Chapter Ten of 'Temporary Mate'- Arriving at Asovima
Chapter Nine.
Title: Temporary Mate (10/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco, past Harry/Ginny and Harry/Michael Corner
Content Notes: Angst, violence, creature fic (Draco is a Veela), action/adventure, Auror fic, minor character death
Rating: R
Summary: Escorting Malfoy on a dangerous mission in another dimension to speak to French Veela, Harry and his fellow Aurors are attacked and left for dead. Harry and Malfoy are the only survivors, and wounds the attackers inflicted have released Malfoy’s Veela heritage. Now he’s probably going to die unless Harry can successfully bind himself to Malfoy as a temporary mate-and they still have to survive the trek to reach the Veela stronghold.
Author’s Notes: This fic will be updated whenever I finish a chapter. It should be anywhere from ten to twenty chapters long.
Chapter One.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Ten-Arriving At Asovima
“Draco, we need to talk.”
Draco ignored the sudden leap of his heart, the desire to spread his wings and scream in anguish. It didn’t mean Harry was going to walk away from him. He really didn’t think that would happen. He nodded and leaned back so that he could meet Harry’s eyes from the other side of their fire.
“About what?”
“Well, two things.” Harry smiled a little, and the dusky red glimmering from the ground seemed to light his teeth up better than the fire. “We need to talk about what we’re going to do when we arrive at Asovima.”
“Not let them separate us,” Draco said instantly.
“But we can talk about that tomorrow, when we’re closer,” Harry went on. “We also need to talk about the way you hover over me all the time. I appreciate that you want to protect me. But I can take care of myself. And I want to make sure that you’ll let me do the same for you.”
His eyes were so direct, so green. Draco shifted in place, knowing the desire to fly away from his mate for the first time. “That doesn’t really happen between Veela and their mates,” he said carefully.
“Really?” Harry didn’t sound impatient or angry, only politely disbelieving. “Then that’s going to make it a lot harder for us to stay mated.”
“You said you wouldn’t-”
“That I wouldn’t leave you, right. But I’m also not going to give up being an Auror.”
Draco sat back with a ruffling of his wings. He spent a moment considering what he would say, but in the end he couldn’t come up with any better words than the ones he already had in mind. “I wouldn’t have asked you to. Just to be a bit more careful.”
“I am trying to do that,” Harry said gently. “I started doing that a long time ago. For Ron and Hermione’s sake, then.” Draco tried to ignore the shot of jealousy through him, and nodded. “But sometimes danger comes and finds me. The way it did with the harpies.” He paused, one hand on a piece of dried meat that Draco had made from the beast he’d killed. “Are you going to be able to live with that?”
“I don’t have any choice now that you’re my mate, Harry.”
“No, don’t think of it like that.”
Draco hunched his knees and swept his wings forwards around them. “If you’re going to leave me, then just say so. You’re the only one now who can choose to break that bond. That choice is gone from me.”
“Oh, Draco.” Harry came around the fire and knelt next to him, smoothing his hand up and down Draco’s wing. Draco did his best to regulate his breathing, so Harry wouldn’t realize that was the opposite of soothing. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just-I’d hate for us to think about this in terms of lost choices, that’s all.”
“Then how do you want to think about it?” Draco leaned against him, and removed his wing gently from Harry’s hand. He didn’t want to throw him to the ground and mount him right now, and the touch was making him think too much about it.
Harry leaned on him in turn, and was quiet for a little while. Then he said, “Something that happened, that was unexpected, but was lucky in some ways. And something we need to understand and live with.”
“That sounds so neutral,” Draco whispered. It was a good thing to keep his voice low, he thought, just like the flickering of the fire. “Can you accept it like that? Can you-Harry, I don’t know what you want.”
“To live inside the bond,” Harry answered at once, turning around so that they were looking into each other’s eyes instead of leaning on each other. “To be…human’s the wrong word. But that’s what I meant. I know you’ve been changed a lot by becoming a Veela, Draco. And we’ve both been changed by the bond. But I don’t want to give up every trace of what we are for the bond.”
“You want me to be the prick that I was to you in Hogwarts?” Draco asked in astonishment.
Harry grinned at him. “No, I’m content to see that version of you gone forever. But you were polite to me before the harpies attacked, and you were practical when you told me about the spell that would transform you. Can we try for that? Practicality, sometimes being apart. If only later after the bond has calmed down a bit and you don’t think I’m in danger all the time,” he added, probably because of what he’d seen in Draco’s face.
Draco embraced him with one arm and one wing. “I’m frightened,” he murmured to Harry. He could say it if he wasn’t looking at him. That lessened the bond’s urge to hold strong for his mate.
“Of what?”
“Of this mattering more to me than you. About what will happen when we get to Asovima. And when we get back to our world. And what people will say. Your friends, and my family, and-everyone.” Draco flinched as he thought of his mother’s cutting words. You couldn’t find some other solution than Harry Potter? Or you couldn’t hold out until you reached Asovima and they could find you a different mate?
“I can’t promise what everyone else will think.” Harry’s voice was so thick with calm determination that Draco had to remember the way he’d cast the spell, the way he’d saved both himself and Draco-and committed their lives to something different-with such aplomb. “I can promise that I will always take this seriously and always treat you well.”
Draco sighed softly and said, “Then-I can promise that I’ll try to let you go into danger. And take care of me in turn. And stand up for me.” He flicked the feathers on the edge of his wing gently against Harry’s cheek, and added, “I think it’ll probably get easier once the bond is a little older.”
“But before then, we need to face the Veela of Asovima.”
Draco shivered a little. “Yes,” he said, and turned his gaze back to the fire.
After a short moment, Harry took his hand, and they sat like that in silence for a time before they fell asleep.
*
Harry blinked and reached up to rub his eyes. But the sight remained the same in front of him: slender silver towers bound with gleaming white vines and blue flowers, a glittering contrast.
And the city was floating.
“I’m not hallucinating, am I?” he muttered to Draco out of the corner of his mouth, as Draco dropped to a stop beside him. He’d been flying ahead for a time to scout, and had come back and been flying escort since he’d spotted Asovima.
“No. It’s floating.” Draco landed beside him and looked thoughtfully up at the city. “I suppose their mates must be mostly other Veela, or else they don’t mind carrying them around.”
Harry nodded. “Can you carry me easily?” They hadn’t tried it as just regular flying so far, only when they were in danger or-having sex. Harry coughed and hoped that his flushed cheeks wouldn’t betray what he was thinking about too easily.
Draco’s eyes sparked for a moment, but then he inclined his head and said, “It shouldn’t be a problem.”
Harry studied the city one more time, then straightened his shoulders and made sure that his wand was firmly tucked into his sleeve. He didn’t want to drop it when Draco tugged him upwards. “All right. Did you spot any guards? Or were there some and they let you go?”
“There are some there, I’m sure, but they didn’t show themselves to me,” Draco said calmly as he tucked his hands under Harry’s armpits. “They probably want to wait and see what I intend.”
“What we intend.”
Draco grinned at him suddenly. “Of course. And if they try to insist again that we don’t belong together and that a real Veela deserves another mate, then I’ll set them right.” He closed his eyes for a moment as if summoning the strength, and then his wings beat strongly, blurred, and launched them from the ground.
Harry gasped. It was the first time he’d really had the chance to concentrate on the details of their flight, instead of worrying about what would grab him from beneath the river water or whether all their opponents were dead. And it was odd, jolting, up-and-down motions while the silver wings dipped around him.
Draco’s fingers were clamped under his arms like iron bands. Harry cleared his throat and murmured, when Draco looked down at him, “I think next time, I’d like you to hold onto my ribs. This is uncomfortable.”
Draco blinked, nodded, and tossed him up and then dropped him. Harry’s heart and stomach dropped out of his body at the same time.
Harry was already reaching for his wand to cast a Cushioning Charm when Draco snatched him again, this time holding him along his ribs. Harry stared up at his face. “What the fuck was that?” He thought the experience deserved the word.
Draco smiled at him. “I don’t want my mate to be uncomfortable. That means that I have to take steps to correct his discomfort right away.”
Harry narrowed his eyes. He thought, he was almost sure… “You did that on purpose. Not because you had to.”
Draco’s smile turned into more of a grin. “You wanted me to be more human. Am I doing a good job so far?”
“Git,” Harry muttered, and rolled his eyes, but he could feel a grin tugging at his own lips as Draco spiraled up towards the city.
*
Draco felt his wings stiffen a little as he saw the first Veela arrowing towards them. But he made sure to keep his flapping smooth and strong. He wasn’t going to drop his mate, or give him discomfort that wasn’t a joke.
And he had no idea if these Veela would be automatically hostile or not.
The pair pulled up and circled over them for a second. They were both women, with long silver hair, white toga-like garments, and matched necklaces of amethysts around their necks. Draco had a moment to wonder if that marked them as mates before he felt it.
It was an odd sensation. Draco could half-see a shimmering silvery link stretching between the two women, and half-feel it, as if they held a gauzy cloth that was brushing against his face and arms. The women were mated. He knew that for a mating bond, even though he’d never sensed it before.
And they would be able to sense the same thing between him and Harry.
Only a moment after that thought, Draco lifted his head proudly. So what? He was proud of his bond to Harry. Harry had suggested yesterday that they might pretend to be an Auror and a messenger on a mission, at least at first, but Draco had stared him into silence.
Then Draco had pointed out the two Veela he’d already met would have told everyone about them anyway. But the truth was that he wasn’t going to hide Harry.
The two women circled only once. Then one of them turned and flew back to the city so fast that she didn’t even appear to Draco to flap her wings. The other one turned and dropped towards them.
Draco found his feathers crackling with flames. He opened his mouth and silently hissed. The Veela woman seemed to understand and pulled up far short of them, certainly far enough away that she couldn’t touch Harry. She gave them both short, separate bows.
“You are a transformed Veela, from another dimension,” she said, looking at Draco. Her eyes were huge and crystalline and seemed to take up most of her face. She looked at least a little different from the others Draco had seen, which made him wonder if there was more variety in born than transformed Veela, for some reason. “And you are the one who was going to guard him.”
“His mate now.”
Harry’s voice was soft and unruffled. Draco wanted to hug him. That would be a little undignified in mid-air, though, so he simply hovered, and after a moment, the Veela woman nodded and said, “Tell me your names so that I may announce them.”
“Draco Malfoy.”
“Harry Potter.”
The Veela woman looked at them hard, as if she recognized Harry’s name. But before Draco could ask if she did, she had turned and was stroking hard back to the city, just like her mate.
“Do you think that was a bad sign?” Harry muttered in his arms, his head tilting back so that his lips rested right below Draco’s chin.
Draco kissed him quickly and shook his head. “I have no idea. And I don’t know if it’s significant that she didn’t give her name or not.” Then he flew in her wake, and watched the towers of the shining, floating city come towards them with a shiver in the bottom of his stomach.
This is it. What are they going to tell us?
*
Everything was so bright.
There were things on the towers that reflected sunlight. Harry wasn’t sure if they were veins of metal or the marble itself or maybe mirrors that were buried so deep in the stone he couldn’t see their edges. Or maybe the flowers. But sunlight flashed back dazzlingly and constantly, until Harry had to shade his eyes just to escape the constant afterimages.
From under his hand, he could see better. The towers all seemed to be built around courtyards. If Harry looked down into them, he could see crescent-shaped plots of grass-or he assumed it was grass. It was silver, and blue, and white, and blue-green like the waters of the river they’d crossed, and basically any color but normal green. The flowers were enormous and bell-shaped and also any pale color, down to some extremely faint rose and golden shades that Harry had to admit were pretty, and made it look like the towers they grew on were bathed in sunset.
The ground, or platform, or whatever it was that the floating city stood on was apparently made of glass; at least, it was pretty hard to see against the sky. Harry could see trees twining like snakes up the towers behind the vines, glittering with silver needles. Now and then a huge butterfly-Harry saw ones with wingspans at least as large as both his cupped palms together-would take off and flap to another vine.
And the Veela coasted past them, and stared at them, and played in the gardens with wings clapping behind them, and petted butterflies and birds on their shoulders, and stood on balconies tilting mirrors and planks of marble at each other in some game Harry didn’t know.
The smell of flowers and probably other things was everywhere, as sweet as water after thirst, as thick as butter.
Harry shook his head sharply. They’d received briefings about this in the Auror Department: the dimension they were going to was dangerous, but the Veela enclaves themselves were actively hypnotic. Someone who was pure human could go to them and gape and lose themselves forever among the towers. He couldn’t let himself fall into that kind of trance.
They were both going to need all their wits about them.
Draco swooped past one of the towers and aimed straight at one that had a flat roof. Harry wondered for a second how he’d known where to go, and then saw the welcoming committee of several Veela staying there. Draco braked gently with his wings and landed in front of them, bowing his head a little.
Well, Harry thought as he stepped away from Draco and made sure that his hand was on his wand, at least I hope they’re a welcoming committee, instead of something else.
The two women who had looked at them outside the city were there, and so was a tall man with wings and hair and eyes all of pale blue. Harry thought his skin might be pale enough to have a sheen of it. He stared at them in silence. Draco was quiet, too. His hands remained hovering over Harry’s ribs. Harry knew he would snatch him up and be gone if one of the other Veela made a threatening gesture in any way.
“Perfect mates,” said the blue-eyed Veela at last. “Remarkable.”
One of the women who stood behind him, who had pale brown hair, leaned forwards and whispered something. The man nodded. “Very true. Will you be welcome to Asovima?” he went on in the same tone, so Harry wasn’t sure at first that he was actually talking to them. “My name is Caleigh. These are-”
The names came so quickly that Harry lost track of them. He did memorize that the silver-haired woman who had questioned them was Jenara and the brown-haired one was Talai. He stood with his wand in his hand all the while.
Draco bowed his head a little again, and said, “I am Draco, and I have come with a message for you-”
“Yes, but that can wait for tomorrow,” said Caleigh abruptly. “Testing your bond cannot.”
Draco’s head snapped up, and his hands formed into fists that Harry could feel pressing against his ribs. He took a step backwards, trying to warn Draco with a subtle shake of his head, but Draco snapped, “What do you mean?”
“You are perfect in fit,” said Caleigh. “That does not happen often. We wish to see why it happened now, especially since our scouts have told us that you were not a Veela originally and this happened to be the one human left of your escort. We wish to check for the presence of forbidden magic, to make sure that you did not delve into blood sacrifice to ensure this.”
Draco opened his mouth to scream, but Harry said simply, “Is the testing going to hurt us?”
Caleigh turned to him, and cocked his head. “It will involve separating you and an examination, that is all. You should be back together again by tomorrow morning. Unless we find traces of the magic, of course. But in that case, you will not want to be together again in any case. That kind of spell creates a delusion of fitness in the mate’s mind. Freed from that, you will no longer believe that your Draco is anything but abominable.”
Harry reached back and grasped Draco’s arms as he tried to close them around Harry and send them hurtling back into the sky. “How urgent is the message you brought?” he asked quietly over his shoulder.
Draco struggled for a moment, his wings chopping and curving back. Then he said, “Urgent. But-”
“Then we do this. We know exactly what our bond consists of,” Harry added, to forestall another loud shriek. “We know that we’re not guilty. Just go through with it, Draco.” He turned around and smiled. “And then we can prove to more people exactly how well-matched we are.”
Draco smoothed out the line of his mouth and closed his eyes. Harry waited. He would either agree or he wouldn’t.
Finally, Draco nodded. But he made sure to speak to Harry, and not to the other Veela, when he said, “Very well. I consent to the test.”
Chapter Eleven.
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