To Suffer a Veela

Narcissa Malfoy looked at the common room that her son and his mate shared and hoped that she had done a good job for her little boy. She smiled when she thought of how he certainly wasn’t a little boy anymore if the reports from Minerva were accurate. She remembered when Lucius had first approached her about being a mate. He was over-bearing, egocentric and possessive and those were his human qualities. The veela tendencies had frightened her and she had the benefit of having her mother and Lucius sit her down and explain what was expected of her years before she had been bitten. Poor Hermione Granger had been ambushed and according to the Head Mistress, violently assaulted. Those who were not bonded to a veela saw the mating process as traumatic when in reality it was merely... intense. From what she could recall of the pretty muggle born, she was confident that even if she wasn’t receptive to Draco, she would weather the mating process just fine. She looked over at her own mate as he sat in the wing back chair next to the fire and watched her move about the room with his eyes, his face never twitching a muscle. He looked collected and stern, but she could feel his own nervousness and apprehension about the confrontation that would shortly take place.

According to his letter, Draco had not yet won Hermione's heart, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He had had this portion of his life planned out for years and Narcissa knew that her son would not allow something as small as his mate’s reluctance stand in the way of their happiness. She rolled her eyes at his thick headedness and wondered if it was a veela trait or a Malfoy trait that made her men so focused on their own little world. Arranging the clothing her son had told her to purchase on the display rack she had borrowed from the store, she studied the room. She had purchased one each of every dress in the store that came in the girl's size and also chosen shoes, handbags, stockings and costume jewelry to match. She then made a trip to a Parisian wizarding boutique and bought the clothing the seamstress had that was Hermione's size and ordered several more dress robes to be made and sent to her daughter-in-law at Hogwarts. Narcissa adored shopping for others and she was overjoyed to have a girl to shop for in addition to spoiling Draco with weekly care packages from home. She wished that they had known about the girl from childhood, so that she could have bought dresses, dolls, hair bows and maybe her mother would have allowed her to go shopping for her first brassiere and cosmetics. Remembering that the child's parents were muggle, she gave herself a reality check that not only would her mother have been against the idea of pairing off so early, but she would have tried to minimize contact for as long as possible. Muggles just couldn't understand.

Thinking of Hermione's parents, Narcissa returned to a memory that had haunted her for years and had made her wonder since Draco had informed her of his mate's identity at fourteen. When Draco was about to turn two, the three of them had taken a trip to Stonehenge, near their home in Wiltshire. They couldn't perform any spells or ceremonies because it was day time and crowded with muggle tourists, but they could purchase various herbs and potion ingredients that were considered to be much more potent because of the magic infused in the earth at this spot. Normally Lucius was adamant about not taking his mate anyplace that was packed with muggles, but he was still trying to make amends for the mess he had created of their lives because of his involvement with the now dead (well, they thought he had been dead) Lord Voldemort. He relented to not only going during the daytime, but the daytime on a Saturday as well. Stonehenge was one place that they could go that would be packed with muggles where they wouldn't draw attention to themselves due to their clothing as so many hippies and 'new age pagans' dressed very similar to wizarding robes.

Once they arrived, Narcissa had mainly focused on shopping at the wizarding stand. If anyone non-magical had looked over, they would have seen her purchasing the ugliest T-shirts and souvenirs imaginable instead of dried out newts and badger paws. Lucius had followed her,his incredibly large hand resting possessively on her hip and glaring at every male, muggle and wizard alike, who dared to look at her. Draco had wandered off on his chubby legs to a stand with children's toys for sale. Thinking he was fascinated with the brightly coloured pennants and balloons, she hadn't paid much attention as she sifted through the bunches of lavender and witch hazel until she heard his tiny voice shout out.

“MINE!” The desperation in her son's voice frightened her as she spun on her heel expecting to see someone taking his beloved stuffed dragon, 'Wubby' from his constant grasp. What she saw shocked her. Wubby was laying forgotten on the ground as Draco held a little girl slightly smaller than him with one hand fisted in her pale blue dress and the other gripping her chubby little arm so hard that it was beginning to turn red. The little girl was looking at him with wide, confused, whiskey coloured eyes. The mop of honey curls on her head were held back with a hair ribbon that matched her dress. She looked like a Shirley Temple doll and her son was dragging her towards his parents as if she really were nothing but a toy. “Papa!” he shouted, spotting his father with a triumphant gleam in his eye. “Buy this! This mine!”

Narcissa's blood ran cold as she felt her veela bristle at seeing his son with an obviously muggle toddler. Turning to him, she whispered, “Lucius, you pay for these while I take care of that.” She moved swiftly through the amused crowd that was focused on her child and his 'purchase'. When he saw her approaching him, his face lit up and he tugged harder on his companion trying to hurry her. Narcissa opened her mouth to admonish him, but a child of about eight came running towards them. It was the child to which Draco had announced his ownership of the little girl.

“Scout! What are you doing?” the boy yelled in exasperation. “Don't let that creepy little wanker drag you off.” The boy had the same whiskey coloured eyes as the little girl and the same nose. As he closed in on the pair, Draco clutched the whimpering girl more securely against his chest, the way he did with his stuffed dragon when he was either afraid or Pansy Parkinson tried to play with it.

Mine!” he yelled as he scooted backwards, looking to his mother for help. “Not yours! Mine!”

“Our Dad is coming and you'll be sorry,” the boy warned menacingly as he caught up to them and grabbed a hold of his sister's dress and yanked hard, causing both smaller children to fall forwards and for Draco's nails to accidently scrape down her arm due to his tight grip, drawing blood. “Now look what you did! Stupid baby!”

Narcissa watched in horror as the older boy shoved Draco back and once again attempted to remove his sobbing sister from Draco's grip. “Stop! He doesn't know any better,” she yelled as she reached the children and pried Draco's fingers off the little girl's body and set her upright, dusting her off. This was horrible. She could feel Lucius' rage as he stalked towards them and knew that if he got angry enough his eyes might glow and how would they explain that? To the muggles they would be outed as wizards and to the wizards they would be outed as veela. Reaching over to Wubby, she picked the stuffed toy up and then attempted to pick up her now screaming toddler. “Draco, we have to go now. Let go of your friend, darling, we can't buy her. It isn't right.”

“Scout isn't that little brat's friend, lady!” The little boy was certainly brave for his age. Not many children would yell at an adult. One glacial Malfoy stare made him take a step back, but he held on to his sister. He was pulling on her almost as roughly as Draco and Narcissa had been certain that the little girl was more afraid of the boys' attitude than the physical harm she suffered. Still glaring at the boy, she pried Draco's grasping hands out the girl's hair, off her arms and away from her dress. She saw a man with wild, curly hair approaching them, his face both confused and angry.

“Chris, what's going on here? Why is your sister bleeding?” The man bent down removed his son's hands from his daughter and hoisted the little girl onto his hip. She lay her head onto his courduroy sport coat and let the tears run freely, emotionally distraught and relieved to be back in familiar territory. The man turned angrily to address Narcissa, but both he and his son froze for two seconds before blinking stupidly and staring at her and Draco with confused faces.

“Your daughter fell and scratched her arm on an exposed root and your son fetched you to tend to her,” Lucius' baritone sounded forcefully. The man holding his still crying daughter nodded his dazedly and Narcissa knew her husband had obliviated them. Taking Draco from her with one arm and pulling her to him with his other, he drug his family to the apparation point and Narcissa felt safe again with her powerful mate in control of the situation. As they walked away, Draco sobbed and reached desperately for the little girl he had wanted his father to buy.

Once they were safely in the manor, Lucius had walked Draco up to his nursery and placed him in his bed. Kissing his son's forehead, he looked into the tiny face that was a carbon copy of his own and said, “Draco, my son, we can't buy people. At least, we can't buy them in a straight forward kind of manner. If you want a little to play with we'll invite Pansy back over. Won't that be nice?”

Draco's pale skin turned purple with his frustration. “Don't. Want. Pansy! Want MINE! Please, Papa, Ple-ease! Please get 'mine' back!” he yelled through clenched teeth before sobbing into the neck of his stuffed dragon in a way that broke his parents' hearts. This was different from the tantrum he had thrown over wanting an adult sized broom. His little heart seemed genuinely broken and as she realized that, Narcissa's insides turned to ice as she thought about her son's heritage. What if Draco's mate was muggle? Though Lucius had been forced to do the Dark Lord's bidding, he still saw muggles as incredibly inferior and felt that muggle-born witches and wizards should be in a lower social caste than the rest of wizarding society. She didn't know what his reaction would be to the Malfoy line having non-magical blood in it.

Feeling her distress but misinterpreting it, Lucius stood up and pulled her into the circle of his arms. “Don't worry, 'Cissa,” he said into her ear, making her shiver in want. “Small children always tend to want to play in the dirt. He'll grow out of it.” Taking his thumb, he ran it over the mark on her neck that told everyone she was his and her knees buckled. Holding her up with an arm around her waist, he darted his tongue out to taste her skin and then whispered in her ear, “Put him to sleep for a nap and then come to my study. I need you and listening to those filthy muggles' thoughts has more than taxed my patience.”

Even though he was snide, demanding, haughty and at sometimes cold, Narcissa loved him and even cherished his less than desirable qualities. She reveled in the power that he held over her and in the equally strong power she held over him. As she put Draco to sleep with a calming spell she noticed something blue clutched in his tiny hand. Even in his sleep he clutched at it as she pulled the hair ribbon the little girl had been wearing from his grasp. Sighing, she tied it in a bow around Wubby's neck and dimmed the fairy lights in his room. Looking back at him, she thought to herself that if today was any indication, they were in for a world of trouble once Draco reached his full inheritance.

“Narcissa, stop wool gathering and come sit with me,” her husband's imperial voice commanded her to come back to the present and back to his side, but the nervousness she could feel through their bond made her smile indulgently as she sat in his lap. One of his strong arms was wrapped covetously around her waist while the other one held his forehead in his hand. “What a mess I've made of his life. I don't understand how he doesn't hate me.”

She had written out her own memories of the first weeks of her life as a veela mate and placed the letter next to a platter of chocolate covered strawberries. In the bathroom she had placed a gift basket of salts, oils and other relaxing items along with two bottles of champagne and two green glass goblets. The common room was about Hermione, the bathroom was about getting her to relax with Draco. That was going to be difficult.

Veela were sexual creatures. It was their natural defense mechanism and the rage they felt when their mates were threatened gave them unprecedented physical and magical power. They held their mates dear above everything else and they do mean EVERYTHING. When Lucius had first become involved with the Dark Lord, he had been confident and viewed the pureblood ideals as another way of protecting his mate. He didn’t like anything different or foreign and the increasing number of muggle borns had brought with them changes he didn’t like. It was only when he realized that even in his veela rage mode he couldn’t best the mad man that their true terror had begun. Narcissa had woken one night to find herself immobile with Dolohov, Greyback and Rabastan Lestrange leering over her and Lucius kneeling at the foot of their bed with Voldemort’s wand at his throat and her husband unable to do anything about it. She had watched, terrified as Rabastan pulled the bed clothes down, exposing her bare chest in the moonlight, but doing nothing more. Lucius' full veela traits came out as he fought against the magical hold on him. The other men in the room had laughed maniacally and then she had passed out. From that point onward, whatever Voldemort demanded of Lucius, he got. When Voldemort had risen the second time and Lucius failed him, he asked Lucius who he would rather give up, his wife or his son and without a moment’s hesitation or even a blink, he had given up their only child.

Narcissa was still not prepared to forgive him that transgression, but their separation during his stay in Azkaban had been brutal and she was extremely lucky the pining had not driven her mad. That was a horrible choice to be presented with, veela or not, but she still couldn't get over Lucius' lack of thought in the decision. It all worked out in the end and she had secured her family’s freedom and Draco’s unwillingness to kill his headmaster had branded him as a hero of sorts. She was exceedingly proud that her son’s legilimency skills were powerful enough to fool the dark lord into thinking he had not yet found his mate. The fact that he was willing to die before having a chance to claim her made Narcissa certain that her son’s character, while flawed, was strong. It was the after effects of the stress of watching his mate dangle in front the mouth of peril and disaster that made him so determined to have her now.

Veela were relentless. Even with her displeasure of Lucius’ gambling with their lives because of the folly of youth, they still had a very active and fulfilling bedroom life. She hoped the Granger girl appreciated how difficult life for Draco had been and she dearly hoped that Draco would realize how complicated the situation was in which his mate resided. She had gone through life expecting to be able to choose a husband of her own volition and after a proper courtship. Narcissa could not imagine a life where magic was merely a fanciful idea and not a reality, so she couldn’t fully grasp how foreign the ‘mate’ concept was for Hermione. However, she could try and she could help her new daughter-in-law to come to love the idea. After all, being a mate was so much more powerful and involved than just being a wife. Yes, it was overwhelming at times, but a girl could get used to being cherished. Looking at the fruits of her first muggle shopping spree Narcissa was confident that the dark days for her family were over. She couldn’t wait to back to muggle London with Hermione to see what other stores there were besides Top Shop.

~~Back to Draco~~
The sight of his father in his common room made Draco stiffen. Even though it was his mated father, it was still another male intruding on his territory. His fangs lengthened and he thought that perhaps his eyes were glowing because when his mother finally got him to acknowledge her presence, she looked very worried. Working very hard to calm himself down, he looked around the room at what his mother had purchased. This morning he had been certain that the display before him would produce a happy reaction from his mate. Now, he had no clue as to what reaction she might give.

“Draco?” his mother asked quizzically. “Are these not the things you wanted?”

“No, Mother, you did fine.” He sat down on the chair opposite his parents in front of the fire place. Two moments later, he was back up and pacing the room.

“Draco, darling, if we haven't purchased the right things, you can tell me and we'll go get what you need. I won't be offended.” Narcissa was doing her best to calm him, but it only made him more agitated.

“I have no idea if this shite is what she would like! I have no clue about it whatsoever! Because of my father's decisions, I'm forced to come to terms with the fact that the only woman I'll ever want is only with me because she's compelled to be, either with pheromones or laws! If she had free will she would abandon me, completely! You said you could buy me whatever I needed and you can't. If you want to make everything 'just fine', make her love me the way she's supposed to. Take me forwards in time to where she doesn't fight me at every turn. I'm going crazy, Mother, because I need her so badly and I can't get her to even think about being with me without using my pheromones.”

“You wouldn't want her if it was easy, Draco,” Lucius shocked everybody by speaking up. Since nearly destroying his family a second time, he had been less verbal, especially around his son.

“How would you know what I want, Father?” Draco sneered, his fangs becoming visible along with his agitation.

“I know the compulsion you are feeling right now and I know how it hurts to not have your mate with you. However, if fate allowed things to be easy you would never appreciate your mate or her feelings.”

“You mean the way you appreciate Mother and her feelings? You know NOTHING of what I'm going through! The reason I couldn't tell her when we were fourteen was because of your selfish actions. I had to keep her a secret for years while I watched other men paw at her like a piece of meat. If you hadn't been so selfish, I could have had her with me for years. Instead, I had to live with the knowledge that I might never get to touch her and she isn't the least bit appreciative of that! I committed crime after crime, making her hate me more and more because you were a selfish, cowardly bastard!”

Lucius' face turned red, but it was impossible to tell if it was from anger or shame. “I did what I had to do to keep your mother safe. I'm not proud of what I had to do and it certainly was not an easy decision to make, but you will soon find out that when it comes to your mate, logic does not always rule. I know that you have been through hell, and that much of that was a hell of my own creation. I'm more sorry than you'll ever know, but I cannot change the past. Your mother and I are here to make certain that your future is much less painful than your past.”

Draco's nose twitched and he glared at his parents. “She's coming.”


A/N- Okay, I know I haven't been updating quickly enough for anybody's standards, but life gets in the way. I'm still a member of this community, however, and I promise that this story will get finished, as will all my others. Thank you so much for your patience. It means a lot to me.

A/N 2- Also, lots of people want me to continue 'Watching'. I do have something knocked together, but it won't be published for some time. However, if anyone is inspired by one of my stories and wants to continue on their own, by all means, do so. All I ask is that you give me a shout out or ask readers to check out my stories. Recently, someone published a story that was completely ripped off of one of mine. I have no issue with someone using my story line as their own, but please give credit where credit is due. I always try to make certain that I give credit to intellectual property when I need to, so please return the favor. Granted, we are all using J.K. Rowling's intellectual property and there are story arcs that are frequently repeated (marriage law, EWE, etc) but the plot and dialogue should be our own. Once again, I love the thought of one of my stories inspiring someone else to write and I don't mind at all if another author wants to use my plot, prose, character, whatever. I do mind not getting any credit at all when someone has word for word lifted my plot and just changed the title, however. Sorry for getting on a soap box, but that really hurt.
Cheers- G.C.