Title: The Songbird Ascendant

Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

Pairing: Established Harry/Draco

Warnings: Creature fic (Draco is a Veela), substitute for mpreg

Rating: R

Wordcount: This part 2000

Summary: Harry and Draco are raising their egg. Sequel to Nature of the Beast.

Author's Notes: An Advent fic for your_huckleberry, who asked for: A sequel to Nature of the Beast. Draco and Harry create an egg and just like you described in the story they cast spells and make their wishes. Draco sneaks in to cuddle the egg but so does Harry. I want to read them watching it hatch and so on. Please no watersports or rimming, ect. Of course a happy ending. This is a two-shot, with the other part to be posted tomorrow.

The Songbird Ascendant

"Damn. Damn."

Draco gave a lazy smile and reached down to trail his fingers through Harry's hair. He had to concentrate to let the magic simmering beneath his skin stay in place instead of pouring out, as it ordinarily would have done, to make Harry feel good. His wings beat softly above him. When he closed his eyes, he could use that beat to ground himself.

But when he opened his eyes, Harry's passion-filled face dominated his vision.

"Remember," he whispered, "the sex is to raise energy."

"I—know that." Harry strained against Draco's hold for a second, the hand on his chest, then panted and settled back. Draco reared back himself and let his wings spread and droop until they touched the sides of the bed.

He turned to study the hollowed-out stone, huge and blue-green, that rested in a prepared circle of salt and silver to their right. The salt and silver itself was scattered on a huge, movable platform. Draco wanted to raise the power for the egg in their bedroom because it was most comfortable, but after that, they would move the new shell to the warmest room in the house.

"Good," Draco said, and began to rock inside Harry. Harry followed, his hips trembling in tiny motions that made Draco's breath come in hot little huffs. He tried to remind himself, again, where the energy would go.

They probably wouldn't even have to have sex more than once to fill the shell with magic, because Harry was so powerful.

Too bad, Draco thought, and began to sing softly. He thrust softly, rocking on his knees this time, and Harry smiled up at him and reached out to clasp the hand Draco had resting on his chest.

"I trust you to channel the magic," he whispered, and nodded to Draco's wings.

Draco nodded back. If he had arranged his wings in the right shape, then the power should wash down them and towards the sides of the bed, where the eggshell, prepared with careful spells, would attract it.

If it didn't work, they would have to have sex again and raise the power. Draco didn't mind that. What he minded was not being able to make his bondmate feel as good as he normally would.

I trust you. And it's only one time.

Draco gasped and tilted his head back, then began to thrust in the pattern they'd agreed on. Three, then seven, three, then seven, both powerfully magical numbers. Harry was sighing beneath him, lying still as they'd also agreed on. Thrusting back would ruin the count and might seem to be separate thrusts to the magic that they were collecting between them.

Draco felt as if he were filling, slowly, with hot water. It was a relaxing feeling and a suffocating one at the same time, like being in a bath that might rise too high and drown you.

It won't, because you'll channel it the right way in time, Harry told him through the bond, and then sent Draco a blast of magic so powerful that Draco nearly lost count of his thrusts. He rolled his hips in punishment, not part of the rhythm, and Harry glared at him.

That rhythm was done with anyway, Draco told him sweetly, and then he reached out and gathered up the magic. It was hovering, trembling and invisible, on the tips of his wings. He had to send it to the shell.

Not spread it over his bondmate's skin. Not use it to make Harry's mouth widen and his eyes shine and haze with passion. Not—

Draco!

Draco ducked his head and raised the power higher, higher. He could feel a soft vibration in the circle around the eggshell answering the vibration of his wings and even of his hips.

Higher, higher, higher.

And then Harry pushed it from beneath one more time, exactly as he was supposed to.

Draco turned and flung it, even as he thrust hard ahead at the same time and exerted control over his own body. As the tumbling ball of invisible, weightless hot water settled into the shell, he orgasmed, and Harry followed him, pulled along by feeling his pleasure through the bond rather than through Veela magic.

Draco took a moment to bathe in the white light soaking down the inside of his eyelids, and then turned and stared at the eggshell.

It was radiant with the same white light, which swayed back and forth like water carried in an almost full basin by someone with bad balance. Draco found himself smiling as he watched the milky shine. That was the magic that was going to become their child.

As soon as he and Harry were recovered enough to cast the right spells, anyway.

Harry leaned back and tried to relax his breathing. He knew he had to get these spells right. There was so much power filling the egg that it could cause a problem if he and Draco didn't both cast at the same time.

And Harry had to think about what he honestly wished for in a child.

He hadn't thought of children much at all when he and Draco were first bonded, honestly. He had put them off as a "someday." It would be a good someday, but he had so much that he wanted to do first.

And, of course, when they were first bonded, he hadn't been sure that he wanted to stay with Draco at all, much less wanted children with him.

But now Harry had a few years of experience in politics, and he didn't feel as though the wizarding world would explode in war if he took a moment of time for himself or raised his children instead of tending to peace each and every day. He had few personal enemies he hadn't at least converted into political acquaintances. And he and Draco had cooperated to raise the protections around the Manor to such heights that Harry no longer thought someone could easily break in and harm his children.

He closed his eyes and let his thoughts drift for a moment, thinking of his deepest desires, as Draco had said he should—or trying to think of them. Honestly, it was a little hard, even when he relaxed his mind and his breathing the way Draco said he should. He found himself thinking of the past, of their bond.

Well, is there anything wrong with that? What's your deepest desire when it comes to the past and the bond?

That the past stay the past. That the present be more peaceful. That the bond continue to grow and flourish.

That they have healthy children with no enemies. That they have children with magic, because Harry would enjoy teaching them and he had seen how Squibs were treated in the wizarding world. That they have children who would be able to laugh a lot and who would love both him and Draco equally, and whom they could love equally.

I couldn't stand it if it turned out that I was favoring one of my children over the others the way Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon used to favor Dudley.

The thoughts went through his mind, faster and faster, unreeling like a great banner, draped over the edge of his thoughts and wound into the magic that Harry could sense from the egg. He wanted children who could be happy. He wanted children whom Draco would love, too. He wanted children who would be free and strong. He wanted children who would never know hunger or want.

There was a soft explosion in front of him, and the sound of the eggshell rocking on its base, as if it was being stirred.

Harry found himself on his knees without knowing how he'd got there, chanting the last syllables of a spell he hadn't been aware of beginning, hearing Draco's voice fade into silence at the same moment. He opened his eyes and turned his head.

There was a banner draped over the edge of the eggshell, or so he thought for a moment, a torrent of color—red and blue and gold—flowing from him and into the white magic of the eggshell. Harry stared. It looked nothing like he had imagined. There was another banner coming from Draco, silver and green and purple, and it coiled around itself and tipped straight into the magic.

There was another soft explosion, and the light flew up like flames from the shell and then contracted around it, moving inwards like a bird scooping up the ground to make a nest. Well, appropriate, Harry thought, dazed, shaking his head a little. We are making an egg.

And that was what sat there when the light faded into the shell, a huge egg, blue-green like the stone they'd chosen. Harry smiled. Draco had been sure the egg would be white, because that was the color of the light that he thought would fill it—and the color of his wings, and the color of semen, which he seemed embarrassed about when Harry first pointed out. But then he had said it was an even stronger argument for the white shell he was predicting.

"What did you wish for?"

Harry lifted his head to see Draco over the shell. Even that took a lot of energy, he thought, as he felt the soft surge in the back of his neck that said the muscles there were contracting only with pain.

"For our children to be happy," he said. "And all the things I thought would make them happy and loved."

Draco blinked. "That's not the way it works. You're supposed to wish for children who look a certain way. Or a boy and a girl. Or for them to have magical talents. I would like a child who had your Parselmouth abilities."

Harry shrugged. "Maybe we'll have one. You told me once that someone whose desires were stronger would win out, and I didn't have any particular desire for them to have those magical talents. So you'll probably get what you want."

"Maybe."

Draco frowned harder. Harry grinned at him and forced himself up with one hand on the shell of the egg. It was shining and beautiful, but also cool. "We should move this into that sitting room and start the Warming Charms," he murmured vaguely.

Draco's eyes widened. "Of course we should!" He snapped his fingers, and house-elves appeared. "Move the egg. Carefully," Draco said, with a blast of his wings that made them cower. "I hope I don't have to tell you what will happen if you don't."

Harry nodded. He knew Draco was only letting the elves move it in the first place because they didn't have enough power between them to light a match right now.

As the elves squeaked and bowed and began slowly to transfer the platform, Harry grinned and looked at Draco. Draco's face had eased from its fierce protectiveness as the platform rose safely a few centimeters in the air, and he was grinning back now.

"That's going to be our child," Draco said. He sounded silly.

"Yeah." Although I sound the same.

When they could, Harry and Draco stood and followed the egg out the door. So what if they had to lean against each other and Draco kept one wing around Harry to support him? They were following their egg.