Fic: Promised - Chapter 96
Title: Promised
Author: neddiheht (Ashavan Doyon)
Artist: ritalaura2000
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: All ATWT characters the property of P&G/Telenext. Harry Potter and the characters associated with that universe belong to J. K. Rowling, Warner Brothers, and Scholastic. No copyright infringement intended. No profit made from this fiction.
Characters/Pairings: Noah/Draco, Luke/Neville, Luke/Noah, Draco/Harry. Some mention of other fun pairings not involving Luke, Noah, Draco or Harry.
Word Count: 205,207
Warnings alternate universe, graphic sex, arranged marriages, mpreg, some mention of non-consensual sex. This is a Nuke fic set largely in the Harry Potter verse and combined with a Drarry pairing.
Summary: Luciano Grimaldi was a perfectly happy young wizard. His family carefully neutral during the war, he has found happiness in the years since Voldemort's fall with herbologist, hero, and friend of the Savior, Neville Longbottom. Only he's just been informed that in the tradition of ancient pure blood families, he was promised at birth, in an offering to keep his family safe, to the son of infamous American Death Eater Winston Mayer.
Noah Mayer is a very unhappy wizard. In love for years with fellow Death Eater Draco Malfoy, the two young men have secretly found solace and love in each others arms, dreading the day they knew would come. They are promised, in the traditions of the oldest families. Promised to young wizards who didn't know. Married, for all intents and purposes, almost at birth to strangers who will doubtless hate them. Now they must surrender to duty and obligation. Now they must turn their backs on a love they know and risk everything for what might be. Noah always knew he hated pure blood traditions. This was why.
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Chapter 96
Luke stood for a few moments at the door of the restaurant, watching the flashing lights of the wizarding cameras go off. He felt the sickening pain he knew he'd feel. He'd loved both men, and seeing them wrapped in each other's arms, even if he had been the one to engineer it...
Luke closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and made his way back to the back room where his friends were waiting, where his heart could be mended with just a look and a touch from the person to whom he'd given his soul freely. Noah was his, yes. Claimed and owned. The love it took for Noah to do that, to surrender to him so completely still awed him with every moment they had together.
He opened the door and closed it silently behind him, walking around the table as the expectant eyes of the group settled on him. He ignored them for the moment, walking smoothly to Noah and sinking to his knees to hold him tight and slide a finger just enough beneath the collar of his shirt to feel the truth of the claim he had staked on the flesh of his love.
"Thine," whispered Noah, kissing his forehead.
The rest of the group continued to look expectantly at him until finally Noah ticked Luke's chin up to look at him. "Neville okay, love?"
Luke nodded, tears in his eyes, and Noah pulled him close again. "Shhh, love," he said, threading fingers through the hair on the back of Luke's head and pulling him against Noah's chest. "Shhh. I know."
Draco looked at Noah impatiently but backed off when blue eyes glared back at him. He knew that look, they too had been together a long time. Finally Noah released Luke, producing a handkerchief from his pocket to dab at Luke's eyes and kissing him one final time on the forehead.
Luke stood up. "Um... s-s-sorry guys," he said. "It was a little emotional. They... I mean, I was in love with both of them once."
"Wait," said Ron. "Are you telling me..."
Noah set his hand on Luke's, sending pulsing blue light flaring at his neck for a moment. Luke smiled and slid their hands together, ignoring Ron's question. "I... I suppose I should rightly have told all of you that I'm going to be a father. You would have known soon in any case, now that Teddy knows what the scent means."
Noah smiled at him, squeezing his hand. "I've asked Luciano to bond with me," said Noah happily. "We'll. We're not having anything big. Not like Harry," he shot the Savior of the wizarding world a glance. "No offense, Harry, but I think it'll be much smaller. Mostly Luciano's family and a few close friends," he looked around the room significantly.
"I don't regret the big wedding," said Harry with a grin, "but I don't blame you for wanting something smaller either."
"Noah... the baby. Is it?"
"A daughter, Draco."
Draco mostly caught the strangled cry before it left his throat and then Harry was there, holding him. "I. I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize, mate," said Ron, standing. "There's no shame in loving what we've lost. We just need to keep an eye, don't we, on what we have now." He looked at Hermione and smiled. "It's good to know the girls won't be totally out numbered!"
"Well, we're a fine lot aren't we," said Harry. "Balling our eyes out. People would never believe we were the heroes of the war."
Hermione laughed. "I think they mostly just hear stories about riding dragons and dueling dark wizards. They didn't see months living in a tent in the woods or hunting down dark magic. Most were removed a bit from the loss, they just felt the fear. You made that fear go away Harry. That's why people believe in you."
"Even after I hid away and stopped living?" asked Harry.
"You started again, my Harry," said a still teary eyed Draco. "I love you so much."
Harry kissed him briefly, then winced. "Bleedin' hell! Sorry, Draco, need to find the loo." Harry rushed out of the room.
"Everything okay," asked Hermione.
"He's got twins bouncing on his bladder," said Draco. "It has him rather irritable, honestly."
"Everything's okay?"
"We're brewing a reserve draught of the potion," said Noah, "every week. It's tedious, but none of us are willing to take the risk of another incident."
"That doesn't really answer..." began Hermione.
"It's fine," said Draco. "His mood is volatile, but it always was a little. It's just worse right now. He has little patience, but again, he never had much. Mostly it's just discomfort. The issue of his magic rejecting the children is under control with the potion. And we do our best to keep them exposed... well, you understand."
Hermione smiled. She'd gotten the lecture on a healthy sex life during pregnancy from her own mediwitch.
"It's just a little difficult. As Pomfrey is so fond of saying, this is natural for a wizard, but not for a wizard's body." Draco shook his head. "The extra stress of twins is... he's having a hard time."
Hermione nodded.
"Just remember, mate," said Ron, "there's a whole clan of wizards and witches ready to help if you need us. Either of you, I mean it. Mum read the whole family the riot act after seeing you with Harry while he was ill."
"It means a lot, Ron, thank you," said Draco. "I... I'd best check on him. You'll excuse me."
"You okay, bubby?" asked Luke as Draco left the room.
"I just." He held his hand on his stomach. "It's hard, love, not to think of the one he lost."
"For him, too, I'm sure," said Luke. "We're not losing this one, Noah. You're taking your potion, right?"
"Everything that can be done to keep our baby safe, love, it's being done. Including, apparently, pack protection for her," he said with a pointed glare at Luke.
"I confess, I'm fascinated, Noah," said Hermione. "I'd never realized so many people had werewolf ancestry."
"It's really quite rare," said Noah. "In most of Europe at least. Though the war saw to it that it won't remain so. I could live on supplying just wolfsbane potion if I wasn't at Hogwarts."
"The Russian steppe is a different place, Hermione," said Luke. "Werewolves roam freely and in large packs. They... sometimes they go through and taint every villager for spite. It leaves a lot of east european families with ancestry somewhere, even if it isn't..."
"Please," said Ron, "do not encourage her. She'll spend all night reading. And tomorrow. And the next night. And then she'll quiz me on it! Like being in school all over again!"
"Ronald."
"Well, it is 'Mione."
"Pack protection, Luke?" asked Noah.
"Durmstrang pack, baby. All the students with wolf ancestry submit to pack authority. It was my family when I was at Durmstrang," said Luke. He looked at Noah and ran fingers through Noah's dark hair. "We have enemies, baby, both of us."
Noah's pulled Luke to him, burying his face in the fabric covering Luke's stomach. "I would keep her safe."
Luke held Noah's head against his stomach, cradling it there. "I know, baby, but you don't have to do it alone."
The waitress came in then, Viktor's wards having been broken by Neville's exit, and refilled drinks. "Didn't really need to lock me out, did you?"
"Viktor took offense at your flirting," said Luke plainly. "He does not suffer such advances uninvited."
The waitress gave him a glare, but filled the drinks anyway, and brought more food, grimacing at the strange combination of foods on Harry's plate. Then she left and Luke sighed. "I don't know how you all stand it. Reporters all the time."
"Don't pretend you don't get it too, Grimaldi," said Ron, stressing the family name.
"Well, of course I do, but not like... not like Vitya. Not like Harry. Not even as bad as Noah, honestly."
"You too could have unwanted attention," said Noah with a chuckle out of the side of his mouth, his arms still wrapped around Luke's waist. "Just swear binding oaths to the most evil vile wizard imaginable and they'll follow you around forever."
"He's serious," said Draco from the doorway, "Noah and I... well, we broke things off a time or two because of that attention."
"We were trying to keep our relationship a secret," said Noah, his voice a little muffled from his odd angle leaning into Luke's gut. "That's draining to a relationship. Makes me wonder... if Viktor were to date Neville... I mean, ten people in the world, plus us."
"Oh, he's not keeping it secret," said Harry. "Everyone's outside. They're snogging right on the street. Looks like they've been at it for a while already. Skeeter must be having a heart attack at her good luck."
"Vitya is offering something," said Luke, his hands still wrapped around the head nuzzling into his stomach, "something valuable, openly and freely to Neville. He's trying to prove he's serious."
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This story is written as part of the Nuke BigBang challenge. Check out the other authors' and artists' great work!