Wow, I am so incredibly sorry that I left this untouched for like a month. I wasn't supposed to, and I didn't mean to, but I did, apparently.

Disclaimer: My computer keeps crashing, my printer is disconnected, I have so much shit to turn in this week. Now, Mrs. Rowling is a good 40-ish years old, and as such, doesn't have to worry about any of this stuff, mainly because she has plenty of money to fix her computers and printers. I would kill to own Harry Potter. If you sue, you will get absolutely nothing, because I repeat: It is not mine. huffs mock angrily

-+-

Dan – Damn it, I had to look up that word… But anyway, yeah, it's supposed to be a little random. That's what happens when you get a model student who all the teachers love. There's gotta be a flaw somewhere in there. In this case, an obsession with slash and twisting the laws of time to my eeeeevil will and deeds. Ah, they would be proud of me for writing so much, but I think they would take that pretty letter 'A' away after reading it…

Chapter Two: Bitch of the Month Award goes to Narcissa Malfoy

Draco sighed as he flopped down on his bed. His heart was aching, his head was spinning, and his stomach was lurching randomly and violently.

See, his mother decided it would be funny to tell him that he was part vela the year after his sixteenth birthday. A year after his inheritance began. His mother had officially won the bitch of the decade award.

Well, at least this explained why he was so sick last year. He still had yet to discover why Harry had been stalking him, but he had a hunch it was because he was avoiding him, like he was with all of his friends.

So far, all he could tell was that he would have to find his mate within a week, just before his birthday. Normally, veelas would have a full year to find them, but since he hadn't known before, he only had the week prior to his birthday. In other words, he blamed his mother for everything that happened in the last year. Maybe she'd been trying to kill him… His personal thoughts on the situation were this: Oh, fucking gods, I am so damn screwed.

Well, that was what he thought right before he disappeared.

- Harry, the founders, and… drum roll… enter Draco! –

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NOT HUMAN? My god," – he ignored the chirped '-ric' added – "you people are absolutely insane! Bonkers! Deranged! Twisted! Possibly – no, seriously – disturbed! ..." and on it went for several minutes, and he ignored the fact that he, too, was all of the above.

The founders all winced at the volume of their heir's voice.

Then…

Thud.

Silence.

A groan.

An answering groan.

One hand poked out from the mass of limbs and tried to poke the other in the ribs, but, alas, he was hindered by the fact that the other was sitting on the arm attached to said hand.

Muffled though his voice was, they all heard Harry ask, clearly disgruntled, "Salazar, would you care to explain? You seem to be the only one who can keep a running explanation with getting distracted. Even though you remind me distinctly of old Dumbles…" His eyes narrowed calculatingly under the mass of gold-blonde hair. He could have sworn that it looked and felt familiar, but, well, his new senses just wouldn't tell him who the hell it was!

"Harry?" a startled voice asked.

That voice sounded familiar too, but the shock and impact of being landed upon were greatly affecting his thinking and deduction skills. At least what little was left of them, that is.

…thirty seconds later…

"Draco!"

They somehow managed to wriggle out of their slightly less than comfortable positions and into much easier spots in the middle of the bed with as little pain as possible, now sitting cross-legged next to each other.

Harry suddenly remembered the explanation that Salazar owed him. If there even was an explanation, that is. He remembered that he still had the bag of lemon drops, earlier used as ammunition. Settled comfortably in his lap, he took one out and tapped it thoughtfully with a blue – new addition? Now that he was complaining mind you, they looked good… - fingernail.

Salazar caught the movement and narrowed his eyes. This didn't bode well for his sanity, not one bit. Nuh-uh.

He looked around nervously, attempting to find somewhere to – eh, hide, for lack of better word – but stopped abruptly upon remembering that he couldn't panic and lose his cool and do injustice to the Slytherin name.

Harry, on the other hand had a demanding expression on his face, but was laughing uproariously inside. He was surprised as Draco shot him an amused and/or annoyed look. "Will you stop cackling like a madman? I, for one, would really enjoy being informed of what – the – hell – is – going – on!" Whispered words turned into full on screams toward the end, and Draco saw the slightly scary man, who was shifting nervously, stop aforementioned action abruptly and look at him like he was the savior of the world. Shouldn't the man be looking to his right, where Harry sat, seemingly oblivious, munching on his – oh, good lord; the boy had lemon drops. Damn, that stuff was literally the tasty equivalent of insanity wrapped neatly in a bundle. On second glance, his Harry – his? Wow, becoming veela (he sneered the word distastefully even to himself) had made him strangely possessive – was looking at Salazar like the monster in the closet that had just conquered the smelly old Converse shoe. Bye-bye, lovely.

But Draco couldn't bring himself to care, as he usually would slap his mate on the back of the head and was, instead, basking in the warmth and sheer joy of sitting beside the boy who said "ah, screw it" to house rivalries. He was brought out of his content reverie by an amused coughing coming from somewhere in the general area of the end of the bed and thus glared when he saw a witch hiding a small smile behind her hand. His glare softened as he realized that she was not laughing at him, but at the odd man who had resumed his fidgeting, and another who was attempting to appease his nerves by patting him on the back and glaring Harry. Said boy was still cackling evilly in his mind and it was – really – getting on Draco's nerves!

Harry decided to humor him and introduce him to the founders. Purposely, the action served as a way to disperse the tense silence and glares – most of which were aimed at him.

"Draco, meet the founders. The scary one – or at least the one you thought to be scary – is Salazar Slytherin. Got all scared for – hey, what are you doing?"

During his short introduction, Draco had shuffled closer to his side and was currently latched onto Harry's left bicep firmly. Harry tried half-heartedly (in the belief that Draco was once again going through a mood swing, which he accounted for his foul temper often the year before) to shake Draco off. In truth, the warmth was comfortable; hell, the whole situation was comfortable for him. Family. If this is what it was like to have a family, be loved, love, and have people to look out for him instead of looking for protection from him, then he really enjoyed it.

Unconsciously, he rubbed Draco's arms. Draco had started to shiver sometime during his contemplation. A frown marring his forehead, he grabbed hold of the blankets that lay bunched up at the bottom of the bed and pulled them up so that they covered both him and Draco. Now lying on his back with Draco's head on his chest, he felt Draco's head. He hissed.

"Does anyone here know anything about healing? Check his temperature! Please?" he was pleading now, and he knew that. He didn't know where the sudden desperation for Draco to just be okay, and live for him came from, but shrugged it off. He couldn't let anything happen to Draco!

Ten minutes later and countless diagnostic checks proved that Draco's fever was close to 103 degrees. Rowena gasped as she saw the results flash in front of her. Helga rushed over to peer over her shoulder, and gasped along with Rowena.

"Kiss him, Harry. Kiss your prince."

Harry was endlessly confused by this cryptic statement – which really wasn't all that cryptic – but obliged.

He lowered his head to Draco's forehead and pressed his lips softly to the smooth, flushed skin, hoping fervently that his Draco would be okay. He honestly didn't know why he referred to him as his Draco, but he always had, ever since about third year, when they had really gotten close. That had been a horrible summer.

"It's not enough, Harry," a soft voice whispered, snapping him out of his declining thoughts. "Do you love him?"

Harry pondered it over. He knew he loved Draco best out of all of his friends. Not to say that he didn't love them all tremendously but he and Draco had always been close. Thinking back on a time when Draco had been completely happy was difficult. He remembered last year, when he was following him around, stalking him, some would say, but he was worried for his blonde-haired beauty. Beauty? That was a new word for him, a new meaning, and a new memory to connect it to.

Smiling faintly down at the angel in his arms, he said proudly and surely, "Yes, I love Draco." More than anything, he silently whispered, hoping against hope that his Draco would survive. He had to survive. Neither could live without the other, and he knew that from some innate sense of primal instinct. Those silver eyes cracked wearily and painfully to look at Harry's determined face.

Harry himself knew that his own eyes were perhaps shining with tears, but didn't break Draco's gaze.

With blue lips now and a dreadfully flushed face, Draco stared up at Harry still.

Cradled now delicately against his side, Harry lifted Draco's chin gently and descended a sweet kiss upon those lips, and, god, just live, Draco!

His color was quickly returning to his original pale, porcelain perfection, his temperature lowering to the norm, and his lips returning to the light red that they should be. However, he didn't move from his position at Harry's side. Strands of soft moonlight-like hair was being petted gently, lovingly, by Harry, and he had his arm wrapped protectively around Draco, who had his own arm draped across Harry's stomach.

A few sniffles escaped a quickly cast silencing charm and Harry shot the female founders an amused look before lying back down on the pillows, closing his eyes, and closing the curtains with a twitch of the nose – he had always wanted to do that, ever since he'd seen a glimpse of that TV show before Aunt sneers Petunia changed the channel and shooed him out of the room – in an unmistakable dismissing gesture.

And he was warm and content and happy, with Draco here beside him, and he felt whole again.

They didn't wake up for at least 14 hours, at which time it was very late in the afternoon.

I'm probably going to continue changing some of the smaller details from various volumes of the HP series, so forgive me…

Yay, so finally finished this chapter. Wrote almost all of it today, after the Spanish and Math tests and then wrote the larger half this afternoon.

Review and make my week, which, by the way, is full of finals, better!

Cher-nesssnesss