A Throne of Blood and Stars

Chapter Twenty-Six

"What does that have to do with me?"

"It was intertwined the same way that signature in your chest was."

The Slytherin looks at her long and hard. "I do hope you are not implying..."

"He is your mate, it's the only reasonable explanation. You're the only ones with this symptom."

"Woman!"

"It's only an assumption. I could be wrong."

"What you are assuming," Draco stresses the word. "Is practically impossible. I had to have died and come back. And so had he."

"You did die, for a second. I explained this. Theoretically speaking, you both needed to be reborn for a mating ritual. And you were."

"And what of him?"

Madame Pomfrey looks away. "He...he did. Die. In the war."

"He did what?"

"It's not my place to tell," Madame Pomfrey says hastily.

"If what you are implying is true, I must know now."

She shakes her head and moves forward the remaining steps to Harry. "Let's get him down."

"How will we do that?"

"I'm not going to do it," Madame Pomfrey says. "You're going to do it."

"You said you could be wrong! I could be propelled outside these windows, woman!"

"The wards will hold. No such thing will happen."

"The wards are halfway to London, do you not see what is happening?"

"Just talk to him! Touch him!"

Draco growls and glares at her, stepping closer to the barrier of the bubble. "I can still sue you should something happen."

Madame Pomfrey rolls her eyes. "Yes, alright."

He frowns.

He takes the last cautious step forward, gasping when the bubble parts for him to go through it. He looks back to the witch and notices her gaping mouth.

"You did that?"

"No," she answers quickly. "That wasn't me."

Alright, Draco thinks. I have a mate to deal with. Oh, Salazar, I mated Potter. Why.

He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, racks through his brain to remember what he read about bonded mates.

As usual, he comes up blank, despite excelling through every exam and scouring through every single book in the Manor. He growls to himself.

"Potter," he says as he approaches Harry's floating body. "Potter, I know you like playing with magic you cannot control but you must come down now."

A pulse of magic exits Harry's body and swirls around him. He feels instantly calmer, relaxed.

Harry is suspended about six feet in the air, and when Draco gets close enough he reaches out to take his hand. "Come on, Potter."

Suddenly his hand is being squeezed and another ribbon of magic pulses out of Harry's chest, bounding itself around their held hands.

Draco's eyes widen.

This. He remembers this. The Tell-Tale Signs of a Mate by Helga Gorad tells of a few species of magical creatures and how they begin mating rituals when all else is prepared.