Thank you again for all the reviews! This is the last chapter of Temporary Mate. Thank you for coming on this ride with me.

Chapter Twenty-Nine—Swan Song

"Narcissa? What are you doing here?" Harry blinked as she swept past him and into the middle of the drawing room at Draco's Home. The temptation to call her "Mrs. Malfoy" was still strong, but she looked so disappointed whenever he did that that he'd managed to overcome the temptation.

She turned around and smiled at him. "I can't visit my son and son-in-law when I want?"

"Of course you're welcome." Harry glanced at the kitchen, where the house-elves had prepared breakfast that seemed to have more fruit and toast than usual. "Will you join me? Draco's not up yet."

"Yes, I will," said Narcissa, and followed him in, sitting across from him with what seemed like impossible grace. "Dear, you should know that Lucius has pulled back his condemnation of Draco completely. He's his son again and the heir to all the Malfoy properties."

Harry broke off a piece of his buttered toast and popped it into his mouth to give himself time to think. "Well, that's good," he said finally, when he'd crunched his way through it and Narcissa had somehow eaten her own piece without dropping a single crumb. "But I think you have something else to say. Right?"

"Yes. He's insistent on leaving the property to Draco and any children that you have, not to you."

Harry rolled his eyes. Honestly, he ought to have expected something like that from Lucius. "That doesn't bother me."

"Truly?" Narcissa lowered the slice of melon she'd lifted. "Even though you might find yourself without a home if Draco dies before you?"

"I'm absolutely sure that he'll make his own will. And I have my own fortune and my own home." Harry shuddered a little at the thought of going back to his flat alone, but then, he could hope that he didn't outlive Draco. "Please don't worry about it, Mrs. Mal—I mean, Narcissa. I always knew that Lucius was stubborn. If this is the worst he does to show that I wasn't his first choice for Draco's mate, I'll be thankful."

"Very well." Narcissa ate three pieces of fruit and waited for Harry to finish his tea. "But not all of my money and properties passed to Lucius upon our marriage."

"Er, I didn't say it had?"

Narcissa stared steadily into his eyes. "I am going to take a portion of that money and make sure that my will bequeaths it to you."

"You don't need to do that. Really." Harry felt the same uncomfortable itching on the back of his neck that he always did when someone tried to give him a gift because he'd destroyed Voldemort or something. "Like I said, I have plenty of money—"

"Think of it as a bonding gift."

"You already got us a bonding gift."

"One can never have too many."

Harry gave up. From the look in Narcissa's eyes, it was going to happen anyway, and he might as well go along with it. "All right. Thank you. And you won't be upset if the money passes down to our children without me ever touching it, I hope."

"Of course not. Once one gives a gift, one cannot call it back and pretend that it still belongs to the one who gave it."

Harry smiled at her, and they chatted a bit about the bonding ceremony until Draco woke up. Harry turned his head towards the stairs even before he came down them. The new awareness of Draco pulsed like a soft kiss at the back of his mind. He was sure that he would have known if he'd left the house, stubbed his toe on the stairs, or awakened angry.

"The bond operating?"

"Yes. I like it," Harry added, partially before Draco's benefit, since he could tell that his mate had paused outside the kitchen and was listening.

"I should certainly hope you do." Draco stepped into the kitchen and bent down to kiss the back of his neck. His wings shielded Harry's neck and face. Harry rolled his eyes behind their shelter. If there was any person that Draco shouldn't have to defend him from, it was his own mother, but Harry had learned better than to argue with a Veela's protective instincts.

"You know it." Harry returned the soft kiss and then spun his arm, an Auror move that plopped a surprised Veela into the chair beside him. "You didn't eat much last night, and you haven't eaten anything this morning. Breakfast time."

"You see how he bullies me," Draco told Narcissa sadly as he reached out and took a sausage from the plate of them in the middle of the table.

"I will also bully you if you don't use a fork," said Narcissa, with a smile that seemed distant and kind until you looked into her eyes.

Harry snickered a little as Draco picked up a fork. "You don't have to worry about the influence that he'll have on my manners, Narcissa. I think they're already beyond repair."

"You ate very elegantly at the ceremony," Narcissa disagreed. "Not everyone present did, but you are not responsible for your friends."

Harry sighed and let the insult he once would have blown up at go. It was true that even Hermione had given up on trying to reform the way Ron ate. "Did Draco tell you that I'll be retiring from the Aurors?'

"He might have mentioned it."

"I have to decide what I'll do next. Right now, I think that sounds like Alchemy. It's fascinating, and I never did get a chance to study it properly, what with having to rescue the Philosopher's Stone from Voldemort."

Narcissa didn't flinch at the name, which raised Harry's estimation of her. In fact, she leaned forwards and said, "Alchemy is indeed a fascinating study. I believe that they no longer have the classes at Hogwarts?"

"They only held them during certain years," Draco said, his voice thick with disgust. "Not that many students wanted to take them."

"It happens that I have a friend who is an Alchemist, and studied under Nicholas Flamel when he was still alive," Narcissa said. "I would be happy to introduce you to her and see if she would take on a student."

"I couldn't ask you to—"

"You are family now," Narcissa said, with a glance that felt like crucifixion. "There is no length I will not go to for family, as both a Malfoy and a Black."

"My mother never got a second child to spoil," Draco murmured, leaning towards Harry. "Better hope that she'll eventually switch her focus to the grandchildren. For now, just go along with it."

She wants to help you. Harry was still unused to thinking that of someone who wasn't either Hermione or a Weasley, but he bit the inside of his cheek and managed to smile at Narcissa. "Thank you."

Draco waited patiently in the middle of the field outside the Weasleys' home. The letter Granger had sent had said to meet her here, and Draco was more than willing to do that. He knew Granger still had the most doubts about him and his relationship to Harry, or she would probably have been the one to act as a questioner at the bonding ceremony instead of Weasley.

Granger stepped out the back door of the ramshackle house and marched towards him. Draco watched her bushy hair whipping in the breeze, and walked forwards to meet her when he thought it was courteous.

"I still don't have any idea why you chose Harry."

Well, she's direct enough. Draco nudged a gnome away with his boot and considered her. "I believe that he's told you all about how the temporary bond became a permanent one, except perhaps some of the details about the time we spent in bed."

Granger turned a brilliant red, but muttered, "I don't want you to think that I have any problem with gay people."

"Oh, I know that."

"You do?" She stared at him.

"No. I know that you have a problem with me."

Granger turned away from him, but not before Draco got to see the way her jaw clenched. He waited. Far, far better to have this confrontation away from Harry, who would have been hurt to see them screaming at each other.

Or rather, his friend screaming at his mate. Draco didn't intend to raise his voice. He was always calm, cool, and collected, and just because Granger might try his patience didn't mean she would cause him to lose it.

"It's too soon," Granger said. "Harry went all these years without even saying that he wanted to marry someone, and then he goes to another dimension with you, comes back, and bonds with you inside a month. It's too fast."

"Why does that matter to you, Granger?"

"Because bonds that form that fast tend to break." Granger whirled back to face him. "People think they're in love, and they're really in lust, and they find out that they can't live together even though they thought they could! I don't want to see Harry get his heart broken. Statistics say—"

"Your statistics don't apply to me and Harry, Granger. I'm a Veela. We can't abandon our mates."

"That doesn't mean Harry can't get his heart broken! Or stay for you even though his heart isn't in it and he'd like to go and find someone else. He's that noble and self-sacrificing. He'd do it."

Draco smiled. Her words would have made him tremble and doubt as recently as a few days ago, but now he could feel Harry's heart and emotions at all times through the bond. Even if Harry had wanted to lie to Draco, he wouldn't have been able to do it. Draco shook his head a little and said patiently, "You ought to know better. Harry would have refused and maintained his good 'standards' if he didn't feel attracted to me. And he would have insisted that I transfer the bond to someone else if he didn't feel that he loved me in return."

"What do you mean by standards?"

"He kept insisting that we shouldn't really have sex when we were in the other dimension. That we shouldn't make the bond permanent. And he worried that he was the one who wasn't worthy of me."

"That's ridiculous."

"I'm glad that we agree on something, Granger."

Granger folded her arms. "I don't know that I can ever trust you. Or stop watching to see what happens in case Harry does start to feel unhappy and trapped."

"You can watch all you want." Draco moved a step forwards and held up his hand so that she could see claws had replaced his fingernails. "You can feel anything you want. But if you ever say anything to Harry of what you're thinking and try to make him doubt me, then know this. Our bond is deep enough that he'd abandon you to keep me."

Granger stared at him with stricken eyes. "That would be cruel of you."

"Yes, I know. That's why I would never try to make him choose between us. But if you did it, I know whom his heart would choose."

Granger licked her lips. Then she said bitterly, "Am I just supposed to trust that you have Harry's best interests at heart and that you're never going to hurt him?"

"Yes. The same way you trusted that with the other people he dated."

"I never thought Ginny or Michael would hurt him!"

"I hope to one day earn the same level of trust," Draco said, and barely kept from rolling his eyes. "Look, I want to get back to Harry, and you'll have to get used to me sooner or later. Can we finish this conversation now?"

"Not until I get some assurance that you won't hurt Harry."

"You have more than you had with either Weasley's sister or Corner, if you would only see it," Draco said, and turned his hand so that his claws lay over his own heart. "Hurting him is hurting myself. The Veela won't be happy unless his mate is. I can't leave him, Granger. I love him. I would never break his heart willingly. If something happens that's beyond my control and unimaginable right now, then your vigilance isn't going to prevent it."

Granger stood there, biting her lip, and looked very young. She didn't like it when things got out of her control, Draco reckoned. And this was incredibly and absolutely out of her control. The bond had formed away from her purview, and Harry had insisted on maintaining it and bonding with Draco despite all her warnings.

"All right," she finally said, on an exhale. "If you promise to guard his own heart as best you can."

"I already promised that at the bonding." Draco had sympathy for her, but he still wasn't going to indulge her paranoia.

"Fine, you're right." Granger glanced away from him. "Look, Malfoy, I'm probably never going to be comfortable with you."

"I suspect that as long as we both still think that we haven't changed since Hogwarts, neither of us will be," Draco said, and smiled when she looked at him. "I apologize for my actions then, by the way."

"You're only apologizing because of Harry!"

"And you're only demanding it because of Harry." Draco shook his head. "I'm not a creature of pure disinterested altruism, Granger. I never will be. Accept my apology or not. But don't question my motives this way. You won't like the answers anyway."

Granger nibbled her lip again. Then she nodded. "I think that you at least think you're going to try and make Harry happy. I suppose that's the best I can accept for now."

And I can accept that you're self-righteous and rely on statistics too much. But Draco didn't snap as much as he would have at someone else like this. He gave her a nice smile and turned back to fly to the Manor, whose Floo he would use to connect to Draco's Home.

He had spent enough time away from his mate.

"Ready?"

Harry smiled at Draco. He had a backpack full of alchemical books on his shoulders. Tamara Winters, the mentor Narcissa had introduced him to, had been aghast at how much he needed to study and had loaded him down, but Harry didn't care. He was looking forward to reading except during the times when he was actually helping Veela settle into Asovima and making love with Draco. "If you are."

Draco nodded and turned towards the suspicious, watching French Veela. He spoke to them in French. Their strained expressions relaxed, and Harry noticed that some of them were watching with him curiosity now. They could seemingly feel the bond between him and Draco. Harry smiled and waved at them.

Draco tore open the portal with his own magic, instead of relying on the Ministry, this time. It crackled in blue lines across the air that seemed to halve the sky and fall away with it, until Harry was looking at a portal full of a different shade of blue. Then it became the glowing ground of that other dimension.

The other dimension that was home to the Veela, but also their home, in a way, since it was the place where their bond had first come to life.

Draco caught his eye and smiled.

As the distance filled with soaring towers and silvery wings, and the French Veela began to spill through the portal, Harry smiled back, and stepped forwards to take Draco's hand.

Draco bent down towards him as the Veela stragglers passed them. "I love you."

"I love you," Harry repeated, and felt their bond thrum with contentment. He leaned up to kiss Draco, and Draco folded his wings around them so no one could see.

Harry didn't mind that. He didn't mind anything about this. He loved everything about this.

And he followed Draco through the portal, as he would follow him into the next phase of their lives.

The End.