Alluring Lullaby

Authors Note: Thanks to my beta, Shannon for her work on this fic

Chapter 6 Visions of Potential

Harry left the warm comfort of Draco’s down bed and lithe body and slipped out into the glistening dew filled morning.

He paced quietly around the garden for a time before flitting in bird form toward the forest edge, landing on a tree branch and falling like liquid to the ground where he stood in his favored form once more.

The Nix wove in and out of the trees, easily avoiding each fallen branch and stump as he danced into the center of his glade and dipped his toes into the magical faerie pool.

“I’ve made a decision,” he called to the forest, letting the cool breeze drift over his naked flesh and grinning into it. “I want to be with him, but he cannot live here.”

The trees rustled and shook as if nodding at Harry’s obvious statement.

“I’m going to stay with him, I’m going to play the part of human, and I’m going to keep him for myself,” Harry told the forest, firmly.

The wind blew and whistled around him, curling his ebony hair about his body. The golden leaves whipping through the trees all mysteriously avoided him, and the ground stirring at his feet created a tunnel surrounding his form.

“I’m sure!” Harry shouted in answer to the wind, to the trees and to whatever else would listen.

The forest had not been in agreement with his decision, and it stood now against him, warning Harry of the folly in his choice. Crimson leaves sliced against his skin, reflected sunlight from the pool blinded him but he stood against it.

“I know he’s just a child, but I want him, and I will have him,” Harry shouted into the forest.

Soil beneath him shifted and shook, causing a great rift between Harry and the forest pool. He braced himself as he toppled over and fell down and down through the earth. “I love him,” he shouted, and the world stood still for a moment before pushing Harry back up to the surface.

When Harry opened his eyes, he was back in his glade and all was calm as it should be. He took a deep breath and looked into the pool’s reflection one last time before turning and leaving the forest.

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Draco yawned and stretched as he padded downstairs to greet his mother and father. He had forgotten about their guest, but it was obvious that Pansy hadn’t forgotten about him as he made his way toward the table. She met him halfway there and grabbed his arm, pulling him over to sit beside her and placed a delicate kiss on his cheek.

The blonde cringed inwardly, but tried to keep his neutral mask in place as he wondered over the happenings from the night before. Had he really talked the Nix out of leaving him? He said he was coming back, but so far there was no sign of the magical sprite anywhere.

Plunging his ridged spoon into his grapefruit the thought about kissing Harry, making love to Harry, spending the rest of his life with the beautiful ebony-haired nymph and he could feel his face heat up.

“You’ll have to share what in Merlin’s name is making you blush so furiously,” Pansy whispered in his ear.

Draco merely chuckled and shook his head, turning toward his father and talking about safe things, such as the weather, when there was a knock at the door. They ignored it as they usually did, letting the house elf do his job and answer it, but Draco could see the curiosity in Lucius’s eyes at the early morning intrusion.

A moment later Dobby walked in and cleared his throat reluctantly. “There is a visitor at the door for Master Draco.”

Lucius narrowed his eyes at his son and Draco could only shrug. The only one he was expecting to see that day was the Nix, and a water sprite wouldn’t use the front door, so he followed Dobby into the front parlor.

There, standing in the center of the room and looking around curiously was Harry, though not as Draco had ever seen him before. The man was dressed in regal blue slacks with a white blouse with a blue brocade jackets in a lighter shade then his trousers. His hair was tied back with a deep blue ribbon and smiled and bowed as Draco entered the room.

“Harry?” Draco asked, utterly stunned to see him in his home this way.

“In the flesh,” Harry replied, drawing closer and grinning mischievously.

“How did you… why are you… I don’t understand,” Draco stammered, carefully studying every nuance of Harry’s features. He was still stunningly beautiful, but there was no haunting glow to his skin, or a slick wet sheen to his raven hair, in fact he looked thoroughly dry.

Harry chuckled and suddenly the voice that had sounded so human before took on its breezy bell-like quality again and his skin began to emanate a soft radiance once more, pulling a sigh from Draco’s throat.

Still grinning, the Nix floated over to Draco’s ear and kissed him on the cheek before purring in his ear. “I love that I affect you that way.”

Draco’s eyes fluttered closed at the sound of Harry’s voice but he quickly gathered his wits about him and pushed the Nix away. “You shouldn’t be here,” he hissed.

Harry pouted and pulled Draco closer, running his languid fingers across his jaw. “I came here for you, to be with you. I thought that was what you wanted,” he said, slipping back into his human voice.

“I want you, but you can’t be here, my father will see,” Draco chided, but couldn’t seem to extricate himself from Harry’s arms, nor did he really want to.

“But that’s the point. I’m being human for you, Draco,” Harry informed him, as if that wasn’t plainly obvious.

“But my father-“ Draco whined, but the Nix shushed him at once.

“Leave Lucius to me,” Harry purred and took Draco’s hand, pulling him toward the stairs that led to Draco’s room.

“Draco, who is this?” Narcissa asked from the opposite doorway.

Draco whirled around and stuttered and incoherent response. “You must be Lady Malfoy,” Harry answered for him. “I’m Harry, A companion of your son’s.

Narcissa smiled warmly and took Harry’s offered hand. “Any friend of Draco’s is welcome here. Where did you say you met?”

“I didn’t say,” he chirped, acting as though he would say no more, then laughed lightly. “We met in town while he was purchasing dress robes.”

“So you’re a wizard too then,” she said, looking obviously relieved. “What household are you?” Draco saw Harry’s eyes flicker for just a moment before replying with ‘Potter’.

Narcissa beamed and nodded. “I thought you held resemblance to the Potter’s. James comes from a fine line of wizards.”

Draco looked at him with astonishment but Harry’s didn’t return the look. “If you don’t mind, Draco was going to show me his quarters. He’s invited me to stay the weekend.”

“Oh, that’ll be nice. It’ll keep his mind off the upcoming wedding,” Narcissa cooed and waved them off.

Harry whisked Draco up the stairs and into his room before shutting and latching the door. “Alone at last,” he purred.

“Where did you get that name?” Draco asked distractedly as Harry maneuvered him toward the bed.

“I plucked it from your mother’s mind. She was thinking about how much I looked like I could be related to the Potter’s,” he answered easily.

“You read her mind?” Draco asked, shouting and pushing Harry back.

The Nix merely shrugged casually. “Sure, why not. I needed an answer she would accept, so I took one she was already thinking of.”

“You can’t just invade people’s privacy that way,” Draco shouted.

Harry smiled softly and leaned in to kiss Draco, but the blonde turned away. “I’ve never done it to you,” Harry promised.

“Really?” Draco asked, turning back to face him.

Harry made an ‘X’ over his chest with trailing fingertips and smiled. “Cross my heart.”

Draco kissed him then, because it had taken all of his willpower to resist Harry’s advances as long as he had. The Nix tasted of fresh spring water and Draco would have swallowed him whole if he could.

“You still shouldn’t do it to my mother either, though,” Draco rasped when they broke apart.

“And Lucius?” Harry asked.

Draco shrugged. “My father can take care of himself.”

“But your mother is stronger than he is,” Harry told him, looking confused.

Draco shook his head and laughed. “That’s nonsense, where do you get that idea?”

“From them. I’ve met them both now, and your mother didn’t fall under my charm as you father did,” Harry told him.

“When did you meet my father?” Draco asked, looking feverish.

“Years ago,” Harry said, pulling the blonde toward the bed.

Draco’s jaw dropped and he shook off Harry’s hand. “Did you… did you sleep with my father?”

Harry’s tinkling laughter filled the room. “Would that make you jealous?”

“No, it would disgust me… did you?” Draco asked incredulously, feeling dirty just thinking that he had made love to someone who had bedded his own father.

“I’ve never been with another human,” Harry confessed. “You are my one.”

“And my father?” Draco pressed.

“He stumbled into my glade in much the same way as you did, but he was haughty and presumptuous, he dared to touch me before I gave him permission. He has hated me since, though he does not know that he does,” the Nix answered.

“You took away his memory of it, just like you offered me,” Draco whispered, more to himself than to Harry.

The Nix only nodded.

“How do I know you’re telling me the truth?” Draco asked.

Harry smiled and kissed him, sending shivers down Draco’s spine, but a moment later and he was no longer in his room, but instead he was standing in the faerie glade. Across the pool was Harry, looking just as beautiful as ever and at the edge of the green meadow was his father, only this man was not the Lucius that Draco knew, but his father in his early twenties, maybe even his age. It was uncanny how similar they looked at that age. If it weren’t for the length of his father’s hair, Draco would have sworn it was he in the glade staring at the Nix.

A victorious grin erupted on his father’s face and Draco felt a stab of jealousy at the Nix’s returning smile. “I found you,” Lucius whispered reverently. “Do you know how long I’ve been searching?”

The familiar twinkling laugh of his Nix filled the glade as Harry bounded from his perch and landed gracefully in front of Lucius. “I know exactly how long you’ve been looking for me, yes.”

“I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t even think straight since I saw you in the garden,” his father confessed, making Draco feel slightly ill at the thought of his own agony at being denied Harry’s presence.

Harry flitted in delicate circles around Lucius, as if to study him from every possible angle. “What do you propose I do about that?” he asked, in a curious singsong voice.

“I must have you,” Lucius replied firmly, reaching out to grab the shining and beautiful Nix, but Harry was far too swift and clever and easily avoided Lucius’s grasp.

Harry shook an admonishing finger at Draco’s father and shook his head sadly. “Far too presumptuous,” he chastised.

Lucius’s face twisted in despair, an emotion Draco had never once seen on his father’s face before. “You must come back with me, you simply must. Don’t you see? I’ll never survive without you,” Lucius begged, falling to his knees.

Draco wanted to sob, seeing his father so broken and weak over the same creature that had broken him only days before made him shudder. It was uncanny seeing so much emotion so open on Lucius’s face, he wondered briefly if even his mother had seen as much from his father as the Nix had that single night.

The Nix fell on him then, placing his sweet lips against Lucius’s forehead and when he pulled away, the blonde’s eyes were glazed over and unseeing. “You will find your bride tomorrow, she will be stunning and sweet and she will bare you a son. You will love your family and you will be very happy with them,” he assured Lucius and in a daze, his father got up and left the forest glade, using the same path he had taken to find it in the first place.

Right before his eyes, the edge of the wood morphed and shifted, closing off the path his father had just used in patches of briar and Harry whirled around and looked right at him. “Wake up,” the Nix told him, and Draco blinked against suddenly bright light, finding himself in his room once again, but flat on his back and half naked on his own bed.

“You,” he breathed, looking up at the Nix. “You knew about me, even then.”

The Nix smiled widely and wound himself around Draco’s lithe form. “It would have been easy enough to predict a male heir to the Malfoy family.”

“But that’s not what you did is it?” Draco asked. “You didn’t just predict any male heir, you orchestrated it, you made it happen, you made me… you knew it would be me.” Draco’s breathing became ragged as he thought of the implications of this new information. Did Harry seek him out on purpose that night a little over a week ago? How much of his life had Harry influenced with his magic?

Harry rolled his eyes and leaned in as if to kiss Draco’s lips. “Stop being so overdramatic.”

Draco loved his face away and scowled. “I’m not being overdramatic. You even dictated who my father would marry,” Draco reprimanded. “Why should I trust you, what if you just designed yourself a little human pet, then voila, here I am, a perfectly besotted Malfoy heir for your enjoyment.”

The edges of Harry’s lips curled up as he smiled across the bed at Draco. “You’re besotted with me?” he asked playfully.

“Is that really all you came away from that conversation with?” Draco asked with a roll of his eyes.

“Draco be logical for a moment. How could you think that you were not a pure product of your parents? You look nearly identical to your father, and yes, I put Narcissa in his path, but it’s not as if I made him choose her. Yes, I might have known how you would turn out, but I swear I only had intentions to watch you from afar,” Harry told him plainly, but the amusement was still evident on his face.

“So what is this then? Some deviation in your master plan?” he replied, gesturing between their bodies.

“I have no mater plan, Draco. I go where I want, do what I want as long as I’ve been alive. My mood brings me to you now, to your side and to your bed. Do you refuse me?” Harry asked, his impish grin slipping into gentle pout.

Draco sighed and let his head fall to the pillow. “No, I would never, could never refuse you,” he replied grudgingly. “Fickle sprite,” he added in a teasing tone, and said sprite leapt upon him with grace and swiftness.

“Good, then get me out of these human clothes before I go mad. I feel like a fop,” the Nix groaned and Draco happily rid him of the last vestiges of clothing before letting himself fall under Harry’s intoxicating spell once more.

Authors Note: So I've been packing all day, and I apologize but I my mind is frazzled and I can't come up with an appropriate giftie for reviewing, but please do anyway!