Veela Inheritance Problems

Chapter 14

Author’s notes:
1 – I know I should wait until Rose (my wonderful, brave and caring beta) sends it back to me with all the corrections, but I just can’t wait. I promise I’ll post the reviewed version as soon I get it. For now: I’m terribly sorry about all the mistakes.

2 - It has been so long that I feel we all need a little reminder of what is going on. I know I do - my memory is horrible.

Day 01 – Harry and Ron are serving detention and have to go to the Forbidden Forest to collect a few potion ingredients for Snape. The day happens to be the same one the Veela families are having an “engagement party” on the grounds. Harry turns out to be a Veela submissive and Draco manages to claim him. They spend the night in the room of requirement. Pansy was not happy and plans to do something about it.

Day 02 – Harry and Draco are checked over by Mme. Pomfrey and have breakfast with Draco’s parents. They all attend the second day of the gathering, now only as spectators. Draco and his friends attend a D.A. meeting and Draco kisses Harry. Harry and Ron invite Mrs. Weasley to be Harry’s chaperone.

Day 03 – Breakfast with the Malfoys again. Remus, Sirius and Molly arrive at Hogwarts. Draco uses ‘the call’ to lure Harry away from his chaperone. Harry goes to his new room with Molly and later they attend a press conference. Pansy slips a bracelet with a confundus charm in Harry’s pocket and send him into the Forbidden Forest to be claimed by Ivanoff but the plan goes wrong. Ivanoff comes back alone and Harry gets lost.

And now for a new chapter…

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Day 03 – Night time.

Sage Parkinson wasted no time in reaching Ivanoff’s quarters. She took a brief moment to make sure she was presentable and knocked on the door. Ivanoff opened it himself just a minute later and paled seeing who was in the hallway.

“Good evening, Mikael. May I have a word with you?”

“Sage. What a pleasant surprise. Please come in,” Ivanoff stepped aside inviting the woman in while preparing for the conversation they were about to have. He wondered how much she knew already.

“So, where is he?” the witch asked looking around the room. She knew Harry wasn’t there but decided to go for maximum dramatic effect in order to solve the situation as soon as possible. She would scare the man in doing what she wanted.

“Where is who, my dear?” Ivanoff tried to stall the conversation.

“Why, Mr. Potter, of course.” Sage said playing along with their little game, “I would imagine that after going through so much trouble getting my daughter pregnant and convincing her to plant a confundus charm on the boy, he would be here spotting a rather large new claiming mark on his neck…”

“My dear, I assure you…” Ivanoff tried to come up with some sort of explanation but Sage cut him to it.

“But he is not here, is he?” she offered him a sweet smile, “you came back alone from the forest. My, my. Mikael Ivanoff managed to lose his prey. Not on top of your game, are you, my dear?”

“Sage…” he tried again but she would have none of that.

“Now, the most sought after submissive of the season is lost in the Forbidden Forest because of you. The Malfoys won’t be pleased, neither will the High Council. I wonder what they will do to you when they learn of this little… game of yours.” Sage made a show of inspecting the dust on top of the fireplace mantle with the tip of her fingers.

“What do you want, Sage?” asked Ivanoff knowing that he was in the witch’s hand.

“I want to offer you your only way out of this mess, Mikael,” Sage had dropped the pleasant façade and her face was hard and unforgiving, “You’ll call the Council representatives. Yes, they are all here. You’ll call them and claim Pansy and her child. Not a word about your involvement with Mr. Potter’s current situation will be uttered. You and Pansy will marry quietly and take the night train out of here before anybody makes the association of your names with this mess.”

Ivanoff could only nod. There was no other way out of this one and he knew it.

“Once you’re home, I expect to hear from my daughter at least twice a month. You almost got her killed, Mikael, and you almost got the Parkinsons black balled from all future gatherings, that is not something I’ll let go anytime soon. If marrying you was not her best chance as well, I’d never agree to this.”

“I see,” the wizard agreed, “but that won’t make the Malfoys forget.”

“No, it won’t,” Sage conceded, “but you live far enough for them not to go after you and if by the time Pansy’s child is old enough to take part in a gathering, you chose one where there will be no risks of running into them, I’m sure your grandchildren will have no problems with the Malfoys at all.”

Ivanoff gulped, he knew she was right. The Malfoys were not likely to forget what he tried to do and there was no question about them finding out, it was just a matter of time if he didn’t go along with Sage’s plan. The Witch was right, his best chance was to get as much sympathy from the Councils as he could and having a pregnant mate would go a long way with them, also, if he was lucky enough for HIS part on this fiasco to be overlooked, he would come out as the one who got Parkinson out of the way of the new couple.

“If I marry her,” he asked, “will my little contribution for this situation remain a secret?”

“Yes, of course,” Sage agreed, “there is no need to burn you both in the eyes of the Council and it will be much easier to forget the acts of a single misguided girl than the one of an ill intended couple. They will see you as the older mate who knocked some sense into her and in a few years she will be the one who did something foolish in her youth.”

“Then I formally request the honor of marrying the mother of my child.” Ivanoff said with a small bow to the woman in front of him.

“It will be our pleasure to see the joining of our two families,” Sage answered in the traditional way quite pleased with herself; the disaster that Pansy had created had been averted, for the most part, and she managed to secure a better match than she had hoped for for the daughter. All there was left now was to hope for Potter to make a safe return to the school, if he was not harmed it would all go away that much faster. “I leave you to see the details of the union with the Council, unless you would prefer that I’m the one to see to it?”

“I’ll talk to the Council,” Ivanoff decided, “See that my fiancée is presentable and bring her over in, lets say, one hour?”

“One hour is more than acceptable, it will give you just enough time to catch the train afterwards,” Sage agreed, “Now, if you excuse me, I’ll see to my daughter.”

“Mrs. Parkinson,” Ivanoff got up and took the witch’s hand to his mouth, kissing her knuckles.

“Mr. Ivanoff,” Sage offered with a small nod before leaving the room. She had a wedding dress to arrange and a distraught daughter to dose with a calming draught.

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The Council members gladly officiated the union pretending not to know the sordid details involved on the whole affair. Not that they ever knew all of it, Sage Parkinson worked very hard to keep the most gruesome details out of public knowledge, they only knew the basics and that was all they ever needed to know. They performed a standard paternity spell and confirmed that Mr. Ivanoff was the father of Ms. Parkinson’s baby and that was enough for them.

The ceremony was simple and very private, a note of participation would be issued later on inform of the union. There was absolutely no mood for a weeding celebration with such a large search going on, especially when one knew the sort of retribution the Malfoy boy could inflict upon the young mother to be as it was the general understanding that his submissive was missing due to the stress Ms. Parkinson’s abrupt statement in the press conference brought to him.

No, a small ceremony was best for all of those involved and the fact the newly weds were taking the night train to London was also viewed as a very wise move on their part.

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Day 04

Day light found Harry sitting in the hollow of a tree trunk trying to shield himself against the cold rain while nursing a sprained ankle. It was his second day on the forest and he hadn’t moved an inch all day, figuring that with his ankle like that he wouldn’t make it very far in the pouring rain. He was still somewhat grateful that he had found this place last night just before it got too dark to see. It was a hollow deep and large enough for him to enter and sit almost comfortably a few feet above the ground, he actually had to climb a bit to get to it. It was also how he got a sprained ankle in the first place.

As it turned out, climbing a tree in the dark was not as fun or as easy as one would think.

This place, however, was perfect for spending the night with some degree of security and comfort, until started to rain that is. By the time he finally woke up because of the cold, his cloak, socks and shoes were already soaked and he was freezing.

Harry wasted no time in casting an impervious charm on his cloak and a few drying spells on everything that got wet. He also managed to remember a mild warming charm to cast on his socks but he didn’t dare a stronger one, if he messed that one up he could set something on fire and that was not a good idea, especially inside a tree. But now he was trapped in there, waking up all wet and cold during the night was not good for ones health as it seems.

Now, on top of his ankle, he had a cold, his body ached all over and he couldn’t stop coughing long enough to cast more than one spell at the time and even that would drain his energies like a fifteen minutes duel with Snape. Not to mention he was getting really hungry, his last meal had been lunch yesterday.

At least he was fairly dry sitting inside the tree; his cloak had been almost reduced to shreds but still helped some as long as he remained inside. There was simply no way it would offer him enough protection all by itself if he tried to make it back to Hogwarts, even if he could walk that far. His only option was to sit tight and wait until the storm was over. Hopefully that would happen before nightfall and he would be able to find his way back.

Unfortunately, the rain did not stop at all during that day and it rained most of the night as well. Not that Harry would be able to notice that, having finally fallen in a restless sleep still curled inside his precarious shelter and slowly developing a fever.

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That night in the headmaster’s office, a group of somber looking men sat together trying to think of new strategies to find the missing submissive. Snape was present but could contribute very little to the discussion, he was worried about a different problem they had. They had been searching all day with no sign of Potter and that was bad enough, but the fact that very soon he would have to report to Voldemort was even worse.

“I can’t put it off much longer,” he said to no one in particular knowing the similar thoughts were going through everyone’s mind, “if I don’t report back to the Dark Lord and tell him that Potter is missing he will know where my loyalty really lies.”

“Would that be so terrible?” asked Lucius from the chair he was sitting near the fireplace, “With the Malfoy family siding with Dumbledore from now on I’m sure there will be more than one Death Eater ready to lighten his sentence by acting as a spy.”

“No, that would be too risky,” answered Dumbledore, “with both of you exposed as spies, Voldemort will doubt every one else and go to any lengths to be sure of their loyalty. To put someone without any experience in spying or Occlumency in that position… I’m afraid we can’t risk it.”

“But what about Harry?” Sirius asked while Remus laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, “Voldemort won’t let go of the chance of catching Harry alone in the Forbidden Forest.”

“Wait another day,” Dumbledore finally broke the silence that had followed Sirius’s statement, “Tomorrow you may write Voldemort a brief note saying that Harry is missing but we are keeping an eye on you so you find yourself unable to go to him personally. Tell him there are search parties everywhere and make sure to tell him that they are heavily armed, that shall quell any ideas he might have of storming the forest looking for Harry and still buy us enough time to find the boy.”

“He will still question me why did I take this long…” Snape shivered thinking about the dark lord fondness for torture.

“Tell him…” interrupted Dumbledore, “tell him you have approached Lucius saying that you have been considering changing sides for a long time now and that if your plan works he will get a spy inside the order, that shall please him enough. You may also say that we don’t exactly trust you yet but I’m tempted to take you up on that offer.”

“Yes, he has been insisting with me that I should gain your trust in order to better spy for him. That could work.” Snape agreed feeling a bit more relieved.

“Then I think we should all retire for the night,” said Remus, “the night team won’t be back for another several hours and we should be well rested to resume our search as early as possible tomorrow.”

They all got up and said their good nights, leaving Dumbledore in his office. Once in the hallway, Sirius turned to Lucius, worried about how his godson’s mate was doing.

“How is Draco coping with all this?”

“He doesn’t know,” Lucius sighed tiredly, “The Council has decided, and I agree, that none of the unmated dominants are to know about what is going on. As far as they know we are still looking into Parkinson’s claims.”

“Why is that?” asked Remus.

“They would demand to be included on the search teams, Draco most of all, but once inside the forest they would forget anything about proper behavior and respect for the Council’s decision and start hunting for the submissive to mate with him and once that happened all hell would break lose.”

“They would fight to the death,” contribute Sirius, “the Council would not be able to control the claiming and Draco’s previous claim would be disregarded even before the Council has a chance to declare it null or not.”

“Yes, I can see how that would be a problem,” Remus nodded, “It could easily turn into a blood bath.”

“Precisely,” added Snape, “that is why they have not been included. Well, gentlemen, I’ll bid you good night. See you all first thing in the morning.”

The group said their good nights and parted their ways with heavy hearts. Sleep would not come easy for them that evening.

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Day 05

It has been almost 48 hours since they first notice that the submissive was missing and their luck could not be worse, it had been raining almost non stop for the past two days.

The search parties were scattered through the forest covering as much ground as they possibly could under the pouring rain that kept coming back every few hours. Each participant trying as hard as they could to find a trace of the missing boy but they knew nature was working against them on this one.

The submissive had taken a shower just before the press conference and had used the scent dampening products and whatever physical trail he could have left had been washed by the rain long ago. The only good piece of news was that after two days the dampening products would start losing their efficiency and they would be able to scent the boy again.

Around lunch time Remus sat on the roots of a large tree somewhere deep inside the Forbidden Forest eating his cold meal and pondering how Harry kept getting himself in these situations. He hadn’t been this depressed in a real long time, they had no clue of where Harry could be and they were fast running out of time, two days was a long time for someone to be lost in a place as dangerous as the Forbidden Forest.

Across the clearing from him, Snape suddenly took a sharp intake of breath drawing Remus attention. The potion master was looking up at the tree Remus was sitting on. Turning his head, the werewolf tried to see what had caught the other man’s attention and then he finally saw it. Dangling from an opening in the tree trunk, which looked like the hide out of some sort of animal, there was a deep green clot with a silver fastening, a traditional submissive’s robe.

Throwing his food to the side, Remus quickly climbed to the opening followed closely by Snape and felt his heart skip a beat when he spotted the sleeping boy inside.

“Harry,” he called softly while Snape shoot red sparks in the air signaling their position to the others, “Harry, pup, it’s Remus. Wake up.”

Remus gently touched the boy’s shoulder, shaking him, but got no answer. Frowning, Remus touched Harry’s face. He was burning up and covered in sweat.

“Severus, I need your help. He is unconscious,” yelled Remus taking out his outer robes to wrap around Harry.

Working together, Remus and Snape managed to get Harry on the ground at the same time that some of the others started to arrive.

“We have to take him to the hospital wing. I don’t have any fever reducing potions with me here and he will need some immediately.”

“Can we float him?” asked a blond man who had just arrived, he was clearly a member of the Veela Council.

“We better not risk it,” Snape answered, “I can sense some protection spells still active on him. Another magical signature might react badly to them and cause even more damage. We will have to carry him.”

The group quickly gathered everything and with a couple of spell produced a stretcher, which was as close to casting a spell on Harry himself they dare to do, to help carry the unconscious submissive and made their way back to the school as fast as they could.

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“How is him?” asked Narcissa when Lucius went back to their quarters.

“Stable, but still unconscious,” Lucius sat by his mate, taking her hands into his, “they were able to control his fever and give him a nutritious potion but decided to let him sleep a bit longer.”

“Thank Merlin,” Narcissa felt her body relaxing for the first time in days, but the scowl on her husband’s face told her that something else was wrong, “what are you not telling me, Lucius? Is there something wrong with Harry?”

“No, there is nothing wrong with him,” Lucius answered quickly, “but the Council has decided that he ran into the forest when Parkinson announced her pregnancy because he doesn’t fully trust Draco. Therefore they are granting him another chance in the maze.”

“What?” Narcissa could not believe her ears.

“Allegedly, they want to provide Harry with the option to accept a new dominant.”

“They can’t do that,” Narcissa got to her feet and began pacing around the room, she was furious, “the fact that he got lost in the forest has nothing to do with Draco.”

“I know that,” said Lucius exasperatedly, “and they know it was well, but they will not let this opportunity pass. The High Council went absolutely wild when they saw the boy, if you think they were trying to figure out where he came from before you have no idea what they are doing now. Blood samples are being shipped off to all the lower Councils, they have orders to discover his Veela family no matter what.”

“What are we going to do now?” asked Narcissa falling back into her chair. A knock on the door announced the arrival of Severus, Remus and Sirius, Narcissa turned to her somber looking husband, “Lucius?”

“They are here to help us with Draco. It’s time for him to know what is going on.”

Narcissa simply nodded and moved closer to the potion cabinet. She would gladly leave to the much stronger men in the room the task of telling the young Veela dominant that others were about to try to claim his mate. She would just stand back and make sure they had plenty of healing potions. They would probably need a lot.

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In the infirmary, Harry slept oblivious to the fact that Molly was watching over him and a group of four aurors stood guard by the door insuring him a safe rest.