Chapter Seven of 'Nature of the Beast'- Hearts and Houses
Chapter Six.
Title: Nature of the Beast (7/25 to 30)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco (eventual), Ron/Hermione, Lucius/Narcissa
Warnings: Creature fic (Draco is a Veela), angst, some violence
Rating: R
Summary: Draco Malfoy knows how the world is supposed to go; he is a dominant Veela, with a submissive mate. It’s rather a surprise to find out that his mate is Harry Potter. It’s much more of one to find out that Harry, having been raised by Muggles, does not know how the world is supposed to go.
Author’s Notes: This story is going to be probably somewhere between twenty-five and thirty chapters.
Chapter One..
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Seven-Hearts and Houses
“Unexpected jealousy like that weakens him.”
Harry had accepted that explanation from Narcissa for why Malfoy had immediately fallen asleep when Harry got him up to his bedroom. And it made sense that he would want his “mate” near while he slept, with one wing curving around Harry. He hadn’t actually forced Harry into his bed, at least; Harry could sit on a stool next to the bed and eat a meal and scan a letter from an ally.
Narcissa had come back and was standing in the center of the doorway like a pillar, watching him. Harry finally put his book down. It was bloody disconcerting, having her stand there like that.
“What?” he asked her.
Narcissa curled her lip a little, as if she found his words vulgar. Well, that was fine. She could think what she liked. “I do not understand how you can refuse Draco and yet seem so willing to accommodate him at the same time.”
“He hasn’t demanded anything important,” Harry said. He knew Hermione was researching the heart of the house phrase, but she hadn’t got back to him yet, so he’d started reading this book about Veela that seemed promising. He wanted to get back to it. He didn’t want to sit here exchanging short and cryptic words with Narcissa. It was a Slytherin sport that held little appeal for him.
“He has demanded that you change your life, that you acknowledge your status as his mate-”
“None of that is important,” Harry said. He didn’t know why she didn’t understand. She should have. She had gone through the war, and been reduced to the bare necessities of survival. She ought to have understood that very little mattered next to the incredible demands of life in a war zone.
“It is very important,” said Narcissa. She came into the room and sat down on a big chair near the door, watching him. “It is a matter of life and death.”
“Are we talking about the same thing? I know that he’s going to die if I don’t consent to do something with him-”
Narcissa held up a single hand. Harry fell silent, shrugging a little. And they sat quiet for a minute more before Narcissa began again, her voice low but passionate.
“One would think that, having been part of the war, you would fight harder than this when someone tries to restrict your freedom. To cut you off from what you value. To take over your life.”
“That’s not what you believe,” Harry pointed out. “Or you would never have sent your son off to claim me in the midst of an award ceremony that was supposed to be for me and my friends.”
Narcissa sat still again. Then she said, “I was trying to perform the art of seeing it from your point of view. I did not think I would need to. I thought your point of view would be that of most Veela mates.”
“Well, it’s not.”
“It is not the viewpoint of a common Muggleborn, either, is it?” Narcissa didn’t give him the chance to ask what a “common Muggleborn” would be. “You seem to think of this as an-obstacle.”
“It is,” said Harry. “And I face bigger obstacles every day. Like the absolute refusal of some people to stop using the word ‘Mudblood’ even when it destroys a whole important meeting.” He scowled. He wouldn’t forgive Gisella Zabini for that easily.
“It has changed your life.”
“But not in an important way,” Harry said, and shook his head when he saw her staring at him again. “The important thing to me is not having another war. I’m ready to work endlessly and wear stupid clothes and smile at stupid people day in and day out if I can just prevent that.”
“Everything else is so much tinder to that?”
Harry thought about it. He wouldn’t have put it like that, and there was always the exception of his friends, but… “Yeah,” he said. “Basically. I’m indulging Malfoy in certain things because I don’t want him to die. I’m tired of people dying because of me.” It was the main reason he had decided against being an Auror. Causing one death had been enough. He would defend himself if he was attacked, but deliberately making someone die was something else.
“Where you live is not important to you,” Narcissa said, for all the word like Hermione testing a hypothesis.
“Why should it be? I won’t spend most of my time there anyway.”
“Who you must marry is not important to you.”
“This isn’t a marriage.”
Narcissa paused long enough that Harry wondered what she would say next. Then she said, “Many people would say that a Veela bond occupies the same place in someone’s life as a marriage. Perhaps even more pressing, as it usually leads to the total commitment of one life to another, which marriage does not always do.”
“I don’t think of it that way.”
“Of course not,” Narcissa said. “For the reasons we have already discussed. But Draco does. And if you have been forbidding yourself to fight him because you did not realize it, what will you do when he takes your indifference for compliance and attempts to force the issue?”
Harry held himself still. He wanted to lash out, the way he did when he heard people talking about starting another war over their lost war. He wanted to hurt someone, the way he did when people said he hadn’t done enough for the wizarding world and he had to give up more-the way he first had when Malfoy had marched up to him and announced that Harry was his mate.
“I thought so.” Narcissa stood slowly, gaze lingering on Harry’s face, and then traveling to the bed. “I thought that you were not fighting more because you did not realize the full extent of what Draco would want. But this is it.”
“It’s still not enough to make it a marriage,” said Harry, lifting his head higher. He’d had a chance to think his way through his emotions now. “A marriage is between two people who love each other, not between two people who were only brought together because of whatever-instincts the Veela might have.”
“Defining your terms in unusual ways will not keep you safe forever,” Narcissa said, and bowed to him, and left, meaning Harry sat there in tense silence, his gaze on Malfoy’s motionless face, and his hatred spitting like the ghost of Nagini behind his eyes.
No. This isn’t so. I won’t allow it to be so.
Why not? Because I won’t allow it.
*
“It took me forever to find references to the heart of the house thing. Just like it took me forever for me to find references to dominant and submissive Veela mates. I think it’s for the same reason. All the authors assume you know this bollocks already.”
Draco lingered outside the door of the library. He shouldn’t need to do such a thing in his own home, but Granger had shown up with that kind of deadly determined look in her eyes he recognized, taken one look at him, snorted a little, and towed Potter into the library and shut the door behind her. At least Draco could be that far apart from his mate now, and he knew his hands wouldn’t grow claws and tear the door down in an attempt to get to Potter.
Unless Granger tried to lay a hand on him.
Draco smoothed a finger over his feathers and went back to listening. He knew that Granger and Weasley had only ever had eyes for each other’s awful hair and equally awful freckles. He wouldn’t fear them as serious rivals unless Potter started showing an interest in them. That was the weakest part of their bond, that Potter put up with Draco but showed no desire for him.
“What does it mean, then?” Potter still sounded calm like stagnant water. Draco was increasingly curious about what had happened to make him that way.
“It’s weird,” Granger said, and opened a book hard enough to make the cover hit the table. “It’s strange.”
“Would you just tell me what it is?” At least Potter’s voice was cracking along the sides now, the way it had when he yelled at Draco the other day after the Muggleborn meeting.
There was a slight pause, and then Granger said, “You know, Harry, we talked about your temper and what you could say in public and what you couldn’t.”
Draco blinked several times. He had thought that Potter’s calm and cool way of going along with things came from a growing acceptance of the bond, and that was some proof that it was natural after all, no matter what Potter and Granger thought on the matter. Now, it sounded like his calm was the result of deliberate training.
“I know we talked about it,” Potter said. There was a squeaky sound that was maybe his elbow running along the table. “But it’s hard to remember when it sounds like you’re taunting me.”
“I don’t mean to,” Granger said, and her voice softened. “I’m just wondering how to explain it.”
“I don’t care if you give me the highly technical explanation or not,” said Potter. He sounded tired. Draco strained his ears and turned his head. If he’d had any notion his mate was that exhausted, he would have bundled him into bed. “Just give me one.”
“All right,” Granger said, and Draco heard the riffle of turning pages again. “From what I could find, being the ‘heart of the house’ does mean being a symbol for the dominant Veela, and the-the parent of these eggs that Veela can lay. “ Not even Draco, outside the library, could mistake the discouraging nature of Potter’s silence, which made Granger rush on. “But it also means that you can reach across the distance between the house and any other properties the Veela owns, and the house and any place where the Veela is. So you could see through Malfoy’s eyes from a distance, and you could-essentially be the house and feel what’s happening to its stones and see through the eyes of its portraits. And you could do that with any other houses Malfoy owns, too.”
But of course he would be able to do that, Draco thought in wonder. Had Potter thought Draco was just going to confine him to Malfoy Manor for the rest of his life and never let him go anywhere?
No wonder he hadn’t-rebelled exactly. Just looked Draco dead in the eye and refused to say he’d do that, and then gone on about his life as if that didn’t matter.
He could have asked. We would have told him.
Draco grimaced. It was hard to admit that his manner hadn’t exactly been encouraging with Potter when it came to asking.
“I still don’t want it.”
Draco jolted back to his own body and the scene happening in the library. Potter’s voice was so soft, so flat, so definite. He seemed to be speaking to someone who had offered him sweets that he didn’t want to eat in case he spoiled his dinner.
“Malfoy probably thinks you do, or you wouldn’t have agreed to live in the Manor,” Granger said, and then cleared her throat. Maybe she was receiving a glare from Potter. Draco hoped so. It was time someone besides him did so. “I mean-you didn’t put up that much of a struggle about it.”
“How much of a struggle,” said Potter, slow and deep, and Draco didn’t recognize this voice at all, “do I have to put up?”
“I’m just saying,” said Granger, and Draco heard the sound of her shutting one of the books, as though she thought it was in danger. “I don’t like it, either. I think it’s hideously unfair.” And there was the voice Draco had secretly been waiting to hear from her, the spiteful, bright one that she used when speaking of house-elves. He rolled his eyes. Potter wasn’t a house-elf, and Draco would never make an attempt to treat him like one, and Granger ought to know that. “But Malfoy might think you’re going along with-”
“I’m not.”
Draco shivered. There was something touching his wing, plucking at the curve of it. He turned his head, curious, but found nothing there. Then it happened again, on his shoulder, and again on his arm, before he could even finish turning to look at his shoulder.
When he realized what it was, what it must be, he swallowed, a little awed. A submissive Veela’s emotions were normally open to a dominant Veela at all times, but the connection weakened with distance. Draco had accepted that he wouldn’t be able to tell much about Potter’s emotions for a little while, other than basic things like whether he was lying. It would take time for the connection to open fully.
But now he was getting physical manifestations of those emotions, which normally only happened when the dominant was at a distance and not able to hear the submissive or feel that they were in danger. This kind of plucking told him that his mate needed him. And it was as strong as though the distance was miles apart and the danger urgent.
Draco thought he had waited long enough. He stepped forwards and opened the door of the library.
Granger turned to look at him with a pale face. She shook her head and held up her hand when she saw him, as if to warn him to stay back. Draco didn’t listen to that. His mate needed him. He walked wide around the table, and towards Potter.
Potter was on his feet, his chair pushed a little back. He looked at Draco for a second as though he didn’t recognize him. Draco wondered if the danger, whatever it was, had driven him into the back of his mind. He gave a tentative croon and opened his wings.
Potter unfolded.
The magic that came out of him was powerful enough to give Draco a headache, and as strong and uncontrolled as pain. It shoved Draco backwards, away from Potter, and pinned him against the wall at the furthest distance possible without going out the door, against one of the bookshelves. Draco tried to breathe and found that he couldn’t, that the pressure lay like a huge brick on his chest.
He choked and reached out a pleading hand towards Potter. At least he still had the strength to do that.
Potter walked slowly towards him. He stopped perhaps a few feet away from Draco and looked at him. Draco felt the pressure on his chest ease at the same moment. He gasped out and opened his mouth, not sure what he would say, only knowing it was essential that he say something, that he try to answer his mate’s questions, that he let Potter know he would be beloved and revered.
“I thought you knew,” Potter said, voice as unpolished as lead. “I thought I made it perfectly clear that I hate the thought of this.”
Draco stared at him, and said the first thing that came into his head, perhaps suggested by Granger’s words. “But you agreed to live with me.”
Potter laughed without sound, his lips parted and his teeth showing. It reminded Draco of the way the Dark Lord had sometimes laughed. He shuddered, but managed to look at his mate and not hide his face. That would only begin greater problems between them.
“I did what I had to do,” said Potter, “to make the fewest compromises possible, to keep you out of interfering with my politics. I told your mother that, too. What do I care what my rooms look like? What do I care who I have to spend some of my time around? It would look bad for me if you died. It would waste people’s time by making them write about that instead of about other things that would matter more. They’re already writing those endless chattering newspaper articles about our ‘bond.’ What idiots. What fools. As if it mattered.”
Draco struggled, trying to understand. He was still pressing against the magic that held him back, too, he realized, straining to reach Potter, who looked at him with alien eyes. “But-but you were-you put up with those articles-”
“I was angry about them,” Potter said clearly. “But I spent the past three months hearing everybody in the Ministry and elsewhere tell me that I couldn’t lose my temper with these people I’m trying to get to help me. They would get upset and leave. They would think I was ill-bred and leave. They would hate everything about me if I gave in to my temper. So I didn’t. I think I got pretty good at it.”
He took another step forwards, and Draco found himself flinching as if he was about to be struck, although rationally he knew Potter stood too far away from that.
“I thought I’d handle you the same way,” Potter murmured. “Put up with what you demanded, because it couldn’t touch the core of what’s important. What’s a demonstration of our bond? It could perhaps be important, but it’s probably not going to be. And you ruined it by the way you flailed around and almost jumped on Daphne, anyway.”
Draco screeched at the mention of Daphne’s name. It was an instinctive response, and he wanted to say something about that when Potter’s eyes pinned him again.
But it was rather hard when all the spit in his mouth had dried up at the sight of that green gaze.
“Fine,” said Potter. “I need to tell you this? Then I’ll tell you this. I would live with you and have sex with you and touch you because that doesn’t matter. I won’t stop going to meetings with Muggleborns or going outside the home or being with my friends because that matters. I can do what I have to do. I’ve done it for eighteen years.”
Draco tried to say something. This time, it was utter incomprehension that stopped him.
Potter took another step towards him, and his eyes blazed bright. “But never think that it doesn’t make me angry. It makes me fucking furious. I hate it. The same way I hated Voldemort being after me. But the times that I gave in to my temper and yelled and smashed things, it never made things any better. So I just learned to listen to people, and hold my tongue, and do politics.”
He folded his arms and paced towards the door. “You’re just politics, Malfoy. Except the least important political duty I have. So I’ll go along with you and the stray thoughts I might have about things that could be good about this bond. I’ll handle you like I handle this stupid scar and all the other liabilities.”
He paused on the threshold of the library and glanced once at Draco. “But if you think I love you? Wake the fuck up.”
He left, and so did the magic that had held Draco against the bookcase. He sagged to the floor, breathing and trying not to give in to the tears that wanted to crowd his eyes.
Granger said nothing, only gathered up her books and left. Draco folded himself into a small ball, his wings sheltering his eyes, and waited for the same self-destructive urge to come upon him that had when he was first refused by Potter.
But nothing happened. It took Draco a few minutes to understand the likely reason.
I would live with you and have sex with you and touch you because that doesn’t matter.
His mate would touch him. His mate would live with him. The proper emotions…
Were apparently not a requirement, the way Draco had always learned.
He stayed a long time on the floor of the library, too stunned to feel anything else.
Chapter Eight.
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