[one-shots]: Glory Be, R, H/D, 4/4
Mar. 5th, 2013 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lomonaaerenFourth part of a very long one-shot. Don't start reading here.
Draco swooped down in full sight of the cave, landing in front of it and stretching his wings up and to the sides. He folded them slowly, and let his arms also fold slowly and naturally across his chest. Anyone looking at him should see a powerful and fearful Veela assassin, one they would be wary of crossing.
Or one they might like to hire.
Draco remained there for half-an-hour before he saw the first face peering out of the cave. Maybe they had been there all along, but Draco didn’t think so. A concealed entrance into the cave, a tunnel under the rock, was a better guess. He didn’t move, though, just let them stare at him and take his measure.
The face withdrew. Draco smiled, and let the smile sparkle, his wings unfold. But he only flapped once before folding them again.
Finally, a hooded figure stepped out of the cave and beckoned to him. Draco walked the short distance between the cave and his landing place rather than flying it. He let his hips roll and his head tilt back, a sharp smile still riding his lips.
“You said that you knew where Harry Potter was?” The cloaked figure’s voice was hoarse, and of course disguised by Merlin knew how many auditory charms.
“I have him, and I can deliver him to you.” Draco let his head dip in a shallow nod that was the only acknowledgement this man who had conspired to kill his chosen deserved. He could feel the rest of the fury bubbling under the surface, but he refused to let it out. He had to think of Harry’s long-term good, not the short-term pleasures of killing. “For the right price.”
The man looked back into the cave and apparently communicated with the other people there in some way that Draco couldn’t read. Then he turned back and nodded, beckoning again. Draco ducked after him into the cave.
There were several guards waiting with upraised wands just inside the entrance. Draco ignored them. A Veela in defense of his chosen would mow through them, and this confined space only meant his wings would serve as more effective shields.
Two men sat behind the rough stone table Draco had seen before, and one of them leaned forwards. “So. You took Harry Potter prisoner because he refused to mate with you?”
That was the story Draco had spread to them, but it only proved whoever had accepted it and allowed him to come here knew nothing about Veela. Which only made this easier, and somewhat calmed Draco’s contempt. He let his wings droop down in front of him, shielding his chest and ready to fling outwards as weapons, not that they knew that, and nodded. “And he’s the most stubborn bastard a Veela ever tried to mate.”
The man who hadn’t spoken yet tapped the other on the shoulder, and that one sat back so this one could lean forwards. Perhaps basic caution, Draco thought, or some absurd belief that one was “equal” to another when he did that. As if equality had much to do with the process of power. “You’re willing to give him to us just because of that?”
“He won’t give me what I want,” Draco said, with an internal flinch. Draco would know the words as a lie, but Harry might not. “He never will. I know that particular look in someone’s eyes. So I’m giving him to you.”
“For a price,” said the man who’d spoken first, as the other leaned back.
Draco nodded. “I want to make sure that you give me the next contract you have, and pay me twice as much as you would any other assassin. I knew I would lose some time that I could have used to hunt when I was trying to convince Potter to mate with me, but I had no idea how much.”
The men whispered to each other for a while. It was audible to Draco, given his Veela hearing, but they said nothing important, and he was more occupied with listening to the slight sounds near the cave entrance instead.
Then the second one leaned towards him and said, “We agree, provided that you deliver Potter safely to us, complete with any possessions he may have been carrying at the time you captured him.”
They think he has that bloodline artifact that revealed his power to them, Draco thought, and curled his lip in gentle mockery as he said, “Agreed. Where and when do you want him delivered?”
Another conference. Draco listened, and yes, the small sounds behind him had moved close enough that he could have touched the person with a wing. Good. The only part of this plan that had concerned Draco was the one where they moved past the guards in such a way that they didn’t alert them.
But they were joined now, and they could do anything when they were together.
“We want him here,” said the original speaker at last, turning back around. “As soon as you can fetch him. We will wait while you go for him.” He folded his arms and inclined his head a little, as though he was doing Draco a great favor.
“Oh, well, that won’t take long,” Draco said comfortably, and spread his wings as though he would take off and fly right out the entrance of the cave. “Given that I thought you would agree, and brought him along already.”
He had decided that he had to say that line, in spite of Harry arguing against it, because he had to watch, and rejoice, in the way their faces changed as Harry flung the Invisibility Cloak off over his head and unleashed his magic on them.
His magic shone. In this close, confined space, Draco could see the blue twitches and edges to the fire Harry had chosen, and feel the way it raised the hair on his arms, not because Harry was his chosen but simply because being close to that much magic was like being close to lightning. Draco laughed, and let his hands rest on Harry’s hips, drawing him close and shielding him with his wings as the two speakers behind the table fell bound in fire and the guards attacked.
Draco’s wings bounced the spells off, and one of the guards fell screaming, clutching his leg, from his own curse deflected. Draco laughed again, and raised his wings high to anticipate a spell that someone had tried to send down at them by making it ricochet off the cavern roof, and then whirled around, placing Harry safely behind him as the rest of the guards left made a concerted charge.
But Harry didn’t think he should be protected, and stepped up to Draco’s side, his eyes glowing with excitement, and once more called his fire.
Draco took a sheer, shivering moment of pleasure to appreciate it, the phoenix fire that moved at Harry’s will and obeyed him without an incantation. It coiled around the limbs of the guards, binding most of them in place. One slipped off to the side and tried to curse Harry.
Draco took off in a single short hop and wrapped his wings around the guard, wrenching with them and with his hands. The guard’s arms broke first, then his neck. Draco nosed at him to make sure he was dead before flying back to Harry.
Harry was staring at him. Draco cocked his head. Harry hadn’t seen him kill before, but he certainly knew that Draco could, and Draco had warned him he would kill anyone unnecessary to learning the names of their enemies.
Harry licked his lips. “How messed up is it that I found you beautiful?” he whispered.
Draco took his hands. He didn’t care they were in the middle of a cave full of people bound in ropes of fire that crackled warningly at them if they moved. Most of them were lying on the floor and couldn’t see very well anyway. He ran his claws lightly over Harry’s knuckles and whispered, “Not any more messed up than it is that you’re so beautiful and powerful yourself.”
He kissed Harry hard enough to bruise his lips and bring some blood, and would have done anything else he wanted if Harry hadn’t pulled away and turned towards the men on the floor behind the table. Draco sighed a little and followed him. He had to admit that he admired Harry’s dedication to his own safety, but he could have waited a few seconds.
Harry crouched beside the men and used his wand to create the wind that flicked the hoods back from their faces. Draco approved. He wouldn’t have wanted his chosen touching them.
Harry said, “Ah.”
Draco looked into their faces, but didn’t see anything familiar. One man was dull-faced, with copper-colored hair that made Draco perk up for a moment, but the shock on Harry’s face wasn’t the kind that would appear if the man was related to the Weasleys somehow. The other had a long, flowing dark beard, and dark hair, and dark eyes, and dark glasses. Harry pulled them off and stared into the man’s face.
“Who is it?” Draco asked, since it was the second man Harry seemed to be concentrating on.
“Felix Derringer,” Harry said, and leaned his wand against Derringer’s throat. His voice remained steady, but Draco could feel the magic building, storm-like, and stretched his wings towards it. “He used to work for us, but he was caught taking artifacts home and selling them. That’s—unacceptable.”
Draco squeezed Harry’s shoulder. “And what about his companion?” he asked, nodding at the copper-haired man. “Is he unimportant enough that I can kill him?”
Harry glanced at him, then shrugged. “He’s more than likely a dupe,” he said, ignoring the way the man flinched from his words. “Or maybe the one who claimed that he knew the true extent of my power because of a blood-linked artifact. Maybe that’s even true. But we need to keep him alive to question for right now.”
Draco sighed and let his wings tremble. “You’re never any fun, Harry.”
Harry stiffened, and then relaxed. He could recognize teasing when he heard it, Draco thought approvingly, and reached out to slide his wing up and down Harry’s spine, back and forth and in gentle, upwards-sweeping circles.
At that moment, Derringer decided the best thing to do would be to try and escape. Draco recognized the tremble of his muscles, and started to turn towards him, but Harry had already seen it, and reacted.
And what a reaction, Draco thought, his arms vibrating as he stared up at the floating Derringer. Harry’s magic had reacted this time without visible light or noise. Derringer had simply hurtled into the air and now hung there with his limbs stretched out on an unseen rack. Draco bit the inside of his cheek and licked his lips.
Then Harry closed his eyes, and lowered his head. Draco slid his palm beneath his chin and tilted it up again, ignoring the second man. He was whimpering, and lay still. He must be a little smarter than Derringer, if he knew that reacting the way his partner had would earn him that same fate.
“Look at me,” Draco whispered. “Are you about to be ashamed by what you just did? Because he’s someone else who would have been pleased to see you die, and for a stupid grudge.”
Harry shook his head. “I’m ashamed because I would have done something else to him,” he whispered. “Something more than I needed to do to hold him prisoner or interrogate him. That’s—not the person I want to become.”
Draco purred disagreeably under his breath and said, “Do you want me to take care of them?”
Harry lifted his head again, and at least the fire was back in his eyes. “We can’t kill them until we know what they know, I said.” There came another whimper from the man lying on the floor, which both of them ignored.
“I know,” Draco said. “I promise not to kill them, or even harm them permanently. You can take them and the others to the Unspeakables when I’m done. But let me handle this, for once. I know how men like this work. I can get the information you need from them, and it’ll be the truth. Let me do this for you, do the hard things.” He petted Harry’s hair, stroking down to his neck as Harry arched against him like a cat.
Harry hesitated for long enough that Draco didn’t know which way he’d jump. Then he tilted his head back, and sighed. Draco saw the soft gleam of his eyes before he closed them.
“Yes.”
Draco bent over Harry and kissed him again, wrapping his wings around them so that they would have at least one private moment in a cave full the bound and gagged. Then he turned to Derringer and called him down to the floor. He felt the tug of Harry’s magic, and knew that Harry could have resisted the pull and kept the man floating if he wanted to.
That only made it all the sweeter when Harry let go because Draco had asked him to, and let Draco do something for his chosen.
There’s never been something I did better than choosing him, Draco thought, with a glance over his shoulder, and went humming to his work.
*
“So you didn’t really have to torture them all that much, then.”
Harry’s head was leaning on his shoulder, and Draco stroked his hair slowly up and down, his eyes closing as they touched. They were once again back in the sitting room of the Manor where Harry had come to meet him, where they had tortured the master duelist, but this time, Draco considered that Harry was appropriately relaxed to fit in with the color scheme.
“No.” Draco yawned and shifted Harry’s head so that it fit better between his collarbone and his chin. “A lot of the men like that are cowards at heart. They hire assassins not because they don’t have the skills to kill someone else, but because they’re so frightened at the thought of seeing a face grow pale and blood spurt.”
“I’m not overly fond of it myself,” Harry said, his fingers tightening for a moment in the edge of Draco’s cloak.
Draco turned his head and rubbed his nose against the side of Harry’s neck. “But you can do it, when you have to,” he said. “That’s the difference. When I was coming at you, you didn’t hold back. You cast the most powerful spell you knew at me, because it was absolutely necessary to get me out of the sky and stop me attacking you.”
“And you don’t…resent that?”
Draco laughed and leaned his head more strongly against Harry’s, his laughter vibrating strangely in his own chest. There were some things that a Veela could only do after he had acquired his chosen, and some of the purrs were one of them. “Why should I? I thought you were brilliant. That was what convinced me to choose you, you know.”
“That I almost killed you.” Harry’s voice was flat, and, Draco feared, more than a little incredulous.
Draco lifted his head and used his fingers to comb Harry’s fringe back from his scar. Harry watched him with eyes as flat as his voice, but made no move to pull away. Draco touched the lightning bolt scar, and wondered for a fleeting moment how many people Harry had permitted this particular intimacy.
Well, it didn’t matter, because no one else was going to have it now, and Draco could only be grateful to Harry’s past lovers for teaching him so much about how to protect himself.
“People have always admired and feared you for this scar,” Draco whispered into Harry’s ear. “The symbol of the way you avoided death. The symbol of your mother’s love, if we’re going to pretend that story is true.”
“It is.” Harry’s voice had dropped lower still, but he made no move to lean back from Draco’s touch, which Draco counted as enough of a triumph for right now. “She’s the real hero, not me. She’s the one who should be honored with statues.”
Draco nodded patiently. He wasn’t going to be the one to explain to Harry how much less fun it was to honor the dead than the living. If he hadn’t understood it yet, he wouldn’t in the course of one conversation.
“Well,” he said, “I admire you for your ability to avoid death, too, but I admire you for the way you defend yourself. Your strength, your skill, your speed, your power. All of those are part of you, and all of those are part of the reason you’re alive. What can I do but love you desperately for them?”
Harry’s breath caught, and he tilted his head back far enough to stare Draco in the eye. “You think—you think that you love me?”
“I said that before, didn’t I?” Draco continued on with his smooth stroking, his head bowed so they were eye to eye. “I’m sure I did. And it’s the natural conclusion, anyway. A Veela doesn’t choose someone he knows he’ll hate.”
“Not knows, but I think that you don’t know if you love me or not.” Harry reached up a hesitant hand and closed his fingers over Draco’s. “And I don’t want you to be with me without—I don’t know, Draco. I suppose I’m still not used to this. I expect you to act like someone would who was taking me as a regular lover. But that’s not really the way it works, is it?”
Draco laughed in delight and rubbed his cheek against Harry’s neck again. “Now you understand. No, it’s not. I know that you’re pure human, and you haven’t had the chance to get used to this the way I have. But I’ve been Veela for years now, and while I didn’t really think I would find a chosen in you, I’ve long since accepted the idea that I’d have one.”
Harry closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “I—see. Draco…”
“I know you aren’t going to reject me,” Draco whispered into his ear. “Because you wouldn’t come this far with someone you intended to reject.”
Harry half-smiled and shook his head. “No,” he said. “But I want to know if this is going to be best for your health and happiness.” He raised a hand to touch Draco’s wing this time, and Draco shivered, the caress going through him like a dart. “Do you think you’ll be all right with someone who still doubts you, someone who used to hate you, someone hunted by half the wizarding world?”
Draco nodded, drowning in gentleness, in the words. Harry wasn’t his completely yet, but he worried for Draco’s happiness. That was no small thing, in Draco’s personal canon of love.
“I will,” he whispered, opening his eyes to look at Harry. “Because you’re who you are, strong and brave and perfect.” He rested his hands on Harry’s shoulders for a moment. “And you aren’t even rejecting me because I’m an assassin and I kill people.”
Harry raised an eyebrow. “Well, I do rather expect you not to do that anymore, you know.”
His voice shook, and Draco realized abruptly where a lot of Harry’s hesitations were coming from. He seized Harry’s hand and held it, bringing it to his mouth. Harry moaned quietly as Draco’s tongue scrubbed back and forth between his fingers.
“No,” Draco whispered again, when his mouth was free. “Of course I won’t. I did it to earn money, but also because I could, because it was a careless exercise of strength and power that Veela have over humans. Now that I have you, I have someone I want to impress. I don’t need the job anymore.”
“But I don’t want to force you…” Harry’s voice trailed off.
Draco had to laugh. “At the same time as you don’t want me killing anyone.” Again he touched Harry’s fingers with his tongue, and again Harry tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Yes, I know, Harry. But you are going to change my life, the way I’m going to change yours.”
“What way’s that?” Harry opened one eye.
“We’ll be honest with each other, and make each other be honest,” Draco said. “I’ll be standing behind you when you make your announcement about the magic and the people hunting you to the wizarding world, and you’ll be with me when I make my announcement to everyone else about my chosen.”
Harry tucked his head down into Draco’s chest and closed his eyes. “Yes, I’ll be there. We’ll both be there,” he whispered.
“Good,” Draco said, and kissed his scar and his eyelids and his hands before leaning back again. “Now. What I found out from Derringer and his compatriots is exactly what we thought it was. They wanted to murder you because of a stupid grudge. Well, I think there were other people backing them who were more sincerely afraid of you and thought having you dead would make their criminal lives easier, but that was the motive of the people who actually hired me. The others were smart enough to send Derringer and his incompetent friend to do the dirty work.”
Harry nodded without opening his eyes. “Do you think you can find these other people who were connected to them?”
Draco flexed his shoulders, although he didn’t have his wings out right now. “They gave me the names. We’ll speak them together, in front of the wizarding world, and then the Unspeakables and the Aurors will help us hunt them down.”
Harry blinked a little. “You’re serious about a formal announcement in front of everyone that we’re bonded now?”
“Weren’t you?” Draco grinned a little when Harry looked at him. “Yes, I am. For a Veela, it’s an important part of the choosing process. You make your choice, and you present it to the chosen first, so they can have time to get used to it. And then you present it to everyone else, so they know not to choose what you’ve claimed.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Of course you do. Is the possessiveness the most important aspect of this to you?”
“Of course not,” Draco said. “You are.”
Harry’s smile flashed into full being across his face, and he leaned forwards to kiss Draco. “Good answer,” he whispered, while Draco stretched under his mouth and let his wings come out after all.
“Draco?” Harry whispered, when they had kissed hard enough and for long enough to tip Draco into a sort of daze.
“Hmmm?” Draco forced his eyes open against the pressure of pleasure to hold them closed. Harry was smiling at him with the kind of adoration in his eyes that made Draco’s heart quicken until it felt as though it was beating in his flight feathers.
“Take me to bed.”
*
They didn’t go back to the nest after all, although Draco would have been happy to lift Harry and take him there. They moved to the bed in the room at the top of the Manor, the bed that Draco only slept in when he wanted to be really self-indulgent and luxurious, or when he needed to relax after a rare wound.
“I want to see all of you,” Harry said, when Draco asked him why that choice. “And this is a side that I haven’t come to terms with yet.”
Given that Harry had chosen this, Draco shouldn’t have stood by the doorway with his heart beating in his throat and his hand unable to move away from the wall, as though he actually needed the support. But he did anyway, and Harry stood in the center of the room and slowly turned around, passing silent judgment on the décor and the furnishings.
The walls were thick with tapestries, because Draco liked textures. They depicted flight in all its forms: dragons soaring over snow-covered mountains, phoenixes dancing rebirth, dragonflies hovering above glittering streams, butterflies emerging from the cocoon, peacocks fluttering awkwardly into the air before the glory of their tails, and of course Veela with widespread wings in silent display before an unseen chosen. Harry reached out and touched the blue-and-white tapestry nearest the bed, which showed swans in flight across a night sky, and then turned towards Draco with a surprised little exclamation.
“It feels like feathers!”
Draco inclined his head. He didn’t think he could speak yet. In fact, he was sure he couldn’t. He just stood there, and watched Harry explore.
The room was wide, with a door on the far wall that led to a bathroom, and a soft grey carpet on the floor. The only piece of furniture, other than the sleek mahogany desk where Draco kept some of his earnings from his assassinations, was the giant bed in the center of the room.
Harry approached it slowly.
He looked tiny beside it, beside the looming posts that almost reached the ceiling, and the sweep of canopies like netted wings, and the sheets that sprawled over it, the quiet, dark green of a forest—not because of Slytherin colors, but because Draco knew he would look stunning kneeling in the middle of that, with his white wings spread around him and his pale skin gleaming. Harry touched the thick pillows and stared at the blankets that could drown a dragon, and Draco’s breath caught as he realized how thoroughly he had prepared the place for his chosen. Not that he knew Harry would be his chosen at the time, but—
Instinct isn’t wrong. Not about things like this.
Harry turned around, and Draco saw the smile that spread across his face, even wider and more relaxed than the one he’d shown Draco downstairs. Harry’s hands went to the buttons on his shirt, and he popped the first one.
Draco covered the distance between them fast enough to make himself dizzy. But he was crooning, and his head was filled with light and determination, and there was nothing else that had to separate them anymore.
He took Harry’s fingers gently, reverently, from the buttons, and undid them himself, after first doing up the one Harry had undone. Harry watched him with wise eyes, dark ones. Eyes that had seen a lot of innocence die out of the world. Eyes that had seen power, and accepted it now.
Eyes that trusted Draco to do this for him.
Draco kissed him and herded him gently into the bed when he’d removed his clothes. He folded them himself and put them on the desk. No house-elf would come into this room to tend to them. Harry Potter in his bed, dark hair as shocking a contrast against Draco’s sheets as white would have been, his eyes made the brighter by them, was a sight for his gaze alone.
Then Draco arched his neck and began, at last, to display for his chosen.
He wheeled in the middle of the room, wings spread wide, arms lifted as he showed off his strength and speed. He had already stripped off his shirt, and reached now for his pants. Harry’s breath quickened. Draco crooned and ducked his head down slyly.
Then he took off and flew around the room. The high ceilings and wide-spaced walls were there for other reasons, too.
Harry lay back on the pillows and gaped at the sight of him flying. Powerful, perfect, quick, poised, especially when Draco backwinged above the bed and landed softly beside Harry, reaching out to trail his fingers down Harry’s chest and some of the scars that lived there.
Harry surged up, grabbing him and kissing him fiercely.
They wrestled in the middle of the bed, sporting like lions in the springtime, Harry’s power singing around them in time with Draco’s croon. Draco discovered his wings were beating out the tune, too, and let out a soft, contented warble. This was what he had been waiting for, although he hadn’t known his own preferences all that well until now, a chosen who could match him in all the ways that counted.
It wasn’t Harry’s power that had made Draco choose him, or not Harry’s power alone. It was all the things that came with that power, all it promised.
They passed from the wrestling into kissing, and passionate touching, until Draco was between Harry’s legs, and Harry’s feet were on his shoulders, ankles a breath away from his wings. Draco smiled down at Harry as he rubbed lube between his hands, Summoned from the desk by who knew which one of them. Harry’s eyes were darting to his wings, looking as though he worried about whether a kick from him could crumple Draco’s flight feathers, but Draco wished he wouldn’t worry about anything so ridiculous.
Draco liked that sense of danger.
He slid his fingers into Harry, but not for long, because Harry was already tapping him lightly on the shoulder to tell him to get on with it, and Draco was feeling a bit impatient himself. He slid into Harry with a gasp and settled there, head bowed, wings beating time to a different tune now, restricted by the way he knelt.
“I want it,” Harry said, in a voice that cracked down the middle, but was still deep enough to sound like a snarl from a blackened cave.
Draco opened his eyes, and smiled at Harry—brilliantly, because he didn’t know how else to smile—and began to rock and stroke forwards. He used his knees, his hands, his arms, his wings, all of those, as well as the magic that drummed under his skin for a Veela chosen alone. It was meant to make them relax and give it up, after they’d already made the choice and come here.
Show them the Veela meant it.
Show him I mean it, Draco thought, dizzy with love and power, and Harry opened his eyes and smiled up at him.
Draco knew he could go faster, and he did, straightforward and true as a bird soaring home. Harry dug his fingers into the sheets, and looked pleased about how soft they were, and did it again. The fire flickered in the hearth on the far side of the room, and the tapestry of swans blew back and forth, and the pale, stern faces of the Veela in the other tapestry Harry had stared at blazed like stars.
There was so much darkness around them. So much light. Draco pressed inwards, and held himself there for a moment, wings fluttering, while he directed the magic down and into Harry.
Harry’s pleasure started with a surprised little twist of his mouth, as though he didn’t know what he was feeling. Then he arched his head back and cried out, and the muscles in his neck corded and trembled. He went on rising, in body and in voice, his hips leaving the bed and his voice turning into a plea, as he emptied himself.
And Draco had the control to wait, not to come, until he had seen Harry safely through and could follow, because that was one of the things Veela could do for their chosen.
Afterwards, he had the same ability to raise his wings in the air like floating flowers and bring them down like shadowy veils around them both, oh so lightly, oh so softly.
*
“What are you going to do to show your power?”
Harry spent some time studying his formal robes in the mirror without answering. He had taken over an office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to do his dressing in, and Draco approved. When an Unspeakable walked into the Department and demanded a room in that tone of voice, people moved.
But Draco had felt the tremor of power in Harry’s voice, and seen the way he wore his fringe brushed in a natural way, so that it had as much chance of falling away from his scar as obscuring it, and knew it was more than that. These people were giving place to Harry Potter. Maybe unwillingly, maybe in surprise. Harry Potter was supposed to be the timid little Hero who gave credit to everyone else for his successes, not someone who announced that he would be holding a meeting with the press to make an important announcement in half an hour and he needed a room to prepare his formal robes in the meanwhile.
And certainly not someone who took a known Veela into the room with him.
Harry finally turned away from the mirror and faced Draco. His jaw was set, but although his eyes were dark, they were also clear. Draco loved that. He knew that Harry wasn’t doing this because Draco wanted him to, wasn’t doing this because Draco had forced him to, but had chosen this.
If he hadn’t wanted to, no force on earth could have moved him.
Draco loved his chosen as much for that as for anything.
“Wait and see,” Harry answered, and walked out of the room, pausing minutely before the door to lift his head and straighten his back. Draco followed him with head cocked, wondering for a moment if he was imitating someone.
The truth hit him like an arrow. No. Harry was walking the way he naturally should do, the way he never did in the Ministry, because then someone might start suspecting his power or wanting him to do something for them.
Draco’s wings came out. He couldn’t help it. He had planned to wait until they were in front of the public and he could claim Harry as his chosen, but at least he could fold them back and have them in waiting on his shoulders instead of pulling all the attention away from Harry.
He could see the side of Harry’s face as he walked in profile ahead, and made out the quirk of the smile, the way that it relaxed Harry and dropped even more strength into his stride. Just from the sight of Draco’s wings.
Draco walked out into the eye of the public delirious with love.
*
Harry nodded to the people waiting in the Atrium of the Ministry, but Draco didn’t think he noticed the reporters and the Ministry officials and the concerned Head Auror leaning forwards to stare at him. Maybe his fellow Unspeakables.
Certainly his friends, who were both in the front row and looked at him wonderingly when he stepped off the lifts with Draco behind him.
Harry faced them, and although he’d cast Sonorus on his throat so that his words could reach everyone in the room, his voice sounded soft anyway when he said, “Thank you for coming.” Draco watched Granger’s eyes widen and dart between him and Harry. She’d figured out part of it, at least, probably after seeing the curves of Draco’s wings over his shoulders. “I wanted to announce several things to you.”
There was shifting among the Unspeakables now. Draco wondered if they thought Harry had chosen this very public method to betray the secrets of their order.
Draco didn’t give them the chance to worry about it. He snarled and flashed his wings out, and they fell silent in shock, giving Harry the chance to speak.
“First,” Harry said, “I’ve been hunted by several men, one of them a former Unspeakable, who thought my power was too dangerous to them to leave me alone. They hired at least eight assassins to go after me. I have list of their names, and of their allies’, which include some people in high places. I’ll expect full cooperation from the Ministry in the effort to track them down.”
Cameras flashed, or began to flash harder than they had so far, and someone yelled a question in a hoarse voice. Harry gave no sign that he’d noticed, instead continuing, and because his voice was the louder one, the questioner was silenced. Draco’s wings flashed again, but this time, he might be the only one who recognized it for a sign of approval.
“Second,” Harry said, “I became an Unspeakable for many reasons, some good, some not as good. I do believe that my mother was the one who saved the wizarding world by giving me her protection against Voldemort, and she’s the one who should be honored as the true hero for defeating him.” Draco laughed aloud at the way so many people still flinched at Voldemort’s name. Well, they would learn a better source of fear soon.
“But I’m more powerful than I ever let anyone know,” Harry said. He was looking at his friends, and his face was bright with love and hope. Draco knew they would realize what he felt for them. They damn well better, or Draco would scrub the floor with their faces until they did. “I was afraid of what might happen to me if anyone knew, afraid that someone I loved would reject me for having that power and that violence. To show you what I mean…”
He held his hand out, and Draco was sure that everyone felt the surge of magic leaping from Harry, but he didn’t use his wand.
The rebuilt Fountain in the center of the Atrium drifted gently off the floor. Draco’s feet left it at the same time. He hovered in the air near the ceiling, and spread his wings so he could show off to best advantage.
He was the only one hanging up there—the only one, he realized as he saw the pale faces staring up at him, who wouldn’t be afraid of this evidence of what Harry’s power could do. Preferably not the only one who realized the immense control that Harry was exercising to only lift two objects in all that vast room, though, and so would be impressed.
Draco spread his wings further and let Harry spin him around, rotate him and turn him like he was on a wheel. Then he came gently back to earth and stepped up behind Harry, his wings spread and enfolding him. He kept the curves low enough so that everyone who mattered could still Harry’s face over the top of them.
Granger was gaping at Harry, or maybe at the two of them together. Weasley stared in much the same way, except that his mouth was wider. But neither of them frowned or screamed or demanded answers the way people behind them did.
Then Granger smiled.
Draco felt Harry sway against him, and knew that he was probably in no shape to make the final announcement they had planned on. Well, Draco could make it for him. It was more properly Draco’s announcement anyway.
“I’m a Veela,” he said, to state the obvious to some of the idiots in the room who wouldn’t have got it. He stretched his wings wide and sheltered Harry that way, under their shadow, as the Fountain settled back onto its base. “Harry is my chosen. That means I protect him from people who try to hurt him, and guard his back, and walk at his side, and sleep in his bed.” He flashed his wings shut again, this time completely enfolding Harry for a moment before he retracted them to his back. “Any questions?”
There were, of course. But Granger had stepped forwards and laid her hand on Harry’s arm from one side, and Weasley had done the same from the other. And Harry’s eyes had light in them when he looked at his friends that kept Draco from being as jealous as he would have done.
So the questions didn’t matter. What did was the light in Harry’s face, in his eyes, in Draco’s heart, in Draco’s blood.
What mattered was that Harry turned around and kissed him, right in front of his friends and the Unspeakables and Rita Skeeter and all.
What mattered was that a certain darkness had passed, and the glory of their futures was just beginning.
The End.
Draco swooped down in full sight of the cave, landing in front of it and stretching his wings up and to the sides. He folded them slowly, and let his arms also fold slowly and naturally across his chest. Anyone looking at him should see a powerful and fearful Veela assassin, one they would be wary of crossing.
Or one they might like to hire.
Draco remained there for half-an-hour before he saw the first face peering out of the cave. Maybe they had been there all along, but Draco didn’t think so. A concealed entrance into the cave, a tunnel under the rock, was a better guess. He didn’t move, though, just let them stare at him and take his measure.
The face withdrew. Draco smiled, and let the smile sparkle, his wings unfold. But he only flapped once before folding them again.
Finally, a hooded figure stepped out of the cave and beckoned to him. Draco walked the short distance between the cave and his landing place rather than flying it. He let his hips roll and his head tilt back, a sharp smile still riding his lips.
“You said that you knew where Harry Potter was?” The cloaked figure’s voice was hoarse, and of course disguised by Merlin knew how many auditory charms.
“I have him, and I can deliver him to you.” Draco let his head dip in a shallow nod that was the only acknowledgement this man who had conspired to kill his chosen deserved. He could feel the rest of the fury bubbling under the surface, but he refused to let it out. He had to think of Harry’s long-term good, not the short-term pleasures of killing. “For the right price.”
The man looked back into the cave and apparently communicated with the other people there in some way that Draco couldn’t read. Then he turned back and nodded, beckoning again. Draco ducked after him into the cave.
There were several guards waiting with upraised wands just inside the entrance. Draco ignored them. A Veela in defense of his chosen would mow through them, and this confined space only meant his wings would serve as more effective shields.
Two men sat behind the rough stone table Draco had seen before, and one of them leaned forwards. “So. You took Harry Potter prisoner because he refused to mate with you?”
That was the story Draco had spread to them, but it only proved whoever had accepted it and allowed him to come here knew nothing about Veela. Which only made this easier, and somewhat calmed Draco’s contempt. He let his wings droop down in front of him, shielding his chest and ready to fling outwards as weapons, not that they knew that, and nodded. “And he’s the most stubborn bastard a Veela ever tried to mate.”
The man who hadn’t spoken yet tapped the other on the shoulder, and that one sat back so this one could lean forwards. Perhaps basic caution, Draco thought, or some absurd belief that one was “equal” to another when he did that. As if equality had much to do with the process of power. “You’re willing to give him to us just because of that?”
“He won’t give me what I want,” Draco said, with an internal flinch. Draco would know the words as a lie, but Harry might not. “He never will. I know that particular look in someone’s eyes. So I’m giving him to you.”
“For a price,” said the man who’d spoken first, as the other leaned back.
Draco nodded. “I want to make sure that you give me the next contract you have, and pay me twice as much as you would any other assassin. I knew I would lose some time that I could have used to hunt when I was trying to convince Potter to mate with me, but I had no idea how much.”
The men whispered to each other for a while. It was audible to Draco, given his Veela hearing, but they said nothing important, and he was more occupied with listening to the slight sounds near the cave entrance instead.
Then the second one leaned towards him and said, “We agree, provided that you deliver Potter safely to us, complete with any possessions he may have been carrying at the time you captured him.”
They think he has that bloodline artifact that revealed his power to them, Draco thought, and curled his lip in gentle mockery as he said, “Agreed. Where and when do you want him delivered?”
Another conference. Draco listened, and yes, the small sounds behind him had moved close enough that he could have touched the person with a wing. Good. The only part of this plan that had concerned Draco was the one where they moved past the guards in such a way that they didn’t alert them.
But they were joined now, and they could do anything when they were together.
“We want him here,” said the original speaker at last, turning back around. “As soon as you can fetch him. We will wait while you go for him.” He folded his arms and inclined his head a little, as though he was doing Draco a great favor.
“Oh, well, that won’t take long,” Draco said comfortably, and spread his wings as though he would take off and fly right out the entrance of the cave. “Given that I thought you would agree, and brought him along already.”
He had decided that he had to say that line, in spite of Harry arguing against it, because he had to watch, and rejoice, in the way their faces changed as Harry flung the Invisibility Cloak off over his head and unleashed his magic on them.
His magic shone. In this close, confined space, Draco could see the blue twitches and edges to the fire Harry had chosen, and feel the way it raised the hair on his arms, not because Harry was his chosen but simply because being close to that much magic was like being close to lightning. Draco laughed, and let his hands rest on Harry’s hips, drawing him close and shielding him with his wings as the two speakers behind the table fell bound in fire and the guards attacked.
Draco’s wings bounced the spells off, and one of the guards fell screaming, clutching his leg, from his own curse deflected. Draco laughed again, and raised his wings high to anticipate a spell that someone had tried to send down at them by making it ricochet off the cavern roof, and then whirled around, placing Harry safely behind him as the rest of the guards left made a concerted charge.
But Harry didn’t think he should be protected, and stepped up to Draco’s side, his eyes glowing with excitement, and once more called his fire.
Draco took a sheer, shivering moment of pleasure to appreciate it, the phoenix fire that moved at Harry’s will and obeyed him without an incantation. It coiled around the limbs of the guards, binding most of them in place. One slipped off to the side and tried to curse Harry.
Draco took off in a single short hop and wrapped his wings around the guard, wrenching with them and with his hands. The guard’s arms broke first, then his neck. Draco nosed at him to make sure he was dead before flying back to Harry.
Harry was staring at him. Draco cocked his head. Harry hadn’t seen him kill before, but he certainly knew that Draco could, and Draco had warned him he would kill anyone unnecessary to learning the names of their enemies.
Harry licked his lips. “How messed up is it that I found you beautiful?” he whispered.
Draco took his hands. He didn’t care they were in the middle of a cave full of people bound in ropes of fire that crackled warningly at them if they moved. Most of them were lying on the floor and couldn’t see very well anyway. He ran his claws lightly over Harry’s knuckles and whispered, “Not any more messed up than it is that you’re so beautiful and powerful yourself.”
He kissed Harry hard enough to bruise his lips and bring some blood, and would have done anything else he wanted if Harry hadn’t pulled away and turned towards the men on the floor behind the table. Draco sighed a little and followed him. He had to admit that he admired Harry’s dedication to his own safety, but he could have waited a few seconds.
Harry crouched beside the men and used his wand to create the wind that flicked the hoods back from their faces. Draco approved. He wouldn’t have wanted his chosen touching them.
Harry said, “Ah.”
Draco looked into their faces, but didn’t see anything familiar. One man was dull-faced, with copper-colored hair that made Draco perk up for a moment, but the shock on Harry’s face wasn’t the kind that would appear if the man was related to the Weasleys somehow. The other had a long, flowing dark beard, and dark hair, and dark eyes, and dark glasses. Harry pulled them off and stared into the man’s face.
“Who is it?” Draco asked, since it was the second man Harry seemed to be concentrating on.
“Felix Derringer,” Harry said, and leaned his wand against Derringer’s throat. His voice remained steady, but Draco could feel the magic building, storm-like, and stretched his wings towards it. “He used to work for us, but he was caught taking artifacts home and selling them. That’s—unacceptable.”
Draco squeezed Harry’s shoulder. “And what about his companion?” he asked, nodding at the copper-haired man. “Is he unimportant enough that I can kill him?”
Harry glanced at him, then shrugged. “He’s more than likely a dupe,” he said, ignoring the way the man flinched from his words. “Or maybe the one who claimed that he knew the true extent of my power because of a blood-linked artifact. Maybe that’s even true. But we need to keep him alive to question for right now.”
Draco sighed and let his wings tremble. “You’re never any fun, Harry.”
Harry stiffened, and then relaxed. He could recognize teasing when he heard it, Draco thought approvingly, and reached out to slide his wing up and down Harry’s spine, back and forth and in gentle, upwards-sweeping circles.
At that moment, Derringer decided the best thing to do would be to try and escape. Draco recognized the tremble of his muscles, and started to turn towards him, but Harry had already seen it, and reacted.
And what a reaction, Draco thought, his arms vibrating as he stared up at the floating Derringer. Harry’s magic had reacted this time without visible light or noise. Derringer had simply hurtled into the air and now hung there with his limbs stretched out on an unseen rack. Draco bit the inside of his cheek and licked his lips.
Then Harry closed his eyes, and lowered his head. Draco slid his palm beneath his chin and tilted it up again, ignoring the second man. He was whimpering, and lay still. He must be a little smarter than Derringer, if he knew that reacting the way his partner had would earn him that same fate.
“Look at me,” Draco whispered. “Are you about to be ashamed by what you just did? Because he’s someone else who would have been pleased to see you die, and for a stupid grudge.”
Harry shook his head. “I’m ashamed because I would have done something else to him,” he whispered. “Something more than I needed to do to hold him prisoner or interrogate him. That’s—not the person I want to become.”
Draco purred disagreeably under his breath and said, “Do you want me to take care of them?”
Harry lifted his head again, and at least the fire was back in his eyes. “We can’t kill them until we know what they know, I said.” There came another whimper from the man lying on the floor, which both of them ignored.
“I know,” Draco said. “I promise not to kill them, or even harm them permanently. You can take them and the others to the Unspeakables when I’m done. But let me handle this, for once. I know how men like this work. I can get the information you need from them, and it’ll be the truth. Let me do this for you, do the hard things.” He petted Harry’s hair, stroking down to his neck as Harry arched against him like a cat.
Harry hesitated for long enough that Draco didn’t know which way he’d jump. Then he tilted his head back, and sighed. Draco saw the soft gleam of his eyes before he closed them.
“Yes.”
Draco bent over Harry and kissed him again, wrapping his wings around them so that they would have at least one private moment in a cave full the bound and gagged. Then he turned to Derringer and called him down to the floor. He felt the tug of Harry’s magic, and knew that Harry could have resisted the pull and kept the man floating if he wanted to.
That only made it all the sweeter when Harry let go because Draco had asked him to, and let Draco do something for his chosen.
There’s never been something I did better than choosing him, Draco thought, with a glance over his shoulder, and went humming to his work.
*
“So you didn’t really have to torture them all that much, then.”
Harry’s head was leaning on his shoulder, and Draco stroked his hair slowly up and down, his eyes closing as they touched. They were once again back in the sitting room of the Manor where Harry had come to meet him, where they had tortured the master duelist, but this time, Draco considered that Harry was appropriately relaxed to fit in with the color scheme.
“No.” Draco yawned and shifted Harry’s head so that it fit better between his collarbone and his chin. “A lot of the men like that are cowards at heart. They hire assassins not because they don’t have the skills to kill someone else, but because they’re so frightened at the thought of seeing a face grow pale and blood spurt.”
“I’m not overly fond of it myself,” Harry said, his fingers tightening for a moment in the edge of Draco’s cloak.
Draco turned his head and rubbed his nose against the side of Harry’s neck. “But you can do it, when you have to,” he said. “That’s the difference. When I was coming at you, you didn’t hold back. You cast the most powerful spell you knew at me, because it was absolutely necessary to get me out of the sky and stop me attacking you.”
“And you don’t…resent that?”
Draco laughed and leaned his head more strongly against Harry’s, his laughter vibrating strangely in his own chest. There were some things that a Veela could only do after he had acquired his chosen, and some of the purrs were one of them. “Why should I? I thought you were brilliant. That was what convinced me to choose you, you know.”
“That I almost killed you.” Harry’s voice was flat, and, Draco feared, more than a little incredulous.
Draco lifted his head and used his fingers to comb Harry’s fringe back from his scar. Harry watched him with eyes as flat as his voice, but made no move to pull away. Draco touched the lightning bolt scar, and wondered for a fleeting moment how many people Harry had permitted this particular intimacy.
Well, it didn’t matter, because no one else was going to have it now, and Draco could only be grateful to Harry’s past lovers for teaching him so much about how to protect himself.
“People have always admired and feared you for this scar,” Draco whispered into Harry’s ear. “The symbol of the way you avoided death. The symbol of your mother’s love, if we’re going to pretend that story is true.”
“It is.” Harry’s voice had dropped lower still, but he made no move to lean back from Draco’s touch, which Draco counted as enough of a triumph for right now. “She’s the real hero, not me. She’s the one who should be honored with statues.”
Draco nodded patiently. He wasn’t going to be the one to explain to Harry how much less fun it was to honor the dead than the living. If he hadn’t understood it yet, he wouldn’t in the course of one conversation.
“Well,” he said, “I admire you for your ability to avoid death, too, but I admire you for the way you defend yourself. Your strength, your skill, your speed, your power. All of those are part of you, and all of those are part of the reason you’re alive. What can I do but love you desperately for them?”
Harry’s breath caught, and he tilted his head back far enough to stare Draco in the eye. “You think—you think that you love me?”
“I said that before, didn’t I?” Draco continued on with his smooth stroking, his head bowed so they were eye to eye. “I’m sure I did. And it’s the natural conclusion, anyway. A Veela doesn’t choose someone he knows he’ll hate.”
“Not knows, but I think that you don’t know if you love me or not.” Harry reached up a hesitant hand and closed his fingers over Draco’s. “And I don’t want you to be with me without—I don’t know, Draco. I suppose I’m still not used to this. I expect you to act like someone would who was taking me as a regular lover. But that’s not really the way it works, is it?”
Draco laughed in delight and rubbed his cheek against Harry’s neck again. “Now you understand. No, it’s not. I know that you’re pure human, and you haven’t had the chance to get used to this the way I have. But I’ve been Veela for years now, and while I didn’t really think I would find a chosen in you, I’ve long since accepted the idea that I’d have one.”
Harry closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. “I—see. Draco…”
“I know you aren’t going to reject me,” Draco whispered into his ear. “Because you wouldn’t come this far with someone you intended to reject.”
Harry half-smiled and shook his head. “No,” he said. “But I want to know if this is going to be best for your health and happiness.” He raised a hand to touch Draco’s wing this time, and Draco shivered, the caress going through him like a dart. “Do you think you’ll be all right with someone who still doubts you, someone who used to hate you, someone hunted by half the wizarding world?”
Draco nodded, drowning in gentleness, in the words. Harry wasn’t his completely yet, but he worried for Draco’s happiness. That was no small thing, in Draco’s personal canon of love.
“I will,” he whispered, opening his eyes to look at Harry. “Because you’re who you are, strong and brave and perfect.” He rested his hands on Harry’s shoulders for a moment. “And you aren’t even rejecting me because I’m an assassin and I kill people.”
Harry raised an eyebrow. “Well, I do rather expect you not to do that anymore, you know.”
His voice shook, and Draco realized abruptly where a lot of Harry’s hesitations were coming from. He seized Harry’s hand and held it, bringing it to his mouth. Harry moaned quietly as Draco’s tongue scrubbed back and forth between his fingers.
“No,” Draco whispered again, when his mouth was free. “Of course I won’t. I did it to earn money, but also because I could, because it was a careless exercise of strength and power that Veela have over humans. Now that I have you, I have someone I want to impress. I don’t need the job anymore.”
“But I don’t want to force you…” Harry’s voice trailed off.
Draco had to laugh. “At the same time as you don’t want me killing anyone.” Again he touched Harry’s fingers with his tongue, and again Harry tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Yes, I know, Harry. But you are going to change my life, the way I’m going to change yours.”
“What way’s that?” Harry opened one eye.
“We’ll be honest with each other, and make each other be honest,” Draco said. “I’ll be standing behind you when you make your announcement about the magic and the people hunting you to the wizarding world, and you’ll be with me when I make my announcement to everyone else about my chosen.”
Harry tucked his head down into Draco’s chest and closed his eyes. “Yes, I’ll be there. We’ll both be there,” he whispered.
“Good,” Draco said, and kissed his scar and his eyelids and his hands before leaning back again. “Now. What I found out from Derringer and his compatriots is exactly what we thought it was. They wanted to murder you because of a stupid grudge. Well, I think there were other people backing them who were more sincerely afraid of you and thought having you dead would make their criminal lives easier, but that was the motive of the people who actually hired me. The others were smart enough to send Derringer and his incompetent friend to do the dirty work.”
Harry nodded without opening his eyes. “Do you think you can find these other people who were connected to them?”
Draco flexed his shoulders, although he didn’t have his wings out right now. “They gave me the names. We’ll speak them together, in front of the wizarding world, and then the Unspeakables and the Aurors will help us hunt them down.”
Harry blinked a little. “You’re serious about a formal announcement in front of everyone that we’re bonded now?”
“Weren’t you?” Draco grinned a little when Harry looked at him. “Yes, I am. For a Veela, it’s an important part of the choosing process. You make your choice, and you present it to the chosen first, so they can have time to get used to it. And then you present it to everyone else, so they know not to choose what you’ve claimed.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Of course you do. Is the possessiveness the most important aspect of this to you?”
“Of course not,” Draco said. “You are.”
Harry’s smile flashed into full being across his face, and he leaned forwards to kiss Draco. “Good answer,” he whispered, while Draco stretched under his mouth and let his wings come out after all.
“Draco?” Harry whispered, when they had kissed hard enough and for long enough to tip Draco into a sort of daze.
“Hmmm?” Draco forced his eyes open against the pressure of pleasure to hold them closed. Harry was smiling at him with the kind of adoration in his eyes that made Draco’s heart quicken until it felt as though it was beating in his flight feathers.
“Take me to bed.”
*
They didn’t go back to the nest after all, although Draco would have been happy to lift Harry and take him there. They moved to the bed in the room at the top of the Manor, the bed that Draco only slept in when he wanted to be really self-indulgent and luxurious, or when he needed to relax after a rare wound.
“I want to see all of you,” Harry said, when Draco asked him why that choice. “And this is a side that I haven’t come to terms with yet.”
Given that Harry had chosen this, Draco shouldn’t have stood by the doorway with his heart beating in his throat and his hand unable to move away from the wall, as though he actually needed the support. But he did anyway, and Harry stood in the center of the room and slowly turned around, passing silent judgment on the décor and the furnishings.
The walls were thick with tapestries, because Draco liked textures. They depicted flight in all its forms: dragons soaring over snow-covered mountains, phoenixes dancing rebirth, dragonflies hovering above glittering streams, butterflies emerging from the cocoon, peacocks fluttering awkwardly into the air before the glory of their tails, and of course Veela with widespread wings in silent display before an unseen chosen. Harry reached out and touched the blue-and-white tapestry nearest the bed, which showed swans in flight across a night sky, and then turned towards Draco with a surprised little exclamation.
“It feels like feathers!”
Draco inclined his head. He didn’t think he could speak yet. In fact, he was sure he couldn’t. He just stood there, and watched Harry explore.
The room was wide, with a door on the far wall that led to a bathroom, and a soft grey carpet on the floor. The only piece of furniture, other than the sleek mahogany desk where Draco kept some of his earnings from his assassinations, was the giant bed in the center of the room.
Harry approached it slowly.
He looked tiny beside it, beside the looming posts that almost reached the ceiling, and the sweep of canopies like netted wings, and the sheets that sprawled over it, the quiet, dark green of a forest—not because of Slytherin colors, but because Draco knew he would look stunning kneeling in the middle of that, with his white wings spread around him and his pale skin gleaming. Harry touched the thick pillows and stared at the blankets that could drown a dragon, and Draco’s breath caught as he realized how thoroughly he had prepared the place for his chosen. Not that he knew Harry would be his chosen at the time, but—
Instinct isn’t wrong. Not about things like this.
Harry turned around, and Draco saw the smile that spread across his face, even wider and more relaxed than the one he’d shown Draco downstairs. Harry’s hands went to the buttons on his shirt, and he popped the first one.
Draco covered the distance between them fast enough to make himself dizzy. But he was crooning, and his head was filled with light and determination, and there was nothing else that had to separate them anymore.
He took Harry’s fingers gently, reverently, from the buttons, and undid them himself, after first doing up the one Harry had undone. Harry watched him with wise eyes, dark ones. Eyes that had seen a lot of innocence die out of the world. Eyes that had seen power, and accepted it now.
Eyes that trusted Draco to do this for him.
Draco kissed him and herded him gently into the bed when he’d removed his clothes. He folded them himself and put them on the desk. No house-elf would come into this room to tend to them. Harry Potter in his bed, dark hair as shocking a contrast against Draco’s sheets as white would have been, his eyes made the brighter by them, was a sight for his gaze alone.
Then Draco arched his neck and began, at last, to display for his chosen.
He wheeled in the middle of the room, wings spread wide, arms lifted as he showed off his strength and speed. He had already stripped off his shirt, and reached now for his pants. Harry’s breath quickened. Draco crooned and ducked his head down slyly.
Then he took off and flew around the room. The high ceilings and wide-spaced walls were there for other reasons, too.
Harry lay back on the pillows and gaped at the sight of him flying. Powerful, perfect, quick, poised, especially when Draco backwinged above the bed and landed softly beside Harry, reaching out to trail his fingers down Harry’s chest and some of the scars that lived there.
Harry surged up, grabbing him and kissing him fiercely.
They wrestled in the middle of the bed, sporting like lions in the springtime, Harry’s power singing around them in time with Draco’s croon. Draco discovered his wings were beating out the tune, too, and let out a soft, contented warble. This was what he had been waiting for, although he hadn’t known his own preferences all that well until now, a chosen who could match him in all the ways that counted.
It wasn’t Harry’s power that had made Draco choose him, or not Harry’s power alone. It was all the things that came with that power, all it promised.
They passed from the wrestling into kissing, and passionate touching, until Draco was between Harry’s legs, and Harry’s feet were on his shoulders, ankles a breath away from his wings. Draco smiled down at Harry as he rubbed lube between his hands, Summoned from the desk by who knew which one of them. Harry’s eyes were darting to his wings, looking as though he worried about whether a kick from him could crumple Draco’s flight feathers, but Draco wished he wouldn’t worry about anything so ridiculous.
Draco liked that sense of danger.
He slid his fingers into Harry, but not for long, because Harry was already tapping him lightly on the shoulder to tell him to get on with it, and Draco was feeling a bit impatient himself. He slid into Harry with a gasp and settled there, head bowed, wings beating time to a different tune now, restricted by the way he knelt.
“I want it,” Harry said, in a voice that cracked down the middle, but was still deep enough to sound like a snarl from a blackened cave.
Draco opened his eyes, and smiled at Harry—brilliantly, because he didn’t know how else to smile—and began to rock and stroke forwards. He used his knees, his hands, his arms, his wings, all of those, as well as the magic that drummed under his skin for a Veela chosen alone. It was meant to make them relax and give it up, after they’d already made the choice and come here.
Show them the Veela meant it.
Show him I mean it, Draco thought, dizzy with love and power, and Harry opened his eyes and smiled up at him.
Draco knew he could go faster, and he did, straightforward and true as a bird soaring home. Harry dug his fingers into the sheets, and looked pleased about how soft they were, and did it again. The fire flickered in the hearth on the far side of the room, and the tapestry of swans blew back and forth, and the pale, stern faces of the Veela in the other tapestry Harry had stared at blazed like stars.
There was so much darkness around them. So much light. Draco pressed inwards, and held himself there for a moment, wings fluttering, while he directed the magic down and into Harry.
Harry’s pleasure started with a surprised little twist of his mouth, as though he didn’t know what he was feeling. Then he arched his head back and cried out, and the muscles in his neck corded and trembled. He went on rising, in body and in voice, his hips leaving the bed and his voice turning into a plea, as he emptied himself.
And Draco had the control to wait, not to come, until he had seen Harry safely through and could follow, because that was one of the things Veela could do for their chosen.
Afterwards, he had the same ability to raise his wings in the air like floating flowers and bring them down like shadowy veils around them both, oh so lightly, oh so softly.
*
“What are you going to do to show your power?”
Harry spent some time studying his formal robes in the mirror without answering. He had taken over an office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to do his dressing in, and Draco approved. When an Unspeakable walked into the Department and demanded a room in that tone of voice, people moved.
But Draco had felt the tremor of power in Harry’s voice, and seen the way he wore his fringe brushed in a natural way, so that it had as much chance of falling away from his scar as obscuring it, and knew it was more than that. These people were giving place to Harry Potter. Maybe unwillingly, maybe in surprise. Harry Potter was supposed to be the timid little Hero who gave credit to everyone else for his successes, not someone who announced that he would be holding a meeting with the press to make an important announcement in half an hour and he needed a room to prepare his formal robes in the meanwhile.
And certainly not someone who took a known Veela into the room with him.
Harry finally turned away from the mirror and faced Draco. His jaw was set, but although his eyes were dark, they were also clear. Draco loved that. He knew that Harry wasn’t doing this because Draco wanted him to, wasn’t doing this because Draco had forced him to, but had chosen this.
If he hadn’t wanted to, no force on earth could have moved him.
Draco loved his chosen as much for that as for anything.
“Wait and see,” Harry answered, and walked out of the room, pausing minutely before the door to lift his head and straighten his back. Draco followed him with head cocked, wondering for a moment if he was imitating someone.
The truth hit him like an arrow. No. Harry was walking the way he naturally should do, the way he never did in the Ministry, because then someone might start suspecting his power or wanting him to do something for them.
Draco’s wings came out. He couldn’t help it. He had planned to wait until they were in front of the public and he could claim Harry as his chosen, but at least he could fold them back and have them in waiting on his shoulders instead of pulling all the attention away from Harry.
He could see the side of Harry’s face as he walked in profile ahead, and made out the quirk of the smile, the way that it relaxed Harry and dropped even more strength into his stride. Just from the sight of Draco’s wings.
Draco walked out into the eye of the public delirious with love.
*
Harry nodded to the people waiting in the Atrium of the Ministry, but Draco didn’t think he noticed the reporters and the Ministry officials and the concerned Head Auror leaning forwards to stare at him. Maybe his fellow Unspeakables.
Certainly his friends, who were both in the front row and looked at him wonderingly when he stepped off the lifts with Draco behind him.
Harry faced them, and although he’d cast Sonorus on his throat so that his words could reach everyone in the room, his voice sounded soft anyway when he said, “Thank you for coming.” Draco watched Granger’s eyes widen and dart between him and Harry. She’d figured out part of it, at least, probably after seeing the curves of Draco’s wings over his shoulders. “I wanted to announce several things to you.”
There was shifting among the Unspeakables now. Draco wondered if they thought Harry had chosen this very public method to betray the secrets of their order.
Draco didn’t give them the chance to worry about it. He snarled and flashed his wings out, and they fell silent in shock, giving Harry the chance to speak.
“First,” Harry said, “I’ve been hunted by several men, one of them a former Unspeakable, who thought my power was too dangerous to them to leave me alone. They hired at least eight assassins to go after me. I have list of their names, and of their allies’, which include some people in high places. I’ll expect full cooperation from the Ministry in the effort to track them down.”
Cameras flashed, or began to flash harder than they had so far, and someone yelled a question in a hoarse voice. Harry gave no sign that he’d noticed, instead continuing, and because his voice was the louder one, the questioner was silenced. Draco’s wings flashed again, but this time, he might be the only one who recognized it for a sign of approval.
“Second,” Harry said, “I became an Unspeakable for many reasons, some good, some not as good. I do believe that my mother was the one who saved the wizarding world by giving me her protection against Voldemort, and she’s the one who should be honored as the true hero for defeating him.” Draco laughed aloud at the way so many people still flinched at Voldemort’s name. Well, they would learn a better source of fear soon.
“But I’m more powerful than I ever let anyone know,” Harry said. He was looking at his friends, and his face was bright with love and hope. Draco knew they would realize what he felt for them. They damn well better, or Draco would scrub the floor with their faces until they did. “I was afraid of what might happen to me if anyone knew, afraid that someone I loved would reject me for having that power and that violence. To show you what I mean…”
He held his hand out, and Draco was sure that everyone felt the surge of magic leaping from Harry, but he didn’t use his wand.
The rebuilt Fountain in the center of the Atrium drifted gently off the floor. Draco’s feet left it at the same time. He hovered in the air near the ceiling, and spread his wings so he could show off to best advantage.
He was the only one hanging up there—the only one, he realized as he saw the pale faces staring up at him, who wouldn’t be afraid of this evidence of what Harry’s power could do. Preferably not the only one who realized the immense control that Harry was exercising to only lift two objects in all that vast room, though, and so would be impressed.
Draco spread his wings further and let Harry spin him around, rotate him and turn him like he was on a wheel. Then he came gently back to earth and stepped up behind Harry, his wings spread and enfolding him. He kept the curves low enough so that everyone who mattered could still Harry’s face over the top of them.
Granger was gaping at Harry, or maybe at the two of them together. Weasley stared in much the same way, except that his mouth was wider. But neither of them frowned or screamed or demanded answers the way people behind them did.
Then Granger smiled.
Draco felt Harry sway against him, and knew that he was probably in no shape to make the final announcement they had planned on. Well, Draco could make it for him. It was more properly Draco’s announcement anyway.
“I’m a Veela,” he said, to state the obvious to some of the idiots in the room who wouldn’t have got it. He stretched his wings wide and sheltered Harry that way, under their shadow, as the Fountain settled back onto its base. “Harry is my chosen. That means I protect him from people who try to hurt him, and guard his back, and walk at his side, and sleep in his bed.” He flashed his wings shut again, this time completely enfolding Harry for a moment before he retracted them to his back. “Any questions?”
There were, of course. But Granger had stepped forwards and laid her hand on Harry’s arm from one side, and Weasley had done the same from the other. And Harry’s eyes had light in them when he looked at his friends that kept Draco from being as jealous as he would have done.
So the questions didn’t matter. What did was the light in Harry’s face, in his eyes, in Draco’s heart, in Draco’s blood.
What mattered was that Harry turned around and kissed him, right in front of his friends and the Unspeakables and Rita Skeeter and all.
What mattered was that a certain darkness had passed, and the glory of their futures was just beginning.
The End.
