Author's Notes:
Revised October-November, 2015.
Remember this original story was posted as revision 1.0 before the new Pottermore material came out about the Malfoy family background, so as such, I'd invented a background for them. The fic, therefore, discounts the Pottermore canon material as a result.
Also, I really wasn't pleased with a lot of the bargaining dialogue at the end of this chapter, so I did away with it. Hope you'll agree the change is for the better.
Please review!
CHAPTER 6: CASUALTY OF DISAGREEMENT
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2031 (late morning-afternoon)
Awake and lying abed despite the lateness of the hour, Rose flipped through every single one of her favorite fantasies that morning, hoping to ease the arousal that burned through her, but none of her self-induced climaxes was enough to do the trick. Despite more than an hour of rubbing, pinching, stroking, and coming, she was still desperate for sexual release.
And not just from anyone. Specifically, she was frenzied for them—for Scorpius and his Veela.
For Merlin's sake, they hadn't even truly touched in the real world yet, only in dreams, and yet her need had been inflamed from a distance, while she slept, and from only few imagined kisses and a little playful fondling! Gods above, what would it be like if they were to do such things for real? Would she rip off her clothes, fall to her knees, and beg Scor to shag her rotten?
Hell no! She would never do something so humiliating and pathetic! No, absolutely not! Not going to happen! Nuh-uh! Not in this lifetime! Never…
…say never, a taunting voice in the back of her head reminded her of the old adage.
Bloody buggering, burning, blobby hell!
X~~~~~X
After thinking about the situation a bit more calmly while showering and dressing for her day, Rose made a firm decision that no matter how attractive Scorpius Malfoy and his Veela may be or how hot the two of them made her she absolutely refused to give them the chance to degrade her ever again. There had been enough of that back when they'd been children.
Bottom line: this whole situation had the potential to ruin her on so many levels that the risks far outweighed the advantages. First, it could do some major damage to her feelings about relationships in general, which was something she'd struggled with since her parent's divorce years ago. Second, it could also mess with her self-esteem, which had taken some serious work to lift up from the floor and dust off over the last few years after feeling like an ugly duckling all her life. And third, and worst of all, it could seriously break her heart. She didn't relish the thought of going through any of that, thanks very much, so it would just be better to tell Scorpius and his Veela to go take a big leap off a high bridge and to forget the Cushioning Charm on the way down.
Now, if only she could convince her body to be on the same page as her mind, everything would be just peachy.
Speaking of… her arousal was still in full bloom, despite her best efforts to ignore it. God, it was frustrating!
"From this point forward, you and Scorpius are going to be drawn to each other on every level. It begins with intense attraction, because that's where a Veela's power and innate talent resides. As the days pass, your desire for each other will only increase," the elder Malfoy had explained. "The more you interact, the deeper your bond will become and the faster your feelings will shift to align with the Veela's. Even without the backing of the Ministry law behind it, it's not something you're going to be able to deny or fight."
She squeezed her thighs together, feeling the dull, throbbing, itchy ache that refused to go away, and cursed like a sailor under her breath. Damn that Scorpius Malfoy! Why couldn't he just leave her alone? She'd been going along just fine without him in her life for years—and apparently the same had been true for her on his end, if the gossip rags were to be believed.
And yet…
"I fancied you all through school," he'd admitted.
Her Aunt had hinted something similar, too: "Your Malfoy will love you with all he eeze, if you will let him. He already does I think. Eet is why zee mating magic chose you."
Could that be true? Did Scorpius really have some feelings for her? Could she believe him? Or had that just been a good tale told to try to win her over? She didn't know the man he'd grown into well enough to trust him, and all of the information she did have from their childhood interactions as well as from years of sensationalist journalists slathering his reputation all over the news painted the picture of a man not to be trusted in affairs of the heart.
She swore some more. When it came to Scorpius slagging Malfoy, why were her feelings permanently convoluted? Why had he always seemed to have the ability to tear her up and leave her reeling? What was his bizarre influence he'd continually seemed to wield over her since they'd parted ways at school, so much so that she'd fly into a rage whenever she caught a glimpse of him on the cover of Witch Weekly with his flavour-of-the-month clinging to his arm? Why had something that inoffensive and really none of her business even hurt her? It's not as if they'd been lovers at one time, and she the jilted party left behind.
So, why did it feel that way during those moments?
Yes, okay, if she were to be completely honest with herself, yes, she'd secretly fancied him during all of their schooling together, most especially their sixth and seventh years. Practically every girl had, though, as he'd been one of the school's heartthrobs. Yet, he'd never given any indication of interest in her as anything other than his rival on the Quidditch pitch, in the classroom, in matters of Houses, and as a Weasley to his Malfoy. Besides, he hadn't been the only boy she'd fancied then; there had also been Corwin to catch her eye. Still, those immature, un-reciprocated feelings for Scorpius shouldn't have been enough to cause her to become as obsessed with him as Rose had been over the last seven years, since they'd parted ways at Hogwarts.
It couldn't be Veela magic, could it? Had it somehow affected her years before Scorpius' heritage had bloomed?
No, such a thing would be impossible, as his Veela had only just woken up twelve days ago! There was no way it could have influenced her before it had even come into its own, much less for years without any contact between them… right?
Huffing with irritation, she slammed her sock drawer closed.
Oh, what did it matter where the feelings came from? That shouldn't matter! All that counted was the fact that Scorpius Malfoy had done a number on her self-esteem all through her formative years into adulthood, and that relentless attack had left behind scars that couldn't be covered up so easily. Following that, she and the rest of the world had all watched him together wade through women like water in the years since, so needless to say, she was understandably jaded to his charming words and ways now.
Besides, she had Corwin. With him, she'd been able to give in to the need to be spontaneous and wild, and so far, it had been wonderful between them. Gentlemanly, sweet, sexy Corwin McLaggen had made her feel alive. With him in her bed, she'd begun to contemplate the possibility that it was quite possible, despite her parent's failed example at marriage, to have great sex and great love together, without sacrificing one for the other.
And yet…
And yet…
The spark she'd once felt with Corwin wasn't quite as bright as it had been, she had to admit. Something inside her had changed over the last few days. It had been a slow creep, a gentle blanketing of the feelings she had for anyone else, and it was slowly suffocating her. Scorpius' game-changer was ruining her life.
Fuck that, she refused to let it! She had a shot at happiness with Corwin, and she intended on taking it.
—Which meant, she had to remain staunchly against Scorpius' attempts to touch her again, dream or otherwise! She also had to stop thinking of him, including what sex might be like with him.
With supreme effort, she kept her hand from returning between her thighs in an attempt to quell the fiery need between her legs. Instead, she hit the kitchen and made herself a late starter. That done she grabbed her wand and her gear for Quidditch practice, and Apparated out of her flat onto her team's pitch.
Today she wouldn't give another thought to Scorpius Malfoy, her decision made where he and his Veela were concerned.
X~~~~~X
To Rose's dismay, and despite her resolve, she ran into trouble focusing on her game at practice.
It seemed her head just wasn't into perfecting a new dive-roll technique for catching the Snitch, as her coach had shown her. Instead, it was fuzzy from the night's too-little sleep and still painfully aroused, to the point where she was becoming quite testy as a result.
Two hours into it, she ended up almost colliding with the exhibition stands after the handle of her broom rubbed her just right between her legs as she shifted. The result was an electric shot straight up her spine that had felt so good her eyes had rolled back in her head, but she lost control of the broom and tumbled downward at a dangerously accelerated rate. Before she was able to pull out of the crazy descent, she hit her arm on a passing wooden beam and bruised it something fierce. With a Healer on-call for such emergencies, she was quickly salved up with Anti-Bruise paste, but when offered the foul-tasting pain medication to go along with it, she flat-out refused, not liking how drowsy it tended to make her.
Calling her done an hour earlier than usual, the coach sent her home with a warning to get some rest. Grouchy at being so dismissed, Rose Apparated home, showered again, and changed into a sexy lingerie set, a pair of Muggle jeans, a favorite tee, and a pair of comfy trainers. Putting her hair up into a high ponytail, she applied some lip gloss and mascara, and decided to ignore her coach's advice. Instead, she decided she'd surprise her boyfriend and catch him as he was finishing up his own training. Perhaps she could convince him to join her for a little fun in the Alley.
If there was anyone who could help get her out of her funk, it was Corwin, surely.
X~~~~~X
The Magpies were just calling it a day when she appeared at the edge of their pitch. As the team members descended on their brooms, they recognized her (how could they not in what she was wearing?), calling out 'hullo!' and making good-natured ribs about her poor taste in apparel.
Corwin's grin stretched from ear to ear as soon as he saw her, and he laughed out loud at her choice of tees. "It's laundry day, yeah, and that was the only clean shirt you had available?" he teased, dismounting his broom and hurrying over to her to gather her up in a big, sweaty hug.
"Don't you like it?" she coyly asked, fingering over the lettering of her purple and white 'I heart the Holyhead Harpies' shirt. "I thought it would bring a little splash of colour into your world. Your uniforms are so terribly dull, Cor. White on black on grey - monochromatic much?"
He spanked her arse once and growled in her ear, "Makes me want to rip it off of you and shag you hard right here."
On board for a good rough-and-tumble just then, she rubbed her crotch against one of his thick, powerful thighs. "Why don't you?" she dared him, her nose meeting his, her eyes half-lidded in challenge.
Challenge accepted in a flat second, he lifted her easily with one arm, remounted his broom, and flew them to the top of one of the observation towers. As soon as they got there, he dropped his broom and kissed her, all open-mouthed and breathing desperation to have at her again.
After casting the combination Contraceptive-Disease Charm upon her belly, her wand and their clothing were lost in a tussle of quick movements, and then he had her pulled onto his lap and impaled upon his very stiff cock as he sat on the bench and they faced each other. Cajoling her with naughty words, Corwin bounced her up and down on his lap with fervor. Despite being slick and more than ready, it became exasperatingly clear to Rose within moments that she wouldn't be able to come, her body not responding to her boyfriend as it had previously. She faked it, though, not wanting him to know her disappointment, crying out with him and mimicking the motions as if she were experiencing orgasm as he came inside her.
I will not cry, she firmly told herself in the afters. A girl doesn't always come every single time she has sex, after all.
Reasoning that her failure to achieve release was most likely a result of the fact that she'd already gotten off a couple of times that morning, and pardoning her sham orgasm by telling herself that Cor probably hadn't noticed anyway, she held back her tears and kissed him, allowing her mouth to properly revere him even if the rest of her body couldn't.
I will not cry!
"That was awesome, Rosie," Cor practically purred in contentment in her ear, his hot breath blasting against her throat. "You are always so amazing." He lightly spanked her again and kissed her hard. "So, did you come all the way over here just to molest me, then?"
She shook her head, playing lightly with the short hair near his left ear. "I wanted to know if you would go to the Alley with me for some ice cream, actually."
"I'm allergic to dairy. Lactose intolerant," he admitted somewhat sheepishly. "But I can come along and watch you eat all the fattening ice cream you want."
Something about the way he'd said that didn't settle well with her. "I'd only get a small scoop, hardly enough to put anything on my hips. And it's not like I don't exercise like mad." She shrugged, her mood plummeting even further. "We could go somewhere else if you wanted instead. Maybe Flourish & Blotts? The Scamanders have a new book out. Could be fun to find out what new creatures they've discovered on their safaris around the world."
He shook his head, amused. "Only you, Rosie, could find a trip to the book store a romantic date setting."
Now her mood was turning black. Disentangling from her lover, a cool breeze hit her fanny, and she looked about, realizing in a second that not only was she completely naked for the whole world to see, but additionally, she was feeling a touch emotionally vulnerable from Cor's unintentional callousness. She quickly gathered her clothes and redressed, then reclaimed her wand. "What's wrong with that?" Casting aScourgify over herself to get rid of the mess of their sex, she shook her head. "Look, let's just forget it. It was a spur-of-the-moment idea, anyway. Not well-thought out, I know." Fiddling with her wand, she refused to look at him, staring out over the wide expanse of the empty pitch, her mind absently noting the landscape. "Honestly, I'm a little more tired than I thought, I guess. And what we just did…" Made me feel a little weird, she thought, but did not say it aloud. "We can try again another day."
As she stepped away, Cor grabbed her hand and stopped her. Unabashedly, magnificently nude, he made his feet and came to her, hugging her tightly into his chest. "I'm sorry if I said something to make you upset, Rosie. I was just playing." He kissed her temple. "Let me get dressed, and we'll go to Fortescue's and Flourish & Blott's, okay? We'll have a nice evening together."
I WILL NOT CRY!
She shoved the thought down her throat, determined not to be so stupid and weepy. It was only an orgasm, for Circe's sake—no big deal.
Even as she nodded in acquiescence to her boyfriend's plan, in the back of her head, a little voice kept whispering to her that her inability to find sexual enjoyment with Corwin was a much bigger deal than she was admitting to, however.
X~~~~~X
Thursday, July 3rd, 2031 (morning-afternoon-evening)
Scorpius hadn't come to her last night, thank Merlin.
That turned out to have been a very fortuitous thing, too, because Rose had been having a rather delicious dream involving Scorpius fucking her to heaven up against a wall in Hogwarts' dungeon. She'd climaxed as his cock had pounded her wet, eager core, and she'd again when he'd cried out that he'd loved her as he come deep inside her. Then, even as he'd shuddered and released into her, he'd sunk his sharp Veela fangs deep into her throat in the ultimate proof of his possession of her body, and she'd orgasmed again.
That last time had been so intense she'd woken up, sweating and shaking, her body singing with lust. God, she'd have died of embarrassment if he'd seen how willing and wanton she'd been for him!
Staring up at her too-white ceiling now, Rose dashed away the frustrated tears from the sides of her face, letting anger cool her ardour. In truth, she was disturbed and knocked off-kilter by the growing strength of her desires for Scorpius, while her feelings for Corwin, the man she'd been falling in love with before any of this had begun, were continued to diminish.
None of it was right or fair! She hadn't asked for this to happen, and apparently, she couldn't escape it either. Magic and a fucked up set of laws were going to assure it.
No! Absolutely not!
In the end, this forced mating was nothing more than a rape of her free will, and eventually, of her body. Well, she wasn't going to lie here and let that happen to her, like some helpless female! She was a Weasley, of a Granger, and that meant she would straighten this mess out, even if she had to lay someone out flat to do it!
Today, there was no practice, so after a quick shower and breakfast, she headed down to the Ministry law library to do some research on the legal issues surrounding Veela matings. She held onto hope that there may yet be a way out of this arrangement with Malfoy, thoughts of a future with Corwin foremost in her mind. Jen the Librarian was extremely helpful in gathering up resource materials and allowing her to use a Replication Spell (an invention of her mum's) to take home pertinent pages. Together, they managed to copy over one-hundred and fifty pages worth of material – everything the library could offer on the subject.
That had taken the better part of the day to accomplish, and it wasn't until four o'clock that Rose had dragged her bum back to her flat, a thick stack of paperwork in hand.
Lucy had appeared with Eleri and Lily around six o'clock to convince her to temporarily abandon her efforts to grab some dinner with them in the Alley.
Changing her grungy clothing for something more appropriate, the girls headed out to Ringo's, a wizarding pub named in honor of the half-blood former member of that famous insect group that the Muggles had gone bananas over some seventy years previously. The place was packed, as Thursday nights were always specialty drink nights.
Ordering a pint of beer on tap and a burger with chips from the bar (standard fare now in the wizarding world, after the war had seen an increase in the adoption of many things Muggle, most especially the food selections), Rose took a seat next to her friends at a table against the wall and watched the comings and goings of her fellow magical practitioners, all the while enjoying the sounds of a live classic rock band playing a set cover of songs by The Weird Sisters in the corner of the room.
"So, how's the thing with Scor coming?" Eleri launched right in during a lull in the music.
Rose shrugged, trying to play it cool. "He's invaded my dreams again – tried to get me to admit to liking him physically."
Lily snorted. "That's not too hard a task. Have you seen his arse in jeans?"
Lucy simply nodded in agreement.
Sighing, Rose tried to convey her annoyance. "It's not that simple. I'm with Corwin."
From across the table, Eleri's odd violet eyes watched her carefully as her friend sipped a margarita. "So, you're not going to break it off with McLaggen, then - even while Scorpius is chasing you?"
"Why should I?" Rose asked. "He's probably shagging his way through London even as we speak."
"Doesn't that bother you?" Lucy asked gently. "I mean, I'd be angry, if it were me."
Snorting, Rose took a good swig of her drink. Maybe she would get nice and hammered tonight. She could just take a hangover potion in the morning before heading off to practice… "It's not like it would be a big surprise. He's a total slag and everyone knows it. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd had half our class and then some back in school."
"I bet he did," Lucy reminded her. "Well, except me. I can't speak for the rest of you, but I, regretfully, never got a piece of that. I know Alicia didn't either – she was too hot for Marcus the whole time we were in school. Molly – she won't do younger guys. It's older men for her or bust. The twins… eh… maybe. Who can say with them?"
Rose filled her mouth with a bite of her burger rather than reply and come off sounding catty. In between chewing, she considered how many of her family members might have actually slept with her supposed Veela mate. Had Lily? What about Roxanne, Victoire, Dominique? Hell, for all she knew, he might have even seduced her Aunt Audrey after her divorce! Or worse, Albus, who was obviously bi.
Jesus, had he fucked men, too? If so, that could exponentially up the number of partners he'd had!
Seriously, had anyone not fucked Scorpius Malfoy, aside from the obvious?
"You okay, Rose?" Lily asked. "You look a little green around the gills."
Rose chugged some of her beer. "Can we not talk about my supposed 'mate' and his slaggy sex habits? I'm eating."
Everyone went silent at the table again, only this time, there was a palpable awkwardness.
"Sorry," she grumbled when her mouth was clear. "It's just… we kissed."
Eleri started, and swiftly looked up at her, surprise evident in her features.
"Not in the real world," she amended. "In the dream."
Squirming in her seat, she realized how uncomfortable it was to admit such a thing aloud because it meant, first and foremost that she couldn't deny it later to any of these people (or to the rest of her family and friends, because word of this conversation was definitely going to get around), and second, that she had, in fact, cheated on Corwin – and with his cousin, no less. Rose had never done such a scandalous, disloyal thing before, and found the guilt a terrible sensation to live with now. How had her mother been able to do this – love one man in her secret heart while lying in bed next to her husband?
"H-how did that come about?" Eleri asked, putting her sandwich back down on her plate and politely wiping her mouth with her napkin.
Rose took a deep breath. In for a Sickle… "I was having a nightmare, and he must have felt my distress through the… bond, connection, whatever it is we've got going now. He went in and pulled me out of it, into a calmer dreaming state. I don't remember what the nightmare was about, but I felt 'off' after that. I was weak. And he was so very nice! Polite, even. Almost charming. Completely different from our childhood days. It was hard not to… not to want to…"
She glanced at Lily and Lucy, noting their meaningful smirks.
"Oh, stop. It's not like I wanted to–"
Actually, she had wanted to, and that was the problem.
God, her cheeks felt like they were on fire!
Clearing her throat, Rose attempted to regain a bit of her dignity from where it lay on the floor among the rushes. "Whatever. A moment of weakness, that's all it was. And he most likely worked that freaky Veela mojo on me anyway, so absolutely none of it was my fault."
"Freaky mojo? Right," Lily snarked, stealing a chip from Rose's plate and nibbling on it. "He was wearing jeans, wasn't he? I told you, his arse is fantastic in jeans!"
"How would you know?" Rose snapped at her cousin, bristling at the thought of Lily checking out her mate's–
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.
Mate. She'd actually thought the word. Acknowledged it. Not good AT ALL. It was time to throttle back on the harpy and focus. She took a deep breath and let it out nice and slow. "Sorry, Lils. Ignore me. I'm feeling–"
"–like a psycho Veela beast?" Lucy supplied.
"Off," she countered, sticking her tongue out at Lucy. "I'm feeling off tonight, too."
"Did you like it?" Eleri asked. "Kissing Scorpius."
Rose stubbornly set her jaw and picked back up her hamburger. "It doesn't matter. I'm dating Corwin." She took a big bite out of her food, energetically munching it down.
"She liked it," Lily informed them dry amusement. She ignored Rose's glare as she tipped her head back and took a shot of something clear and, apparently, strong.
Rose stuck her tongue out at her cousin. According to Albus, Lily was "a bloody instigator," always stirring the pot and setting it on a gentle roil until it bubbled over. She came by the talent naturally, though, so Rose couldn't fully fault her; all of the Weasley women (and those who'd married into the clan) had a thing about provoking snakes. It seemed an innate charm the witches in their family shared.
Lucy became disgustingly moony-eyed. "I bet Scorpius loved kissing you Rose. A chance to finally let you know how he'd felt all those years back in school."
She snorted. "According to you girls, he had let me know back then. Remember, that embarrassing mutual wank-frig fest in the dungeon you all said I'd participated in?" She took a swig off her beer glass and pointed at Lily in accusation. "I brought it up to him, and Alicia was right: he didn't remember the incident. That meant it hadn't meant much to him either." She took another healthy nip of her beer before putting the glass down and picking back up her burger. She turned it around and around, inspecting it as she spoke, seeking a good position from which to take her next bite. "The kissing was only to prove we weren't compatible."
"But you were, weren't you?" Eleri asked.
Her froze and glanced up at her best girlfriend, unwilling to admit the truth aloud. Somehow, that felt as if it would spell her doom.
"Well, well. Rosie finally got something wrong," Lily needled, waggling her eyebrows. "I bet Scorpius just loved proving such a thing to you."
Rose felt her cheeks color, and she dropped her eyes, and her burger, to her plate.
"Ignore her, Rose," Lucy offered, putting a comforting hand on hers. "Lily's just jealous. No bloke'll have her."
"Not true!" Lily hotly disputed. "I bet I could have any man in this place in ten minutes, if I wanted!"
The girls started bickering, but the fight ended almost as fast as it had begun when Lucy threw her waded up napkin at her cousin and told her to, "Shush, so we can get back to Rose's problems!"
"So, your opinion of Scorpius hasn't changed?" Eleri asked, getting them back on track.
Rose shook her head. "I can't let this mating happen. It goes against everything I believe regarding a woman's right to equal personhood and personal sovereignty. And it's invasive as hell. Besides, I refuse to allow Scorpius Malfoy the opportunity to magically control me, especially with something as base as sex pheromones. I don't trust him not to hurt me, not just emotionally, but physically."
"You think he'd beat you?" Lucy asked, chewing on the end of another stolen chip from Rose's plate. "I thought the Veela was a protector, not an abuser. That's what Dominique's thesis papers all say about them."
It was time her friends knew the whole truth. "Honestly, I really don't like his Veela. It scares me a little. It talks as if it already owns me, and it stares at me as if it already knows what I look like under my clothes." She squirmed and shivered with the creeps at the thought. "Besides, there are other ways to hurt a person that may not seem like violence at the time. My mum mated Scorpius' dad a few days ago. She told me all about it, and it sounded pretty violent, even though she claimed to have loved every second of it. There were bruises all over her where he'd left love bites and where his hands had dug in, and that's just what I could see. And she had a scar on her neck where he'd bitten her and sealed it over with magic. She says it'll never go away – that it's his mark, branding her as his." She sniffed in disdain. "As if she was chattel. How positively barbaric."
If not for the background noise of the pub, the silence between the four of them would have been très uncomfortable.
"Your mum and his dad?" Lucy finally broke the stalemate, her tone incredulous.
"Holy shit," Lily breathed out a heavy exhale. "Aunt Hermione shagged Scor's dad? He mated her? You're kidding?"
Eleri said nothing, her narrowed gaze lost in thought.
Rose shook her head. "Unfortunately, not kidding. They'd been each other's first loves back in their school days, but because of the war, they couldn't be together. They were on opposite sides, as you know from the stories, and then after the war, my mum got together with my dad, so Mister Malfoy had had to take a different mate – Scorpius' mother, Astoria."
"Wait, wait, wait! Wouldn't that make you related now?" Lucy asked, confused. "Your future father-in-law is now your step-dad, and…ewww… that makes your mate your step-brother!"
Rose gave a half-shake of her head. "Mum's not officially marrying Mister Malfoy. He won't be my step-anything, and neither will Scorpius. No blood relation or martial relation at all. She's changing her last name back to Granger, though. That way, there won't be any legal issues." She frowned, still disappointed by that fact. "She's making it clear that she's no longer a Weasley. It almost feels like she's trying to deny she was ever involved with my dad."
Honestly, that bothered Rose a hell of a lot because she and her dad were tight. She adored him – always had, being daddy's little girl.
"Wow, that's… wow," was all Lils could say, shaking her head. "How did your dad and Hugo take the news?"
Rose took a healthy gulp of her drink to whet her whistle, her mouth having run dry with the turning of the conversation. "We went to see them together the same night she came back home. 'Emergency family meeting,' she'd called it. She dropped the bomb without much preamble. You know Hugo, nothing really fazes him. He gave a 'congrats' to mum before heading out to hang with his friends. Dad... he seemed a little sad, but he also seemed as if some riddle had finally been solved for him. There was a… well, an odd kind of resignation in his face. That's the best way to describe it, I guess. He kissed my mum on the cheek and wished her the best in her new life."
"Super big of him," Lily commented. "Even if he has moved on and been married to your step-mum for years, I always got the impression that Uncle Ronnie still carried a torch for Aunt Hermione. My dad always said he, your dad, and your mum were 'The Inseparable Golden Trio,' but now it seems like they've done just that – moved apart, I mean." She pushed her fork around in her lettuce. "That's kind of depressing, actually. Like, it's the end of an era or something."
That sunk in for a few seconds with no one disturbing the thought. Then, Lucy huffed and snapped her fingers, irritated with the swift downturn in the mood. "Lighten up, ladies! You're blargging my happy-factor here!"
Lily shoved a mouthful of salad into her mouth with a muttered, 'sorry.'
Her cousin turned and elbowed Rose in the ribs. "So, tell us more about this kiss." She giggled like the deadhead she often pretended to portray. "Oooh, and what about Corwin? Merlin's hairy bollocks, Rose, now you've got two of the most eligible bachelors in all of the wizarding U.K. courting you! Talk about a dilemma!" Her eyes positively sparkled with excitement. "Or maybe you can have both of them! I've always been curious about ménage a trois action." She sighed with longing and sat back in her seat, a dreamy look on her face. "How utterly sexy and romantic!"
Eleri finished her margarita and set the glass down, still not looking anyone in the eye.
Rose picked back up her hamburger, refusing to let thoughts of Scorpius Malfoy ruin her appetite on top of everything else. "Stop getting all moony on my, Luce. There's no choice to make there. It doesn't matter how good he kisses in a dream, Malfoy comes with entirely too many negative faults – the greatest of which is his inability to stay faithful to a single woman. I refuse to be tied to a tomcat. And I won't let myself become one of those girls – you know the kind that crawls back despite the abuse because the sex is so bloody good. No fecking way."
"So, you're still refusing the mating?" Lily asked. "You really think you can do that?"
Firmly nodding, Rose straightened her spine, resolved. "I'm currently looking for a loophole in the law. That's what all the paperwork was back at my place when you lot showed up. They were copies of legal cases involving Veela. I'm going to sift through every single one of them, and if that's not enough, I'll go back and look for more material. There has to be a way out of this mating shit. It's positively mediaeval to force someone to be married against their will!"
"Before you try to end things, you should kiss him again, for real this time. Just to be sure."
Rose paused with the burger at her lips and stared with astonishment across the table at Eleri. "Come again?"
The former Queen of Slytherin glanced at her through dark, sooty lashes. "Kiss Scorpius outside of the dream. Make sure you don't want him before you toss him aside." She didn't look happy for some odd reason, a frown marring her pretty features.
Rose sniffed, turning her nose up at the suggestion. "Not a chance in hell," she vowed. "Why would you even suggest-?"
Tears streaming down her cheeks, Eleri tossed her napkin onto the table."You're the luckiest bitch in the world, Rose Eleanor Weasley, but you're just too bloody stubborn to see it!"
She ran out of the pub in a very uncharacteristic display of emotion, leaving her three friends confused by her unexpected outburst.
X~~~~~X
Friday, July 4th, 2031 (early morning – just past midnight)
Standing on a green hill, overlooking a valley uninterrupted by civilization, a warm breeze tickled her bare legs. Looking down, she realized she was in a rather short, summer cotton dress that cinched at the waist, buttoned up the middle, had two skimpy straps over her shoulders to hold it up, and nearly showed off her knickers. It was a lovely shade of pastel blue, that she was sure would make her eyes 'pop.' Her feet were bare. Brushing a hand over her head, she realized that her hair was free flowing down her back.
"The dress could be a bit longer," she griped at the presence she felt just behind her, unwilling to give Scorpius any leeway. He was the creator of these dreams, after all, and he could at least provide her with appropriate clothing (not that she didn't like this outfit, because she did, but that was beside the point).
"You look lovely in it," he murmured closing the distance between them, pressing his hard, sculpted body against her back and dipping his mouth to her ear. His breath, only slightly warmer than the air currents about them, made her shiver as it moved past her sensitive skin. "And this way I can properly worship your legs."
Too close. They were too bloody close!
She made to step away from him, but he seemed to have anticipated the intent; his arms came about her to enclose her in a gentle embrace. "Hello, Rose," he greeted her with a soft kiss to her cheek. "I've missed you."
It took her two tries to speak properly. "Let me go. I didn't give you permission to touch me."
He did as she asked without debate, but remained in place, his body brushing against hers. "How have you been? It's been two days. Tell me what you've been doing. How's practice going?"
This familiarity was dangerous. He believed she'd given him the 'green light' when she'd kissed him the last time they'd met in the dream, and now he was taking full advantage of that fact.
Cursing her stupidity for even allowing that line to have been crossed, she shoved back against him to get him to stop crowding her from behind. "Stop this, Scor. We're not friends, so stop pretending as if we were."
He sighed heavily and moved several steps back. "No, we're not friends," he regretfully confirmed, "but, baby, I'm trying to be. Work with me here."
Glancing over her shoulder at him, she was completely taken aback by the vision that greeted her.
Godric almighty, he was a gorgeous man, wasn't he? Dressed in a tight, long-sleeved cotton shirt (black, with some sort of black-silver design on it), snug jeans, and wearing a silver torque about his neck, he cut quite the fetching picture. 'Casual sexy' was her favourite fashion for a fellow, and Scorpius easily carried off the look. His hair was wind-tossed, despite the fact there was no breeze to be felt in this dream, and he sported a bit of a dark gold, five o'clock shadow on his upper lip and cheeks, which added a dash of roguish charm to his very handsome features.
Just the sight of him took her breath away, and made her remember his kiss…
No, she refused to go there! She would not be led about by her sexual urges! She was a reasoned, rational girl!
She turned back around, refusing to allow the sight of Scorpius distract her.
"I don't suppose I'm getting out of here until we talk," she said with a touch of cynicism in her tone, "so fine, let's talk. Wednesday, I went to Quidditch practice. They're teaching me a new tactic for rolling to catch the Snitch, one of Oliver Wood's new maneuvers specifically designed for me as a favor to the team's owner, I was told."
She shrugged, making it into no big deal in the hopes of moving that conversation right along, jumping over her liaison with Corwin all together.
"Today was pretty long and tiring. I spent some time at the Ministry, and later met up with my girlfriends for dinner in the Alley. We were talking, and Eleri got mad at me and stormed out. I hurt her feelings without meaning to. I'm honestly not even sure why our discussion would get her so angry, but she was crying when she left. I feel really awful about that."
She was so sending her friend an apology owl tomorrow, giving her time to cool-down so they could try to work out the issue.
"And now I'm here," she finished succinctly. "The end. Can I go now?"
"No."
With a resentful sigh, she faced him and plopped her bum down on the grass. Arranging her skirt to cover her as much as possible, she kept her legs tightly closed and off to the side.
"What will it take for you to get the clue that I'm not interested in you or your stupid Veela games?"
Scorpius sat down nearby in the grass, stretching his long legs out before him, leaning back on the palms of his hands. "Stop trying so bloody hard to be mad at me all the time, Rose, especially about this. Do you think I had any more choice in it than you did? I didn't. I'm making the best of it though. And… shit, is it really so bloody awful wanting to get to know you better, to maybe even clear the air between us?"
He sounded bitter and sad there at the end. The emotion pulled at her heartstrings.
Alright, so she wasn't exactly being fair, was she? If what she'd read and been told was correct, then he'd had no say in who the Veela magic had chosen for his mate any more than she'd had, and that meant he didn't really deserve her scorn. It was more the circumstances that galled her, having her hand forced by magic and nature—two things she'd always trusted to do right by her. It was the broken system of government that enforced her enslavement to a magical mating rather than attempted to scientifically find a way out of it that upset her.
The Ministry should have been protecting her freedoms and rights, and the rights of all women forced to become Veela mates against their will, but instead it simply threw up its hands and told her and those other women to 'get over' the idea of being forcibly raped and magically bound to a man they may not love or want. It was sick and wrong, and no one seemed to want to do anything to stop it.
She felt helpless.
Was this how Scorpius felt, too?
Maybe he did… and yet, he was really trying, wasn't he? He probably felt as hand-tied as she did, but like any Slytherin backed into a corner, he was making the best of it, as he'd said. He appeared to be of the mindset that he was going to turn this disadvantageous situation to his advantage.
Should she try to do the same, as her mother had with her own mating? Or should she continue to fight and rail against the mating, as her Gryffindor father would probably encourage her to do?
Her Aunt Fleur had seemed very firm on the fact that the mating wasn't something she could fight. She seemed to think a biological and magical inheritance was an inescapable destiny, and that Rose would be better off finding equilibrium rather than generating conflict in this case. And Rose's mother did seem incredibly happy with her own mating; she'd deemed that what she and Draco Malfoy had rediscovered was fate…and her mum didn't much hold with the concept, generally speaking.
Rose had to wonder: was this whole Veela mating thing, perhaps, a second chance for her and Scorpius, then, too?
As a former Ravenclaw, she needed more time to ponder the issue before making a firm decision as to which path she could take. She needed more information, more data collection. She didn't feel she knew enough about the Malfoy Veela inheritance to know if it was even possible to fight it.
She needed to buy some time.
"Okay," she sighed in concession and found a spot across from him. Tucking her legs modestly under her, she looked down at her hands in her lap. "You're right. We can be civil. This doesn't have to be adversarial. We're adults now. So… I apologise for the fight I started at Madam Puddifoot's the other day."
Scorpius perked up, as if her concession had given him the spark of hope he'd needed. He tossed her a shy, embarrassed smile. "And I apologise for the things I said then as well. Our history… I know it's not easy for either of us. Maybe we can try to… overlook it for right now."
"Eventually, we'll need to talk about it, though," she pointed out. "We can't ignore it forever."
He nodded. "I know, but for tonight, let's just talk about other things."
"Okay."
"Okay."
A wary silence followed. It lasted for an awkward minute or two before Rose finally broke it. "So, um, what's it like living with a Veela?"
Her…what was he to her, exactly—her not-quite-yet mate?…grinned and shook his head. "I forgot you go right for the throat. I'll tell you what I told Marcus: it's like living with a horny sixteen-year old sibling you can't shake off. All he ever goes on about is claiming you as his, the pushy, little bastard."
Scorpius spoke of his Veela as a separate entity again, just as he had the other day. It was strange, but her Aunt Fleur talked about a Veela as being a part of the person it shared a life with, like a werewolf, and yet the way Rose's mum spoke about Mr. Malfoy's Veela and in Scorpius' own case, there was a clear distinction made between man and monster.
It was time to find out more.
"Tell me about him, your other half," she said. "It would help me to understand you both better."
Scorpius seemed decidedly pleased with her interest. "Where do you want me to start?"
"At the beginning," she encouraged, utilizing some of the tactics she'd learned over the years in prying information from others. Eleri had been her best teacher to that effect. "Why is your family tied to the Veela, and for how long has that been going on?"
He gave her a look that silently asked if she really wanted to know such a thing, no matter how bat-shit insane it might sound, and she returned it with one that clearly told him, "Yes, now get on with it."
He grinned and sat up, crossing his long legs under him. "Right, well, you asked for it...According to my family's private records, the first Veela interbred into my family in the late-sixteenth century. My ancestor, Theodosis Black, ingratiated himself into the scourge known as 'The Roman Inquisition,' in an effort to find and eliminate Muggle-born witches and wizards, under the guise of aiding the Roman Catholic Church's cause. He was a pure-blood bigot who wanted to purge all possibility of Muggle-born magic users from breeding with wizards and witches, and the Inquisition gave him the ability and the right to do so under Muggle law."
He winced and shook his head with regret.
"When the French Wizarding Ministry caught up to ol' Theodosis, though, he was punished for his transgressions. At the time, there were no wizarding prisons, as Azkaban hadn't been yet turned from Ekrizdis' fortress into a prison until the early 1700's and Nuremgard wasn't built by Grindewald until the early twentieth century. Great-great granddad's story took place in the latter-half of the sixteenth century, and they were a lot more brutal back then than they are now. In those days, a wizard found guilty of heinous crimes was punished not by being physically locked up, but by being magically castrated.
"As part of his guilty sentence, Theodosis had his wand confiscated and his magic sealed away inside him so he could never use it again. Further, because he'd been such a bad boy, my ancestor was banished from western Europe and sent east to the Ottoman Empire—which, at the time, had a strict policy of beheading any believed wizards and witches. He was cursed never to set foot again on land this side of the Aegean Sea. He'd had his last name stripped from him and was instead given the official designation 'Le Mal Foi,' meaning he was a follower of what the French Ministry had deemed the 'Bad Faith,' for his crimes against the wizarding community."
Rose considered such a fate. How awful would it be never to be able to use magic again? It was the foundation of everything she was, and was almost as necessary to her as air. She couldn't imagine wanting to live after being given such a sentence.
Scorpius shifted, tucking those long legs of his against his chest. He lay his arms over them, the muscles bunching as he did so.
Merlin Almighty, he had a fine body, didn't he? He'd definitely grown up, filled out...become fit.
She had to shift her gaze to his feet to avoid feeling the burn of arousal again. Thankfully, Scorpius didn't seem to notice, too engrossed in his story.
"The Ministry expected Theodosis to die outright from such a sentence, either at the hands of the Turks or his own. He was a very clever Slytherin, though, and learned early on how to turn bad situations into advantages, and how to blend into new environments. Within a dozen years, he'd became quite the successful merchant and had started a rather prosperous trade in herbs."
Rose knew, from her reading, what that really meant. "Herbs?" she knowingly smirked at him. "You mean he was fronting as a legitimate business to smuggle in cannabis, I presume?"
Her companion grinned. "Scandalous, right?" He lost his teasing smile a moment later, however. "Actually, from what I gather, Theodosis sold more than marijuana. He was into all sort of sex-enhancing and sex-suppressing drugs, selling them on the sly to rich customers, like the sultan's hasekis, the favourite concubines among his harem. The reason why my family carries the curse of the Veela is because of him and his drugs, in fact."
"Curse?" she frowned, taken aback. "I thought it was a hereditary gift, since Veela are very powerful magical creatures."
Scorpius shook his head firmly. "Believe me, it's a curse."
"How‒?"
"I'm getting to it, if you'd let me."
Clamping her lips together, Rose let him finish, interested in getting to the bottom of this particular mystery.
"It was in the early spring of his fifty-second year when Theodosis met a beautiful, blonde woman on his way to the market," he continued. "She was a pure-blood Veela female, an Amazon, and it turned out that my ancestor was her mate. She'd spent a whole year tracking him down, walking the width and breadth of the Ottoman Empire to find him, sensing him nearby. Her name was Daneetzah, and she was a daughter from the line of Amazon Queens. Being a pure-blood snob about magical heritage and inter-species marriage, though, Theodosis refused her outright, despite her titles. Despite his rejection, she tried to woo him as a proper mate. When that didn't work, she tried her Veela magic to force his hand. He turned to his sex-supressing drugs to resist her compulsion."
Wow. That was shocking...and enlightening. "And what were the names of these anaphrodisiacs?" she slyly asked, trying to make it seem an innocuous question.
Scorpius glared at her. "I know of only one: Monk's Pepper. But I wouldn't suggest you try it if I were you. I've heard it has nasty side-effects." He gave her a sinister grin.
"I didn't mean‒"
"Yes, you did."
Rose sighed. He still knew her too well, even after all their years apart. Bloody git.
"Just continue," she prompted, filing Monk's Pepper into the back of her brain for research later.
He gave her one last glance that said he knew she was later going to go home and research the shit out of that little factoid he'd let slip, and then he rolled his eyes at the futility of fighting her on it and let that dog lie.
Plucking a blade of grass from the imaginary lawn instead, he twirled it between his strong, pale fingers. "The herbs great-great-grandad consumed worked like a charm to repel Daneetzah, although they did leave his testosterone at such low levels that ol' Theodosis couldn't get a boner to save his life until he went off them for a week or more at a time."
He pulled some clover up next and began playing with it, bringing it to his nose and sniffing its subtle, earthy fragrance. "For months, she followed him around, trying to romance him instead, but he was having none of it. Theodosis continued working, growing his little 'herb' empire, and whenever he felt the need to scratch and itch, he'd go off the berries and bring home rented women to keep him company. A year after they met, Daneetzah had finally enough of that shit, though, and she nearly killed one of his lovers in a fit of jealous rage.
"When that happened, Theodosis realized that she was a real threat to everything he'd spent years building. So, he captured her and imprisoned her in his home to assure she couldn't cause him any more problems ever again. He chained her to the floor with iron cuffs—the metal works against Veela the same as it does to the Fae—and he cut off her wings, which took away a lot of her magical ability. He went off the berries permanently once she was contained, fucked her when he wanted to get off, and ignored her the rest of the time."
He tossed the clover away and looked off to the side at the horizon, clearly upset. "He denied her at every turn, the rutting, lousy bastard, and he hurt her often simply because he could."
He was silent for several minutes, until finally Rose prompted him, "A she cursed him for that?"
Scorpius shook his head. "No, she cursed him for killing her."
Sucking air in between her teeth in a hiss, Rose was shocked at the tragedy and level of violence perpetrated in Theodosis' mating. Would it be the same with her, if she kept denying Scorpius? Would she drive him to kill Corwin in a fit of jealous rage? Would she have to kill him to make him stop? Was that what it would take?
A chill ran up her spine and she hugged herself tightly, trying to will it away.
Scorpius noticed her reaction, his eyes flickering to her, catching every movement, but it was clear from his reply that he misunderstood her action, thinking it was a result of the story alone. "Awful, I know," he said. "But it gets worse. Daneetzah eventually became pregnant from my ancestor's frequent attentions. When Theodosis found out about the baby, he flew into a rage, intending upon murdering the child once it was born, seeing it as a half-breed, which to him was worse than a half-blood. Desperate to save her unborn child, Daneetzah gnawed off one of her hands at the wrist and used the blood to slick the other cuff enough so she could squeeze her wrist through and make her escape."
Rose shuddered, sickened at the mental picture of the poor, brutalized woman being forced into an act of self-mutilation—dismemberment—to save herself and her baby. "Merlin," she whispered, feeling suddenly small and vulnerable. "I hope she got far away from that evil bastard."
"Sadly, no," Scorpius replied. "They were mates, whether he wanted her or not, and she was compelled by Veela biology to be near him. She stayed hidden, but couldn't be too far away, so she found a space in a building near where Theodosis lived, one with a view of his home so she could watch him coming and going. I'm sure there were chances for her to touch, smell, and hear him, too, because the marketplaces where he worked were always crowded and would have let her blend in. See, Veela sicken when there's prolonged separation from their mates. It's because they're creatures who live in the now and thrive on sensory input—touch, sound, sight, taste, scent. It's what they need to achieve happiness and to stay healthy."
"Oh," she said.
Well, that explained his touching her and trying to convince her to kiss him, even if it was only in this freaky dream world. Clearly, his Veela needed stimulation of any kind, or else he'd suffer.
"I take it your ancestor eventually caught her, though," she said, "since he eventually killed her."
Scorpius nodded. "See, at first, Theodosis didn't care that she was gone with the sprog, but then ten years went by and he never married or had another child with any of the women he bought for...private entertainment. By that time, my ancestor was a grey-headed geezer because he'd never properly mated the Veela. He didn't let Daneetzah mark him, so he didn't benefit from the prolonged life that comes with the Veela mating package. Also, because his magic had been shut off from him, his health and lifespan were greatly reduced and he was more Muggle by then. At that age, during that time period, he was considered ancient. He knew his only heir would be the boy child he'd conceived with his Veela mate. So, to prevent his line from dying out, Theodosis had to do the absolute unthinkable: he'd decided to accept the half-breed child as his, give it his name, and raise it with the lie that it was a pure-blood human wizard."
"What a hypocritical bastard!" Rose replied, indignant on behalf of poor, neglected Daneetzah, who'd had to give birth to the child on her own and probably had struggled in poverty, alone, to raise it.
It was then that it struck her: Veela were as trapped by their biology as their mates. They really had little choice in the matter as well.
Suddenly, Scorpius' claims and his persistence to pursue their relationship made a lot more sense, and although she didn't want to sympathize with him, Rose found herself doing so.
"Yeah, he was that and more," Scorpius agreed. "Theodosis tracked down his Veela mate fairly quickly, only in a matter of weeks, using his wealth and the contacts he'd made selling his blackmarket herbs on the streets. When he finally caught up with her, he walked right up to Daneetzah and stuck a dagger in her chest, then tore her son from her arms and claimed it as his."
"Oh, my god!"
Rose trembled at the imagery. Murdered by the one person in the world you were meant to love...
"Daneetzah had her revenge on him, though," he said. "As she lay mortally wounded, she hurled a final curse at her mate with her dying breath: all heirs in his bloodline, starting with their own son when he reached the age of maturity, age twenty-five for Veela males, would be cursed to know her pain, tied by soul and by blood to the very beast Theodosis despised until someone in his line was worthy enough to earn the forgiveness of the blooded Amazon and to love the Elohim within. She then sealed the enchantment with the blood of her wound and died."
So, that was it. A Death Curse was responsible for the Malfoy family's unhappiness.
That explained everything.
All witched and wizards knew Death Curses were the most horrific type of magic imaginable, used only by the most depraved or vengeful people, as their effects required a human sacrifice, and bound the souls of the spell caster and the one cursed in perpetuity, preventing them from passing beyond the Veil. Their trapped souls would remain restless, inimical spirits in constant pain, unable to find rest until the curse was reversed—if such a thing was even possible.
"After she died, Theodosis adopted and renamed his nine-year-old boy," Scorpius continued. "He called him 'Lycinus Black', and he spent the next decade and then some convincing his only son all about his heritage as a member of an elite family of pure-blood wizards living in France, reliving those 'glory days'...and beating those same ideals into the son he simultaneously resented for being a half-breed. As a result, Lycinus grew up hating his father."
A homicidal mate and an abusive, deceitful father. Truly, this Theodosis Black was the most vilest wizard to have ever walked the earth, Rose thought. Being called a man of 'bad faith' hadn't been nearly enough to describe him.
"I hope he tore the man's heart out when he grew up," she said.
"He might as well have," Scorpius replied with smug satisfaction. "Years later, as Theodosis lay on his death bed from illness, Lycinus renounced the name 'Black'. He informed his father that the man would die alone and penniless, too, as Lycinus intended on taking all the money Theodosis had made from his herb empire to make his way back to France and to solicit a curse-breaker to get rid of his mother's curse. Nothing would be spent on Theodosis' medicines to prolong his life any further. The stress of that put Theodosis over the edge and he died raving and cursing his son. He swore he'd haunt Lycinus for his treachery, but Lycinus simply laughed at him, took everything he could, and left."
"Good," Rose pronounced. "Justice was served."
"On that end, sure, but not for Lycinus. He never did get rid of the curse."
"Was it just that the curse-breakers back then weren't as skilled?" she wondered.
Scorpius shrugged. "I think the problem was not many people knew about Veela magic, which is as different from wizarding magic as house-elf magic. All I know is this: he took his father's private journals and other belongings and moved to France to start over, and he did hire as many curse-breakers as he could find, from what his own notes say. However, as his first quarter century approached, they hadn't found any way to break the spell, and the best Lycinus could come up with was a ritual we still use today upon our change. It utilizes his knowledge about medicinal herbs, which he'd learned from Theodosis during the years they were together, to create this concoction which relaxes us, so our changed magical aura will open to divining visions of the future. Basically, it was intended to help Lycinus locate his mate fast, so he didn't end up traveling all over the world looking for her, as his mother had his father. I guess it was his contingency plan."
"So, obviously his Veela emerged when he was twenty-five and he found a mate," she said, "Who was she?"
Scorpius nodded. "A daughter of the Flint family. And as twins were common on her side, their first mating resulted in the conception of twin boys, Brutus and Pontus. Brutus is my direct ancestor."
"Was that when Lycinus changed his name to Malfoy?"
"No, that was Brutus. After ditching dear ol' dad, Lycinus simply called himself Nemo, which is Latin for 'no man' or 'nobody'. However, Brutus didn't take that name himself. Turns out, he and Lycinus didn't get on, as he preferred the Flint side of the family. They were big pure-blood supremacists who preached about a complete divorce with the Muggle world and all who associated with Muggles. When Brutus found Theodosis' journals among his father's things, he read them and realized he'd come from pure-blood stock, too. After that, he began to idolize both his grandfathers and eventually took the last name 'Malfoy' in honor of Theodosis' nickname granted him by the French Ministry. He thought what Theodosis had done during the Inquisition was several shades of awesome."
"And his twin?"
"Pontus?" Scorpius shrugged. "The journal only says he followed in his father's footsteps, taking the last name Nemo. He married some witch from Ayrshire. That's all I know about him."
Having exhausted that line of conversation, Rose struggled to come up with another line of questioning. The longer she could keep Scorpius talking, the less chance there was of him putting the moves on her in this dream. She may have learned a lot over the course of their talk, and her feelings towards Scorpius may have softened a bit, but that didn't mean she had any intention of allowing him to magically bind her to him for life. They were virtual strangers, after all, having only recently reconnected after eight years apart, and he had quite the reputation with the ladies, and really, she was still galled by the idea that she had no say whatsoever in who she would take as a husband. Besides, she had no intention of becoming a breeder quite this soon in life, as she still had several years of a Quidditch career left in her.
"Well, that's quite a tale," she said. "There's still so much to know about this whole... process, though, that I have questions about, and I'd really appreciate it if we could talk about those things. For instance, what does mating entail? What are the differences between male and female Veela mating techniques? In what ways, specifically, are Veela and humans different? I know they're a completely different species, like goblins, giants, house-elves, hags, and fairy folk, and that you get a longer lifespan being part-Veela, but just how physically and socially different are they from humans? Are you and your Veela considered a half-breed entity, or are you two entities sharing the same body, like a werewolf? If you could just–"
Unfortunately, Scorpius cut her short. "I know what you're doing, Rose. Stalling until holding onto this dream exhausts me so it won't get any chance for the Veela to be with you won't work, you know."
Rolling to his hands and knees, he quickly began crawling towards her. He moved too fast for her to gain her feet, and was in her face within seconds. "I've missed you," he said in a sexy purr. His gaze dipped to her lips. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about the kisses we shared, or the feel of you in my arms." He slowly reached up, so as not to scare her with the sudden movement, and cupped her cheek. "The memory of your soft moans and your trembling body pressing against mine have haunted me."
His eyes swirled with liquid metal as his Veela came forward once more.
"I remember you, mate," he murmured, that strange conflux of voices lowering, becoming sultry and enticing. "I remember your scent and flavour, and the feel of your tight, soft body wrapped around mine from that night so long ago. I've waited forever for another taste."
Sudden, swift panic shot ice through Rose's veins.
His Veela was free; he was touching her again!
Her heart started inexplicably racing, and as a trapped animal would do while attempting escape, she pushed against him desperately, trying to move him, to create extra distance between them. He countered, however, refusing to be denied, pressing forward and forcing her to lay back into the grass to avoid his kiss. She cried out in fear and turned her head as he swooped down to claim her mouth.
"Scorpius, stop him, please! He scares me! Your Veela scares me!"
As intent as he'd been to seduce her, suddenly, Scorpius' Veela went stock-still. He hovered over her, his hot breath gently blasting against the skin of her throat, causing her to shiver from head to toe. Would he bite her now? Could he, in the dream, mate her against her will?
"You don't need to fear us, mate," he tried to reassure her. "We won't harm you."
She shook her head in denial. "You will," she whispered, feeling hateful tears fill her eyes, brim over hotly down her face. "I know you will. I don't trust you!"
He began shaking, and because she couldn't see his face, she wasn't sure if it was from anger or frustration or emotional hurt. When he turned her head with gently applied pressure to her cheek, she flinched and a fearful whimper escaped her lips.
He paused again, put his hand back down and his head lowered against her neck instead. Sighing heavily against her pulse point, he calmed. "Rose, I... we don't want to hurt you," Scorpius told her, the Veela momentarily retreating. "We want to win your love freely, not force it from you. Please let us try."
"He scares me, Scor," she whispered the truth, turning her head so their cheeks brushed. "I'll admit that it's okay being with you, but I don't like him!"
Leaning back, he looked down upon her, his eyes bleeding back to normal, the shadows and harsh angles retreating from his face. "This is going to sound mad, but what if we struck a deal with him—offered him something to keep him satisfied so that we could have time to date properly? I know you're attracted to me Rose, and you know that it's more than reciprocated. Other relationships have started on less." His fingers made a second attempt to touch her and this time, she didn't feel the need to wince or move away. Scorpius was feather-light in his caress of her cheek. "We bribe him to appease his lusts, and that'll give us time to ease into this relationship, to have fun and enjoy each other, rather than constantly be worried about him scaring you with the threat to immediately claim you."
She was insane for even considering it, but the idea had merit. At least it was something they could talk about. At this point, she'd grab onto any insane plan to keep the Veela from continually harassing her. It was bad enough she'd been having more and more nightmares lately, but she just knew by instinct alone that he was the cause of them.
"Bribe him how, exactly?"
He glanced to the side, seemed to focus inward. In a blink, the Veela was back and this time, in full control. Scorpius' face changed in an instant, his hair lengthening, his eyes going dark and more feral. His shirt was gone, and bare-chested he lay atop her, his beautiful white wings with blackened tips unfurling behind him to spread wide in a lazy stretch. Staring down at her with those mercury-coloured eyes, his platinum-blond hair framing his incredibly handsome face, and a body of beautifully-sculpted muscle, he seemed like an angel fallen straight from Heaven.
He scared the living shit out of Rose for a reason she couldn't at all explain, not rationally anyway. It was instinctual, uncontrollable.
"I agree to the idea of a bargain if it will give me a chance to touch you regularly without you screaming your head off," he stated, sounding put out by her dislike of him. "Name your terms, mate."
Rose tried hard to quell the quaking of her limbs, realizing what a compromising position she was currently in, quite literally: Scorpius was lying across her in a very sexual pose, the muscles of his shoulders and arms corded and holding him up with a strength that tempted her to reach out and touch it, just to feel in wonder the power held in check under the flesh. She clenched her hands to keep from making such a mistake.
"You wouldn't be willing to take a different mate, would you?" she hoped, forcing herself to look into his eyes rather than at the gorgeous display of skin so enticingly offered before her.
Scorpius tilted his head, the movement rather raptorish. "No."
That one word dashed her enthusiasm for compromise. "I don't love you, though! I don't want you!"
The Veela merely blinked once at that declaration. "Tell us what you need to accept the mating and we'll negotiate with you for it."
"But I don't want anything from you," she stubbornly refuted, pushing on his shoulders to dislodge him from pinning her down. "I don't want to be your mate!"
His eyes burned hot with irritation at her pronouncement. He lowered his face until he was less than an inch from her lips, his hands on her shoulders effectively holding her down with minimal effort. His eyes swirled with lust and anger, and his skin glowed with an unnatural pearlized sheen. "Why are you punishing me? I've done nothing to harm you, and you push me away as if I'm some sort of rapist," he growled, his voice a solo, deep baritone, Scorpius' voice no longer part of the mix.
Was this the real Veela, then—the monster hidden under the man's skin?
"You'll want for nothing as my mate, I swear it. I'm even giving you a chance to make it easier to accept what's going to happen between us by naming the terms of our courtship. I'm giving you everything I can."
He was back in her face again, and a deep rumble echoed in his throat.
"But you're trying my patience, mate. Do you think I don't smell our cousin all over you—inside you?" He snarled, and it was a lion-like sound of anger. "You're lucky I haven't ripped Corwin's throat out for daring to touch you."
She stilled instantly, every nerve in her body taut with horror and alarm. It was in this moment that she realized just how deadly a game she'd been thrown into, and that Scorpius' Veela wasn't really playing by the same rules. In his eyes, she saw the truth: he would kill Corwin, and without losing any sleep over it.
"You're being hypocritical," she stated very matter-of-fact, rallying behind logic to keep from being totally intimidated to the point of surrender. "I don't know who you're with, but I know you're sleeping around, too. You want fidelity from me, but I notice you won't promise it back." Now she was getting angry. She let her righteous indignation at this whole awful situation fuel an almost reckless bravado as she sneered back at him. "I won't end up enslaved to you like Daneetzah was to Theodosis, watching him parade around a bunch of woman while she was denied everything. What kind of…mate…do you take me for?"
The Veela stared at her evenly for several long seconds, and then his lips twitched with amusement. "That fiery, stubborn temper of yours gets me hard, you know." He bent at the elbows again and brought his mouth over hers, gently nipping at her bottom lip. "Alright, I won't be with any other partner sexually, so long as you agree to the same. Is that your only condition?"
Shit, he'd just turned it all around on her! He'd managed to get her to go against her own resolve by prickling her pride. Fuck! Manipulating bastard!
"Well?" he prodded. "Shall I take that to be the only concession standing in the way of mating you tonight?" he mercilessly teased, continuing to place small kisses over her chin and jaw. "Can we get down to the love-making then? I really want to try it out."
Resolutely, she shook her head.
His tongue peeked out and lapped once over her lips. "Then what more do you want? Now's not the time to be shy, Rose."
"Back off and give me a second to think, will you?" she demanded, while pushing against his shoulders again, finding it difficult to concentrate when he was successfully arousing her, despite her fear.
Adhering to her request, he pulled his mouth away from hers, leaned over her and waited, his mocking smile irritating her in its fake attempt to appear congenial.
"Fine, we'll keep meeting like this," she conceded, "but I don't want you to be near me—only Scorpius."
The Veela shook its head. "No avoiding me, mate. That's non-negotiable."
"Half, then," she countered.
He tilted his head again, his gaze dropping to her lips. "Agreed. Half of each meeting you will spend with him alone, the other half with me. We'll meet at least three times a week in the dream world, and once in real life out on a real date, for the whole world to see us together."
"With Scorpius as referee during those times," she offset the deal. "I don't trust you not to try something without him to stop you."
The Veela actually smirked. "Agreed, so long as I get to fool around with you during those times we're together. That's also non-negotiable. I want a physical relationship with you, mate."
Rose blanched, and her heart clenched in fear as she fully understood then what this bargain was all about: to keep the Veela from raping her outright, she was going to have to schedule exactly how much of her body to whore out to him at a time. The idea made her positively sick.
"Alright, but I set the pace. If I say, 'no,' you respect that and stop."
His smirk grew wider. "Agreed, so long as I can give you the First Mark exactly two weeks from today. In person, not in the dream world."
She swallowed down the thick lump that had formed in her throat and reluctantly nodded. At least she would have that time to get used to the idea. "Agreed, so long as you don't try to force the other two Marks on me."
His chuckle was positively sinful. "Agreed, so long as you agree that at the end of a month-long courtship, you'll let me mate you fully—which includes giving you the Second and Third Marks. You'll give yourself to me willingly and fully at that time. You won't fight it."
That requirement brought everything to a screeching halt.
Closing her eyes, she fought back that sense of helpless frustration that swamped over her control, leaving her panicked and scared again. One month. Four short weeks. If she agreed to this, she would have to give up her search for a way out of the mating. She'd have to give up Corwin and the dream of being his wife that had just begun to worm its way into her heart. But then, the Veela never had any intention of letting her go from this mating, nor of allowing her to pursue a romance with Corwin. He'd made that perfectly clear at the beginning of all of this, hadn't he?
Putting her hands over her face, she began crying. "I refuse to do this," she whispered around a sob. "I won't sell myself off to you! I don't care if you hate me for it, but I won't be bullied like this!"
The Veela would not allow her even the privacy of a moment's cry. His hands pulled hers from her face, the grip strangely gentle. "Bargain with me and you'll enjoy it, pretty mate. I promise." His lips parted over hers, teasing, tracing them. "It won't hurt this time. I'll make you burn with pleasure instead. Let me show you."
A rich, sweet flavor engulfed her senses as he pressed his kiss deeper into her mouth, and somewhere in the back of her still-cognizant mind, Rose knew that he was using Veela pheromones against her, saturating the air about them with the fragrance, drenching his mouth in his unique chemical flavor and sharing that intoxicating high with her with every surge of his tongue.
Warning bells went off, telling her to pull away, to fight the kiss, but her limbs simply refused to answer the call. Lethargy set in as Scorpius' bestial side utterly enthralled her, relaxing her into his seductive foreplay. He tasted like…
"Chocolate strawberries," she sighed in pleasure, her tears and sorrow and fury somehow simply forgotten in an instant.
Humming in approval, she tangled her tongue with his in a sensual, writhing dance that had them both moaning, her body unconsciously rubbing against his as the need within began to pulse and grow.
"More," she breathed the plea as he made to let up. "One more kiss."
Soft fingers petted her hair. The Veela rubbed his cheek to hers, scent marking her, and she arched against him as her body sought relief from the rush of heat that passed through her, igniting her blood.
"A few kisses and you see how you desperately want me, baby?" he tenderly whispered. "That's not even a quarter of what I could offer you. I could make you climax over and over again until you were floating on clouds of ecstasy for days."
He rubbed his pelvis against hers in demonstration. Her short dress was shoved up, exposing the white cotton knickers underneath. Her hips instinctively ground back against him, and subconsciously, she noted how large his erection was behind his jeans as it slid between her covered thighs.
God, he was big!
"Bargain with me, my mate," he continued the slow, humping glide. He kissed her softly on the lips, a quick, wet pull. "Agree to the terms we've lain out and Scorpius will be right: we'll all get what we want. Say 'yes', my beautiful Rose."
Her mind caught in a fog of desire, she nodded quickly, desperate to get back to the snogging. "Whatever you want. Just... kiss me again, please!"
With an easy push-up, the Veela disconnected their bodies and climbed to his feet. Looming over her disheveled form, his wings spread wide, blocking the imagined sun so she wouldn't be blinded by it. She was, however, intently aware of the huge bulge behind Scorpius' jeans from this angle.
A naughty smile painted his lips as she glanced down at her. "You're going to have to wait, baby. See you tomorrow night."
With that, he dissolved upon the artificial wind.
X~~~~~X
Rose immediately came awake in her bed back in her flat, her heart thumping wildly, her body moist and tight with need.
"You bloody bastard!" she hissed into the darkness, her fingers already trailing between her thighs to stroke her aroused body, to ease the need burning there. "You tricked me again!" she whispered as she closed her eyes and reached for her orgasm.
Her memories of Scorpius and his Veela's kisses, feeling their touch, tasting them again filled her up and spilled over her.
"Scorpius!" she cried out and came hard with only a few strokes over her swollen, wet clit.
Panting in the aftermath, sticky and overheated, her anger and resentment simmered. He'd tricked her using his Veela wiles! He'd actually managed to get her to beg!
She shifted, grumpy and wanting to go back to sleep and not think about it anymore... but then the sheets rubbed just right against her tight, aching nipples, sending electric tendrils of arousal shooting into the warm heart of her again. In an instant, she had her thighs spread and her fingers buried deep inside her wet sex, pumping through her slick, hot flesh as a desperate arousal swamped her senses once more.
I won't give in, she promised herself, even as she climaxed two more times to the fantasy of Scorpius and his Veela driving hard and fast into her desperate body, filling her again and again with their creamy, warm seed.
TO BE CONTINUED…
AUTHOR'S END NOTES:
Please review! I'd love to hear your thoughts!
The Montrose Magpies are home-based in Montrose, Scotland. Just a fun fact for you.
The Ottoman Empire in the mid-16th century outlawed cannabis imports because Egyptian hemp growers along the Nile led tax revolts, and they saw that those high on the drug were often disrespectful to the Ottoman Sultan and his government. The illegalization, however, had the negative effect of creating a black market trade in the drug, however, and because it could not be taxed any longer, a loss in significant revenue for the Empire.
Brutus Malfoy is one of the few Malfoy ancestors JKR officially talks about. He was a pureblood supremist living in the 17th century. Since not much is known about his childhood, I made it all up to fit with this fic.
Theodosis Black, Daneetzah, Lycinus Malfoy and Pontus Malfoy are made-up characters for this fanfic.