confrontation and another, the harmless and the harmful kind. Maybe that’s something we can talk about next. Harry was doing much better than he had been, but he still wasn’t completely healed.
“I would have supported you if you wanted to understand,” Draco said. He kept his voice quiet and deliberate on purpose, and showed Harry his right hand and the nails that had once again replaced claws. “What more do you need to know, though? Azkaban doesn’t give out extra facts on prisoners’ deaths unless it’s for criminal investigation.”
Harry tensed again. “I’ve been reading the books on Veela that you got me,” he admitted in a low voice. “I want to know what happens when a Veela dies without his chosen and without a good break from the chosen. The way Laurent acted at his trial, he didn’t grasp that I’d rejected him, but we were still separated.”
Draco closed his eyes. He knew the details Harry was asking about, and they were nothing that would make Harry feel better when he found them out. Of course, he thought dismally. Harry hunted down the knowledge that would hurt him and ignored what wouldn’t, as though it was somehow cheating to learn facts that would put what he had done into perspective.
“Harry,” he said quietly. “You wouldn’t like what you found. You didn’t precipitate the break from Laurent. You didn’t run away and leave him one morning without any chance to change. He raped you.” He opened his eyes in time to see Harry flinch from the word. “Yes, he did. I don’t remember you, when we first started dating, expressing any emotion but hatred and disgust for him because of that. What changed?”
“I learned more about what he was,” Harry said quietly. “How he was different from a human lover. How he was like you.” He studied Draco with wide eyes that managed to hold quite a remarkable level of discomfort.
Draco winced in turn, but he was determined to hold on to his superior position in the conversation, a position based on fact and concern for Harry. “We’re not exactly the same,” he said. “I told you that before, remember? How two Veela react to the same circumstances will differ. Yes, we have a few traits that we share in common, the way that wizards share certain traits with each other. That doesn’t specifically control our reactions. You can-Harry, you don’t need to see my face on his body when you envision him dying.”
Harry frowned further and stared at the floor. Then he murmured, “Draco, I have to understand. I just want to know.”
Draco decided that the best thing he could do, then, was go ahead and give Harry what he said he needed. His mother had said it: all any of them could do was support Harry and deal with the consequences of that.
“You haven’t been able to find the facts in the books yet,” Draco said casually, leaning against the wall. His wings wanted to flare out, but he still kept them under control. “Or you wouldn’t have kept looking.” And I probably would have had to rescue you from nightmares, he wanted to say, but he held his silence on that, too.
“I-no.” Harry twitched his head from side to side in what looked like nervousness for a moment, before he settled for a stare at Draco. “It seems that the authors are reluctant to describe what happens.”
“Of course they are,” Draco muttered. If too many ordinary wizards learned those important facts, they could attack Veela through their vulnerabilities, and too many Veela had grown up with a hideous first-hand look at what wizards did to magical creatures they considered ugly, dangerous, or valuable. The only accusation Veela would ever be completely safe from was the first one.
“What?” Harry asked.
“Never mind,” Draco said. He leaned in so that Harry started as if he wanted to back up, but then firmed his stare and held his ground. Draco approved. “I’ll tell you what happens. I know from the lore that’s been passed down in my family, and in others, where the Veela inheritance was carried along with normal wizard blood.”
“All right,” Harry said. He had enough sense to be cautious, but that stubborn, curious expression on his face said that he wanted to know anyway.
“The Veela begins to go mad not long after the separation,” Draco said. He had to close his eyes, but he managed to keep his voice detached. That would make it all the more horrible for Harry, and he thought Harry needed horror right now, whether to feed his guilt or for some other reason. The explanation he had given for wanting to know more about Laurent made no sense to Draco, not really. But he could only do what his chosen wanted, whether he comprehended it or not. “He would have his wings and his claws out constantly, and he would croon and call and sing for his chosen. He wouldn’t grasp what had happened to him, when the madness advanced far enough. He would see light where only darkness was, and images of his chosen in every direction. He would begin to bite at his own flesh, to sniff it and claw it, because there might be a taste or scent of you left on it.”
Harry gagged. Draco opened his eyes and made himself face his chosen. He had to lick his lips to maintain the coolness of tone when he saw the ragged state of Harry’s expression, but he couldn’t go back on this now, not when he had already made the compromises that he thought necessary for Harry’s good.
“He would tear off his wings, ultimately. What good could they be to him, when you weren’t nearby to protect? He would imagine all sorts of different things that could have happened to you, because it would be beyond him to think that you might have left of your own free will. He would shriek for revenge against his enemies until his voice was gone, and he would fling himself at the wall and try to dig through it. That would break his claws. But he would still have enough fingernails left to dig out his eyes.”
“His eyes?” Harry whispered. “Why?”
“Because they couldn’t tell him the way to you,” Draco said. Perhaps he was being too cruel, to use the personal pronoun instead of talking about this as if it was any ordinary Veela and chosen, but Harry had wanted to know. “He would do the same thing with his nose, which was useless for finding the trail, and with every feather that grew on his body, since it wasn’t sheltering you. Then he would tear open his chest and go after his own heart. Ripping it free would hurt less than to have it beating alone.”
Harry turned away and took a few steps towards the fireplace, as if he would Floo out after all. Then he sagged against the wall, made helpless by his shuddering. Draco folded his arms and fought back the urge to go to him at once. He thought Harry needed a few more moments of experience alone.
“Why?” Harry whispered. “Why did it have to end that way? I thought I was sparing him when I didn’t murder him, but it seems that I only spared him for a more terrible fate than he would have had without my mercy.”
The only part of that rambling little monologue Draco agreed with was the notion that it would have been better to murder Laurent at once. But he didn’t intend to allow Harry to beat himself up about it. He stepped forwards, and then his wings were out-with only a slight sigh from his shirt, which was modified to allow that-and wrapped around Harry. They were joined by his arms a moment later.
Harry stood unyielding against him, but the influence of the wings was hard for even an angry wizard to deny, and Draco knew that Harry wasn’t angry at him. His rage was directed against himself, as always, even though it didn’t have to be. He melted against Draco’s chest and closed his eyes.
“I wish there was some way out of this,” he whispered.
“Some way out?” Draco kept his voice calm and gentle, whispering his fingers through Harry’s hair in the meantime. He could think of alarming interpretations to put on Harry’s words, but until Harry actually said something that was alarming, Draco would hold himself back from making too many suggestions.
“Yes,” Harry said. “I feel bad about killing Laurent, but I couldn’t have done anything else than put him in Azkaban. I didn’t know what would happen, but my conscience says that’s no excuse. And I still hate him for putting me in this position.” The last words were a passionate snarl. His fingers curled into claws of his own against Draco’s chest.
Draco shut his eyes, enormously relieved. He was thinking that Harry’s guilt might have destroyed all his normal feelings about Laurent. The last thing Draco could have put up with was moaning about how Harry was sorry Laurent had raped him-not because it had happened, but because Harry should have given him what he needed. Draco had barely held back the impulse to rejoice at the news of Laurent’s death most of the week. He would go into a jealous rage if Harry started looking wistfully back on his last Veela lover.
He nuzzled his face into Harry’s neck and whispered, “I know. Why not firecall Kingsley, tell him that you’re taking the day off, and then come up and rest in my arms for a little while?”
Harry began to pull back. “I have to go in. I need work-work distracts me-”
Draco held him still, which he was easily able to do, and murmured, “Not now. Work was your only way out of those confined thoughts when you didn’t have me. But now you do.” His fingers pressed gently against Harry’s shoulders and then on the back of his neck, urging him to reconsider.
Harry swallowed and whispered, “Everything you said was true?”
“Yes,” Draco said slowly, trying to figure out where Harry’s mind was going. If he thought of staying with Draco only to spare him Laurent’s horrible fate, he shouldn’t; it was not as though Draco would die from a day’s separation. On the other hand, he might want to be away from Draco altogether until the images stopped dancing in his head. Draco could understand that impulse.
“I-I’ll have to think about it,” Harry said. “But yeah, let me firecall Kingsley, and then I’ll stay with you.”
Draco stroked the back of Harry’s neck and his hair and his cheek in approbation, and then kissed him. He would have liked to do more, but Harry pushed him away with a gentle, weary smile and stepped up to the fireplace. Draco stayed and listened, too anxious not to, but Harry didn’t spring through the flames as though he wanted to get away. He told Kingsley he was dealing with personal stresses that would keep him away from the office, nodded a few times, arranged for someone else to work with Weasley, and then came back into Draco’s arms.
They ended up sitting together and talking about nonsensical things for most of the day, and then taking a nap in the late afternoon. Draco woke up as the sun threw reddened light over them and watched Harry’s face. His mouth was pinched shut, and the lines of stress remained around it. His confession didn’t seem to have done much to help them.
Draco’s wings flared up before he thought about it, but he managed to control himself with a deep breath and a shake of his head. He lay down next to Harry again and listened to his breathing, sorting out the normal sounds from the strained ones.
What would help Harry, now that he knew the truth? Draco had satisfied the immediate need for information, but he didn’t yet know how he would resolve that deeper need, which he thought Harry had healed at least a little bit by now.
And that hurt.
Part Two.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/314651.html. Comment wherever you like.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairings: Harry/Draco
Rating: R
Warnings: Rape (not in-story but described), creature!fic, angst, profanity, established relationship. Ignores the epilogue.
Wordcount: 11,500
Summary: An epilogue-fic to Veela-Struck. Startling news comes to Harry and Draco from Azkaban.
Author’s Notes: This is a one-shot in answer to
dameange’s request-as well as the request of several other people-for a story set after Veela-Struck. Obviously, this fic has spoilers for the other fic. The title is Latin for “day of wrath,” referring to the Day of Judgment.
Dies Irae
It was a grey letter, which came by a grey owl. Draco noticed it first when he came down the stairs from the bedroom in the Manor where he and Harry had spent the night. The owl sat dozing on a perch in the corner. It had laid the letter on the table.
Draco paused, his eyes locked on the bleak color of the paper, and found that he had extended his wings and moved them forwards without noticing. He always did that when there was a threat to his chosen. Of course, the letter by itself wasn’t much of a threat.
But he had seen letters like that before, in the falling days when he and his parents were struggling with the judgment of the Wizengamot, and he knew what seal would be on the other side. And what news it had to contain. There was only one person he and Harry knew at the moment who was in Azkaban.
Well, better to say that Harry knew him. If Draco had ever met him, he wouldn’t have been alive to receive news of.
Draco made his way carefully around the table and sank into the chair at the far end, his appetite gone, though he did pick up and peel an orange from the plate of fresh fruit that appeared a moment later. The task was made easier by the claws that had sprung from the ends of his nails. He had to be strong and focused for Harry’s sake, and that task would be easier if he ate something.
*
Harry shook his head as he came down the heavy oaken steps that led from the bedroom Narcissa and Lucius lent him and Draco. Once again, he had tried to count the number of steps, and once again, his count had failed. Harry didn’t know what it was about this particular staircase that was so baffling. After all, there had to be a limited number of stairs in it, and there wasn’t even carpeting on them to blunt their edges and make the task of counting harder.
Maybe it was just a symptom of how big the Manor was. If one flight of stairs was treacherous or inconvenient, the Malfoys always had another one they could use.
And so did Harry, now.
Harry shook his head again and leaped off the end of the stairs, rounding the corner into the small dining room where Draco liked to eat when they were guests here. It was all pale shining colors, because Harry had made the mistake of looking at the old, gloomy colors that used to be here with an expression of distaste one day. Draco was a Veela. The distaste was enough to have house-elves redecorating by the afternoon.
Not that Harry didn’t like the enchanted window letting in sunlight that danced on the birch-wood walls, or the paintings of aspens and curlicues of blue and gold on the frames. It was just-it was a reminder to him of the kind of power he held, how he had to consider what emotions he expressed because of how they might affect Draco.
Draco was a Veela, and Harry was still learning to understand everything that meant.
“Good morning,” he told Draco, who was sitting with his head bowed over an apple in his claws, and cast a few charms on the food in front of him. His need to do that had become less in the last three months, since he and Draco had gone through the Blazing Season that marked their acceptance of each other, but it was more comfortable to do it than not do it.
Then he saw the grey letter, and fathomed what it meant for Draco to have his claws and his wings visible this early in the morning.
Harry drove one clenched fist into the table and stood there perfectly still for a few moments. He had to control his breathing and look and sound normal and natural. He could do that when the alternative was getting Draco upset.
Draco, of course, already knew what he felt, and was up and moving around the table. He studied Harry for a moment, who nodded. Draco swept his wings forwards and enclosed Harry in a wall of feathers.
Harry soothed the automatic feelings of nervousness that sprang up by leaning against Draco’s chest and listening to his heart. Memories braided and bred in his mind like snakes. He knew what he would see if he closed his eyes, what he would see in his dreams that night.
Laurent, his old Veela ex-lover, shining white with power and passion as he drove Harry into the bed, broke his will with his allure, and then raped him.
Harry told himself that his back would not stiffen, and managed to keep that vow as he stepped around Draco with a small shake of his head. The wings shifted to keep up with him, but Draco let Harry reach the letter and pick it up. Harry glanced at the grey owl on the perch in the corner, which he hadn’t registered before, either. The Manor was full of owls coming and going on matters of politics and business. “Have you read it?”
He knew the answer before his fingers found the uncracked seal, but he asked anyway, because he needed to hear his trust in Draco confirmed, and reaffirmed.
“No.” Draco stroked Harry’s arms with his claws curled in. Small, soothing shivers of mingled pleasure and arousal ran up to Harry’s shoulders, and it was easier to relax after that. “I thought you’d want to read it first.”
“Let’s see,” Harry said. He was glad the letter had come before and not after breakfast. He knew he would vomit if he read the news he fully expected to hear, that Laurent had been freed. That was just the way things were.
He slit the seal, which was a silhouette of Azkaban on its island, and drew out a single sheet of paper. At least they weren’t going to befuddle him with nonsense about whose fault this had been, Harry thought. That made it more likely that this was news of an official end to Laurent’s sentence rather than an escape-or an end to the sentence of “Henricks Copley,” the false name they’d put Laurent into the prison under.
He turned the paper over.
Mr. Potter,
We were instructed to contact you as having an interest in the prisoner named Henricks Copley. We regret to inform you that he died during the night…
The letter slipped from Harry’s fingers to the table. He blinked and braced himself against Draco. He’d been so prepared for news of Laurent being freed, he realized now, though the thoughts felt too clear and dizzy passing through his head, that he didn’t know how to deal with anything else.
“Harry?” Draco’s head rested beside his neck, and his voice had gone shrill and sweet, almost the croon that Harry didn’t think he could stand to hear right now. “What is it? Is he coming for you?”
“No,” Harry said. “He’s dead.” He stared at the wall. Of course he had known, based on the books about Veela that Draco had had him read since they started dating, that a Veela forbidden his chosen suddenly, rather than by a mutual parting, could die, but he had never thought that applied to Laurent. He had always pictured Laurent living just to spite him. And, of course, if he was ever freed, he would come after Harry to exact vengeance for his imprisonment rather than because he still cared for him. Even at the end, Laurent had never understood why what he had done was wrong. He wanted control over Harry, he didn’t have it, so it was permissible to use the allure to get it. Harry could see him in the courtroom if he took the trouble to check his memory. Draco had never seen him in the courtroom…
Harry realized he was mentally babbling. He started to turn to the side, thinking he should be in bed if he was going to sound this mad to himself.
Draco caught him, crooning now, and held him back with gentle claws that could never hurt his chosen. His wings trembled, but Harry knew well enough how strong a barrier they formed, and he knew that Draco wouldn’t leave him alone to think about this. He would have to think about it in company.
It was with a complicated mixture of gratitude, love, and resentment that Harry leaned against Draco’s chest and felt his arms as well as his wings cradle him.
*
Draco hoped that Harry wouldn’t expect him to feel sympathy or pity. For Harry, of course; nothing was too much for Harry. But not for Laurent. Draco would have torn him apart if he could, and as far as he was concerned, death was what the bastard deserved.
Harry had gone back upstairs without much of a protest when Draco urged him, and now was lying on a bed, napping with any luck. Draco knew they didn’t always have that much luck, so Harry was probably staring at the ceiling and brooding on how he had caused Laurent’s death. It worried Draco, but as long as Harry wasn’t actively getting into trouble because of the brooding, then he thought he could set it aside.
Right now, he was reading the rest of the letter that the supervisors at Azkaban had sent to Harry.
We regret to inform you that he died during the night. Symptoms were consonant with those of a Veela in the thrall of disappointment over his chosen: extended wings that lost feathers, arched back, continuous coughing, internal bleeding. He said your name several times, but we do not know what this may be indicative of.
Draco sneered. He knew. Laurent had never got over losing Harry, because according to his warped view of the world, he shouldn’t have lost him at all. Veela could make the choice to survive when someone rejected them or the choice to die, and the unsettled state of affairs from Laurent’s point-of-view made death preferable.
Draco jerked his head to the side and controlled the urge to spit. His parents would hardly be understanding if he dirtied their floors.
The letter still had another paragraph, and Draco turned his eyes to read it.
He had asked several times about you, and about visits from you. We gave him no information, as per Azkaban’s usual policy when dealing with prisoners. The questions grew more frantic towards the end of his life. We give you this news so that you may decide what to do with it.
Draco sneered again. His hands trembled with the urge to shred the letter; his claws could already feel the tearing parchment around them. Those were the details that would cut into Harry, that would make him stare at the wall and frown and question himself extensively in a way he should never have to. Laurent had picked his own fate. No one should have had to suffer what he did to Harry.
But for Harry, Laurent’s Veela blood made it different-enough for him to be prejudiced against all Veela for a time after Laurent had raped him, enough that he was exquisitely careful with Draco even when there was no need to be. He would want to know what had happened. He would want the letter.
What Harry wanted was important, as long as it didn’t actively endanger him. Besides, Draco didn’t want rows over something that should, if their lives were sensible, be small. He reluctantly dropped the parchment back on the table.
“Are you all right, dear?”
Draco blinked and looked up. It was a rare day that he didn’t hear his mother entering the room. She looked from him to the letter and then gave a complicated smile, one that stretched the scar on her face which she’d received in a murder attempt by people who thought she belonged in Azkaban. “Something you wish to share?” she murmured.
Behind her came the thump of Lucius with his cane, no longer an affectation after the attack that had marked them both. Draco hesitated, then stood up to embrace his mother and kiss her cheek. “News from Azkaban,” he said. “Laurent du Michel is dead.”
He heard his father pause in the doorway, but his mother was the one he was holding, the one who went stiff and still for a moment, then sighed and put her hands on his shoulders. “It is a blessing,” she said.
“But Harry does not take it that way.” Lucius limped in and sat down without removing his gaze from Draco’s face.
Draco shook his head. He could feel his wings retracting into his shoulders and his claws curling and fading back into fingernails. He was no longer angry enough to take vengeance for his chosen, simply tired and frustrated. “I think the news itself startled him. The letter tells how Laurent died, in the usual manner of a Veela pining. I’m afraid Harry will take it personally and think he could have done something different.”
“Mmm.” Lucius looked at the letter, and Draco knew his thoughts. He shook his head again. If he had had even a faint hope that Harry would let him get away with destroying the cursed thing, then he already would have.
“Of course Harry will take it personally,” his mother said, assuming the chair next to his father’s. Lucius’s hand brushed her shoulder, in what one could have taken as an absent gesture unless one knew them well, like Draco did. “He always does. The only thing we can do is offer him the support he needs.”
Draco blinked. His mother didn’t have enough of the Veela heritage to manifest it, but her common sense was sometimes better than his. “I should have thought of that,” he muttered.
His mother’s smile was brilliant and sweet and condescending. “Well, dear, you’re still so very young, after all.”
*
Laurent had kissed with a darting tongue like a curl of flame, sour and hot. He had pressed Harry into the bed and straddled his thighs with an insistence that made Harry’s skin crawl, remembering it. He had swept his presence, his allure, in and out of Harry’s body like a blade on a pendulum, driving him deeper into the spinning emotions that being Veela-struck evoked: the helpless longing, the worshipful adoration, the desire to please and fuck and kneel and crawl-
Harry opened his eyes and lay still, wrapped in the beat of his heart.
The fear and anger remained. He no longer vomited or had to work his magic to exhaustion every time he remembered Laurent, and that was Draco’s doing. But the emotions were still beneath the surface, sharp as flaying knives.
They would be, Harry thought, until he let another Veela use his allure on hm. That was what Lucy and her chosen Owen King, the couple he had visited when he was trying to decide how to be close to Draco, had said. The memories were natural. So was the sense of shame and revulsion. But his emotions could not change and could not die because Harry was still affected by being Veela-struck.
Right now, Harry wished he’d had the courage to accept Draco’s allure.
He rolled heavily out of bed and deliberately stretched, focusing on the emptiness of his belly before anything else. He had to eat something. He didn’t want to faint. He would need his strength for the days ahead.
For the days ahead.
Harry paused and frowned. He was acting as though he would do something different than going to work as an Auror and being with Draco, his two most common activities. What else? He could hardly hunt Laurent down or fear his escape now, with him dead.
His mind was not long in telling him.
You have to research the way he died. You have to understand the full consequences of your decision to put him in prison instead of kill him. You thought it was the kinder thing and proved you were in control, but it may not have been kind.
Harry took a deep breath and held it, then slowly exhaled. He wondered what Draco would say if he announced that desire. Probably that it was unhealthy and Harry needed to let Laurent’s death go. He didn’t understand Harry’s need for understanding.
It was always possible that a full measure of comprehension would exonerate him, after all. And if it didn’t, still, at least Harry would accept the full consequences of his actions. During Auror training, he’d never been allowed to avoid knowing what would happen to someone he arrested, even if he didn’t agree with the penalty for the crime. This was more of the same thing. He had arrested Laurent.
He might have to keep it secret, but it shouldn’t be difficult to do that when Draco had books on Veela around anyway, including ones he had bought for Harry as gifts.
Resolved, Harry felt some of the odd sensations-shock and confusion-gripping him drop away. He was always at his best when he knew what he would do next. He went to wash his face and then go downstairs. Draco was probably frantic about him. He would have come up after him, Harry thought, but he knew that Harry needed some time alone.
Well, not right now. Harry found his feet urging him faster down the stairs towards the small eating room. Right now, he can hold me and coddle me and kiss me all he likes. I need that from him.
*
Draco knew Harry was up to something. The problem was, he couldn’t prove what it was, or even that he was up to something.
Harry went to work as usual. He came home smiling and shaking his head at Weasley’s jokes, as usual. He was calm and polite and deferential around Draco’s parents; although he would call them by their first names, now, he had never got as far as treating them like parents, though Draco knew his mother would have welcomed that. He let Draco hold him and was enthusiastic in bed.
But there was still a lack that Draco only gradually defined. Sometimes, when speaking with Harry, he felt as though no one was home behind those luminous green eyes. Harry’s mind went hunting in distant lands, and he couldn’t follow.
When Draco first sensed it, he bit his tongue even as his nails curved into claws. Hadn’t Harry learned by now that he shouldn’t keep things from Draco? Draco would either tear them both apart trying to find out what it was, or he would have a screaming row with Harry and sulk in the corner of their bedroom until Harry tiptoed up to mend matters.
But Harry didn’t seem to anticipate either a row or someone finding out his secret. On he went with his normal life, and if the times when his mind flickered away into the distance happened more frequently, it seemed that Draco was the only one who noticed. Harry’s friends and Draco’s parents, the others who saw him regularly, seemed relieved that no effect greater than a few days of disorientation had come from Laurent’s death.
When Draco first had that thought, it was in the middle of a dream, and he sat up hard enough to ruffle his hair. He turned and stared down at Harry, who was curled up beside him. Harry stirred and gave a sleepy murmur of protest, but was deeply dozing again in the next moment, a strand of hair dangling in his mouth. Draco reached out and mechanically moved it aside, while his mind bounded along this new track.
Yes. That was the problem. He knew Harry should have spent more time brooding about Laurent’s death. There should have been more moans of how it was all his fault, and how he had never wanted this. Draco had been looking forwards to the reassurance he would have to give, almost. It was another way to demonstrate that he was important to his chosen, meaningful in his life, and necessary to Harry in a way that Laurent had never been and that Harry had tried to deny for so long that Draco was.
But Harry had absorbed the death, accepted it, and then returned to normal life. He had done that so well that Draco hadn’t even thought about the way it should go for more than a few minutes at a time since.
Has he finally grown up and realized that he can’t play martyr? Draco draped his arms around his knees and studied Harry with a frown. Harry rolled into the spot of warmth Draco had provided and sighed out, as if that was enough to keep him comfortable and happy.
No, I don’t think so. He’s doing something else instead, something that he thinks he will staunch his guilt.
But here Draco ran up against another problem. Harry might like to think of himself as subtle and sly, but he wasn’t. When he wanted to conceal a secret, he ended up making references to it in casual speech and then backtracking hastily to protect them-which was all the more conspicuous. Draco didn’t think he had learned how to fool others any more than he had learned how to stop being a martyr.
What is going on?
Although Draco lay awake for enough of the night that Harry touched his face in the morning and frowned into his eyes, he couldn’t come up with an answer.
“Are you sure that you’re all right?” Harry lingered by the door that morning instead of going to work at once. He never stopped studying Draco. “You look stressed. I could stay home today if you’d prefer that. Kingsley doesn’t have a case I have to work on right away, or at least not one that Ron can’t handle alone.”
“I’m fine,” Draco said, and winced. His voice had croaked, a natural result of his worry. When he wanted to reassure his chosen, his voice grew high and sweet. Still, he could curse his Veela nature for making him sound like a frog with a sore throat right now. Harry took several steps back to him and rested a hand on his forehead, as if to feel for fever. Draco closed his eyes. Be honest with me, Harry. It would do me more good than all the medicinal potions in the world.
“You don’t sound like it,” Harry said. “Let me stay. I’ll firecall Kingsley and tell him that I won’t be in today. He can hardly fault me, when I haven’t take any time off lately. Since the Blazing Season, in fact.” He smiled at Draco, with only a trace of the wince he used to show each time he mentioned the season when Veela became most possessive of their chosen, and turned towards the hearth.
“No!” Draco snapped, provoked by the sight of Harry acting as though Draco was the one who needed extra worry and care. “I want you to tell me what’s happening to you.”
Harry frowned, looking over his shoulder with an unclouded brow. Draco’s trust in his certainty wavered for the first time. Did he know that something was happening with Harry? Perhaps Harry had simply talked himself into acknowledging that he held no regret for what had happened to Laurent and that he could move on with his life. “Nothing. Did it look as though something was? I haven’t been sick this week, and I’m serious about the lack of cases at work.”
“Since Laurent’s death,” Draco said. “You haven’t spoken about it. You’ve acted as though it didn’t happen. Are you all right?”
Harry flinched, the same full-body motion Draco had seen him give before only when he was still touch-shy and Draco had caressed him, and his face flushed with color.
“I knew it,” Draco said, and his voice was full of satisfaction, although he took no pleasure in being right. He stood up and prowled towards Harry. His claws were out, but he held back his wings for now. Harry didn’t need immediate defending or immediate embracing, and Draco had no reason to show them as a sign of joy. “When are you going to start telling me the truth, Harry?”
“In this case,” Harry said tensely, “I thought you would tell me that I didn’t need to understand what happened to Laurent. And I do.” He was braced in a stance that Draco didn’t recognize but thought came up in Auror training.
And he probably doesn’t even think I’m going to attack him, Draco thought with an aching sadness. This is just his usual response when someone confronts him. He can’t distinguish between one kind of confrontation and another, the harmless and the harmful kind. Maybe that’s something we can talk about next. Harry was doing much better than he had been, but he still wasn’t completely healed.
“I would have supported you if you wanted to understand,” Draco said. He kept his voice quiet and deliberate on purpose, and showed Harry his right hand and the nails that had once again replaced claws. “What more do you need to know, though? Azkaban doesn’t give out extra facts on prisoners’ deaths unless it’s for criminal investigation.”
Harry tensed again. “I’ve been reading the books on Veela that you got me,” he admitted in a low voice. “I want to know what happens when a Veela dies without his chosen and without a good break from the chosen. The way Laurent acted at his trial, he didn’t grasp that I’d rejected him, but we were still separated.”
Draco closed his eyes. He knew the details Harry was asking about, and they were nothing that would make Harry feel better when he found them out. Of course, he thought dismally. Harry hunted down the knowledge that would hurt him and ignored what wouldn’t, as though it was somehow cheating to learn facts that would put what he had done into perspective.
“Harry,” he said quietly. “You wouldn’t like what you found. You didn’t precipitate the break from Laurent. You didn’t run away and leave him one morning without any chance to change. He raped you.” He opened his eyes in time to see Harry flinch from the word. “Yes, he did. I don’t remember you, when we first started dating, expressing any emotion but hatred and disgust for him because of that. What changed?”
“I learned more about what he was,” Harry said quietly. “How he was different from a human lover. How he was like you.” He studied Draco with wide eyes that managed to hold quite a remarkable level of discomfort.
Draco winced in turn, but he was determined to hold on to his superior position in the conversation, a position based on fact and concern for Harry. “We’re not exactly the same,” he said. “I told you that before, remember? How two Veela react to the same circumstances will differ. Yes, we have a few traits that we share in common, the way that wizards share certain traits with each other. That doesn’t specifically control our reactions. You can-Harry, you don’t need to see my face on his body when you envision him dying.”
Harry frowned further and stared at the floor. Then he murmured, “Draco, I have to understand. I just want to know.”
Draco decided that the best thing he could do, then, was go ahead and give Harry what he said he needed. His mother had said it: all any of them could do was support Harry and deal with the consequences of that.
“You haven’t been able to find the facts in the books yet,” Draco said casually, leaning against the wall. His wings wanted to flare out, but he still kept them under control. “Or you wouldn’t have kept looking.” And I probably would have had to rescue you from nightmares, he wanted to say, but he held his silence on that, too.
“I-no.” Harry twitched his head from side to side in what looked like nervousness for a moment, before he settled for a stare at Draco. “It seems that the authors are reluctant to describe what happens.”
“Of course they are,” Draco muttered. If too many ordinary wizards learned those important facts, they could attack Veela through their vulnerabilities, and too many Veela had grown up with a hideous first-hand look at what wizards did to magical creatures they considered ugly, dangerous, or valuable. The only accusation Veela would ever be completely safe from was the first one.
“What?” Harry asked.
“Never mind,” Draco said. He leaned in so that Harry started as if he wanted to back up, but then firmed his stare and held his ground. Draco approved. “I’ll tell you what happens. I know from the lore that’s been passed down in my family, and in others, where the Veela inheritance was carried along with normal wizard blood.”
“All right,” Harry said. He had enough sense to be cautious, but that stubborn, curious expression on his face said that he wanted to know anyway.
“The Veela begins to go mad not long after the separation,” Draco said. He had to close his eyes, but he managed to keep his voice detached. That would make it all the more horrible for Harry, and he thought Harry needed horror right now, whether to feed his guilt or for some other reason. The explanation he had given for wanting to know more about Laurent made no sense to Draco, not really. But he could only do what his chosen wanted, whether he comprehended it or not. “He would have his wings and his claws out constantly, and he would croon and call and sing for his chosen. He wouldn’t grasp what had happened to him, when the madness advanced far enough. He would see light where only darkness was, and images of his chosen in every direction. He would begin to bite at his own flesh, to sniff it and claw it, because there might be a taste or scent of you left on it.”
Harry gagged. Draco opened his eyes and made himself face his chosen. He had to lick his lips to maintain the coolness of tone when he saw the ragged state of Harry’s expression, but he couldn’t go back on this now, not when he had already made the compromises that he thought necessary for Harry’s good.
“He would tear off his wings, ultimately. What good could they be to him, when you weren’t nearby to protect? He would imagine all sorts of different things that could have happened to you, because it would be beyond him to think that you might have left of your own free will. He would shriek for revenge against his enemies until his voice was gone, and he would fling himself at the wall and try to dig through it. That would break his claws. But he would still have enough fingernails left to dig out his eyes.”
“His eyes?” Harry whispered. “Why?”
“Because they couldn’t tell him the way to you,” Draco said. Perhaps he was being too cruel, to use the personal pronoun instead of talking about this as if it was any ordinary Veela and chosen, but Harry had wanted to know. “He would do the same thing with his nose, which was useless for finding the trail, and with every feather that grew on his body, since it wasn’t sheltering you. Then he would tear open his chest and go after his own heart. Ripping it free would hurt less than to have it beating alone.”
Harry turned away and took a few steps towards the fireplace, as if he would Floo out after all. Then he sagged against the wall, made helpless by his shuddering. Draco folded his arms and fought back the urge to go to him at once. He thought Harry needed a few more moments of experience alone.
“Why?” Harry whispered. “Why did it have to end that way? I thought I was sparing him when I didn’t murder him, but it seems that I only spared him for a more terrible fate than he would have had without my mercy.”
The only part of that rambling little monologue Draco agreed with was the notion that it would have been better to murder Laurent at once. But he didn’t intend to allow Harry to beat himself up about it. He stepped forwards, and then his wings were out-with only a slight sigh from his shirt, which was modified to allow that-and wrapped around Harry. They were joined by his arms a moment later.
Harry stood unyielding against him, but the influence of the wings was hard for even an angry wizard to deny, and Draco knew that Harry wasn’t angry at him. His rage was directed against himself, as always, even though it didn’t have to be. He melted against Draco’s chest and closed his eyes.
“I wish there was some way out of this,” he whispered.
“Some way out?” Draco kept his voice calm and gentle, whispering his fingers through Harry’s hair in the meantime. He could think of alarming interpretations to put on Harry’s words, but until Harry actually said something that was alarming, Draco would hold himself back from making too many suggestions.
“Yes,” Harry said. “I feel bad about killing Laurent, but I couldn’t have done anything else than put him in Azkaban. I didn’t know what would happen, but my conscience says that’s no excuse. And I still hate him for putting me in this position.” The last words were a passionate snarl. His fingers curled into claws of his own against Draco’s chest.
Draco shut his eyes, enormously relieved. He was thinking that Harry’s guilt might have destroyed all his normal feelings about Laurent. The last thing Draco could have put up with was moaning about how Harry was sorry Laurent had raped him-not because it had happened, but because Harry should have given him what he needed. Draco had barely held back the impulse to rejoice at the news of Laurent’s death most of the week. He would go into a jealous rage if Harry started looking wistfully back on his last Veela lover.
He nuzzled his face into Harry’s neck and whispered, “I know. Why not firecall Kingsley, tell him that you’re taking the day off, and then come up and rest in my arms for a little while?”
Harry began to pull back. “I have to go in. I need work-work distracts me-”
Draco held him still, which he was easily able to do, and murmured, “Not now. Work was your only way out of those confined thoughts when you didn’t have me. But now you do.” His fingers pressed gently against Harry’s shoulders and then on the back of his neck, urging him to reconsider.
Harry swallowed and whispered, “Everything you said was true?”
“Yes,” Draco said slowly, trying to figure out where Harry’s mind was going. If he thought of staying with Draco only to spare him Laurent’s horrible fate, he shouldn’t; it was not as though Draco would die from a day’s separation. On the other hand, he might want to be away from Draco altogether until the images stopped dancing in his head. Draco could understand that impulse.
“I-I’ll have to think about it,” Harry said. “But yeah, let me firecall Kingsley, and then I’ll stay with you.”
Draco stroked the back of Harry’s neck and his hair and his cheek in approbation, and then kissed him. He would have liked to do more, but Harry pushed him away with a gentle, weary smile and stepped up to the fireplace. Draco stayed and listened, too anxious not to, but Harry didn’t spring through the flames as though he wanted to get away. He told Kingsley he was dealing with personal stresses that would keep him away from the office, nodded a few times, arranged for someone else to work with Weasley, and then came back into Draco’s arms.
They ended up sitting together and talking about nonsensical things for most of the day, and then taking a nap in the late afternoon. Draco woke up as the sun threw reddened light over them and watched Harry’s face. His mouth was pinched shut, and the lines of stress remained around it. His confession didn’t seem to have done much to help them.
Draco’s wings flared up before he thought about it, but he managed to control himself with a deep breath and a shake of his head. He lay down next to Harry again and listened to his breathing, sorting out the normal sounds from the strained ones.
What would help Harry, now that he knew the truth? Draco had satisfied the immediate need for information, but he didn’t yet know how he would resolve that deeper need, which he thought Harry had healed at least a little bit by now.
And that hurt.
Part Two.
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