CHAPTER THREE

"I can't believe something like this could happen to me!" Charlus raked his hands through his hair. "What the hell am I supposed to do, Father? I'm married, I have a new baby, what can I do with this?"

Nigel Potter relaxed backward in his comfortable chair, crossing his legs urbanely. "If it's such an issue, why don't you simply ignore it and let St. Mungos figure out what to do with the boy? He should be no concern of yours, especially if you're going to ignore what's happened."

Charlus slammed his hand down on the table, his heartbeat throbbing across the vein in his forehead. "What are you suggesting? He's my soulmate, how can I turn away from that? It's one of the most powerful relationships of Wizarding kind. The minute I saw him I knew that he was the most important person in my life, so how am I supposed to ignore that? How can you think such a thing?"

Nigel waved his hand. "Then don't."

"What?" Charlus fell silent, staring at his father.

"You have been granted a great gift that very few can boast. Accept what magic and Fate have granted you. A soulmate Bond supersedes a marriage Bond, and you have just produced an heir. Dorea will either understand, or go her own way."

"It was a contracted marriage," Charlus said musingly, "and you did leave the usual soulmate clause in place. I am very fond of her, but ours is a more casual kind of love."

"So no matter how things work themselves out, you will find happiness." Nigel tipped his head, his dark eyes focused completely on his son.

Charlus smiled. "Thank you, Father. You always offer the best advice."

"I do try," Nigel said drolly.

. * . * . * .

The room was cold and lonely, but he had nowhere else to go. He felt far away from his own skin, his thoughts swimming lost and confused in his head. All he knew was that he didn't have any idea what he was supposed to do next.

He didn't know anyone, he didn't have any money, and to top it off, he'd been rejected in the cruelest manner possible.

One minute he'd simply been Draco Malfoy, then he'd seen Charlus Potter and it had felt like life had filled him for the first time ever. His skin had been warm and his heart had swollen fit to bursting and there had been music and light and he'd been happier than he'd ever been before.

He'd never realized how empty he was, not until all the hollow spaces of his soul had been filled with the presence of someone else. Someone that had sent him awash in ecstasies, only to turn around and leave him without a single word. The man hadn't even waited for him to wake up before rejecting him.

The forming of the soul bond had ripped through Draco, knocking him unconscious, but in some way he hadn't thought it was so bad. He had been held safe and secure, firm in the knowledge that he was never going to be alone ever again.

Then he'd woken to Healer Merryweather checking him over, telling him that Charlus had run out in white-faced terror, vowing never to return. It had felt like someone had stabbed Draco hard in the chest.

"I just don't know what that boy was thinking," Merryweather said, resting a hand against Draco's shoulder. "You have already been through so much, and to have him treat you like that on top of it all... It's utterly shameful."

Draco turned his face toward the wall. "Maybe it's just what I deserve."

"Why would you say such a thing?"

"Because I'm broken." Draco didn't say anything after that. He could hear people moving around the room behind him, but they were like shadows to his mind. He was drowning in a well of loneliness and there was no escaping that.

Charlus Potter, his impossible soulmate, had taken one look at him and simply known that he wasn't good enough. He had probably felt all the stains on Draco's soul and been so disgusted that he couldn't stay another minute.

The man hadn't even bothered to wait and tell him his name. Merryweather had had to tell him, otherwise he never would have known. Charlus would have left and Draco would have spent the rest of his life wondering who he had been and where he had gone.

He was so terribly empty inside.

Draco couldn't even be surprised about where he was or when he was. All color had been leached out of the world, taking curiosity, fear, hope, and all traces of happiness away from him. There was nothing left in him.

Too many shocks taking place too close together, then to be rejected by his soulmate...

Draco stared up at the ceiling and fought the sudden need to cry. More than anything, he wished his mother was here; she always knew what to do to make things right again.

But she was probably dead by now, and never mind the fact that in this time and place she hadn't been born yet. His mother was dead.

He was alone.

.

His quiet misery was broken by the arrival of Healer Merryweather. Though he hated that the first thing the man did was give him a worried look.

Draco hated all of the concern he received. Hated that it had become part of his life to be a creature of pity. Because it hadn't always been like this; he just didn't know how to make it any better.

"How are you feeling?" Merryweather asked, laying a gentle hand against Draco's cheek. He moved with careful slowness, as though afraid of startling some wild animal. And maybe that was what Draco was now. Maybe he was some kind of wild animal; he certainly wasn't human anymore.

"I feel fine," Draco said, which was only partly a lie. They'd healed him to the point that he didn't hurt anymore at least. Not physically.

"That's very good." Merryweather clasped his hands together in front of himself. "You have a visitor."

Draco couldn't help the nervous jolt that went through him. There was no way the Dark Lord had found him, not in this world that insisted it was the past. "Who is it?"

"Charlus Potter."

Just hearing the name made joy burst through Draco, filling him up until he wondered if he was even breathing anymore. Then the resentment returned with the memory of rejection. "What does he want?"

"He would like to see you. I told him to wait until I'd spoken with you." There was so much understanding in the healer's gaze that Draco wanted to hit him. "I think that it's a good idea for you to see him. A soulmate bond is very powerful and it can cause you great damage to ignore it."

"But he doesn't want me!" Draco blurted, then winced. His voice had sounded too raw, too hurt for a Malfoy that was never supposed to show weakness in public.

"He would like to speak to you," Merryweather said. "I don't know what he has decided, but you will need to face him to find out what he wants."

"Perhaps he wants me to be his concubine. He'll put me in a nice little house and I will be his deep dark secret from the world." Draco laughed a little hysterically. "It's fitting that I be reduced to this, considering how far I've already fallen."

"You haven't fallen anywhere," Merryweather stated firmly.

Draco plucked at his hair and gave the man a bleak smile. "Oh, but I think we will have to disagree on that, now that beast blood flows through my veins. I really have to wonder how human I still am, though it's impossible for me to gauge how much my mind has changed to match my body. After all, you never knew me when I was human."

"You are still human," Merryweather said.

Draco barely held in his snort of disdain. Healers and their sentimentality; it was the kind of weakness he would never allow himself.

Merryweather must have read something of his feelings in his face because he sighed heavily and reached for his case. "I have a few potions here that you should take now."

"Potions, potions, potions," Draco complained, "I think my blood runs with the potions you've been giving me."

"They are for your own good." Merryweather unstoppered something bubbly and green, vapors twisting and escaping with a truly noxious stench. "Drink it all."

Draco took the vial and squeezed his eyes tight shut and held his breath as he swallowed the potion down in one gulp. His throat burned with fire, but his stomach bubbled with cold and he burped up a cloud of pink smoke.

He sagged back on the bed, a feeling of weakness going through him. "Ugh, that was foul."

"Foul, but you will feel much better." Merryweather smoothed Draco's hair back from his forehead and pushed him down on the bed. "You don't need to sleep, but you should allow yourself to rest and heal."

There was something about the attention of a Healer that was irresistible to Draco. From the time he was a small and sickly child his mother had called the Healer for anything that might be wrong, even the smallest of things. Draco had developed a fondness for Healers as a defense, otherwise he would have spent a large chunk of his childhood being an incredibly miserable boy.

There was a soft knock at the door. "I will be right back," Merryweather said, going to answer it.

Draco sighed and sunk down further onto the bed, his hands picking at the sheets and blankets to settle them around himself more comfortably. He damned his traitor's heart for being uplifted by the thought of seeing Charlus bloody Potter.

"You're a fool, Draco," he whispered to himself. "Always falling for stupid Potters."

And there were no tears in his eyes or caught in his throat. There wasn't hopeless faith building up in his chest for Potters that always kept their promises - even the ones they didn't make themselves - and always came back even when it saw them dead in the end.

And when the door opened and Charlus came strutting in... Draco didn't see a different face superimposed. Younger, but harder at the same time, one tempered by a hopeless war and the knowledge that they had already lost decades before they were even born, failed by the adults that should have protected them.

Harry wasn't born yet. Narcissa wasn't born yet. Nobody Draco had loved was born yet. He was alone in the world, but the future was yet to be written.

He stared at Charlus' face and even though he knew it was futile, he let himself fall in love, just a little. Because in a world where he'd been left adrift, he needed something - someone - to hold onto or he'd disappear completely.

. * . * . * .

Silvery gray eyes looking at him out of a fine featured face, catching him up before he was completely over the doorstep. Charlus' breath escaped him in a shuddery gasp and he didn't know how he'd managed to stay away as long as he had.

The boy's name was Draco Malfoy, and from what Nigel had been able to find out, he did have the blood of the Malfoy gens running through his veins, but it was buried deep beneath the veela cover. It was impossible to tell how closely Draco was related to the main branch of the Malfoy family, but it didn't much matter.

From what Nigel had said, the Malfoys had already washed their hands of the boy the minute they heard about his veela heritage. It was no longer fashionable to be so closely linked to non-humans, especially creatures as dangerous as veelas were, and Draco was nearly a full-blooded veela. It was just lucky he wasn't sprouting fangs and claws, and everyone knew the rare veela males were the more dangerous of the species.

Charlus had felt a bit of nervousness about a veela soulmate, but seeing Draco allayed those fears. He already had a son, so he didn't have to worry about irreparably polluting the Potter bloodline. He was free to love where he wished, and he was glad of that.

Because the moment he met those worried gray eyes, Charlus Potter was desperately in love.

"Hello, Mr. Malfoy. I am Charlus Potter," he said. He squared his shoulders and strode forward with all the grace he could manage.

He saw the way Draco's eyes ran up and down his body, taking in the exquisitely tailored blue silk robes that draped over his tall frame flatteringly. He had been told before that he was handsome and he did own mirrors, but it wasn't until he saw the approving tilt of Draco's finely drawn brow that Charlus felt as though he were anything more than presentable.

Charlus walked over to the side of the bed and tried to ignore the piercing look Healer Merryweather gave him as the man took up post on the opposite side. He kept his eyes on Draco, which wasn't exactly a hardship.

"You may call me Charlus," he said, holding out his hand.

Draco looked down at it for a long moment, then one side of his mouth turned up. "Deja vu," he said enigmatically, then reached out to clasp Charlus' hand.

There was a spark between them, an invisible current that ran up their arms and made Charlus gasp and his knees attempt to buckle.

He snatched his hand back after a moment, his breath coming quickly. His heart was pounding loud in his ears and arousal pooled in his lower belly.

"You're coming home with me," he said firmly. "You're coming home with me and we will be Bound forever and we will be happy and the entire world will belong to us."

Draco gave him a cool look, though his lips betrayed a slight tremble. "And what about your beautiful wife?"

Charlus shook his head. "That's why it's been so long for me to come back to you," he said. "My father had to gather the solicitor and there were several ceremonies that had to be done." He licked his lips. "Dorea is no longer a Potter. We've been divorced."

Draco's eyes went wide. "What?"

"Just so," Charlus said, his smile weak. "There was nothing else for it and she received quite the handsome stipend, but there was a soulmate clause in our marriage contract. The minute I accepted you, the marriage was void. She is a Black again."

"You... you accepted me?" Draco's voice cracked.

"Of course," Charlus said, as though there hadn't been a single doubt. "You are my soulmate and we belong together. Once you are cleared to leave the hospital, you will come home with me."

Charlus had never seen someone break apart before, but that was exactly what happened with Draco. His eyes went wide and glittery and his mouth fell open softly as his face just crumbled in on itself.

On Draco's second hitching breath, Charlus lost all self-control and reached out his arms to gather the younger man close against himself, hugging him the way that he deserved. He wrapped Draco up tight and listened to him sob and he didn't care as tears stained the shoulders of his robes.

He held Draco tightly and promised in his heart that he was never going to put that look on Draco's face ever again. They had only just met, but theirs was a Bond created out of magic by magic itself.

It was the kind of thing that wizards and witches dreamed of. The kind of thing that he had dreamed of as a child.

"It's all right. I have you," he murmured. "We'll go home soon."