Furry Magic

Title: Furry Magic, chapter 18

Disclaimer: HP does not belong to me. This story does.
A/N: Thank you for all the wonderful feedback and for reading my story. Thank you, thank you.


\"Potter!\"

Harry turned towards the hissed word. He was not prepared to see that it was Draco Malfoy who was calling to him. He stopped in his travel towards the great hall, coming to a wary halt. Looking bemusedly at Draco. What was he up to?

The blond boy was half concealed in a doorway that Harry had not noticed before. He stared at it curiously, until Draco shook him out of his contemplation with another hiss.

\"Potter, for goodness sake! Get over here before someone else sees!\" Draco was beckoning him nearer with urgent movements.

Harry had actually started to obey, taken a step in his classmate\'s direction, when he remembered just who was calling him over and stopped in his tracks. He gave Draco a suspicious glare.

\"What are you up to, Malfoy?\" Harry got right to the point. Hell with being polite.

\"Bet you don\'t call my *dad*, Malfoy, eh, Potter?\" Draco growled, snarkily. Then pursed his lips as if to prevent any more words escaping.

Harry continued to glare, a hot flush rising to his cheeks. Draco threw up his hands and hissed under his breath at the other youth. Harry barely heard him, Draco seemed....embarrassed?

\"Oh, Merlin\'s beard, Harry! I\'m sorry for that. I don\'t want to trade insults. I just want to talk. Come on! Wizard\'s word, I am not plotting something against you! Father would kill me if I did. Besides, I owe you for...that...what you did. Uhm, saving me a beating and all that.\" Now it was Draco who was pink, and having trouble meeting the other\'s eyes.

Harry nodded. It sounded sincere. Worth taking a chance. Draco was a pain, but he wasn\'t all that dangerous. Not that Harry could see. Especially since he didn\'t have his Slytherin friends around to encourage him and egg him on. Harry slipped into the room as Draco closed the door softly and turned a huge, antique key in the old fashioned lock. He pocketed the heavy bit of metal.

Harry watched the key turn in the lock with growing alarm. Bracing himself, he prepared for whatever nefarious assault Draco had planned. But, Draco merely turned and walked past him, not even seeming to pick up how anxious Harry was, appearing quite nervous himself. He wandered over to a group of chairs set near the far wall. Plopping into one of them and picking at the upholstered arm.

Harry followed. There wasn\'t anything else to do. Besides, he felt silly huddled near the locked door, like a defenseless first year. He could take care of himself. He strode over and sat down, planting his feet firmly, not crossing his ankles, just in case he had to move fast. Draco waited until Harry was seated comfortably in one of the chairs near him before he began.

\"This is kind of hard for me. So, if you can, just bear with me. Let me get it out. Never thought I\'d have to say this to you.\" Draco cleared his throat. Opened his mouth, then closed it. He seemed to be thinking diligently, trying to find a way to say what was on his mind, without success. Harry sighed. Watched Draco starting and stopping several times. Finally, it was too much.

\"Animal, vegetable or mineral?\" He asked at last. Draco looked at him like he was coming out of a fog, and wasn\'t sure what he\'d heard. His expression was...odd.

\"I was trying to figure out what you are thinking.\" Harry explained. \"It is a Muggle game. You ask \'animal, vegetable or mineral\'. And go from there. Asking more questions, until you figure out just what the person is thinking.\"

Now Draco was staring at him as if he was utterly mad. Harry shrugged, letting out a gusty breath.

\"Just trying to help. So, what is on your mind?\" The Gryffindor asked. Draco drew in a deep breath, making a decision, and plunged on.

\"When you went into that room,...when he, my father, uh...listened....\" Draco blushed again.

\"We didn\'t talk,\" Harry muttered, shifting in his chair. \"That was one thing we didn\'t do.\"

\"Potter!\" Draco sounded desperate. Harry held up his hands, signaling he was not going to interrupt again. Draco clasped his hands together, propped his elbows on his knees and leaned forward. He didn\'t look at the other young man. He kept his gaze fixed on his worrying hands. He began to talk in fits and starts.

\"Uh, well, when *it* worked,...and you...came out in one piece, Potter..... I, uh, realized I have to get along with you. We have to get along with each other, you see, because he is keeping you. You really are his Chosen.\" Draco managed, at last.

\"What does that mean? I mean, everyone says I am his Chosen. So. Tell me. What does it mean? No one ever says.\" Harry had to interrupt then.

\"Ghod. You can divert him, make him aware of you, he can\'t not respond to you. It means you have everything. All of it. Everything I wanted and can\'t have.\" Draco shook his head.

\"You wanted....\" Harry couldn\'t stop the shocked tone. He regretted it instantly. Draco half moaned his distress.

\"No. Not that! Damn. Though, I can see how you might think it. My aunt, you got to meet her up close, wants that. She wants to be taken as a Consort. To rule with dad. She doesn\'t care if he is her brother. So, I guess our family doesn\'t look so good to you. I see how you might think it of me, too.\" Draco sounded sad, depressed.

\"I didn\'t think you wanted to have sex with your father, Draco. It just caught me off guard when it sounded as if that was what you were going to say. Sorry. Go ahead.\" Harry reassured the other youth.

\"I grew up thinking I was going to be a lycanthrope. Be like my father, be his heir. Everything I was taught was leading up to the day I was going to be changed, and then I would be able to stand by him. Rule the pride someday. Pick my second and my third and rule with them when it was my time. But, it didn\'t happen that way. Father tried to change me. It didn\'t work. *She* confessed her family was resistant to lycanthropy. Dad hoped I had enough of his genes that I might be changed. I don\'t, he can\'t change me. No one can.\" Draco\'s voice got lower and slower, finally coming to a pause for several minutes. Harry let the silence grow. No wonder Draco was such a prat.

\"I can\'t change, so I can\'t be the pride heir. Mom put dad in a really bad spot. There are a lot of different positions of power in the pride. He is the king. The ruler. He has that position. Normally he\'d have another. He\'d be the Sire. The Father of the heir, absolute top of the heap. But, he isn\'t. We don\'t know who is. Only my aunt, Andromeda does. She gave birth to the heir. She is the Mother of the heir. Usually the Mother is wed to the king and Sire. If dad had abandoned my mother then he could have fathered the heir, taken another wife. But he did not. He kept *me* as his son, instead of denying me and my mother. Instead of setting us aside. Now he can\'t have more children.\"

\"He can\'t? Why not?\" Harry asked, puzzled. As far as he could tell, Lucius had no *functional* reason he couldn\'t have more children. He fought to keep his face neutral.

\"He won\'t set my mother aside. Until he does that, he is not permitted to father more children. She is his wife and his queen. But, she is not the Mother of the Heir, and thus she can not be the queen.\" Draco said simply, contradicting himself, if Harry was hearing him right. As if it was the way it was, and there was nothing to do for it.

\"That doesn\'t exactly make sense.\" Harry pointed out. Draco shook his head, a small smile on his lips.

\"It does to the pride. That is the way it has always been. It isn\'t like with human kings, who have sex with any woman who will hold still. Have a dozen illegitimate sons and daughters. The females of the pride decide who they will take to their beds, and who will be a father. After they have enough children, then they may ask to be changed. Didn\'t it strike you as the least bit unusual at the number of males sleeping together, without one female in the bunch?\" Draco asked curiously. Potter usually noticed everything, often when it was most inconvenient.

Harry mumbled something.

\"What was that?\" Draco leaned in closer, trying to hear.

\"I didn\'t really notice it much.\" Harry mumbled, just loud enough for Draco to hear. \"I was more worried about all the guys who seemed to like to snuggle up to me. Didn\'t wonder so much where the girls were. Just asked once or twice I think.\"

Draco snorted. \" A real piece of work you are, Potter. My dad has public sex with you, in front of most of the pride, and you don\'t think of it as a little strange?\"

\"Hey! I thought of it as very strange. This whole set up is weird, Malfoy. People keep telling me I am Marked, and Claimed and the Chosen. But, don\'t tell me what it means. They tell me I have to do this and that, and that I can\'t do one thing, but I have to do another. I had Amrys catch up to me the other day, just to tell me \"kittens do not sleep in the king\'s bed\".\"

\"Why...You? You. Slept. In. His Bed?\" Draco shouted.

\"Merlin, no need to yell! Yes. I slept in his bed. These last three nights.\" Harry said, surprised by the shout.

\"Harry. Kittens don\'t do that.\"

\"Why the hell not?\" Harry snarled out. \"It\'s stupid just to say they don\'t, not without a reason, damn it! Why not?\"

\"Harry! There are very careful lines drawn. The king sleeps with his second and third. No one else. He has sex with others, sure. He\'s never even slept with my mother in that bed. Never. I can\'t believe Amrys and Graeme let you.\" Draco was growing agitated.

\"He told them to.\" Harry said, grumpily, feeling defiant. \"Told them he was the king.\"

Draco was up on his feet. Heading at a breakneck pace for the door. He was out of the hidden room and gone before Harry had done more than gain his feet.

Ghod! And still he had no idea what being the Chosen meant. Maybe he could ask one of the Weasley\'s. Try to get a straight answer out of one of them. Harry headed out.

Oh, and he\'d be damned if he was going to stop going to Lucius\' bed at night. He liked being there. It wasn\'t as if he was trying to kick one of the other men out, or anything like that.

ne\'ichan
faestion1@yahoo.com