Title: HD 'Psyche, Or Draco by the Window'
Author: tigersilver
Recipient: demicus
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 16,600+/-
Pairing: Harry/Draco, Lucius/Narcissa
Summary: If just One More Weird Prophecy comes along, Harry's likely to run amuck and no one—but NO ONE—would blame him. Or so he tells himself, the morning after he finds himself Bonded (Joined? Married? Mated?) to a Slytherin Veela he knows all too well. Thanks to demicus , for her prompt, here: .and to blackbloodrunya for art to inspire, found here: .com/hd_
Warnings: AU; EWE: Flangst; Creature!Draco; Mate!Harry; Hogwarts 8th Year.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: Many thanks to oddnari and lonerofthepack for awesomesauce instant betadom. It is both an honour and a pleasure on my part to GLOMP demicus , the darling. Dear, I've combined a few of your preferred prompts here (Creature and Marriage and Happy Endings) and, too, I managed to base it all on a scene that's been haunting my waking dreams for weeks now: Draco by the Window, in the form of the overall theme of this fic, which is loosely based upon the Greek myth of Psyche and Eros. Please note this goes up with some known errors, shortly to be corrected. Any remaining errors after that are all mine and mine alone, sorry!

GLOMPS from tigersilver

0o0

HD 'Psyche, Or Draco by the Window' 1/3

Harry rolled over, smacking his lips, and stretched. His bed was entirely too comfortable, and more so because it was a very nippy day outside, judging by the cool grey of early morning light prodding at his eyelids.

He refused to open them, on principle. He was a free man, and he could do as he liked.

Er…wait.

He was not.

With a gasp and a flurry of very expensive imported sheets and plump goose down pillows flying, Harry Potter sat up like a shot.

"Malfoy? MALFOY!"

The figure silhouetted at the window hesitated for a fraction and then turned, handsome features blank as a Buddha's, grey gaze calm and cool.

"Potter. Or more properly, Malfoy. Welcome to the first morning of the rest of your life."

Harry attempted to shout, swallow, and roar, all at once. The result was garbled and completely unintelligible.

"Fwah! Hurh! Nah! No-argh! Arse—blood—fucking! Fuck!"

Except for the last word, clear as a clarion trumpet call and punctuated with a resounding flop, as he threw himself back down into the warm nest of the bedclothes and worked on simply breathing, in and out, like a regular person, as his powers of speech—and especially the calm, quiet tone so utterly necessary when faced with an unalterable blow of mighty proportions from Fate—were fled.

His. Addled. Mind. That was Malfoy at the window, wasn't it?

"Yes, I know, Potter." Malfoy stepped closer, and even in the murky grey-green of Slytherin's windows, which reflected the lake instead of the boundless sky Harry was used to and loved; even with an algae-tinted cast throwing shadow over that so-irksome face, Harry could clearly make out a smirk. "Thoroughly, as I recall. And no one likes it, believe you me, but still. Deal."

Harry couldn't believe Draco Malfoy—the exact same Draco Malfoy who, well, who tormented him yearly and always eyed him as if he were some lower form of the blood-sucking useless insect section of the world fauna—that Draco Malfoy could remain so steadfastly unperturbed in the face of purely unmitigated disaster. Disaster! And that wasn't even counting Ginny's fiery take on this whole debacle.

Harry inhaled. Harry exhaled. Tentatively, Harry unclenched his fingers, one by one, from the stiff, angry fists they'd instinctively become.

"Potter," Malfoy urged him smarmily, now actively strolling by the green-draped (green-draped!) bed on his way to the en suite, "get up. We must at least make a cursory appearance at breakfast. Headmistress McGonagall will be convinced I've murdered you in cold blood if we don't."

Harry breathed out. White, wasn't it? Or was it green? Green! Green drapes. Green drapes meant Slytherin and that was undeniably Malfoy and this was undeniably Malfoy's bed.

Harry breathed in, so hard his nostrils pinched. The door to the lav was pulled to, but not completely shut. He could see Malfoy's shadow moving in the glow of sconce light.

Right, so Malfoy was in the lav, right, and—their lav, the one they now shared, just as they'd share pretty well most everything life threw at them until the fateful day one or the other of them had the good fortune to pass on and stop with this bloody, un-required sharing of same!

"Fuck!" Harry shouted, making use of all that extra oxygen he'd accumulated via huffing every second breath. Eyes wide open and fixed on the bloody green canopy, he hissed, "Fucking fuckity fuck fuck! How can you be so CALM, Malfoy?"

"What? What's that? Do cease your infernal howling, Potter—I'm occupied at the moment. Shaving."

The git poked his head out the partially closed bathroom door, wand in one hand, shaving brush in the other. Foamy lather dripped from his chin and onto his deep green (green! Slytherin green!) paisley robe. Harry wondered—with the one tiny part of his mind not actively beavering away at making his hands unclench for the second time since waking, so that perhaps he could use them more effectively for punching the git's face to a bloody non-green mash—why the smooth-cheeked, silver-eyed prat bothered with shaving at all. His beard was so light as to be invisible; his sodding skin was perfectly smoo—oh!

One hand, still curled convulsively, went flying to Harry's neck. His eyes popped. No—that was not quite true. He'd the fucking stubble burn to prove it. It smarted.

All down his neck.

Lower, too.

Much lower.

"This is so very not good," Harry moaned piteously. He shifted his bum with some trepidation, and yes, that ached, too. Deeply, almost pleasantly, and with more than a slight hint of leftover sybaritic pleasure that was really quite unnecessary, thanks ever so much, Oh, Unkind Fate. He'd prefer not to remember.

Really. Not.

"We can practice wands at dawn later, after breakfast, Potter," the echoing voice called faintly, for Malfoy had once again retreated to his steamy sink and his pointless shaving. "If you insist on being a prat over this. I'd not mind being a widower, you know. Would be less noisy."

He'd been shagged, good and proper. By Malfoy. Harry had.

The blond head poked out again and Harry noticed Malfoy's eyes were gleaming with something quite unreadable above his haughty nostrils.

"Only till I kicked it, of course," the git nodded meaningfully, rubbing his chin with a snowy white towel and waving his wand. "Shortly thereafter. But I'm sure I'd enjoy the quiet while it lasted, nonetheless."

"The fuck you will be, Malfoy!" Harry bellowed, and hastily began the slow struggle to convince his somewhat overly relaxed and deliciously achy person that exiting the too-green bed was a preferable course of action to laying prone and allowing Malfoy to irritate him further. "That'll be me, berk! Being the widower, I mean! Oh, my bloody Merlin!"

Harry's body, happy where it was, responded with a quiet but decided, 'No!'

"No, no," Malfoy's tone was amused, so much so that Harry gritted his teeth as he finally managed to will all his contrary muscles to cooperate. My, but didn't his arse pang something awful!

"Completely not to the point, Potter. I've not made it this far to bite it merely due to something stupid—even if you are, without doubt, something stupid."

The tiled walls of the lav added an extra edge of sarcasm to Malfoy's remark, one that Harry simply couldn't accept, not in his fragile state. He achieved vertical, despite himself, at last perching gingerly on the very edge of the ginormously green bed and glaring at the blank door that led to the loo.

"Graaaah! Mallfoy! I hate you! You suck, you prick!"

The force of this cry from the heart—and the arse—had Harry impelled to his bare feet in a lunge, albeit quite wobbly-kneed. His arse had gone from happy reminders of a vehement rogering to being a right pain—in itself. Twitches and electrified tingles radiated out through all his many nerve endings from a place deep within him he would swear had been completely rearranged internally, and likely with a blunt instrument, from the feel of it. And his gut? Oh, the acid of mortification gurgled there, bubbling! The mere thought of a fry-up breakfast left Harry queasy.

Malfoy's room—for this was Malfoy's room, and now by stroke of Fate, his, as well—spun a heady turn, all green-silver swimmy and pulsing. The blood roared in Harry's ears. The floor appeared to be approaching.

Rapidly.

He swayed, and heard a distant clatter and a muffled 'plonk!' as he blinked his bloodshot eyes furiously. Darkness was descending, in waves of red-black, and he was falling, falling—

"Idiot," Malfoy's voice practically sliced Harry's earlobe off, it was so bitterly sharp. "I told you to rise for breakfast, but not to follow that up with braining yourself on my bed post. You do me no good dead, Potter. Steady on. Belt up."

"Ugh."

"Exactly, Potter."

Morose to the extreme, what with one thing (all this green!) and another (his poor arse!), Harry sighed hugely, his face pressed into Malfoy's silk-clad shoulder, and concentrated on forcing the residual nausea to ebb away. Malfoy's arms clamped about him, even though abhorrent, were both delightfully warm and rock hard. Harry blinked again, and the trickle of ominous confusion once again became a torrent.

"How—how can you be so cool about this, Malfoy?" he whispered. "How is that even possible? You hate me. I hate you. We hate each other. Burning, passionate hate. Very simple."

Malfoy shrugged, and Harry felt a now-cold plop of leftover lather press into his fringe and then slide wetly down the side of his clenched jaw. It dripped slowly onto his bare shoulder, smelling faintly of citrus, and he blinked again, perilously near tears.

If just one more sodding magical intervention occurred in his ill-fated life—just one!—he'd go fucking mental, and then run amuck. And no one—not even Hermione—no one would blame him for an instant.

He'd been shagged by Malfoy. Just last night.

Legally.

Merlin!

"How?" he demanded, and began to pull himself away from the bastard arse who must've moved at the speed of light to beat feet from the toilet to the bedside in time to catch him. Veela were bloody well impressive, if nothing else. Or if not Veela—there was some question as to that, Harry recalled numbly—then whatever it was that Malfoy had managed to become. Fucking magical creatures; Harry could never keep all of the extraordinary varieties straight without Luna. Or…perhaps that should be 'despite Luna'?

No matter. Veela was close enough, really, for describing that git Malfoy.

"Well…" 'that git' Malfoy drawled into Harry's hair, and Harry wished he were far enough away to see the git's face, if only to scowl menacingly at his own personal, legally acquired, depressingly permanent Creature Feature. "It's either you or the Grim Reaper, Potter, for choice. As ever and always, I daresay, judging by previous evidence. Not being a total twat, I chose you. Willingly, this once. I'm sure even a man of limited mental capacity can understand that, given time."

"You did not chose me!"

Harry managed to reel away and grabbed a handy curtain swag to maintain his newly regained independent bipedal stance. He shuffled carefully, testing his knees and ignoring his now quite painfully throbbing arse, and glared balefully. "Fucking prophecy! And that's the whole fucking point of it, Malfoy! Neither of us had a choice in the matter—and you know it! So—why aren't you furious? Why? What the buggering luck is it with you that you don't seem to even care!"

It was a pathetic little cry for help, for understanding—for empathy, and the thought of such a thing being answered kindly by bloody Malfoy was laughable, but by Merlin, they were both in the same damned boat!

"Why?" Harry, never one to back down, scowled at Malfoy.

Malfoy stepped back, swiping the very last of the shaving cream off his face with back of his hand, not a hint of expression anywhere to be found in all that bland handsomeness. Harry could see absolutely no difference from before. The git was just as smooth, just as beardless, even if his fucking neck was scraped raw and tingly-sensitive by invisible but quite prickly blond hairs and he likely had the telltale stubble burn to prove it.

Evidence!

He was bloody well covered in fucking evidence! Harry snarled at the very idea. Malfoy snogging him! Malfoy sucking on his throat! Malfoy's fucking ice-white, toffee-nosed, gittish cock shoved right up Harry's own bum hole! His virgin arsehole!

It wasn't comprehensible; it was purely nonsense. Such things simply couldn't happen, not in this day and age! There were laws to prevent it—he had rights.

"Potter," Malfoy interrupted Harry's latest internal rant, by stepping smartly back and pulling the other hand away, "do cease and desist your pointless childish behaviour this instant. What's done is done. Breakfast is in fifteen minutes. You reek and you're sticky; I'm very surprised you didn't rend my sheets to pieces, what with all that dried cum over you. It's bad as glue, git, remember? Go wash up."

Harry shuddered, involuntarily. Speaking of cum, there was something slimy dripping down the backs of his thighs. Surely that wasn't?

"Ugh!" he muttered, and craned his head 'round, trying to see.

Please? Fucking Fate? Merlin? Dumbledore? Harry's mind whimpered, but Malfoy—the berk— only kept right on with ordering Harry, apparently not minding Harry dripping on the green carpet. He sneered and gave Harry a little shove toward the loo.

"Move it, Potter. Stop dawdling. You require hot water, fresh clothing, and sustenance, in that order, and then we need to meet with Madame and the Headmistress straight after to confirm this joining officially via Veritaserum. The Gringott's Goblin will be here at nine sharp and the Ministry's Recordkeeper soon after. My parents are likely already awaiting us. Now, can you manage on your own or do you need a hand?"

"Green again," Harry remarked, eying the opulent loo. "Oh, snap. Figures. I," he tacked on, carefully, slowly, and with great conviction. "Hate. You. Malfoy. Remember that."

Malfoy only stretched his reddened lips into a plastic sort of sneering leer, something that might pass for a teasing grin on a less pointy, pratty, annoying person. He turned on his heel to face the discreet double doors that concealed the room's built-in wardrobe, and only Harry's finely attuned Voldemort-honed senses caught the unreadable flash in his pale eyes before they were hidden.

There was a ripple at last, in all that chill calm water. Harry snarled happily, handing on to the doorjamb for support.

"Well, now. There's something new and different. Colour me surprised, Potter."

"Bugger!"

0o0

Harry's wrist ached something fierce.

"Bad luck, mate," Ron commiserated. "I mean, really."

He'd expressed his deep sympathy by knocking Harry's goblet of pumpkin juice right out of his clutches with a good, firm whack to the spine earlier, almost as soon as Harry had sat down at Gryffindor table and got situated. Harry winced at the painful memory of the Weasley brand of comfort and hoped his best mate wouldn't be inspired to do it again, however comforting it actually was. Malfoy, at his usual spot on the high end of the Slytherin table, had sat up the instant it happened and taken immediate fierce notice, fixing Ron with a scalpel-sharp glare and visually dissecting him into random parts. He'd even shown his perfectly straight white teeth in what was most positively not a smile and waggled his blond brows in a meaningfully threatening manner. Harry, shivering, had been quite convinced he'd be down one best mate right quick if Ron made another move to touch him. Malfoy was a bleeding menace.

"Yeah, er. Thanks, Ron," Harry muttered. "But…well."

"Yeah?" His mate raised his eyebrows inquiringly, chewing. "What, Harry?"

Harry took a meditative sip of his refilled juice. He heaved long-suffering sigh mid-swallow, nearly choking, and guiltily remembered his (urgh!) brand new spouse's preemptive words of warning just before they'd departed Malfoy's horribly green quarters.

"Look, erm. Don't do that again, alright? Touch me? Malfoy hates it. And he's, uh. Violent."

"Yeah?" Ron didn't look like that bothered him overmuch. "So? It's Malfoy, Harry." He sneered, an expression which he did nearly as well as his ancient childhood enemy, Harry noticed.

"Veela, Ron? Painful, jealous, possessive Veela? That Malfoy? The new, erm, version?"

There was a long pause. Ron chewed in silence; swallowed. Nodded, unwillingly.

"Oh. Yeah, right, mate. Sorry."

"S'okay. Just don't want you to suffer, Ron. Remember Fleur, yeah?"

"Yeah," Ron was a bit greenish about the gills all the sudden, even his freckles paling. "Thanks, Harry. I'll remember. Here—you want a chop?"

He pushed the platter of them toward Harry, who grimaced.

Yes, marriage, or Bonding, or Joining or whatever the fuckity-fuck this state was Harry was now engaged in with the Git of Ages was also a bleeding menace. To his health (his arse still ached, an hour later); to his threadbare sanity (Malfoy had shagged him twice last night and he had liked it, both times; his brain just boggled and squirmed over that), to his now Veela-endangered best mates and to his NEWTs-level schoolwork, piling up, which he had skived utterly in the rush to get married. Bonded. Joined.

Whatever it was, it was now bloody official. He'd signed enough beribboned and red wax-sealed parchment scrolls yesterday afternoon to paper his old dorm room in Gryffindor.

Only because he must, or Malfoy would die. And then so would he, sod it!

Hardly fair, was it, to endure all those years with Voldemort after him, then die, then come back and actually be looking forward to a somewhat normal life, with a somewhat normal girlfriend and a hopefully prophecy-free future? No—entirely unfair. Not sporting.

Harry moaned, suddenly fiercely nostalgic for that familiar messy space of ex-bachelordom that was his space in the Gryffindor Eighth Years Boy's Dorm. The muffled sound caused Ron to turn his head, frown sympathetically and reach out once more. Fortunately, he just caught himself time. Malfoy, who'd never once taken his burning, searching grey eyes off Harry and his immediate environs, jerked and made as if to whip out his wand. Ron, on the lookout now after Harry's timely reminder and apparently quite wary of people like his sister-in-law, very slowly drew his trembling hand back and caught up a platter of pork chops instead, yanking them back across the table.

"Sorry, mate," he said yet again. "Rotten luck, that."

The collective eyes of Gryffindor table—including the wide, damp ones of Harry's ex-girlfriend, darted from Ron to Malfoy to Harry. A Second Year giggled apropos of nothing, apparently cracking under the muffling blanket of tension that laid over everyone in his House, now that Harry was officially allied with Malfoy—and Slytherin.

Across the way, the Slytherin contingent murmured and scowled.

Harry breathed a thready sigh of relief, nonetheless. Crises averted; Malfoy glared daggers and knives and all manner of sharp, pointy objects from his bench but he didn't rise up and start hexing. Not yet.

Ron was safe for another little while, Harry hoped.

His chosen pork chop lay limply under its congealing, concealing heap of mash and gravy, more and more unappetizing every second.

Yesterday had been an awful day.

"No way out, yeah, Harry," Ron had whinged on his behalf, grimacing, when they'd all officially been informed Harry and Malfoy were now an item, till sweet Death did them part. "Sodding bad luck, that. Why can't you win some, eh?"

Harry didn't bother protesting that he had 'won some', but his victory over Voldemort was of no earthly use to him now.

Headmistress and Madam Pomfrey, sternly serious, kept right on alternating fact-filled speeches as to the duties and obligations of a Magical Creature and his or her mate.

Malfoy had stood tall and pale before one of the windows in McGonagall's office, apparently frozen solid. He'd kept his eyes on the sky and never once glanced Harry's way—not 'til McGonagall pronounced them Joined, after an alarming long string of Latin.

And Harry had buried his spinning head into his damp clammy palms and finally given in. Fate was an absolute bugger, sometimes.

Malfoy didn't deserve to die—not just for the bad fortune of possessing really bollixed up relatives.

Hermione, stymied as never before by the twin academically- and medically-assured forces of McGonagall and Pomfrey, had contented herself with tutting, tsking and clucking sympathetically, interspersed with numerous 'Oh, Harry!'s' and much petting. She'd not even time to research the matter before it was upon him and even if she had, McGonagall and Pomfrey had convinced him—all of them, actually, in one large gaggle of assorted concerned schoolmates and minions (as if Harry's mates and Malfoy's Slytherins were in any way near as deeply fucked as he and Malfoy were!)— there was no out.

Ginny had wailed like a banshee and torn out of the office, sobbing.

"I'm just so sorry, mate," Ron had muttered, whacking his shoulder.

"Oh, Harry!" Hermione had gasped, horrified.

Malfoy had hissed antagonistically, from his post by the window. The sill had splintered under the pressure of the wicked retractable talons Harry spied from the corner of his one eye.

Talons. Eyes like a raptor's, predatory and piercing. A tilt to his proud head that told Harry Malfoy was aware all along of his every move—was tracking it, as an eagle tracks an unwary mouse.

"And that's how it is, Harry," Headmistress concluded, regret clear in her voice. "Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy have kindly agreed to be our additional witnesses, as have the senior Professors. Let's begin, then, shall we?"

"Not a moment to waste," clucked Madam Pomfrey and Malfoy at last turned to face Harry, and that had been that.

Not a bleeding hope. Not a shadow of one. There was a prophecy, damn it; another of those awful crystal balls and wasn't Trelawney totally beside herself over it? Murmuring 'the lovebirds' and other nonsense and then leering toothily at them both, scarves wafting eerily, all through the bloody ceremony-ritual-thingbob? Which commenced not even a half hour after he'd been called out of Quidditch practice to report to McGonagall's office for some unremembered infraction. Harry flinched again at the memory.

Green scarves, they were, the one's she'd been wearing, and entirely too many of them. There was far too much green in his life, now.

He gritted his teeth, recalled to the present by his protesting stomach (no dinner yesterday, either!) and eyed his pork chop murderously. As he'd said (or rather, thought), if there were just one single sodding more prophecy, geas or inescapable onus awaiting him, he'd deep-six the whole frigging Wizard business and scarper off. Muggle life had never looked so inviting.

A nice flat in Manchester; maybe a cat for company. A job pushing paper and absolutely no magic to interfere with his life? Oh, yes! If only he could…but Malfoy, the prick, would flat-out expire in a day or two, and he'd have that on his conscious…for the very short time before he bought the farm as well.

Bloody Magical Creature Bondings—Joinings—whatever!

Harry was damned weary of facing imminent death. There was no buggering way he was expiring now. He'd simply not give Fate the satisfaction. Not even if he and Malfoy were joined at the hip forevermore.

So not fair. So not right. So tingly, his groin, all because Malfoy was still watching him avidly, eyes glittering, and by Merlin, Harry had a massive, irksome hard-on for no good reason in particular!

His arse still hurt! He was bloody famished, after being Veela-handled all the night long!

His cock throbbed, and it was torture—in a good way. He glanced up, unwillingly, and met Malfoy's eyes.

As if Summoned, Malfoy rose to his feet and made his way round the intervening tables. He was fit, yes; even Harry admitted that, but this so wasn't good, and it so wasn't fair. He knew what was coming next; Pomfrey had taken him aside, discreetly, and advised him in vividly lurid detail. And handed him a helpful Ministry-issued pamphlet entitled, 'How to Accustom Yourself Gracefully and Without Undue Harm to Your New Magical Mate!' Plus, there was last night to recall for reference.

His flies were likely doing permanent damage to his tackle, they were so tightly stretched. Harry groaned. Somewhere along Gryffindor table, he could hear the muffled sniffles of his ex-girlfriend.

"…Just can't believe it, Harry," Ron was muttering. "Of all the bad—awful—bloody—buggering—evil—"

"Potter," Malfoy announced at Harry's elbow, in that tone of voice. "Come."

"Luck—ah, ick!" Ron muttered out of the corner of his mouth. He glared at Malfoy and opened his mouth to protest on his best friend's behalf, but he kept his tall form a safe distance away.

Fucking Bond—Joining—marriage; whatever! Harry fumed. He let a discreet hand drop to his lap and pressed on his erection painfully, hoping like Hades it wouldn't be detectable by every single person in the Great Hall.

"You know, Malfoy, Harry has to eat, alright?" Ron was staying seated on the Gryffindor bench by him but barely, a red-spotted set of knuckles curled fiercely 'round the edge of the cold platter. "Why don't you back off for a bit? Give him a ruddy chance to relax, will you?"

Malfoy hissed. He stepped forward, wedging his trim hips firmly into the gap between Harry and Ron. "Bugger off, Weasley. It's none of your beeswax."

"Shite," Harry huffed. "Thanks, Ron, but, er—shut it. I'll handle this."

He rose abruptly, scowling, abandoning his untouched pork chops and mash with a sigh that was almost a groan and reluctantly grabbed hold of Malfoy's imperiously outstretched hand.

"Fine!" he snapped at his Magical Mate. "But it's my fucking turn, git, and don't you dare try to duck out of it! And I'll be wanting brekkers, after. I'm not meeting with all these people on an empty stomach, you berk. "

Malfoy smiled at him—a private, 'just between us ancient enemies' kind of smile. A smile imbued with a very dangerously high level of sex appeal, entirely undiluted.

"Oh, not to worry, Potter," he drawled, and those eyes were brands on Harry's lips. "I'll feed you…trust me."

An evil thing, that smile. It left poor Ron, who'd been rapidly reduced to blinking like an utter ninny at the two of them joined tightly at the hand, shivering in his seat and swallowing convulsively. It made Ginny, three shocked speechless Gryffs down the table and on the opposite side, open her pretty pink lips in a gasp, and end that on an excited whimper.

To a man, the stalwart Gryffindors swayed under the power of Veela. Slytherin Veela.

Harry fancied it was rather like a green fug descending, if Malfoy's allure were to be made tangible.

"Oh, gods, Harry!" Ron moaned, coming out of stasis to slump his reddened face into the gravy spattered tablecloth. "Again? He'd bloody insatiable, isn't he? Wish you joy of it, mate—I mean, I'm just so sorry!"

"Harry!" Ginny looked to be on the point of tears at the thought of her ex-boyfriend being dragged off stage by his brand new Magical Creature spouse for the sole purpose of vehement ritualized shagging. "Harry, no! Isn't there anything you can do? Anything at all?"

"Uh—"

"Yes, well, you poor, pathetic Gryffindors," Malfoy purred, even as he smiled viciously. "I wouldn't bother with fussing at it, if I were you. Waste of time and it's not as though your Golden One won't enjoy it, trust me. He certainly did last night. And no, Weasleyette, there isn't. Trust me, I've spent a fortune in Galleons turning up every stone and merest pebble in search of a viable alternative, all to no avail. Potter's mine now; bugger off."

"But!" Gin wailed, and Harry thanked his lucky stars Hermione hadn't yet made an appearance.

"If you've no further objections," Malfoy's clipped tones overrode all objections like a steam engine, "Potter here and I are off to engage in a bout of required additional consummation before we meet with the appropriate authorities. Catch you later, Gryffindorks—or not."

"Hate you! Hate-hate-hate-hate—umph! Fuck! Why do you have to do that?" Harry grumbled and snarled, as he was towed forcibly away by his sodding…his bloody…his blasted spouse! "They're my friends! That was my girlfriend you just dissed, Malfoy!"

"Yeah? Mine are right over there, Potter, and they're sick over it, trust me. Makes no difference. Not now."

"Argh! You blasted hole! Fuck off and die, will you?"

"Hardly, Potter." Malfoy stopped in his tracks, right before the entrance to the Great Hall, and fixed an avaricious stare on Harry's open mouth. "That's more your line, isn't it?"

And snogged his Harry right in the middle of the fucking archway, right in front of bloody everyone, even the profs—and poor stunned Hermione, coming late down from the Library, till Harry's knees buckled and he had to supported by his fucking Git-of-Ages Magical Mate!

0o0

Malfoy was by the window again…or perhaps it was a porthole, really, given where they were, topographically. Harry watched him silently from one slitted eye and considered.

Git was glum; brooding over something, obviously. Not there wasn't a great deal to brood over. Harry could list at length the various ills the world had wroth upon him—them— but he was damned weary of even thinking about it. Even angst could grow wearing and there was still a rather enormous amount of physical pleasure to be accounted for.

He felt vaguely guilty over that, honestly. Didn't seem quite right to dislike the person who provided him satiation to quite that degree. But…

He watched Malfoy's hand instead, where it gripped the velvet curtain, and pondered. It was difficult to interpret the peculiar look upon the git's face, even though he was accustomed to it after nearly eight years of looking at it. Pale, pointy, serious, yes; all that, but then Malfoy was very often serious, these days. Harry only barely recalled him laughing—years ago now, wasn't it? Fourth Year, perhaps? The vicious smile when he stomped on Harry's nose didn't count, really. He'd looked quite dyspeptic beneath it, as if it were more a baring of the teeth and not a real grin.

But there was more to this glum, faraway stare of Malfoy's than mere habitual sullenness. Draco...er, Malfoy seemed to be genuinely sad over… something. Likely he'd not tell Harry about it; they were hardly soul-mates, for all this Bond-Joining-Mate crap.

Farthest thing from it, and Harry would really like to know why, in all the Hells, there had to be not only a second prophecy, but also a damned Magical Creature mating imperative to put teeth into it. Left him no escape, that. Not exactly sporting to save a bloke's life and then leave him to die a horrible death, was it? And not exactly Hoyle to be forced into it almost literally at wand-point by his own Headmistress, but then again, what else was new? The other prophecy hadn't been cherry, either.

Fucking Magic. Muggles didn't have to deal with this sort of thing, much. Maybe the odd ancient Greek chappie or perhaps some mythical one from an old wives' tale, but damned Wizards did this to themselves all the sodding time, it seemed, especially the idiot Pureblooded ones, and were idiotically proud of it, after!

More power, more magic! That's what all the old families gagged after, as if they could ever hold a monopoly over something as elemental as that. Made no sense, either, in the end, to dilute the human bits with other. Dra-Malfoy hardly seemed pleased with his lot, given that he was now stuck with his own worst enemy as a bloody ball-and-chain for life. Well, second worst—Voldemort had been Malfoy's real worst enemy, though it had taken the barmy git long enough to realize that.

Third, actually. Lucius was no prize as a father, no matter how reformed he claimed to be now, when it was all over, even the necessary shouting and sorting. Um...ah. Fourth. Ron really actually hated Drac—Malfoy for a very long time—family feud and all—and he still wasn't exactly in alt over Harry's new status as one, a week later. A Malfoy, that is.

That left Harry rather low on the 'Malfoy's worst enemy' list, come to think. And really, he couldn't find it in himself to roust up much ire at the git, not at this point. It was all swamped with exquisite memories of cocks and bollocks and arseholes and tingles, now. Well, there was some residual ire, yes, but last night hadn't been anything to complain of and neither had the night before. Nor yesterday afternoon, when they both had a free period.

Strange.

A se'enight into a Magical Mating and he was starting to like it. Perish the thought!