[One-shot]: Fire and Wonder, H/D, R, 2/2
This is the second part of a long one-shot. Don't start reading here.
Part One.
“I don’t think Harry ever expected the Rising, as we called it, to start from within. That was why it took him by surprise. He wasn’t looking for family members.
“I won’t say that I despise my brothers. They did what made political sense to them at the time, and my brother George’s wife Angelina is Muggleborn. Her parents and brother wanted to live in the wizarding world with her, but the more distant cousins and aunt didn’t, so they got put through the Door. It made sense that George would fight. And so would Percy. He was always interested in the kind of government the Ministry offered. He didn’t see the sense in having a single monarch.
“To be honest, lots of people still don’t.
“But anyway, I think that Harry handled it the best way he could. He doesn’t have to punish anyone who fought against him, because they won’t dare come back to a Britain where the very forests would attack them and ravens would swoop down from the skies. I had a hard choice myself, about whether I would go with my brothers or stay here. After all, even though I hadn’t fought, I didn’t want to give up the chance of seeing them again.
“In the end, what decided me was that my wife is part-Veela. And she has so much more freedom under Harry’s rule, and so do my children. I didn’t even know how much she was holding back, and teaching them to hold back. Plus, I have these scars on my face-they were caused by a werewolf attack, yes-and I realized no one was going to stare at me any longer when they had moonbirds and dragons and nagas to gape at.
“So it’s a pretty open secret that I go to France and Romania to visit my brothers. Harry knows about it. He doesn’t try to prevent me from going, and in turn, I don’t smuggle back weapons or information that anyone can use against him.
“This is the best arrangement for us. I wouldn’t try to dictate to anyone else. I don’t have that right. But no, I won’t join any new rebellion. Thanks for asking.”
-Bill Weasley, speaking to the Daily Prophet on the second anniversary of the Rising, Mary 2nd, 2020.
*
Harry sat down hard on the bench in the corner of Gringotts and stared at Griphook. The goblins had appointed Griphook to deal with Harry, maybe under the impression that he would be best able to do it because he’d known Harry before he changed.
“You-a throne? Really?” Harry shook his head. “You think I should sit on a throne?”
“Why not?” Griphook was unruffled, checking a number on a sheet in front of him and writing down something on a different sheet. He was always busy with accounts whenever Harry saw him, as though his business couldn’t be suspended for a single moment. Maybe it couldn’t. “The humans attach a lot of importance to a throne. You would impress them more if you were sitting on one.”
Harry stirred his wings and thought for a moment about when he had stopped thinking of himself as one of the humans. But then he said, “You’re talking like I’m setting myself up as a King.”
Griphook wrote down another number and then gave Harry the full benefit of his unblinking, yellow-eyed attention. “You don’t think that everyone already refers to you that way? Perhaps behind your back, if you have expressed your distaste for it as done to your face, but they are doing it.”
Harry stared up at the ceiling. He wanted to say that he was only an ordinary person, just Harry, and after Voldemort the wizarding world should gradually have forgotten about him, moved on to other celebrities, let him have a normal life-
But if all that was true, then he would have done something about the ravens. Not sought to open the Door. Not decided that the Muggles who had found out about the wizarding world and proclaimed the need to “end wizards” needed to be exiled. Not-
Assumed authority.
“Well, if I’m a bloody king, I reckon I did it to myself,” Harry muttered, and turned back to Griphook, who had a smile on his face.
“You have been a better liaison with the wizarding world to us than any wizard has ever managed,” said Griphook, and he bowed a little as he stood. “In the meantime, why not allow us to make the throne and weave the protection spells in with the rest of the decorations? That would guarantee you a long life and us a long and profitable alliance.”
“What kind of decorations were you thinking of?”
“Ravens.”
“Of course, what else?” Harry asked dryly, but he had to admit he was smiling when he said it, and Griphook gave him a sharp-toothed smile back.
*
“Harry has always been my best friend.
“That’s been the hard thing for so many people to understand. How could I go along with him if he was doing things that were wrong? And how could I oppose him and tell him he should stop sometimes without being a traitor?
“But see, the thing is, there were times Harry and I had huge arguments before. And we always reconciled after them. That’s why I can do it. Because I don’t put as much stock as some people do in the idea that once you fight, that’s it and the end of your friendship. I know it’s not the end.”
-Ron Weasley, Ambassador to Magical France, in the Daily Prophet “Profiles of the Weasley and the Famous,” May 2nd, 2022.
*
Narcissa had sat with Draco through most of that afternoon and into the evening. Draco looked at her sometimes, but since she didn’t seem to have any purpose different than he did-which was to watch the sun set over the garden-he didn’t say anything.
They did watch the sun set, powdering the sky with red and orange and touches of peach and gold that Draco admired. Then his mother stirred and sighed and turned to him with tears gleaming in her eyes like flecks of diamond in a ring.
“If you’re doing this only for our family, Draco,” she whispered, “you don’t need to. Your father and I would have supported you no matter what you chose.”
Draco blinked and stared at her, taking a long minute to realize what “this” must be. Then he shook his head and knelt in front of his mother, taking her hand. That shocked Narcissa enough to make her stop her imminent weeping and stare at him.
Draco smiled a little. It wasn’t something he would have done years ago, or at least he would only have done it with a lot of grumbling about it. But now, he had lots of practice in kneeling.
Some times are more pleasant than others, he had to admit, in the moments before he focused on his mother again.
“I’m with Harry because of my family,” Draco said. His mother tried to take her hands away to cover her face, but Draco didn’t let her. “And because he makes me deliriously happy. Heart-poundingly happy. Head-spinningly happy.”
Narcissa peered down at him with a tentative smile, but didn’t look as if she knew what he was talking about. “Draco-what do you mean?”
“I mean that when we go flying and he shows me the forests that are growing in Wales,” Draco said, “made of obsidian and glass, I think about how I’m seeing things no other wizard has ever seen. And when I lie in his arms, I know I’m closer to him than anyone else. Of course he still spends a lot of time with Weasley and Granger, but he spends more with me.”
“With you kneeling at his feet.”
Draco took a little breath. His mother still believed that? Well, maybe Draco shouldn’t be surprised. He visited his parents often, but they didn’t often speak of what Draco experienced with Harry. It was the same way that his parents would have treated a spouse or lover they found unworthy of Draco, so not a surprise.
But Draco realized now that something else lay behind it. They thought Harry was forcing Draco to submit to him, or-something. They thought he was a slave, an unhappy sacrifice who had only decided to go with Harry because of the money it would mean for his family.
Draco shook his head with a little smile and stood up, leaning in to kiss his mother on the cheek. Narcissa stared at him again.
“It’s not the same as you think,” Draco whispered. “When I’m there, I can feel how he shifts. I can hear his breathing quicken when he gets impatient and when he’s keeping himself from rolling his eyes. I can smell him.”
“Commendable for a lover, perhaps,” his mother said, in tones that showed she still didn’t understand. “But I never needed to kneel at your father’s feet for him to know how I felt, or how to treat me.”
“Commendable for someone who’s the lover of the King of Magical Britain,” Draco said. “Oh, Mother,” he added then, because her voice was so baffled. “It’s a duty. Everyone expects to see the consort subordinate to the King, and everyone thinks they know one fact about raven Veela.”
He paused. Narcissa was the one who had to speak, although the dragging tone in her voice showed how much she hated it. “They know that raven Veela demand absolute submission from those close to them.”
“But do you think that’s true?” Draco shook his head. “Harry doesn’t treat his friends that way. No one seems to connect that fact and the one that sometimes I’m not kneeling at his feet, that sometimes I’m sitting beside him. Or the fact that he makes his enemies submit to him and then usually forgives them.”
“I didn’t know that you were sitting at his side. No one brought that rumor to me.”
Draco snorted a little. “Because it’s not as juicy a rumor. If you ever came to court and looked at me, then you would know.” He touched his mother’s hair gently. “I thought you stayed away because you didn’t like owing Harry the debt we did after the war, or because you still don’t think I should be the consort of a half-blood. But Mother, it’s so different from what you think.”
“What makes it tolerable to you, then?”
Draco smiled. “The sitting at his side, and what happens when we leave the court and are behind closed doors.”
And then Draco had to laugh, because of all the impossible things-or things he had once thought were impossible, a category that had diminished drastically since he became the consort of a raven Veela-he had made his mother blush.
*
“To the care of the raven Veela Harry Potter, currently known as the King of Magical Britain, commonly called His Raven-Winged Majesty,
“And to the care of his consort, Draco Malfoy, sometimes known as the Slytherin Prince or the Snake Prince Consort,
“We commend the magical orphan Thérèse LaFontaine-Rosier, illegitimate daughter of the French half-Veela witch Marie LaFontaine and the second-generation English Squib Andrew Rosier, to be adopted by you, raised by you, protected by you, and treated as your daughter, on account of the death of her parents and her Veela heritage, her choosing of you and your promise to treat her in all ways as you would your blood daughter.”
-Records from the French orphanage, name deliberately kept secret, in which Thérèse Malfoy-Potter resided before her adoption at the age of eight, July 22nd, 2008.
*
“I have called you here today to witness justice done.”
Harry let his voice echo around the great hall at the center of his court. It was shaped like an egg, although that was hard to see when the ceiling was so high and the walls were so far away. The walls were the smooth, polished black marble that Harry could turn all stone into with the shadow of his wings when he wished, and what seemed to unnerve most of the petitioners who came to him was that the marble had no break or seam to it. Instead, it simply covered the inside of the egg.
Both the black color and the egg-shape comforted Harry. He had tried to resist the comfort for the first year of his reign, but then he had given in and done it. If he could concentrate on the cases in front of him instead of how he felt, then he would give better justice, anyway.
The witch and wizard who watched him were both nervous, the witch more visibly so. She was a tall woman with dark skin and dark hair braided so that it coiled above her shoulders, although it was much longer than that. She was Carola Zabini, and Harry had had sixteen letters from her down the years, but never seen her before.
Her opponent was Gregory Goyle’s uncle, Geoffrey Goyle. He was as hulking as his son, but with more glittering eyes and paler skin and slicked-back auburn hair. He shifted his weight as Harry looked at him.
Harry didn’t read too much into that. Lots of people were nervous when appearing before-he snorted to himself as the title popped up in his head-His Raven-Winged Majesty.
He rose from his throne, sparing one glance at Draco in the throne beside him. Draco smiled back and nodded subtly towards Mrs. Zabini.
Harry nodded, but still held up his arm. Draco’s instincts and his might tell him to favor Zabini’s part of the case, but Harry didn’t make decisions like that. You had to make them with some flair, some drama, or people didn’t pay that much attention and might even be inclined to doubt.
One of the royal ravens landed on his arm with a furious squawk. Harry knew from the way everyone in the court jerked that this one had simply formed itself into being right above the thrones, rather than soaring down from the rafters. He honestly didn’t bother to keep track anymore.
“You have both claimed that the other one instigated the illegal duel that destroyed two homes and wounded two uninvolved wizards,” Harry said calmly. “Both of you will have to pay a minimum fine for the destruction no matter what, but the one who started casting spells will pay more.”
He tossed the raven into the air. It circled the room once, disappearing into shadows and making the people whose first time at court this was jump and shout when it veered back into view near the throne.
Zabini didn’t jump and shout. Neither did Goyle. They both looked at the raven as if they were willing it to come to them and declare them innocent. Zabini squinted a little more.
The raven hurtled downwards. It managed to aim at a point between the two petitioners until a few seconds before it would have to land, and then it whisked to the left and landed delicately on Zabini’s shoulder.
“Well,” said Harry, and smiled a little at the enthralled expression on Zabini’s face as she watched the raven, before he turned to Goyle. “Mr. Goyle, you’ll need to pay the fines as soon as possible. Or accept exile for a year-”
Goyle had aimed his wand suddenly. And not at Harry, but at the smaller throne, decorated with black swans, that held Draco.
Harry snapped his wing out. The shadow extended more than three times its length now, and it ate the spell that Goyle fired at Draco like a giant crocodile’s jaws opening and snapping shut.
Harry dropped his wing and took a moment to check on Draco. Other than a little white around the outsides of his eyes, he was fine. He smiled shakily at Harry, though.
Harry nodded once and turned back to Goyle. The people who had come to attend the court were already pushing back towards the walls. They knew what it meant when Harry had that particular look in his eyes.
They might not know what happened when someone attacked his consort. It had been years since someone was foolish enough to try.
Harry held Goyle’s eyes and waited until he saw some dawning of terror in them. Then he said, “I will accept your life. Your heirs will pay the fines,” and clapped his hands three times.
Shreds of black filled the air and tumbled together, coalescing into a gigantic cloud of ravens. Goyle didn’t seem to understand his danger and start to run until there were already forty or fifty swarming above him.
Then they dived at him.
Some people had to leave the room while the beaks pecked and dashed, and claws clacked, and hoarse ringing voices echoed around the chamber. Harry didn’t. He stood there, and watched.
He would always watch when he condemned someone to death. Some people thought it was out of compassion. Other people thought it was justice, that if Harry was going to execute someone, he shouldn’t look away from the consequences.
Draco, Harry thought, as the beaks stabbed, and possibly Ron and Hermione, were the only ones who knew that it wasn’t either of those. Harry executed people only for attempting to harm him, those under his direct protection, or magical creatures when they hadn’t attacked first. Those people were dangerous.
Harry watched to make sure they died.
*
“There have been many misunderstandings of the nature of a raven Veela. Some say they are conquerors. Some say they come to bring peace. Some say they are simply the creation of a Veela playing with Dark Arts and no special significance would attach to them if not for their power.
“I am here to tell you differently. They are all those and more, and living with one is different from hearing legends about one, or fighting one, or even living under one.
“I knew my adoptive Veela father better than anyone except my adoptive human father, Draco Malfoy. I knew what it was like to shelter under the shadow of his wings. I knew what it was like to watch him punish people with his ravens, when he decided that they had to die.
“I’m the only one who can tell you how complex he really was, and the softness as well as the temper in his eyes. The softness most people never saw.”
-From the introduction to Growing Up Under Black Wings, a memoir by Thérèse Malfoy-Potter.
*
“Draco? Are you asleep?”
Draco shook his head and rolled over, stirring the puddled dark blue sheets of the bed. “You already suspected I wasn’t, or you would have crept into bed without waking me. And probably stared at me all night in that creepy way you have.”
He heard the soft ripple of feathers, and Harry dropped onto the bed beside him. The movements above him made Draco think of the dark wings like a canopy arching overhead. They were so big and so magical that they didn’t always seem like part of Harry’s body.
“How can you stand to be with me?”
“Oh, dear, is this Self-Loathing Night?” Draco asked in the most unimpressed voice he could muster. It was already so much easier than it had been last year, which was easier than the first time he had seen a raven stoop towards him with a courtship gift. “I didn’t know it was this early in the moon-cycle. I thought I would have a few more nights of unbroken sleep before it happened.”
The light in the room was muted, as always in the presence of that shadow, but he could make out Harry’s scowl without help.
“I didn’t come to you to be mocked. I need-”
“You want agreement that you’re a horrible person and you should do something to make up for it. Like build another orphanage, or spend more time with Thérèse. Well, I won’t tell you that. I think you should build orphanages and spend time with Thérèse just because you want to.”
Harry flopped back on the bed, wings lifted above him, stirring the air. When Draco couldn’t see them, though, they were honestly more like magical breezes than anything else. He reached out and dragged Harry towards him, rolling his eyes when Harry resisted a little.
“You don’t need to come to me to hear yourself scolded and blamed,” Draco muttered as he stripped off the pants that were the only thing he wore to bed. “You don’t even need to go to your enemies. Your conscience does a good enough job on its own.”
Harry shut his eyes and shook his head, but his wings were spreading and arching now, and he turned so that he was up against the pillows near the headboard. Draco leaned in and kissed him roughly, feeling those wings descend on his shoulders and wreathe him in warm darkness.
It was the feeling of safety that had first made him sleep through the night in this bed. Nothing could ever hurt him here. When those warm and almost self-breathing wings were wrapped around him, he believed it.
“You still want to think, in part of you,” said Draco, as he reached for the lube and slid his fingers into himself with an excited shudder, “that you’re wrong, because that’s what people told you all your life. The press isn’t blaming you now and your relatives are gone, so you want to find a substitute for the blame. Well,” he said, and gasped as he reached deep enough to make pleasure join the excitement, “you won’t make me into that substitute.”
“I don’t want people to blame me. I think our lives are going great. I just want-”
“Someone to fight and struggle against and brace yourself against. I know the impulse. You had to fight for so long. But you said you wanted peace, you were going to bring peace, so relax and enjoy the bloody peace, all right?”
Harry might have tried to answer with words, but instead it was a groan as Draco rose on his heels and then slid himself down onto Harry’s cock. This was another thing that Draco would never have known he enjoyed without Harry manifesting as a raven Veela, and sometimes Draco shuddered to think he might have gone through life in an arranged marriage with the vague feeling something was missing-
The thoughts fled as Harry shook beneath him and reached up hands to curve around his hips. Draco slammed himself home once and opened his eyes.
Harry stared at him in that devouring way, fingers flexing open and shut on Draco’s skin. His eyes were dazed and filled with power. He looked as though he was about to flip Draco over and drive into him.
Draco smiled at him and wriggled his hips to show that was fine, if Harry wanted to do it.
But it seemed, tonight, that Harry was caught up in a different display of power instead. He flapped his wings, staying in a sitting position, and they rose from the bed. Draco tingled all over with the thought of the magic that must be spreading and whirling across the room to do that, not to mention the sheer physical strength it took Harry to do it with just the muscles in his back and shoulders. He drove himself down with even greater force, to meet Harry’s thrust up.
And then they both flung themselves into the center of the whirlwind that was making love to a Veela, scraps of pleasure everywhere that Draco snatched, the inhuman heat inside him and beneath him, the sliding sweat-slick skin of Harry’s shoulders and the warmth of the wings beating past, feathers brushing on Draco’s cheek-
The feathers slid down his spine and touched him on the back of the arse, deliberately. Draco came.
You always do that, he thought, panting as the sweat and the orgasm seemed to explode from his skin at the same time. For revenge, he reached down and bit at the tender skin of Harry’s throat, worrying it back and forth.
Harry came, too, and Draco felt the intense heat shooting up into him like scalding water. It never left any damage, and over time, it had stopped being strange. It was almost a mark of honor, he thought, as he sprawled slowly over Harry’s chest and closed his eyes. No one else had received that mark from Harry, and no one would. A raven Veela had only one mate.
“What was I even unhappy about?” Harry whispered suddenly, making the darkness around Draco echo. “I can’t remember.”
“Good, then,” said Draco sleepily. “It was probably stupid, whatever it was.”
And-no one else would have believed this who had seen Harry making judgments in court-all Harry did was laugh softly at the insolent words and use his huge wings to nudge Draco a little closer to him. Draco smiled and shut his eyes, listening to the soft rustling and the distant caws of ravens circling around the home they lay in. There were always birds nearby, who could come to Harry’s call and pounce on someone if they had to.
It was just the way things were.
*
“It is absolutely untrue that any Veela traits Harry and Draco had were passed on to their daughter. For one thing, Thérèse inherited-I won’t call them normal, but pale Veela traits. She isn’t a raven Veela, which you would see if you looked at her photographs. But I understand that’s a little hard when people are more involved in seeing what they want to be there rather than what is.
“Thérèse played with my own children many times, and they’re still close friends. Yes, of course Thérèse was drawn away from them by the currents of the court and politics as they got older. I never thought their friendships would stay exactly the same. Ron’s friendship with Harry didn’t. Mine didn’t. Why should hers?
“I know that what you want is some trouble, Skeeter. But you really are looking in the wrong direction. You won’t find any if you keep investigating Thérèse. Honestly, your best option if you want trouble is to publish your unfounded speculation about Harry’s daughter and see what happens. Lots of it then.”
-From an unpublished interview between Hermione Granger and Rita Skeeter, found in the archive of Skeeter’s papers in the 2030’s.
*
“Papa.”
Thérèse’s voice was soft and precise. She’d learned to speak English slowly, although that wasn’t a problem since Draco spoke French and could translate for her. And when she made a toss of her white hair or a poke of her chin in a certain direction, or manifested a beak and screamed, Harry knew how to translate those Veela things.
Now, he put aside the quill he was using to write down a new law, and moved his wings so she could sit on a stool beside his desk. “What is it, Thérèse?”
She sat down and looked up at him, a nine-year-old girl with blue eyes that sometimes changed to filmy silver, usually when she was in the middle of a Veela tantrum. She had gleaming pale hair and sometimes, when she ran with her hands held out and her hair floating behind her, Harry thought he could see the wings.
Draco said over and over that she looked exactly like a Malfoy child should look, and gloated. Harry didn’t need dark hair or green eyes to find the ways in which she was his daughter, though.
“Fred said that you are an evil king.”
“That’s sometimes a fair characterization. Do you want to talk about it?”
Thérèse looked as if she hadn’t expected him to say that, but then, she often looked that way. Harry thought he was learning to separate the times she was surprised and the times she just didn’t understand the English word.
“Why are you evil?” Thérèse asked, leaning forwards so she had her elbows on her knees and her gaze fixed on him. “I mean, why would you want to be? Father says that often results are best accomplished by careful study.”
Harry nodded once. “But I had to be stern when I opened the Door. The Muggles were going to a version of Britain almost exactly like this one, but empty of magic. I couldn’t let any of them stay unless they showed they could get along with magical creatures. But that could be evil, couldn’t it? I could have trusted them and waited to see if they would. Instead, I gave them tests of a month for each village or city. I could have used two months. I was strong enough to win if they tried to fight back against me.”
Thérèse looked a little overwhelmed. Then she said slowly, “But then why would Fred say you are evil?”
“I don’t know why. It might have been something different than what I was thinking about. I was just telling you one example people use.”
Thérèse frowned. “I don’t think I like the people who use it.”
“But you should still try to make your own independent judgment,” Harry told her, and hoped he didn’t sound earnest enough to put her off. “You should remember that you shouldn’t excuse me from doing wrong because I’m one of your fathers.”
“But I want to,” said Thérèse. “What if I want to make my independent judgment to not listen to that kind of…bollocks?” She sounded especially proud of herself for producing that word.
“Then you can make it.” Harry bent down and kissed her face where the shadow of his wing lay across it. He had been worried when they first adopted her that he would change even Thérèse, although her own Veela magic might protect her from it. But he had learned after a short time that his wings didn’t change things he didn’t want to change.
It was only that there had been so many things to change, at first.
“Thank you, I suppose,” said Thérèse. Then she froze. “Wait. If I thank you for it, am I making my own independent judgment after all?”
Harry laughed and shook his head. Those were the kinds of philosophical questions Thérèse and Draco could spend hours debating, but Harry had no patience for them. “Go away, will you? I have to finish this law.”
Thérèse stood there looking earnestly at him for a moment, and then she bent down and grabbed him around the neck and kissed him. “You are not an evil king,” she said. “You are a good one.”
“A good one who needs to make laws.”
Thérèse smiled at him one more time and left his study. Harry watched her go, and listened to a few of the Veela children he had invited from France to give her companionship singing in the garden. Even they had got over their fear of him enough that they didn’t cower anymore when he flew overhead and the blackness of his wings swept across the ground and above them.
There were even a few magical people in France who had asked Harry if he could get rid of their Muggles the way he had got rid of Britain’s.
Harry shook his head now, the way he had at every offer from outside Britain. The kingdom of one island was all that he could manage.
And sometimes not even that, he thought, as he turned back to wrestling with the law.
*
“I think one thing most people don’t understand is how various definitions of happiness are. There were people who said they could never be happy when Harry took over Britain, but some of them are still living here now, and I haven’t heard any of them say anything suicidally despairing lately.
“Another thing most people forget is how you can get used to things. One day changes are unthinkable; then they’re dreams; then they’ve happened and you get used to them, and life goes on much as before. We were used to living in small corners of this island with the Muggles ruling most of the space. Sometimes we dreamed of something different, but no one took those people seriously.
“And then it happened, and everyone will have to get used to it.”
-Consort Draco Malfoy, speaking to a large gathering celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Voldemort’s defeat, May 2nd, 2013.
*
That first time…
Draco found himself flat on his back without knowing exactly how it had happened, gasping as if he was winded.
Potter loomed above him, eyes enormous and dark. Oh, they were green if Draco looked hard enough; they hadn’t really changed color. But the power that washed over him with every languid beat of Potter’s wings, the magic that danced and coiled teasingly around his throat and stomach and groin, all the vulnerable places, drew a veil of darkness around his face anyway.
Draco shivered and arched his head back as the shadow of Potter’s wing made his clothes dissolve off him. I chose this, I chose this, he kept reminding himself in his head.
And then it became possible to believe he had, because the shadow of the left wing swept over his body, and with it came the pleasure.
Draco actually breathed out in a shocked scream as it flooded over him, lapping higher and higher until he felt it wrap his face, like he was drowning. The darkness of it! The height, the depth, the intensity! His hand shook as he clawed at the grass, and worse when Potter shook his head and picked up Draco’s hand and sucked on his fingers, denying him any outlet that didn’t focus around Potter.
Then the right wing swept back again, and Draco felt the force of Potter’s desire.
It was a growling beast, scarcely leashed, even as Potter balanced on his heels with his wings flapping and stared down in appreciation. He traced a slow hand over Draco’s breastbone, and Draco shuddered again. It wasn’t so much the feeling itself as the forced lightness of it. He knew, he knew, that Potter was capable of making him feel so much more, and he began to shiver as he wondered when it would press forwards.
Potter met his eyes and mouthed, Now.
Then he kissed Draco, and it wasn’t like drowning but like falling off a mountain. Draco grabbed hold of his shoulders for sheer life. Potter’s wings drew in tight around them as he hissed in appreciation.
“Yes, you,” he said, and turned his head so that he was rubbing his cheek along Draco’s arm and leaving his scent there. Draco knew it was scent without even asking. “You’re the one who’s meant to be my true mate.”
He hooked his arms around Draco and then they were suddenly flying, tumbling through the air. To Draco it felt as if they had fallen, instead of taking off. He squeaked and buried his head against Potter’s breastbone.
Potter laughed in a way that rumbled through him. “It’s like this for all raven Veela when they mate,” he said, and then reached down and captured Draco’s chin in one hand and effortlessly wrenched his head up so that Draco had no choice but to stare at him. “Are you going to join in with me, or cower?”
Apparently, Draco was still susceptible to being called a coward by Harry Potter, even when so many other things had happened. He straightened at once. “I’ll join with you, of course!”
“Because you’re afraid?” Potter had gone still in body, even though his wings still beat about them, supporting them. His eyes were fixed on Draco’s face.
Draco managed to roll his eyes, and felt immensely better once he’d proved he still could. “You accuse me of being afraid to mate with you, and then you’re upset because I want to?” He reached out, hooked his nails, and dragged them down Potter’s arm, even though he knew his nails were nothing compared to the sharpness of Potter’s talons. “I’m afraid, but I’m courageous. And I’m not doing this because I think you’ll rape me, or just to keep my family safe.”
“But keeping your family safe is part of it.”
“Like your instincts are part of it,” Draco shot back instantly. He was still gasping a little because of the fall beneath them, if nothing else, but he could do this. Battling Potter was part of his soul. “We’re neither of us completely free, so let’s not pretend that you were my first choice and I was yours, okay? Let’s go with what’s there now.” And he leaned forwards to ferociously kiss Potter.
And that worked. That was enough.
Potter flew them higher into the sky, his wings so enormous that Draco was blocked from even a glimpse of the ground. His arse was wet and even relaxed with a careless sweep of one wing, the shadow on his arse changing things to the way Potter wanted it to be. Draco cocked his legs open, the way he’d already done once on the ground, and Potter ducked his head and gave a remarkably bird-like hiss.
Then Potter slipped in.
Draco stiffened as though someone had rammed a rod of iron up his spine, which was pretty much what it felt like. Then he shuddered and buried his head again against Potter’s chest as Potter fucked him slowly, slewing back and forth in the air sometimes.
“Look up.”
Draco raised his head and opened his eyes, and found himself meeting Potter’s intense, blazing gaze for only a moment. Then he twisted a little, and he could see the ground after all, in between the opening and closing of Potter’s wings.
Down, beneath them, below, was a pattern of green and blue and brown and grey and white with the changing motions of the trees and water and earth and sky and clouds. Draco had a moment to gasp and find it beautiful.
Then Potter dropped them down towards it, his wings pulled in close to his sides and his feet probably streaming behind them.
Draco shrieked. But there was something deeper than pure fear behind that shriek, and he felt Potter feel that and join his voice to Draco’s in praise of that beauty. Draco shuddered a little, but he never once feared Potter might drop him.
The clouds roiled and parted, and there was such a fantastic dance of colors beneath him that Draco’s breath slammed into the back of his throat. He and Potter fell faster and looser, fearlessly into the middle of all that.
Potter clawed at his shoulder when they were near enough to the ground that Draco could make out the shapes of buildings, and then scraped the side of his neck. Draco knew Potter was coming, and even though he arched away from the pain that he knew was the claiming mark and opened his mouth to cry a protest-
So was he.
They swirled around like gently dropped leaves, despite Draco’s fear that they would simply crash, and when they touched earth again, it was in the back gardens of the Manor. Draco lay there, feeling as if he should be covered in much more liquid than was in fact the case. The blood from the slash on the side of his neck was already stopped, in fact.
Potter lifted his head from where he’d been licking the side of Draco’s neck and looked at him with luminous eyes.
“You were-trying to kill us, maybe?” Draco asked, wheezing more than a little.
“No,” said Potter, and his voice was feral and a hammer that struck and shattered the pieces of Draco’s growing new confidence, because this wasn’t Potter but something else speaking through him. “This is the way it had to be.”
Draco shivered, staring up at him. He had thought he could mate with Potter, the man and Veela who needed him and wanted to fuck him on the wing. He wasn’t sure that he could mate with the creature staring out of Potter’s eyes.
Then Potter gave a single great shudder and dropped his head down to rest on Draco’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Sometimes it takes me like that. But I think that’s why I need a mate.” His claws rippled restlessly on Draco’s shoulders. “Why I need you.”
“To hold you here and let you be human?” Draco raised his hands to shape Potter’s shoulders, looking small under the enormous drape of his wings. “I’ve never had any training at that. I’m not sure how good I’ll be.”
Potter raised his head, eyes wide and staring past Draco into depths that seemed to frighten even him.
“I’ve never had any training at this, either,” Potter said, his wings rising and banging. “But that’s the way it has to be.”
Draco nodded slowly. Then he leaned up and kissed Potter-Harry-again, remembering the force of his desire and the way he had gripped Draco as if he was the one person on earth or above it who could do something for him.
The blood from the claiming mark had already ceased to flow, and the desperation in Harry’s eyes was fading. Draco leaned himself against Harry’s side and tried to picture the future.
Too much in flux. He couldn’t do it.
But lying there under those drooping wings whose shadow didn’t affect him anymore, Draco thought he could make a prediction. “We’re going to be great.”
The End.
This entry was originally posted at http://lomonaaeren.dreamwidth.org/836837.html. Comment wherever you like.
Part One.
“I don’t think Harry ever expected the Rising, as we called it, to start from within. That was why it took him by surprise. He wasn’t looking for family members.
“I won’t say that I despise my brothers. They did what made political sense to them at the time, and my brother George’s wife Angelina is Muggleborn. Her parents and brother wanted to live in the wizarding world with her, but the more distant cousins and aunt didn’t, so they got put through the Door. It made sense that George would fight. And so would Percy. He was always interested in the kind of government the Ministry offered. He didn’t see the sense in having a single monarch.
“To be honest, lots of people still don’t.
“But anyway, I think that Harry handled it the best way he could. He doesn’t have to punish anyone who fought against him, because they won’t dare come back to a Britain where the very forests would attack them and ravens would swoop down from the skies. I had a hard choice myself, about whether I would go with my brothers or stay here. After all, even though I hadn’t fought, I didn’t want to give up the chance of seeing them again.
“In the end, what decided me was that my wife is part-Veela. And she has so much more freedom under Harry’s rule, and so do my children. I didn’t even know how much she was holding back, and teaching them to hold back. Plus, I have these scars on my face-they were caused by a werewolf attack, yes-and I realized no one was going to stare at me any longer when they had moonbirds and dragons and nagas to gape at.
“So it’s a pretty open secret that I go to France and Romania to visit my brothers. Harry knows about it. He doesn’t try to prevent me from going, and in turn, I don’t smuggle back weapons or information that anyone can use against him.
“This is the best arrangement for us. I wouldn’t try to dictate to anyone else. I don’t have that right. But no, I won’t join any new rebellion. Thanks for asking.”
-Bill Weasley, speaking to the Daily Prophet on the second anniversary of the Rising, Mary 2nd, 2020.
*
Harry sat down hard on the bench in the corner of Gringotts and stared at Griphook. The goblins had appointed Griphook to deal with Harry, maybe under the impression that he would be best able to do it because he’d known Harry before he changed.
“You-a throne? Really?” Harry shook his head. “You think I should sit on a throne?”
“Why not?” Griphook was unruffled, checking a number on a sheet in front of him and writing down something on a different sheet. He was always busy with accounts whenever Harry saw him, as though his business couldn’t be suspended for a single moment. Maybe it couldn’t. “The humans attach a lot of importance to a throne. You would impress them more if you were sitting on one.”
Harry stirred his wings and thought for a moment about when he had stopped thinking of himself as one of the humans. But then he said, “You’re talking like I’m setting myself up as a King.”
Griphook wrote down another number and then gave Harry the full benefit of his unblinking, yellow-eyed attention. “You don’t think that everyone already refers to you that way? Perhaps behind your back, if you have expressed your distaste for it as done to your face, but they are doing it.”
Harry stared up at the ceiling. He wanted to say that he was only an ordinary person, just Harry, and after Voldemort the wizarding world should gradually have forgotten about him, moved on to other celebrities, let him have a normal life-
But if all that was true, then he would have done something about the ravens. Not sought to open the Door. Not decided that the Muggles who had found out about the wizarding world and proclaimed the need to “end wizards” needed to be exiled. Not-
Assumed authority.
“Well, if I’m a bloody king, I reckon I did it to myself,” Harry muttered, and turned back to Griphook, who had a smile on his face.
“You have been a better liaison with the wizarding world to us than any wizard has ever managed,” said Griphook, and he bowed a little as he stood. “In the meantime, why not allow us to make the throne and weave the protection spells in with the rest of the decorations? That would guarantee you a long life and us a long and profitable alliance.”
“What kind of decorations were you thinking of?”
“Ravens.”
“Of course, what else?” Harry asked dryly, but he had to admit he was smiling when he said it, and Griphook gave him a sharp-toothed smile back.
*
“Harry has always been my best friend.
“That’s been the hard thing for so many people to understand. How could I go along with him if he was doing things that were wrong? And how could I oppose him and tell him he should stop sometimes without being a traitor?
“But see, the thing is, there were times Harry and I had huge arguments before. And we always reconciled after them. That’s why I can do it. Because I don’t put as much stock as some people do in the idea that once you fight, that’s it and the end of your friendship. I know it’s not the end.”
-Ron Weasley, Ambassador to Magical France, in the Daily Prophet “Profiles of the Weasley and the Famous,” May 2nd, 2022.
*
Narcissa had sat with Draco through most of that afternoon and into the evening. Draco looked at her sometimes, but since she didn’t seem to have any purpose different than he did-which was to watch the sun set over the garden-he didn’t say anything.
They did watch the sun set, powdering the sky with red and orange and touches of peach and gold that Draco admired. Then his mother stirred and sighed and turned to him with tears gleaming in her eyes like flecks of diamond in a ring.
“If you’re doing this only for our family, Draco,” she whispered, “you don’t need to. Your father and I would have supported you no matter what you chose.”
Draco blinked and stared at her, taking a long minute to realize what “this” must be. Then he shook his head and knelt in front of his mother, taking her hand. That shocked Narcissa enough to make her stop her imminent weeping and stare at him.
Draco smiled a little. It wasn’t something he would have done years ago, or at least he would only have done it with a lot of grumbling about it. But now, he had lots of practice in kneeling.
Some times are more pleasant than others, he had to admit, in the moments before he focused on his mother again.
“I’m with Harry because of my family,” Draco said. His mother tried to take her hands away to cover her face, but Draco didn’t let her. “And because he makes me deliriously happy. Heart-poundingly happy. Head-spinningly happy.”
Narcissa peered down at him with a tentative smile, but didn’t look as if she knew what he was talking about. “Draco-what do you mean?”
“I mean that when we go flying and he shows me the forests that are growing in Wales,” Draco said, “made of obsidian and glass, I think about how I’m seeing things no other wizard has ever seen. And when I lie in his arms, I know I’m closer to him than anyone else. Of course he still spends a lot of time with Weasley and Granger, but he spends more with me.”
“With you kneeling at his feet.”
Draco took a little breath. His mother still believed that? Well, maybe Draco shouldn’t be surprised. He visited his parents often, but they didn’t often speak of what Draco experienced with Harry. It was the same way that his parents would have treated a spouse or lover they found unworthy of Draco, so not a surprise.
But Draco realized now that something else lay behind it. They thought Harry was forcing Draco to submit to him, or-something. They thought he was a slave, an unhappy sacrifice who had only decided to go with Harry because of the money it would mean for his family.
Draco shook his head with a little smile and stood up, leaning in to kiss his mother on the cheek. Narcissa stared at him again.
“It’s not the same as you think,” Draco whispered. “When I’m there, I can feel how he shifts. I can hear his breathing quicken when he gets impatient and when he’s keeping himself from rolling his eyes. I can smell him.”
“Commendable for a lover, perhaps,” his mother said, in tones that showed she still didn’t understand. “But I never needed to kneel at your father’s feet for him to know how I felt, or how to treat me.”
“Commendable for someone who’s the lover of the King of Magical Britain,” Draco said. “Oh, Mother,” he added then, because her voice was so baffled. “It’s a duty. Everyone expects to see the consort subordinate to the King, and everyone thinks they know one fact about raven Veela.”
He paused. Narcissa was the one who had to speak, although the dragging tone in her voice showed how much she hated it. “They know that raven Veela demand absolute submission from those close to them.”
“But do you think that’s true?” Draco shook his head. “Harry doesn’t treat his friends that way. No one seems to connect that fact and the one that sometimes I’m not kneeling at his feet, that sometimes I’m sitting beside him. Or the fact that he makes his enemies submit to him and then usually forgives them.”
“I didn’t know that you were sitting at his side. No one brought that rumor to me.”
Draco snorted a little. “Because it’s not as juicy a rumor. If you ever came to court and looked at me, then you would know.” He touched his mother’s hair gently. “I thought you stayed away because you didn’t like owing Harry the debt we did after the war, or because you still don’t think I should be the consort of a half-blood. But Mother, it’s so different from what you think.”
“What makes it tolerable to you, then?”
Draco smiled. “The sitting at his side, and what happens when we leave the court and are behind closed doors.”
And then Draco had to laugh, because of all the impossible things-or things he had once thought were impossible, a category that had diminished drastically since he became the consort of a raven Veela-he had made his mother blush.
*
“To the care of the raven Veela Harry Potter, currently known as the King of Magical Britain, commonly called His Raven-Winged Majesty,
“And to the care of his consort, Draco Malfoy, sometimes known as the Slytherin Prince or the Snake Prince Consort,
“We commend the magical orphan Thérèse LaFontaine-Rosier, illegitimate daughter of the French half-Veela witch Marie LaFontaine and the second-generation English Squib Andrew Rosier, to be adopted by you, raised by you, protected by you, and treated as your daughter, on account of the death of her parents and her Veela heritage, her choosing of you and your promise to treat her in all ways as you would your blood daughter.”
-Records from the French orphanage, name deliberately kept secret, in which Thérèse Malfoy-Potter resided before her adoption at the age of eight, July 22nd, 2008.
*
“I have called you here today to witness justice done.”
Harry let his voice echo around the great hall at the center of his court. It was shaped like an egg, although that was hard to see when the ceiling was so high and the walls were so far away. The walls were the smooth, polished black marble that Harry could turn all stone into with the shadow of his wings when he wished, and what seemed to unnerve most of the petitioners who came to him was that the marble had no break or seam to it. Instead, it simply covered the inside of the egg.
Both the black color and the egg-shape comforted Harry. He had tried to resist the comfort for the first year of his reign, but then he had given in and done it. If he could concentrate on the cases in front of him instead of how he felt, then he would give better justice, anyway.
The witch and wizard who watched him were both nervous, the witch more visibly so. She was a tall woman with dark skin and dark hair braided so that it coiled above her shoulders, although it was much longer than that. She was Carola Zabini, and Harry had had sixteen letters from her down the years, but never seen her before.
Her opponent was Gregory Goyle’s uncle, Geoffrey Goyle. He was as hulking as his son, but with more glittering eyes and paler skin and slicked-back auburn hair. He shifted his weight as Harry looked at him.
Harry didn’t read too much into that. Lots of people were nervous when appearing before-he snorted to himself as the title popped up in his head-His Raven-Winged Majesty.
He rose from his throne, sparing one glance at Draco in the throne beside him. Draco smiled back and nodded subtly towards Mrs. Zabini.
Harry nodded, but still held up his arm. Draco’s instincts and his might tell him to favor Zabini’s part of the case, but Harry didn’t make decisions like that. You had to make them with some flair, some drama, or people didn’t pay that much attention and might even be inclined to doubt.
One of the royal ravens landed on his arm with a furious squawk. Harry knew from the way everyone in the court jerked that this one had simply formed itself into being right above the thrones, rather than soaring down from the rafters. He honestly didn’t bother to keep track anymore.
“You have both claimed that the other one instigated the illegal duel that destroyed two homes and wounded two uninvolved wizards,” Harry said calmly. “Both of you will have to pay a minimum fine for the destruction no matter what, but the one who started casting spells will pay more.”
He tossed the raven into the air. It circled the room once, disappearing into shadows and making the people whose first time at court this was jump and shout when it veered back into view near the throne.
Zabini didn’t jump and shout. Neither did Goyle. They both looked at the raven as if they were willing it to come to them and declare them innocent. Zabini squinted a little more.
The raven hurtled downwards. It managed to aim at a point between the two petitioners until a few seconds before it would have to land, and then it whisked to the left and landed delicately on Zabini’s shoulder.
“Well,” said Harry, and smiled a little at the enthralled expression on Zabini’s face as she watched the raven, before he turned to Goyle. “Mr. Goyle, you’ll need to pay the fines as soon as possible. Or accept exile for a year-”
Goyle had aimed his wand suddenly. And not at Harry, but at the smaller throne, decorated with black swans, that held Draco.
Harry snapped his wing out. The shadow extended more than three times its length now, and it ate the spell that Goyle fired at Draco like a giant crocodile’s jaws opening and snapping shut.
Harry dropped his wing and took a moment to check on Draco. Other than a little white around the outsides of his eyes, he was fine. He smiled shakily at Harry, though.
Harry nodded once and turned back to Goyle. The people who had come to attend the court were already pushing back towards the walls. They knew what it meant when Harry had that particular look in his eyes.
They might not know what happened when someone attacked his consort. It had been years since someone was foolish enough to try.
Harry held Goyle’s eyes and waited until he saw some dawning of terror in them. Then he said, “I will accept your life. Your heirs will pay the fines,” and clapped his hands three times.
Shreds of black filled the air and tumbled together, coalescing into a gigantic cloud of ravens. Goyle didn’t seem to understand his danger and start to run until there were already forty or fifty swarming above him.
Then they dived at him.
Some people had to leave the room while the beaks pecked and dashed, and claws clacked, and hoarse ringing voices echoed around the chamber. Harry didn’t. He stood there, and watched.
He would always watch when he condemned someone to death. Some people thought it was out of compassion. Other people thought it was justice, that if Harry was going to execute someone, he shouldn’t look away from the consequences.
Draco, Harry thought, as the beaks stabbed, and possibly Ron and Hermione, were the only ones who knew that it wasn’t either of those. Harry executed people only for attempting to harm him, those under his direct protection, or magical creatures when they hadn’t attacked first. Those people were dangerous.
Harry watched to make sure they died.
*
“There have been many misunderstandings of the nature of a raven Veela. Some say they are conquerors. Some say they come to bring peace. Some say they are simply the creation of a Veela playing with Dark Arts and no special significance would attach to them if not for their power.
“I am here to tell you differently. They are all those and more, and living with one is different from hearing legends about one, or fighting one, or even living under one.
“I knew my adoptive Veela father better than anyone except my adoptive human father, Draco Malfoy. I knew what it was like to shelter under the shadow of his wings. I knew what it was like to watch him punish people with his ravens, when he decided that they had to die.
“I’m the only one who can tell you how complex he really was, and the softness as well as the temper in his eyes. The softness most people never saw.”
-From the introduction to Growing Up Under Black Wings, a memoir by Thérèse Malfoy-Potter.
*
“Draco? Are you asleep?”
Draco shook his head and rolled over, stirring the puddled dark blue sheets of the bed. “You already suspected I wasn’t, or you would have crept into bed without waking me. And probably stared at me all night in that creepy way you have.”
He heard the soft ripple of feathers, and Harry dropped onto the bed beside him. The movements above him made Draco think of the dark wings like a canopy arching overhead. They were so big and so magical that they didn’t always seem like part of Harry’s body.
“How can you stand to be with me?”
“Oh, dear, is this Self-Loathing Night?” Draco asked in the most unimpressed voice he could muster. It was already so much easier than it had been last year, which was easier than the first time he had seen a raven stoop towards him with a courtship gift. “I didn’t know it was this early in the moon-cycle. I thought I would have a few more nights of unbroken sleep before it happened.”
The light in the room was muted, as always in the presence of that shadow, but he could make out Harry’s scowl without help.
“I didn’t come to you to be mocked. I need-”
“You want agreement that you’re a horrible person and you should do something to make up for it. Like build another orphanage, or spend more time with Thérèse. Well, I won’t tell you that. I think you should build orphanages and spend time with Thérèse just because you want to.”
Harry flopped back on the bed, wings lifted above him, stirring the air. When Draco couldn’t see them, though, they were honestly more like magical breezes than anything else. He reached out and dragged Harry towards him, rolling his eyes when Harry resisted a little.
“You don’t need to come to me to hear yourself scolded and blamed,” Draco muttered as he stripped off the pants that were the only thing he wore to bed. “You don’t even need to go to your enemies. Your conscience does a good enough job on its own.”
Harry shut his eyes and shook his head, but his wings were spreading and arching now, and he turned so that he was up against the pillows near the headboard. Draco leaned in and kissed him roughly, feeling those wings descend on his shoulders and wreathe him in warm darkness.
It was the feeling of safety that had first made him sleep through the night in this bed. Nothing could ever hurt him here. When those warm and almost self-breathing wings were wrapped around him, he believed it.
“You still want to think, in part of you,” said Draco, as he reached for the lube and slid his fingers into himself with an excited shudder, “that you’re wrong, because that’s what people told you all your life. The press isn’t blaming you now and your relatives are gone, so you want to find a substitute for the blame. Well,” he said, and gasped as he reached deep enough to make pleasure join the excitement, “you won’t make me into that substitute.”
“I don’t want people to blame me. I think our lives are going great. I just want-”
“Someone to fight and struggle against and brace yourself against. I know the impulse. You had to fight for so long. But you said you wanted peace, you were going to bring peace, so relax and enjoy the bloody peace, all right?”
Harry might have tried to answer with words, but instead it was a groan as Draco rose on his heels and then slid himself down onto Harry’s cock. This was another thing that Draco would never have known he enjoyed without Harry manifesting as a raven Veela, and sometimes Draco shuddered to think he might have gone through life in an arranged marriage with the vague feeling something was missing-
The thoughts fled as Harry shook beneath him and reached up hands to curve around his hips. Draco slammed himself home once and opened his eyes.
Harry stared at him in that devouring way, fingers flexing open and shut on Draco’s skin. His eyes were dazed and filled with power. He looked as though he was about to flip Draco over and drive into him.
Draco smiled at him and wriggled his hips to show that was fine, if Harry wanted to do it.
But it seemed, tonight, that Harry was caught up in a different display of power instead. He flapped his wings, staying in a sitting position, and they rose from the bed. Draco tingled all over with the thought of the magic that must be spreading and whirling across the room to do that, not to mention the sheer physical strength it took Harry to do it with just the muscles in his back and shoulders. He drove himself down with even greater force, to meet Harry’s thrust up.
And then they both flung themselves into the center of the whirlwind that was making love to a Veela, scraps of pleasure everywhere that Draco snatched, the inhuman heat inside him and beneath him, the sliding sweat-slick skin of Harry’s shoulders and the warmth of the wings beating past, feathers brushing on Draco’s cheek-
The feathers slid down his spine and touched him on the back of the arse, deliberately. Draco came.
You always do that, he thought, panting as the sweat and the orgasm seemed to explode from his skin at the same time. For revenge, he reached down and bit at the tender skin of Harry’s throat, worrying it back and forth.
Harry came, too, and Draco felt the intense heat shooting up into him like scalding water. It never left any damage, and over time, it had stopped being strange. It was almost a mark of honor, he thought, as he sprawled slowly over Harry’s chest and closed his eyes. No one else had received that mark from Harry, and no one would. A raven Veela had only one mate.
“What was I even unhappy about?” Harry whispered suddenly, making the darkness around Draco echo. “I can’t remember.”
“Good, then,” said Draco sleepily. “It was probably stupid, whatever it was.”
And-no one else would have believed this who had seen Harry making judgments in court-all Harry did was laugh softly at the insolent words and use his huge wings to nudge Draco a little closer to him. Draco smiled and shut his eyes, listening to the soft rustling and the distant caws of ravens circling around the home they lay in. There were always birds nearby, who could come to Harry’s call and pounce on someone if they had to.
It was just the way things were.
*
“It is absolutely untrue that any Veela traits Harry and Draco had were passed on to their daughter. For one thing, Thérèse inherited-I won’t call them normal, but pale Veela traits. She isn’t a raven Veela, which you would see if you looked at her photographs. But I understand that’s a little hard when people are more involved in seeing what they want to be there rather than what is.
“Thérèse played with my own children many times, and they’re still close friends. Yes, of course Thérèse was drawn away from them by the currents of the court and politics as they got older. I never thought their friendships would stay exactly the same. Ron’s friendship with Harry didn’t. Mine didn’t. Why should hers?
“I know that what you want is some trouble, Skeeter. But you really are looking in the wrong direction. You won’t find any if you keep investigating Thérèse. Honestly, your best option if you want trouble is to publish your unfounded speculation about Harry’s daughter and see what happens. Lots of it then.”
-From an unpublished interview between Hermione Granger and Rita Skeeter, found in the archive of Skeeter’s papers in the 2030’s.
*
“Papa.”
Thérèse’s voice was soft and precise. She’d learned to speak English slowly, although that wasn’t a problem since Draco spoke French and could translate for her. And when she made a toss of her white hair or a poke of her chin in a certain direction, or manifested a beak and screamed, Harry knew how to translate those Veela things.
Now, he put aside the quill he was using to write down a new law, and moved his wings so she could sit on a stool beside his desk. “What is it, Thérèse?”
She sat down and looked up at him, a nine-year-old girl with blue eyes that sometimes changed to filmy silver, usually when she was in the middle of a Veela tantrum. She had gleaming pale hair and sometimes, when she ran with her hands held out and her hair floating behind her, Harry thought he could see the wings.
Draco said over and over that she looked exactly like a Malfoy child should look, and gloated. Harry didn’t need dark hair or green eyes to find the ways in which she was his daughter, though.
“Fred said that you are an evil king.”
“That’s sometimes a fair characterization. Do you want to talk about it?”
Thérèse looked as if she hadn’t expected him to say that, but then, she often looked that way. Harry thought he was learning to separate the times she was surprised and the times she just didn’t understand the English word.
“Why are you evil?” Thérèse asked, leaning forwards so she had her elbows on her knees and her gaze fixed on him. “I mean, why would you want to be? Father says that often results are best accomplished by careful study.”
Harry nodded once. “But I had to be stern when I opened the Door. The Muggles were going to a version of Britain almost exactly like this one, but empty of magic. I couldn’t let any of them stay unless they showed they could get along with magical creatures. But that could be evil, couldn’t it? I could have trusted them and waited to see if they would. Instead, I gave them tests of a month for each village or city. I could have used two months. I was strong enough to win if they tried to fight back against me.”
Thérèse looked a little overwhelmed. Then she said slowly, “But then why would Fred say you are evil?”
“I don’t know why. It might have been something different than what I was thinking about. I was just telling you one example people use.”
Thérèse frowned. “I don’t think I like the people who use it.”
“But you should still try to make your own independent judgment,” Harry told her, and hoped he didn’t sound earnest enough to put her off. “You should remember that you shouldn’t excuse me from doing wrong because I’m one of your fathers.”
“But I want to,” said Thérèse. “What if I want to make my independent judgment to not listen to that kind of…bollocks?” She sounded especially proud of herself for producing that word.
“Then you can make it.” Harry bent down and kissed her face where the shadow of his wing lay across it. He had been worried when they first adopted her that he would change even Thérèse, although her own Veela magic might protect her from it. But he had learned after a short time that his wings didn’t change things he didn’t want to change.
It was only that there had been so many things to change, at first.
“Thank you, I suppose,” said Thérèse. Then she froze. “Wait. If I thank you for it, am I making my own independent judgment after all?”
Harry laughed and shook his head. Those were the kinds of philosophical questions Thérèse and Draco could spend hours debating, but Harry had no patience for them. “Go away, will you? I have to finish this law.”
Thérèse stood there looking earnestly at him for a moment, and then she bent down and grabbed him around the neck and kissed him. “You are not an evil king,” she said. “You are a good one.”
“A good one who needs to make laws.”
Thérèse smiled at him one more time and left his study. Harry watched her go, and listened to a few of the Veela children he had invited from France to give her companionship singing in the garden. Even they had got over their fear of him enough that they didn’t cower anymore when he flew overhead and the blackness of his wings swept across the ground and above them.
There were even a few magical people in France who had asked Harry if he could get rid of their Muggles the way he had got rid of Britain’s.
Harry shook his head now, the way he had at every offer from outside Britain. The kingdom of one island was all that he could manage.
And sometimes not even that, he thought, as he turned back to wrestling with the law.
*
“I think one thing most people don’t understand is how various definitions of happiness are. There were people who said they could never be happy when Harry took over Britain, but some of them are still living here now, and I haven’t heard any of them say anything suicidally despairing lately.
“Another thing most people forget is how you can get used to things. One day changes are unthinkable; then they’re dreams; then they’ve happened and you get used to them, and life goes on much as before. We were used to living in small corners of this island with the Muggles ruling most of the space. Sometimes we dreamed of something different, but no one took those people seriously.
“And then it happened, and everyone will have to get used to it.”
-Consort Draco Malfoy, speaking to a large gathering celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of Voldemort’s defeat, May 2nd, 2013.
*
That first time…
Draco found himself flat on his back without knowing exactly how it had happened, gasping as if he was winded.
Potter loomed above him, eyes enormous and dark. Oh, they were green if Draco looked hard enough; they hadn’t really changed color. But the power that washed over him with every languid beat of Potter’s wings, the magic that danced and coiled teasingly around his throat and stomach and groin, all the vulnerable places, drew a veil of darkness around his face anyway.
Draco shivered and arched his head back as the shadow of Potter’s wing made his clothes dissolve off him. I chose this, I chose this, he kept reminding himself in his head.
And then it became possible to believe he had, because the shadow of the left wing swept over his body, and with it came the pleasure.
Draco actually breathed out in a shocked scream as it flooded over him, lapping higher and higher until he felt it wrap his face, like he was drowning. The darkness of it! The height, the depth, the intensity! His hand shook as he clawed at the grass, and worse when Potter shook his head and picked up Draco’s hand and sucked on his fingers, denying him any outlet that didn’t focus around Potter.
Then the right wing swept back again, and Draco felt the force of Potter’s desire.
It was a growling beast, scarcely leashed, even as Potter balanced on his heels with his wings flapping and stared down in appreciation. He traced a slow hand over Draco’s breastbone, and Draco shuddered again. It wasn’t so much the feeling itself as the forced lightness of it. He knew, he knew, that Potter was capable of making him feel so much more, and he began to shiver as he wondered when it would press forwards.
Potter met his eyes and mouthed, Now.
Then he kissed Draco, and it wasn’t like drowning but like falling off a mountain. Draco grabbed hold of his shoulders for sheer life. Potter’s wings drew in tight around them as he hissed in appreciation.
“Yes, you,” he said, and turned his head so that he was rubbing his cheek along Draco’s arm and leaving his scent there. Draco knew it was scent without even asking. “You’re the one who’s meant to be my true mate.”
He hooked his arms around Draco and then they were suddenly flying, tumbling through the air. To Draco it felt as if they had fallen, instead of taking off. He squeaked and buried his head against Potter’s breastbone.
Potter laughed in a way that rumbled through him. “It’s like this for all raven Veela when they mate,” he said, and then reached down and captured Draco’s chin in one hand and effortlessly wrenched his head up so that Draco had no choice but to stare at him. “Are you going to join in with me, or cower?”
Apparently, Draco was still susceptible to being called a coward by Harry Potter, even when so many other things had happened. He straightened at once. “I’ll join with you, of course!”
“Because you’re afraid?” Potter had gone still in body, even though his wings still beat about them, supporting them. His eyes were fixed on Draco’s face.
Draco managed to roll his eyes, and felt immensely better once he’d proved he still could. “You accuse me of being afraid to mate with you, and then you’re upset because I want to?” He reached out, hooked his nails, and dragged them down Potter’s arm, even though he knew his nails were nothing compared to the sharpness of Potter’s talons. “I’m afraid, but I’m courageous. And I’m not doing this because I think you’ll rape me, or just to keep my family safe.”
“But keeping your family safe is part of it.”
“Like your instincts are part of it,” Draco shot back instantly. He was still gasping a little because of the fall beneath them, if nothing else, but he could do this. Battling Potter was part of his soul. “We’re neither of us completely free, so let’s not pretend that you were my first choice and I was yours, okay? Let’s go with what’s there now.” And he leaned forwards to ferociously kiss Potter.
And that worked. That was enough.
Potter flew them higher into the sky, his wings so enormous that Draco was blocked from even a glimpse of the ground. His arse was wet and even relaxed with a careless sweep of one wing, the shadow on his arse changing things to the way Potter wanted it to be. Draco cocked his legs open, the way he’d already done once on the ground, and Potter ducked his head and gave a remarkably bird-like hiss.
Then Potter slipped in.
Draco stiffened as though someone had rammed a rod of iron up his spine, which was pretty much what it felt like. Then he shuddered and buried his head again against Potter’s chest as Potter fucked him slowly, slewing back and forth in the air sometimes.
“Look up.”
Draco raised his head and opened his eyes, and found himself meeting Potter’s intense, blazing gaze for only a moment. Then he twisted a little, and he could see the ground after all, in between the opening and closing of Potter’s wings.
Down, beneath them, below, was a pattern of green and blue and brown and grey and white with the changing motions of the trees and water and earth and sky and clouds. Draco had a moment to gasp and find it beautiful.
Then Potter dropped them down towards it, his wings pulled in close to his sides and his feet probably streaming behind them.
Draco shrieked. But there was something deeper than pure fear behind that shriek, and he felt Potter feel that and join his voice to Draco’s in praise of that beauty. Draco shuddered a little, but he never once feared Potter might drop him.
The clouds roiled and parted, and there was such a fantastic dance of colors beneath him that Draco’s breath slammed into the back of his throat. He and Potter fell faster and looser, fearlessly into the middle of all that.
Potter clawed at his shoulder when they were near enough to the ground that Draco could make out the shapes of buildings, and then scraped the side of his neck. Draco knew Potter was coming, and even though he arched away from the pain that he knew was the claiming mark and opened his mouth to cry a protest-
So was he.
They swirled around like gently dropped leaves, despite Draco’s fear that they would simply crash, and when they touched earth again, it was in the back gardens of the Manor. Draco lay there, feeling as if he should be covered in much more liquid than was in fact the case. The blood from the slash on the side of his neck was already stopped, in fact.
Potter lifted his head from where he’d been licking the side of Draco’s neck and looked at him with luminous eyes.
“You were-trying to kill us, maybe?” Draco asked, wheezing more than a little.
“No,” said Potter, and his voice was feral and a hammer that struck and shattered the pieces of Draco’s growing new confidence, because this wasn’t Potter but something else speaking through him. “This is the way it had to be.”
Draco shivered, staring up at him. He had thought he could mate with Potter, the man and Veela who needed him and wanted to fuck him on the wing. He wasn’t sure that he could mate with the creature staring out of Potter’s eyes.
Then Potter gave a single great shudder and dropped his head down to rest on Draco’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Sometimes it takes me like that. But I think that’s why I need a mate.” His claws rippled restlessly on Draco’s shoulders. “Why I need you.”
“To hold you here and let you be human?” Draco raised his hands to shape Potter’s shoulders, looking small under the enormous drape of his wings. “I’ve never had any training at that. I’m not sure how good I’ll be.”
Potter raised his head, eyes wide and staring past Draco into depths that seemed to frighten even him.
“I’ve never had any training at this, either,” Potter said, his wings rising and banging. “But that’s the way it has to be.”
Draco nodded slowly. Then he leaned up and kissed Potter-Harry-again, remembering the force of his desire and the way he had gripped Draco as if he was the one person on earth or above it who could do something for him.
The blood from the claiming mark had already ceased to flow, and the desperation in Harry’s eyes was fading. Draco leaned himself against Harry’s side and tried to picture the future.
Too much in flux. He couldn’t do it.
But lying there under those drooping wings whose shadow didn’t affect him anymore, Draco thought he could make a prediction. “We’re going to be great.”
The End.
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