Thank you to ALL who read and review.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter and Co. belong to JKR. I am not JKR. Therefore, Harry Potter and Co. are just here for me to play with. And I do so love to play…

Pairing: Harry/Draco so this is SLASH.

No MPREG in this story though it is IMPLIED that it happens in the future. If, by some odd reason, I change my mind, I do apologize now.

ENJOY!

CHAPTER ONE

HISTORY OF VEELAS

Veela's are purely magical creatures that live alongside Wizards. They consist of three clans; the Air, the Earth, and the Water Clan. All Veela's have pale skin and hair, long limbs, and pale coloured eyes. Each Veela Clan has a different way of recognizing their mate. Their language flows like music and has no harsh sounding tones. One word could mean many different things depending on the context in which it was spoken. Veela's have three words for mate alone: alona or mate, bedine meaning chosen (before mating), and hayana meaning lover.

None of the Clans can do wandless magic. Veela's need, at the center of their wand core, a total of three things; a hair from a living ancestor not directly related, bark from a natural tree or bush from their birthplace, and an element which the wand maker will choose and the wand bearer will control after puberty. Though the Air and Water Clan are able to change shapes when angered, none of the Clan can become Animagi.

Excerpt from : A Concise History of Veelas and Other Magical Beings

By: Pinco Pallino

Information courtesy of The Hogwart's Library

anno domini merlin 1919.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I am not going!" Draco snapped for what felt like the 11th time.

Lucius Malfoy rolled his eyes but made sure he did not let his upset son see him do it, "you will."

"But Dad...I..." Draco let his Malfoy Mask fall; the one had worn since the age of seven even in front of his parents, and let his father see just how much all this was actually affecting him. "I might not be able to stop myself this year." He ended gritting his beautiful straight white teeth that went with his beautiful straight blonde hair and his beautiful straight long limbs and other enticing attributes of his 'heritage'.

"You are a Malfoy, Draco. You will not run from this." Lucius stated firmly. He knew how much this was hurting his beloved son but he also knew that the Madness would consume him if he didn't find his mate. He had turned eighteen just last week and already the signs were beginning to show. His mood swings were just the first signs of his Veela side fighting his Human side and they would only get worse the longer he went without his mate, until the Madness set in and he either killed himself or let himself waste away. Most unmated Veela killed themselves before they let the Madness consume them. "You should have no fear of unwanted advances. We have been over this before, Son, because you are a pureblood Veela male your powers will only affect your bedine. No one else."

"That's what I am afraid of." Draco murmured too softly for his father to hear. Raising his chin he gave his usual sneer, "and what if my mate is not at Hogwarts?"

"You know they are, Draco. If they were not, you would feel compelled to look elsewhere. Since you have not, and none of your friends are your alona, the logical conclusion is that she is at Hogwarts." Lucius said in a long suffering tone. It was obvious this conversation was not new to either man.

Draco huffed but had no response to his fathers comment. He hated this. Why couldn't the Veela gene skip him? But nnoooo...he had to have it. In spades. From both parents! Damn genetics.

"Draco," Narcissa said in her gentle voice, "why do you not want to go back to Hogwarts?"

Draco stared at her, a startled, frightened look on his face before he cleared it with a look of disdain, "I just do not want to go back."

"Draco Lucius Malfoy, I will not have this conversation with you again." Lucius said coldly. He loved his son, really he did, but sometimes he was such a damn drama queen.

"Would you rather die than have your mate, Draco?" His mother's voice was tinged with a knowing that made Draco want to run away in fear.

"I don't want to die, Mum." He leapt to reassure her. He looked into pale grey eyes so like his own and smiled at her in an attempt to reassure her of his sincerity. She might look like a woman sculpted from pure marble with her pale skin and hair but that look belied her inner strength and warmth for her family.

"Then why are you insisting you stay home?" Lucius cried out in frustration, his pale hair and face the exact shade as his wife and son's, except it was now flushed with anger. Draco turned to glare at his father noting the angry flush marrying his usually pale countenance.

"It's too much, Dad! Everything happening..." Draco was frustrated beyond belief. He didn't want to die but he was only eighteen for Merlin's Sake. "I am only eighteen, Dad. I don't want a mate, or kids, or anything like that. I want to travel and meet new people."

Lucius had let Draco make his own decision about taking the Dark Mark. He had yet to tell The Dark Lord that his son would not be joining him anytime soon, if ever. He fancied his skin exactly as it was, intact. He had always known that Draco would never join the monster that Lucius had to serve. He just hoped and prayed that the Potter boy would fulfil his destiny before too long or the Malfoy family would be without its patriarch when Tom Riddle found out about Draco. Of course, all that would be for naught if Voldemort ever found out he was a spy. Even Draco did not know that. "Draco…" he sighed.

"I want to play professional Quidditch." The stubborn look to her son's face was something that Narcissa hadn't seen for a long time. Looking closely she could also see the sadness behind it.

"Darling, you can still do all that." Draco flinched as his mother tried to console him.

"Yeah, after I bond, shag whomever like bunnies until they are pregnant, kid is born, then and only then will I feel comfortable enough to leave them alone long enough to play a game. I'll have no life!"

"Your mate will be your life, Draco. As you pointed out you are only eighteen. You will have plenty of years left to play Quidditch." Lucius said as he tried to reason with his distraught son. "I felt the same way, Draco. Until the day I really met your mother."

"I know Dad, you guys have been telling me that story since you figured out I was going to have the dominant Veela gene." Draco sighed running his hand through his fine blonde hair in a gesture that was very unlike him. "I just want my life, not someone else's."

Narcissa had been silent for a while as she studied her son. She understood his frustration. She'd had her own plans until Lucius claimed her as his own. Plans she had gladly given up. She knew Draco was very ambitious and his drive to succeed overshadowed even Lucius' at that age.

"Draco, do you know who your mate is?" She asked into the silence her son's statement had caused. She kept a close eye on him to see if she could gleam something from him. When he had the Malfoy Mask on he was very hard to read, but she just knew there was something he wasn't telling them. She could read him, sometimes, but only if the emotion or information he was trying to suppress really bothered him. And she knew that this Veela business bothered him.

"No, Mum," Draco said softly not looking at her.

"Do you have at least an inkling?" Ah, there it was. A momentary tightness around his mouth. He did have at least a small indication of who his mate was.

"No." Short and sweet. And a complete lie. She wondered why he would lie to them.

"Come, Draco, your powers started showing, even if infinitesimally, when you turned seventeen. You came into your Veela powers when you turned eighteen. Are you telling me that you have no clue, however small, of who your mate might be?" Narcissa chided her son. He did have a clue and she was going to make him admit it.

Draco snorted and rose to walk to the window where he stared out onto the lovely Malfoy Gardens. Narcissa and Lucius shared a look at their son's out of character behavior. They didn't understand why Draco was so reluctant to go back to Hogwarts. He was acting like he would rather die than find his future partner. Something was up with him, obviously, something he didn't want to tell anyone because even his friends had no idea why he didn't want to go back to Hogwarts. Lucius knew, he had asked. Finding their mate was an essential part of a Veela's life and here Draco was resisting it with all he had.

All that would accomplish was bringing on the Madness. Lucius knew his son didn't want to die, so, the only reason for him to not want to find his mate would be that it was someone he himself would find unsuitable. As this thought occurred to him he saw his lovely wife nod her head as she seemed to come to the same conclusion.

"Draco?" Narcissa called softly. Draco didn't turn to look at her and she hadn't expected him too. She was just calling his wandering attention back to them and the situation at hand.

Draco sighed again and lowered his head to rest on the cool pane of the French doors in front of him. His next words caused a silence so quiet it was as if the room had turned into a thousand year old tomb. His tomb.

With a voice reminiscent of his five year old self he said quite calmly and oh so quietly, "I don't know who my mate is, yet. All I can tell is that it doesn't seem to be a girl."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He couldn't stand the burning heat, the clawing, itchy feeling that made him want to crawl out of his own skin. He tried to reign in the feelings of despair that threatened him again this night but as always he was unsuccessful. He had not had a decent night's sleep in weeks and it was beginning to take its toll on him. Darkness crept closer and closer to him and the screams of the unknown hovered just on the outskirts of the darkness, pushing it in with every faint beat of his heart. He tried to stop the screams but the need…the want…the hurt was just too much.

"A nian asa…" Even the voice that would normally calm him was not working this night.

His heart and soul screamed for a release, a need, that did not come, that never came. It burned him from the inside out and he knew, he just knew, that it was supposed to be a good thing, and it had been for a long time, but not lately. Now it was killing him.

Giving in, he screamed out his agony. Thankfully, it only lasted seconds before that calm blackness of unconsciousness overcame him. His last thought was that he was glad that the screaming gibberish was now silent and the burning need lessened and for the first time in a long while he rested peacefully.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Draco sighed as he set another book on Veela aside. He was never going to find what he was looking for. He was beginning to think that what was going on with him had nothing to do with being a Veela, per se. He sighed again, maybe it was just his Madness. He had one more day before he left for Hogwarts and he could feel this need at the back of his mind. A need that had become insistent the more time that passed after his birthday. He knew that soon, very soon, it would overwhelm him. He wasn't sure if he waited anxiously, or fearfully, for that time.

He had to get to Hogwarts, the sooner the better. He just didn't understand it. Nothing he had read in any of these books could explain what he was feeling. This had to have something to do with his mate and if it did the amount of innate power that he had was enormous because nothing could stop a Veela from feeling his bedine except the mate's own magic. His mate was resisting his pull. How Draco did not know and he doubted that he understood what was happening in the first place. His mate had a natural tendency to block his mind and the Veela in him screamed to know the reason.

What this was telling him, logically of course, was that there was something wrong with his mate, not physically but mentally. He had to fight down the growl that came from him at the thought of him hurting. The boy was a very strong wizard with some serious problems. He could go ask his parents about what to do but he was still feeling out of sorts around them ever since his confession.

They had not shown much surprise at his words and he had quickly decided not to question why, too closely. He had answered his mother's gentle question of how he knew this, with as much aplomb as he could muster, given the fact he was telling his parents they would soon have a son-in-law instead of the daughter-in-law they had been expecting.

"I have never had any interest in either gender, Mum." Draco murmured with a red face. Merlin! He couldn't believe that he was having this conversation with his mother, his father, yeah, but not his sweet innocent mother.

"Darling, love knows no gender. It just knows when two people are meant to be. Now, what happened to make you think your mate was a boy? Did you see someone you wanted in 'that' way?" Well, maybe not so innocent.

"Mum…" Draco stuttered as his face grew even hotter.

"Cissa, leave the boy be." Lucius said with a faint smile. "Son, that was to be expected as your Veela side had yet to declare a hayana. So…there was no attraction."

"Oh."

"But that still doesn't explain why he feels that his mate is male, Lucius." Narcissa said quietly.

"You are right, my love. Draco?"

"I-I just…Dad…I…just do, okay." Draco stammered, as his face grew pale in fear.

"Once you get to school, you will not be yourself Draco." Lucius informed his son as he decided to let that little matter drop.

"How so?"

"The need can be overwhelming. And since you haven't yet declared your choice it will be strong until you do. It would be wise to inform your friends that you will not act normally. You will react to each spike based on what that spike consists of: there will be fear, longing, desire, and love or a mixture of them all. They will need to know what to do to help you through each one."

"But Dad," Draco snapped, "I don't know what to do."

"And neither will your mate." Narcissa said gently. "You, at least, know what is happening, he will not." That shut Draco up.

"You will feel the spikes of need and the longer it goes without your mate the stronger the spikes will become. On the flip side of that, the spikes will keep the Madness at bay. Only when your mate has been declared will the spikes lessen and when you bond they will stop."

"And if he refuses?" Draco's voice shook as he asked the dreaded question.

"Then it won't matter who it was, Son." Lucius said sadly. He didn't want to loose his son. He loved him dearly; his public persona was just that, an act. Inside the confines of their home the Malfoy's were a truly loving family.

"It is okay if it is a male, Draco." Narcissa smiled sweetly, "you'll just have too, how did you put it 'shag like bunnies' more times to get him pregnant that's all." How had he even thought she was innocent?

"Mum!" Draco cried out. "Dad!"

Lucius couldn't help his chuckle at the affronted, and highly embarrassed, look on his son's red face. With a cry of exasperation Draco threw his hands up and stomped from the room. As he left the room he heard his mother ask his father in a puzzled tone, 'was it something I said?'

He spent the rest of the days until it was time to leave for Hogwarts holed up in the Library searching for a way to remedy the bullocked up life he was now leading. He found nothing, unfortunately.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He couldn't take it anymore. The need was pulsing at the back of his mind and not even sleep stopped it. It was a gnawing feeling that was pushing him to do something. It was a good thing he was leaving today or someone was going to die. Painfully. Horribly. Hexed, really, really badly.

"Calm down, Draco." Lucius snapped as the patience he normally had with his son evaporated with his constant sighing and grinding of his hopefully still straight teeth.

"I can't…what the hell is wrong with me Dad?" He asked softly as he felt his fathers strong arms pull him into a comforting hug.

"You are feeling the need, Draco. You have to calm down and control yourself. It will do no good to jump your mate on the platform, now will it?" Lucius' light teasing tone brought a faint smile to his son's worried face.

"I don't know Dad, could you see the headlines?" They both chuckled at that before Lucius tightened his arms around his son.

"Draco, I want you to know that whoever it is, we will accept him."

"Thanks, Dad." Draco felt a huge relief at his father's statement. Veelas took care of their own and it didn't matter who his mate was, if he accepted him, his family would protect him with their lives if the need ever arose. His own father had rescued his wife from an abusive parent. He had never met his grandparents from his mother's side of the family and he knew he never would. From the stories he had heard about the incident he was lucky Lucius hadn't been sent to Azkaban but the Law protected Veela's and their mates in those type of situations. Of course, there were more laws for what they couldn't get away with than what they could.

Thinking of the laws he remembered the dream from last night and he just knew that something was wrong with his mate. He was in danger from something, Draco knew this without a shadow of a doubt and it angered his Veela side that he didn't know who his mate was so that he could help him. He hadn't told his parents about the dreams he had been having for the last few nights. Dark dreams of loneliness, death, and a coldness that consumed everything. Along with those dreams came a need so overwhelming it was erotic and painful at the same time. He didn't understand what the dreams meant but he vowed to find out why he was having them.

"Draco." He turned to face his mother and could not stop the huge sigh of relief as she gathered him in her arms. He felt even more tension bleed from him at her gentle touch.

"You let us know as soon as you find your mate so that we can start making the necessary arrangements." She spoke softly in his ear as she hugged him tighter. "I love you, Draco."

"I love you, too, Mum."

"Draco…" He turned to see his father holding out a small box for him to take, "this is a Family Crest ring." Draco opened the small box to see a ring that was like his own but markedly different. He knew this difference denoted the fact it was a mate's ring and not a Malfoy Heir ring. Still, it was a beautiful piece of work, done in the purest of silver with a blood red ruby at its centre. Atop the one and a half karat ruby was the decorative 'M' that adorned everything Malfoy, it was surrounded by beautiful scrollwork that, in the Veela language, said to the world that the wearer of this ring was a Veela's mate. The Malfoy Crest was on the right side, close to the heart to show where the wearer belonged now, and a blank space on the left, further from the heart to show where the wearer came from. He knew that as soon as his mate put the ring on his hand, their Family Crest would appear in the blank space there. The ring was not as large as his own but it was still an impressive size, it was bigger than what a female ring would be though in honour of the fact that his mate was male. He only hoped it would fit him well.

"As soon as your bedine accepts your claim, you will give this to him. It is exactly like yours as in that it is a portkey and will take him directly to your private rooms. There is an extra protection charm that I have tied into your ring to let you know if he is in any danger. The portkey incantation is the same as yours." Draco watched as his father explained the ring to him and he couldn't help the goofy grin from gracing his face, they accepted his mate was male, they really accepted it.

Draco could only stare at his father in astonishment as the goofy grin from before was replaced with awe. This was totally unexpected. To have his parents accept so readily that his mate would be male was more than he had expected. To have them go to these lengths to show him that they would accept whomever it was, was nothing short of amazing.

"Thank you." He whispered as he took the ring box and stashed it away in an inner pocket of his cloak.

"It is time to go." Draco nodded and with a last hug for his mother, he and his father walked out to the limo waiting for him to take him towards his last year at Hogwarts. And towards his love, whoever that might be.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Well?

Come on…you guys gotta tell me what you think. Should I continue or leave it as a one shot deal?

ENJOY!

LMG