Chapter Text
When Harry awoke again, he still resting against Sora and felt wide awake. A heavy hand splayed against his torso was recognized somehow instantly as Helios's.
"I didn't mean to fall asleep." Harry opened his eyes and stretched out a bit.
"It's a compliment, a huge one," Sora said. "It means you trust me, that you feel safe around me and trust me to guard you."
"I slept well last night though," Harry said. "I shouldn't have been tired."
"The first interaction with a new mate drains energy," Helios explained, his deep voice curling around Harry's ears and he realized that he'd missed the sound of his voice even though he'd only been gone a few hours. "If you met all eight of us at once you'd likely fall asleep for a few days as it would sap the magic from you. When the initial bond is formed, it doesn't just form out of thin air, it builds around your magical core."
Harry hadn't heard about that. "I need to read more about," he lifted a hand, waving it in the air a bit, "well, all of this."
"Can I ask what you've read so far?" Helios asked.
"We can give you some books that are more useful than the ones written by earthlings," Sora added but with no negative tone infliction on the word earthlings, just making a statement.
"I've only read a few books." Harry shrugged, a bit uncomfortable. "They're in my trunk if you want to look at them, in the second compartment. I was planning on using the library at Hogwarts."
"Hogwarts does have a good selection," Helios said as he moved to Harry's trunk, "but many books have inaccurate information or base it off of veela mateships who are the predominant creatures on this planet. Each species has their own culture and each creature has their behaviors. General knowledge that is true across all mateships is easily misinterpreted or misinformed by worlds having a small number of creatures to use as examples."
That was one thing Harry didn't understand. "How can a mateship have different creatures? What if one creature's instincts contradict another's?"
Dragons and veelas didn't seem to mix in Harry's mind, and throwing in an elf with...huh, were elves creatures? Or were they like humans with a creature inheritance? He snuck a look at Sora...would it be rude to ask? When Sora started to look at Harry, feeling his submissive's eyes on him, Harry looked away so they didn't make eye contact.
"Mateships are formed with creatures who have the same or similar instincts," Helios explained, looking through the small collection of Harry's books, "the differences have to be brought up and talked about so no problems occur but none of our instincts will go against another." He looked at Harry, stopping what he was doing. "For example, veelas have a desire to nest their submissive. They want to make a comfortable and large bed of blankets and pillows and will make their mate stay there while they guard them. As a sundrysti dragon, my instincts tell me to find a defendable area for you to live in. In mortal dragons, this is a cave, for creatures, this is usually their home. So while I need to find a safe area, the veelas will insist on finding a room to turn into a proper nest. I won't stop them and instead, I'll defend the room as well as the building."
The veelas...Lucius and very, very likely Draco... It made him curious about the others if they were veelas too or something else. Maybe Harry was a veela? He had wings, he was pretty sure he was distantly related to the Malfoy's too in the way all wizarding families were...but maybe that was just the Black side? He pushed that thought away, he didn't care what his creature was—didn't want to think about it.
Harry looked at Sora again, asking the elf silently to tell him what his instincts were. Yet, Sora just raised an eyebrow and smiled, he was always smiling it seemed. Sora wanted him to ask his question out loud, but...he just couldn't, it made his insides feel all squirmy.
When Sora opened his mouth, he got excited for a moment, thinking he won. "A mortal dragon hoards gold," Sora said randomly, "but a true dragon has their own kind of treasure to protect, the rarest and most precious kind: a heart."
Helios made a sound of agreement but seemed to be more interested in watching Harry and Sora's silent interaction.
Did that mean that Sora had a dragon inheritance too? Harry looked over at Helios, Helios looked like a dragon...you know, despite looking just like a tall human... but Sora did not. Looking back at Sora, he was just wearing that damnable smile. Could Harry ask? What if Sora didn't have creature instincts as Helios had? What if elves were neutral or something and he was pushing on a sore spot? Sora looped one of Harry's braids together and Harry had a stray thought about how much it would suck to undue whatever Sora was doing.
"So," started Sora again, once more grabbing a new braid and roping it through to make a net-like design, "you know how high elves are super patient and very calm?"
"I guess?" Harry hadn't looked into high elves more than reading a few paragraphs about them in a book, thus why he was in this situation. Then again, Sora had braided Harry's hair for hours and massaged him without a single complaint, and was still bloody playing with his hair, not that Harry minded.
"Well," Sora drew out, "that is usually true, and you can add super wise, and intelligent to that list too."
Harry bit down a grin. Had he won? "But?" he prompted.
"But, I really, really, want to tell you what my creature is. May I?"
Harry sat up and would have gotten his hair yanked out if Sora hadn't quickly let go. Harry twisted around so he was facing Sora. "Tell me," he said eagerly. It was odd, the emotion and desire had popped up and surged to the forefront of his mind.
Sora looked between both of Harry's eyes as if they were the most fascinating things and an odd whine came from Harry's mouth when the elf didn't immediately speak. It confused Harry, why was he acting like Dudley?
Sora smiled, closed mouth and adoring. "I am not a creature-born like Helios." Harry forgot about his oddness while he paid close attention. "Instead, I was born from a submissive as what you call a high elf, and had my inheritance appear a few days after my birth." An infant having to go through an inheritance? Wouldn't that be lethal for an infant? "My creature doesn't have a name on earth as it doesn't exist here, but the proper name of my creature is simply: eyda." Sora's lips caressed the first syllable, a peculiar accent coming out with the word.
"What's an eyda?"
"I can show you," Sora grinned.
"Right now?"
"Eydas are small." Helios came up behind Harry and gently lifted him off of Sora, before putting Harry on his feet in front of Helios. "They're meant for stealth, I'd show you my dragon if I could but we'll need to be at Hogwarts or a similarly warded area so we don't scare the muggles or wizards."
"Helios is more of the brute strength variety," Sora agreed, "much like trolls."
Faster than Harry, and apparently Sora, could react, Helios reached down and tugged at Sora's ankle pulling him forward and risking the elf falling off the bed. Sora stopped himself and shot an 'I totally let that happen' look at Harry before getting his ankle free—with Helios willingly letting go of it. Then, closing his eyes for a moment, Sora shifted.
When Helios said small, Harry had pictured Sora transforming into some type of feline or lupine type thing but Sora didn't fully form into a creature, instead becoming humanoid. Sora's midnight hair became blurry before it rippled and shifted like a liquid shadow. His skin, already pale, became unnaturally so but black spots—shimmering scales—decorated his face almost artistically. From his back, two wings appeared, folded against his back at an unknown wing length. They were the same liquid black shadow as Sora's hair, rippling and waving, looking like you could sink through it.
Sora opened his eyes once more, the white from his eyes gone leaving eternal darkness. His lips opened, revealing fangs that Harry would pin toward vampires. He looked like a nightmare, the assassin you feared to meet, the kind of being you'd know better than to stand against. He was beautiful, he was Harry's.
"Slower transformations are harder to master," Helios said lowly for Harry. "Usually the process takes a blink of an eye, but it can be startling to witness."
Harry paid half a mind as he reached forward before stopping, unsure. Helios decided for Harry as he picked him up again and had him straddle Sora's lap. The position didn't phase Harry, more drawn to Sora's hair and scales.
Harry's head tilted to the side, the action unnoticed by him until Sora leaned in and rang his fangs over the vulnerable skin of his neck. Mimicking a biting motion without penetrating his skin. Harry shivered, but it wasn't in fear. When Sora's fangs passed each other, teeth snapped shut, the eyda pressed a kiss to that same spot.
Sora pulled back. He winked and grabbed Harry's hand. Sora's fingernails had turned shadow black with an inch-long sharp point. He guided Harry's hand up until it was on top of Sora's head and Harry gasped. His hair was like shadow, Harry's hand sinking into it, but it was warm like bathwater and felt like liquid as well. His scalp didn't feel like skin either, but of scales, likely the same that speckled his face. They weren't like Helios's scales which were smooth and metal-like, these ones were warm and thinner.
It honestly felt a bit weird, or really weird. Harry followed Sora's hair back to where it was somehow still caught up in the metal circle binder thing. He ran his fingers through it, so warm, so comfortably warm. But before Harry's hand could continue down his hair, he was stopped by a small movement of Sora's wings. His fingers paused.
"You can touch them." Harry's hand jerked away at the sound of Sora's voice. It had changed. It was...layered and full of depth. It didn't echo per se, and it was obviously Sora but it...Harry didn't know how to describe it. It didn't sound mortal, it was a voice you had to pay attention to, the voice of a deity. Sora ran a finger down Harry's face, careful of the sharp nail. "They're even warmer than my hair, but they won't hurt you."
Harry wanted to, but he hesitated. Pressure appeared on his back as the bed weighed down. Helios was there, running a large hand down his arm that appeared fragile in contrast to such a strong man before grabbing Harry's hand. "You do not need to overthink touching us," Helios said, "we are yours."
With his hand over Harry's, Helios guided it to Sora's wing. They sunk in just over an inch of shadows before reaching scales, it was even warmer than Sora's hair, but it couldn't be classified as being hot. Helios's hand stayed over Harry's, moving it over Sora's wing which obediently stayed still for them until Harry's hand started moving on its own.
Harry didn't know why Helios said that Sora was small. He hadn't lost any height and had gained wings to add to his mass. Sora had to keep them closed rather than extending them because there was no room in the room to spread them out. He wondered if other creatures in other worlds were more common to be Helios's size, but they'd need giant worlds to accommodate so many people being so big. Harry would have destroyed the Dursleys' house if he'd been any bigger. Or if his wings had uncurled and smacked into the walls.
When Harry was temporarily bored of feeling his mate's wings, he pulled back and danced his fingers over Sora's face, brushing his fingers over the tiny scales beside his eyes and over his cheekbones. He wondered if Sora had scales anywhere else. "Eyda," Harry whispered, tasting the name again. "You seem powerful."
"I am very powerful," Sora agreed his voice's vibrations seemed to sink into Harry's lungs and chest, it felt pleasant. He caught Harry's hand so he could kiss his wrist. "Do you approve? Are you satisfied with me?"
Harry blinked, a little caught off guard that he'd been asked that. "Of course."
Sora hummed. "Of course," he repeated quieter. He seemed a bit lost in thought but Helios grabbed at Harry's waist and directed his attention to the books he'd placed on the bed. Books that weren't his.
"These books are good introduction books," Helios said. "I have a few other books that you'd appreciate even more. They're specifically about male, magic-bearing submissives."
"Magic bearing? Not all creatures have magic?" Harry asked. How did that work? It was magic that had caused Harry to be a creature, right?
"Certainly not," Sora laughed through his words. "Very few people have magic, the ratio is even worse than it is here on Earth."
"Those who have creatures or have a creature inheritance are only able to shift between forms but other levels of magic are inaccessible to them." So they did have magic, just passive magic they couldn't actively use. Helios stood from his kneeling position on the bed and went back to Harry's trunk to put the books in. "It creates a hierarchy or caste system in most worlds. Those who are neither creature nor magic bearing at the bottom like muggles, then creatures, then creatures with magic."
"What about people who aren't creatures and are just magic-bearing like witches and wizards?"
"They'll be above people like muggles, but otherwise it depends on how strong they are," Sora said and when Harry looked back at him, he noticed that the eyda had at some point retracted his creature without Harry noticing. It was a bit of a shame.
"I'd appreciate the books," Harry admitted as he remembered his manners. There was clearly much he needed to learn. "Thank you." He'd also need to get more books on creatures and figure out what he was. Black wings were all he had to go off of and he didn't even know the size of his feathers, but he could write a list and start figuring it out. It was embarrassing not to know. Not that he'd tell his mates what he was as soon as he found out, but it was good to know what kind of creature he was...what he'd turned into.
"We should get some food in you too," Helios said, "you haven't eaten anything since breakfast."
Harry wasn't hungry but it was past the usual lunchtime. That got him thinking again and he spoke up before he could convince himself not to. "How did the others take the news?"
There was a pause. "It went well overall." Harry couldn't tell if Helios was lying.
"Well?" he prodded looking at Sora. He was sure that Helios and Sora had a bond that allowed for communication and as he'd slept for hours, he was sure that Helios and Sora had talked it over. "I don't think Malfoy," the word was hard to say because Draco Malfoy, asshole and twit was apparently his asshole and twit and he most certainly didn't want an asshole and twit, "would take it well to find out that I'm his mate."
They didn't wince or react outwardly, both of them were looking at Harry, clearly trying to read him to figure out how to go about what was apparently going to be a hard conversation.
"I..." Harry trailed off, trying to gather his thoughts and keep his emotions under control. "I know they aren't going to be happy. I'm already prepared for that."
Sora grabbed Harry's waist and pulled him to his chest, his legs thankfully flexible enough to fully straddle the man's torso. "That isn't it at all."
"William and Adrian are very excited to see you," Helios said. "You mentioned you were worried they'd heard bad things about you, but they haven't. Neither of them has heard anything about you except for your name and other tiny details. They've both been withdrawn from society in different ways, William in Egypt and Adrian's always been distant from his peers."
A loner, Harry amended mentally. The few times he remembered seeing Adrian, he'd always been alone—as Harry was. "They want to meet me?"
"I had to convince them not to come to you immediately," Helios assured. "They didn't care about your name or fame, they just want to meet you, Harry. While they haven't waited long for you, they're overjoyed to have a submissive in their lives."
He tucked his head in Sora's shoulder. He hadn't known if Ron had talked to Bill at all, or if Ron had told his family who had, in turn, told Bill. Not that he knew what Ron would have said, he and Hermione...
But he might have two other mates who didn't hate him, which meant that he'd at least have half of his mates. The thought would have been ridiculous a day before his inheritance, but there was a part of him that he was coming to realize ached for his mates.
Long used to pulling himself together, Harry shifted his head to face Helios again. Sora's arms were holding him too tight to move any other way and Harry didn't want to move either. Even if he fell apart, Sora would hold him together. "The others?"
Helios came forward again and cupped Harry's face. "Blaise is worried about you," he said, "he's aware of how stressful things are for you right now and how scary it is for you."
Worried? Blaise? The cold Slytherin who seemed to think everyone was beneath him except for Theodore?
"He..." Helios paused again. "He's aware of what Draco has done but said he's never taken part in it."
No, it had only been Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle. Occasionally Parkinson had said something spitting or Bulstrode but otherwise, Harry had been left alone by the students.
Harry's eyes urged Helios to continue. "As for Theodore, he let me into his mind. I was able to see the interactions between you and him." What? "While I am not making excuses for him or trying to negate what he did, Theodore's reason for being so cold to you is because he had a crush on you. He—"
"What?" This time Harry said it out loud before shrinking away as he realized he'd interrupted the top dominant. "Sorry," he apologized.
Helios rubbed Harry's cheek again. "It's fine, my heart." Helios's eyes flickered to Sora for a moment. "I'm putting a lot of information in your mind and not giving you proper time to react. When I looked into Theodore's mind, I looked specifically for memories that involved you. The first time he saw you was at your sorting, he thought you looked cute."
Theodore Nott? Thought that Harry, a scrawny, glasses-wearing, bird's nest-haired eleven-year-old was cute? Harry wondered if he'd slipped into a world of crazy. Even when Helios paused, Harry didn't say these words out loud.
"The crush grew over the years," Helios brushed his thumb back and forth, "but Theodore's family is dark while your family is light. In his mind, there was no way he could ever act on his crush. If he did, his father was likely to curse or kill him and he'd be an outcast in Slytherin. So he treated you coldly so you'd never like him. When he came into his inheritance, he thought that there was no chance for the two of you but the crush remained. I actually wouldn't be surprised if, at some instinctive level, Theodore recognized you as his submissive. Theodore seems to break the rules in many ways."
Harry snaked his hand out of where Sora was pinning it and grabbed Helios's hand, silently asking for a pause as he thought this bombshell over.
Theodore...liked him? Him? That...what...what was Harry supposed to think about that? His mind seemed to have blanked out, emotions at a low simmer so he couldn't even identify how he felt about it. Objectively, Theodore was Harry's mate so it was probably a good thing that the boy liked him. It just seemed so weird.
Probably because in his mind when he thought of Theodore, his next thought was usually Blaise. The two were wrapped up in each other, Harry hadn't realized they were creatures. Was it public news he'd been oblivious to? Or did they hide it? Harry had thought Blaise and Theodore were just infatuated with each other—heading toward marriage after school or as soon as they turned seventeen and it was legal.
To think that Theodore had had a crush on him through that? Weird, very weird. Did Blaise know? Probably not. Would that make Blaise upset? To know that the boy he'd been tunnel-visioned about had had a crush on Harry? Or would that get brushed aside because Blaise was Harry's mate too?
However, what Harry thought of most was something he hadn't thought about at all. It should be excusable as he'd had a very eventful twenty-four hours, but what would happen at school?
Home life was one thing, Theodore's father was in prison and it had made headlines when the boy had emancipated himself so no one family-wise was going to try to curse or kill him but Theodore, Blaise, and Draco were in Slytherin. There were a lot of Voldemort supporters in Slytherin, would they turn against the three now? Would they target Harry even more?
Draco would probably stop doing anything against Harry personally, but that didn't mean he couldn't say a few guiding words to Crabbe and Goyle. Harry was good at avoiding people at school, using his father's map for a majority of it, but this new situation might cause new people to avoid and he might be blindsided.
Or, Harry's mates might be blindsided. They probably weren't used to being attacked, would they be able to defend themselves if they went back to school and were attacked in the dorms?
Helios's hand slid down to Harry's neck and just like that all the tension and rising worry slid out of him. "Talk to me," he asked softly. "What worries are on your mind?"
Sora's hands rubbed against his back encouragingly too.
"I'm worried Blaise, Theodore, and Malfoy will become targets at school because they're mated to me." The words had fallen from his lips before he could even think about keeping them to himself.
Helios hummed. "That might happen, but their schedules are aligned. They'll be in each other's classes and walk together through the halls. After classes, one of us older ones will be with them. If they're targeted, they'll defend themselves easily. I'm training them as well, in a few years, they'll be able to stand against a small army of the most powerful wizards in this world. In a couple of months, they'll easily stand against the school even if alone."
"Could you train me too?" He didn't doubt Helios's words, despite how bold they were. The portals alone proved their strength.
"Certainly." The agreement surprised him, wasn't Harry supposed to be a coddled, submissive who wasn't even allowed to touch knives? "You already have a head start on them considering your magical aura."
Similar to people instinctively yawning when someone else did, Harry's aura rippled at the word of it, stretching it as if it were a limb. He'd had it since winter break in his second year but had kept it wrapped up inside of himself until his inheritance when he wanted to encourage people to stay away from him and was at a somewhat acceptable age for it too.
"I can teach you how to wield a knife too," Sora offered, causing Harry to laugh at his earlier thoughts. He liked his mates.
"Could you?" Harry leaned back, Sora's arms loosening so he could look the elf in the face. He preferred magic, but he wanted a reason and opportunity to be around Sora too.
Sora's hands went down to his waist, squeezing the sides making Harry let out a yelp and try to stand up on his knees—kept in place by those same evil hands even if they were just resting on him. Amusement danced in his eyes. "I'll teach you anything you want."
Harry's mouth had popped open at the unexpected jolt and he shook his head now. What in Merlin's name had that been for? "You'll be lucky if I don't turn the skill against you." He moved his hands down and hooked his thumbs under Sora's trying to pry them off so the man didn't do it again.
Sora chuckled and leaned in to press a kiss to Harry's nose. "I'll have you be an expert little assassin in no time."