lomonaaeren (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lomonaaeren) wrote2010-10-05 06:38 pm
lomonaaeren) wrote2010-10-05 06:38 pm
[one-shots]: Dies Irae, R, epilogue fic for 'Veela-Struck,' 2/2
This is the second part of a long one-shot. Don't start reading here.
“Mate? Mate, are you all right?”
Harry jumped and came back to himself. He’d been sitting behind his desk in their office, staring at the ceiling, and he had known where he was, enough not to react violently when Ron touched him. But his arse still left the seat, and he sagged back with a groan, rubbing a hand across his face.
“Mate.” Ron was standing in front of him, and he had the expression on his face that had more than once caused Hermione to compare him to a mule, though she would always add that a mule was more handsome. “You’re not dealing well with whatever this is. You shouldn’t have come in today. Go home.”
Harry drew himself up and cleared his throat. He felt bad enough for taking one unanticipated day off last week and sticking Ron with many more cases than Ron had thought he would have to handle, but he wasn’t going to leave early now. That would carry his obsession over Laurent from the category of “I can handle this” to “I can’t handle this and it’s hurting other people.” “Listen, Ron, I don’t know what Draco might have said to you, but I promise that I’m fine. No one’s wounded him or me.”
Ron’s eyes only grew darker. “It isn’t the best sign that you immediately try to reassure me instead of shrugging off my concern,” he said, steel in each word. “Harry. Go home. We only have a few hours left.”
“And how many times have we been called out during one of those hours on cases?” Harry held his gaze.
Ron sighed. “Do it for me, if not for yourself,” he said. “I can hear the scolding that Hermione and Draco would both give me if they saw you like this, but I don’t want to.”
Harry summoned up a ghost of a smile, although he thought he had probably paled. “That bad, huh?”
“You could use three days of sleep and someone to talk with about whatever’s bothering you,” Ron said, and then stared at him expectantly.
Harry sighed. “I can’t, not yet. Sorry, Ron.”
“Then talk with Draco, at least,” Ron said stubbornly, and grabbed his arm, hauling him to his feet. Harry went, blinking. He forgot at times how strong Ron was. “Like I said, I know he would suffer if he saw you like this. You forget, his health depends on yours. Go home and talk to him. Git.”
Somehow, while Ron was talking, he had managed to haul Harry most of the distance across the office, and Harry found himself at the door. Now Ron tossed several files at him that were probably the most urgent ones—Ron was better about keeping those things organized than Harry was—and a stack of reports. Harry caught them without spilling anything, but had to clasp them to his sides in the next moment because his hands were shaking so badly.
Ron met his eyes. There was no humor in his face, now, and Harry thought he might actually have drawn his wand if Harry had tried to come back into the office. “See,” Ron said quietly. “Go home.”
Harry nodded, sheepish and sheep-like, and walked down the corridor. No one passing gave him a second glance. After all, it was hardly unusual to walk through the Department of Magical Law Enforcement with large stacks of paper.
But he couldn’t escape the feeling that he should have stayed. What was wrong with him, anyway? So now he knew how Laurent had died. He had borne witness to his death, in a way, because he hadn’t remained in ignorance and he had a reason to have nightmares for the rest of his life. What else could he do? What else, Draco would demand, could even the spirit of Laurent ask of him?
All the way home, Harry thought about that. And when he stepped out of the fire in Malfoy Manor and heard Draco clatter down the stairs to meet him, smiling in delighted astonishment, his hands covered with some glittering powder from the potion he’d been brewing, he thought he knew what the problem was.
He was caught halfway between the response that he would have had, once upon a time, tormenting himself with guilt over Laurent’s death and writhing in pain and fury, and the response he wanted to have, where he acknowledged that Draco’s love meant more to him than Laurent’s death. When he swayed towards the first, he remembered Draco’s love and was ashamed. When he swayed towards the second, he remembered the sheer horror of Draco’s recitation and thought he was obliged to feel some guilt, because no one deserved to die that way.
He needed a bridge. He needed to make a leap and become the second person fully. It wasn’t his commitment that was wanting, or at least he didn’t think so. Something else was holding him back.
He handed his files to Draco, kissed him—an open-mouthed kiss that went on for some time and had Draco panting and grinning by the time they pulled apart—and took a step into the darkness, trusting that the bridge would be there. It was the way he had always worked, and this time, as he had felt before, a firm sense of rightness guided him.
There was only one thing he had allowed Laurent to do that he hadn’t allowed Draco to do, though there were many that were the other way around.
“Draco?” His Veela looked up, alert and ready at the tone of need in his voice, and Harry nodded. “I want you to use your allure on me.”
*
Harry frowned at him from the other side of the room. “Why do we have to speak with them about it?” he muttered. “I would have thought it would be our private decision. Unless you think I’m mad.”
Draco shook his head. There was the flash of challenge in Harry’s face that he loved and also found exasperating, because Harry would go straight for the worst conclusion for no reason. “No. But I want Lucy to explain to you what exactly it means, to use the allure like this, the way I explained the way a Veela would die without his chosen. And I want Owen and Lucy both to see you and determine whether the allure is affecting your actions as much as you think it is.”
“It’s not the allure itself,” Harry said. “I told you. It’s the symbol of the thing.”
Draco sighed, but didn’t answer. He didn’t think there were any words that would convince Harry of his viewpoint, and therefore, he wouldn’t spend the time trying.
The door before them opened. Draco stood up at once. Lucy smiled at them from the doorway, that pale, pure, remote expression that Draco had begun imitating when he wanted to intimidate people, and behind her was Owen King, her chosen, his hair shining nearly as brightly as hers did.
“Come in,” Lucy said, with a sweep of her hand. Draco noticed that she had her claws out. Well, the last time she had seen Harry, he was still riding the edge of destructive magic every time he looked at a Veela, and had only begun to heal and admit that he needed to heal. It was no wonder that she was a bit cautious.
They shuffled into one of the several beautiful rooms of Owen and Lucy’s house. This one had a theme of mountains, with delicately painted silhouettes of them on the walls in lines of blue and purple, and the lamps on the tables bearing shades of green and blue. Draco shook his head. Owen and Lucy were the only ones he knew who could suggest landscapes without actually using glamours and illusions.
There were four chairs in a circle in the center of the carpet, facing one another. Draco sat down in the nearest and drew Harry along. Harry accepted the seat beside him, face set in a permanent frown.
“I wish to know why you came here,” Lucy said. She did not sit, despite the fourth chair, but stood behind Owen, one hand resting on his shoulder. “You can hardly want our approval or help, considering that you have lived together for months now.”
Draco knew the reason for the suspicion behind her bright eyes. Owen had retired from being an active Healer because of health difficulties, and Lucy was sedulous in making sure that he didn’t overtax himself for the people who visited him now. Draco made sure to keep his voice soft and respectful, so that Lucy wouldn’t think he was challenging her. “Harry thinks that he’s ready to purge the memories of Laurent from his mind by having me use the allure on him.”
“It isn’t the memories he will get rid of if he does that,” Owen said. He spoke more quickly than was his wont, looking from one of them to the other. “It’s the unnaturally strong emotions associated with the memories, the rage that makes it impossible for him to let time do its healing.”
Draco nodded. He had known that, but had misspoken. “Yes, sorry, that’s what I meant. I wanted Lucy to speak with him and describe the allure.”
Lucy and Owen exchanged a look, and Lucy asked, as if testing the waters, “You came here for my help? Not his?”
“Yes?” Draco framed it as a question. Perhaps she was busy? But he couldn’t imagine that she would have accepted his query about whether they could come if she was.
Lucy smiled and moved around the chair. “Then I will be happy to help you. Owen has been stressed enough lately that I didn’t want to expose him to the full pressure of a case as delicate and difficult as Mr. Potter’s.”
“I could have handled it,” Owen muttered.
Lucy turned her head and gave him an exasperated look. Draco knew the feeling. He had done this all too many times with Harry. It seemed that Veela in general were often drawn to people who were Healers, Aurors, or heroes in some other way. The struggle to keep such a chosen safe and to preserve some of his energy for the Veela was incredible.
Owen looked at his hands, which was a good way of admitting that Lucy was right. She turned back with an indulgent smile that Draco knew was meant for her chosen and not them. “What do you wish me to explain?” she asked Draco. “Exactly? The normal reasons for using the allure, or the reasons for using it in a case like this?”
“A case like this,” Draco said. “Harry already is immune to the allure, so he wouldn’t feel it like someone else would anyway.”
Lucy’s smile faded. “Ah,” she said, and examined Harry closely enough that he started to squirm. He had a trapped expression on his face, and Draco grew his claws and reached out to stroke Harry’s arm. Harry relaxed. Lucy nodded, as though the gesture had been the answer to one of her questions. “It is good that you are able to relax enough to trust your Veela,” she told Harry. “This would be impossible without it.”
“I wouldn’t be here without it,” Harry said, avoiding her eyes. “I would never have started sleeping with Draco if I didn’t trust him.”
Lucy waited a few moments, seeming to absorb the force of that declaration, and then nodded and reached out. Harry flinched back from her hand, but, with Draco still touching his arm, managed to accept it. Lucy didn’t press down, but lightly covered Harry’s palm with her own. Draco had to look away to manage his jealousy, though.
“Normal allure is like this,” Lucy said. “A call on the senses, though the senses used are not among the common five. You can feel it as a light touch.” She pressed down harder. Draco knew she did because he had looked back, unable to justify turning away when someone else was touching his chosen. “The heavier it gets, the more you feel it.”
Harry shook his head. “I never really knew the difference. I was just immune to it, and that was all. It made Laurent furious, because he wanted to control me, although I rationalized it to myself differently at the time.” He closed his eyes. “And then he made me Veela-struck, and—” He stopped.
“Yes,” Lucy said softly. “Imagine my hand reaching in to cup your heart and explore all the cells of your body. That is what being Veela-struck is like, as opposed to the dizziness and desire to obey that the allure conveys.”
Draco showed her his teeth. She looked back, unimpressed and unexcited, and Draco reined in his instincts and nodded a hasty apology. He had to remember that she was trying to help. She wasn’t trying to take Harry away. She had someone of her own, though, looking at Owen, Draco had to admit that he couldn’t see the attraction as compared to Harry.
“Letting someone touch you with his allure, as compared to the ordinary touch, is like being Veela-struck,” Lucy told Harry. “You will not feel the desire to obey, but you will feel it pass throughout your body. You will feel that he holds your heart in his hands—or something equally intimate. That sensation is the particular one I felt when I was being trained to use the allure,” she added parenthetically. “You must be open, completely accepting.” She paused and stared Harry in the face again. “Frankly, my belief is that your history makes it impossible, but I honor you for the desire.”
Draco winced. There went Lucy, being blunter than he would have liked as usual. But—if she hadn’t made that explanation, Draco knew he would have botched it, and Harry would probably have panicked about how openly he had to surrender. It was better that he have some idea of what he would be facing.
“It’s like being Veela-struck.” Harry’s voice was small and chill, and Draco couldn’t stand it. He got up and moved into Harry’s chair, putting his body between Harry and Lucy. But, for the first time since Harry had truly started trying with Draco, he remained unresponsive to Draco’s caresses. He had the expression of someone walking into hell.
“In the depth,” Lucy said. “Not the effects. Since you are immune to the allure, it will blow through you like a cleansing wind. But can you surrender to that depth? I do not think you can.”
Draco showed her his teeth again, this time in sheer annoyance with the way that she kept insisting on the hopelessness of the case. She looked back at him, clearly indifferent, and then nodded at Harry. “I think you are brave.”
Harry closed his eyes. He was shrinking back into isolation, Draco thought. He had dealt with the rape alone for two and a half years; his friends had known, but no one else, not even his adopted family, the Weasleys. He was trying that tactic again.
But Draco was here now. He slapped Harry sharply on the arm, and Harry’s eyes flew open, a protest in his expression. Draco quelled it with a harsh stare.
“We’ll get through it,” he said fiercely. “Because I refuse to let you fail, and you refuse to fail.”
Harry’s expression worked through several shades of angry, annoyed, and upset until he nodded. He leaned back in the chair and looked grim again, but his arm curled around Draco’s neck. Draco crooned into Harry’s ear.
Harry smiled at him, finally, and then looked over his shoulder at Lucy and Owen. Draco understood. It was impossible for Harry to forget about having an audience, even one who wouldn’t interfere and who would completely understand. He stood up, half-spreading his wings so that Harry was sheltered within those feathers, and looked expectantly at Lucy.
“Go on, then, if you must,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “As long as both of you understand that this will not be easy, then I have nothing else to explain.”
“When has anything we’ve done been easy?” Draco retorted, and gathered Harry up to sweep him out the door. A glance over his shoulder showed that Owen was smiling at them both—he had hardly said a word during the conversation, but he didn’t need to when he knew that he could leave things up to his Veela—and Lucy watching with an intense expression that might have had an edge of sweetness to it.
*
Harry could feel Draco’s stare on the back of his head. They had come back from Owen and Lucy’s, and had come straight up to their bedroom. Draco seemed intent on beginning Harry’s exposure to the allure right away, and Harry had to admit, that was what he had wanted, too.
Except…
Except that the minutes seemed to drag, now, and Harry couldn’t stop picking things up and putting them down in an orgy of self-consciousness. When he turned around, Draco’s eyes hit him like a blow. He winced and looked aside.
“Do you want to wait?” Draco’s voice was soft and solicitous, with music in the corners. Harry knew he would wait if Harry wanted to, despite what had to be his own impatience.
“I—don’t know,” Harry said. He sat down in the middle of their bed. It seemed incredible to him that they had four places to live, if they wanted to: Harry’s house, Draco’s, the Mabinogion House that Narcissa had given him as a gift, and these rooms in Malfoy Manor. They stayed in the Manor most of the time right now because the rooms were beautiful and Harry thought it was a place they could truly share. Harry’s house still boasted wards and anti-Veela protections that he’d put up when nightmares of Laurent haunted him. Draco’s house had been the place he discovered that Draco was (as he thought) trying to find clues about Laurent’s place and false name in Azkaban, and Harry was reluctant to stir up any more bad memories than he had to.
This room was small compared to some of the ones they could have taken, circular, with a window that looked out on the lawns where the peacocks screeched and on the Malfoys’ Owlery. Harry liked the huge, circular bed, and the soft pillows, and the way that Draco lay on it and cradled him in his wings, as if they were in a nest. He couldn’t imagine a better place to suffer through the allure, if he had to suffer through it, than here.
He looked up at Draco and nodded imperceptibly. Draco’s eyes widened, and he stepped towards Harry and then hesitated as if he assumed that coming closer was enough to ratchet up the tension.
Harry locked his hands into place on his knees. All he could think of at the moment was Laurent’s face, staring at him in twisted adoration, as he released the allure that would strike deeper than the kind Harry was immune to and render him a helpless slave. He hadn’t known what he did was wrong. Harry truly believed that. He had only wanted to keep Harry at his side, concerned with him and ignoring everything else.
The expression was different from Draco’s. Harry had to tell himself that, or he would leap to his feet and run from the room.
“You’re not ready,” Draco murmured.
“I don’t think I can be, not for this,” Harry answered. “What matters is my willingness and your gentleness. I trust in both of those for the moment.” He tried to muster a smile, but it must have been an awful effort, because Draco scowled at him. Harry breathed to calm himself and nodded. “Nothing will make this easier but going ahead, I think. Please, Draco. Touch me with the allure, and we’ll see what happens.”
Draco bowed his head, as if agreeing that that was the best solution. He seemed to concentrate. Harry closed his eyes to mute the screaming in his mind. It might be for the best if he didn’t watch the expression on Draco’s face as he worked.
The air around Harry filled with a clear lightness, like flames burning on the edges of his sight. He knew he would see nothing if he opened his eyes and turned his head. That was part of the point, that the allure conjured all sorts of effects without quite arriving at any one. It made an impact on the senses, but not a definable one.
Harry shivered. He wondered for a moment if Draco’s allure was cold, an effect he hadn’t noticed with Laurent, but realized that he had broken out in freezing sweat. That’ll do it, he thought.
He heard a steady wingbeat and would have opened his eyes to see if Draco was rising off the floor, had he dared. Then the clarity of the allure seemed to turn and pour through him like a wind, and he realized that Draco was using his wings to channel it.
The wind was delicate, and soft, and sweet. He could smell a scent like the youth of roses, and a rocking motion enclosed his body. If he was in a boat on a sentient sea, or back in the womb, he could not have been rocked more gently.
Flashes of pain came to him, though distantly. Harry knew that he was clawing his knees up and ought to stop, but there was no stopping the sheer panic that would dance through him otherwise. Pain would counterbalance the other sensations, no matter how distant, and remind him that this was not Laurent. With Laurent, he’d had no choice. He simply fell back on the bed and spread his arms and legs in welcome—
No!
His mind spasmed. His throat closed. Harry threw his head back and tried to scream, but he had no air.
“Harry.”
Draco’s voice was near his ear, shrill with Veela protectiveness, but human enough that Harry could understand it. He held his arms out; Draco seemed to understand, and moved into the embrace. Harry felt the quivering muscles in his back and the shifting glory of the wings.
“Can you look at me?” Draco asked, voice sounding as if it came from a tunnel now. “I think that might help.”
“No,” Harry said. He didn’t know if his response was an answer to Draco’s question or a simple denial. His throat was on fire now. No matter where he turned his head, he couldn’t stop smelling the scent of the allure.
“I love you,” Draco said.
The world rocked around Harry once and steadied again. Draco’s love was real, unlike the confusing flutter of sensations that the allure tried to convince him were more than illusion but could never be anything but that. Harry huddled closer to Draco and swallowed the sob that wanted to emerge from his throat.
“I can—I can get through this,” he said. He wondered if he was talking to himself.
Draco nuzzled the back of his neck. “You can. It’s the surrender and the openness that Lucy said you would have the hardest time with, and that’s true.”
Harry’s heart heaved once. Lucy. There were other people outside this room. The world hadn’t faded to him and Draco, the way it had seemed to fade to him and Laurent once before.
He would get through this, because he loved Draco too. He murmured that, and Draco said he knew, and stroked Harry’s hair back.
“Can you think about the way that you gave in to me during the Blazing Season?” Draco whispered. “The gift you gave of yourself? You trusted me, and I didn’t abuse that trust. I’m not him. I would never rape you.”
Harry shivered a bit, partially at the word but more because he knew that, and he felt a bit pained that Draco should think he had to put it in words. “I know,” he said. “I know so much about you, Draco, and I’ve got used to more. I think I can do this if I push myself a little further. But don’t let me fall.”
“You’ll have the harder task,” Draco said at once, his voice soft with eagerness. “I couldn’t let you fall if I wanted to.”
Harry held the words to himself until he truly believed in them and could feel them like separate particles of warmth brewing through his blood. That was different from the warmth that the allure created, he thought. He could trust it.
Then again, if he truly accepted the touch of the allure the way that Draco wanted him to, then he would be able to trust it, too, because it was under Draco’s control.
Harry blinked away the confusion and looked up at Draco. Draco’s eyes were enormous in the faint light of the room, and he leaned down and kissed Harry until Harry had to relax, because he wanted so much to open his arms, his legs, and his mouth to Draco.
“Lie back,” Draco whispered, in that same deep tone Harry had heard a few times during the Blazing Season. “This will be easier if you lie back.”
Harry nodded and lay down on the bed, spreading his legs wide. He felt his wariness retreat to the back of his mind. It was still there, curling his spine and stiffening his hands, but much less than it had been. Draco’s smile was helplessly tender, his face not shining in the way that Laurent’s had. He reached out and smoothed a hand that flickered with white flames down Harry’s flank. Harry shuddered. He had a number of small sensitive spots there that Draco knew very well by now.
“Keep in mind,” Draco whispered, “that you’re the one in control here. You can tell me to stop using the allure at any time, and I will. I promise.” His fingers were drawing small circles now, and his nails were claws, and his face was bright with hunger. He bent to kiss Harry, and, before Harry could answer, breathed in the allure through his mouth.
Harry breathed back, trying to expel it, but the allure spread through him, the steady, bright wind he had felt a few minutes before. This time, though, it was inside him, and it wouldn’t leave. Harry closed his eyes and tried his best to enjoy the scent and the rocking motions, the feeling like a pair of hands cradling his heart. It was more intimate this time, with Draco on top of him and inside him in this way, and the fingers stroking his sides and the voice crooning in his ear all said that.
Relaxation came gradually, not suddenly. It seemed to start from the edges and work its way in. Harry could smell the scent of unearthly flowers without wanting to be sick when he remembered that those flowers grew in gardens Draco had tended. And if Draco held his heart, he would be much more careful of it than Laurent had been.
He does hold my heart. Harry breathed in again, and managed to exhale in a way that didn’t make him sound as if he was about to have a coughing fit. I forgot that. Just because it’s never been this literal before doesn’t mean that it wasn’t true.
“You smell better than the allure does,” Draco whispered. “Let me in, Harry.” Again he bent over Harry and breathed into his mouth.
Harry accepted it, even opening his mouth to get more. It wasn’t the allure itself that soothed him—it couldn’t affect him unless he let it—but the fact that this was Draco, Draco willingly doing something difficult and time-consuming for no better reason than that he loved Harry.
Down and down and down the allure traveled, creating spiraling corridors through his veins, tracking the remnants of anger and hatred and fear that rested there from his time with Laurent. Harry had never realized how deep those emotions ran. He had controlled the impulse to murder Laurent at the time, and that had seemed to get rid of them.
But no, there they were. Harry turned away from them, but the allure continued pressing forwards, and he could feel the moment when the allure touched those emotions, fixed into him by Laurent making him Veela-struck.
The light that passed through his body might only have existed on the back of his eyelids, but it was brilliant. Silvery as Veela wings, it beat and fluttered and soared into a higher, purer realm of existence, the one where Harry had dwelt since he and Draco came together. He ascended in light, and cried out softly in wonder.
Draco breathed into his mouth again. Harry experienced the allure as sunlight this time, burning and blazing deeply into his heart. It hurt as he watched the anger and hatred melt, but those unchanging emotions were going, and that was the important thing. He was banishing the black ice and welcoming back the spring.
He wouldn’t dare say those things aloud. They were too soppy. But he thought them, and no one could take that from him. The sunlight was in his mind, making the atmosphere too thick and rich to contain such abominations as Laurent had tried to inflict on him.
Those dark snowbanks trembled, and then dissolved. Harry laughed aloud. He opened his eyes and saw Draco looking startled above him, before he smiled tentatively back and reached down to comb his fingers through Harry’s hair.
“All right, love?” he whispered.
“So much better,” Harry said. He hadn’t realized how the weight of being Veela-struck clung to him until it was gone. He stretched, and he seemed to have gained the ability to reach a new yard of distance with each limb.
Draco slid off his chest and lay beside him, staring at him with hazy grey eyes, almost silver. Harry touched him on the forehead and nodded his thanks. He would have spoken it, but all the words still sounded wrong in his mental ears.
“This isn’t going to heal you completely,” Draco said. “It won’t make it as if you’d never been raped.”
Harry snorted, a bit insulted that Draco thought he needed to hear that. “I know. But most of the effects from that, like my distrust of food, are the ones I know are there and how to deal with. I had no idea how much this still affected me.” He laid his head on Draco’s chest and closed his eyes.
“Are you all right?” Draco whispered. “I could understand if you just want to be away from all Veela for a while.”
“You’re perfect,” Harry said drowsily. “Let me hear your heart, and you’ll be even better.”
*
Draco was exhausted. Breathing the allure into Harry had taken more effort than he thought it would. Harry’s natural immunity meant it was like pushing a rock uphill, rather than finding the immediate acceptance that the allure would create in most people.
But then he had seen Harry’s face relax and glow. He had seen him irradiated from inside—something that he thought Harry had also felt or sensed, but which he didn’t seem to want to talk about. Harry had extended his hands and fallen into the embrace of the allure, into the embrace of Draco’s trust.
The effort had been worth it.
Harry always will be, Draco thought, and draped a sheltering wing over them both.
The End.
“Mate? Mate, are you all right?”
Harry jumped and came back to himself. He’d been sitting behind his desk in their office, staring at the ceiling, and he had known where he was, enough not to react violently when Ron touched him. But his arse still left the seat, and he sagged back with a groan, rubbing a hand across his face.
“Mate.” Ron was standing in front of him, and he had the expression on his face that had more than once caused Hermione to compare him to a mule, though she would always add that a mule was more handsome. “You’re not dealing well with whatever this is. You shouldn’t have come in today. Go home.”
Harry drew himself up and cleared his throat. He felt bad enough for taking one unanticipated day off last week and sticking Ron with many more cases than Ron had thought he would have to handle, but he wasn’t going to leave early now. That would carry his obsession over Laurent from the category of “I can handle this” to “I can’t handle this and it’s hurting other people.” “Listen, Ron, I don’t know what Draco might have said to you, but I promise that I’m fine. No one’s wounded him or me.”
Ron’s eyes only grew darker. “It isn’t the best sign that you immediately try to reassure me instead of shrugging off my concern,” he said, steel in each word. “Harry. Go home. We only have a few hours left.”
“And how many times have we been called out during one of those hours on cases?” Harry held his gaze.
Ron sighed. “Do it for me, if not for yourself,” he said. “I can hear the scolding that Hermione and Draco would both give me if they saw you like this, but I don’t want to.”
Harry summoned up a ghost of a smile, although he thought he had probably paled. “That bad, huh?”
“You could use three days of sleep and someone to talk with about whatever’s bothering you,” Ron said, and then stared at him expectantly.
Harry sighed. “I can’t, not yet. Sorry, Ron.”
“Then talk with Draco, at least,” Ron said stubbornly, and grabbed his arm, hauling him to his feet. Harry went, blinking. He forgot at times how strong Ron was. “Like I said, I know he would suffer if he saw you like this. You forget, his health depends on yours. Go home and talk to him. Git.”
Somehow, while Ron was talking, he had managed to haul Harry most of the distance across the office, and Harry found himself at the door. Now Ron tossed several files at him that were probably the most urgent ones—Ron was better about keeping those things organized than Harry was—and a stack of reports. Harry caught them without spilling anything, but had to clasp them to his sides in the next moment because his hands were shaking so badly.
Ron met his eyes. There was no humor in his face, now, and Harry thought he might actually have drawn his wand if Harry had tried to come back into the office. “See,” Ron said quietly. “Go home.”
Harry nodded, sheepish and sheep-like, and walked down the corridor. No one passing gave him a second glance. After all, it was hardly unusual to walk through the Department of Magical Law Enforcement with large stacks of paper.
But he couldn’t escape the feeling that he should have stayed. What was wrong with him, anyway? So now he knew how Laurent had died. He had borne witness to his death, in a way, because he hadn’t remained in ignorance and he had a reason to have nightmares for the rest of his life. What else could he do? What else, Draco would demand, could even the spirit of Laurent ask of him?
All the way home, Harry thought about that. And when he stepped out of the fire in Malfoy Manor and heard Draco clatter down the stairs to meet him, smiling in delighted astonishment, his hands covered with some glittering powder from the potion he’d been brewing, he thought he knew what the problem was.
He was caught halfway between the response that he would have had, once upon a time, tormenting himself with guilt over Laurent’s death and writhing in pain and fury, and the response he wanted to have, where he acknowledged that Draco’s love meant more to him than Laurent’s death. When he swayed towards the first, he remembered Draco’s love and was ashamed. When he swayed towards the second, he remembered the sheer horror of Draco’s recitation and thought he was obliged to feel some guilt, because no one deserved to die that way.
He needed a bridge. He needed to make a leap and become the second person fully. It wasn’t his commitment that was wanting, or at least he didn’t think so. Something else was holding him back.
He handed his files to Draco, kissed him—an open-mouthed kiss that went on for some time and had Draco panting and grinning by the time they pulled apart—and took a step into the darkness, trusting that the bridge would be there. It was the way he had always worked, and this time, as he had felt before, a firm sense of rightness guided him.
There was only one thing he had allowed Laurent to do that he hadn’t allowed Draco to do, though there were many that were the other way around.
“Draco?” His Veela looked up, alert and ready at the tone of need in his voice, and Harry nodded. “I want you to use your allure on me.”
*
Harry frowned at him from the other side of the room. “Why do we have to speak with them about it?” he muttered. “I would have thought it would be our private decision. Unless you think I’m mad.”
Draco shook his head. There was the flash of challenge in Harry’s face that he loved and also found exasperating, because Harry would go straight for the worst conclusion for no reason. “No. But I want Lucy to explain to you what exactly it means, to use the allure like this, the way I explained the way a Veela would die without his chosen. And I want Owen and Lucy both to see you and determine whether the allure is affecting your actions as much as you think it is.”
“It’s not the allure itself,” Harry said. “I told you. It’s the symbol of the thing.”
Draco sighed, but didn’t answer. He didn’t think there were any words that would convince Harry of his viewpoint, and therefore, he wouldn’t spend the time trying.
The door before them opened. Draco stood up at once. Lucy smiled at them from the doorway, that pale, pure, remote expression that Draco had begun imitating when he wanted to intimidate people, and behind her was Owen King, her chosen, his hair shining nearly as brightly as hers did.
“Come in,” Lucy said, with a sweep of her hand. Draco noticed that she had her claws out. Well, the last time she had seen Harry, he was still riding the edge of destructive magic every time he looked at a Veela, and had only begun to heal and admit that he needed to heal. It was no wonder that she was a bit cautious.
They shuffled into one of the several beautiful rooms of Owen and Lucy’s house. This one had a theme of mountains, with delicately painted silhouettes of them on the walls in lines of blue and purple, and the lamps on the tables bearing shades of green and blue. Draco shook his head. Owen and Lucy were the only ones he knew who could suggest landscapes without actually using glamours and illusions.
There were four chairs in a circle in the center of the carpet, facing one another. Draco sat down in the nearest and drew Harry along. Harry accepted the seat beside him, face set in a permanent frown.
“I wish to know why you came here,” Lucy said. She did not sit, despite the fourth chair, but stood behind Owen, one hand resting on his shoulder. “You can hardly want our approval or help, considering that you have lived together for months now.”
Draco knew the reason for the suspicion behind her bright eyes. Owen had retired from being an active Healer because of health difficulties, and Lucy was sedulous in making sure that he didn’t overtax himself for the people who visited him now. Draco made sure to keep his voice soft and respectful, so that Lucy wouldn’t think he was challenging her. “Harry thinks that he’s ready to purge the memories of Laurent from his mind by having me use the allure on him.”
“It isn’t the memories he will get rid of if he does that,” Owen said. He spoke more quickly than was his wont, looking from one of them to the other. “It’s the unnaturally strong emotions associated with the memories, the rage that makes it impossible for him to let time do its healing.”
Draco nodded. He had known that, but had misspoken. “Yes, sorry, that’s what I meant. I wanted Lucy to speak with him and describe the allure.”
Lucy and Owen exchanged a look, and Lucy asked, as if testing the waters, “You came here for my help? Not his?”
“Yes?” Draco framed it as a question. Perhaps she was busy? But he couldn’t imagine that she would have accepted his query about whether they could come if she was.
Lucy smiled and moved around the chair. “Then I will be happy to help you. Owen has been stressed enough lately that I didn’t want to expose him to the full pressure of a case as delicate and difficult as Mr. Potter’s.”
“I could have handled it,” Owen muttered.
Lucy turned her head and gave him an exasperated look. Draco knew the feeling. He had done this all too many times with Harry. It seemed that Veela in general were often drawn to people who were Healers, Aurors, or heroes in some other way. The struggle to keep such a chosen safe and to preserve some of his energy for the Veela was incredible.
Owen looked at his hands, which was a good way of admitting that Lucy was right. She turned back with an indulgent smile that Draco knew was meant for her chosen and not them. “What do you wish me to explain?” she asked Draco. “Exactly? The normal reasons for using the allure, or the reasons for using it in a case like this?”
“A case like this,” Draco said. “Harry already is immune to the allure, so he wouldn’t feel it like someone else would anyway.”
Lucy’s smile faded. “Ah,” she said, and examined Harry closely enough that he started to squirm. He had a trapped expression on his face, and Draco grew his claws and reached out to stroke Harry’s arm. Harry relaxed. Lucy nodded, as though the gesture had been the answer to one of her questions. “It is good that you are able to relax enough to trust your Veela,” she told Harry. “This would be impossible without it.”
“I wouldn’t be here without it,” Harry said, avoiding her eyes. “I would never have started sleeping with Draco if I didn’t trust him.”
Lucy waited a few moments, seeming to absorb the force of that declaration, and then nodded and reached out. Harry flinched back from her hand, but, with Draco still touching his arm, managed to accept it. Lucy didn’t press down, but lightly covered Harry’s palm with her own. Draco had to look away to manage his jealousy, though.
“Normal allure is like this,” Lucy said. “A call on the senses, though the senses used are not among the common five. You can feel it as a light touch.” She pressed down harder. Draco knew she did because he had looked back, unable to justify turning away when someone else was touching his chosen. “The heavier it gets, the more you feel it.”
Harry shook his head. “I never really knew the difference. I was just immune to it, and that was all. It made Laurent furious, because he wanted to control me, although I rationalized it to myself differently at the time.” He closed his eyes. “And then he made me Veela-struck, and—” He stopped.
“Yes,” Lucy said softly. “Imagine my hand reaching in to cup your heart and explore all the cells of your body. That is what being Veela-struck is like, as opposed to the dizziness and desire to obey that the allure conveys.”
Draco showed her his teeth. She looked back, unimpressed and unexcited, and Draco reined in his instincts and nodded a hasty apology. He had to remember that she was trying to help. She wasn’t trying to take Harry away. She had someone of her own, though, looking at Owen, Draco had to admit that he couldn’t see the attraction as compared to Harry.
“Letting someone touch you with his allure, as compared to the ordinary touch, is like being Veela-struck,” Lucy told Harry. “You will not feel the desire to obey, but you will feel it pass throughout your body. You will feel that he holds your heart in his hands—or something equally intimate. That sensation is the particular one I felt when I was being trained to use the allure,” she added parenthetically. “You must be open, completely accepting.” She paused and stared Harry in the face again. “Frankly, my belief is that your history makes it impossible, but I honor you for the desire.”
Draco winced. There went Lucy, being blunter than he would have liked as usual. But—if she hadn’t made that explanation, Draco knew he would have botched it, and Harry would probably have panicked about how openly he had to surrender. It was better that he have some idea of what he would be facing.
“It’s like being Veela-struck.” Harry’s voice was small and chill, and Draco couldn’t stand it. He got up and moved into Harry’s chair, putting his body between Harry and Lucy. But, for the first time since Harry had truly started trying with Draco, he remained unresponsive to Draco’s caresses. He had the expression of someone walking into hell.
“In the depth,” Lucy said. “Not the effects. Since you are immune to the allure, it will blow through you like a cleansing wind. But can you surrender to that depth? I do not think you can.”
Draco showed her his teeth again, this time in sheer annoyance with the way that she kept insisting on the hopelessness of the case. She looked back at him, clearly indifferent, and then nodded at Harry. “I think you are brave.”
Harry closed his eyes. He was shrinking back into isolation, Draco thought. He had dealt with the rape alone for two and a half years; his friends had known, but no one else, not even his adopted family, the Weasleys. He was trying that tactic again.
But Draco was here now. He slapped Harry sharply on the arm, and Harry’s eyes flew open, a protest in his expression. Draco quelled it with a harsh stare.
“We’ll get through it,” he said fiercely. “Because I refuse to let you fail, and you refuse to fail.”
Harry’s expression worked through several shades of angry, annoyed, and upset until he nodded. He leaned back in the chair and looked grim again, but his arm curled around Draco’s neck. Draco crooned into Harry’s ear.
Harry smiled at him, finally, and then looked over his shoulder at Lucy and Owen. Draco understood. It was impossible for Harry to forget about having an audience, even one who wouldn’t interfere and who would completely understand. He stood up, half-spreading his wings so that Harry was sheltered within those feathers, and looked expectantly at Lucy.
“Go on, then, if you must,” Lucy said, shaking her head. “As long as both of you understand that this will not be easy, then I have nothing else to explain.”
“When has anything we’ve done been easy?” Draco retorted, and gathered Harry up to sweep him out the door. A glance over his shoulder showed that Owen was smiling at them both—he had hardly said a word during the conversation, but he didn’t need to when he knew that he could leave things up to his Veela—and Lucy watching with an intense expression that might have had an edge of sweetness to it.
*
Harry could feel Draco’s stare on the back of his head. They had come back from Owen and Lucy’s, and had come straight up to their bedroom. Draco seemed intent on beginning Harry’s exposure to the allure right away, and Harry had to admit, that was what he had wanted, too.
Except…
Except that the minutes seemed to drag, now, and Harry couldn’t stop picking things up and putting them down in an orgy of self-consciousness. When he turned around, Draco’s eyes hit him like a blow. He winced and looked aside.
“Do you want to wait?” Draco’s voice was soft and solicitous, with music in the corners. Harry knew he would wait if Harry wanted to, despite what had to be his own impatience.
“I—don’t know,” Harry said. He sat down in the middle of their bed. It seemed incredible to him that they had four places to live, if they wanted to: Harry’s house, Draco’s, the Mabinogion House that Narcissa had given him as a gift, and these rooms in Malfoy Manor. They stayed in the Manor most of the time right now because the rooms were beautiful and Harry thought it was a place they could truly share. Harry’s house still boasted wards and anti-Veela protections that he’d put up when nightmares of Laurent haunted him. Draco’s house had been the place he discovered that Draco was (as he thought) trying to find clues about Laurent’s place and false name in Azkaban, and Harry was reluctant to stir up any more bad memories than he had to.
This room was small compared to some of the ones they could have taken, circular, with a window that looked out on the lawns where the peacocks screeched and on the Malfoys’ Owlery. Harry liked the huge, circular bed, and the soft pillows, and the way that Draco lay on it and cradled him in his wings, as if they were in a nest. He couldn’t imagine a better place to suffer through the allure, if he had to suffer through it, than here.
He looked up at Draco and nodded imperceptibly. Draco’s eyes widened, and he stepped towards Harry and then hesitated as if he assumed that coming closer was enough to ratchet up the tension.
Harry locked his hands into place on his knees. All he could think of at the moment was Laurent’s face, staring at him in twisted adoration, as he released the allure that would strike deeper than the kind Harry was immune to and render him a helpless slave. He hadn’t known what he did was wrong. Harry truly believed that. He had only wanted to keep Harry at his side, concerned with him and ignoring everything else.
The expression was different from Draco’s. Harry had to tell himself that, or he would leap to his feet and run from the room.
“You’re not ready,” Draco murmured.
“I don’t think I can be, not for this,” Harry answered. “What matters is my willingness and your gentleness. I trust in both of those for the moment.” He tried to muster a smile, but it must have been an awful effort, because Draco scowled at him. Harry breathed to calm himself and nodded. “Nothing will make this easier but going ahead, I think. Please, Draco. Touch me with the allure, and we’ll see what happens.”
Draco bowed his head, as if agreeing that that was the best solution. He seemed to concentrate. Harry closed his eyes to mute the screaming in his mind. It might be for the best if he didn’t watch the expression on Draco’s face as he worked.
The air around Harry filled with a clear lightness, like flames burning on the edges of his sight. He knew he would see nothing if he opened his eyes and turned his head. That was part of the point, that the allure conjured all sorts of effects without quite arriving at any one. It made an impact on the senses, but not a definable one.
Harry shivered. He wondered for a moment if Draco’s allure was cold, an effect he hadn’t noticed with Laurent, but realized that he had broken out in freezing sweat. That’ll do it, he thought.
He heard a steady wingbeat and would have opened his eyes to see if Draco was rising off the floor, had he dared. Then the clarity of the allure seemed to turn and pour through him like a wind, and he realized that Draco was using his wings to channel it.
The wind was delicate, and soft, and sweet. He could smell a scent like the youth of roses, and a rocking motion enclosed his body. If he was in a boat on a sentient sea, or back in the womb, he could not have been rocked more gently.
Flashes of pain came to him, though distantly. Harry knew that he was clawing his knees up and ought to stop, but there was no stopping the sheer panic that would dance through him otherwise. Pain would counterbalance the other sensations, no matter how distant, and remind him that this was not Laurent. With Laurent, he’d had no choice. He simply fell back on the bed and spread his arms and legs in welcome—
No!
His mind spasmed. His throat closed. Harry threw his head back and tried to scream, but he had no air.
“Harry.”
Draco’s voice was near his ear, shrill with Veela protectiveness, but human enough that Harry could understand it. He held his arms out; Draco seemed to understand, and moved into the embrace. Harry felt the quivering muscles in his back and the shifting glory of the wings.
“Can you look at me?” Draco asked, voice sounding as if it came from a tunnel now. “I think that might help.”
“No,” Harry said. He didn’t know if his response was an answer to Draco’s question or a simple denial. His throat was on fire now. No matter where he turned his head, he couldn’t stop smelling the scent of the allure.
“I love you,” Draco said.
The world rocked around Harry once and steadied again. Draco’s love was real, unlike the confusing flutter of sensations that the allure tried to convince him were more than illusion but could never be anything but that. Harry huddled closer to Draco and swallowed the sob that wanted to emerge from his throat.
“I can—I can get through this,” he said. He wondered if he was talking to himself.
Draco nuzzled the back of his neck. “You can. It’s the surrender and the openness that Lucy said you would have the hardest time with, and that’s true.”
Harry’s heart heaved once. Lucy. There were other people outside this room. The world hadn’t faded to him and Draco, the way it had seemed to fade to him and Laurent once before.
He would get through this, because he loved Draco too. He murmured that, and Draco said he knew, and stroked Harry’s hair back.
“Can you think about the way that you gave in to me during the Blazing Season?” Draco whispered. “The gift you gave of yourself? You trusted me, and I didn’t abuse that trust. I’m not him. I would never rape you.”
Harry shivered a bit, partially at the word but more because he knew that, and he felt a bit pained that Draco should think he had to put it in words. “I know,” he said. “I know so much about you, Draco, and I’ve got used to more. I think I can do this if I push myself a little further. But don’t let me fall.”
“You’ll have the harder task,” Draco said at once, his voice soft with eagerness. “I couldn’t let you fall if I wanted to.”
Harry held the words to himself until he truly believed in them and could feel them like separate particles of warmth brewing through his blood. That was different from the warmth that the allure created, he thought. He could trust it.
Then again, if he truly accepted the touch of the allure the way that Draco wanted him to, then he would be able to trust it, too, because it was under Draco’s control.
Harry blinked away the confusion and looked up at Draco. Draco’s eyes were enormous in the faint light of the room, and he leaned down and kissed Harry until Harry had to relax, because he wanted so much to open his arms, his legs, and his mouth to Draco.
“Lie back,” Draco whispered, in that same deep tone Harry had heard a few times during the Blazing Season. “This will be easier if you lie back.”
Harry nodded and lay down on the bed, spreading his legs wide. He felt his wariness retreat to the back of his mind. It was still there, curling his spine and stiffening his hands, but much less than it had been. Draco’s smile was helplessly tender, his face not shining in the way that Laurent’s had. He reached out and smoothed a hand that flickered with white flames down Harry’s flank. Harry shuddered. He had a number of small sensitive spots there that Draco knew very well by now.
“Keep in mind,” Draco whispered, “that you’re the one in control here. You can tell me to stop using the allure at any time, and I will. I promise.” His fingers were drawing small circles now, and his nails were claws, and his face was bright with hunger. He bent to kiss Harry, and, before Harry could answer, breathed in the allure through his mouth.
Harry breathed back, trying to expel it, but the allure spread through him, the steady, bright wind he had felt a few minutes before. This time, though, it was inside him, and it wouldn’t leave. Harry closed his eyes and tried his best to enjoy the scent and the rocking motions, the feeling like a pair of hands cradling his heart. It was more intimate this time, with Draco on top of him and inside him in this way, and the fingers stroking his sides and the voice crooning in his ear all said that.
Relaxation came gradually, not suddenly. It seemed to start from the edges and work its way in. Harry could smell the scent of unearthly flowers without wanting to be sick when he remembered that those flowers grew in gardens Draco had tended. And if Draco held his heart, he would be much more careful of it than Laurent had been.
He does hold my heart. Harry breathed in again, and managed to exhale in a way that didn’t make him sound as if he was about to have a coughing fit. I forgot that. Just because it’s never been this literal before doesn’t mean that it wasn’t true.
“You smell better than the allure does,” Draco whispered. “Let me in, Harry.” Again he bent over Harry and breathed into his mouth.
Harry accepted it, even opening his mouth to get more. It wasn’t the allure itself that soothed him—it couldn’t affect him unless he let it—but the fact that this was Draco, Draco willingly doing something difficult and time-consuming for no better reason than that he loved Harry.
Down and down and down the allure traveled, creating spiraling corridors through his veins, tracking the remnants of anger and hatred and fear that rested there from his time with Laurent. Harry had never realized how deep those emotions ran. He had controlled the impulse to murder Laurent at the time, and that had seemed to get rid of them.
But no, there they were. Harry turned away from them, but the allure continued pressing forwards, and he could feel the moment when the allure touched those emotions, fixed into him by Laurent making him Veela-struck.
The light that passed through his body might only have existed on the back of his eyelids, but it was brilliant. Silvery as Veela wings, it beat and fluttered and soared into a higher, purer realm of existence, the one where Harry had dwelt since he and Draco came together. He ascended in light, and cried out softly in wonder.
Draco breathed into his mouth again. Harry experienced the allure as sunlight this time, burning and blazing deeply into his heart. It hurt as he watched the anger and hatred melt, but those unchanging emotions were going, and that was the important thing. He was banishing the black ice and welcoming back the spring.
He wouldn’t dare say those things aloud. They were too soppy. But he thought them, and no one could take that from him. The sunlight was in his mind, making the atmosphere too thick and rich to contain such abominations as Laurent had tried to inflict on him.
Those dark snowbanks trembled, and then dissolved. Harry laughed aloud. He opened his eyes and saw Draco looking startled above him, before he smiled tentatively back and reached down to comb his fingers through Harry’s hair.
“All right, love?” he whispered.
“So much better,” Harry said. He hadn’t realized how the weight of being Veela-struck clung to him until it was gone. He stretched, and he seemed to have gained the ability to reach a new yard of distance with each limb.
Draco slid off his chest and lay beside him, staring at him with hazy grey eyes, almost silver. Harry touched him on the forehead and nodded his thanks. He would have spoken it, but all the words still sounded wrong in his mental ears.
“This isn’t going to heal you completely,” Draco said. “It won’t make it as if you’d never been raped.”
Harry snorted, a bit insulted that Draco thought he needed to hear that. “I know. But most of the effects from that, like my distrust of food, are the ones I know are there and how to deal with. I had no idea how much this still affected me.” He laid his head on Draco’s chest and closed his eyes.
“Are you all right?” Draco whispered. “I could understand if you just want to be away from all Veela for a while.”
“You’re perfect,” Harry said drowsily. “Let me hear your heart, and you’ll be even better.”
*
Draco was exhausted. Breathing the allure into Harry had taken more effort than he thought it would. Harry’s natural immunity meant it was like pushing a rock uphill, rather than finding the immediate acceptance that the allure would create in most people.
But then he had seen Harry’s face relax and glow. He had seen him irradiated from inside—something that he thought Harry had also felt or sensed, but which he didn’t seem to want to talk about. Harry had extended his hands and fallen into the embrace of the allure, into the embrace of Draco’s trust.
The effort had been worth it.
Harry always will be, Draco thought, and draped a sheltering wing over them both.
The End.