Un-Mate

Harry was sure he was seeing things as he sat underneath a tree not far from the edge of the lake. He’d escaped the common room with the intent on getting ahead on some of his classes, however his Charms book had now ended up discarded in his lap as he stared at the two blonde forms slowly making their way to the lake’s edge.

Luna Lovegood had one of Draco’s hands in a soft grip, continuously turning around to look at him with a bright smile and making wide, expressive gestures with her free hand. Draco, to his credit, appeared to be listening enough to nod his head along to whatever Luna was saying.

Neither of the parties had noticed him, nor looked much farther than their intended destination: a small patch of shallower water at the lake’s edge, commonly used for people needing to wet down their feet in the heat. Draco had apparently come dressed for the occasion.

As they reached the edge of the lake, Luna expertly shucked her shoes off her feet whilst Draco’s attention dropped to his own as the water slowly lapped at his toes.

Luna appeared to say something to which Draco replied with a small twist of his head, Luna bending to her knees and carefully rolling up the legs of Draco’s pants to his knees before turning to smile up at him.

Harry’s eyes scrunched and he restlessly pushed his glasses up farther as if trying to make out more of the context that seemed impossible. Draco appeared to say something, Luna turning to him gently and letting out an easy laugh before again grabbing his hand and walking them a few steps deeper into the water.

Harry’s hands clenched in the grass around him as his eyes scoured over Draco’s dishevelled form; the trousers unpressed and rolled up haphazardly, and his shirt with a stain on the lapel and sleeve and buttoned in a mismatched pattern. A slow murmur built in his head, shaking it furiously as if to shake it from his senses, but simply sat buzzing in his ears.

Harry twisted strands of grass in his fingers as he watched, small knots forming amongst the green slivers. The white skin of Draco’s legs was accented by pale blue veins that almost shone as the light hit them, and Harry felt his breath stick in his throat like a melting sweet.

Gulping forcefully, Harry drove his fingers into the grass further, more tufts of green being pulled loose.

Harry’s eyes didn’t leave the pair once as they seemed to silently walk across the shallows, Luna bending down every now and again to raise a stone into the sun, saying something that caused Draco to look and reply. It was a steady rhythm of movement, back and forth, between them, at least until Draco’s foot appeared to slip on the stones beneath them.

Harry’s voice was out before he thought of it.

“Draco!”

The sharp sound was accented by the soft thud of a book hitting the ground as Harry jolted to his feet.

Draco’s eyes had shot up at his name and landed on him. Harry was too far away to see what was in them or to even read his face very well, but it was Luna who responded as she turned in his direction.

“Harry! How nice to see, you should come and wet your feet down, it’s an awfully good way to find the ground.”

Harry watched and took one slow step forward as Draco turned to scowl at Luna, who simply returned the look with a smile.

“Find the ground?” Harry repeated, the words odd as he turned them over.

“Yes, that’s what we were doing, weren’t we Draco?”

Luna’s words were soft and warm, thick with fragility as she glanced over at the scowling Draco who had instead turned to look out onto the lake.

Harry took a tentative step forward as the world rushed in around him again.

“I- ah,” started Harry, blinking several times. Looking down at his hands there were green smears from the fresh grass he’d torn up; behind him, his Charms book lay discarded on the ground; and as Harry took one deep breath in his focus seemed to shake on the pair of them again.

Omegas.

That was what he could smell; that was what had swirled around his attention. Electricity and daisies intermingling with the smell of the lake almost strangling him again.

Looking up, Luna had tipped her head to side invitingly, Draco having stopped his sifting steps and instead looking at him with a mockingly raised eyebrow.

“We don’t have all day Potter,” called out Draco, the words slippery with condescension and confusion.

“Give me a minute,” he called back, kicking off his shoes as quickly as he could and roughly rolling up the legs of his pants.

Harry could hear his heartbeat thumping, more than feel it, as his nose breathed in deeply the scents it had caught, an entirely new thrumming in his veins now.

He had moved faster than intended to catch up to the pair, Luna’s face open and warm as usual whilst Draco looked at him with an attempt at disdain which was grossly undercut by his obvious thinness and sleep deprivation.

“So, ah, what did you mean by finding the ground?” asked Harry once he was close by enough to see them clearly.

“I’m not sure really, it’s what Draco was saying when I found him, but I figured outside was probably the easiest way to find it,” shrugged Luna, glancing over at Draco whose eyes had bugged slowly at Luna’s admission of his words, before turning to stare out at the horizon again.

“I would say that’s a very reasonable assumption,” confirmed Harry, sending a small smile to Luna who simply gave her head a small tip and begin to wander off in the direction they had come.

“Did you find the ground?” asked Harry gently, taking another tentative step towards Draco whose hands were now turning white in their tight fists.

“It’s something one of the attendees at St Mungo’s told me to do,” murmured Draco, still refusing to give Harry his attention, eyes stuck on something in the distance.

“Are we doing it right?” asked Harry, the water sloshing with one more step closer. Harry’s fingers trembled in the air as they reached out automatically, his fingertips brushing against the edge of Draco’s clenched hand.

Draco jerked, a swift intake of breath and his head swinging around to look at Harry with startled, wide eyes.

“I, ah-“ started Draco, his hands coming up to cup themselves against his chest from the contact, “I don’t know, I haven’t figured out what it means yet.”

Harry only raised his eyebrows as Draco’s dropped in response, “And don’t touch me, Potter. Don’t need more of your fans having a problem with me.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, I won’t touch you without consent again,” said Harry, hands coming up to face Draco in the air in an gesture of agreeance.

Draco snorted a little, “You make it sound dirtier than it was with that word.”

“What word? Consent?” queried Harry, gesturing for them both to continue walking along the shallows. Harry let Draco take the first few steps before coming to walk alongside him, ensuring there was reasonable distance between them.

“Yes,” shot back Draco, as if the question didn’t even need to be asked.

“I think the word is important,” said Harry simply with a shrug, kicking up a bit of water in Draco’s direction.

Draco tensed a little, before kicking a spray back at him, “Of course you would, mighty, respectable Alpha.” The words should have sounded mocking, Harry knew that was the purpose of them, but there was a sufficient lack of bite to the statement, either due to Draco’s exhaustion or just lack of desire to mock him, Harry didn’t know.

Harry paused for a minute, Draco stopped abruptly with him, “It’s not about the Alpha thing, you know,” he started, twisting his lips together for a minute before continuing, “It’s about the whole, saviour-of-the-world thing. I wasn’t given a choice, in any of it, and my body, my mind, my very soul was made into a weapon of some kind that I wasn’t ever given access to because no one was willing to tell me the truth. I was their saviour, their weapon, their salvation but I wasn’t ever my own. I only knew how to fight, but that was because there was never a chance for me to say no.”

Harry’s eyes eventually looked up from the water, Draco’s grey stare both blank and stretching endlessly into an emotional abyss as his lips sat slightly parted and his Adams apple slowly bobbing in his throat.

“I never thought of it like that,” stated Draco slowly.

Harry shrugged again, “I’ve never really told anyone that, or really, I guess, I’ve never been that blunt about it before. I’m still figuring out how to feel about it all. I figured that you would probably be someone who would understand that best.”

“Me?” croaked Draco with disbelief, “Oh yes, oh childhood enemy, of rival of mine, so is the pity of both our lives intertwined.”

“What was that?” laughed Harry, kicking up some more water in Draco’s direction.

“Of course you wouldn’t know any of the classic magical Poets,” scoffed Draco, sending a larger spray of water towards Harry’s legs, “La Dame Verity Honnette. She had a sordid affair with a fellow poet she was in competition with, then stole his entire unpublished collection and released her own with small snippets of his intertwined. Her writing almost sounds like a conversation at times. Caused a big scandal as I’m sure you can imagine.”

“I never would’ve picked you for liking poetry,” remarked Harry, as he slowly turned, starting them walking back the way that they came. Harry’s eyes caught on Luna’s who had now laid down in the shallows fully clothed, basking in the sun like some sort of stranded rainbow jellyfish.

“I didn’t,” confirmed Draco, “It was my mother’s book, and I was banned from touching her books, so naturally, I stole it from her rooms and didn’t return it for several months.”

“How old were you?” Harry let his eyes rove over the rocks and pebbles beneath his feet as they walked.

“Ten. I was threatened with being held back from attending school the next year if I didn’t stop being so unruly,” Draco’s words morphed to sounding uncannily like his father’s as he spoke, so much so, that Harry could imagine how often Draco heard his father’s voice in his head.

“And were you unruly?” goaded Harry.

“Of course I was, I was a ten-year-old boy,” scoffed Draco light-heartedly as he sloshed through the water slowly.

The conversation dulled and died as they continued to where Luna now sat, thoroughly wet and thoroughly content.

“Oh good, you found the ground, I was worried Harry wouldn’t help at all,” remarked Luna as she stood up and gave her drenched dress a quick shake.

Draco scoffed again, “Of course I found the ground, had nothing to do with him.” Draco gave both of them one single glance back and forth again, before stalking off with a quickly shot, “I need a shower now, lest I smell like lake water for the rest of the day.”