Unexpected Mates

Seeking a mate

Day One – Wednesday, September 2nd

Draco Malfoy was sitting in the Great Hall at breakfast, fighting the urge to bang his head against the table in front of him. He felt as-though he were slowly going insane, as every fibre of his being begged him to move, to run. But he couldn't. His father had only allowed him to attend Hogwarts on his promise that he would control himself, and he couldn't let his father down, even if the scent in the hall was overwhelming him with need.

He was having to exert all his willpower to stay still. Warring with every instinct he possessed. They were screaming at him to move, to follow the scent, to find him. It was a siren song and Draco was dying to give-in to it. But he would not disappoint his father after so much trust had been given to him. He would remain still and wait. He knew that once his father had arrived, he would be allowed to focus on the scent possessing him and find the person to whom it belonged.

You see, Draco Malfoy had a secret. It was a secret which had been hidden from everyone, and buried so deep that very few people ever became aware of it. In fact, the secret itself became so taboo, that the information had been lost to the world in its entirety, save for a Very select few. Prior to Draco's 5th year at Hogwarts, the secret was held by only four people: his father Lucius, His mother Narcissa, his godfather Severus Snape and his master the Dark Lord. The secret was this: that the Malfoy's were not as pure as they claimed. In fact, one Malfoy ancestor had seen to it that their claim to the term was irrevocably removed. This Malfoy ancestor; had married a Veela.

You could say it was a shock to be pulled aside by his father a week or so into the summer after 4th year and told that everything he thought he knew was a lie. It had been a long summer for the Malfoy pair, as father had attempted to impart what should have been a lifetimes worth of common knowledge onto the son, in only 6 weeks. With the new knowledge had come a shift in the opinions of the younger Malfoy. Finding out that he was not a "pure-blood" was shocking; but discovering that this fact had only become shameful within the last century was even more shocking. The idea that the patented 'Malfoy prestige' had not come from their purity but instead the lack of it, had shaken the teenager and forced him to re-evaluate many of his prior opinions. That summer had been full of changes, in an attempt to prepare Draco for his inheritance which would likely occur that December.

Draco had learned everything he needed to know about Veela and their traits, including all of those things which may occur for him once his inheritance had been fully realised. It had been a source of some anxiety, in the lead up to that winter, as there was no telling how many traits Draco himself would display, as the strength of the Veela inheritance seemed to ebb and flow with no discernible pattern through the Malfoy line. When it eventually came, Lucius was surprised to find that Draco had displayed many characteristics of full-blooded Veela, though he himself carried many of the same traits. As such, that winter break had been a test of Draco's control as he attempted to quickly come to terms with his new instincts.

Upon to returning to Hogwarts Draco had run into another problem, causing him to have to spend many an evening in his Godfathers' rooms meditating and duelling in order to release his pent-up energy. He had a mate.

He had discovered this fact only a few days into the new term, when Draco first noticed a slight scent drawing him in. After some discussion with the elder Malfoy and his Godfather, the trio had come to the conclusion that Draco had a soulmate, but that the identity of that person could not be determined. This being due to the fact that Veela could be very vicious and dangerous when courting and mating, and as such the mating scent did not develop fully until both parties were 16 years old and had reached maturity (by Veela standards). Knowing that his mate travelled the halls of Hogwarts but being unable to detect him had caused Draco a lot of pain last year, and in an attempt to distract him that summer, he and his father had travelled all around the globe, in the hopes that it would allow Draco to release some of the anxiety he had been carrying around due to his unknown mate and by the time he got back that person may have turned 16 themselves and thus could be found.