A Year's Temptation, Chapter 12--December (Part One)
Title: A Year's Temptation.
Summary: Draco isn't best pleased to discover he's a Veela at twenty-four...especially since both he and his mate, Harry Potter, are married. Harry suggests a compromise that might work, if everyone agrees. But the compromise is fragile, and stands the chance of only making everything monumentally worse than before.
Rating: NC-17/M+.
Warnings: Half-Blood Prince spoilers, het, slash, sex (both het and slash), language, violence, creature!fic (Veela), infidelity.
Pairings: Draco/Harry, Draco/Pansy, Harry/Ginny.
Status: Complete.
Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last chapter of A Year’s Temptation. There will be no sequel or epilogue, as all the plot I can think of for the Veela fic is contained in this story. However, I do plan to keep writing; my first priority is finishing up Building With Worn-Out Tools, but I’ll also be working on one-shots and shorter fics. No new WiP’s until after DH is out, probably.
Chapter Twelve-December
“Draco.”
“I can’t help it,” Draco murmured into the back of Harry’s neck. He gave a sharp lick, and even though it had come nowhere near the claiming mark, Harry felt his knees nearly give out. Only Draco’s arm, smartly curled around his waist, hauled him back to his feet in time. Harry shivered convulsively, and tilted his head to the side in spite of himself, so that Draco had more access. As the time of their bonding grew closer and closer, the simplest sensations were amplified, and Harry found he had less and less will to move out of the bed that they shared.
Today, though, he had to. He was meeting Ginny-and Ralph-for the final signing of the divorce papers that would leave him a legally free man. Besides, he’d already had sex with Draco a few hours ago when they both woke early, and then endured some foreplay in the shower and had to turn down Draco’s offer of a blowjob with more will than any wizard should be required to display. If he didn’t go soon, it would all be for nothing.
“I want to know something,” Draco told him. “Just one little secret, and I’ll let you go.”
“Yes,” Harry said breathily, and then wondered if he should be saying, “No,” instead. God, it was hard to think with Draco’s arms around his waist like this, even though the wall he pressed against, a cold tiled one in the Manor’s front hall, wasn’t the most comfortable place to relax. He coughed and tried to stand upright, pulling at Draco’s embrace as he did so. “What did you want to ask?”
“Why are you so afraid to let me take you?” Draco whispered, and turned him around at the same moment.
Harry froze, then snorted. “Take me? Draco, no one uses medieval language like that anymore.”
“It’s not medieval,” Draco snapped, stormclouds gathering in his gray eyes immediately, “it’s accurate.”
“You sound like a ponce.”
“I’m a Veela.” Draco had withdrawn in his anger, but now he shifted back, hands rising to clutch at Harry’s shoulders as if to demonstrate that a bit of a row couldn’t make him relinquish his mate. “And you’re mine. And you know that the first time, to consummate the bonding, I have to take you.”
“Could you please use some other word?” Harry turned his head to the side to nuzzle Draco’s knuckles, in hope of distracting him. He probably didn’t have to leave that soon to be on time for his meeting with Ginny and Ralph. He had an hour, after all, he was Apparating, and it couldn’t take that long to search out one particular room in the Ministry.
“You don’t want to hear what words I’ll start using in a moment if you aren’t honest with me,” Draco said darkly.
Harry sighed. “All right.” He still remained silent for a moment, though, while debating whether he could trust Draco.
Well, of course he could.
But he trusted Draco not to betray him and not to break his heart, and not to do things that Harry considered morally wrong after Harry had talked very, very sternly to him about it. He wasn’t sure he trusted Draco not to laugh at him.
On the other hand, Draco was getting the look now that he got when there would be blood flying about in a moment.
“All right,” he repeated. “It’s-well, part of it’s fear of the pain, Draco.”
Draco made a low, purring sound in his throat, and his wings materialized with startling speed and swept around Harry’s shoulders. Harry relaxed, inevitably, and was grateful for it. He waited until the sound of his own breath had slowed so that he was no longer in danger of hyperventilating.
“I’ll be soft and slow and gentle,” Draco whispered. “It might hurt a little, but you know I can make you feel good, Harry. Didn’t it feel good that evening in August when I used my fingers?”
“Yes,” Harry breathed. He was feeling light-headed, and if Draco had asked him to go to bed just then, he wouldn’t have resisted.
“What’s the rest of it?”
Like this, it was impossible to fear anything. Harry met his eyes in absolute trust and said, “I don’t know how it will make me react, since I’ve never done it before. I don’t know if I want you to see me that uninhibited.”
*
Draco draped Harry’s face with kisses, drawing him close until Harry’s face sank into his shoulder. Harry went along with it, managing to slip his arms around Draco’s waist and clutch him tightly, but nothing else. His breathing had deepened to just this side of sleep.
Of course Draco should have guessed it would be something like that. Harry had held back with the little Weasley, been careful and delicate around her in the bedroom, and he would have done the same thing with Draco, if he could, except that Draco had never given him a choice from March on. He was a private person. He’d said that once before, when he first hinted at the truth about his Muggle relatives. He disliked the idea of not being able to hide something if he chose to, or felt he needed to.
It wasn’t that Harry foresaw any particular need for privacy in their sex lives, Draco knew. But it might be there, and if he couldn’t have it…
“I promise not to laugh at you,” he whispered into Harry’s ear. “You can’t be undignified to me, no matter how loudly you scream or what you look like on your back. You’ll only look beautiful. I know that the way I knew you were my mate.” His hands and his wings stroked Harry, and he manipulated the large primary feathers nearest Harry’s neck to curl up and brush the hair on his nape. “Hush. I promise.”
“Thank you,” Harry whispered, and Draco knew another barrier was down between them.
He retracted his wings, curious, for a moment, if Harry would straighten in outrage and demand that Draco never do that again. But Harry only looked wry, though his cheeks immediately turned the shade of plums.
“I have to go,” he said, and kissed Draco, and ducked out the door of the Manor.
Draco let him go with a smile. He was convinced, now, that it wouldn’t be long before he could get Harry to agree to the bonding.
A good thing, too. He was about to go mad with longing. The desire to touch Harry had grown to the point that he found himself reaching out in the evenings and running one finger down Harry’s claiming mark or his leg before he became conscious of it. He had to owl him almost constantly throughout the day to assuage his fear of being left lonely and wanting. The mere thought of someone else near Harry, never mind touching him, made Dark hexes dance on his tongue.
Just a little longer. Just a bit more.
The Veela had blended with him and was no longer a separate creature, but that meant its feelings and traits were Draco’s own, including its knowledge. He knew the intense need to have his mate, to possess him, would calm down after the bonding.
But it did nothing to calm him now.
Draco went back to the law books he’d begun scouring. He still wanted to play Quidditch if he could. To that end, he’d been looking up what material he could find on the ban against any winged magical creature playing on a Quidditch team. He’d manage to change the law-purely for his own benefit, of course-see if he didn’t.
And when he thought about flying, it was a little harder to think about how Harry tasted.
Now if only he hadn’t thought about the word harder.
*
“Ginny.” Harry greeted her with a slow nod of his head. He was relieved that she no longer looked as devastated as she had three months ago, when she’d laid down her wedding ring on the table in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and walked out of his life.
He was also relieved that his broken relationship with her hadn’t disrupted his bonds with the rest of the Weasley family. He still visited Molly and Arthur-though Ginny disappeared every time he did-and he was still welcome at Fred and George’s shop in Diagon Alley and Bill and Fleur’s snug little house in Calais. Of course, if they could accept him back after he had been present at Ron’s death and done nothing to stop it, they could probably accept him after this.
The room they were meeting in, called, rather too neatly, the Separation Room, was a small one, with portraits of stern witches on the walls, but it had a large table in the center, so that the divorcing couple could sit well apart from each other. Ginny sat in a sea-green dress on the side furthest from the door, her head bowed and her long red hair hanging around her dark eyes as she watched him without expression. Ralph stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder, now and then shooting hostile looks at Harry, apparently because he thought Harry wouldn’t notice. He’d started dating Ginny last month, from what Molly had said, or at least appeared at her side as her constant comforter in need.
Harry sat down on the other side of the table. Since they’d both agreed to this divorce, and agreed as well, with a speed that he could tell the counselors found startling, on the fact that Ginny would get their little house and a small sum of money while Harry retained everything else, they waited only for the solicitor with the official papers to arrive.
Harry found himself watching his wife with an expression he knew was both wistful and fond. He wondered if the room had ever before seen a divorcing couple like them, as resigned as it was possible to be, their marriage torn apart by no force they could oppose.
Then he wondered if he was the only one who felt that way. Ginny might not.
He clasped his hands under his chin and studied her. She still looked beautiful. He could still look at her and remember moments they’d shared together late at night, in early mornings, at shops in Diagon Alley where Ginny was fond of making double-edged remarks in front of dimwitted clerks. They’d catch each other’s eye then, and Harry would struggle with all his might not to burst out laughing, which would surely have told the clerks something was up.
He could wish things had been different, but he couldn’t really regret the choice. Ginny was a good woman.
Just not the right person for him.
“I need to speak with you when this is over.”
Ralph’s tight voice took Harry by surprise. He glanced up at once, but his former partner showed no sign of joking. He simply stared at Harry with a mouth pinched so furiously small Harry thought sucking on a lemon would have improved it. He nodded, and looked back at Ginny. She had her head bowed as though studying her own reflection in the fine polished wood of the table.
The solicitor appeared in a few minutes, a tall witch with honey-blonde hair pinned back in extravagant curls which briefly reminded Harry of Rita Skeeter. She pushed the documents to the middle of the table, smiled at them both with a professional air, and then started separating the papers and explaining them.
“There’s a paper for both of you to sign saying that you agree with the terms that you have set-there’s another for you, Mr. Potter, giving you no claim on Mrs. Potter in the immediate future-and one for you, Mrs. Potter, no claim on him-and one stating that neither of you had a child in the marriage who must be provided for-and one stating that the cause of the divorce is exactly what you said it is-“
It was all remarkably simple, Harry thought, as he signed, pausing after each free-flowing shaping of his name to cross the two t’s in “Potter.” So clean, so soft, so light a procedure for something normally as bitter as divorce.
He had thought he would find it painful. But he didn’t. The thought of finally completing the bond with Draco was more frightening.
Maybe not so frightening now, but-
“Mr. Potter! Will you pay attention, please?”
Harry shook his head and concentrated on the forms; he’d nearly snatched one meant for Ginny. He glanced at her again, but this time she had the excuse of squinting at the parchment in front of her to avoid his eyes. He hoped she was happy. Maybe she could be with Ralph; maybe it would have to be with someone else. He wished she felt free to share her doubts, her emotions, and her concerns with him, but he understood why she wouldn’t. This divorce, resigned though it was, hadn’t been voluntary on her part.
Ralph had a muscle jumping in his jaw as he watched him. Harry raised his eyebrows at him and signed one last form, this one stating that he relinquished all property claims to the house they’d shared. He had no reason to keep them. He had the house at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and the other Black properties if he ever ran short of shelter.
Assuming that Draco would let him live in them at all. He had already insisted, several times, that Harry move into Malfoy Manor. So far Harry had put him off, because he liked to have a place where he could sit and think without the risk of Draco’s intrusion, but Draco had promised him an entire wing in the Manor if he’d like it. And now that his bodyguards gave up at the door of the Manor as well as at the door of the Ministry, Harry found it more and more tempting.
His body responded predictably to the thought of Draco. Harry forced away the burgeoning erection with immense focus, and handed the last parchments to the solicitor, who gathered them up with tidy, economical motions.
“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Potter, Miss Weasley,” she said, and she sounded sincere. Considering some of the cases she must see, Harry could understand why. “Please consider us in the future for all your divorce needs.” She gave a small bow and swept out of the room, her dark purple robes rustling behind her.
Ralph immediately bent over Ginny’s chair, and murmured something into her hair, or maybe her ear. Ginny lifted a hand and then let it fall back against the table, in a gesture so expressive of weariness that Harry wondered he’d never seen it before. Then she stood and followed the solicitor, never once looking at him.
Harry stood. Ralph advanced on him, and Harry hoped he didn’t intend to attack. Draco would come if he felt the call from the claiming mark, and he would probably hex Ralph before Harry could explain he wasn’t in any serious danger.
“You child,” Ralph said. His voice was soft, but shaking. “Do you realize how much of a wound you inflicted on her? She can barely stand to hear your name. She flees her parents’ house whenever you come over. What kind of man are you?”
“Someone who didn’t love her as much as you do,” Harry responded honestly. Ralph drew a bit back from him, eyes narrowed, as though hearing this kind of thing from Harry were a new experience. “She should have a chance with someone who can make her happy. I suspect you might be that man.”
“She wanted you,” said Ralph, trying not to look pleased at the compliment. “She should have what she wants, don’t you think?”
“You think that because you’re in love with her,” Harry said. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I think the same way about Draco.” Then he hesitated, and further honesty forced him to add, “Well, most of the time.”
“I’ve heard of parents staying together for the sake of the children.” Ralph’s fingers twined tightly around one another. “I’ve never heard of a husband who should have stayed with his wife for her sake, but this situation fits that.”
Harry sighed. “And I’m trying to tell you that it doesn’t,” he said. “Ginny made me a speech in June about how she didn’t deserve a husband who treated her like a sacrifice. And she’s right. She doesn’t. She’s reeling beneath the wound right now, but that doesn’t mean she will forever. In time, she’ll remember her strength.”
“It would be better if you could look a bit more torn up, you know.” Ralph hovered over him menacingly.
“But I’ m not,” said Harry. “Besides, if I went around brooding, that would distress Draco.”
“And his mental health matters ever so much more than Ginny’s, doesn’t it?”
“It does to me.” Harry met Ralph’s gaze evenly.
Ralph stepped back. He seemed stunned for a long, hoarse moment. Harry stood with his arms folded and checked the distance between himself and his former friend. He had to hope it would be enough not to bring Draco charging in.
“Have you always been gay?” Ralph asked at last.
“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I’ve been in love with two people, one of each gender. That’s so confusing I’ve decided it’s better not to worry about it.” He risked a grin. “Besides, the papers will have much more fun thinking up what to call me if I don’t give them any clues.”
Ralph shook his head. “And taking up with a Death Eater-someone you hated in school, Ginny said. Why?”
“Because it happened.”
“And Harry Potter is always so obedient to the rules.”
“Not that,” said Harry. “But reality and rules are different things.” He gave Ralph a curt nod and turned away. If he stayed here talking much longer, either Ralph would directly insult Draco or one of Draco’s owls would show up, and either would probably start a fight.
He walked out of the Ministry with Ralph calling after him. It was obvious Ralph wanted Harry to feel as miserable as Ginny did, and couldn’t understand why he didn’t.
They always did say that love is blind.
*
Harry blushed violently and hid Draco’s latest letter from Melinda’s sight. He wasn’t sure she was old enough to read the words he’d written, even if she was twenty. He wasn’t sure he was old enough to read them.
The bundle of flowers a second owl had brought now stood in a vase of water on the edge of the desk. Harry couldn’t make out what kind they were. They resembled roses in shape, but their color varied dramatically every few seconds, from deep red to green tinged with silver to violet and back to red again. Some magical breed, obviously.
Yesterday, Draco had somehow convinced a troop of fairies to follow Harry around all day, whispering obscene suggestions into his ears as he passed. To everyone else, it merely sounded like buzzing, but they took great interest in Harry’s blushes anyway-especially Melinda, who seemed to have decided it was her duty to tease him since Ralph had departed.
The day before that, Draco had cast a spell before he left the Manor that made Harry feel a warm hand sliding up the inside of his thigh at inconvenient intervals.
It was all driving him quite, quite mad. And that Harry knew these things were happening because Draco, himself, was a Veela going mad with the need to properly claim his mate didn’t really make it much better.
Harry let loose a sudden, explosive breath, shoved his report away, and reached for a new piece of parchment. He had to do something about this, and since what he could do was limited, he might as well do it right now.
He wrote a short letter to Draco, then stood and went to find an owl.
When he came back, he found Melinda regarding him curiously. “What did that say?” she demanded.
“Let’s talk about something other than my love life for once, why don’t we?” Harry suggested sweetly. “For example, what would you do if you were confronting two Dark wizards and one of them had just cast the Cutting Curse at you?”
“Uh.” Melinda blinked at the sudden change of subject and gnawed her lip for a moment before doing her best to retaliate. “Is the second Dark wizard in front of me or behind me?”
“One in front, one behind.”
“I suppose I’d rely on my partner to take care of the second one, then, since he’s just standing there uselessly, while I dodged or blocked the Cutting Curse.” Melinda gave him a challenging look.
Harry grinned. Melinda should work out just fine.
He would, of course, make it a point to harass her and shepherd her around overprotectively the first time she went into the field on a test raid. It was tradition.
*
Draco chuckled at Harry’s letter. It demanded that he divorce Pansy, since Harry didn’t fancy bonding with someone who still had a legal spouse. The whole tone of the letter was triumphant, as though Harry had just come up with some insurmountable reason outside himself why the bonding couldn’t take place. Draco could practically imagine the expression on his mate’s face when he’d finished writing it; he would have sat back with his eyes gleaming, and though he wouldn’t have rubbed his hands together, he would have wanted to.
Filled with affection, it didn’t take long for him to owl his solicitor and ask for the divorce papers he’d already prepared. He’d held off on divorcing Pansy only because he wanted her mentally competent to make the decision and conscious enough of what his Veela allure had done to her to actually agree. According to the private Healer he’d hired, though, distance from him had done wonders for her. She still went a little misty-eyed at the sound of his name, and they couldn’t meet again without his presence doing her great harm, but she could at least hate him in the abstract now. Draco was fairly sure she’d sign the divorce papers.
And then perhaps he and Harry could do something about the bonding.
Draco didn’t want his mate to feel pressured to, well, mate because of the Veela’s instincts. But the fact remained that he was the Veela now, and that the pressure was affecting Harry just as strongly. The moans he made even when he was asleep caused Draco to be sure of that.
Abruptly, he straightened and glanced around the room thoughtfully. He was currently in the library, filled with the Dark Arts books his father had collected over the years and the straight and angular lines of old furniture that Harry had often curled his lip at and never sat in. His reaction to most of the rest of the Manor was the same, Draco knew. He liked their bedroom, but all they ever really did there was have sex and sleep.
Perhaps Harry would feel more comfortable in different surroundings.
Draco smiled narrowly and stood to search for a book that detailed house-decorating glamours. He could just tell the house-elves what he wanted and they would be happy to change the appearance of the Manor, of course, but it felt-important-that he be the one to do it. Perhaps that was the Veela instinct, again, with the idea of presenting a suitable home to its mate.
Draco couldn’t rebuild the Manor from scratch. But he could make Harry think he had.
*
“Draco?”
Harry had expected some response to his letter about Pansy before he came home that night, but there had been nothing. In fact, there had been no more teasing owls, either, or small gifts, as though Draco had suddenly grown bored of the whole game.
Perhaps he had taken the letter about Pansy more seriously than Harry had thought he would. Harry frowned. He had wanted to make Draco think, the way he always did when they were in the middle of an argument, but that was something very different from putting him off.
And now the Manor was silent and dark from the outside, though the wards still recognized him and the front door still swung open, unlocked to his touch, when he tried the knob. Had Draco had to go somewhere else to see about divorcing Pansy? Of course, he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near her, but-
And then the door opened completely, and Harry stopped with his mouth hanging slightly open.
Subtle glamours, better than any he’d seen one of the Aurors or even their Dark wizard opponents manage, crowded the entrance hall. Harry knew they had to be glamours because it seemed so much changed from this morning. And yet, there were few changes he could point to. The shadows seemed shorter and softer, the lines of the walls and windows more curved, the floor to whisper like silk rather than with a disapproving hiss as he strode across it. Harry squinted, trying to make out the magic, and couldn’t.
He looked into the study that opened off the entrance hall to the right, and found it changed the same way. It had been a bleak, cold room before, with green walls that made it resemble an icy cave. Now Harry could see the color the way the painter had probably intended it, with the warm blue tinge of a Mediterranean sea. There was a fire on the hearth, further projecting mystery and welcome into the corners, but no one he could see in the room.
“Draco?” Harry called out, his voice softer than before. He was not sure if he wanted to see his lover just now, or stand in solitude a few moments longer to enjoy the new effect.
“Right here, Harry.”
Harry turned, banging his shoulder against the doorframe with the speed of it. Draco arched an eyebrow, as much to say that he found Harry’s reaction interesting, and came a few steps closer. He wore cream-colored robes that Harry couldn’t remember seeing before, and his wings spread lazily from his shoulders, now and then wavering in and out of existence as if Draco couldn’t decide whether he wanted them.
“Why?” Harry asked, with a gesture meant to encompass the glamours.
“I thought the Manor might make you uncomfortable,” Draco murmured, stopping in front of him and tracing a finger down his cheek. “You do leave here quickly in the mornings. And you’re never comfortable in any room but one with a bed.”
“I,” Harry said, and then stopped and considered that. He was about to say it wasn’t true, but it did come close. He’d always felt more tense around Draco in the Manor than in his own house, where he didn’t have to worry that he was about to ruin something priceless and hundreds of years old at any moment.
And even if Draco had misinterpreted his behavior around the furniture as the cause of his reluctance to complete the bonding, the fact that he’d noticed, thought of what might make Harry more at ease, and then done it…
It meant-more, somehow, than if Ginny had done it, as she had plenty of times. More, because Ginny had simply chosen to be with him, while Draco had chosen to against other pressures. And more, because Ginny was naturally a giving person, and Draco had had to learn how to be.
A warm bloom of feeling in Harry’s chest seemed to blind him for a moment, and then he moved forwards, looped his arms around Draco’s shoulders, and kissed him deeply. “I love you,” he murmured against his lips.
Draco kissed him back, and then moved away. Harry, who had reached to remove Draco’s robes, frowned at him, not understanding, particularly when Draco took a series of parchments from his pocket and dangled them in front of Harry with a smug expression.
“Divorce papers,” he prompted.
Harry felt a deep shiver move up his spine. “Pansy signed?” he asked, and his own voice sounded quiet and hushed and far away.
“She did. She can think rationally about what I did to her now-well, sometimes-and she signed them in a moment of lucidity.” Draco waved his wand, and the papers floated away from his hand to hang in the air between him and Harry.
“Is this going to be enough?” Draco’s face was direct, questioning.
Harry stood there in silence for long moments. Well, perhaps it was silence to Draco, but his own ears were filled with the sounds of his hurrying heartbeat.
Holding Draco’s eyes, he reached up and began to unbutton his robes.
Draco let out a soft hiss of relief, and then crossed the space between them so fast Harry couldn’t blink before he was pressed up against him, kissing the side of his neck and taking over the buttons. “If you don’t want this,” Draco whispered into his ear, causing warm, moist puffs of sensation that made Harry want to tilt his head to the side and whimper helplessly, “then tell me. I won’t force you, however much I want this.”
“I’m sure,” Harry whispered back.
He still felt as if he had fallen off a cliff and were depending on Draco to catch him, but-well, he could depend on him to do that. He might be vulnerable, but Draco wouldn’t hurt him. He might be trusting insanely, but Draco was worthy of that insane trust.
Harry closed his eyes and let himself relax.
Summary: Draco isn't best pleased to discover he's a Veela at twenty-four...especially since both he and his mate, Harry Potter, are married. Harry suggests a compromise that might work, if everyone agrees. But the compromise is fragile, and stands the chance of only making everything monumentally worse than before.
Rating: NC-17/M+.
Warnings: Half-Blood Prince spoilers, het, slash, sex (both het and slash), language, violence, creature!fic (Veela), infidelity.
Pairings: Draco/Harry, Draco/Pansy, Harry/Ginny.
Status: Complete.
Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last chapter of A Year’s Temptation. There will be no sequel or epilogue, as all the plot I can think of for the Veela fic is contained in this story. However, I do plan to keep writing; my first priority is finishing up Building With Worn-Out Tools, but I’ll also be working on one-shots and shorter fics. No new WiP’s until after DH is out, probably.
Chapter Twelve-December
“Draco.”
“I can’t help it,” Draco murmured into the back of Harry’s neck. He gave a sharp lick, and even though it had come nowhere near the claiming mark, Harry felt his knees nearly give out. Only Draco’s arm, smartly curled around his waist, hauled him back to his feet in time. Harry shivered convulsively, and tilted his head to the side in spite of himself, so that Draco had more access. As the time of their bonding grew closer and closer, the simplest sensations were amplified, and Harry found he had less and less will to move out of the bed that they shared.
Today, though, he had to. He was meeting Ginny-and Ralph-for the final signing of the divorce papers that would leave him a legally free man. Besides, he’d already had sex with Draco a few hours ago when they both woke early, and then endured some foreplay in the shower and had to turn down Draco’s offer of a blowjob with more will than any wizard should be required to display. If he didn’t go soon, it would all be for nothing.
“I want to know something,” Draco told him. “Just one little secret, and I’ll let you go.”
“Yes,” Harry said breathily, and then wondered if he should be saying, “No,” instead. God, it was hard to think with Draco’s arms around his waist like this, even though the wall he pressed against, a cold tiled one in the Manor’s front hall, wasn’t the most comfortable place to relax. He coughed and tried to stand upright, pulling at Draco’s embrace as he did so. “What did you want to ask?”
“Why are you so afraid to let me take you?” Draco whispered, and turned him around at the same moment.
Harry froze, then snorted. “Take me? Draco, no one uses medieval language like that anymore.”
“It’s not medieval,” Draco snapped, stormclouds gathering in his gray eyes immediately, “it’s accurate.”
“You sound like a ponce.”
“I’m a Veela.” Draco had withdrawn in his anger, but now he shifted back, hands rising to clutch at Harry’s shoulders as if to demonstrate that a bit of a row couldn’t make him relinquish his mate. “And you’re mine. And you know that the first time, to consummate the bonding, I have to take you.”
“Could you please use some other word?” Harry turned his head to the side to nuzzle Draco’s knuckles, in hope of distracting him. He probably didn’t have to leave that soon to be on time for his meeting with Ginny and Ralph. He had an hour, after all, he was Apparating, and it couldn’t take that long to search out one particular room in the Ministry.
“You don’t want to hear what words I’ll start using in a moment if you aren’t honest with me,” Draco said darkly.
Harry sighed. “All right.” He still remained silent for a moment, though, while debating whether he could trust Draco.
Well, of course he could.
But he trusted Draco not to betray him and not to break his heart, and not to do things that Harry considered morally wrong after Harry had talked very, very sternly to him about it. He wasn’t sure he trusted Draco not to laugh at him.
On the other hand, Draco was getting the look now that he got when there would be blood flying about in a moment.
“All right,” he repeated. “It’s-well, part of it’s fear of the pain, Draco.”
Draco made a low, purring sound in his throat, and his wings materialized with startling speed and swept around Harry’s shoulders. Harry relaxed, inevitably, and was grateful for it. He waited until the sound of his own breath had slowed so that he was no longer in danger of hyperventilating.
“I’ll be soft and slow and gentle,” Draco whispered. “It might hurt a little, but you know I can make you feel good, Harry. Didn’t it feel good that evening in August when I used my fingers?”
“Yes,” Harry breathed. He was feeling light-headed, and if Draco had asked him to go to bed just then, he wouldn’t have resisted.
“What’s the rest of it?”
Like this, it was impossible to fear anything. Harry met his eyes in absolute trust and said, “I don’t know how it will make me react, since I’ve never done it before. I don’t know if I want you to see me that uninhibited.”
*
Draco draped Harry’s face with kisses, drawing him close until Harry’s face sank into his shoulder. Harry went along with it, managing to slip his arms around Draco’s waist and clutch him tightly, but nothing else. His breathing had deepened to just this side of sleep.
Of course Draco should have guessed it would be something like that. Harry had held back with the little Weasley, been careful and delicate around her in the bedroom, and he would have done the same thing with Draco, if he could, except that Draco had never given him a choice from March on. He was a private person. He’d said that once before, when he first hinted at the truth about his Muggle relatives. He disliked the idea of not being able to hide something if he chose to, or felt he needed to.
It wasn’t that Harry foresaw any particular need for privacy in their sex lives, Draco knew. But it might be there, and if he couldn’t have it…
“I promise not to laugh at you,” he whispered into Harry’s ear. “You can’t be undignified to me, no matter how loudly you scream or what you look like on your back. You’ll only look beautiful. I know that the way I knew you were my mate.” His hands and his wings stroked Harry, and he manipulated the large primary feathers nearest Harry’s neck to curl up and brush the hair on his nape. “Hush. I promise.”
“Thank you,” Harry whispered, and Draco knew another barrier was down between them.
He retracted his wings, curious, for a moment, if Harry would straighten in outrage and demand that Draco never do that again. But Harry only looked wry, though his cheeks immediately turned the shade of plums.
“I have to go,” he said, and kissed Draco, and ducked out the door of the Manor.
Draco let him go with a smile. He was convinced, now, that it wouldn’t be long before he could get Harry to agree to the bonding.
A good thing, too. He was about to go mad with longing. The desire to touch Harry had grown to the point that he found himself reaching out in the evenings and running one finger down Harry’s claiming mark or his leg before he became conscious of it. He had to owl him almost constantly throughout the day to assuage his fear of being left lonely and wanting. The mere thought of someone else near Harry, never mind touching him, made Dark hexes dance on his tongue.
Just a little longer. Just a bit more.
The Veela had blended with him and was no longer a separate creature, but that meant its feelings and traits were Draco’s own, including its knowledge. He knew the intense need to have his mate, to possess him, would calm down after the bonding.
But it did nothing to calm him now.
Draco went back to the law books he’d begun scouring. He still wanted to play Quidditch if he could. To that end, he’d been looking up what material he could find on the ban against any winged magical creature playing on a Quidditch team. He’d manage to change the law-purely for his own benefit, of course-see if he didn’t.
And when he thought about flying, it was a little harder to think about how Harry tasted.
Now if only he hadn’t thought about the word harder.
*
“Ginny.” Harry greeted her with a slow nod of his head. He was relieved that she no longer looked as devastated as she had three months ago, when she’d laid down her wedding ring on the table in Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and walked out of his life.
He was also relieved that his broken relationship with her hadn’t disrupted his bonds with the rest of the Weasley family. He still visited Molly and Arthur-though Ginny disappeared every time he did-and he was still welcome at Fred and George’s shop in Diagon Alley and Bill and Fleur’s snug little house in Calais. Of course, if they could accept him back after he had been present at Ron’s death and done nothing to stop it, they could probably accept him after this.
The room they were meeting in, called, rather too neatly, the Separation Room, was a small one, with portraits of stern witches on the walls, but it had a large table in the center, so that the divorcing couple could sit well apart from each other. Ginny sat in a sea-green dress on the side furthest from the door, her head bowed and her long red hair hanging around her dark eyes as she watched him without expression. Ralph stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder, now and then shooting hostile looks at Harry, apparently because he thought Harry wouldn’t notice. He’d started dating Ginny last month, from what Molly had said, or at least appeared at her side as her constant comforter in need.
Harry sat down on the other side of the table. Since they’d both agreed to this divorce, and agreed as well, with a speed that he could tell the counselors found startling, on the fact that Ginny would get their little house and a small sum of money while Harry retained everything else, they waited only for the solicitor with the official papers to arrive.
Harry found himself watching his wife with an expression he knew was both wistful and fond. He wondered if the room had ever before seen a divorcing couple like them, as resigned as it was possible to be, their marriage torn apart by no force they could oppose.
Then he wondered if he was the only one who felt that way. Ginny might not.
He clasped his hands under his chin and studied her. She still looked beautiful. He could still look at her and remember moments they’d shared together late at night, in early mornings, at shops in Diagon Alley where Ginny was fond of making double-edged remarks in front of dimwitted clerks. They’d catch each other’s eye then, and Harry would struggle with all his might not to burst out laughing, which would surely have told the clerks something was up.
He could wish things had been different, but he couldn’t really regret the choice. Ginny was a good woman.
Just not the right person for him.
“I need to speak with you when this is over.”
Ralph’s tight voice took Harry by surprise. He glanced up at once, but his former partner showed no sign of joking. He simply stared at Harry with a mouth pinched so furiously small Harry thought sucking on a lemon would have improved it. He nodded, and looked back at Ginny. She had her head bowed as though studying her own reflection in the fine polished wood of the table.
The solicitor appeared in a few minutes, a tall witch with honey-blonde hair pinned back in extravagant curls which briefly reminded Harry of Rita Skeeter. She pushed the documents to the middle of the table, smiled at them both with a professional air, and then started separating the papers and explaining them.
“There’s a paper for both of you to sign saying that you agree with the terms that you have set-there’s another for you, Mr. Potter, giving you no claim on Mrs. Potter in the immediate future-and one for you, Mrs. Potter, no claim on him-and one stating that neither of you had a child in the marriage who must be provided for-and one stating that the cause of the divorce is exactly what you said it is-“
It was all remarkably simple, Harry thought, as he signed, pausing after each free-flowing shaping of his name to cross the two t’s in “Potter.” So clean, so soft, so light a procedure for something normally as bitter as divorce.
He had thought he would find it painful. But he didn’t. The thought of finally completing the bond with Draco was more frightening.
Maybe not so frightening now, but-
“Mr. Potter! Will you pay attention, please?”
Harry shook his head and concentrated on the forms; he’d nearly snatched one meant for Ginny. He glanced at her again, but this time she had the excuse of squinting at the parchment in front of her to avoid his eyes. He hoped she was happy. Maybe she could be with Ralph; maybe it would have to be with someone else. He wished she felt free to share her doubts, her emotions, and her concerns with him, but he understood why she wouldn’t. This divorce, resigned though it was, hadn’t been voluntary on her part.
Ralph had a muscle jumping in his jaw as he watched him. Harry raised his eyebrows at him and signed one last form, this one stating that he relinquished all property claims to the house they’d shared. He had no reason to keep them. He had the house at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place and the other Black properties if he ever ran short of shelter.
Assuming that Draco would let him live in them at all. He had already insisted, several times, that Harry move into Malfoy Manor. So far Harry had put him off, because he liked to have a place where he could sit and think without the risk of Draco’s intrusion, but Draco had promised him an entire wing in the Manor if he’d like it. And now that his bodyguards gave up at the door of the Manor as well as at the door of the Ministry, Harry found it more and more tempting.
His body responded predictably to the thought of Draco. Harry forced away the burgeoning erection with immense focus, and handed the last parchments to the solicitor, who gathered them up with tidy, economical motions.
“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Potter, Miss Weasley,” she said, and she sounded sincere. Considering some of the cases she must see, Harry could understand why. “Please consider us in the future for all your divorce needs.” She gave a small bow and swept out of the room, her dark purple robes rustling behind her.
Ralph immediately bent over Ginny’s chair, and murmured something into her hair, or maybe her ear. Ginny lifted a hand and then let it fall back against the table, in a gesture so expressive of weariness that Harry wondered he’d never seen it before. Then she stood and followed the solicitor, never once looking at him.
Harry stood. Ralph advanced on him, and Harry hoped he didn’t intend to attack. Draco would come if he felt the call from the claiming mark, and he would probably hex Ralph before Harry could explain he wasn’t in any serious danger.
“You child,” Ralph said. His voice was soft, but shaking. “Do you realize how much of a wound you inflicted on her? She can barely stand to hear your name. She flees her parents’ house whenever you come over. What kind of man are you?”
“Someone who didn’t love her as much as you do,” Harry responded honestly. Ralph drew a bit back from him, eyes narrowed, as though hearing this kind of thing from Harry were a new experience. “She should have a chance with someone who can make her happy. I suspect you might be that man.”
“She wanted you,” said Ralph, trying not to look pleased at the compliment. “She should have what she wants, don’t you think?”
“You think that because you’re in love with her,” Harry said. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I think the same way about Draco.” Then he hesitated, and further honesty forced him to add, “Well, most of the time.”
“I’ve heard of parents staying together for the sake of the children.” Ralph’s fingers twined tightly around one another. “I’ve never heard of a husband who should have stayed with his wife for her sake, but this situation fits that.”
Harry sighed. “And I’m trying to tell you that it doesn’t,” he said. “Ginny made me a speech in June about how she didn’t deserve a husband who treated her like a sacrifice. And she’s right. She doesn’t. She’s reeling beneath the wound right now, but that doesn’t mean she will forever. In time, she’ll remember her strength.”
“It would be better if you could look a bit more torn up, you know.” Ralph hovered over him menacingly.
“But I’ m not,” said Harry. “Besides, if I went around brooding, that would distress Draco.”
“And his mental health matters ever so much more than Ginny’s, doesn’t it?”
“It does to me.” Harry met Ralph’s gaze evenly.
Ralph stepped back. He seemed stunned for a long, hoarse moment. Harry stood with his arms folded and checked the distance between himself and his former friend. He had to hope it would be enough not to bring Draco charging in.
“Have you always been gay?” Ralph asked at last.
“I don’t know,” Harry said. “I’ve been in love with two people, one of each gender. That’s so confusing I’ve decided it’s better not to worry about it.” He risked a grin. “Besides, the papers will have much more fun thinking up what to call me if I don’t give them any clues.”
Ralph shook his head. “And taking up with a Death Eater-someone you hated in school, Ginny said. Why?”
“Because it happened.”
“And Harry Potter is always so obedient to the rules.”
“Not that,” said Harry. “But reality and rules are different things.” He gave Ralph a curt nod and turned away. If he stayed here talking much longer, either Ralph would directly insult Draco or one of Draco’s owls would show up, and either would probably start a fight.
He walked out of the Ministry with Ralph calling after him. It was obvious Ralph wanted Harry to feel as miserable as Ginny did, and couldn’t understand why he didn’t.
They always did say that love is blind.
*
Harry blushed violently and hid Draco’s latest letter from Melinda’s sight. He wasn’t sure she was old enough to read the words he’d written, even if she was twenty. He wasn’t sure he was old enough to read them.
The bundle of flowers a second owl had brought now stood in a vase of water on the edge of the desk. Harry couldn’t make out what kind they were. They resembled roses in shape, but their color varied dramatically every few seconds, from deep red to green tinged with silver to violet and back to red again. Some magical breed, obviously.
Yesterday, Draco had somehow convinced a troop of fairies to follow Harry around all day, whispering obscene suggestions into his ears as he passed. To everyone else, it merely sounded like buzzing, but they took great interest in Harry’s blushes anyway-especially Melinda, who seemed to have decided it was her duty to tease him since Ralph had departed.
The day before that, Draco had cast a spell before he left the Manor that made Harry feel a warm hand sliding up the inside of his thigh at inconvenient intervals.
It was all driving him quite, quite mad. And that Harry knew these things were happening because Draco, himself, was a Veela going mad with the need to properly claim his mate didn’t really make it much better.
Harry let loose a sudden, explosive breath, shoved his report away, and reached for a new piece of parchment. He had to do something about this, and since what he could do was limited, he might as well do it right now.
He wrote a short letter to Draco, then stood and went to find an owl.
When he came back, he found Melinda regarding him curiously. “What did that say?” she demanded.
“Let’s talk about something other than my love life for once, why don’t we?” Harry suggested sweetly. “For example, what would you do if you were confronting two Dark wizards and one of them had just cast the Cutting Curse at you?”
“Uh.” Melinda blinked at the sudden change of subject and gnawed her lip for a moment before doing her best to retaliate. “Is the second Dark wizard in front of me or behind me?”
“One in front, one behind.”
“I suppose I’d rely on my partner to take care of the second one, then, since he’s just standing there uselessly, while I dodged or blocked the Cutting Curse.” Melinda gave him a challenging look.
Harry grinned. Melinda should work out just fine.
He would, of course, make it a point to harass her and shepherd her around overprotectively the first time she went into the field on a test raid. It was tradition.
*
Draco chuckled at Harry’s letter. It demanded that he divorce Pansy, since Harry didn’t fancy bonding with someone who still had a legal spouse. The whole tone of the letter was triumphant, as though Harry had just come up with some insurmountable reason outside himself why the bonding couldn’t take place. Draco could practically imagine the expression on his mate’s face when he’d finished writing it; he would have sat back with his eyes gleaming, and though he wouldn’t have rubbed his hands together, he would have wanted to.
Filled with affection, it didn’t take long for him to owl his solicitor and ask for the divorce papers he’d already prepared. He’d held off on divorcing Pansy only because he wanted her mentally competent to make the decision and conscious enough of what his Veela allure had done to her to actually agree. According to the private Healer he’d hired, though, distance from him had done wonders for her. She still went a little misty-eyed at the sound of his name, and they couldn’t meet again without his presence doing her great harm, but she could at least hate him in the abstract now. Draco was fairly sure she’d sign the divorce papers.
And then perhaps he and Harry could do something about the bonding.
Draco didn’t want his mate to feel pressured to, well, mate because of the Veela’s instincts. But the fact remained that he was the Veela now, and that the pressure was affecting Harry just as strongly. The moans he made even when he was asleep caused Draco to be sure of that.
Abruptly, he straightened and glanced around the room thoughtfully. He was currently in the library, filled with the Dark Arts books his father had collected over the years and the straight and angular lines of old furniture that Harry had often curled his lip at and never sat in. His reaction to most of the rest of the Manor was the same, Draco knew. He liked their bedroom, but all they ever really did there was have sex and sleep.
Perhaps Harry would feel more comfortable in different surroundings.
Draco smiled narrowly and stood to search for a book that detailed house-decorating glamours. He could just tell the house-elves what he wanted and they would be happy to change the appearance of the Manor, of course, but it felt-important-that he be the one to do it. Perhaps that was the Veela instinct, again, with the idea of presenting a suitable home to its mate.
Draco couldn’t rebuild the Manor from scratch. But he could make Harry think he had.
*
“Draco?”
Harry had expected some response to his letter about Pansy before he came home that night, but there had been nothing. In fact, there had been no more teasing owls, either, or small gifts, as though Draco had suddenly grown bored of the whole game.
Perhaps he had taken the letter about Pansy more seriously than Harry had thought he would. Harry frowned. He had wanted to make Draco think, the way he always did when they were in the middle of an argument, but that was something very different from putting him off.
And now the Manor was silent and dark from the outside, though the wards still recognized him and the front door still swung open, unlocked to his touch, when he tried the knob. Had Draco had to go somewhere else to see about divorcing Pansy? Of course, he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near her, but-
And then the door opened completely, and Harry stopped with his mouth hanging slightly open.
Subtle glamours, better than any he’d seen one of the Aurors or even their Dark wizard opponents manage, crowded the entrance hall. Harry knew they had to be glamours because it seemed so much changed from this morning. And yet, there were few changes he could point to. The shadows seemed shorter and softer, the lines of the walls and windows more curved, the floor to whisper like silk rather than with a disapproving hiss as he strode across it. Harry squinted, trying to make out the magic, and couldn’t.
He looked into the study that opened off the entrance hall to the right, and found it changed the same way. It had been a bleak, cold room before, with green walls that made it resemble an icy cave. Now Harry could see the color the way the painter had probably intended it, with the warm blue tinge of a Mediterranean sea. There was a fire on the hearth, further projecting mystery and welcome into the corners, but no one he could see in the room.
“Draco?” Harry called out, his voice softer than before. He was not sure if he wanted to see his lover just now, or stand in solitude a few moments longer to enjoy the new effect.
“Right here, Harry.”
Harry turned, banging his shoulder against the doorframe with the speed of it. Draco arched an eyebrow, as much to say that he found Harry’s reaction interesting, and came a few steps closer. He wore cream-colored robes that Harry couldn’t remember seeing before, and his wings spread lazily from his shoulders, now and then wavering in and out of existence as if Draco couldn’t decide whether he wanted them.
“Why?” Harry asked, with a gesture meant to encompass the glamours.
“I thought the Manor might make you uncomfortable,” Draco murmured, stopping in front of him and tracing a finger down his cheek. “You do leave here quickly in the mornings. And you’re never comfortable in any room but one with a bed.”
“I,” Harry said, and then stopped and considered that. He was about to say it wasn’t true, but it did come close. He’d always felt more tense around Draco in the Manor than in his own house, where he didn’t have to worry that he was about to ruin something priceless and hundreds of years old at any moment.
And even if Draco had misinterpreted his behavior around the furniture as the cause of his reluctance to complete the bonding, the fact that he’d noticed, thought of what might make Harry more at ease, and then done it…
It meant-more, somehow, than if Ginny had done it, as she had plenty of times. More, because Ginny had simply chosen to be with him, while Draco had chosen to against other pressures. And more, because Ginny was naturally a giving person, and Draco had had to learn how to be.
A warm bloom of feeling in Harry’s chest seemed to blind him for a moment, and then he moved forwards, looped his arms around Draco’s shoulders, and kissed him deeply. “I love you,” he murmured against his lips.
Draco kissed him back, and then moved away. Harry, who had reached to remove Draco’s robes, frowned at him, not understanding, particularly when Draco took a series of parchments from his pocket and dangled them in front of Harry with a smug expression.
“Divorce papers,” he prompted.
Harry felt a deep shiver move up his spine. “Pansy signed?” he asked, and his own voice sounded quiet and hushed and far away.
“She did. She can think rationally about what I did to her now-well, sometimes-and she signed them in a moment of lucidity.” Draco waved his wand, and the papers floated away from his hand to hang in the air between him and Harry.
“Is this going to be enough?” Draco’s face was direct, questioning.
Harry stood there in silence for long moments. Well, perhaps it was silence to Draco, but his own ears were filled with the sounds of his hurrying heartbeat.
Holding Draco’s eyes, he reached up and began to unbutton his robes.
Draco let out a soft hiss of relief, and then crossed the space between them so fast Harry couldn’t blink before he was pressed up against him, kissing the side of his neck and taking over the buttons. “If you don’t want this,” Draco whispered into his ear, causing warm, moist puffs of sensation that made Harry want to tilt his head to the side and whimper helplessly, “then tell me. I won’t force you, however much I want this.”
“I’m sure,” Harry whispered back.
He still felt as if he had fallen off a cliff and were depending on Draco to catch him, but-well, he could depend on him to do that. He might be vulnerable, but Draco wouldn’t hurt him. He might be trusting insanely, but Draco was worthy of that insane trust.
Harry closed his eyes and let himself relax.