It was Blaise's turn now in the test, Malfoy having gone just before him and Theodore before him. Which left Ernie to be last, most likely Sprout's last hope that the pale and shaking Hufflepuff would soak up some of the tactics and strategies they used and would actually stand a fighting chance, if nothing else than to protect himself. Harry just saw it as a way of prolonging Ernie's torture.
Harry was sitting a good few feet away from his silent friends and family, annoyed but unsurprised by their lack of greeting or talking. He'd shocked them too much, he supposed. What with the wings and things; he'd had a rather awestruck Centaur practically worship him when it came time to 'fight'. Loral, his name was, a young one that had been caught by one of Greyback's traps and found by Hagrid. Harry had been very angry to see rope burns all over the poor Centaur's limbs, some welling up with blood, but Loral had assured him that he was fine and had laid his head back in Harry's lap where he stayed until someone stunned him and exchanged him for another poor creature.
After Harry had tended to his last creature and finished the test, Dumbledore had led him away from the Weasley's almost as soon as he'd passed through the wards on the fence, laying a comforting hand on his shoulder as he took him to a place behind the scattered groups where he could sit under a tree and relax. Not that he could under the stares, but still. "It's not that they are afraid, my dear boy, but rather that they don't understand," he had said.
They would never understand, Harry thought, frowning as he watched the Weasley's watch Blaise parry and attack a different and much larger and fiercer Acromantula. I've always been different to them, but now I'm too different. A different person, a differentspecies to them. A rotten apple in a basket of ripe oranges.
"You were quite impressive, Lord Potter."
Harry blinked in surprise at the gentle voice, not having seen her walking up to him as he'd been so deep in thought. He spared Narcissa a small smile and shuffled in his spot, his wings fluttering anxiously behind him and imitating arms as they pressed against his sides comfortingly. She looked at them for a moment, but wasn't rude enough to stare at them like everyone else had. "Thank you," he said politely. "But no one seems to share your opinion."
Narcissa levelled him with a soft stare, her usual chips of ice blue eyes warm. She let out a refined tinkling laugh. "My husband is quite enamored with your transformations, it is unlikely that you would ever catch him saying so, but then again, praise from Lucius would be like a butterfly biting," she said, her eyes crinkling up. "May I sit with you?" She asked, gesturing to the place on his right.
Harry agreed and shuffled to the left, allowing her more space to sit. Narcissa swept up her long elegant light blue ropes and gracefully lowered herself onto the slightly warmed grass, her legs folding up underneath her delicately. "Thank you, all this standing around makes my feet hurt," she said, as if confiding something secret.
Harry noticed two small but expensive looking high heeled shoes sitting by her knees, and laughed quietly.
They were silent for a few moments, enjoying the gentle breeze ruffling the trees around and behind them and watching as Blaise threw around the hissing and pained Acromantula, Harry had to squeeze his eyes closed and clench his hands to ignore its cries. There was a final hiss and explosion, and then someone stunning the Acromantula, and Blaise's first challenge was over.
"I've always despised the idea of fighting, you know," Narcissa said suddenly, breaking Harry from his concentration with her soft voice. "I'd never thought that my child would be involved in situations where he could be harmed. Such a thing was always frowned upon when I was a child, my mother would never have allowed Draco to do this. I almost didn't."
Harry didn't know what to say to that. So he just nodded and kept quiet, distracting himself with the silky wings that were inching their way around him on either side. Narcissa glanced at him from the corner of her eye, watching him silently stroke his soft leathery wings with still sharp claws. A small amused smile twisted her lips.
"Is it odd?"
Harry looked up at her, confused. "Is what odd?" He asked, not unkindly.
"Is it odd to have wings," she clarified, smiling wryly at herself. "I do apologize for not making myself clear. It's just . . . I'm rather curious," she continued, the wry smile not leaving her lips. "One of my old friends from my childhood days is a Veela, we have kept in touch and have small gatherings often, but each time I ask she won't tell me. I suppose I thought that perhaps you would."
Harry allowed a small smile to play across his soft pink lips, amused at the thought of Narcissa Malfoy being denied something. Surely she would've thrown a fit every time. "I haven't had them long enough to experience them fully, but from what it feels like now, it's much like having a pair of very flexible arms on the back of your shoulders that abide by instincts and not conscious thought. So to answer your question; yes, it's very odd."
"They're very beautiful wings," she mused softly, turning her blue eyes away from him to gaze out at the small field, the smile fading from her lips as something seemed to occur to her. "Much like the person they're attached to," she added quietly, turning pensive eyes on something in the distance.
Harry pretended not to hear that, figuring that it probably hadn't been meant for his ears anyway. Compliments from Malfoy's were always untrue or faked, or perhaps part of some elaborate scheme. Narcissa and Lucius Malfoy had been doing it all for years, which was why they were still so high up in the Ministry even after all their time spent serving Voldemort in the past. Just the thought of the Malfoy's gave him a stress headache -something he was prone to having-, they were all so fickle and troubling, conniving, cunning. His hair was going to be whiter than Dumbledore's before the school year was back.
"Lord Potter?" Narcissa asked quietly.
Harry blinked himself out of his stupor and glanced at the blonde woman, offering a small smile. "Yes?"
"I asked if you were ready for the girls to join you," she said slowly, not unkindly. "I suspect that they should be here in a day or so. Inheritances as violent and all encompassing as this usually affect the women more. I was lucky not to experience such things as the need to bite things, all it was for me was growing pains and the need to sleep more than usual. Much like the men, I suppose."
Harry, however, hadn't heard a thing past her first words. "What girls?" He asked slowly.
Narcissa gave a tinkling laugh as if he'd said something funny, and gave his arm a light push. "You didn't honestly think that men were the only ones to get an inheritance, did you?" She asked, still laughing slightly. She smiled fondly at him when he frowned and picked up his hand to pull it onto her lap where she held it in her even daintier and tinier one, and Harry let her, surprised at the way she was acting. "I suppose no one has had the chance to explain this all to you," she began, smiling at him once more with her pearly teeth on show. "Well, as I said before, we women often get the worst of the worst, menstrual cycles as an example. When a girl reaches her inheritance, we parents are able to define when she will begin to change, she begins to feel grouchy and becomes slightly more tired and listless.
"Draco was much like that, if a bit more violent when disturbed. I remember having to arrange for a room in the manor for Draco to unleash himself upon, nearly everything was always destroyed. Any such, when a girl begins to change, she not only feels the need to strike anyone or anything, but she will attempt to eat everything she can to try and help with the pains in her teeth, and that includes biting those who annoy her," at this Narcissa gave a benign smile and stroked the back of Harry's hand with her thumb, almost forcing Harry to relax in the calming gesture. "As I said before, I was lucky to avoid such a thing. Sadly, a Miss Pansy Parkinson was not. I received a letter from her mother just a week prior, Pansy has already drawn blood from her father and has begun to grow her fangs, which is the last stage of growth or change in a girls inheritance."
"But isn't that a bad thing? To draw blood from someone close to you?" Harry asked, frowning deeply and furrowing in the small warm burrow his wings had created around him.
Narcissa shook her head, hardly stirring a fine blonde hair on her crown, and smiled patiently. "No, that's a good thing, it means that she isn't defective or rejecting the change. If she begins to bite herself, then that is a very grave problem."
"So that's why Blaise got away with biting me, because he's still learning how to resist the smell of blood?" Harry asked, frowning deeply.
Narcissa gave his hand a gentle squeeze. "Yes and no. Because he's merely a fledgling, he's learnt the basic instincts of survival and how to resist the bloodlust one always feels in the presence of others. It seems that the attraction to your blood threw him for a loop, as does any rare being."
"It felt wrong when he bit me," Harry admitted abruptly, the words pushing past his lips before he could stop them.
Narcissa nodded in understanding, her thumb never stopping its soothing ministrations on the back of his hand. "That's common for an unmated being to feel when taken against ones will, it usually means that you've found your soulmate, but have not recognised them for what they are."
Harry repressed the need to gape up at the blonde woman as she said this, his wide eyes being the only thing to reveal his shock. "Do you think that I've found my soulmate?" He asked.
Narcissa gave him a mischievous smirk, her pale pink lipstick covered lips tilting up at the corners and her eyes glittering with amusement. "I believe so, yes. Have you had any sexual relations since the change took place?"
Harry knew why she was watching him now. His face flushed a bright red almost instantly at her words, his cheeks becoming a cherry red from embarrassment at such a question. "No!" He squeaked, embarrassment coloring his tone. "I've never thought --! I mean, I've never . . . I thought this was supppsed to be a quiet place to sit," he all but demanded her.
Narcissa threw her head back and laughed, the first time Harry had seen a Pureblood -much less a Malfoy- laugh in such a harsh and unrefined way. Her laughter was rich and throaty, a much more amusing and true sound that Harry hadn't at all thought her capable of. "Oh, Lord Potter," she giggled mirthfully, sailing her free hand underneath her eyes to catch any tears. "You do so make me laugh like a little schoolgirl. I fear I haven't laughed like this in years!"
"You can call me Harry, you know," Harry muttered wryly, ignoring her small bursts of throaty giggles as she attempted to calm herself down. "I'm not that into formalities anyway."
Narcissa looked at him then, traces of her laughter still fresh on her face, but was smiling softly. "You may call me Narcissa, Harry," she said gently, bringing up her free hand to swipe at a stray hair on his shoulder.
A tentative smile pulled at the pouty pink lips on Harry's face, eliciting a small adoring sigh from Narcissa. He would provide her lovely grandchildren, she was sure. She couldn't wait to see him swollen with child, he has that beautiful glow about him that practically screams 'Mother', though she felt a horrible niggling thought in her mind that suggested neither Harry, or Draco, knew about the practices of male pregnancies. Lucius had better sit Draco down and have a talk, lest they have grandchildren crawling around their feet before Draco and Harry graduate from Hogwart's.
She would not have her son and son-in-law suffering under the stress of N.E.W.T's while taking care of a baby, no matter how prepared they are.
-oOoOoOoOo-
"What did she want, mate?" Ron asked angrily as Harry rejoined the Weasley's and traipsed up the path leading back to the castle.
Ernie hadn't lasted as long as what Professor Sprout had wanted, as he had well and truly been beaten down by the other creatures as soon as they'd been unleashed, but that was only because the werewolf in him would only come out once every month and not at will and would only affect his behavior and reactions in some ways. Harry had told the Hufflepuff so, so he wouldn't feel too bad about being beaten down by a fairly small Acromantula. Ernie and Sprout had appreciated the gesture for what it was, a friendly reminder that no one is infallible, and Ernie had brightened up a little.
Although the both of them seemed to think Harry was pretty damn close to being infallible.
"To talk," Harry said flatly, ignoring the annoyed look sent his way from the lanky redhead. He hadn't looked at either Hermione or Ron since he'd rejoined them, he was still stung by the way they ignored him right after something so shocking had happened to him. George and Fred, bless them, had boxed him in on either side and were doing their best to support him, a silent apology that they hadn't realized that he'd needed them sooner. He'd forgiven them quickly, as they really weren't used to his vulnerable state of mind and had thought that he'd brave everything out like he always did.
"Yeah, but about what? Did she bother you?"
"Ronald," snapped Hermione impatiently. "Harry is perfectly capable of telling us if something is bothering him, he has a mind of his own. Honestly, you'd think that we're his guardian's and not his friends!"
"But he could be tricked, 'Mione! The Malfoy's are Death Eaters --!" Ron tried to say angrily.
Harry came to a halt and spun around to face Ron so quickly, the twins didn't realize what he was doing until he was yelling - practically screaming the words he'd never had the chance or capability to say in Ron's face. "Voldemort is DEAD!" He yelled. "We don't need to be reminded of what happened anymore - it's done, it happened and it's over! If the Malfoy's were Death Eaters they wouldn't be here, they'd be in hiding like the rest of the other criminals! SO JUST STOP! I can't take it anymore!"
Everyone was silent as Harry heaved in deep breaths to calm down, his wings shuddering up and down with his shoulders. Ron looked ready to explode in anger, his eyes wide and his face a dark red. "I'm going mad already, I . . . I can't take it from you two, I need something normal before I explode," Harry said quietly, though his voice still carried to the others furthest from him.
They didn't notice the family of three watching them intently, Narcissa practically in tears and aching to hold the poor boy she had begun ro bond with and Lucius holding his breath so that he wouldn't say anything to disturb the moment - like an insult to one of the dumbest Weasley boys. Draco was just staring at Harry, coiled to vault himself towards the younger man to protect or hold him. He, unlike his parents, knew that Ronald was about to strike - whether it be verbal or physical, and he was just biding his time until he could kill the Weasel for daring to insult his -rather clueless- mate.
"Everything just has to be about you doesn't it," Ron finally growled, apparently not hearing what Harry had said or the desperately sad tone in his voice.
Harry had been waiting for it, the big 'blowout' between them, but it seemed that Hermione was shocked this time - almost as if she hadn't been expecting it to happen. "Ronald!" She gasped, her eyes widening in shock at the poisonous words coming from her boyfriend. Many echoed her, including Molly, whom had to be restrained by her husband and eldest son so she wouldn't beat her second youngest son to death with her wooden spoon.
"No!" Ron snapped, finally fed up with everything. "I'm sick and tired of always catering to his needs, of having to walk on egg shells in case he goes mental! Oh poor me, I was badly abused as a child by my monster Muggle family and was always targeted by the Dark Lord, boo hoo! I'm fucking sick of it! We're all important too!"
It had been quiet before, but it was a deafening silence now, one that silenced the world and all its inhabitants and made everyone tense. Harry strained against himself not to attack the redhead, his wings already flaring out behind him in a dangerous arch, his fingernails growing out into the sharp and long claws from before. He was growling steadily, his chest vibrating with the primal sound, but before he could even say a word, an ear bursting roar came from the back of the group and a blur of pale skin and white hair shot towards them, though it was quite clear in where it was aiming.
It was aiming for Harry.