[one-shots]: Glory Be, R, H/D, 3/4

[lomonaaeren]

*

Normally, Draco liked to crouch on the roofs of buildings and spy out his prey. It was amazing how few people ever looked up unless they'd had some notice that they would be fighting winged enemies. It let Draco be aware of what was he was getting into, and it let anyone else shriek in surprise when he stooped down on them.

But this time, the wizards were occupied casting curses into the shop where Harry had taken shelter. Draco approved in principle of the fact that their enemies had hired multiple assassins this time, but not in practice.

He came in low, his wings set to gliding, and it was only when he was reaching out towards the heads of the two tallest wizards that they snapped their gazes up and began to gape.

Draco didn't give them time to react and warn the others; the others would just have to be warned by the deaths of their comrades. He snatched the heads in his arms and rolled, smashing them into each other, delighting in the sound of their skulls connecting. As they slumped to the ground, he kicked their legs out to the side, breaking one for each of them. He would have killed them, most of the time. The only thing that stopped him was the feeling Harry might not approve of that.

Then he completed his swoop across the alley and caught the wall of the shop, whirling around on the wall to face the rest, who were still in that initial stage of gape. They lifted their wands, all turning as one to face him.

That was stupid, Draco thought smugly as Harry exploded out of the shop behind them.

Something that looked like a Stunner, but orange and three-rayed, broke away from Harry's wand and hit three of his attackers in the back. Their mouths went wide in gasps of pain, a much more attractive look for them than the gape, and they slumped to the ground. Harry went on running over them, aiming for the mouth of the alley.

By this time, though, the three left, whom Draco had mentally tagged as the most experienced of the group, had recovered and were turning around. Well, two turned around, and the third tried to keep Draco covered. Harry had to turn and defend himself as stones began to puff into dust around him.

Draco idly stretched his wings and whirled into the air to dodge the first spell. Then he drew his own wand. Normally, he didn't use it in a combat like this, but most of the time, he had taken the precaution of disarming his enemy first. Not possible here, so needs must.

His first spell was defensive, a blocking spell that shattered a window with the curse that had been meant to shatter his bones. Draco set his wings out on either side of himself and beat strongly, and a wind blew down and took the stranger from his feet. Draco followed it up with another special curse.

The wizard screamed and began to claw at himself. To all appearances normal, he felt as though there were ants crawling under his skin. Draco kicked into a leisurely glide and made vines sprout from the cobblestones, binding his prey. He nodded. For now, that would do, and the suffering he experienced under the spell would go a short way towards making up for what this wizard had made Harry suffer.

Then Draco turned to help his chosen.

Harry had his back tucked against the doorway of a different shop and was trading hexes with the two wizards who had cornered him. One of them was a master duelist, as Draco could see at a glance, considering the speed with which he ducked and weaved and chose countercurses. Draco's mouth watered, and his wings twitched. He wanted to see the master fight Harry, who was a master in his own way.

That left one other wizard to take care of.

Draco rose straight up out of the alley, to the level where he could spread his wings to their full extent, and then turned, tucked them in close to his body, and came down in his falcon dive. His joined arms hit the interfering wizard like a hammer and spun him off his feet. He hit his head on a wall, and Draco nodded and settled next to him, binding him with more ordinary ropes while he watched the duel.

The duelist and Harry were similar in speed, in skill, in physical strength, if the way they shrugged off some of the minor side-spells that got through was any indication. But Draco knew the magical power that burned beneath Harry's shields, and he wanted to see the moment when Harry lost his temper and his dedication to hiding his strength and unleashed it to take care of the duel for him.

It took longer than Draco would have thought. Harry was cut, blood running down his forehead and his right arm, and Draco's wings twitched and his fingers grew claws as he watched. But he wanted to hold back for the treat he was sure was coming, and he wanted to show his chosen that he believed Harry could defend himself. So he waited.

Finally, the duelist shouted something that Draco couldn't make out entirely. It had the word "Weasley" in it, and that was enough.

One second, Harry was a panting, somewhat battered Unspeakable looking for the best way around his opponent's shields. The next moment, he flowed into a high-quality predator.

His first spell simply destroyed his opponent's shields, with brute strength delicately placed. His second spell lifted the opponent and spun him around in a circle, so fast that he vomited. Harry smiled with excellent good humor and waited until the spinning stopped, then gestured again, this time in a wand motion Draco didn't know.

Draco didn't hear the incantation, either, because Harry had chosen to make it nonverbal. But he heard the wizard's ribs break, one after another, up and down the entire range of them.

The man slumped to the ground, not even screaming before the pain simply knocked him unconscious. Harry stood there with the blood running, his eyes blazing, and Draco sat up in his position by the wall and broke into spontaneous applause. It clacked and cracked, because of the claws on his fingers.

Harry dropped into a crouch and pivoted on one heel to face him, deadly enough to make Draco pant in turn. Then Harry shut his eyes, and shook his head, and stuffed something real back behind the false facade. Draco wanted to howl, but contented himself with watching the transformation, the only one of Harry's friends who had ever seen it.

"Malfoy," Harry acknowledged, with a slow twist of his neck. He kept his eyes shut. Draco knew why, knew how hard it was to return from the hunter's mindset to the real world, and stopped his laugh only with an effort. Yes, this was the one for him. "I reckon you meant what you said. You came to help."

"Of course I did," Draco said. "Did you think I would leave my chosen to suffer alone?" He realized that his voice had deepened and slowed, as though he was speaking through honey, and eased away from the wall. He couldn't seem to look anywhere but at Harry. He couldn't seem to do anything but want to touch him. His hands were twitching with the effort, his claws withdrawing back into his fingers but the skin of his palms standing out from his hands in the effort to yearn towards him.

Harry saw that, and his eyes almost stood out of his head. He stared at Draco, who was slinking towards him. "Maybe you're a really good assassin, yeah," he muttered. "The best assassin ever, to win my trust this way."

"Have I won your trust, Harry?" Draco's chest was hollow with his longing, and he really couldn't wait any longer. "Good."

He crossed the ground beneath them in a few strides, his wings flaring out around him before he slammed them down on his back again. He didn't want his flight instincts to accidentally carry him past Harry.

Harry could have resisted, could have fended him off with spells or even a stern arm, but he didn't. After a single cautious look in Draco's direction, he accepted the embrace. Maybe the sight of the skin on Draco's hands rippling had convinced him he should.

Draco tucked his head into Harry's neck, trembling. His hands settled on Harry's hips, and he licked his lips. He wanted to hold, to kiss, to bite, to strike, and he didn't know which one should come first, which impulse was strongest.

"Why did you hold back like that?" Harry asked, his voice low and apparently without any emotion at all. "I've been reading about Veela since you told me, and I thought they were about protecting their chosen at all costs."

"I wanted to see you fight," Draco said. "And to show you that I can let you defend yourself, too."

Harry just stared at him, moving his head out from under Draco's chin in order to do so.

"What Veela want in their chosen has some things in common, but it also differs, because of course Veela are different people," Draco told him softly. "Someone who lives a normal life probably just wants a chosen who can hold a normal job and have children with them and live behind safe walls. But that isn't you, and that isn't me."

Harry closed his eyes. "I shouldn't have used that rib-breaking spell," he whispered. "He hadn't actually done anything wrong. He'd just threatened Ron, not hurt him."

"He tried to kill you," Draco said, and slowed his voice so that his words wouldn't vibrate too fast with his rage. "You don't think that's something wrong? I know you like to disguise yourself as a martyr, but really, Harry."

Harry shook his head. "He did something wrong," he said. "I just--I tried not to retaliate in a way that's more like revenge than retaliation, you know? And I did."

"He threatened your friends. Even if he didn't know how powerful you really were, he ought to know that's an invitation to suicide around Harry Potter."

"You know that?"

Draco reached out and gently shut Harry's dangling jaw. He looked so much better with his mouth only open enough to receive Draco's tongue or speak his words. "Of course I do. I would never try to hurt anyone you love. I want your full and willing cooperation with me, not you fighting me every step of the way."

"You understand that I could hurt you, I could kill you, even though you're a Veela assassin." Harry reached out and put his hand on Draco's chest over his heart. Draco closed his eyes and imagined pure magic flowing out of Harry, gripping and stopping his heartbeat.

His voice came out hoarse when he whispered, "Of course I know that. I knew that from the moment you almost made me flightless." He reached down and touched Harry's wrist, feeling the pulse beat there in turn. "It's one of the things that make you so attractive to me."

Harry said nothing. Draco opened his eyes and found a complicated expression on his face, almost a grimace, but his eyes were wide and solemn, and he touched Draco's face as though he was blind.

"You're so goddamn complex," Harry whispered. "Why couldn't you be simple?"

"I want you," Draco pointed out. "That's simple."

Harry shook his head slightly. "No one has ever wanted me when they knew about the magic."

Draco let his chest vibrate with his sublimated croon, and curved his wings as well as his arms around Harry, drawing him in. "That makes it all the better. I'm not your first friend, or your first lover, or even your first Veela lover, but at least I'm the first to know the truth about you, to accept you for who you really are."

"You understand why I keep it hidden?"

“No,” Draco said frankly. “I think you should let it run free, hurt whoever it wants to hurt, and damn the consequences.” Then he had to hold Harry as he tried to pull away again. “That doesn’t mean I would expose you without your permission. You made the decision, and my chosen’s decisions are sacred to me.”

“Not when it contradicts something you want.”

Draco smiled patiently. “But I don’t think there will be many times when what you want contradicts what I want. Not now that we’re coming to understand each other.”

Harry seemed to have another opinion on that, but he bit his lip and kept quiet. Then he said, “We were talking about my magic. Why do you think I should let it run free? Do you—can’t you even guess why I wanted to keep it hidden?”

“Because it isolated you from other people,” Draco said. “Made you different. I know now that you don’t like the attention, or at least don’t care about it. Those stories you spread about your mother being responsible for the Dark Lord’s defeat prove that.”

“She was.” Harry had a look on his face that threatened to become a mask.

“I know,” Draco said. “I understand the way you perceive it, at least,” he had to add, when Harry’s eyebrows crept up towards his hairline. “But I think that trying to hide yourself is like trying to hide a mountain. Ultimately, its magnificence is going to shine through.”

Harry shook his head. “The magic isn’t magnificent. It’s something that gets the better of me sometimes, the way it did in this fight, and the one against you.”

“It could shine,” Draco said, pressing his lips to the side of Harry’s temple and holding them there as he closed his eyes, “if you let it.”

Harry was still, as though listening. Draco hoped he was. He couldn’t force Harry to change his mind; he wouldn’t want to if he had the power, because that would mean Harry wasn’t as strong as his magic said he was. But he did think that the secrecy had warped some of Harry’s perceptions.

What could make Harry Potter lie to his friends, who accepted so many of his differences and tried to make him feel at home in the wizarding world?

Apparently, knowing powerful and harmful spells, and having a bit of a temper.

“You’re the first person I’ve met since this developed who really doesn’t seem afraid of me,” Harry whispered. “Even the other Veela I knew was.”

Draco nodded. “But have you given your friends the chance or the choice to say that they were afraid of you? By concealing it from them, I don’t think you have. Would they really abandon you for being stronger than they thought you were?”

“I don’t want them to have to deal with it.” Harry was staring in the opposite direction, his mouth tucked down at the corners and his eyes squinting as if he struggled to read in strong light. “There are so many stupid things that would happen if other people knew. Questions about whether I was a Dark Lord, people asking me for even more help than they do now, the Daily Prophet trying to follow me around even more than they do. At least they accept that I can’t talk candidly in interviews now because I’m an Unspeakable.”

“That’s the main reason you took that job?” Draco kept his voice gentle, although for him it wasn’t really a question.

“There are other reasons,” Harry said. “It was one of the main ones, though.”

“Shame them with enough power, or frighten them, and you won’t need to talk about yourself that much.” Draco laid gentle fingers on his shoulder. “I would be happy to be the only you talked to about yourself.”

“My friends will always have a piece of me.” Harry squeezed his hand and laid it aside. “And I don’t think I could ever make them leave me alone. This is the best compromise. Not perfect, but the best one.”

“It involves hiding yourself away, and that hurts you,” Draco said firmly. He was sure of his conclusion, seeing the dull sparkle in Harry’s eyes, and the way his head lowered so his chin almost touched his chest. “I think you should find something else.”

Harry abruptly gave a violent start and stared at the wizards lying on the stones. “Why are we talking about this in public? In front of enemies?”

“Because that was where you wanted to talk about it,” Draco said comfortably, and spread his wings. “I can fly them to a secure location.”

“That would be the Manor?” Harry smiled at him, but there was sharpness behind the smile.

“Yes, of course,” Draco said, with a sharp smile of his own. “A wing where they can’t interfere with anyone else, naturally.”

Harry hesitated, looking towards the wizards. Then he sighed and said, “I should report them to my superiors and let them decide what to do with them, since they attacked me because of an artifact, or because I’m an Unspeakable, or both. But they also attacked me when I wasn’t actually in pursuit of an artifact, and not actually on the job.”

Draco kissed him on the cheek, then stepped back and turned towards the wizards. Harry was right behind him, ready to help with Levitation Charms and Lightening Charms. Draco scooped up two of them like cordwood and flew towards the mouth of the alley.

No one looked out of the shops to watch them go. Most people were at home by this hour of the evening, and the others were too afraid.

Let them be afraid, then. Harry can’t consider the people who would fear him. There would always be someone. He deserves to have his freedom without caring about what they think.

*

Draco chose a wing for the wizards that had secure walls, even stronger wards, bare rooms without carpets or furniture that they could turn into weapons, private bathrooms that they could use without bothering him about it, no windows, and thick doors. The house-elves had their orders, to bring the prisoners the food they requested, within reason.

Draco had also chosen one wizard, the one whose ribs Harry had broken, healed his injuries enough to hurt instead of threaten his life, and brought him to the sitting room where he had entertained Harry once before. He thought Harry might be more comfortable interrogating the man in a familiar setting.

And this man was the one most likely to be cooperative, out of all of them.

Harry settled into a chair in front of the fire this time, and accepted a drink from Draco’s hand. The house-elves could have served him, but Draco wanted to be the one to do it, and not just because he had an excuse to let his fingers linger in Harry’s palm that way. Harry flushed and ducked his head. Draco kissed him on the wrist and stepped back.

Harry took a long moment to sip his drink and clear his throat, and probably compose his mind. Then he waved his wand, dispelling the enchantment that Draco had used to keep the prisoner asleep.

Even though he hadn’t heard Draco speak that particular spell, and had no reason to know it. Draco licked his lips and held himself back as his emotions, and something else, swelled.

The man woke up with a blink, and fastened on Harry at once. “You know that my employers will come after me?” he said quietly. “If you let me go now, I may be able to put in a good word for you and convince them not to do that.”

Harry smiled briefly. “I admire boldness,” he said, in a tone Draco had never heard him use. “That doesn’t mean I’ll give you credit for it now.” He stood up and took a piece of ice from his drink, holding it between his fingers as though he could see the world in its small, transparent surface. “You needn’t think that,” he went on, looking up. “There’s no reason for you to—“

He flicked the ice forwards, and it clashed against the prisoner’s face. He flinched on instinct, and the ice altered, or perhaps it had changed as it flew, and a large, gleaming beetle clawed its way up to the man’s forehead, leaving small trails of blood on his cheeks. The prisoner was breathing harshly, trying to see what was on him and watch Harry at the same time.

The beetle settled above the man’s eye. Harry smiled gently at him. “Do you know what that beetle does when it’s created?” he asked. “It freezes anything it touches, if I want it to.” He bowed his head. “It crawls in through any orifice it finds, and freezes you from the inside out.”

Draco had to reach down and adjust himself.

“You’re lying,” the man whispered. “I never heard of a spell like that.”

“And you were such a creative and promising duelist, too,” Harry said, shaking his head. “I gave you more credit than you deserved. But I can assure you it will happen. Unless you prefer it not to happen and give me answers, of course.”

The prisoner’s breathing had hoarsened and grown harsher. His hands were tight on the arms of his chair. Draco thought about telling him that the chair wouldn’t let him rise unless Draco willed it, but decided not to. Harry was doing a magnificent job on his own.

“I don’t want to tell you about my employers,” the man said. “What they could do to me is worse than what you could.”

Harry smiled. “The ear, I think.”

The ice beetle turned and crawled across the prisoner’s forehead towards his right ear. Draco licked his lips and stepped up beside Harry, because if he couldn’t pin him down and take what he most wanted right now, he had to at least touch him. Harry didn’t jump when Draco touched his back. He did nothing but keep steely eyes on the man in front of him. He might have forgotten Draco was there.

No, he hadn’t, Draco thought, before his instincts could clamor at him. Harry was leaning back slightly, just enough to press into Draco’s palm. Draco bowed his head and closed his eyes.

The beetle started to slip into the man’s ear. Harry nodded. “From here, it can most easily reach the brain,” he told the prisoner conversationally. “Though I understand the sensation of your eardrum freezing and bursting is also exquisite.”

“Stop! Stop!”

The beetle stopped crawling. Harry tilted his head and examined the man from the side as though that would tell him something about whether the bloke was sincere. Draco was trembling, and he rested his hands on Harry’s shoulders because he thought it wouldn’t do any harm, now, either to his standing in Harry’s eyes or to Harry’s in the prisoner’s.

“I’ll tell you,” the prisoner whispered. There was a dread fascination in his voice, and he stared at Harry almost the way Draco thought he had, when Harry surprised him with that Veela spell. “What are you? They told us you were a hero.”

“You could say that,” Harry said, although his body gave a single, hard shake that Draco felt through his hands resting on Harry’s back. “You could definitely say that.”

For some reason, the name “hero” upset him. Well, if he had lived a lie so long, then perhaps he no longer thought he had a right to claim it. Draco chirped into his ear and drew his hands gently down Harry’s shoulders to the small of his back again.

“They wanted to kill you because you recently started working with one special artifact,” the man whispered. “It would have been a bone flute, or it looked like a bone flute. They weren’t clear.”

Harry blinked. “What? That thing? But it didn’t do anything! We’ve tested it for years, and it never reacted.”

The man shivered. “My employer said that it used to belong to his family, and they used it to warn them of powerful enemies. But it was stolen, long ago. The Unspeakables could do anything they wanted, and never trigger it, because they weren’t of his blood. But when you came near it, you were so strong that he still felt it warn him of your power, and he was afraid you would figure out some way to turn it around and use it. Or find him.”

“Always the bloody power,” Harry said, and his voice was light, but there was still something behind his words that made Draco hold him. “What else?”

“That’s all I know,” the man said, and shivered a little when the beetle on his head turned itself about with small clicking feet. “They warned us that we would need six or seven wizards just to take you on. That you’d somehow cast the Imperius Curse on the Veela assassin they sent after you before.” He looked at Draco.

Draco gave him a wild smile back. If that was true, and someone had been observing him since he lied about his reasons for not hurting Harry, then his career as an assassin was probably finished. But he didn’t care.

The man flinched harder from Draco’s smile than he had from Harry’s beetle, and then Harry said, “You don’t have names?”

“I have—a location.”

“I think that will do,” Harry said. “You’ll tell me—”

“Us,” Draco corrected him, and studied the man for a moment. “Would I be correct in saying it’s a cave, in the base of a mountain, with a rubble slope in front of it and pines on the slope right above the cave entrance?”

The man’s face went more and more pale as Draco spoke steadily on. Then he said, “What did you need me for?”

“I’m starting to wonder that myself,” Draco said cheerfully.

The man looked as if he was going to piss himself, and Draco didn’t really want that, not all over one of his finest chairs. So he let Harry push his shoulder and glare at him, muttering something about how, no, they weren’t going to execute the prisoners, and let Harry give the duelist a few more threats about what would happen if he tried to communicate this to his employers, and about how ice beetles could manifest anywhere, really, it was amazing, even in the middle of summer.

The man had nodded frantically so many times by then that Draco saw the need to break in. “I think he’s intimidated enough, Harry.”

“I am,” the duelist whispered. “I won’t betray you. I’ll just leave, and go somewhere else. The Continent is nice at this time of year.”

Draco squashed the impulse to say that the Continent was always nice, at least if you picked the right hotels. He was more worried about the way Harry’s jaw was set, and the way he flinched, almost absently, when Draco touched him. Draco kept his hand in place anyway. He didn’t want to let Harry go now.

He escorted the duelist outside the Manor, and leaned close when they were beyond the wards. “In case Harry Potter doesn’t intimidate you enough,” he said, “you might as well know that I’m his mate.”

That made the duelist back away before he spun and ran. Draco chuckled, and went back inside. It was time to ask a few questions.

*

Harry was still sitting in the same room where Draco had left him, although this time holding a drink in his hands and staring emptily at the flames. He did stir when Draco shut the door behind him. “You don’t think he’ll betray us?”

Draco shook his head. “He’ll live in fear for a time, and he certainly won’t accept a contract against either of us.” He crossed the room and stood to the side of the fire, spreading his wings so that the flames could warm the right one. “It’s not true, you know.”

“The information he gave us?” Harry flowed back to his feet, almost dropping his drink. “Why didn’t you say so? Now we need to take one of the others and make them confess again, and that’s always so tiresome—”

“Not that,” Draco said, already wincing from his careless word choice. He should have remembered what Harry’s job was and the paranoia it always instilled. He reached out and spread his hands, not forcing Harry back into the seat but preventing him from moving. “The thoughts you’re having about yourself.”

“You said the choosing didn’t tell you what my thoughts were.” Harry watched him in silence, head slanted towards the door still.

“But I know now,” Draco said quietly. “Combined with the way you haven’t talked about your magic to your friends, and the way you flinched when our informer said that the artifact reacted to your power.”

Harry shut his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“Oh, but I think we should,” Draco said. “How long has it been since you spoke about it with someone, Harry? Ever?”

Harry sighed and took his seat again, his drink dangling to the point that the glass almost tipped. Draco didn’t say anything. The feelings of his chosen were more important than a bit of alcohol on the carpet.

“I don’t like it,” Harry said at last. “My magic only ever does three things: makes people envious of me, or makes them afraid, or makes them think of ways they can use me.” He tossed back his head and fastened his eyes on Draco. “I haven’t figured out which category you fit into yet.”

“Your magic makes me want you,” Draco said. “That’s all.”

“And that’s all,” Harry said. “If I hadn’t tried to use that spell to cut your wings off, you never would have known, and you never would have wanted me.” He had a wistful note in his voice that would have worried Draco if any Time-Turners had still existed.

As it was, he knelt down in front of Harry and stared into his face. “Do I have to convince you all over again?” he snapped. “I thought you were past the first doubts and were beginning to accept that I want you.”

“But it’s my magic, nothing else,” Harry said, and his eyes were weary beyond hope of resting. It made Draco want to take him to bed, but then, everything did that. The only unusual thing about this was what they would do if they were in bed right now. “That’s the problem. Anyone only ever thinks about the political advantages they would get out of my magic, or the personal advantages, in your case. I’m not wanted for—anything else.”

His hand trembled on the glass. Draco reached out and covered his hand. “Thank you for honoring me with that,” he whispered.

Harry shook his head. “You don’t get it. I want someone who would love me for who I am.”

“But your magic is part of you,” Draco whispered. “As much as your eyes or your fame or your heart or your sense of honor or your stubbornness. Why do you persist in thinking of it as something different?”

“Because it’s like the scar,” Harry said harshly, shoving back the fringe as if Draco would have forgotten what the lightning bolt looked like. “Another thing that makes me a freak.”

Draco spread his wings wide and then draped them around Harry’s shoulders like a cloak. Harry tried to stand, but Draco stood with him and shook his head. He’d been shaking it for what felt like long minutes, he thought, although he couldn’t have, because Harry had only spoken those words a few seconds ago.

“Please don’t call yourself that,” he said. “Please don’t.”

Harry stared at him. “It—hurts you?”

“You can laugh if you want,” Draco said. He didn’t mind that. It would mean that Harry had at least acknowledged what he was saying, which meant he might not refer to himself like that again. “But that’s because I’m a Veela, and that’s the way I am. Don’t say that. Please don’t,” he added again, when Harry looked as if he might pull away.

“I don’t know what to say,” Harry said. “Doesn’t it bother you? Being a Veela, having no choice in who you choose?”

“I chose you,” Draco said. “That’s part of who I am. I can’t run from it. I can rejoice in it and turn it to my advantage, though, the way I have. It seems to me that you would get away with a lot more and be a lot happier if you used your magic for something other than just defending your life.”

“But in this case, I use it to hurt people.”

Draco caught his hands. “Come out, then. Announce your magic. Announce that I’m backing you up, which will be true even if you reject me. Then you won’t have as many enemies, and you can use it for things that don’t frighten you as much.”

"That vision is more tempting than it has any right to be," Harry muttered, shaking his head.

"Why right?" Draco kept his voice low, soothing, right around the edges of a croon without crossing over into one. "You have the right to do anything you want in this situation. They've already tried to kill you. They won't stop because you act humble. You have someone at your side to comfort you if your friends disapprove. It's really the perfect time to announce your magic to the world."

Harry stared at him, then shut his eyes with a weary chuckle. "Some of what you say isn't very comforting, you know."

"I'm sorry," Draco said simply. "I've never had a chosen before."

Harry's breath caught, and he leaned forwards to run a tender hand over Draco's scalp. Draco arched his head up, his neck and wings, bringing them closer to the best touch he'd ever felt.

"And then some of the time," Harry whispered, "you do more than all right."

Draco was hazily aware that Harry hadn't made the important choice about revealing his magic yet, and that he really should press him. But that marvelous hand was still in his hair, and he really didn't have the strength for anything except what he did next.

He leaned in and kissed Harry.

Harry's hand fell away, and Draco pressed closer, waiting for an answer. There was silence except for the beating of his heart and the rustle of his wings for long seconds.

Then Harry answered.

It was blindingly fast, and as strong as his magic. He wrapped his arms around Draco and kissed him, angry, pressing, demanding.

Draco flared his wings out so they wouldn't get crushed underneath him, and kissed back with all his heart. After a little while, Harry's clutch lessened, and he sat up to look at Draco, fierce in his gaze as a lion.

"I'm sick of it, of everyone challenging me and trying to kill me and not being able to have things I want," he said, his hair hanging in his eyes, his voice wild as Draco's blood. "Take me to bed. Make me feel good."

It was all Draco had been waiting for.

He scooped Harry up and flew out the window. Harry gasped once, but when Draco looked down to make sure he wasn't afraid, he realized he needn't have worried. Harry leaned out of his arms, scanning the grounds ahead.

Of course he did. He knew how to fly.

But not like this, and Draco knew that as if Harry himself had told him so. Harry was taking deep breaths, looking up at the stars and watching the night as though he had never seen it before. Never had someone to hold onto him and fly him in different directions.

Draco kissed the side of his face and lifted them higher and higher, until Harry made a little questioning sound in his arms. But Draco was almost there by then, the immense platform he had spent the afternoons since he chose Harry constructing. He laid Harry down gently in it, and stood on the edge, watching him.

Harry sat up and felt around him. Draco watched the changes in his face, delighting in the way his eyes widened when he felt the velvet rolls and edges beneath his fingers.

“Is this—a nest?” Harry laughed aloud, looking up at him, and because of what Harry had said earlier, Draco heard the delight and not the mockery in the sound.

He bent down and nuzzled Harry’s hair, letting his breath stir it. “It is. I built it for you. It’s not a place we have to spend a lot of time in, but it made me feel better when I thought you would go on rejecting me.”

Harry touched the back of his neck as though uncertain of his welcome, but when Draco crooned at him and bent his head further, Harry grabbed him and kissed him ferociously again. Draco toppled into the nest, and beat his wings once, although he knew the platform was sturdy. All he’d really done was convert an ancient tree into a support pole and add reinforcing charms for the nest itself, which was wood on the outside.

“No one’s ever built a nest for me before,” Harry said into Draco’s ear, while his hands explored the outer edges of Draco’s wings this time. “Not even the other Veela I know.”

“I keep telling you and telling you that Veela do special things for their chosen, but do you believe me?” Draco rolled his eyes as he settled on Harry’s chest, letting the vibration of Harry’s heart make him smile. “No.”

“Well, it’s hard to believe at first,” Harry said, and looked up at Draco with his eyes painfully honest in the starlight. “That someone could want to do something for me that was just joyous.”

Draco kissed the side of his face again and began, delicately, to feather his fingers over the buttons of Harry’s shirt. “I think you’re doing yourself and other people a disservice there,” he murmured. “Your friends have done good things for you in the past.” The more he could get Harry to think about his friends and what lying to them had done, the more comfortable he could get Harry with the notion of coming out about his magic.

Harry’s eyes shut. “I’ve drifted away from them over the last few years,” he whispered. “It was so easy just to blame my job for everything, and…”

His words were going in the direction of worry again, and Draco didn’t want that. He rested his cheek on Harry’s until Harry opened his eyes again, then murmured, “Your friends would want you to enjoy yourself. Why don’t we do that right now, and worry about the politics later?”

Harry’s smile was weak at first, and then became stronger as the moments passed and Draco watched it, enthralled. “Let’s,” Harry whispered, and pushed his body up against Draco’s, letting Draco feel the erection he’d been dreaming about for the last week.

Draco licked Harry’s face until he shut his eyes again, and then pulled his shirt off him altogether. Harry didn’t flinch or shiver, thanks to the warm weight of Draco and feathers on top of him, but Draco did. He had to pull back to stare.

There were two long scars that he didn’t understand, dark and puckered ones that came down towards Harry’s waist in a V shape. Draco touched them with one hand and whined. He didn’t mean to, but he had to know.

“That was one of the tests I had to pass to get accepted into the Unspeakables,” Harry said quietly, running his hand down his chest and looking at the way his fingers lay on the scars as if he had never seen anything so fascinating. “I didn’t know about it when I first decided to see if they would take me.”

“They cast a curse at you?” Draco asked, deciding that he could, after all, speak without more whining, or spluttering.

Harry shook his head. “They put me into one of the artifacts they had lying about. And I don’t want to talk about it, please.”

His erection was flagging, and Draco knew that he couldn’t have that. He reached down and stroked and squeezed Harry again until he relaxed and smiled, then kissed the scars. Harry gasped and reached down towards his head, then stopped his hand.

“Sensitive?” Draco asked, grinning up at him.

Harry nodded. His face was dark with a flush, but, especially knowing he had caused that flush, Draco could live with that. “No one’s ever touched them before. At least, not that way.”

With a tongue, Draco helpfully supplied, and he began to lick at them the way he had Harry’s face, until Harry’s legs were falling open and he was biting his fist to try and muffle some of the sounds he was making.

Draco reached up and removed Harry’s fist, looking into his eyes, holding them until Harry nodded. Then he went back to the scars.

Harry made choked sounds, and cries, and grunts sometimes as Draco trailed his tongue over them. Then Draco made it to Harry’s trousers, where the scars had always been leading him, and he reached up and delicately hooked his fingers into the waistband, watching Harry with lazy, sleepy eyes.

Harry swallowed once, and then nodded and tucked his legs in a little under Draco’s weight so that Draco could take them off.

There were a few more scars on Harry’s legs, and some of the ordinary marks that everyone got in day-to-day living: bruises, and welts, and striations. Draco still had to close his eyes when he saw them for the first time, the intensity of his feelings overwhelming him. He kissed beneath Harry’s knee, and then reached down and took Harry’s cock in hand.

Harry was writhing beneath him, soundless now, not because he was biting his fist but because he was apparently too far gone to make any noise. Draco smiled at his parted lips and bowed his head.

His first lick down Harry’s cock had Harry blurting out, “Fuck, yes!”

“I’ll take that as encouragement,” Draco tried to say, but since he had his mouth around Harry’s cock at the time, all it did was make Harry swear and yell at him some more. Draco hummed, and took Harry deeper, relaxing his throat as much as he could. It was still a little awkward, especially at the angle they were bent at.

But watching Harry’s face as his mouth worked made it all worth it.

Harry was soaring. His head hung to the side, his mouth hung open, and whenever he tried to open his eyes, sheer pleasure made him close them again. His skin was slowly heating, and Draco knew that was from his magic, not his blush.

Even better.

“I didn’t know you could—” Harry slapped his hands down on his knees, almost hitting Draco’s head, but Draco didn’t mind. He had to pause in the way he was sucking Harry to watch him, anyway, because he was enthralled. Harry’s chest heaved, and he managed to spit it out at last. “I didn’t know Veela could make it that good.”

Draco smiled. Yes, he was different, he was special, and that was one of the reasons he had embraced his heritage when it burst through, wings and claws and all. Of course, then he had thought the main result of embracing his heritage was that he got to have more money and possessions than the average wizard.

But there was something to be said for sharing yourself with your chosen, too. And Draco began to suck Harry again, softly, putting more strength into it, more sweetness, more allure, until Harry was bucking and crying.

Then Draco paused for a moment, so he could focus, and let his fingers rest on the scars on Harry’s chest. Just as he sucked again, he focused his allure through his fingers, in a way that he had never done before with any of his other lovers but which seemed to come naturally.

Harry screamed. Then he came, and Draco swallowed so eagerly that it hurt his throat. He pulled back up and rested his hands on the scars, stroking them up and down.

No one else had done this to Harry. No one else could make him feel so good. Even another Veela wouldn’t have that special connection to Harry that Draco would, the connection only Veela and chosen could have.

God, it made Draco feel so important and special and chosen, himself, that he could hardly stand it.

He spread his wings and tilted his head back, crying out to the sky. He thought there was a somewhat stunned silence in response, and then a few bird-calls came. And a long, trilling sound from far away that might have been another hunting Veela, accepting and acknowledging what Draco was telling them.

Then Harry was easing into him, kind of on Draco’s lap and kind of into his arms considering the odd position they were holding in the nest, and his smile made Draco arch up to him, presenting his chest. Harry pressed him back into the velvet, watching him all the while.

“What do you want most?” he whispered.

Draco’s mind exploded with desires, a hundred different possibilities, everything he could want and more. He wished that Harry had asked him an easier question. But in the end, there was one thing he could imagine, even if he had trouble describing it.

He wrapped his wings around Harry’s back, bringing him closer, until Harry fell against his chest. Harry didn’t try to pull back; in fact, his breathing quickened deliciously, and he tilted his head back as though waiting for a kiss.

Draco kissed him, but also arranged Harry so that Harry’s arse was against his cock, and began to shift back and forth. It wasn’t quite rocking, it wasn’t quite thrusting. It was just their own movement, and the way the nest shifted around them as though in a high wind appealed to Draco’s Veela instincts.

Harry laughed, and said, “All right,” and nothing more.

It was hot inside the wings, sweltering. Draco watched the sweat work its way down Harry’s face, and touched it with his thumbs to wipe it away. Harry clucked and sighed, but didn’t open his eyes.

Then he did, and the sensation of being looked at like that made Draco’s cock jerk.

Harry was watching him as though—as though he had accepted everything Draco was trying to tell him, as though it mattered to him that Draco had chosen him, as though this was something normal, or at least something he could accept. He reached out and took Draco’s shoulders in his hands, and pressed down harder with his arse.

Draco shut his eyes and climaxed, his wings fluttering out as wide as banners. He was aware, on some level, of Harry reaching out, catching one of the wings, and bringing it back in to wrap around himself. He didn’t know which one because he couldn’t open his eyes. The pleasure darted and flamed through him like small arrows.

He had had experiences that were a shadow of this before, of course. He had dreamed often enough of what it would be like, with his chosen. But that was not the same as knowing what it was like, and he turned his head and rested his chin on Harry’s shoulder with a small sigh.

“Welcome back.”

Draco opened his eyes. Harry was leaning on him still, watching him. “Did I go that far away?” he asked.

“It felt like it,” Harry said, with a little shrug. “I knew—I mean, I’ve had some lovers before who were happy to be with me, and they showed it. But never like that.” His voice was soft and reverent, and so were the fingers he trailed across Draco’s chest.

“You believe that you’re the only one I could have chosen, then?” Draco caught his fingers and kissed them, one by one. He thought of the way Harry’s fingers could wield a wand, and his own could grow claws, and smiled. “You know that I would kill for you, or defend you if you wanted it? That I love you?”

“I understand that it’s different for Veela,” Harry said. “I don’t know—I don’t know if I can say I love you yet. I don’t know how long it will be before I can say that.”

“But you’re thinking about it,” Draco said, curling himself even more strongly around Harry, their foreheads together and their eyes blinking into each other’s. “About what I can do for you. You trust me.”

Harry nodded slowly. “I still don’t know if telling everyone about my magic would be the best course.”

“You experienced that with me, and you still don’t know?” Draco folded his hands into his chest and frowned at Harry. “How can you say that?”

Harry smiled at him. There were shadows in his eyes still, but Draco at least knew that he could chase them away for a time. That was a great revelation, worth having. “I mean that it’s not like you embracing your Veela side,” he said. “You didn’t lie to anyone about that, and you used it for something that you—liked.”

Draco noticed he faltered on the last words. It was impossible to miss, when they were so close Harry was breathing into his mouth. He nuzzled Harry’s cheek and whispered, “I won’t kill anymore, if you don’t want me to. I have more than enough money without an assassin’s career.”

“I don’t, I don’t know,” Harry said, and leaned in further until Draco had trouble focusing on his eyes. “It’s just, I’m so used to hiding that I don’t know what I would really gain by coming out, you know? It’s going to upset my friends enough that a Veela chose me, and that the Veela is you.”

“Let them go fuck themselves, then,” Draco said, but sighed when he saw Harry’s headtilt. “I know that’s not a choice for you. But you can’t prevent them from being upset, so you might as well go big. And your lies can’t protect you anymore, not if your enemies already suspect how powerful you are and want you dead because of that.”

Harry grunted and spent a few moments massaging the backs of Draco’s hands. It wasn’t that Draco wasn’t appreciative, but he did finally nudge his head against Harry’s to get him to go on.

“You’ll be with me?” Harry whispered.

Draco leaned further back in the nest, cradling Harry on his chest with hands and gaze. “Yes,” he whispered. “As much as you want, as much as you’ll let me. I told you that. Are you beginning to believe it now that we’ve had sex?”

Harry’s laughter was muffled against his chest, but he looked up, and let the starlight shine into his eyes so Draco could see them, could understand the light he saw there and the sudden lightness in his own chest. “Yes,” Harry whispered. “I’ll—accept it. I shouldn’t be so comforted that a Veela assassin is standing next to me, but things have changed.”

“Tell me why they’ve changed most of all.” Draco combed his fingers down and up, along Harry’s cheeks and around his nose. “I know it’s not just because a Veela chose you. You’ve been involved with Veela before.”

“There’s someone who knows the worst of me.” Harry took a breath that should have reached deep enough to inflate his heart. “And accepts it.”

“What’s the worst of you?” Draco whispered against his ear. “That you lied? I think your friends can forgive you for that. That you have powerful magic you didn’t immediately tell anyone about? I have that, too.”

“That I hurt someone,” Harry said. “Twice, in fact. That I tortured someone with my magic, and you didn’t so much as blink.”

“I’m an assassin,” Draco said, and curled himself around Harry. “Why should I blanch and flinch from what you do, when I’ve hunted and killed people?”

Harry rolled himself over to look up at Draco. Draco touched his face again, and held him there. Harry’s breath mingled with Draco’s again and again, until Draco’s heartbeat had slowed almost to nonexistence, before Harry spoke.

“I’ve changed,” Harry whispered. “All these things I’ve seen with the Unspeakables, all the things from the war I never told anyone about, all the shit I went through as an Auror…it changed me.” He took a breath that would have suited someone about to fling himself from a cliff. “I’m worried that my friends will think I’m not a good person anymore.”

Draco kissed his eyelids until they shut, held his hands until they stopped moving. Then he fanned his wings down and embraced Harry from the sides.

This was the heart and center of it, he thought. The fear Harry had circled around, the real reason he hadn’t told his friends about his magic, the thing that had made him turn away from every chance he had possessed to confess it.

“You’ve been through so much,” he whispered, not caring that his voice had descended to the kind of croon a Veela often used with a wounded chosen. Harry was wounded. It didn’t matter that the injuries weren’t visible. “It would be remarkable if you hadn’t changed, if you were still the same naïve child you used to be.”

“But Ron and Hermione haven’t changed.” Harry’s whisper was small to lose itself in the darkness.

“Do you know that?” Draco had to ask. “You’ve kept so much of yourself from them. How well do you know them, now?”

Harry stared at him, then closed his eyes and sighed. “Why do you keep making so much sense?”

“Because I’m a Veela with a stubborn chosen who might never do anything at all if I wasn’t there to urge him into doing it,” Draco said, and ran his fingers up and down Harry’s spine, feeling the knobs of it. “And I love you. That’s the way it works, for me. I made my peace with it long ago.” He paused, but Harry kept his eyes shut and didn’t say anything. “It sounds like you have a lot in your life to make peace with.”

“I tortured someone tonight.”

“I’ve killed plenty of people for money,” Draco countered. “I might have killed you if you hadn’t proven yourself strong enough to be worthy of me. You have the right to recoil from me in disgust, but we’ve already established that you’re not.”

Harry sighed without opening his eyes. “I’m not worried you’ll flinch from me, not now. I’m still thinking about what Ron and Hermione will say.”

“They can’t say anything unless you give them the chance to, by being honest with them in return.” Draco traced his cheek over Harry’s forehead, his nose, his hair. “Will you? I’ll stand beside you or leave you alone with them, whichever you prefer, but you have to say something to them, I think. This is eating you alive.”

Harry’s head moved in a slow nod. “I think I have to.” He looked up at Draco. “But we have to find and stop the people who want to assassinate me first.”

Draco crooned, watching Harry’s face change as Draco’s chest bounced beneath him. “That’s always the priority. But I can tell you a lot about them, because of the time I spent as an assassin. And I’m sure I can manage to find the cave again.”

“How can we be sure that they’re going to be there to meet us?”

Draco smiled and drew the claws that had suddenly grown on his fingers—gently—through Harry’s hair again. “I think you can leave that to me, like the good little former assassin I am.”

Part Four.