FIC: Mates! - Harry Potter/Gargoyles - PG
Everyone has written a Harry Potter creature fic. You know the one: Harry (or other) is turns into a magical creature and then finds his mate. They have animalistic sex (on or off the page) and live happily ever after. Potions and poison may or may not be involved; same with jealous ex-lovers.

How could I resist?

But then, how could I do it seriously? I'm not good at serious sometimes.

Title: Mates!
Fandom: Harry Potter, Gargoyles
Rating: PG
Warnings: Post-DH (and epilogue compliant), crossover, not really slashy at all, completely unbeta'd
Originally posted: today in jani_s
Summary: Harry becomes a Gargoyle. Do Gargoyles even have mates?


Harry strode through Diagon, ignoring the stares. Every year, fewer people recognized and exclaimed over him. He tried to tell himself that this was a good thing, but in his most secret of hearts he kind of missed the attention. He'd never really got to enjoy being a special boy, but he'd also never really understood how many wizarding wheels his fame greased.

Anyway. This day was a day like any other. Go into Diagon, pick up a robe order for little Albus (they grow so fast!), stare wistfully at the latest brooms, grab something that would spoil his appetite for dinner at the Leaky. You know. The usual.

Not paying much attention to where he was going, Harry bumped into a beautiful woman. Err, a cute little girl. That is, an old hag. Who sprouted wings.

Oh dear.

"Ummm, terribly sorry," he mumbled to the woman/girl/hag/winged-creature.

"That's quite all right," she said in a chorus, and suddenly there were three of her. One with hair the color of a good licorice whip, one with hair the color of a Weasley's, and one with hair the color of muggle-style parchment. Huh. Weird.

"Ummm," he said articulately instead of simply passing by with a courteous nod. "I couldn't help but notice. That is, I really think you ought to know." This was so embarrassing. "Well, if it's not a fashion statement that is... Your glamour is flickering."

The three witches looked at each other and pulled out their wands, simultaneously casting spells. Harry belatedly remembered that his own wand was still in his pocket and then breathlessly realized no spells had been aimed at him.

"So we are," stated the red-head who was now fully a Weasley woman, from red hair to matronly tendencies.

"So we have been," chimed in the brunette who was now an eight-year-old girl to Harry's parental eye.

"So we shall be again," finished the lightning-haired now-crone/hag.

Ugh.

"Well, just thought you ought to know," Harry said affably enough. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go to the robe shop."

"Of course," the three said in unison. And vanished. Without the "pop" that came with Apparition. Harry wondered how they did that. It'd be neat to learn.

***

Harry tried and failed to get to sleep that night.

He had Ginny scratch his itching shoulder blades. He read a Marvin the Mad Muggle comic for the zillionth time. He watched a Penseive-player of Professor Binns' lectures on repeat.

Still awake. Still completely ignorant of anything about the Goblin Rebellions.

Ginny left for bed around the time some orcs were joining an uprising.

***

Finally! The sun was just rising over the Scottish hills, and finally Harry could get some sleep. He called into work, curled up on the sofa, and determined to stay still as stone.

***

With a mighty yawn, Harry woke. It was dark out and someone had shattered some crude looking pottery (from the looks of the pieces) on his living room floor.

"Sirius!" he bellowed, knowing for sure that his son was the culprit. Took after his namesake, that one.

"Yo," Siri replied as he popped up behind the couch.

"Don't 'yo' me, young man," Harry said, thoroughly enjoying the role of "stereotypical parent". He should have been a method actor. "Tell me about the vase you broke."

"I didn't do it!" Sirius immediately denied. Then again, Siri denied everything. "But why don't you tell me about what happened to you," he exaggerated Harry's parenting voice.

"What happened to me? Nothing happened to me! And don't think you can distract ----"

Harry was cut off by screeching. Err, Ginny's screaming, that was. "Aaaaah!" she continued. "Merlin's Fuzzy Whiskers! Oh, Harry!" she went from screaming to crying in a disconcerting manner that was utterly unlike her younger years when he'd first met her. "We'll find a way to fix this."

"Seeeeeee?" Sirius sing-songed.

In a trice, Hermione was through the Floo and had pronounced Harry: "Gargoyle. Quite common in Scotland, especially in the last millennia. Try flying later. Bye now."

"Wait!" Surprisingly, it was Ginny who stopped her. Harry was far too shocked to be able. "Don't Gargoyles have mates?"

Hermione rolled her brown eyes. "No, Ginny," she said with false patience. "They don't have 'mates'. They do have wings and turn to stone. That's really it. Most magical creatures don't have mates, you know. Read a book that's not a romance novel sometime."

Sirius snickered.

"No, no," said Ginny. "I'm sure Gargoyles have mates. Wait a moment while I call Ron."

Ginny called Ron: mates. She called Oliver Wood: mates. She called Neville: mates. And then, in a fit of worried genius, she called Draco Malfoy who was most certainly not a friend but still acted strangely like he owed Harry for something.

Draco looked very annoyed to be called out to the Potter house just as evening was starting on a Friday. He probably had plans. Or wanted to pretend he did. Whichever, he seemed quite disconsolate about the whole thing and almost immediately pronounced that of course Gargoyles have mates. Honestly! But added on, "Unless Granger says they don't."

And with that, he twitched his robes into place so that they'd billow Snapily as he crossed the room and flooed back out.

"Sooo," Ginny said slyly as she looked up at him through hooded eyes. "Mates. Am I yours then?"

"Errrr," said Harry. She pouted, and he quickly amended, "Well, I've got no idea actually. What does a mate feel like?"

They both turned to Hermione who informed them that since he didn't have a mate (and she didn't have one either and therefore no experience with the matter), he'd never know what it felt like to be mated. Harry thought that was a bit of a raw deal, really, but shrugged his winged shoulders. Hermione always knew best.

***

Weeks passed in relative normalcy, and people had started paying attention to the powerful Harry Potter again now that he'd turned into a creature by force of magic alone. He didn't have the heart to tell the Prophet that it was a spontaneous conversion and quite tiring. They'd never listen anyway.

One night as he flew about over the town of Hogsmeade, he saw a large winged shape flying closer. One of his own kind! Magnificent! Unless they wanted to kill him.

"Hello," he hailed the other Gargoyle.

"Hello," she replied in a cultured voice. Her reddish hair and stone-age fashion sense were strangely erotic, and Harry took a mental note to ask Ginny to dress up later.

"My name's Harry," he said.

"Demona," she replied.

They paused together in the air, wings beating like treading water in the air.

"Can I help you?" she broke the silence.

"Well, I'm newly a Gargoyle, you see, and know nothing about it."

She didn't look particularly happy nor surprised at this revelation. "Tell you what, Harry," she said. "I'm in a bit of a hurry just now, but after I've met up with my ex-husband at that castle over there, I'll come back and give you a basic course, hmmm?"

"Oh! Uh, great!" he agreed. She seemed so much more normal now that she had an ex-husband. Harry watched her fly away.

He waited. And waited.

An hour before dawn -- he'd learned to judge these things -- a big, huge, enormous purple Gargoyle almost barrelled into him. "Hi," said Harry.

"Have you seen a Gargoyle, female with red hair?" the big lug asked.

"Oh, yes. Went that way," Harry pointed. "Are you her ex-husband?"

The purple Gargoyle blushed. "Not, ah, quite."

"That's nice," said Harry, pretty much through with small-talk. "Say, I've only just become a Gargoyle and was hoping you could tell me about it."

Suddenly, he had the huge one's angered attention. "Did Demona do this to you?" Harry didn't have a chance to answer before Purple was in his face. "Did she?"

"Ah, no?" Harry squeaked out. "That is, no. Of course not. But she said she'd explain things to me after she'd talked to her ex, and I was just hoping you could give me a hand. A wing?"

"I am Goliath," Goliath said.

"Harry. And now that we're introduced," he began.

"I will tell you all that I can, but first: the Sun." Goliath gestured towards the horizon. "Do you have a place you can stay for the night?"

"Sure! Want to join me?"

***

Harry, Goliath, and the garden gnomes all yawned hugely from the roof of the Burrow. Well, Harry yawned, Goliath roared loudly enough to disturb the neighbors, and the gnomes did gnomish things.

Ginny ran out of the Burrow with the rest of the family. "Darling!" she cried, leaping into Harry's arms. "You're awake!" She turned to Goliath and demanded, "Tell him he's my mate."

"Ahm," Goliath said, but was cut off by cackling from the air.

Harry freed a hand and waved. "Hi, Demona."

"Hello, Harry," she replied, smirking at Goliath's confusion. "Introduce me to your mate."

"Now, Demona," Goliath tried for polite but came across as strained and disappointedly angry. Yes, disappointedly angry. It was a special emotion he'd been perfecting.

Ginny would have none of Goliath's interrupting. She leapt from Harry's arms and ran to Demona's hovering form. Demona drifted a bit higher. "I told him!" she crowed. "I told them both! Gargoyles do have mates."

"Oh, yes," Demona affirmed with relish. "Of course they do."

"But," Harry said nervously, "Don't you have an ex-husband?"

Goliath nodded his agreement to this sticking point.

"Clearly," Demona growled, "he wasn't my mate. In fact," she leaned forward as she related the story, "he was a magic user who falsely confused me into thinking that we were mates. But when the spell wore off, I saw him for the deceiver that he is and broke free of his grasp."

Ginny nodded viciously. "Men!"

Demona grinned at her, teeth on display.

"Knew it," Ron chimed in, just exiting the house. "Knew you had a mate, mate." He paused. "Not that I'm saying I'm your mate, just that we're friends and oh, bugger."

***

Three days later, the inane conversation was still going on after being interrupted for sunrises.

"I'm telling you," Goliath said earnestly and without any supporting evidence whatsoever. "Gargoyles do not have mates!" He roared with frustration. "Have you felt differently for anyone? No! Because you will not feel your mate."

"Hmmmm." To Harry, this seemed a good point. He'd certainly not felt any different. And no change towards his wife. Hmmmm.

"Of course he hasn't," Demona said. "Because Gargoyles do not recognize their own mates until they have," she paused for maidenly affect, "completed their mating. It is up to the Clan to do it for them."

Now that was far more interesting than mates. "The Clan?" Harry asked.

"Can you recognize his mate?" Ginny asked.

"I feel very close to young Harry," Demona began. "He is almost like Clan to me." She coughed a bit. "Yes. I can feel his mate. His mate. His mate." She trailed off into strange-sounding Latin.

Ginny whispered to Harry, "This is sure to work."

Goliath rolled his eyes. The lad wasn't Clan at all. In fact, as far as Goliath was concerned, Harry could have Scotland. Goliath was a New York Gargoyle now.

Demona's chanting crescendoed then abruptly stopped. She had summoned and was pointing at Harry's supposed mate.

***

"Do it again," Ginny demanded.

Demona looked through the witch as though she weren't there. "Humans are nothing to me," she said.

"You talked to me before," Ginny whined.

"I only barely deign to talk with other Gargoyle's mates," Demona told the air. Then she turned to the recently arrived Draco Malfoy. "So good of you to join us."

THE END