Hey! So, so sorry for my slow updates. I had assessments all this week and a case of writers block and all that bad stuff. Anyway, thanks as always to my beta fragonknight01Dray Kun and to all my reviewers!

Chapter 21: Mistakes

It seemed for the first time since Harry had found out he was a Harpy, that he was generally content with how his life was working. He loved Draco more than he had thought possible. Although the two had to pretend to act 'normal', meaning that they had to pretend they still hated each other while in public.

So far the two had done this by simply ignoring the other's existence when others were around. This had worked for three days; although Harry's Harpy self still liked to complain with low growls of aggravation.

He was sitting in the library with Theo, finishing off the Charms assignment, when his Harpy senses prickled and he looked around. Hardly anyone was in the library, but he spotted Blaize Zabini entering with Millicent, and his Harpy-self growled as it remembered the cold-kiss incident.

Theo glanced up at Harry when he heard the low growl and raised an eyebrow. "Something wrong?"

Harry shook his head, letting his fringe fall into his eyes. "Nothing."

The Slytherin gave him a look of disbelief, but did not push the subject.

Harry was fiddling with his quill and looked over at Theo. "So, how's everything?"

Amused, Theo smirked slightly before answering. "Draco is sulking because he cannot be with you twenty-four seven and Sin and I have to put up with it."

Harry smiled softly at the thought of his mate and wished for the umpteenth time that week that he did not have to hide his relationship with Draco. The strain was already getting to both of them. The time they had together was fraught with tension, and Harry was not all too sure if he could survive through a secret relationship.

The only real way for the two of them to be together openly was for him to kill Voldemort. That thought made Harry quite nervous. He did not know if he had it in him to kill someone, even Voldemort. Quarrell disintegrating had been a complete accident because Harry had not intentionally tried to kill him; he just wanted to get away from him.

Theo tilted his head at Harry. "You Ok?"

Harry nodded silently and continued to fiddle with his quill. No way was he ready to talk about that incident to anyone except his closest friends, and although Theo was getting there, Harry still had a few reservations about what he could trust Theo with. Then he glanced back at Theo to see why he had gone quiet.

Theo was gazing intently at the door with a happy smile on his face. That was enough to make Harry glance up. Sin was making his way over to them, looking pleased. Theo gave him a suspicious look as he reached them. "Have you been hurting Draco again?"

Sin gave him an innocent look before kissing the honey-eyed teen's cheek. "Maybe."

Harry pouted which made the two Slytherins laugh, earning them disapproving looks from the librarian. Sin took a seat beside Theo and held his mate close.

"So where is Draco?" Harry asked, keeping his voice low.

"Sulking in the dorm," Sin's smirk grew, "alone."

Harry grinned and stood, stuffing his books into his bag. "I'll see you two later." He left them to chuckle amongst themselves and headed towards the dungeons. On the way, he slipped his invisibility cloak on and crept into the Slytherin common room using the password Draco had given him. He then slipped into the sixth year boy's dorm. The dorm was empty except Draco, who sat at his desk writing down something.

Harry yanked off his cloak and tossed it and his bag at the foot of his mate's bed before walking over to Draco, bending down to kiss the blonde's cheek.

Draco smiled at him and kissed him softly, pulling the Harpy onto his lap.

Harry's laughter was soon silenced by Draco's lips. He sighed contentedly as warm arms wrapped firmly around his waist and held him exactly where he wanted to be.

After a time, Harry pulled away and smiled at the Slytherin, who responded by nuzzling his neck. "Did Sin really hurt you?"

Draco pouted. "No."

Harry chuckled and buried his face in Draco's neck, breathing in Draco's mint and vanilla scent that calmed his Harpy-self.

Draco kissed his forehead then reached for something across the desk.

Curiously Harry looked at what Draco was reaching for, and discovered him holding a small blue box.

Draco smiled and opened the box. Harry's eyes widened in delight as he saw the feather shaped pendant with a snake carved into its surface attached to the end of a delicate white gold chain. He smiled as Draco slipped it around his neck and clasped it in place.

"Thank you." Harry grinned, kissing Draco deeply.

When they broke apart Draco smirked at him. "I should give you presents more often."

Harry chuckled and leant against Draco's warm chest, just enjoying the feel of being so close to his mate on the rare moments they could be together.

Draco seemed to sense his mood because he pulled Harry closer and murmured
gently into the smaller boy's ear. "Let's do something tomorrow night, just me and you."

Harry beamed happily and nodded. Alone, together with Draco, it was easy to feel like everything was going to work out the way they wanted it to.

In Charms on Wednesay, Harry sat in his usual place next to Theo who was occupying himself by charming his quills to perform a small dance while they waited for Professor Flitwick to arrive. Harry was flicking through the Charms book, the necklace Draco had given him earlier tucked safely under his shirt. His Harpy self purred contentedly at the feel of the white gold lying smooth and warm against his flesh.

Theo let his wand drop and with it the quills. He glanced sideways at the Harpy and tilted his head. "Is something up?"

"Huh? No, why?"

"Just wondering…." Theo picked up one of the quills. "Can I ask you for a favor?"

"Depends on what the favor is." Harry sighed, turning his complete attention to the Slytherin.

"Well you see, since Blaise got back Millie decided on throwing him a 'you're a mindless idiot follower' party. Naturally, I'm going. The problem is I sort of lied to Sin and Draco about it and told them I was studying with you. So could you, you know, follow the lie?"

"Why don't you just tell them?"

"Because there's going to be alcohol and they would not let me go since they know that. They promised to kill me themselves if they catch me drunk at another party."

"But you're going anyway?"

"Yep."

Harry sighed. "I don't know why, but I'll help you out."

"Thanks, Harry." Theo grinned.

"But you owe me."

"Naturally."

That night Harry, Ron and Hermione were sitting in the boy's dorm finishing last minute homework. As usual Hermione refused to let the two boys copy her homework, giving them the lecture on 'completing your own work'.

Part of Harry's homework that Aura had assigned was developing his Harpy skills/talents, so he was testing his new skill of mind reading. It was was straining his energy, and he found that he needed to center his own mind before attempting to latch a thin stream of energy to the mind of his 'target'. He finally got his energy centered and was testing his skill on Ron, who was willing to do anything to get out of writing his History essay.

Concentrating, Harry gingerly reached out for Ron's mind, latching onto a stream of thought. 'Hermione looks so beautiful tonight, maybe I should ask her out.' Harry blushed and let out an embarrassed squeak, letting go of Ron's mind and falling back off the bed and landing, hard, on the floor.

Ron just shook his head at the Harpy's ungraceful antics. "I take it you were successful?" He questioned.

Hermione hadn't been privy to the boys experiment and her face appeared over the side of the bed, a concerned look marring her brow. "Harry? Are you alright? What happened?"

"Uh….nothing." Harry quickly scrambled to his feet. He gave Ron a quick nod

Before the two could question him further, there was the sound of uncertain stumbling before the door opened and in fell a rather drunk Theo. He grinned at the trio and slurred, "Ow!l" He rubbed his elbow. "That hoots."

"Theo!" Harry fussed exasperatedly as he quickly stepped over to the teen, who was climbing unsteadily to his feet.

"Harry!" He slurred happily, stumbling slightly. "It was great! We even found a monkey! Well, I think it was monkey, it was hard to see…."

Harry sighed. "You got drunk."

"I'm not drunk!" He grinned crookedly at Hermione as he added, "I'm complekely smit fashed."

She couldn't suppress the giggle as she watched the endearing idiot known as Theo.

Harry glared at her before giving his complete attention back to the Slytherin. "Come on." Harry helped Theo over to his bed, Hermione and Ron clearing the paper for them. "Should I get Draco and Sin?"

"No!" Theo shook his head violently. "They'd be angry and Sin said he liked cooking and hates people who drink."

Ron raised an eyebrow. "Cooking?"

Theo nodded. "Yep."

Harry made him lie down then took off his shoes and jacket. "You should sleep now. Tomorrow we'll get you back to Draco and Sin."

"Ok." Theo curled up. "Did you know Voldie is blackmailing half of the School Board members?"

"Huh?"

Theo's eyes closed and his voice grew fainter. "He's got them all….scared. And he's going to…get to you….through them…."

Then he was asleep before Harry could get anything more from him.

Hermione blinked. "Is he always like this?"

"When he's drunk? Yep." Harry sighed. He looked over at the two Gryffindors. "We should tell Dumbledore."

"Knowing Dumbledore he'd know by now." Ron pointed out.

The bushy haired girl nodded. "He's right."

Ron blinked, startled. "I am?"

Harry sighed. "We still should tell him anyway; just in case."

"What do we do about Nott?" Ron asked, nodding to Theo who was deep asleep and clinging to Harry's pillow.

"Leave him." Harry picked up his invisibility cloak. "I'm going to see Aura."

Ron frowned. "What if he wakes up?"

"Then I wouldn't annoy him, he might hex you." Harry offered, leaving the dorm.

He headed down the corridors to Aura's classroom. Her classroom door stood open and inside everything was arranged perfectly. Aura had left the window open to let in the chilling night air so he left it open and made his way up the small staircase that led through to her sleeping quarters. The door to her private sleeping quarters was shut, but golden light spilling out through the crack down the bottom.

"Aura?" Harry called, throwing off the cloak.

There was a pause before the door swung open and Aura stepped out, wearing a silken blue robe, closed against the cold.

"Harry, what's wrong?"

"Theo crashed, drunk in my bed and I can't go to the Slytherin dorm because I'll let out that Theo is drunk and sleeping in my dorm, so I thought that if your mate wasn't visiting that now would be a good opportunity to practice some Harpy skills."

Aura smiled and nodded. "Sure. Theo is Sin's mate, right? The feisty one?"

"Yep, and right now he's the drunken one." Harry drifted into the room and climbed up on her desk to sit down.

Aura sat down in the chair beside the desk. "How is your mind reading going?"

Harry giggled. "I'm not quite sure. I picked up a few thoughts from Ron, but I was so shocked that I lost my concentration and dropped the thread."

Aura nodded in understanding. "It'll get easier through practice."

"Hopefully." Harry sighed.

The next morning a tired Harry and a still convalescing Theo made their way to the Great Hall. Theo nursed a fading hangover and Harry stifled yawns. Together, to avoid facing Draco and Sin, they sat down at the Gryffindor table across from Ron and Hermione.

"Fun night?" Hermione smirked at them.

Theo glared weakly. "Three bottles of beer and a shot of whiskey aren't great sleeping buddies."

"I'll remember that." Hermione chuckled.

"Going to tell Sin?" Harry coaxed.

"Nope." Theo smiled.

Harry was about to argue the point when the bell for first class called over the general noise of the Great Hall. Harry stood up with a groan of protest. Theo followed. They made their way to Potions, each of the Gryffindors complaining about the coming lesson.

Theo rolled his eyes. "Snape is not out to get you!" He snapped at Neville who cowered in fear. "And he's not going to shove you in a cauldron of acid!" Angrily he stormed ahead.

Harry smiled weakly. "He's got a hang over." He explained.

They reached the dungeons where the Slytherins were already waiting. Theo was standing with Draco and Sin, looking as though nothing was wrong as he explained how he fell asleep while studying with Harry.

Feeling annoyed about the fact that he was going to have to lie later, Harry stood with the Gryffindors and switched to his Harpy senses to hear what they were talking about.

"Why would you want to hang out with Potter?" Pansy spat.

"Because I hate pigs." Theo snarled, giving Pansy a venomous look.

Furious, Pansy turned to Draco for support, which irked Harry. "Yeah, and we hate freaks. And since Potter is a freak maybe you should stop hanging around with him so much. Right Draco?"

With barely a hint of hesitation Draco nodded once. "Yea." He glared at the two of them as they continued to bicker for several seconds before adding, "Don't forget where we are. If Snape hears us fighting amongst ourselves in public there will be hell to pay."

Harry's Harpy-self whimpered in pain at their mate's unintended rejection and completely missed the rest of the Slytherin conversation. He had to remind himself that Draco was lying to protect their relationship, but that hardly dulled the pain that was tearing at his heart. Blinking back tears of pain, Harry followed Ron and Hermione to the back of the classroom and away from Draco, nursing the painful rejection.

He could not handle lunch, his stomach tied in knots over Draco saying he was a freak. When dinner finally came, Harry skipped that meal too, and went straight to his dorm. He dropped his bag by his trunk and fell face first onto the clean covers.

He had only managed to keep up his mask by avoiding Draco for the rest of the day, that had included no lunch, skipping library time, and arriving at class as the bell rang and leaving early. Hermione had noticed his odd behavior but didn't bring it up.

Now, curled up on his bed, Harry took a shuddering breath. His Harpy-Self had been demanding to talk to Draco, but Harry couldn't face his blond mate just yet.

A tapping at the window diverted his attention and he crawled off his bed, opening the window to Draco's Eagle owl, who dropped a note and a red rose in his hands before flying off.

Opening the note Harry scanned the contents.

I didn't get to see you today. Meet me at the painting by the Transfiguration classroom at ten.

Taking a deep breath, Harry scrunched the paper up into a ball and threw the note into the bin, along with the rose, before changing and crawling into bed. The Slytherin was left to wait for him.

-TBC-

Due to my hates to post this chapter and all the work I'm swamped with I won't be answering reviews, but I appreciate them greatly! If you had a question and it wasn't answered just send it again and I promise to answer questions next chapter, thanks!

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With love,

Harpy Wings.