Becoming

Author's Note: Many thanks to both Angel and Robert (yay Robert's back) for their beta work on this chapter.

Chapter 15 May 4th, 2000

I couldn't stifle the smile that erupted on my face when I opened my eyes to find myself wrapped around a delicious blond. Draco's chest still heaved evenly below me, dreams still his constant companion, but I didn't mind. Mornings like these gave me time to think about how different my life was now, and how thoroughly I lacked regrets for how I came to be here in my boyfriend's arms.

So much had happened in the last six weeks that they seemed to practically fly by us. Immediately after the wedding I rushed to Malfoy Manor, where I just stood for hours, staring like some creepy stalker. I couldn't get my feet to move toward the door, but it seemed I hadn't needed to. Around lunchtime, Narcissa came out bearing a tray of cucumber sandwiches and a glass of sparkling grape juice. She didn't say a word as she left it on the stone bench beside my blushing form, shooting me a wry smile before strolling back inside.

I ate the food greedily -having not had a bite since long before the wedding ceremony- but I still didn't approach the Manor, instead opting to sit at the bench and wait until it felt right.

Another hour passed before Narcissa emerged again, this time looking rather determined. "I take it you're waiting for Draco to come to you?" she asked, her blonde eyebrow raised haughtily.

"Not at all," I corrected. "I just... I want to be perfect for him and I don't know what to say."

She smiled at this, her face softening and she took a seat beside me. "Harry dear, you needn't worry so much. Draco is enamored with you, and whether you're perfect or not, he will see you that way."

I blushed faintly and followed her gaze to a window on the topmost floor that looked out over the side gardens. It must have been Draco's room. "I just -what if he's still cross with me?"

"Then you'll have to deal with that, but Draco's bark is far worse than his bite," she assured me.

"What if I get his hopes up and can't go through with it?" I asked, feeling the blood course through my face, heating my cheeks.

"Are you worried that you won't be able to make love to another man?" she asked, and I noted then how much Narcissa was like an older Hermione.

"That among other things," I groaned, letting my face fall into my hands. "We've been enemies for so long. What if I don't know how to be anything else?"

"I think you've been more than that to him for a little over a year now. How about you, Harry? What is Draco to you now?" she asked and my body tensed and froze in place.

"I don't know for sure," I admitted at last and her hand rubbed a soft circle on my back.

"I didn't know that Lucius and I would ever love one another," she told me, almost out of the blue. "We'd been betrothed since we were both infants and we knew, given our families, that there was nothing we could do about it."

"So, you had an arranged marriage?" I asked, slightly surprised. They had seemed such a matched pair; it didn't take a keen eye to see that.

"Oh, yes," she replied with a nod. "It was unheard of for a pureblood to choose their spouse when I was young, in some circles it's still frowned upon and marriages are often still arranged when our children are young. Draco, for instance, was promised to Pansy Parkinson when he was only three. It wasn't until I learned of his sexual proclivities shortly before the war that I convinced Lucius to break the contract. I couldn't bear for my son to be in a loveless marriage."

"And you and Lucius?" I pried, wondering if it was my place to ask.

"He and I were rocky at first, but our love was a slow, burning love, one that built up until we didn't think it could get any larger, and then it would. We hated each other at first; he was pompous and I had a crush on a boy from school and saw Lucius as my death. The moment I set foot off the carriage from Black Manor I loathed him and made that fact perfectly clear, and it seemed he returned the sentiment."

I remained quiet, wrapped up in her story. I was fascinated by the way Draco grew up, because it was so vastly different from my own childhood.

"One morning I woke feeling ill, and I thought I was going to die in truth. I was in so much pain and had a fever that wouldn't abate. It was then that Draco's father showed his true worth. He didn't leave my side for a moment and his hand clutched mine as if to hold me back from the brink until the Healers made me well again. The night I broke my fever and saw Lucius still there at my bedside was the night we conceived Draco," she mused, lost in the memory. "So, you see Harry, sometimes it's the events in life that show you where you ought to be all along; sometimes they even help you get there."

"So, you think Draco and I are meant for each other?" I asked after a good bit of thought over her words.

"I do," she whispered with a nod. "I know that I've never seen my son so in love, and though I cannot speak for you, it seems you return those feelings."

All I could do was nod fervently. "I'm fairly certain I'll never love anyone more," I admitted after a moment.

The soft expression in her eyes, the color of water on a winter day, made me realize she'd been testing me, making sure I was worthy of her precious son. Somehow I had passed that test. "Then I suggest you go home, change out of your wedding clothes, take a nice long shower and get some sleep. Draco will still be in love with you in the morning."

I sighed, not wanting to leave for even a moment, but Draco's mother made sense. I reeked from standing in the spring warmth all day, I was still wearing the tuxedo I was supposed to marry Ginny in -how tacky would it be to profess my love while still wearing that- and I was exhausted. So, after a bit of prodding, I bid Narcissa farewell and left for my own flat.

At first I had planned on just taking a nap and coming back the same evening. I didn't think I could wait until morning, but when I got to my flat, Ron was there in a furious snit. It was as if I was a teenager and he was waiting for me to arrive after I'd been out past curfew.

"You have some nerve, Harry," the redhead growled.

All I could do was sigh as the events of the previous two days finally caught up with me. "Punch me if you want, just make it quick so I can go to bed," I grumbled.

"I really should, you know it," he growled as he stood up from the armchair he'd been occupying. "You broke her heart today."

"I know, and for that I'm sorry. All I can say is that it's better this way," I told him honestly. I hated hurting Ginny, but the more I thought about it, the more obvious it became to me that I would have hurt her regardless. We could have gone through with the wedding, but eventually we would have gotten divorced because I was in love with someone else, or worse, we could have stayed together and both been miserable.

"How is it better? She's sobbing her eyes out while you're off buggering Malfoy!" he shouted.

"Buggering?" I repeated, finding the word simultaneously amusing and offensive. "Is that what you think of me? You think I left Ginny so that I could 'bugger' Mafoy?"

"Well, where have you been all day?" he pressed, clearly not buying that I didn't have Malfoy bent over a table all morning.

"I was standing outside the manor, trying to figure out how I was going to apologize to him and tell him that I love him," I told my friend honestly. I was tired of trying to hide all of this from Ron. He was my best mate and he deserved to know how I felt, even if Ron shunned me for it.

"Love?" he asked, latching onto the word like it was a toxin he had to get rid of in a hurry. "How could you possibly love that rodent?"

My jaw locked up to keep the scathing rebuke in my mind instead of blurting out of my mouth. Ron, after all, still only knew about what we'd been through with the boy in school. He had no idea that a softer, sweeter Draco was hidden below all those layers of malice we'd seen at Hogwarts. After taking a deep breath, I tried again. "I love Draco," I told him plainly. "I want to spend every waking moment in his company and eventually, if he'll have me, I do intend to bugger his brains out."

The last bit I added just to see Ron's brilliantly red face evaporate into such a pale sheen that his skin tone might rival Draco's. I had to admit there was a fair bit of satisfaction in my voice as I said it.

"You... Malfoy.... That's disgusting!" he shouted ineloquently. "He's brainwashed you, Harry, but no worries. We'll set this right. Your relationship with Ginny might be past salvaging, but there are plenty of women who would love to date Harry Potter," he informed me unnecessarily. "I'll consult Hermione and we'll figure out what Hex he used on you to muddle up your brain."

I just sighed and sunk into an armchair across from the one Ron had been sitting in. "You do that, Ron. Let me know what Hermione says, alright?"

With a determined nod, Ron set out, probably to do just as he'd claimed, only, I don't think he was going to get the kind of help he was expecting out of his wife.

After that, I'd done just as Narcissa had suggested. I lingered in the shower, thinking of how Draco would feel wet and pressed against me. I ate a bit of dinner, wondering if Draco might let me feed him one day, and then I laid down for a nap, wishing the blond was curled up beside me.

I really did feel horrible for what I'd done to Ginny, but all of it seemed a necessary evil when I looked at it from an outside perspective. Perhaps once Draco and I had made amends and carved out a life for ourselves, we could set Ginny up with a nice bloke who would treat her right.

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I tried not to read the papers much in the days immediately following my profession of love to Draco. I was relieved he'd accepted me so easily, and he'd only made me beg when we were in private after breakfast that morning, out of range from Narcissa's prying ears.

I couldn't believe how instantly happy we were, and as long as neither of us read the terrible articles being written about us, we remained that way. Narcissa was very adept at keeping the papers from us, but when we tried to go out in public, we were bombarded with reporters and photographers, as well as people in general who hated or loved us indiscriminately.

"Is it true that you left Ginevra Weasley for Draco Malfoy?"

"Are you two intimate or just close friends?"

"Can you confirm the rumor that Ginevra is pregnant with your child, Harry?"

That had been an awful day, and what was supposed to have been a simple trip to pick out new brooms had nearly reduced Draco to tears. I felt guilty all over again, thinking that perhaps my involvement in his life had been a mistake. It took us three days to confirm that Ginny was not, in fact, pregnant with anyone's child, let alone mine, but the damage had been done and a seed of doubt had been sewn into Draco's mind.

He was certain that one day I would leave him just as surely as I had left her. After that we decided to put a cap on our visits together into the wizarding world until this whole thing blew over. It wasn't as though I was ashamed of him, but I just didn't want my public persona to cause him any upset. I loved Draco with my whole heart and would shout it out to the world if I thought that wouldn't bring more harm on our heads than good.

Out of the Weasleys, I'd only seen Hermione. Ginny apparently went out in public even less than Draco and I, for similar reasons. Ron refused to speak to me until I confessed that this was all a ruse and tell him I wasn't in love with Draco and that my being with him had all been one big prank. Obviously, that wasn't happening any time soon.

I was completely estranged from the Weasley clan now, a leper to the people I used to call family. Some might say it wasn't fair, but I made my choice and I was happy with it. I traded the fickle Weasley family for true love with Draco and I refused to look back. My family was now Draco, Narcissa and occasionally Hermione, who snuck over to see me quite often. For now, she was trying to keep it a secret from Ron that she saw me as much as she did because she was trying to keep her own marriage together, but she hated what the Weasleys were doing to me and vowed to change their minds. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was happier without them.

My life was whole for the first time in as long as I could remember, and when I looked at Draco's sleeping face, I felt my heart thrum with the love I felt for him. As I ran my fingers along the soft skin of his jaw, I smiled when he nuzzled into the touch.

"Draco, my love," I cooed softly, pressing a kiss to his cheek. If not for the subtle curl of his lips I might have thought he was still asleep, but I'd learned every facet of his expressions over the last few weeks and I knew he was waiting to see how I would continue.

I nipped the skin along his collarbone, relishing in his shiver, and proceeded lower, trailing my tongue along the flesh of his chest that still burned hot from sleeping. Focusing on his tiny pink nipple, I ran the tip of my tongue in circles around it before descending on it with grazing teeth. A sharp intake of breath was the only reaction Draco allowed himself as he kept up his pretense of sleeping.

It took a good deal of energy to resist tickling him when I dropped my face to his stomach, but I moved along, feeling Draco tense for a moment, probably knowing full well what trickery drifted through my mind. Throwing back the covers, I centered on the one thing I knew he wouldn't be able to keep his composure through.

A low throaty moan met my ears and I looked up the expanse of his naked flesh to meet his eyes, shooting him an amused wink. His gray eyes were like smoke billowing off the embers of a raging fire, and I locked onto them as we made love. Our desire mingled and merged and exploded until his body began shuddering uncontrollably and he nearly shoved me away. My Dragon was so sensitive after climaxing and I loved to tease him with it. After a moment I slinked back up his body, capturing his lips in a deep kiss -letting him taste himself on my tongue- and he moaned into my mouth in reply.

"Well, someone was feeling cheeky this morning," he murmured against my lips when we broke apart. His hand drifted down to wrap around my waist, but I pulled away with a grin.

"I have to get ready for work," I told him reluctantly. It was the only part of my life that had remained the same, although, working with Ron had become increasingly awkward since his abandonment of Ginny.

"But, I haven't had my fill of you yet," he pouted; making his lips look deliciously kissable. So far there hadn't been an instant where I could resist the Malfoy pout.

"I'm already running late," I tried to reason. "You can attack me the minute I walk through the door tonight," I promised.

At this his pout only deepened. "I want to attack you now," he purred, stalking me across the bed as if he were a cat waiting to pounce. I chuckled as I maneuvered away from him. "Floo in sick," he suggested. "You never take time off and we can spend the day whole day together."

I sighed, already feeling myself giving into his demands, I just couldn't resist him. "Fine you win, I'll stay here and let you shag me," I replied, making it sound like I was offering him a grand favor, but my twitching nerves betrayed me.

He smiled a wide, toothy grin and launched himself at me, claiming my mouth with those pouting lips. I couldn't count how many times we made love that morning, but when he finally let me up it was nearing lunch before I got to scrawl out a fictional story of how I woke up late and quite ill and wouldn't be coming into the office today. I sent it along with Draco's owl, knowing how it would look, but I didn't care enough to go to the public Owlery. I still hadn't picked out a new owl of my own, which gave me an idea.

"We should have lunch out, and you can help me choose a new owl. I haven't got a new one since Hedwig..." I suggested, letting my voice trail off at the end. The untimely death of my first owl still stung when I thought about it.

"I thought we were keeping our relationship a secret," he asked me hesitantly.

"No!" I replied, nearly shouted. "Merlin, no, Draco. I don't want you to be a secret, I just don't want the media making you some kind of monster," I tried to explain.

"I'm used to that, Harry," he muttered, obviously still bitter over the fact.

"Well, that doesn't change anything. I love you and I don't want them hounding you. Today should be safe enough. They wouldn't be looking for me since I should be at work. We can wear disguises," I suggested playfully, waggling my eyebrows. "Think of all the kinky costume sex we could have," I continued, nudging him with my elbow.

His skeptic frown turned into a grin and he nodded. "It could be fun."

It was the first time I had gotten to go out in public and hold Draco's hand without the worry that we would be accosted within minutes. It was nice being out with him, and we picked out a smoky gray owl that we named Asher before sharing an ice cream and then heading back to the Manor.

Life with Draco was going to be good; I could feel it in my bones. All we had to do now was wait for the media to lose interest; then, everything would be perfect.

Author's Note: This isn't quite the end