Chapter Twenty-Six of 'Fairest Creatures'- No Time Like the Present
Chapter Twenty-Five.
Title: Fairest Creatures (26/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, one-sided Harry/others
Warnings: Creature fic (Veela), ridiculousness
Rating: R
Summary: Of course, Harry would be the only person in wizarding history to get turned into a Veela by a chain of coincidences and then compelled to attend Veela finishing school to learn about his new powers. And the only one of those who has to get instructed by Draco Malfoy, for that matter. Who does not look any better with wings.
Author’s Notes: I came up with this idea a little while ago and tried to get it to stop being ridiculous. It refused. In fact, it gathered more ridiculousness to itself. Therefore, I decided to write it before it got so ridiculous that it made my head explode. This will be updated on Sundays. The title is from William Shakespeare’s first sonnet: “From fairest creatures we desire increase,/ That thereby beauty’s rose might never die.”
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Twenty-Six-No Time Like the Present
“What are you doing?”
Harry glanced back once at Draco and smiled. Draco gave him another wary stare, but let him go. Harry spread his wings so that no one could possibly ignore the visible sign of their bonding, and saw Draco soften further.
“I thought we could save some trouble if we just ask people what their problem with us is,” he explained, “instead of waiting for them to get to it on their own.”
Draco stared at him long enough that Harry could have counted drops of slickness on his tongue. Harry kept one eye on the Veela and her human who had sat behind them. She’d been talking to Professor Grunnell, but now she was turning towards the door. Her mate trailed behind her, looking tired.
“What’s your problem with us?” Harry asked her cheerfully.
The woman stopped immediately. She had more natural poise than any Veela he’d seen here, Harry thought; she reminded him of Fleur. Just by looking Harry up and down, she managed to make him feel small and dirty.
Harry held onto his glittering smile and his patience. He’d asked in public on purpose, and now the room was full of staring eyes. He’d bet she was less used to them than he was.
When he thought he would have to give up, she sighed and answered him in a voice that, sure enough, had a slight trace of a French accent. “Showing up and flaunting that you have-had sex, it is vulgar.” For a moment, her cheeks turned pink like those of a Muggle doll Harry had once seen some girls on Privet Drive playing with. “You are not supposed to be flaunting it like that.” She withdrew her gaze from him and looked at her partner. “Kevin and I did not.”
Kevin winced a little and said, “Darling, you know that everyone could still tell we were mated.”
“Darling” started to answer, but Harry cut in. “What business is it of yours? You’d have to know that we were mated because we were in the class. If you don’t want to look at the signs of it, then don’t look.”
The Veela woman gave him yet another incredulous, wide-eyed stare. Harry reckoned that she couldn’t remember the last time someone had stood up to her. And he thought she might actually have lashed out, except that Draco was drifting up “accidentally” to Harry’s side.
“I didn’t catch your name,” Draco said, and smiled at the woman.
“Valena Avaliere,” said the Veela, after a moment when she visibly considered not answering. Harry wondered for a second if that was incredibly rude, but it wasn’t like he would know unless someone explained it to him, and he wasn’t in the mood to guess. She turned her head and reached out to pat her mate’s arm. “This is Kevin Lavelle. I first became attracted to him because his name sounds like mine.”
Harry had to work hard to refrain from gagging. From the look in Draco’s eye, he was feeling much the same way.
“I know your family name,” he said smoothly. “But I am unaware of any blood feuds between our ancestors, and that surely means that you can forgive the lapse in our manners, yes?”
Avaliere gave Draco a single glance that made all the feathers on his wings bristle. Then she shook her head. “The vulgarity was the first thing about you that attracted my attention, but not the only one.” She tilted her head and waited.
Harry could just hear the disaster that this would turn into if Draco was allowed to ask the question, so he intervened as hastily as he could. “What were the others?”
“You have no sense of what it means to be a Veela,” said Avaliere, “neither of you. You are both transformed, and I have heard that your transformation was even the result of an accident.” She stared at Harry, her wings trembling for a moment.
“It was,” Harry said. “I didn’t want to be a Veela.” He could feel Draco flinch as he said the words, and he sighed a little. Then he extended a wing so he could wrap it around Draco’s shoulders. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be one now. I have a mate who makes things a lot better for me.”
Draco gave him a smile that startled Harry with its sweetness. Of course he knew Draco could be sweet, but he hadn’t done it in public like this before.
“You should have worked harder to get your wings removed,” said Avaliere. “Being a Veela isn’t for simply anyone who wants it, no? It is for those who wish to learn and work at it, to preserve our culture.”
“We don’t know they haven’t,” Kevin told her quietly. Harry saw the way his eyes darted over to them, resting warily on Harry’s wand. Maybe Kevin knew enough about Harry’s Auror reputation to be cautious.
Avaliere turned to him and crooned. “You’re so compassionate,” she said. “Always thinking the best of people.” The adoration that filled her face was something to see, and Harry actually had to glance away in embarrassment when she lifted a hand to caress Kevin’s face. “I knew there was a reason I fell in love with you.”
Kevin coughed and looked at Draco and Harry again. Avaliere started and turned back to them, but didn’t take her hand off her mate’s cheek. Harry wondered idly if that was one of the things she thought was different between born Veela and transformed Veela. The born ones didn’t seem so self-conscious about showing their mates affection.
“I do not hate you because of what you are,” she told them. “But because of what you might do.” She fastened her eyes on Harry and let her eyebrows rise to the point that Harry did feel himself flush, because she could make him feel self-conscious effortlessly. “Particularly you. I have heard that you did not…like learning the truth in classes.”
“I didn’t like it at first,” said Harry blandly. He thought he knew the way to handle Avaliere now. “I started to like it better once I learned it meant I would have a mate that I could take to bed.” He reached out and smoothed his hand down the edge of Draco’s wing, specifically because it would make Draco arch his back and croon.
Avaliere was staring at them in undisguised horror. Kevin touched her shoulder. “I don’t want to be late for dinner,” he said.
“Why are you doing that in front of me?” Avaliere whispered, and swayed a little.
“To show you that we can, of course,” said Harry innocently. “To show you what I’ve learned. You were worried about me not adopting all the Veela customs, so this is to show you that I can.” He leaned in and tugged on the side of Draco’s wing. This time, not taken by surprise, Draco shot him a distinctly amused glance, but also arched his wings and spread them above his head like the wings of an angel.
“Stop this at once!”
“But it’s fun. And don’t you know that studies have proven that the more fun someone has at something, the more likely they are to keep doing it? Oh, right. Well. They were all done by Muggles, so I suppose you wouldn’t be familiar with them.”
“Stop,” said Avaliere in a low wail, and covered her eyes with her hands. Her wings swept forwards, as if she wanted to shield her face with them, too, but then one banged into her mate and sent him sprawling.
“Mr. Malfoy. Mr. Potter. Is there a problem?”
Interesting how the problem is always with us, as far as the professors are concerned, Harry thought, and turned around to nod to Professor Grunnell. “Miss Avaliere was just telling us what her problem with us was. So I wanted to show that I’m appropriately enthusiastic about learning to be a Veela now.”
Grunnell glanced back and forth between them, and if she didn’t see what was going on, she was a lot stupider than Harry imagined. She grunted a little and said, “Miss Avaliere, Mr. Lavelle. I think you should probably leave. Miss Avaliere looks distressed.”
Kevin was at least grateful for the excuse, Harry thought, as he bent towards Avaliere and bundled her out the door with soft words. As they made their way down the corridor, he literally soothed her ruffled feathers, and Avaliere gave them a single glance and a little shudder before she focused on his words.
“Now.” Professor Grunnell spread her wings a little and touched the tips of them to her hips instead of her hands. “Appearances to the contrary or not, Mr. Potter, I know that you are intelligent. Why did you decide to do that?”
"I confronted her because I'm sick of problems I don't know about coming back to bite me later on." Harry met Professor Grunnell's gaze and found less anger there than he'd expected. "I saw her glaring at us. I wanted to know why."
Grunnell moved one wing slowly back and forth like a fan. Harry couldn't tell if she was just trying to make herself cool or if it was the equivalent of putting a hand over her eyes. "You couldn't come up with a more diplomatic way to do it?"
"She probably would have denied there was a problem if I'd been diplomatic, wouldn't she?"
"That's possible. You still could have tried it."
Harry shook his head again. "I've had to live with enemies all my life, and some of them could have been neutralized if I'd asked more questions. I also was told that I should ask more questions about Veela customs since I've been here. This is me, asking them."
"You could have done it in such a way that--"
"Why is it always we who could have done it in such a way, Professor?" And Harry thought maybe he should have left the conversation up to Draco from the beginning, because his eyes were bright and his tone was friendly and so condescending that it made shivers of approval run up Harry's back. "Why does Miss Avaliere have no responsibility not to react like someone pissed on the rug?"
Professor Grunnell's wings twitched again. Harry really wished he knew what that meant. "You raise an excellent point, Mr. Malfoy," she said, if a bit stiffly. "Perhaps we have been a bit hasty to blame you."
"A bit hasty?"
This time, Harry was the one who reached out to restrain Draco with a gentle press on his arm and a nod to Grunnell. "As long as this doesn't turn into some kind of fight between us and Avaliere, then I don't mind. And I hope that you can tell us anyone else in the school who has that kind of prejudice against transformed Veela, so we can avoid them."
"To make such a list of names would give you a reason to have a prejudice of your own, Mr. Potter." Grunnell made her feathers stand on end when Harry opened his mouth to object. "You do raise some good points, and it's true that hatred has no place here. I will have a talk with Miss Avaliere. I can't promise more."
Harry felt the upwards pressure Draco was exerting on his arm, but he didn't look around to acknowledge it, only pressed downwards in turn and then nodded. "Thank you, Professor," he said, right before he dragged Draco out of the classroom.
Draco turned firmly towards their rooms when Harry would have joined the mass of people heading for dinner, so Harry sighed and went with him. At least he thought Draco would have told him if this prejudice was common among the born Veela.
At least if he knew about it. Maybe this is the first time he's heard it himself.
That comforted Harry, the thought that both of them might be equally ignorant about a topic. He felt comforted right up until they got back to his rooms--Draco decided against going into his own, for some reason--and Draco exploded, whirling around and flinging himself towards the ceiling. Harry stared as he flew in a circle. It was something he hadn't dared try himself inside, since he was still unused to the power of his wings compared to a broom.
"Are you all right?" Harry finally called up after Draco.
Draco hissed and threw his feet out in front of him, landing with a rush and a stagger that made the carpet crush beneath him. "They said they wouldn't tolerate prejudice of that kind here. Oh, no. But then it happens, and we get scolded more than the born Veela. Oh, yes, so equal."
Harry hesitated. Then he asked, "Is there some context here that I'm missing? Did you know about the prejudice before we got to the school?"
Draco closed his wings around his sides again and reached out for Harry. Harry accepted the hold without taking his gaze from Draco’s face. Then Draco cheeped in distress, and Harry realized that he apparently really wanted to hide away in Harry’s shoulder.
“Fine,” Harry said, letting it happen. “But this is still something I want an answer to. Did you know about this before?”
Draco shook his head, and his hair rustling against Harry’s hands helped Harry calm down, too. “I thought it might be a possibility. But I also knew there were other transformed Veela here. I didn’t know…there weren’t that many.”
He pulled back and ran his hand up Harry’s chest and chin and cheek until he brushed near his eye, staring at him. “But what really angers me is that the professors still treat you like you’re a troublemaker automatically, even when you haven’t done anything that would show that.”
Harry kissed him behind the ear. “That gets me angry, too. Like the Aurors. But we can’t do anything about it right now. Only show that we’re not the ones with the prejudice problem, and Avaliere will probably trip up again. Then Professor Grunnell will believe us.”
“I wish I had your optimism.”
Harry leaned closer to him. Draco sounded a little too desperate for his liking. “What do you mean?”
Draco gave him a glance, then turned away. Harry lifted his wings and embraced Draco with them, though, and then he had nothing to look at but reminders of their bonding all over the place. He dropped his head forwards and sighed.
“It’s just…becoming a Veela has cost you your job. It’s cost you comfort and time. And now you’re facing hatred for something you can’t help, from Veela, again. It makes me wonder if you’re going to decide that it’s not worthwhile staying here and you’ll leave.”
Harry smiled at him. “Becoming a Veela gave me you, too, and I value you very much.”
Draco didn’t return the smile. “Enough to put up with everything else?”
“To do more than put up with it.” Harry reached out and slid his hand around the back of Draco’s neck, massaging until some of the warmth seemed to seep out of his fingers and Draco let his eyes slide closed and a sleepy chirp come out. “To rejoice in it. The school isn’t forever, and maybe the Aurors wouldn’t have been, either. But I think this is.”
Draco’s face lit up, and the soft glowing light wrapped his wings again. He leaned in, and kissed Harry hard enough that Harry regretted they hadn’t eaten dinner yet. Then they could have stayed in the room, and-
Something thumped on the bed behind them. Harry leaped and came down with his wand aimed and his free hand cocked. His fingernails there had already sharpened into claws.
But it was no intruder, not even one of the professors come along to frown at them. It was a wrapped package lying on the bed. It seemed to be covered in white silk. Harry blinked at it and then at Draco, wondering if one of his house-elves had sent it. It was the only origin Harry could think of.
Draco moved at once to the bed, his smile sincere in a way it hadn’t been since they confronted Avaliere. He removed the silk and held up what looked like a plaque made of bone. Harry came nearer, shaking his head.
“Get behind it, with me,” Draco said breathlessly.
Harry did, and stared obediently at the plaque, thinking it might be a mirror. But nothing reflected in its surface. “What-”
Abruptly, they were behind a wall the same color as the plaque. Harry leaped away, his wings fanning out again. Draco laughed and gestured, his finger pressing at a certain place on the wall, and in seconds it had shrunk back to normal size and he was holding a plaque again.
“How did you know it could do that?” Harry asked, when he’d caught his breath.
“I didn’t know for sure.” Draco twitched his head from side to side, and grinned at him. “But my father used to possess an artifact that looked similar. And it makes sense for the courtship gifts that the magic sends us to look familiar. Otherwise, we might not know how to use them.” He flipped the plaque back onto Harry’s bed. “That will keep us safe from any enemies who might seek to threaten us.”
Harry grinned. “Then the magic is pleased with the progress we’ve made.”
“And perhaps you saying this would last forever.”
Harry bent down and showed him other means of saying the same thing, without words.
Chapter Twenty-Seven.
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