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lomonaaerenTitle: Meeting By Starlight
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Content Notes: AU (Harry is a Beauxbatons student), creature fic (Harry is a Veela), angst, violence
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 5900
Summary: When Harry steps out of the Beauxbatons carriage to come to Hogwarts in his fourth year, his gaze is immediately drawn to a pale-haired boy wearing green robes. He’s more than a little surprised to find his mate like this, but then, there are days that he’s still surprised he’s a Veela at all.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of the Stormy Season” series, one-shots being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. It’s based on a request from ingredeints for a fic where Harry meets Draco at Hogwarts during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and also creature heritage. Hope you enjoy.
Meeting by Starlight
Harry stepped out of the Beauxbatons carriage into starlight and drew a deep breath of the chill air. He knew it was a little silly to think there was a perceptible difference between one country and another, but it felt like it.
It didn’t feel like home, though. He was a little disappointed to know that. It felt stranger than France did.
He glanced over at the Hogwarts students, and suddenly stiffened. It felt as if his gaze had sharpened so that he could see through the coming twilight, and even though they were at least a hundred meters from the front steps of the school, Harry could see one particular boy as well as if he was standing right next to him.
The boy was turned around, talking to friends in the line next to them as if he didn’t care about the arrival of the Beauxbatons contingent at all. Harry felt a faint prickle of hurt that made no more sense than the fact that he could see the boy so well. He had pale hair that shimmered as if someone had cast a Coruscating Charm on it, and robes with green trim, and a serpent crest over one pocket.
A faint memory of the speech that Madame Maxime had given them before they started out stirred. That was the emblem of Slytherin House.
Harry swallowed. Granted, the only things he really knew about Slytherin came from the textbooks he’d bought when he’d thought he’d be coming to Hogwarts and the little speech Hagrid had given him about Dark wizards and witches there.
But the pull he felt towards the boy was undeniable. Harry had found his mate.
He could feel his wings struggling to emerge from his back. He forced them down, but he lifted his chin.
Harry was not going to give up on attaining his mate. Certainly not just because of a little thing like a Hogwarts House.
*
“Excuse me.”
Harry could speak English without an accent if he wanted, but Fleur, one of the part-Veela family who had sponsored him through the transformation, had told him that many people thought a light French accent charming. Harry intended to be as charming as possible to the boy he had learned was called Draco Malfoy.
The boy he had met in a robe shop, once, long ago, when he was still human, subject to nightmares and the possession threat of a Horcrux.
Harry wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t recognized Draco right away. Sometimes the life from before he transformed seemed like a dream. And Draco had grown into his features in a way Harry hadn’t anticipated.
Draco stopped, turned around, and blinked. “Yes?”
Harry smiled and ducked his head a little. He knew his hair shone like raven feathers, with shades of blue-black and edges that weren’t there in most dark-haired humans. And his skin was bleached pale, and his eyes shone so intensely that Fleur had told him some people would be afraid.
Draco didn’t show fear, though, so Harry said, “I am wondering, the Transfiguration classroom? It is this way?”
“Yes, it is.” Draco took a long step towards Harry, staring at him with both awe and a hint of confusion. Harry understood. Draco was probably feeling the pull towards Harry himself, but without any explanation as to what it was. “I—I could walk you there, if you want?” His voice soared a little at the end.
“That would be pleasant. Thank you.”
Harry stepped up next to Draco, who turned around and guided him towards the classroom. He said a few things about Hogwarts’s classes, but his voice kept faltering, and he was staring at Harry. When they reached the Transfiguration classroom, Draco paused and then said, “This is going to seem strange, but do we know each other?”
“I have dreamed of meeting you,” Harry said. “You might have guessed I’m Veela?”
“I thought all Veela had pale hair.” Draco raised one hand to brush through his own blond hair.
“Most do, but some who are adopted and transformed from humans retain our dark hair.”
“You were—transformed? Why?”
“It was the only way to save my life,” Harry said, which was perhaps a little melodramatic, but true in the particulars. “And I’ll tell you something that I haven’t told anyone else here who’s not part of the Beauxbatons delegation.” He lowered his voice, and Draco nodded, looking enthralled.
“My real name is Harry Potter.”
Draco gaped at him. Harry leaned back against a wall and grinned back. Draco found his voice a few seconds later. “But everyone’s been looking for you! You were supposed to come to Hogwarts! Why didn’t you come to Hogwarts?”
Harry half-smiled. “I read something in a book that I bought when I was in Diagon Alley shopping for school supplies. It said that I had a godfather, Sirius Black, who had been sentenced to Azkaban for betraying my parents.”
“Black escaped and disappeared years ago.”
“I know. I’m the one who freed him.”
Draco gaped some more. Harry could feel his own delight at that beating under his breastbone like a second heart. “But why would you do that, when he was a traitor?”
“He wasn’t really a Death Eater,” Harry said quietly. “The moment I read those words in the book, I was sure of that. I still don’t know why, but—” He hesitated. This was something he hadn’t put into words since he’d lived through it.
“Tell me, Potter. Please.”
Harry nodded, more because of the way that Draco’s wide eyes were fixed on him for any other reason. “I could feel something in me waking up and crying out that I needed to find Sirius. I—journeyed, somehow. I disappeared from my bedroom. I think I turned into a wraith somehow. I know it wasn’t Apparition, what I did, and it certainly wasn’t the Floo. I woke up and found myself in the corridor outside Sirius’s prison cell.”
Draco’s eyes widened further, which Harry hadn’t thought was possible. “And then what happened?”
“Sirius had the means to break free of the prison, it turned out, because he’d retained his sanity. He was innocent, and the Dementors couldn’t take those memories from him, because they weren’t pleasant.” Harry wasn’t about to tell Draco about Sirius’s Animagus form, either, until they became closer. “He escaped and took me with him. I still don’t even really know how we avoided the Dementors. But after we swam the sea that separates the island from the mainland, Sirius felt how cold I was and was afraid I was dying. He summoned help.”
“Veela?”
“Veela. His father saved a Veela’s life, and Sirius called in the debt.”
“And they came and transformed you,” Draco whispered.
Harry nodded. There were reasons beyond his being cold after Sirius swam with him across the North Sea, having to do with the scar on his forehead and the being that had lived behind it, but he didn’t think he needed to bring them up yet. It was too much information if Draco decided against being his mate.
And if Draco decided that he wanted to be—
There would be plenty of time, all their lives, to share the secret.
“Brilliant,” Draco breathed, his eyes burning with the delight of knowing a different secret, and Harry basked in the warmth that filled his chest.
*
“I’ve never met someone who liked Astronomy as much as I do.”
Draco felt stupid a minute after he said it, but Harry simply turned his head and smiled at Draco. They were lying on the top of the Astronomy Tower, watching the stars, which seemed closer and brighter than Draco could ever remember them.
“I didn’t used to, but Sirius helped me sleep after the transformation by telling me stories about the stars.” Harry shifted his weight, moving a little closer to Draco, and Draco shivered. He could tell exactly where Harry was, all the time, at what distance he was, even if he was across the castle. It was a little overwhelming, and Draco wondered if all Veela and their mates were like this.
Even if they were, though, even if it got worse, Draco never intended to give Harry up. He was comfortable with Harry in a way that he had never been even with his mother.
“It hurt, after the transformation?”
“Yes. They had to reshape my bones, my magic, and my very heart and lungs.” Harry shuddered and turned a little to the left, so that his head would be tucked against Draco’s shoulder if he moved it one more centimeter. Draco found himself hoping Harry would, but he didn’t. “It was incredibly painful.”
“But you wouldn’t give up being a Veela,” Draco said. He was pretty sure about that, but he found he wanted to hear the words from Harry’s own lips, to know that that long-ago pain had been worth it.
Harry smiled, which seemed to have a shine of light to it that didn’t come from the stars. “It’s completely worth it.”
Draco gave in to his own impulses and became the one who rolled closer to Harry, tucking his chin into Harry’s shoulder. Harry gave a sweet, high sound of pleasure and tucked his arm around Draco.
“I always thought I might fall in love with somebody, and it would be painful,” Draco whispered, a confession he could only make with his face hidden away. “Because of who I am and what my father did in the war and what—the way I grew up. But this is wonderful.”
Harry cuddled closer and held him, not saying a thing.
*
Draco was kind of surprised that no one else seemed to have noticed Harry was, well, Harry Potter. Yes, becoming a Veela had obviously reshaped the contours of his face, and perhaps his hair, and he wore a style with his hair anyway so that the scar was hidden. And no one would be looking for Harry Potter at Beauxbatons, that much was true. There were people who thought he was dead, since Sirius Black had broken out of Azkaban and Potter had supposedly disappeared right after.
Not dead, Draco thought, as he watched Harry gasping and applauding at Fleur Delacour’s masterful handling of her dragon. Transformed.
Harry, who always seemed to know when Draco was watching him, turned his head and smiled. The force of that smile hit Draco like a torrent. He gasped, and Theo, next to him, glanced at him with a concerned look.
“You all right, Draco?”
“Of course. I just thought the chain was going to snap, that’s all,” Draco said, and sat down, peering ahead. Theo snorted a little and said something about how the chain snapping wouldn’t mean anything when the dragon was asleep, but Draco didn’t care.
His eyes remained on Harry when he could let them, and Harry obliged him by giving him sweet smiles in return. Theo chuckled once, so maybe he’d figured out that Draco was taken with one of the Beauxbatons students, but that didn’t really matter to Draco.
The fiery warmth growing inside him, the mate connection to Harry, did.
*
“You—you really want me to come to the Ball with you?”
Draco’s face was such a brilliant red that Harry eased back on his heels. He had to wonder if maybe someone else had asked Draco to the Yule Ball, and Draco was trying to find a way to let Harry down gently.
But a spark of outrage in Harry’s chest banished that thought. He knew where Draco was at all times, and when someone came near him with desire in their hearts. It actually didn’t bother him most of the time. Draco was handsome, and people were welcome to look and admire, as long as they didn’t touch.
But most of all, Harry knew that Draco would have told him before this. And that Draco fancied him with a version of the mate bond that Harry felt for him, if not as strong yet.
“Of course I want to go with you,” Harry said softly, ducking his head and looking up at Draco from underneath his eyelashes. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I—well, someone could recognize you as Harry Potter more easily, that’s all.” Draco whispered the words, despite the fact that Harry had waited until Draco was by himself in a dungeon corridor and set up a Privacy Charm to boot. “I didn’t think you were going to the Ball with anyone.”
“I’m simply Henri Morgan here,” Harry said, and let the French accent build up in his voice again. Draco’s eyes went to his lips. Harry chuckled despite himself. “I promise, Draco, I consider this an acceptable risk. I want to dance with you, to show everyone that you’re mine.”
Draco’s cheeks turned steadily pinker, but he didn’t seem inclined to remove his eyes from Harry’s. “I haven’t agreed to be yours, yet, technically,” he said. “I could still change my mind.”
The thought made a yawning pit seem to open in Harry’s chest, but he kept his face and voice mild. “You could,” he agreed. “All right, then, let’s say that I want everyone to see that you have the potential to be mine.”
Draco moved a step closer to him and reached out to take the small opal Harry had offered him, a traditional Veela courting stone. If everything went well, it might someday reside in a ring on Draco’s hand.
“In that case,” Draco said, “the answer is yes.”
*
“You’re dazzled by him, Draco.”
Theo was laughing at him, and Pansy, collapsing against Theo’s shoulder, wasn’t much better. At least Pansy had got over that crush she had on him, about the time that she’d spent months in the hospital wing Petrified by whatever Slytherin’s beast had been. She’d said she’d had time to think, and she hadn’t dreamed of Draco once.
“Yes, well.” Draco sipped his drink and smiled across the ballroom at Harry, who was chatting with some of the Beauxbatons students in French. “I think he’s pretty dazzling.”
Harry turned around just then, as if feeling Draco’s eyes on him—Draco wouldn’t be surprised—and gave a slow smile that seemed to reach into his body and pull his soul to the surface. Draco scolded himself for thinking in stupid metaphors, but he couldn’t help smiling back.
“Go dance with him again,” Pansy said firmly, taking Draco’s drink. “Since you look as if we’re torturing you by keeping you here.”
“You’re not,” Draco mumbled, but he drifted across the Great Hall to meet Harry halfway. Harry bent over Draco’s hand, and Draco thought he felt the phantom pressure of lips. He blushed hard enough to start Pansy and Theo laughing again behind him.
Draco glared at them over his shoulder, but Harry drew a hand slowly down his arm, and in the prickling tingle of his skin, Draco decided he had more important things to look at.
*
“So how is it going?”
Harry lay back in his bed set into one of the carriage’s curved walls and grinned. The beds had charms on them to make it easier to climb in and out than one would expect in a carriage, but the gravity just above them twisted and warped oddly. It made a perfect place to balance the mirror that Harry was using to communicate with Sirius, though. It hovered above his face, never quite falling.
“Great,” Harry said. “I know that you were skeptical about a Malfoy being a good match for me, but honestly, Draco is…he’s great.”
It sounded lame to say, but Harry knew Sirius was reassured because of the way he smirked down at Harry from the mirror’s surface. From the looks of things, Sirius was kicked back on the couch in the library in their French townhouse, an easy Apparition away from the Veela community that had transformed Harry.
Harry’s first year at Beauxbatons had been hard, and he’d been essentially a day student, since he’d had to spend every weekend and some few nights a week in the embrace of the Veela magic to complete his transformation. But that magic had given him life, had given him freedom, and had given him Draco. Harry would never regret it.
“Well, I suppose that’s the sort of spoiled little ponce you would want to spoil and pamper in turn.”
“You were calling me a spoiled little ponce this past summer, Sirius.”
“So?”
Harry laughed. Well, one thing his godfather had never pretended to was consistency. “I really think that I’ll be able to persuade him to spend part of the summer with us. He seems like he’d welcome a holiday away from his parents.”
Sirius’s eyes narrowed. “They abuse him?”
Harry flinched despite himself, and Sirius’s face softened. “Sorry, kiddo. But the question has to be asked.”
Harry nodded. It had taken him longer than he liked to admit to say that the way the Dursleys had treated him was abusive. It had been the only way of life he knew for so long, and then the way he’d turned into a wraith and gone to fetch Sirius and their relocation to France had been so completely unexpected.
“No, I don’t think so,” Harry said slowly. “Not exactly. What I think does happen is that Draco needs more warmth than they can give him. Or than they will give him. Sometimes he talks about them like they’re incapable of it. Other times like they’re just not interested.”
“Yes, that would be like my lovely cousin Narcissa and the bastard she married,” Sirius muttered. “Well, bring him home with you if you can. And you’re sure that he won’t betray you to the Headmaster or anything? Even accidentally? You know all those rumors about how Dumbledore can read minds.”
Harry snorted. Dumbledore and the Ministry had organized a massive hunt for him when he’d disappeared, but they’d only looked in Britain, so Harry had a low opinion of their competence. “I know, but honestly, Dumbledore has no reason to pay attention to Draco. He only seems to pay attention to the other professors and a few select Gryffindors.”
“Stay away from those professors.”
“Trust me, I have no reason to want them to pay attention to me, either.”
*
“Mr. Morgan?”
The gruff voice came from directly behind Harry. He turned around, blinking a little the way that he had seen other Beauxbatons students whose native language was French use when they were addressed in English. “Ah, yes?” he asked in his accented voice when he saw the Defense professor standing behind him on the lakeshore.
Alastor Moody. Sirius alternated between praising his strength in battle and being bitter that Moody, along with the other Aurors, hadn’t even questioned why Sirius would have supposedly betrayed his best friends.
“I wanted to meet you.” Moody’s eyes swept him from head to toe. “You look a lot like a boy I used to know.”
Harry held down the instinctive reaction of panic. Already he could feel some stirring in the bonds that tied him to Fleur and Gabrielle, who was here for the Second Task. They would come running immediately if he grew frightened enough, and he didn’t want to expose them to danger. Moody had no proof he was Harry Potter.
“And who is that boy, please?”
Moody’s eyes came back to his and stared. The blue, magical one was especially piercing. Harry wondered if Moody had watched him before now and Harry just hadn’t noticed, but it seemed hard to think that he wouldn’t have sensed that eye doing it. “Harry Potter.”
Harry lifted a shoulder in a small shrug. “I think you know that I am Veela, yes?”
“You are?”
Moody’s surprise seemed unfeigned. Harry smiled a little. He could cause wings to materialize if he wanted, but that was a special sign of trust that he was going to save for Draco, and he saw no reason to waste it on a professor. “Yes, monsieur.” He lifted his hand and conjured a ball of fire that sat on his palm. “You see?”
“You speak English well for a Veela.”
That seemed odd, to claim that Harry spoke it well for a Veela instead of a Frenchman, but Harry simply shrugged. “My family, they have business interests here. I was taught to speak it from a young age.”
“I see.” Moody stared at him for another long, intense moment, and then turned and stumped away without saying goodbye.
“You are well, Henri?” a voice asked behind him in French.
Harry turned around with relief. Fleur was sparking with magic that made fire gleam on her hair and her hands. He was glad that she hadn’t come pelting towards him in terror, but also glad that she was here. “Yes,” he said, in the same language. “A strange encounter with the Defense professor, who said I reminded him of Harry Potter.”
“Did he.” Fleur’s eyes locked on the now-distant figure of Moody, and then narrowed. “I do not trust that one. He does not sound right.”
“You can hear his song?” Harry was impressed. Veela who had matured could hear the songs that someone’s soul sang, most clearly from their own mates, but also from others, if they were naturally talented. He hadn’t talked with Fleur much about it since she’d turned seventeen, and didn’t know how far her hearing had advanced.
“Yes,” Fleur said. “And I would expect something enduring and hard as his face. But it is not. It is small and fluttering and there are times that it almost gives out, as though the singers all had coughs.”
Harry narrowed his eyes. “I’ll be careful of him.”
*
Draco winced as he watched Delacour surface in the water, sobbing, her arms completely empty of her sister. He knew from what other people around him had murmured that someone important to the Champions had been taken, and he knew from what Harry had said that there was no one more important to Fleur than her younger sister.
Of course, presumably the people who had been taken would be fine. They wouldn’t kill children for a game.
But then Draco remembered that they had brought nesting mother dragons in for a game, and had to wonder.
Abruptly, a commotion broke out near the shore of the lake. Draco craned his neck and felt his eyes widen as he saw Harry standing near the water, his hands extended and his eyes closed. He was breathing harshly, his chest rising and falling with what looked like pain.
Draco longed to go to him, but he didn’t think he could without attracting attention. He and Harry were keeping their mate bond secret from everyone except Harry’s godfather and adopted family. He bit his lip and stayed still as he watched Harry hold out his hands.
Balls of fire were spinning out from his palms. Draco had seen Fleur summon the same thing during the few afternoons that he’d spent with her, but he didn’t see how they could help now.
Then Harry cried out and slammed his arms up, pointing his palms, and the fire in them, straight at the sky.
The fireballs grew until they shone like captive suns, and then began to turn over and over. Water spiraled up from the lake, spinning around the fire, and became thick chains of silver and blue. Draco watched, eyes wide in disbelief now, as more and more water appeared, as the chains grew thicker and thicker.
Gabrielle came flying out of the lake at the end of the chains, beginning to splutter and cry as soon as she hit the air. Harry went flying backwards as he caught her, but he rolled so that he was in between Gabrielle and the ground, and then turned and held her out to Fleur.
Fleur flung herself on both of them, wrapping her arms around Harry and kissing his cheeks and head in a way that would have made Draco jealous if he hadn’t been sure that Harry’s heart belonged utterly to him. He still resented having to sit still, and resented the way that people peered at Harry and muttered and gossiped as if they had the right to talk about him.
But at least Draco would get an answer from Harry later, which was more than any of them could say.
*
“But if Fleur can call the fireballs too, I don’t understand why she couldn’t rescue Gabrielle the same way.”
Harry turned his head and smiled tiredly at Draco. He was still resting in his bed in the Beauxbatons carriage, exhausted from the effort he’d put in this morning. Luckily, Madame Maxime understood about mates, and Draco was allowed into the carriage where most people not from Beauxbatons wouldn’t be.
“It’s because Fleur is only a quarter Veela. I’m a full one.”
Draco’s eyes were wide and solemn. “I don’t think I really understand what that means.”
Harry coughed a little and shifted onto his side. Draco immediately rushed over and put a hand on his side. Harry sighed in relief. The warmth that flowed through him when his mate touched him was better than any potion.
“Part-Veela are more human-like than the rest of us,” Harry murmured. “They don’t depend on their mates so much, and they can restrain their emotions more easily.” He nuzzled into Draco’s palm. “But their magic is weaker, too, and they have some disadvantages. They have a lot more trouble with commanding water or casting spells that affect it than full Veela do. We have a nature of fire, but that very nature lends us some power when confronting water, because of fire and water’s elemental opposition. Part-Veela don’t have the same opposition.”
Draco nodded thoughtfully. He actually seemed to get it, which made Harry regard him hopefully. He had never thought he would have to perform such powerful magic in front of his mate so soon. He had hoped to have longer to ease Draco into accepting Harry’s nature.
But it seemed he didn’t need longer. He looked at Harry with a challenging glint in his eyes and leaned closer. “So you’re full Veela.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve heard full Veela have very intense feelings for their mates.”
“Yeah?”
“Kiss me like you mean it.”
Harry smiled, and reached out, and touched Draco’s chin, and tilted his mouth into the kiss.
He tried to pour all his relief, all his desire, all his delight at having discovered his mate through the kiss. He’d gone slowly before this, just like with his magic and the other signs of his full Veela nature, not wanting to overwhelm Draco. But the way Draco looked when Harry pulled back was the best kind of overwhelmed.
“Again?” Harry whispered.
Draco nodded, and this time, he was the one to pull Harry closer. Harry purred and went with it.
*
“You are sure that a true Veela has discovered his mate in you, son? It is a great honor.”
Draco held his temper sharply in check, since it sounded like his father didn’t consider him worthy of that honor, and simply inclined his head. “Yes, sir. Henri Morgan, a student who came with the Beauxbatons delegation.”
“French?” Father twirled his cane slowly in his hand, staring out across the Malfoy grounds. Draco watched him and wondered if Father was picturing the next Easter holiday and Harry coming with him, not that Father knew much about what Harry looked like. Draco had only provided a vague description.
His father had been a Death Eater, and under the Imperius once. (And sometimes Draco doubted the Imperius story). He might have no choice but to seize Harry and take him to the Dark Lord if he realized who Harry was.
And if the Dark Lord returned.
“Yes, sir.”
Father’s lips twisted a little. “Well. I suppose that we all make some sacrifices.”
Yes, like you sacrificing any chance to make me love you to your search for power and position, Draco thought.
He couldn’t remember when he had first realized that neither of his parents loved him, not truly. Oh, they would fight for him and try their best to keep him alive, but that was as much about pureblood prestige and carrying the Malfoy name forwards into the future as it was about Draco himself. And while sometimes Mother touched his cheek or Father looked at him with a distant fondness in his eyes, it was missing the warmth between parents and children that Draco saw in the Weasley family and was secretly jealous of.
“Do your best to keep him hooked to you, Draco,” Father instructed. “This Morein could be an asset to the House of Malfoy if handled correctly.”
He’s already forgotten Harry’s name, Draco thought, and trailed Father into the house. He was thinking.
Wherever Harry and Sirius Black lived most of the time, in France, it was sheltered and protected. And everyone said that Veela couldn’t live separately from their mates once they found them. No matter what happened, Harry wouldn’t just be going back to France at the end of next term and Draco wouldn’t just be going back to Malfoy Manor.
Draco had assumed, once, that whoever he married would of course move into the Manor with him.
Now, he had other thoughts.
*
“And no one suspects that you’re Harry Potter?”
Harry shook his head and leaned back in the compartment with his arms stretched above his head. He had Privacy Charms up, even though several of the people who had come with him to Hogwarts knew who he had once been, besides Fleur. They thought that it was amusing to keep the secret from the Brits. “Not that I can tell. The Headmaster hasn’t given me any thoughtful looks, and you said he would, if he knew.”
Sirius scowled. “Yeah, he would.”
Harry paused. He didn’t know how to ask, and Sirius had never wanted to talk about it before. But somehow, with the space in between them and speaking through mirrors, it was easier. “Do you—do you think he didn’t give you a trial on purpose?”
Sirius breathed out slowly and stared past Harry for a long second. Harry was beginning to think that he wouldn’t answer when he said softly, “I think that Albus thought he knew the truth and didn’t need to question it. He didn’t deliberately leave me in Azkaban, no. But his confidence in his own judgment was so fucking infallible…”
Harry nodded, glad of both the confession and the fact that Sirius had decided to start swearing around him a year ago. He had made so many efforts to stop before then, and it didn’t really work and just made him stutter and lose the thread of the conversation. “Yeah. Well, I wouldn’t trust him, either.”
“What about Moody?”
“He’s watched me, but hasn’t made any other attempt to approach me.”
“Be careful, kiddo.”
Harry smiled slightly. “If he does dare to come near a Veela, then he’ll have to be carted away in pieces.”
*
Moody dared.
Harry turned around and found the man behind him, looming. And this time, he was close enough, or Harry was alert enough, that he could feel something off about the man too. Wrong. He bowed his head and conjured balls of fire and claws on his hands without taking his eyes off Moody.
“I know who you are,” Moody whispered. They were alone in one of the secret passages Draco had told him about, a tight, twisting staircase, that Harry had been taking down towards the Slytherin part of the dungeons to meet his mate. “Harry Potter.”
He reached for Harry. Something gleamed on his hand. It looked like a ring, but Harry knew well enough, from having seen other Veela use them, how easily any object could be made into a Portkey.
Harry screamed, a piercing sound that rolled from one side of the space to another and made Moody falter, his hands rising instinctively towards his ears. Then Harry struck.
One of his hands ripped claws down the back of Moody’s arm, tearing runnels of flesh and blood loose, making the man cry out himself with pain. The other threw the fire straight into Moody’s face.
Moody staggered about, shrieking and burning. Harry aimed his hands at Moody and called on fire again, and this time lit his robes.
Moody flung himself onto the step beneath him and began rolling to put out the fire. Harry scratched his face, blinding him in his good eye, and popped the magical one loose, throwing it down the steps as far as he could.
Only then, panting, did he manage to master the instinctive urge to hurt the enemy until he was dead and focus his thoughts. A pulse of reassurance went to Draco, who would be wondering why Harry was late, and a pulse of agony to Fleur.
Help me!
*
Draco stood in Harry’s arms and leaned his chin on Harry’s shoulder. He still shook from the revelations that Harry had told him about.
Moody wasn’t Moody. He had been Barty Crouch, Jr., an escaped Death Eater, all year. And he had discovered that Harry was really Harry and had meant to transport him—somewhere. Delacour and Harry had got that much from before Delacour scrambled his memory to make him forget about discovering who Harry was and delivered him to the Headmaster’s office.
They’d told the Headmaster that Crouch had become captivated by the beauty of a Veela and had intended to steal Harry away. It wouldn’t be the first time and it wouldn’t be the last time.
It horrified Draco, how close he had come to losing his mate.
And that had hardened his resolve.
“Take me to France with you,” he whispered. “When you go back after the Tournament. Take me with you.”
Harry’s breath stuttered. He leaned back and stared at Draco with those shining green eyes that seemed to hold all the secrets of a forest. “I thought—I thought you’d want me and Sirius to move to Britain, to be with you. Sirius had a false identity all picked out and everything.”
Draco shook his head. “I can’t stand the thought of being apart from you. And you’re always going to be in danger as long as you’re on British soil.”
“That’s probably true,” Harry mused, his voice quiet. “But you won’t—your family—”
“I choose you,” Draco blurted. “They could never be bothered with choosing me, my parents. They always chose some gala or party or looking good over me. I was tutored by house-elves.” He blinked, hard, and held back the tears that wanted to fall. Harry would go into comforting mode if that happened, and Draco honestly just wanted to finish saying this. “I want to go with you.”
Harry studied him in silence for a long moment. Then he smiled, slowly, and it was like the sun rising.
“Sirius was worried about me finding my mate so young,” Harry whispered. “But I think it worked out best for both of us.” He leaned forwards and kissed Draco.
Draco closed his eyes and poured all his strength and longing into the kiss. Strength for his mate. Longing to be part of his mate’s life.
And as he felt the bond between them snap and flicker into glowing brilliance, he thought, This is for life, and found nothing but wonder in the thought.
The End.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Draco
Content Notes: AU (Harry is a Beauxbatons student), creature fic (Harry is a Veela), angst, violence
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 5900
Summary: When Harry steps out of the Beauxbatons carriage to come to Hogwarts in his fourth year, his gaze is immediately drawn to a pale-haired boy wearing green robes. He’s more than a little surprised to find his mate like this, but then, there are days that he’s still surprised he’s a Veela at all.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of the Stormy Season” series, one-shots being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. It’s based on a request from ingredeints for a fic where Harry meets Draco at Hogwarts during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, and also creature heritage. Hope you enjoy.
Meeting by Starlight
Harry stepped out of the Beauxbatons carriage into starlight and drew a deep breath of the chill air. He knew it was a little silly to think there was a perceptible difference between one country and another, but it felt like it.
It didn’t feel like home, though. He was a little disappointed to know that. It felt stranger than France did.
He glanced over at the Hogwarts students, and suddenly stiffened. It felt as if his gaze had sharpened so that he could see through the coming twilight, and even though they were at least a hundred meters from the front steps of the school, Harry could see one particular boy as well as if he was standing right next to him.
The boy was turned around, talking to friends in the line next to them as if he didn’t care about the arrival of the Beauxbatons contingent at all. Harry felt a faint prickle of hurt that made no more sense than the fact that he could see the boy so well. He had pale hair that shimmered as if someone had cast a Coruscating Charm on it, and robes with green trim, and a serpent crest over one pocket.
A faint memory of the speech that Madame Maxime had given them before they started out stirred. That was the emblem of Slytherin House.
Harry swallowed. Granted, the only things he really knew about Slytherin came from the textbooks he’d bought when he’d thought he’d be coming to Hogwarts and the little speech Hagrid had given him about Dark wizards and witches there.
But the pull he felt towards the boy was undeniable. Harry had found his mate.
He could feel his wings struggling to emerge from his back. He forced them down, but he lifted his chin.
Harry was not going to give up on attaining his mate. Certainly not just because of a little thing like a Hogwarts House.
*
“Excuse me.”
Harry could speak English without an accent if he wanted, but Fleur, one of the part-Veela family who had sponsored him through the transformation, had told him that many people thought a light French accent charming. Harry intended to be as charming as possible to the boy he had learned was called Draco Malfoy.
The boy he had met in a robe shop, once, long ago, when he was still human, subject to nightmares and the possession threat of a Horcrux.
Harry wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t recognized Draco right away. Sometimes the life from before he transformed seemed like a dream. And Draco had grown into his features in a way Harry hadn’t anticipated.
Draco stopped, turned around, and blinked. “Yes?”
Harry smiled and ducked his head a little. He knew his hair shone like raven feathers, with shades of blue-black and edges that weren’t there in most dark-haired humans. And his skin was bleached pale, and his eyes shone so intensely that Fleur had told him some people would be afraid.
Draco didn’t show fear, though, so Harry said, “I am wondering, the Transfiguration classroom? It is this way?”
“Yes, it is.” Draco took a long step towards Harry, staring at him with both awe and a hint of confusion. Harry understood. Draco was probably feeling the pull towards Harry himself, but without any explanation as to what it was. “I—I could walk you there, if you want?” His voice soared a little at the end.
“That would be pleasant. Thank you.”
Harry stepped up next to Draco, who turned around and guided him towards the classroom. He said a few things about Hogwarts’s classes, but his voice kept faltering, and he was staring at Harry. When they reached the Transfiguration classroom, Draco paused and then said, “This is going to seem strange, but do we know each other?”
“I have dreamed of meeting you,” Harry said. “You might have guessed I’m Veela?”
“I thought all Veela had pale hair.” Draco raised one hand to brush through his own blond hair.
“Most do, but some who are adopted and transformed from humans retain our dark hair.”
“You were—transformed? Why?”
“It was the only way to save my life,” Harry said, which was perhaps a little melodramatic, but true in the particulars. “And I’ll tell you something that I haven’t told anyone else here who’s not part of the Beauxbatons delegation.” He lowered his voice, and Draco nodded, looking enthralled.
“My real name is Harry Potter.”
Draco gaped at him. Harry leaned back against a wall and grinned back. Draco found his voice a few seconds later. “But everyone’s been looking for you! You were supposed to come to Hogwarts! Why didn’t you come to Hogwarts?”
Harry half-smiled. “I read something in a book that I bought when I was in Diagon Alley shopping for school supplies. It said that I had a godfather, Sirius Black, who had been sentenced to Azkaban for betraying my parents.”
“Black escaped and disappeared years ago.”
“I know. I’m the one who freed him.”
Draco gaped some more. Harry could feel his own delight at that beating under his breastbone like a second heart. “But why would you do that, when he was a traitor?”
“He wasn’t really a Death Eater,” Harry said quietly. “The moment I read those words in the book, I was sure of that. I still don’t know why, but—” He hesitated. This was something he hadn’t put into words since he’d lived through it.
“Tell me, Potter. Please.”
Harry nodded, more because of the way that Draco’s wide eyes were fixed on him for any other reason. “I could feel something in me waking up and crying out that I needed to find Sirius. I—journeyed, somehow. I disappeared from my bedroom. I think I turned into a wraith somehow. I know it wasn’t Apparition, what I did, and it certainly wasn’t the Floo. I woke up and found myself in the corridor outside Sirius’s prison cell.”
Draco’s eyes widened further, which Harry hadn’t thought was possible. “And then what happened?”
“Sirius had the means to break free of the prison, it turned out, because he’d retained his sanity. He was innocent, and the Dementors couldn’t take those memories from him, because they weren’t pleasant.” Harry wasn’t about to tell Draco about Sirius’s Animagus form, either, until they became closer. “He escaped and took me with him. I still don’t even really know how we avoided the Dementors. But after we swam the sea that separates the island from the mainland, Sirius felt how cold I was and was afraid I was dying. He summoned help.”
“Veela?”
“Veela. His father saved a Veela’s life, and Sirius called in the debt.”
“And they came and transformed you,” Draco whispered.
Harry nodded. There were reasons beyond his being cold after Sirius swam with him across the North Sea, having to do with the scar on his forehead and the being that had lived behind it, but he didn’t think he needed to bring them up yet. It was too much information if Draco decided against being his mate.
And if Draco decided that he wanted to be—
There would be plenty of time, all their lives, to share the secret.
“Brilliant,” Draco breathed, his eyes burning with the delight of knowing a different secret, and Harry basked in the warmth that filled his chest.
*
“I’ve never met someone who liked Astronomy as much as I do.”
Draco felt stupid a minute after he said it, but Harry simply turned his head and smiled at Draco. They were lying on the top of the Astronomy Tower, watching the stars, which seemed closer and brighter than Draco could ever remember them.
“I didn’t used to, but Sirius helped me sleep after the transformation by telling me stories about the stars.” Harry shifted his weight, moving a little closer to Draco, and Draco shivered. He could tell exactly where Harry was, all the time, at what distance he was, even if he was across the castle. It was a little overwhelming, and Draco wondered if all Veela and their mates were like this.
Even if they were, though, even if it got worse, Draco never intended to give Harry up. He was comfortable with Harry in a way that he had never been even with his mother.
“It hurt, after the transformation?”
“Yes. They had to reshape my bones, my magic, and my very heart and lungs.” Harry shuddered and turned a little to the left, so that his head would be tucked against Draco’s shoulder if he moved it one more centimeter. Draco found himself hoping Harry would, but he didn’t. “It was incredibly painful.”
“But you wouldn’t give up being a Veela,” Draco said. He was pretty sure about that, but he found he wanted to hear the words from Harry’s own lips, to know that that long-ago pain had been worth it.
Harry smiled, which seemed to have a shine of light to it that didn’t come from the stars. “It’s completely worth it.”
Draco gave in to his own impulses and became the one who rolled closer to Harry, tucking his chin into Harry’s shoulder. Harry gave a sweet, high sound of pleasure and tucked his arm around Draco.
“I always thought I might fall in love with somebody, and it would be painful,” Draco whispered, a confession he could only make with his face hidden away. “Because of who I am and what my father did in the war and what—the way I grew up. But this is wonderful.”
Harry cuddled closer and held him, not saying a thing.
*
Draco was kind of surprised that no one else seemed to have noticed Harry was, well, Harry Potter. Yes, becoming a Veela had obviously reshaped the contours of his face, and perhaps his hair, and he wore a style with his hair anyway so that the scar was hidden. And no one would be looking for Harry Potter at Beauxbatons, that much was true. There were people who thought he was dead, since Sirius Black had broken out of Azkaban and Potter had supposedly disappeared right after.
Not dead, Draco thought, as he watched Harry gasping and applauding at Fleur Delacour’s masterful handling of her dragon. Transformed.
Harry, who always seemed to know when Draco was watching him, turned his head and smiled. The force of that smile hit Draco like a torrent. He gasped, and Theo, next to him, glanced at him with a concerned look.
“You all right, Draco?”
“Of course. I just thought the chain was going to snap, that’s all,” Draco said, and sat down, peering ahead. Theo snorted a little and said something about how the chain snapping wouldn’t mean anything when the dragon was asleep, but Draco didn’t care.
His eyes remained on Harry when he could let them, and Harry obliged him by giving him sweet smiles in return. Theo chuckled once, so maybe he’d figured out that Draco was taken with one of the Beauxbatons students, but that didn’t really matter to Draco.
The fiery warmth growing inside him, the mate connection to Harry, did.
*
“You—you really want me to come to the Ball with you?”
Draco’s face was such a brilliant red that Harry eased back on his heels. He had to wonder if maybe someone else had asked Draco to the Yule Ball, and Draco was trying to find a way to let Harry down gently.
But a spark of outrage in Harry’s chest banished that thought. He knew where Draco was at all times, and when someone came near him with desire in their hearts. It actually didn’t bother him most of the time. Draco was handsome, and people were welcome to look and admire, as long as they didn’t touch.
But most of all, Harry knew that Draco would have told him before this. And that Draco fancied him with a version of the mate bond that Harry felt for him, if not as strong yet.
“Of course I want to go with you,” Harry said softly, ducking his head and looking up at Draco from underneath his eyelashes. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I—well, someone could recognize you as Harry Potter more easily, that’s all.” Draco whispered the words, despite the fact that Harry had waited until Draco was by himself in a dungeon corridor and set up a Privacy Charm to boot. “I didn’t think you were going to the Ball with anyone.”
“I’m simply Henri Morgan here,” Harry said, and let the French accent build up in his voice again. Draco’s eyes went to his lips. Harry chuckled despite himself. “I promise, Draco, I consider this an acceptable risk. I want to dance with you, to show everyone that you’re mine.”
Draco’s cheeks turned steadily pinker, but he didn’t seem inclined to remove his eyes from Harry’s. “I haven’t agreed to be yours, yet, technically,” he said. “I could still change my mind.”
The thought made a yawning pit seem to open in Harry’s chest, but he kept his face and voice mild. “You could,” he agreed. “All right, then, let’s say that I want everyone to see that you have the potential to be mine.”
Draco moved a step closer to him and reached out to take the small opal Harry had offered him, a traditional Veela courting stone. If everything went well, it might someday reside in a ring on Draco’s hand.
“In that case,” Draco said, “the answer is yes.”
*
“You’re dazzled by him, Draco.”
Theo was laughing at him, and Pansy, collapsing against Theo’s shoulder, wasn’t much better. At least Pansy had got over that crush she had on him, about the time that she’d spent months in the hospital wing Petrified by whatever Slytherin’s beast had been. She’d said she’d had time to think, and she hadn’t dreamed of Draco once.
“Yes, well.” Draco sipped his drink and smiled across the ballroom at Harry, who was chatting with some of the Beauxbatons students in French. “I think he’s pretty dazzling.”
Harry turned around just then, as if feeling Draco’s eyes on him—Draco wouldn’t be surprised—and gave a slow smile that seemed to reach into his body and pull his soul to the surface. Draco scolded himself for thinking in stupid metaphors, but he couldn’t help smiling back.
“Go dance with him again,” Pansy said firmly, taking Draco’s drink. “Since you look as if we’re torturing you by keeping you here.”
“You’re not,” Draco mumbled, but he drifted across the Great Hall to meet Harry halfway. Harry bent over Draco’s hand, and Draco thought he felt the phantom pressure of lips. He blushed hard enough to start Pansy and Theo laughing again behind him.
Draco glared at them over his shoulder, but Harry drew a hand slowly down his arm, and in the prickling tingle of his skin, Draco decided he had more important things to look at.
*
“So how is it going?”
Harry lay back in his bed set into one of the carriage’s curved walls and grinned. The beds had charms on them to make it easier to climb in and out than one would expect in a carriage, but the gravity just above them twisted and warped oddly. It made a perfect place to balance the mirror that Harry was using to communicate with Sirius, though. It hovered above his face, never quite falling.
“Great,” Harry said. “I know that you were skeptical about a Malfoy being a good match for me, but honestly, Draco is…he’s great.”
It sounded lame to say, but Harry knew Sirius was reassured because of the way he smirked down at Harry from the mirror’s surface. From the looks of things, Sirius was kicked back on the couch in the library in their French townhouse, an easy Apparition away from the Veela community that had transformed Harry.
Harry’s first year at Beauxbatons had been hard, and he’d been essentially a day student, since he’d had to spend every weekend and some few nights a week in the embrace of the Veela magic to complete his transformation. But that magic had given him life, had given him freedom, and had given him Draco. Harry would never regret it.
“Well, I suppose that’s the sort of spoiled little ponce you would want to spoil and pamper in turn.”
“You were calling me a spoiled little ponce this past summer, Sirius.”
“So?”
Harry laughed. Well, one thing his godfather had never pretended to was consistency. “I really think that I’ll be able to persuade him to spend part of the summer with us. He seems like he’d welcome a holiday away from his parents.”
Sirius’s eyes narrowed. “They abuse him?”
Harry flinched despite himself, and Sirius’s face softened. “Sorry, kiddo. But the question has to be asked.”
Harry nodded. It had taken him longer than he liked to admit to say that the way the Dursleys had treated him was abusive. It had been the only way of life he knew for so long, and then the way he’d turned into a wraith and gone to fetch Sirius and their relocation to France had been so completely unexpected.
“No, I don’t think so,” Harry said slowly. “Not exactly. What I think does happen is that Draco needs more warmth than they can give him. Or than they will give him. Sometimes he talks about them like they’re incapable of it. Other times like they’re just not interested.”
“Yes, that would be like my lovely cousin Narcissa and the bastard she married,” Sirius muttered. “Well, bring him home with you if you can. And you’re sure that he won’t betray you to the Headmaster or anything? Even accidentally? You know all those rumors about how Dumbledore can read minds.”
Harry snorted. Dumbledore and the Ministry had organized a massive hunt for him when he’d disappeared, but they’d only looked in Britain, so Harry had a low opinion of their competence. “I know, but honestly, Dumbledore has no reason to pay attention to Draco. He only seems to pay attention to the other professors and a few select Gryffindors.”
“Stay away from those professors.”
“Trust me, I have no reason to want them to pay attention to me, either.”
*
“Mr. Morgan?”
The gruff voice came from directly behind Harry. He turned around, blinking a little the way that he had seen other Beauxbatons students whose native language was French use when they were addressed in English. “Ah, yes?” he asked in his accented voice when he saw the Defense professor standing behind him on the lakeshore.
Alastor Moody. Sirius alternated between praising his strength in battle and being bitter that Moody, along with the other Aurors, hadn’t even questioned why Sirius would have supposedly betrayed his best friends.
“I wanted to meet you.” Moody’s eyes swept him from head to toe. “You look a lot like a boy I used to know.”
Harry held down the instinctive reaction of panic. Already he could feel some stirring in the bonds that tied him to Fleur and Gabrielle, who was here for the Second Task. They would come running immediately if he grew frightened enough, and he didn’t want to expose them to danger. Moody had no proof he was Harry Potter.
“And who is that boy, please?”
Moody’s eyes came back to his and stared. The blue, magical one was especially piercing. Harry wondered if Moody had watched him before now and Harry just hadn’t noticed, but it seemed hard to think that he wouldn’t have sensed that eye doing it. “Harry Potter.”
Harry lifted a shoulder in a small shrug. “I think you know that I am Veela, yes?”
“You are?”
Moody’s surprise seemed unfeigned. Harry smiled a little. He could cause wings to materialize if he wanted, but that was a special sign of trust that he was going to save for Draco, and he saw no reason to waste it on a professor. “Yes, monsieur.” He lifted his hand and conjured a ball of fire that sat on his palm. “You see?”
“You speak English well for a Veela.”
That seemed odd, to claim that Harry spoke it well for a Veela instead of a Frenchman, but Harry simply shrugged. “My family, they have business interests here. I was taught to speak it from a young age.”
“I see.” Moody stared at him for another long, intense moment, and then turned and stumped away without saying goodbye.
“You are well, Henri?” a voice asked behind him in French.
Harry turned around with relief. Fleur was sparking with magic that made fire gleam on her hair and her hands. He was glad that she hadn’t come pelting towards him in terror, but also glad that she was here. “Yes,” he said, in the same language. “A strange encounter with the Defense professor, who said I reminded him of Harry Potter.”
“Did he.” Fleur’s eyes locked on the now-distant figure of Moody, and then narrowed. “I do not trust that one. He does not sound right.”
“You can hear his song?” Harry was impressed. Veela who had matured could hear the songs that someone’s soul sang, most clearly from their own mates, but also from others, if they were naturally talented. He hadn’t talked with Fleur much about it since she’d turned seventeen, and didn’t know how far her hearing had advanced.
“Yes,” Fleur said. “And I would expect something enduring and hard as his face. But it is not. It is small and fluttering and there are times that it almost gives out, as though the singers all had coughs.”
Harry narrowed his eyes. “I’ll be careful of him.”
*
Draco winced as he watched Delacour surface in the water, sobbing, her arms completely empty of her sister. He knew from what other people around him had murmured that someone important to the Champions had been taken, and he knew from what Harry had said that there was no one more important to Fleur than her younger sister.
Of course, presumably the people who had been taken would be fine. They wouldn’t kill children for a game.
But then Draco remembered that they had brought nesting mother dragons in for a game, and had to wonder.
Abruptly, a commotion broke out near the shore of the lake. Draco craned his neck and felt his eyes widen as he saw Harry standing near the water, his hands extended and his eyes closed. He was breathing harshly, his chest rising and falling with what looked like pain.
Draco longed to go to him, but he didn’t think he could without attracting attention. He and Harry were keeping their mate bond secret from everyone except Harry’s godfather and adopted family. He bit his lip and stayed still as he watched Harry hold out his hands.
Balls of fire were spinning out from his palms. Draco had seen Fleur summon the same thing during the few afternoons that he’d spent with her, but he didn’t see how they could help now.
Then Harry cried out and slammed his arms up, pointing his palms, and the fire in them, straight at the sky.
The fireballs grew until they shone like captive suns, and then began to turn over and over. Water spiraled up from the lake, spinning around the fire, and became thick chains of silver and blue. Draco watched, eyes wide in disbelief now, as more and more water appeared, as the chains grew thicker and thicker.
Gabrielle came flying out of the lake at the end of the chains, beginning to splutter and cry as soon as she hit the air. Harry went flying backwards as he caught her, but he rolled so that he was in between Gabrielle and the ground, and then turned and held her out to Fleur.
Fleur flung herself on both of them, wrapping her arms around Harry and kissing his cheeks and head in a way that would have made Draco jealous if he hadn’t been sure that Harry’s heart belonged utterly to him. He still resented having to sit still, and resented the way that people peered at Harry and muttered and gossiped as if they had the right to talk about him.
But at least Draco would get an answer from Harry later, which was more than any of them could say.
*
“But if Fleur can call the fireballs too, I don’t understand why she couldn’t rescue Gabrielle the same way.”
Harry turned his head and smiled tiredly at Draco. He was still resting in his bed in the Beauxbatons carriage, exhausted from the effort he’d put in this morning. Luckily, Madame Maxime understood about mates, and Draco was allowed into the carriage where most people not from Beauxbatons wouldn’t be.
“It’s because Fleur is only a quarter Veela. I’m a full one.”
Draco’s eyes were wide and solemn. “I don’t think I really understand what that means.”
Harry coughed a little and shifted onto his side. Draco immediately rushed over and put a hand on his side. Harry sighed in relief. The warmth that flowed through him when his mate touched him was better than any potion.
“Part-Veela are more human-like than the rest of us,” Harry murmured. “They don’t depend on their mates so much, and they can restrain their emotions more easily.” He nuzzled into Draco’s palm. “But their magic is weaker, too, and they have some disadvantages. They have a lot more trouble with commanding water or casting spells that affect it than full Veela do. We have a nature of fire, but that very nature lends us some power when confronting water, because of fire and water’s elemental opposition. Part-Veela don’t have the same opposition.”
Draco nodded thoughtfully. He actually seemed to get it, which made Harry regard him hopefully. He had never thought he would have to perform such powerful magic in front of his mate so soon. He had hoped to have longer to ease Draco into accepting Harry’s nature.
But it seemed he didn’t need longer. He looked at Harry with a challenging glint in his eyes and leaned closer. “So you’re full Veela.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve heard full Veela have very intense feelings for their mates.”
“Yeah?”
“Kiss me like you mean it.”
Harry smiled, and reached out, and touched Draco’s chin, and tilted his mouth into the kiss.
He tried to pour all his relief, all his desire, all his delight at having discovered his mate through the kiss. He’d gone slowly before this, just like with his magic and the other signs of his full Veela nature, not wanting to overwhelm Draco. But the way Draco looked when Harry pulled back was the best kind of overwhelmed.
“Again?” Harry whispered.
Draco nodded, and this time, he was the one to pull Harry closer. Harry purred and went with it.
*
“You are sure that a true Veela has discovered his mate in you, son? It is a great honor.”
Draco held his temper sharply in check, since it sounded like his father didn’t consider him worthy of that honor, and simply inclined his head. “Yes, sir. Henri Morgan, a student who came with the Beauxbatons delegation.”
“French?” Father twirled his cane slowly in his hand, staring out across the Malfoy grounds. Draco watched him and wondered if Father was picturing the next Easter holiday and Harry coming with him, not that Father knew much about what Harry looked like. Draco had only provided a vague description.
His father had been a Death Eater, and under the Imperius once. (And sometimes Draco doubted the Imperius story). He might have no choice but to seize Harry and take him to the Dark Lord if he realized who Harry was.
And if the Dark Lord returned.
“Yes, sir.”
Father’s lips twisted a little. “Well. I suppose that we all make some sacrifices.”
Yes, like you sacrificing any chance to make me love you to your search for power and position, Draco thought.
He couldn’t remember when he had first realized that neither of his parents loved him, not truly. Oh, they would fight for him and try their best to keep him alive, but that was as much about pureblood prestige and carrying the Malfoy name forwards into the future as it was about Draco himself. And while sometimes Mother touched his cheek or Father looked at him with a distant fondness in his eyes, it was missing the warmth between parents and children that Draco saw in the Weasley family and was secretly jealous of.
“Do your best to keep him hooked to you, Draco,” Father instructed. “This Morein could be an asset to the House of Malfoy if handled correctly.”
He’s already forgotten Harry’s name, Draco thought, and trailed Father into the house. He was thinking.
Wherever Harry and Sirius Black lived most of the time, in France, it was sheltered and protected. And everyone said that Veela couldn’t live separately from their mates once they found them. No matter what happened, Harry wouldn’t just be going back to France at the end of next term and Draco wouldn’t just be going back to Malfoy Manor.
Draco had assumed, once, that whoever he married would of course move into the Manor with him.
Now, he had other thoughts.
*
“And no one suspects that you’re Harry Potter?”
Harry shook his head and leaned back in the compartment with his arms stretched above his head. He had Privacy Charms up, even though several of the people who had come with him to Hogwarts knew who he had once been, besides Fleur. They thought that it was amusing to keep the secret from the Brits. “Not that I can tell. The Headmaster hasn’t given me any thoughtful looks, and you said he would, if he knew.”
Sirius scowled. “Yeah, he would.”
Harry paused. He didn’t know how to ask, and Sirius had never wanted to talk about it before. But somehow, with the space in between them and speaking through mirrors, it was easier. “Do you—do you think he didn’t give you a trial on purpose?”
Sirius breathed out slowly and stared past Harry for a long second. Harry was beginning to think that he wouldn’t answer when he said softly, “I think that Albus thought he knew the truth and didn’t need to question it. He didn’t deliberately leave me in Azkaban, no. But his confidence in his own judgment was so fucking infallible…”
Harry nodded, glad of both the confession and the fact that Sirius had decided to start swearing around him a year ago. He had made so many efforts to stop before then, and it didn’t really work and just made him stutter and lose the thread of the conversation. “Yeah. Well, I wouldn’t trust him, either.”
“What about Moody?”
“He’s watched me, but hasn’t made any other attempt to approach me.”
“Be careful, kiddo.”
Harry smiled slightly. “If he does dare to come near a Veela, then he’ll have to be carted away in pieces.”
*
Moody dared.
Harry turned around and found the man behind him, looming. And this time, he was close enough, or Harry was alert enough, that he could feel something off about the man too. Wrong. He bowed his head and conjured balls of fire and claws on his hands without taking his eyes off Moody.
“I know who you are,” Moody whispered. They were alone in one of the secret passages Draco had told him about, a tight, twisting staircase, that Harry had been taking down towards the Slytherin part of the dungeons to meet his mate. “Harry Potter.”
He reached for Harry. Something gleamed on his hand. It looked like a ring, but Harry knew well enough, from having seen other Veela use them, how easily any object could be made into a Portkey.
Harry screamed, a piercing sound that rolled from one side of the space to another and made Moody falter, his hands rising instinctively towards his ears. Then Harry struck.
One of his hands ripped claws down the back of Moody’s arm, tearing runnels of flesh and blood loose, making the man cry out himself with pain. The other threw the fire straight into Moody’s face.
Moody staggered about, shrieking and burning. Harry aimed his hands at Moody and called on fire again, and this time lit his robes.
Moody flung himself onto the step beneath him and began rolling to put out the fire. Harry scratched his face, blinding him in his good eye, and popped the magical one loose, throwing it down the steps as far as he could.
Only then, panting, did he manage to master the instinctive urge to hurt the enemy until he was dead and focus his thoughts. A pulse of reassurance went to Draco, who would be wondering why Harry was late, and a pulse of agony to Fleur.
Help me!
*
Draco stood in Harry’s arms and leaned his chin on Harry’s shoulder. He still shook from the revelations that Harry had told him about.
Moody wasn’t Moody. He had been Barty Crouch, Jr., an escaped Death Eater, all year. And he had discovered that Harry was really Harry and had meant to transport him—somewhere. Delacour and Harry had got that much from before Delacour scrambled his memory to make him forget about discovering who Harry was and delivered him to the Headmaster’s office.
They’d told the Headmaster that Crouch had become captivated by the beauty of a Veela and had intended to steal Harry away. It wouldn’t be the first time and it wouldn’t be the last time.
It horrified Draco, how close he had come to losing his mate.
And that had hardened his resolve.
“Take me to France with you,” he whispered. “When you go back after the Tournament. Take me with you.”
Harry’s breath stuttered. He leaned back and stared at Draco with those shining green eyes that seemed to hold all the secrets of a forest. “I thought—I thought you’d want me and Sirius to move to Britain, to be with you. Sirius had a false identity all picked out and everything.”
Draco shook his head. “I can’t stand the thought of being apart from you. And you’re always going to be in danger as long as you’re on British soil.”
“That’s probably true,” Harry mused, his voice quiet. “But you won’t—your family—”
“I choose you,” Draco blurted. “They could never be bothered with choosing me, my parents. They always chose some gala or party or looking good over me. I was tutored by house-elves.” He blinked, hard, and held back the tears that wanted to fall. Harry would go into comforting mode if that happened, and Draco honestly just wanted to finish saying this. “I want to go with you.”
Harry studied him in silence for a long moment. Then he smiled, slowly, and it was like the sun rising.
“Sirius was worried about me finding my mate so young,” Harry whispered. “But I think it worked out best for both of us.” He leaned forwards and kissed Draco.
Draco closed his eyes and poured all his strength and longing into the kiss. Strength for his mate. Longing to be part of his mate’s life.
And as he felt the bond between them snap and flicker into glowing brilliance, he thought, This is for life, and found nothing but wonder in the thought.
The End.
