Clinical Week Two B-Day Plus 14 (Later)
"For the final and the absolutely last bloody time, Malfoy, that was unconscionable! That was damned near rape, what you almost did to me! You will not molest me without my fucking consent . I don't give a rap if you're a bloody Veela or not a bloody Veela, I will not be shoved up against dirty bricks and practically shagged through them!"
"Potter."
"I will not! Not even your fancy-pants Nation Council will allow that, Draco Malfoy! If I go to them and inform them of what you just did to me - and only because you were sodding jealous, when there's nothing on earth to be jealous of!"
Malfoy was blank-faced and perfectly still, a Wizard doing his best to emulate a statue.
"They'd tell you it was perfectly understandable, Potter. My right. And it was."
"No such thing, you bloody arsewipe - the Ministry, then! Kingsley will never accept this! You'll lose your position - maybe even be arrested!" Harry thrust an accusing forefinger out, a bare inch away from poking Malfoy right in his patrician nostril. "You! You had my fucking trousers about my ankles, Malfoy! In public!"
"For what it's worth, Potter, I do apologize." A slight inclination of the chin accompanied that. "But that won't happen."
"That's not enough, Malfoy! Not near enough! I want more than some fucking half-arsed apology! Way the hell more –I want-!"
Malfoy didn't budge an inch. He did, however, modulate the usual calm, clipped severity tones. Harry had to lean in—reluctantly-just to catch his quiet murmur.
"Potter, listen."
"Don't want to."
"You must understand, the Binding is not far off, now."
"Fuck that!"
"I am at my wit's end in the Department at the moment and I am well beyond that fragile limit with you."
"Me?" Harry stomped off to the other end of his parlour and crossed his arms, tired of waving them. "What did I ever do? What d'you even mean by that?" he demanded fiercely. "I've been more than cooperative! More than! I've done bloody every single goddamned thing that was asked of me and cartloads more besides - you can't seriously be saying I haven't! Where do you get off, twat? Tell me!"
Finally Malfoy moved, but not by much. A merest shift; a hunch of shoulders.
"Of course you have, Potter," he replied, waving a wrist; he was openly conciliatory for once, the git, at least by his lights. "And I know that and I even thank you, truly, for your cooperation, but - but, Potter, you don't seem to fully comprehend one of the most basic and absolute tenets of a Veela Bond. There are no others, Potter. None."
Harry spun on a heel, swift and hot, seeing red. He cast a hand out to a nearby wall, gaining strength from the solid magical foundation.
"'No others'? I'm not seeing anyone else, Malfoy! How could I be? You'd fucking rend them limb to limb! Your so-wise Leader so as much as told me so, flat out!" Photos in their silver frames tumbled off their stands; the paint on those selfsame walls seemed to shimmer. Harry drew a deep breath. The room seemed all at once airless. "Your lot are bloody vicious, you Veela types! And I did manage all my supplementary reading, thanks so much - made fucking notes on it, Malfoy! In a bloody Quik Quills pad, even! So - so, piss off!"
As if wound-up, his spring-catch finally released, Malfoy advanced upon him, undaunted. This, though the last thing Harry wanted was for the wanker to come near him; not again. He was still tingling from the last time; still shaken to the core from being nearly climbed into - ravaged and assaulted.
It had been—he couldn't begin to describe what it had been like. He shuddered, closing his burning eyes for one moment of relief. When he opened them again, Malfoy was right there, before him. So close his breath brushed Harry's hot cheeks.
They burned hotter yet.
"Get-!"
"I cannot do that, Potter. Not even for you, I cannot." The grey eyes were dead calm and dead steady; Malfoy was one hundred percent Unspeakable at the moment...or perhaps it was more a hundred and twenty percent 'dangerous'; all Wizard, though, and it appeared the Veela was locked up tight. Harry, reduced to slumping up against the reassuring solidity of the wall, thought briefly of bolting, but Malfoy didn't have that look in his eyes - not like before, outside the Leaky. That look was his undoing; would be well to keep that in mind, for the future.
"No others," Malfoy repeated, having come up and stationed his precise arse right before Harry's very nose, his voice deathly quiet. "Verbatim from Madame; both of the Mesdames, really. Even Wizards know that, Potter. It's Veela law, incontrovertible. A law which effectively translates into no friends, as in Weasley and Granger, specifically. No pals to waste your free time with at the local, knocking back a pint; no miscellaneous stops over to your Burrow to hobnob with the gingery gang. No significant time spent with Aunt Andromeda or Teddy, either - nor even appointments with either of our dear Healers, not at this point. No popping by to see Shacklebolt or Neville or any other human being in the Ministry on a whim. No office, Potter, a'tall. That's done with. It would be you and me, Potter, from this point on."
"You're joking me." Harry feebly tottered off his sturdy wall and brushed past his nemesis with naught but a despairing glance; found his way blindly to the reassuring bulk of his sofa, where he sat his bewildered arse down upon the corner of the 'L' with a solid thump. There was something about the smell of it—the whole odour of his flat, his home, that brought him back, though. A blink or two, a huge inhale, and he was nearly back in fighting fettle. "You're fucking joking! I'm an Auror, Malfoy; I can't just stop reporting to work. I'll lose - "
Malfoy quirked a wry brow. He didn't follow, fortunately. Harry would've had to hex him if he had.
"They'll lose, Potter, if they dare interfere," he replied staidly. "Any Witch or Wizard who stands between us is a potential target; there will be blood shed over you, I guarantee."
Harry stared, appalled. Malfoy bowed his head sedately. His smile was really only teeth showing.
"I'm not safe, not as I am now. I'm not in control of any of this any longer. They will lose, Potter, and they know it full well, have been expecting it even, and the Minister and Dawlish are already well ahead of you in the planning process. You and I have been granted an indefinite leave of absence, effective immediately, by Shacklebolt himself. The Aurors are already notified; Weasel has a temporary partner assigned him. And Mother has vacated the Manor as of last night and we'll be removing there, immediately. To live. I would suggest you take this time to pack up whatever personal belongings you'll need."
"No..."
Harry blanched, swaying where he huddled, greenish about the gills, and trembling. He was abandoned, it seemed, by all that was sweetly familiar. Torn away, ripped away, isolated—
But...perhaps, not quite. Malfoy was by his side in a blur of monochrome, kneeling before him, in less than the time it took to refocus Harry's abruptly stinging eyes. He grabbed fiercely at Harry's chilled fingers, lacing his own tightly around them. Coolish and smooth, the narrow knuckles were, thinned to bone with raw emotion, rampant-just like Harry's-and then, in a rush, as hot as Guy Fawkes blazes, searing Harry's frozen fingers to the core.
"Potter, keep it together. Potter."
Harry blinked.
Wings again, ripping through Malfoy's pristine black uniform. Git would probably be furious over it later. He hated waste, Malfoy did. Hated losing himself to something beyond his own control. Harry couldn't find it in himself to blame him for it, either. Had to be horrid, that. Could relate.
He opened his lips to say so, but the words weren't there. Like his former familiar world, they had deserted him.
"Potter?"
"No...really, no," Harry whispered when he could, shaking his head in a slow sad travesty of rejection, for really, there was no out remaining—not for him. Not now. Not ever. "I didn't exactly think - I mean, Malfoy," he faltered; till he inflated his starving lungs with a conscious jolt. "You're not - this is - really?"
"Potter, I'm so very sorry," and the beast that was Malfoy seemed to be genuinely so. Even his wings were curling down towards the two of them, creating a glowing white hollow shell about them: ephemeral shelter in an invisible maelstrom. And Harry could read real contrition in the darkening of the grey lakes that were Malfoy's hand-me-down Black eyes, even through the irritatingly painful blurriness he was so desperately attempting to blink away. Harry did not cry; he would not cry. There was, when all was said and done, nothing left to mourn. So…he listened, instead, with all his might, and Malfoy sounded exactly as he should—even apologizing. "I said I was, before, and I meant it, really I did. But this is the way it must be - the way it is, from this moment forward and for some time to come. Now, may I help you gather your things? Or Summon Kreacher to fetch you some tea first? You look as though you could use a cuppa."
Harry nodded, and the lava-hot hands slipped further up his wrists and arms, never leaving go. Malfoy's face was so close to his Harry seriously feared their eyelashes would entangle.
"Brilliant. It'll warm you up, Potter. I guarantee it."