Can't Shake This Feeling in My Bones

by brightraven14

Summary:

She saw his distinctive platinum hair amidst the sea of bodies on the platform, almost insulted that he had the nerve to return to Hogwarts after what he had done. But at least that would mean he'd keep to himself this year, right? With Hogwarts being immensely overpopulated this year, they wouldn't even have to interact... Draco!Veela.

Chapter 1: Prologue

"Ron, I don't want to talk about this right now." Hermione sighed, wondering why she even tried to express her opinion anymore, when it hadn't had any results in the past. She should have just smiled and kissed him like he was expecting, and then she could have been packing her trunk in peace.

"Why, Mione? I just don't understand why you're acting this way! You should be proud of me for getting this job. Obviously they think that I would be so good for this position that they don't need me to finish my education. Clearly my experience in battle was far more than sufficient to fulfil the requirements."

Hermione flinched. She hated when Ron tried to make it seem like she was always trying to be better than him. All she wanted to do was go back to Hogwarts and complete her final year, as she would have done if not for the maniacal psychopath who tried to kill them all. Despite knowing that she would have been competent at any of the jobs offered to her during the summer, she just did not feel that she had earned them. She wanted tangible proof of her intelligence, something that would show her future employer and co-workers that she had as much right to be there as any of the rest of them. In both the Muggle and the Wizarding Worlds, she had seen how those who did not have money or important connections, despite being equally or even more qualified than those who did, were not regularly offered as many opportunities. Hermione resented it. And yet she grudgingly accepted that, at her level, there wasn't much she could do to change the system. What she could do, however, was rebel in her own small way. She would not play into the system by relying on her newfound celebrity to achieve her aims. While she might have done some incredible things in the last few years, many of which were certainly not expected of a witch of her age, she wanted to have the same qualifications as every other person in her field. This also meant she wanted to start from the bottom, adding yet another thing to the list of choices that Ronald simply would not understand.

Ron felt that, by her turning down each and every one of her job offers and returning to Hogwarts, she was showing him that she did not believe he had earned his place as Assistant Head Security Wizard of the Department of Magical Games and Sports. And that was true, to an extent. Hermione did feel that he wasn't applying himself and living up to his true potential, and she certainly did not believe that he had earned a position many others with his credentials would have worked more than ten years to achieve. But Ron failed to recognise that she wasn't making her choice because she wanted him to feel inferior. If Ron could accept his position and feel fulfilled while doing it, then fine, she would let him. But that did not mean she could do the same.

"Never mind, Ron. And I am proud of your accomplishments. This is a perfect job for you." All of that was true. Ron's new job was perfect for him. He would get to order people around (which she hoped would help him shake his "sidekick" mentality), he would not have to do much analytical or critical thinking, he didn't have much responsibility for his own actions, and he would get to interact with all of the Quidditch players, coaches, managers, agents, and groupies both off and on the pitch.

"Thank you for finally realising that. And I guess it's good you're going back to sit for your N.E.W.T.S.; it's not like you can rely on anything else to get yourself a job." Ron snickered and kissed her, snaking both hands around her waist to grab her bum while he forced his way into her mouth. She tried to move her body away from his hands, but she only succeeded in grinding herself slightly against him. "I love that I can make you squirm," Ron murmured before squeezing again. "You're getting a little better. Just make sure you practice on a mirror or something while you're at school. You're lucky I don't care about you being sexy or anything yet. I know! Just think of it as your homework assignment for me: Sensuality 101 or some shit like that." Ron laughed and snorted as he continued to nibble on her lips and squeeze her bum, all the while Hermione was beet red at the thought that Ron still didn't find her sexy at all, not to mention she was apparently incapable of even a simple kiss. She wanted to please him, but it was not as though she could get a teacher or read a book to learn as she normally did. She resolved that she would just have to try harder for Ron and, in the meantime, be thankful that she had a boyfriend who loved her in spite of not being particularly beautiful or sensual.

As she watched her boyfriend leave her and Ginny's shared room at the Burrow, she tossed another pair of sensible knee socks into her trunk and tried to excite herself with thoughts of the Hogwarts library, seeing Hagrid again, and most of all, that shiny new Head Girl badge nestled carefully in between her oxford's shirts…

---

Some two hours away, residing in a house on an unplottable piece of Wiltshire land, this year's Hogwarts Head Boy was also struggling to finish packing. Yes, he had all of the essentials—all of his shirts, trousers, socks, shoes, robes, books, a few bottles of Ogden's Finest, and other school supplies were all neatly fitted into his trunk, yet the boy felt he would need something else this year for his main extracurricular activity. He just wasn't sure what it was.

"Darling, staring at your trunk will not make it pack itself," the voice of his mother trilled from his doorway, "that is, of course, unless you perfected a wandless, non-verbal summoning spell while I was not looking?"

Narcissa slowly crossed the room to where he was standing, facing his trunk at the foot of his bed, and placed a gentle, elegant hand on his right shoulder. She really was quite beautiful, his mother. Meeting her eyes, he wondered if his future wife might look like her, but he quickly banished the thought from his mind for fear of developing an Oedipal complex. No, his future wife would look nothing like his mother, he decided.

"Take a deep breath." Narcissa soothed her only son with her peaceful voice. "You will be fine. I know it seems like a daunting task, but that is only because you have yet to find her. Once you do, your instincts will help you along."

"I don't even know where to begin looking, mother," Draco replied, sinking onto the edge of his bed, "she could be anywhere."

"Now we have been over this many times, Draco. The universe does not just decide one's mate at random; your dormant Veela has been with you for every interaction you have had over the entire course of your life, carefully considering every individual and searching for the one who would be your best match. Your mate is a woman you have already met, my dear, and since most of the girls you know currently attend Hogwarts, it is quite likely you will find her there." She lowered herself to her knees in front of her son, framing his face in her hands as she brought his gaze up from the floor. "I am not saying this will be easy, Merlin knows I made it quite difficult for your father," she stopped to laugh softly and look past his left shoulder as she recalled her own school days, "but I am sorry to say that there is nothing on this earth, no book or token, that you can take to make your task easier."

"Wonderful. Thanks for the help, mum." Draco grumbled, pushing off his bed to go scowl at the sunny gardens of the manor.

Narcissa raised herself back to her full height, quite tired of dealing with the broodiness inherent to all Malfoy men. "Oh Draco, do stop acting like a child," she exclaimed, her voice full of the power she demanded as a matriarch, "and stop glaring at my arnica plants—you're making them turn red."

He did as she bade, and focused his stormy gaze instead on a far-off patch of grass in the hopes of withering it without his mother noticing.

"It's about being brave, sweetheart. I know we Slytherins do not know the most about bravery, but from what I've learned, it does not mean that you have to banish all of your fears and charge head first into danger. That, I assume, is Gryffindor bravery, something you would be better off avoiding, in my opinion." Narcissa chuckled lightly, making her seem almost child-like and innocent. "This kind of bravery," she continued, "is about accepting that you and your mate are meant for each other. This is about understanding that who you are is not a burden; it is a gift. You have been blessed with this chance to experience a love about which other witches and wizards can only dream. You are treating this as though you will have to persuade some woman who you had only seen for a fleeting moment to fall in love with you with no pretence. Firstly, your Veela would not have chosen your mate based on a half second of eye contact, and secondly, you are as much meant for her as she is for you."

Draco nodded, already aware that he was being excessively broody. But he was a Malfoy—being broody was his prerogative! In fact, he wasn't so worried about finding his mate or even who she would be. He trusted his Veela instincts enough to know he would be able to identify her eventually and, if she were indeed supposed to be his perfect match, whatever sort of opinions he had of her previously wouldn't really matter. What he was worried about was finding her and convincing her to complete the mate bond in time.

Ever since June, Draco not only had been coming to terms with the changes overcoming his body but also with the fact that he had to bind his mate to him before his next birthday. Because the idea of finding eternal love just wasn't stressful enough, was it? Of course it had to have a time limit, or else it just wouldn't be interesting.

If Draco failed to mate in the next nine months, the second he turned nineteen his brain would signal the release of a liquid that would neutralise the chemical in his body responsible for sealing his mate bond. However, the neutralisation process would not just prevent him from experiencing the legendary and eternal love of male Veelas. Ironically, this was the one instance in which his "pureblood" heritage was much more of a burden than an advantage. Due to the centuries of pureblood marriages both before and after the birth of the first male-Malfoy Veela—which inevitably allowed for a substantial amount of inbreeding—Draco's immune system was relatively weak. Essentially, if the chemical were to neutralise, his body would try to compensate for the disturbance in equilibrium by overproducing the main protein constituent of the chemical. However, those proteins would eventually come into contact with the original neutralising liquid to create a new chemical that would be, for all intents and purposes, harmless. That is, of course, unless his intents and purposes were to include his mate. His combination of human and Veela genetic material would cause this new chemical to be harmless to all except the woman to whom he was fated. To her, it would be more deadly than a cap of Weedosoros potion. After his nineteenth birthday, he would have to avoid her at all costs, for even something as innocent as a kiss between them would subject her to a slow and painful death. Incidentally, Draco's problem was not something characteristic of all male Veela, but the result of one of his less intellectually gifted ancestors. No doubt his name was Cuntus or Cockupius or something else equally indicative of his immense ineptitude.

This ancient Malfoy had discovered his mate when he was eighteen, but the woman had many doubts about bonding herself to him for the rest of her life. Now, instead of giving her some time to come to terms with the idea or offering her a more platonic relationship as a way to get to know one another, he decided to try and alter his biology. As would be expected, messing with one's anatomy and internal systems is a tricky business in even the simplest of creatures. This is simply because no being's biology can be fully understood, so there is always a chance of triggering an unpredictable response. However, in creatures such as Draco and his ancestor, whose systems were a mix of human and magical, there was next to no predictability in how their bodies would react to tampering. But the elder Malfoy decided to ignore the warnings, and proceeded with his plan. Since his mate did not want to bond with him immediately, he concocted a potion intended to stimulate the release of a neutralising liquid in his body. In this way, he could promise never to bond with her against her will, and they could simply marry instead when she was ready.

Months later, on the night before his nineteenth birthday, the ancient Malfoy and the woman wed in a small, private ceremony in France. When the new couple returned to their bedchambers and proceeded to consummate their marriage, the man's Veela instincts reawakened, propelling him to seal the mate bond in spite of his promise. The elder Malfoy was unaware of the fact that, when his Veela realised that an opportunity to reproduce had come about, it tried to stimulate an increased production of his mating chemical, as increased fertility was an additional result of being bonded. It was this stimulation that allowed for the first creation of his new toxin. In the early seconds of his twentieth year, he bit his new wife where her shoulder curved into her neck. Almost instantly, her body began twitch violently, and she let out a cry that sent the coldest and deepest sense of fear to his heart. The elder Malfoy panicked, and hoped to save her by completing the mate bond. He bit the other side of her neck with his teeth, believing that his Veela magic could counteract whatever chemistry was causing her such pain. However, this only served to seal her fate, and for the next three days her death was prolonged as a constant state of pain and terror. When she finally died, the ancient Malfoy, overcome with grief, cursed himself never to know real love with another woman. Adding yet another notch on the belt of his failures, the elder Malfoy's curse did not have its intended result. In fact, the curse itself was pointless, as the nature of male Veela prevents them from having any strong romantic feelings towards any woman apart from their mates. So even if his curse had been successful, it would not have achieved anything for him. However, what the curse did achieve was to make his biological alteration a dominantly inheritable trait. And so, from that moment on, every male Malfoy grew up with the knowledge that as soon as they turned eighteen and came into their birthright, they had exactly one year to seal their mate bonds.

In order to continue the Malfoy line, the ancient Malfoy's parents arranged a marriage for him with a wealthy, pureblooded witch from a neighbouring village. Together they lived loveless, lonely lives under the harsh parapets and bargeboards of the ancestral manor. The curse, he told his son, was a symbol of the consequences of grief, and would provide an incentive for him and all future Malfoy men to find their mates quickly, so they would never have to know the despair he had.

Draco, meanwhile, felt that his ancestor's justification was bullshit. It was something born out of guilt at having plagued all his descendants with a terrible burden in a moment of anguish. But now, because of Cuntus, he had barely over nine months to seal his mate bond with the woman meant to be his perfect match...but first he had to find her and convince her to give him a chance.

Chapter 2: Welcome Back

The platform was in chaos.

Everywhere she looked, evidence that the return to normalcy was beginning invaded the atmosphere at King's Cross Station. Parents of First Years stood tall and flicked their eyes around suspiciously, as though any minute now Voldemort would reappear and retake control of the world. Hermione was almost tempted to sneer; most of them hadn't fought in the war, justifying their actions because, being parents, they had too much to lose by declaring their loyalty. And now, they had the audacity and arrogance to think they would protect their children if the Death Eaters suddenly broke out of Azkaban? As if, Hermione thought. Nothing had prevented families like the Weasleys from choosing a side, nor Lupin and Tonks, the Potters, the Longbottoms, or the entire Bones family. Certainly they had done as much as they could to keep their children out of danger, but they had also understood that certain risks would have to be taken to purge the world of its modern demons. And yes, all of them had lost loved ones. It was a terrible price to pay indeed, but it was because of the sacrifices of courageous people like them that these new students were all safe and living apart from true fear and evil.

The First Years themselves, however, just looked like typical new students: nervous and excited, each trying to pick through the thick crowd to find another confused new kid with whom they could stand. The Second and Third Years looked bored and aloof, as if after one or two years of school suddenly they were all seasoned veterans responsible for putting the First Years in their place. The Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Years, however, maintained a very different appearance. While the younger students had most likely been kept away from the reality of the Wizarding World at war, these older students were among those who had been evacuated from Hogwarts before the Final Battle. Many of them had older siblings or relatives who had fought, and it all contributed to a feeling that could only be likened to delusions of grandeur. The excitement, fear, and adrenaline they had all felt while hiding in their safe houses as the war waged on somehow made them believe that they had contributed just by existing at the right time. Of course, Hermione would not dare fault them for not fighting. After all, only a fraction of the oldest of them would have been sixteen when Harry returned to Hogwarts, and even that was much too young to be thrown into a full-fledged battle. But she resented their haughty attitudes, especially considering she knew how it felt to fight a war, to lose people, to lose yourself, and most of all, how it felt to exist in the aftermath. She saw this same knowledge on the faces and in the postures of many of the Seventh and "Eighth" Year students. Their faces were tired, but relieved—thankful to be coming back to something that they should be doing at their age. Their bodies were somehow stuck between rigid and relaxed, as if they were primed to release a heavy breath of solace but were braced right at the point of exhalation, not quite ready to believe the danger had passed.

Ron and Harry weren't with her. Harry had volunteered to see her off, but she knew that the first day of his Auror training had started the previous day and would continue for the next six months. Undoubtedly he would have been tired beyond belief, not only from his work but from spending as much time as he could with Ginny before she left as well. Hermione had appreciated the sentiment immensely, but she didn't want to give him a disadvantage at training by stealing away what little sleep he could afford.

Ron hadn't made any such offer, but then Hermione hadn't expected him to. Apparently he had been called away on his first assignment: assisting in the removal of a particularly randy group of girls attempting to blast their way into Puddlemere United's team locker rooms to catch a glimpse of Oliver Wood. She actually hadn't heard from him since before he left, which was almost three days ago, except for a message he had supposedly relayed through Harry, telling him to tell her to "make sure she reads a lot and does her homework". She assumed that was his attempt at wit.

As she stood on the tips of her toes and craned her neck, hoping to find Ginny in the sea of mismatched robes, she caught sight of someone she certainly had not expected would return for his eighth year. Her eyes narrowed; even with his face hidden from her, the boy's platinum hair and proud stance gave him away. Without a doubt, Draco Malfoy would be joining her as one of the few students to come back and sit for his N.E.W.T.S. She just couldn't catch a break, could she? She should have known the war wasn't over yet. Even after all of the fighting and bloodshed, now she would have to go back to the insults against her parentage and questions of whether she was worthy to be a part of the Wizarding community. And even better, as Hermione noticed, it appeared Malfoy would not be the only prejudiced, Slytherin arsehole returning either. Blaise Zabini, Theo Nott, and Pansy Parkinson had all flocked to him and were now currently engaged in a conversation that, by the looks of it, seemed rather tense.

The Hogwarts Express whistled, and Malfoy turned his head towards the sound, allowing Hermione a perfect view of his profile. Well, he certainly wasn't a boy anymore. The last time she had seen him his face was gaunt, with his eyes dull, sunken, and afraid, his cheeks hollow and the surrounding bones razor sharp, his lips pale and betraying no happy emotion. His frame had been equally as emaciated, and Hermione recalled thinking that, when she had seen him sat in the Great Hall after the battle, the smallest puff of wind could have knocked him right over. Of course, Hermione realised that three months couldn't possibly change his appearance that severely, but obviously the effects of two years of terror and pain on his body must have prevented her from noticing how much he had grown.

And he had grown. He was clearly over six feet, maybe even six-foot-five. He absolutely towered over Parkinson, who looked like a pixie in comparison. Maybe a Cornish pixie, Hermione thought with a small smirk. But more had changed about Malfoy than just his height. He had regained all of the weight that he'd lost over the last two years and then some, and he looked disproportionally bigger than he had in fifth year, the time when Hermione had last remembered him as looking healthy. Despite his confidence and swagger, Hermione had always thought he was a little scrawny. This perception was incredibly valuable to her in dealing with his constant abuse, as she chose to believe he was just overcompensating for not being as physically strong or built as other boys like Ron, or even Harry. But now…there was nothing to overcompensate for. He was still lean and trim, clearly not the sort to be bulky and horizontally imposing, but he looked strong, healthy, and ready. From her angle, she could tell that his face was still as sharp as ever, but it was fuller, and his skin, while still pale, now held the faintest rosy hue that had replaced the sickly, greenish undertones that had made him almost look like an Inferius.

There was something she could not quite identify about his expression. It was not one that she thought she had ever seen grace his features—there was a hint of his usual smugness and superior confidence, but it was a far cry from what she was used to seeing. And while his jumpiness at the train whistle betrayed his anxiety, it didn't dominate his attitude or his presence. She would have thought he would be much more nervous, or at least angry and standoffish at the thought of returning to a place filled with people who undoubtedly wanted him dead or imprisoned or both. And yet, he just seemed…contemplative. That was the only word Hermione could think of to describe him. There was a calm about him; something was monopolising on his thoughts so that any worries about the looks he was receiving or the whispers already starting to pass behind hands were having no effect on his countenance.

Suddenly, her view of Malfoy was obstructed by a tidal wave of red.

"Ginny!" She exclaimed as soon as she blinked and her eyes had refocused on the much nearer target. It was only then that she realised her eyes were stinging from having stared at Malfoy for so long. "I was wondering where you ran off to. Where've you been all this time?"

"Oh I just went to find Luna and nab a compartment," Ginny said as she pulled Hermione onto the train, "some little Fourth Year snot was going for it, but as soon as she saw me she just pulled the whole, 'Merlin's left saggy nut, you're Harry Potter's girlfriend, aren't you? Oh do tell me how dreamy he is, please! Does he buy you gifts and flowers? He's rich, isn't he? Oh you're so lucky to be with someone like him!'" Her voice had increased at least an entire octave in pitch, and she had raised the back of her hand to her forehead and bowed her back in a mock swoon. "Like, hello, I've known you for two seconds and I already have a list of reasons why I detest you. And regardless, I don't tell just anyone about how dreamy Harry is."

"You tell me often enough," Hermione grumbled. Never had a truer statement been made. She was privy to way more than she needed to be about Harry's body, morning routine, romantic declarations, nervous tics, and most unpleasant of all, his technique. Harry was like a brother to her, and hearing about his adeptness at certain bedroom activities only made her want to scuttle into a ball under her bed, clamp a thick pillow over her ears, and hum some mind-numbing tune.

"That's because you're you!" She laughed and pulled open the door to their berth. Luna was already inside, not even looking up from her upside-down Quibbler as they entered. "I mean honestly, Hermione, who else do I have to talk to about him?"

"Oh, I don't know," Hermione mocked, bringing her forefinger to her chin in imitation, "maybe Romilda Vane and both Patil twins and Cho Chang and any other girl who ever looked at Harry for half a second—"

"Piss off, I only did that once and only because we were all in the same room together. It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up!" Ginny defended, but her shoulders shook slightly in mirth, as she was clearly remembering the looks of shock on the girls' faces (shock and envy, in Romilda's case) at hearing her proclaim loudly and in detail to Hermione about a night when Harry had been quite interested being unselfish.

Hermione still had nightmares.

As the train signalled its last call for passengers with one long, resounding whistle, Hermione twisted so that her back was now against the compartment door and she was free to stretch her legs out along the seat. When Ginny turned to look out the window, Hermione inched her bum slightly away from the wall so she could just reach Ginny's thighs with her toes, and proceeded to aggressively knead them into the girl's leg. After Hermione had bought Crookshanks in third year, she picked up the habit of kneading her friends' thighs or stomachs when they weren't expecting it, usually resulting in an annoyed shriek from the receiver. Too bad Hermione thought it was hilarious, and always got a quick giggle out of it at their expense.

"Aaaghh!" Cried Ginny, recoiling as far as she could into the opposite corner and pulling her knees up to her chest. "Why do always do that to me?"

Hermione only giggled harder, and stretched so she could continue her task. "I'm only trying to show you how much I care!" Hermione wheezed out between laughs.

She would never admit it to anyone, not even Ginny, but ever since her unfortunate Polyjuice mishap in second year, she had noticed that several of her tendencies were decidedly feline. Deciding that her friends already thought her weird enough for it, she kept them a secret and instead used her powers for good by annoying them at every opportunity.

Ginny, meanwhile, was hardly amused, and quickly jumped up and across the compartment to sit next to Luna, narrowly avoiding Hermione's toes as they attempted to follow her quick movements.

The next few hours or so passed quickly, with the girls alternating between giggling about various points of gossip, predicting changes in the upcoming term, reminiscing about their previous years, and just watching the blurred colours of the countryside fly past. At some point, Luna had finished her Quibbler and, blinking to refocus her eyes, had asked, "Oh, hello, Hermione. When did you get here?"

Hermione had only smiled and shook her head, while Ginny had snickered slightly at the oblivious nature of their friend. All too soon, however, Hermione checked her watch and noticed that the time had come for her to start performing her Head duties. Flicking her wand, she lowered the shade to cover the glass portion of their compartment door, and began to change into her robes. It was a surreal but strangely calming experience, donning her uniform for the first time in over a year. The slight itchiness of her school skirt on her bare thighs and the way her knee socks slowly slipped down her legs seemed like such trifling complaints now, and she felt a small kind of happiness at the thought that these would be her main annoyances this year. She straightened up from fastening her shoes and carefully pinned her Head Girl Badge to her robes.

Bidding the other girls goodbye, she exited the berth and made her way to the prefect's carriage near the front of the train. In the letter from Professor McGonagall during the summer, she had congratulated Hermione on her academic achievements and outstanding reputation as a student, and informed her that it was because of these accomplishments that she had been selected as Head Girl. However, the Headmistress had not revealed the name of her male counterpart, only saying that at four o'clock she was to meet him in the prefect's carriage and discuss how they would delegate various tasks. She would have been lying if she claimed she was not curious as to who had been chosen; in fact as she made her way down the corridor, she was simultaneously greeting her classmates and trying to remember if any of them had attained a degree of academic prestige.

There were only a handful of boys with grades that rivalled hers, and only a fraction of that handful weren't lonely recluses who only ventured out of their rooms to eat and attend classes. Come to think of it, Ernie McMillan, Justin Flinch-Fletchley, Michael Corner, and Anthony Goldstein were the only boys she believed could have been offered the position. Certainly, there were several Gryffindor boys with strong leadership skills, just as there were several Slytherin boys with nearly flawless academic records, but she didn't expect a student from either of those houses to be chosen. Each group just lacked what the other possessed. But honestly, none of the candidates were particularly appealing prospects. Justin and Anthony were nice enough, but Justin was somewhat naïve and cowardly and Anthony was just dull. Ernie was a half-step down from the other two boys in terms of appeal, mostly because he was incredibly pompous, ostentatious, and presumptuous. He had always been so quick to slander Harry in their earlier years whenever a new rumour began to circulate, only to renounce his beliefs and plead for forgiveness when he was proved wrong. But Michael would definitely be the worst. To be fair, most of Hermione's opinion of Michael had been born out of what Ginny had told her, but as of yet she had no reason to think differently of him. He was a slimy creep with a cantankerous personality, and most of everything he said was a guaranteed conversation stopper. He was always very vocal with his observations of people and Hermione had often found him watching her in classes or on the school grounds, which all contributed to her feeling generally uncomfortable around him.

She decided that Anthony would probably be the best of the bunch. Despite not being particularly interesting, he didn't seem to have any real annoying tendencies. And he seemed like the type that would be clean, as well, which was a definite advantage. As she would have to share a dorm (and probably a bathroom) with the Head Boy, she was almost tempted to say that cleanliness would matter more to her than any other character shortcomings he might have.

Just as she was about to weigh the levels of unpleasantness of a messy and unhygienic Anthony against an immaculately tidy and well-groomed Michael, she arrived at the door to the train's second carriage, behind which the elusive Head Boy was probably waiting.

She was suddenly nervous, and hesitated before pushing the divider aside. What if her partner had been similarly going through options for Head Girls? If so, where did she rank on his list of most appealing candidates? She liked to think she was personable and easy to work with, but she also knew that many people found her bossy and stuck up. The Head Boy was probably hoping for someone like Padma Patil or Hannah Abbot to be his partner, a girl who everyone agreed was smart, friendly, funny, and undeniably pretty. Padma and Hannah could roll out of bed, be wearing the most atrocious hand-me-down jumper and no makeup, and probably be ill at the same time and somehow still achieve the kind of natural beauty that simply radiated from within and made everyone around them happier just for seeing it.

Hermione knew she was nowhere near as beautiful as those other witches. She'd thought she'd looked nice for the Yule Ball in fourth year, and Bill and Fleurs' wedding two summers past, but it had taken hours to tame her hair and do her face, and the result had been just that—nice. On both occasions she still felt she had been outshone by girls like Fleur, Ginny, and Parkinson, who had all looked as though they'd just walked off some elite runway in Paris or Milan. Still, Ron must find her attractive enough, or else he would not have chosen to date her. She must at least be average-looking. And yet, she had always been troubled by the thought that he had never looked at her as if he was lost in her beauty, like the way he'd gawked at the Bulgarian Veela at the Quidditch World Cup. But then, she wasn't exactly a Bulgarian Veela, was she?

Well, she thought, as she shook herself slightly and reached for the divider handle, there's nothing I can do about it now. Whoever has to live with me will just have to get over it.

She squared her shoulders and pulled the door open, but as soon as she stepped into the carriage she realised all her worries had been for naught.

The Head Boy wasn't even here yet; only Malfoy, Parkinson, and some other prefects were scattered around, waiting for the Heads to arrive so the meeting could begin. Hermione was quite shocked that Malfoy had retained his prefect position in spite of not only attempting to aid in the extermination of Muggles and Muggle-borns, but also the fact that he and Parkinson had abused their positions immensely in previous years. They were always ready to deduct points from Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, even when they had done nothing wrong, and were exceedingly harsh on First Years, usually by giving them detentions with Snape or Filch or Umbridge or some other odious staff member.

Well, maybe McGonagall thought keeping him a prefect would help make sure some of the more unruly Slytherins stayed in line. She could live with that, she decided. And besides, she would have authority over him anyway, so if he reverted back to his old habits she could give him a nasty detention with Hagrid or something.

She sat down and retrieved her letter from McGonagall from her pocket. The letter detailed most of the topics she would have to cover at this meeting, but had been hoping to go over them with the Head Boy before it started. She glanced at her watch again—it was already ten to four and he wasn't even here yet!

Just as she was about to throw her eyes anxiously at the door, a cool voice froze her in place.

"Granger," said Malfoy as he took the seat opposite her.

"Malfoy," she replied, unsure of his motives but deciding to be civil, "I guess I should congratulate you on your Prefect appointment."

"And I should congratulate you, to be sure…but I'm not exactly a Prefect."

Oh, well then maybe McGonagall hadn't been as generous as she had believed. Well, that was perfect, then. She would have even more authority over Malfoy than she thought she would. But then what was he doing in the Prefect's carriage when a meeting was about to commence? Was he just talking to Parkinson or was he—

Oh. Oh no. Malfoy had pulled one part of his robes—which were unclasped at the front and had been hanging at his sides—to the front of his body so that his Head Boy badge was now clearly visible.

No. No. No no no no no. Give her back the messy, unhygienic, slimy Michael Corner! They would be best friends!

She was sure her lower jaw had unhinged itself and had clattered onto the table between them. Prefect, she could understand…maybe, but Head Boy? Had McGonagall lost her mind? She seriously trusted Malfoy, the self-proclaimed despiser of Muggle-borns and attempted murderer of Dumbledore to work well with her and live with her for the remainder of the school year? They would kill each other!

She came back to the present when Malfoy reached over to push her jaw back into place. She gaped at him; did he just willingly touch her? He, a boy who felt he needed to burn any article of clothing that touched the same air as a Muggle-born, just touched her bare skin with his bare hand? What was the world coming to? And was his skin always that warm and soft?

He had an indulgent, almost boyish expression on his face, one that was somewhat mocking and mischievous but totally devoid of malice. One eyebrow was quirked slightly, matching the angle of his mouth, which was turned up in a half smirk that at once both laughed at her disbelief and showed pride at his continued ability to shock her. His grey eyes, which she had always thought looked chilly and severe, were light and jovial. She was stunned at how the absence of anger, stress, and hate completely changed his face.

He almost looked…nice.

But that was impossible. This boy…man…person hated her. Maybe he had progressed to the level wherein he longer wished for her immediate annihilation, but she knew for a fact that he disliked her for many reasons in addition to her blood status.

And she hated him for reasons unrelated to him wanting her dead for the past seven years! He was a cruel, self-serving boy who took credit for other people's achievements, abused every privilege given to him, and—word had it—had a nasty reputation for tossing witches over after he had lured them to his bed. And he cheated at Quidditch, for Merlin's sake! Granted, almost everyone cheated at Quidditch, but that did not make it right!

"So were you planning on just improvising, Granger? Or did it cross your mind that we should go over some things before this meeting starts?" Malfoy jeered, that annoying smirk still in place.

Ah, there was the Malfoy she knew and hated. He was clearly out of practice, as that remark was not nearly as hurtful as she had been anticipating, but she had full confidence that his jabs would be up to snuff before long. She huffed, retrieving a long piece of parchment she'd drawn up the previous day and handing it across the table. The parchment detailed the weekly patrol assignments, First-Year orientation, Hogsmeade visits, tasks for the upcoming ball, and other miscellaneous duties for the Prefects.

Much to her agitation, Malfoy immediately pulled out a quill and an inkbottle and began marking up her plans, making him seem as though he was a professor making edits to an essay.

"I'm sorry," Hermione blustered, "but what the hell are you doing?"

"Just making a few changes," Malfoy replied dismissively.

"Care to enlighten me?"

Malfoy did not respond immediately, choosing instead to continue alternating between scratching and scribbling. After about a minute, he recapped his inkbottle, rested his quill, and took his time reviewing his changes before returning the parchment to her.

"All I did was rearrange a few of the patrol pairings," he began, "as it seems to have missed your notice, you can't pair McDonald and Peakes with each other; they had a nasty fallout after he briefly turned her cat into a pumpkin two years ago, and she's still mad. Branstone and Quirke have rival parents in the experimental potions department at the Ministry, Harper practically stalks Pansy, so they probably shouldn't be alone in dark corridors together, and Abbot and McMillan have been on and off for the last few years, and if her sitting on his lap in the corner gives us any kind of indication, now is an "on" period. We actually want Prefects to patrol on their patrols, don't we?"

Hermione grumbled, angrily conceding to the fact that he was clearly more attuned to gossip than she. She tilted her head in acknowledgement, but noticed that he had marked other parts of her plans as well.

"And what about the other changes, might I ask?" She twittered.

"Well, although you seem to have thought out every possible duty for preparing for the ball, you assigned people who would be generally shite at certain jobs. I think even we can agree that Goldstein could win against Binns in a duel of insipidity, with Madley coming in a close third. Probably best that they're not assigned to decorations, yeah? And Ackerley and Robins, despite being academically all there, aren't the best examples of bulk and brawn. So I moved them to setup and teardown from Fifth Year security. Personally, I recommend Cauldwell and Baddock as replacements—both beaters."

She hated to admit it, but he was undoubtedly correct. She had always made an effort to get to know the Prefects, even in spite of the Slytherins not being particularly accommodating, but she had not yet got the chance to know many of the Fifth Years. She wasn't exactly sure how Malfoy had bested her on that front, but maybe he was just generally more perceptive than her. But she had known that Anthony would probably be awful at decorating, but she hadn't really known where else to put him. She just expected that, had he been Head Boy, he would have assumed a more supervisor-type role instead. Malfoy had placed him as Padma's partner as the liaisons to the various outside businesses that would be supplying drinks, music, and games to the festivities. Honestly, she was less upset that Malfoy had thought of it than she was at the fact that she hadn't thought of it at all.

She rolled her left shoulder once, cringing internally at her own pettiness. Sometimes she forgot that the reason why there were two Head students was not just due to the need for equal representation of the sexes. She was not all-powerful, she could not direct all the Prefects on her own, and given the past few minutes, there were gaps in her skill sets—gaps that Draco Malfoy seemed highly capable of filling.

And maybe she wasn't giving him enough credit. Yes, he made the foolish decision to eat up all his father's words and follow a lunatic, and yes he had always acted like a complete dickhead towards her, but she shouldn't try to belittle his abilities. He had become a strong wizard, and if they managed not to kill each other, he could be a strong ally.

Then and there, Hermione decided to commit. No matter what Malfoy would say or do, she would not be pushed over, aside, or under. She would show everyone not only why she was the called the brains behind the Golden Trio, but also that she had the practical skill and leadership abilities to show for it. She would prove to everyone that she deserved her Head Girl Badge, and she wasn't just Harry Potter's friend, or Ron Weasley's girlfriend.

"Well if that's all," Hermione said, her face even in spite of his infuriatingly nonchalant nod, "then let's get this show on the road."

She was Hermione fucking Granger, the brightest witch of her age, and no one, not even Malfoy, would strip her of that title.

---

He was totally off his game.

He hadn't seemed to have any trouble taunting some Second Year Puffies earlier as they scrambled for a compartment, so why was he struggling so much now?

As he had waited for Granger to show up in the Prefect's carriage (Pansy had thought that the smarter Patil twin would be Head Girl, but as Granger had practically licked McGonagall's asshole throughout school, Draco had little doubt she would be given the position) he'd been contemplating what it would be like to live with her for the whole year. Intolerable, he guessed. True, he no longer ascribed to pureblood beliefs, but that didn't mean she was any less of a snobbish swot.

Well, at least he would be in for some entertainment. Nothing was truly more enjoyable than watching the blood rush to her cheeks and ears or seeing her hair practically crackle with energy after one of his more polemic comments. He didn't even believe most of what he preached, but it was just too much fun to watch her work herself up.

When she had entered the carriage, he seemed to know she was there before he even saw her. As she pulled the door aside, a rush of cooler air had entered the space, and the faintest squirming feeling began in his lower back. However, he brushed it off as a kind of shiver when he noticed the hairs that had risen on his arms. When he had finally turned to look at her, what he saw was nothing like what he had been expecting. She still retained that look about her that just screamed holier-than-thou, but she looked…tired. There was some anxiety about her, evident from her staggered gait, but mostly, to Draco's surprise, she looked bored. Since when was Granger bored? For Merlin's sake, the rotted pits of dirigible plums could probably hold her interest for at least an hour, so why did she look so blasé when she literally held the most interesting student position at Hogwarts?

And she looked skinny, too. Well, she had always seemed fit and trim, so it wasn't as if she'd gone from obese to thin over the course of a summer. But she'd always had some meat and muscle on her, whereas now he could easily picture all of her small bones breaking under the weight of her brain.

Her hair was still as wild as ever, and yet there seemed to be some order to the madness of her mane. While it was still a huge mass of curls, it looked decidedly less mop-like, and gone was the frizz that had plagued her throughout their formative years. It seemed like she had finally found a conditioner that worked.

He shook himself out of his momentary insanity at having been inspecting her hair when he recognised that, since both of them were now in attendance, they should probably start preparing for the upcoming Prefect meeting. A new feeling of elatedness rushed through him when he realised that Granger probably didn't expect him to be her partner for the rest of the year, and he would likely spend the next few minutes revelling in her astonishment at his appointment. Honestly, he wasn't totally sure why he'd been chosen, either, though he had a hunch. The old bat had said something about "rebuilding bridges" and understanding that due to his age, he could not be held completely accountable for his more injudicious actions. But that was complete hippogriff shit, and both him and McGonagall surely knew it. Draco had known exactly what he was doing every damned step of the way; there was just no other option for him. Maybe he could have gotten Dumbledore's help and protection in sixth year, and maybe he could have gone to the Order before it was too late—but neither of those options offered a guarantee for his parents. Draco had known that if the Dark Lord had found out about his disloyalty, his mother, quickly followed by his father, would have been the first to go. He didn't care what people called him, or how hard life would be for him once he left school, as long as he knew that he had chosen the path that would have best protected his parents.

He couldn't be completely sure, but he was somewhat convinced that McGonagall had chosen him so that the children of the convicted Death Eaters would feel like they had an ally at the school. But Draco knew that he would be watched every minute of every day, and he'd be completely under the thumb of his Headmistress. It all sounded very sadomasochistic.

Oh fuck, bad image, bad image, Draco thought as a disgusted shudder passed through him.

Academically and socially, however, he completely understood why he had been chosen. He knew he was arrogant, because all Malfoys were arrogant, and it was genetic. But he didn't believe that calling attention to one's more favourable attributes was synonymous with arrogance. He was an intelligent, skilled wizard who knew how to get his way, and he had presence. He'd learned from his father how to control a room without uttering a single syllable, and he knew how to read people. Malfoys are born to lead, his father always told him. Lucius often expanded on his idiom, saying that being a leader did not always mean being the most vocal or forceful, even though both were useful qualities on occasion. Being a leader meant commanding respect, and respect was achieved by demonstrating power, resourcefulness, and, of course, success. Draco had always attained a certain level of respect, given to him simply because of his surname. However, he'd spent the last seven years trying to prove himself and earn the kind of respect his father had garnered. He'd lost a modicum of it by being on the wrong side in the war, but he'd get it all back this year, without a doubt. And what's more, he'd get it honestly. If he managed to gain respect without being excessively underhanded and dastardly, no one would be able to fault him on it. He wouldn't have to resort to being nice, or anything else equally drastic. No, he could still retain his supercilious and proud personality, but he just wouldn't be as conniving and blatantly cruel as he had been in previous years.

Draco would be the first to admit that honesty was not a concept with which many Malfoys were familiar, and he was not exactly an exception. But he resolved to learn, and who knew? Maybe Granger could help him on that.

Rising from his seat next to Pansy and Theo—who had replaced Draco in their sixth year and managed to retain his Prefect status—he straightened, brushed the imaginary wrinkles out of his robes, and strutted over to where Granger was seated across the carriage.

After he had sat down and the news of his Head Boy status had broken, he had expected a blind rage to erupt from her. Although he didn't receive his desired reaction, he had been satisfied by her clearly shocked expression and by the separation between her upper and lower jaws.

Well that's different, he thought, as his eyes shifted to her mouth. She had perfect teeth. He remembered making fun of her in their fourth year for her large front teeth, but he'd never actually noticed that they'd been fixed. The rest of her teeth were completely straight, and they were the kind of white that showed real hygiene as opposed to magical or Muggle procedures. There were many girls (and a few blokes, as well) in Slytherin who used teeth-whitening charms so frequently that their choppers were practically fluorescent. Draco always made sure to avoid happy or droll topics around those choice few, for fear of being blinded by their glaring smiles.

Now that he thought about it, he didn't think he'd ever been this close to Granger before. And it seemed like her perfect teeth were among several features he had never noticed about her. From a distance, one would be quick to call her definitively average, with her long brown hair and brown eyes and light skin and normal height and build. But now that he really looked at her, there wasn't an average thing about her. Her hair and eyes weren't just brown. With the sun from the train window shining down on her, he could see some bits of red and lighter browns mixed into her wild tresses. And her eyes were more hazel than brown, with these little golden flecks floating around her irises. They reminded him of a small perfume bottle his father had given his mother once for an anniversary. It had been more for show than for practical use, but he had always found something mesmerizing about it. He had never smelled the perfume inside, though he expected it would be a custom soft, clean scent with a hint of floral and slight tang, if he knew his mother's tastes. As a child, he used to sit at his mother's vanity and admire it, occasionally raising and turning it gently, watching the small flakes of pure-gold foil swirl around in the colourless liquid.

He blinked, realising that he had been staring at her for far too long, and hoped she had not yet noticed. But he saw that she was still staring at him as well, with her mouth still agape, and a strong glint of tenacity forming in her gaze.

Her mouth. That sneaky feature that had triggered all his ridiculous thoughts. He could still see her perfect teeth, and the rosy pink, full bottom lip that looked like she had been nibbling on it before she arrived…

Okay, he had snap out of this. She had to stop gaping at him, because whenever his eyes shifted down to her teeth, a whole new flood of thoughts about her understated beauty hit him. Why wouldn't she close her mouth? Didn't she know how much she was taunting him?

Well if she wouldn't do it, he would. Before he could stop himself, he reached across the table between them and lifted her jaw back into place with two of his fingers. Something twinged in his back again, and he subtly sucked in his stomach a few times in an attempt to shake the tickling, buzzing sensation. He snatched his hand back, not quite believing he had actually just touched her. At least it meant he could start focusing on how much of a bossy snit he knew she was.

She seemed to startle herself out of her thoughts, though he could practically see the gears turning in her head and hear the steam whistling from her ears. He needed to say something, something that would jar them both back to how they normally acted around each other. He didn't want to be cruel and hurtful, like his normal mode of operation, since he was following his new diet of honesty or whatever and he needed her not to hate him. What came out was decidedly unimpressive, but he felt it achieved its purpose to a certain extent. They needed their usual rapport, because despite their clashing personalities, he understood that they had the potential to work well together. If the three feet of parchment she was handing him was any sort of clue, she was well organised and knew how to plan. He had no doubts about her intelligence; his enduring status as second best in their year told him enough. And in addition, though he would never admit it aloud, they shared many of the same values. She wasn't the type to give up once she had committed to a task, so Draco knew that if she dedicated herself to surviving this year with him, and doing so productively, they would be brilliant.

They just had reign in their obstinacy and resist the urge to rise to each other's bait. Not exactly an easy undertaking.

Sweet Circe, he was beginning to sound like a sap. As he began to read over her plans for the Prefect meeting, he was loath to admit that she had thought of almost everything. He had been planning to surprise her with his own parchment of equal length and detail, but he decided he would just create an amalgamation of the two by altering hers slightly. True, she had thought of all the necessary tasks and assignments for the upcoming months, and he grudgingly admitted that her list was more thorough than his, but he noticed she had failed to consider certain relationships when pairing people together. Well, this was the perfect opportunity to showcase his talents of observation and people reading.

And it worked perfectly. Granger was clearly impressed by skills, though it was clear that she tried to hide it behind a mask of indignation.

When the plans had been perfected (and Granger had been thoroughly irked by his unassuming adeptness at Head Boy-ing), the pair rose from their table and moved to join the congregation of Prefects. The Fifth and Sixth Years were already an annoying bunch, with most of them flicking their eyes between each other before settling their haughty gazes on him. They blinked lazily at him, their postures excessively relaxed and nearly supine on the seats, as if they felt the need to demonstrate how little they respected his authority. Draco did not blame them for wanting him to feel inferior; hell, he'd been on the giving end of that feeling for the past seven years, so he felt he could empathise.

However, they were going about it much too obviously. And even if they wanted to make him feel like he had no power over them, it would accomplish little, as he did, in fact, have power over them. If they continued to pull stunts like this, he would just ensure that they were assigned to patrol the halls that Peeves most often frequented.

Karma was a bitch, and no one knew that better than Draco.

To his surprise, however, Granger cleared her throat as she came up next to him, and when he turned his head slightly to look at her, she was fixing the Prefects with a stern glare. It wasn't so much menacing—as it would have been if Pansy had been made Head Girl (Merlin forbid)—but it was demanding and promised a swift retribution at the smallest signs of disobedience or intransigence. Draco thought she looked like a younger version of McGonagall.

Much to his displeasure, the thought of McGonagall triggered the resurgence of the frightfully disturbing mental image of her as a dominatrix, and he struggled to supress a shudder and force down the bile that had risen in his throat.

Despite their rather shaky introduction to each other, he and Granger managed to lead the Prefect meeting rather adeptly. The snooty younger ones quickly snapped to attention the minute Granger had pursed her lips and raised one eyebrow at the group, their lazy postures quickly converting to hunched under her intimidating gaze. Draco felt no jealousy at her ability to command the group, as he was confident he'd rise to her level before too long. In fact, a small part of him was impressed (and a little grateful) that she didn't use their distrust of him as a way to establish her supreme authority. He guessed that the possibility hadn't ever crossed her mind, which only confirmed her status as a Gryffindor do-gooder. If that opportunity had been presented to him, he would have snatched it up without hesitation—or at least, he would have done, before he decided to become honest.

Surprisingly, Granger seemed intent on coming off as a united front. She afforded him an equal amount of time to dictate rules and explain the allocated duties, and didn't seem too overly incensed when he amended one of her statements. On the whole, she was the image of professionalism, and it was impressive given her previously blatant objection to him as her partner.

When the train arrived at Hogsmeade Station, the two Heads quickly answered the few remaining questions and sent the Prefects to usher the rest of the students to the carriages. Granger spared him a quick glance before gathering her things and rushing to the exit, her back ramrod straight and her chin raised. Draco smirked; she certainly would be no pushover. Not that he had expected her to be, but she had been sure to cement the fact that there would be no chance of him exerting any extra power over her. It was all vastly unnecessary, and he had accepted his badge with the expectation that he would take the lesser stance of the two if Granger had demanded it. As it happened, he was definitely surprised that she seemed to want them to be equal in their partnership. Well, perhaps it was all for show, and as soon as she got him alone she would hold him at wandpoint and demand his submission. Sneaky minx, he thought as his mouth twitched slightly at the corner. It would be a decidedly Slytherin move, to make everyone think they were equals, when really he would be a quivering lump completely under her command.

The thought made him scoff; he would accept her authority over him, but he would never quiver. He would consent to his position with all the grace of a Malfoy heir—indifferent to the end.

The carriage ride and subsequent sorting passed without incident, though the latter took marginally longer than usual. This year's class of First Years was nearly double its typical size, as many parents chose to keep their children at home the previous year instead of sending them to a Hogwarts under Voldemort's control. As such, roughly half of the students were a year older than the rest, and many would probably be more advanced from being home-schooled.

After he had entered the Great Hall, he had perused the Slytherin table in search of his friends. Quickly taking sight of Pansy's short, black hair next to Blaise's dark, shaven head, he strode over to the table and perched across from the two, sitting himself down next to Theo. After the sorting and a tediously long speech from McGonagall, which detailed the trials of the past four years, the sacrifices of their peers (at which point Draco noticed Granger rubbing the back of the Weasley girl, who was trembling slightly), and her hope for the upcoming term, the food of the welcoming feast finally appeared in front of them and the heavy buzz of chatter began to fill the hall. Draco himself was starved, as he had missed the trolley during the train ride in favour of getting to the Prefect's carriage earlier than Granger.

"You going to chew that, Draco?" Blaise snickered at him, bringing his own fork of mashed potatoes to his lips and swallowing after a few seconds.

Draco just ignored him and continued to scarf down his turkey. Since his early breakfast with his parents, the only thing he'd had to eat that day was a paltry handful of Bertie Bott's, and a generous portion of that handful had been either liver, earwax, or tripe-flavoured. He couldn't quite bring himself to care that his mother would have smacked him at the sight of his table manners; he was a growing boy and he needed his meat!

"Do try not to swallow the bones this time," chimed Pansy, who was daintily slicing an asparagus spear, "wouldn't want a repeat of the Boxing Day luncheon."

"Do try not to fling yourself off the Astronomy Tower," Draco quipped back, "wouldn't want to fulfil my deepest fantasies."

"Oh I'm sure Fourth-Year Draco would have something very different to say about his fantasies concerning me," Pansy smirked devilishly at him from beneath her long lashes.

Theo coughed beside him, and Draco turned to slap him on the back just a little harder than necessary.

A teeny tiny, infinitesimally small part of Draco wanted to laugh along at his friend's antics, despite the fact that they were aimed at him, but he managed to repress the urge and forced a scowl on his face instead. Pansy's jibe had been a point of frequent mockery for Draco, stemming from one night—one night—in their fourth year when he had had a particularly…detailed dream involving Pansy, the Quidditch bleachers, and a liquorice wand. Unfortunately that night happened to be the one time his subconscious self had felt the need to broadcast his latent desires by making him talk in his sleep, whereby Blaise and Theo, who had been sleeping in the neighbouring beds, awoke and heard all about them. They had wasted no time in divulging the specifics (involving Draco's little problem when the dream had ended) to Pansy the following morning over breakfast, and ever since the three of them had never let Draco live it down. It didn't seem to matter that he and Pansy had actually dated occasionally since then, or that both of them had stories that were equally if not more embarrassing than that of Draco's dream. On the contrary, the tale of his horrific night in their fourth year would forever be, to Draco's total mortification, the one that would never grow old or tiresome.

And yet, the resurgence of the story comforted him just slightly, as it made him feel like this year might not be so terribly different from the others. It had become almost like an unspoken tradition for one of his three friends to find a way to mention the incident at some point during the first feast. Even during his sixth year, when he had trudged into the Great Hall with the weight of Voldemort's mission resting on his shoulders, his spirit had been momentarily lightened when Theo had subtly woven the topic into the conversation. Draco had been allowed to spend a few minutes pretending that he like was any other sixteen-year-old magical student grumbling at the larks of his mates.

Draco re-joined the discussion when he heard Blaise talk about plans for the upcoming weekend. It was a Tuesday, which was crap because it meant everyone's schedules would be altered to accommodate for the loss of two days. Admittedly, the first week of school was always crap unless it started on a Friday or a weekend day, because the rearranging of classes always resulted in terribly crammed first days. But the three-day-week schedule was undoubtedly the worst of the bunch. He would have double periods of each class spread over the next two days, with each block being an hour and a half instead of two hours, and then all eight of his classes would meet on Friday for forty-five minutes each, instead of the usual hour. Draco didn't know why the professors still clung to this method, since they all seemed to hate it just as much as the students. Plus it just meant that there wouldn't be a single free period anywhere in his schedule (disregarding lunch), and coupled with the follow-up Prefect meeting on Friday, his patrol with Granger on Saturday, Quidditch practice on Thursday, and a meeting with his pre-graduation advisor during lunch the following day…he was going to be a walking corpse.

The only positive outcome of the three-day-week schedule was that it almost always resulted in better weekend activities. The older Slytherin students always held a party on the first weekend as a celebration of the new school term, but whenever it followed such a hellish week, the need to let loose was sated by an exceedingly generous provision of various liquids. As he mentally recounted his upcoming week's schedule, Draco knew that the party would be nothing if not necessary.

"So any chance we could use your common room, mate?" Theo asked him. "I mean, we can use ours if you can't, like we always have done, but if we do we run the risk of old Sluggy popping down to join in."

In his peripheral, Draco noticed Pansy grimace, and he smirked slightly at the memory of Professor Slughorn coming down to the Slytherin common room during the party in their sixth year, whereupon he proceeded to get properly sloshed and trailed after Pansy for the rest of the night.

"I don't know…if what I've heard about the Head dorms is correct, Granger and I'll be sharing a common room. I'd have to ask her." That wasn't exactly a conversation he was looking forward to, as Granger was bound to jump on her high horse and reprimand him for encouraging irresponsible behaviour or something like that. But if she'd be willing to clear out and the Slytherins would get a private common room for a night, the party would reach legendary heights.

"Brilliant, thanks," Theo replied, clapping him on the shoulder, "so Friday night sound good?"

"Actually, we should do Saturday," Draco interjected, an idea forming in his head, "I'll still have to ask her, but if we have it on Saturday night Granger and I will have patrols, and she might just want to stay in the Gryffindor dorms afterwards instead of going all the way back to ours. Plus with the Prefect meeting on Friday night we'd be leaving Blaise with most of the setup."

"Oh you're so considerate, thank you Drakie!" Blaise half-squealed and reached across the table to pinch him on the cheek. Draco quickly slapped away his hand, but not before Blaise had got an adequate handful.

After all the food had been vanished from the tables and the Headmistress had imparted a final anecdote, the students slowly began to empty out of the Great Hall, eventually separating as each house made their way to their respective common rooms. Draco bid goodbye to his friends after making sure Theo saved him a seat in Arithmancy the next morning, and he made his way towards the head table to wait for Granger and McGonagall.

As many Head students opted to invite their friends back to their common rooms, and thus reveal the whereabouts of said common room, the location of the Head dorms was changed every year to maintain a level of privacy. Because of this, neither he nor Granger knew where to go after the feast, so they had been instructed to stay behind and wait for the Headmistress to lead them to their dorms.

When he reached the head table and saw Granger already waiting for him, the reality of his situation suddenly hit him full force. He would actually be living with Granger for the next nine months. As in, hers would be the first and last face he would see every day, and they would be sleeping within twenty or so feet from each other every night. The thought was not a comforting one, especially given how much she despised him. And what if she invited Weasley in as well? Draco had read in the Prophet that she and him had gotten together after the war, and he didn't relish the thought of being lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones of Weasel sex. His stomach folded in on itself at the thought, which was an awful feeling given he'd filled it to bursting during the feast.

"Ah Mister Malfoy there you are." McGonagall trilled as she descended the few short steps from the head table. "Now before I take you to your quarters it is incumbent upon me to mention that the bestowment of a private dormitory is a privilege, not a right. If you abuse it, you will be returned to your old rooms. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Professor," both he and Granger replied immediately. He wasn't quite sure if hosting a substance-inclusive party in the dorms four days into term constituted abuse of their privilege, but he just hoped Granger wouldn't think so.

No words passed between the two Heads as they followed their Headmistress out of the Great Hall and throughout the rest of the castle. Draco was surprised when they passed the third floor, as he had heard the Head dorms had been situated there on two occasions within the last decade. His curiosity was short-lived, however, as Professor McGonagall made a sharp left turn down one of the darker corridors of the fourth floor. He quickly recognised it as the way to the Restricted Section of the Library, and did a mental jig at the idea. It was juvenile, he knew, but it was just so much cooler to have his secret dorm be hidden in the Restricted Section as opposed to behind the portrait of the drunk monks in the Charms corridor.

McGonagall flourished her wand and moved away the rope that cordoned off the separate portion of the library. "As you will be living here, not to mention that you are both well of age, you will not need to present a signed note to enter," McGonagall mentioned without turning to face either of the two, instead focusing on the numerous shelves of books.

She illuminated the end of her wand as they neared the back, and she focused the light on the inscriptions at the end of each bookshelf. When she reached the one for which she was searching, she swiftly turned down the aisle, nearly causing Draco and Granger to bypass it due to their forward momentum. The Headmistress walked towards the windows at the other end of the bookcases, but stopped when she arrived at a gap between two separate shelves.

"Now," she began, brandishing her wand and indicating with an impatient bob of her head that they should do the same, "you will need both a password and a spell to enter your common room. Do you both recall the ancient rune Thurisaz? Oh good, well you will have to speak the name of the rune while emblazoning it onto this bookcase with your wand." She demonstrated the action, flicking her wand in three quick motions to carve the simple, p-shaped rune into the wood as she spoke the password. Almost instantly, the wood of the shelf absorbed the rune and the seams of a door began to appear near the edges of the shelf. Finally, a small, bronze handle in the shape of a phoenix emerged from the wood, and the Headmistress gestured to the pair that they should enter.

Draco reached for the handle and nearly jumped when he felt one of the wings curve around the shape of his hand. He didn't know why that detail was necessary, but as he looked down and saw the bird nip playfully at his fingers, he decided that he liked the enchantment regardless.

Pulling open the door, Draco saw that the end of the bookshelf concealed a narrow, stone staircase. After glancing down to carefully extract his hand from the phoenix's curled wing, he gradually made his way up the flight of stairs to a short landing, at the end of which lay a second door. As he neared it, Draco observed from its dark, reddish colouring and apparent weight that it was made of oak—a wood he knew worked well with protective and obscuring enchantments. He heard Granger approach from behind him, and when she could see the door clearly she gasped audibly at its splendour. It was almost like a work of art, with its incredibly intricate carvings flowing from one side of the base, along the door's rounded top, and back down to the other side of the lower edge. Delicate traces of gold filigree were woven into the markings, and they shimmered intermittently as they caught the light of the flames in the wall sconces.

Oddly, there was no doorknob, handle, or latch of any kind to be found. The ponce in him praised the maker for having the sense not to mar the beauty of the rest of the door by adding a handle, but the logician in him conceded that there wasn't much point to a door if it couldn't be opened.

McGonagall giggled—giggled—in the way that only elderly, slightly batty witches could manage at her students' obvious uncertainty. She gave them each a cursory glance and proceeded to place the tip of her wand at a notch where the two symmetrical sides of the design met, about a foot beneath the upper edge of the door. A silvery-blue stream of light pulsed from her wand, similar to that of an incorporeal Patronus, and it spread throughout the carvings on the door until it had filled them all.

The Headmistress removed her wand, and turned to face him and Granger. "The door has been enchanted to recognise your magical signature, along with mine and the four Heads of Houses. It is unlikely they will visit you here, especially those of the other two Houses, but they are given access in case of an emergency."

She then turned back towards the door and gave the door a firm push, which groaned deeply as it slowly swung open, revealing one of the most amazing rooms Draco had ever seen.

Growing up in the Manor, as well as having friends with estates of their own, Draco was used to opulence and grandeur, and it was not often that he was struck with awe at the sight of a room. But this room could easily top them all, because as soon as he crossed the threshold he was enveloped in a feeling of warmth, comfort, security, and wisdom.

The room itself was hendecagonal in shape, with all but four of its sides completely lined with books encased in sunken shelves. Small sconces adorned the places where one shelf met another and a scattering of candles floated above them, reminiscent of the Great Hall. One of the remaining four walls was only half-bookshelf, with the other half being taken up by a large fireplace and mantel, already lit and crackling. The door, of course, used another and the final two were not walls at all, but instead displayed a wide staircase that split off into a V-shape, which Draco guessed led the way to his and Granger's rooms. Looking up, he realised that this room must have been hidden in some small tower or spire jutting out of the castle's side, as the ceiling gradually sloped to a point and was broken up by several rectangular skylights. He could tell that, even on the brightest of days, the room would retain a certain amount of darkness, as the high ceiling and angles of the skylights would only allow a little light to reach the floor. Draco was thankful for it, because while Granger would have no doubt been used to living in a bright, airy tower, he had lived under a lake for the majority of his school years, so the compromise suited him greatly.

All of the furniture in the room was made with a wood of a deep brown, but the floor and bookshelves were nearly black. On one side of the room, there was a large, ovular table and chairs, where Draco immediately envisioned Granger, sat with a million books splayed open in front of her, manically scribbling on a mile-long piece of parchment with her ink-stained fingers. Underneath the table was a beautiful Turkish rug of the traditional red and gold colouring, but had a healthy amount of olive green mixed in.

On the other side of the room, facing the fireplace, was a matching set consisting of a couch and two armchairs, all upholstered in leather that was slightly redder than the wooden furniture. On either side of the couch rested two small end tables, each bearing an oil lamp, and in front of it lay a short coffee table. Beneath the furniture laid a cream-coloured rug that looked delightfully soft and plush, and the child in Draco longed to tear off his boots and socks and wiggle his toes through the pile.

As he turned his attention back to the others in the room, Draco noticed that the Headmistress had left without him noticing. Shifting his attention to Granger, it seemed McGonagall's departure had gone undetected by her as well, as she was far too busy poring over the numerous titles above the hearth to register much else. He returned to the doorway and swung the heavy door back into place with a well-placed shove, not hard enough to slam but enough to snap Granger's attention away from her beloved tomes.

Turning slowly, the smirk so inherent to all Malfoys crept up his face. He casually leant back against the doorframe, crossed his arms lazily, and raised his head to meet Granger's gaze.

They stood like that for several moments—him with that infuriating smirk in place, her with her eyes narrowed and shoulders back, as if each challenging the other to bend first.

Then suddenly, Draco laughed a short, breathy chuckle and looked down before pushing off the door with his hips and looking at her again, his grey eyes flashing with the reflections of the flames.

"Welcome back, Granger."

Chapter 3: Pins and Needles

The common room was empty when Draco walked down the stairs that Saturday morning. Three days ago he might have thought Granger was just rewarding herself for surviving the hard week with a good lie-in, but now he knew otherwise. He knew that she hadn't even batted an eyelash at the past three days of work, and he had also learned that the day Hermione Granger slept a minute past half six in the morning was the day he'd turn in his wand, move to Muggle London, and become a dentist. The witch was a machine. She'd done the work before they had even arrived, which meant she'd either predicted the exact assignments that her professors would dole out, or she had actually completed all the material from at least the first few units of each class.

Draco was leaning towards the latter explanation.

He, on the other hand, had not had it easy. If his classes and independent research weren't enough, Quidditch and his Head Boy duties certainly were. He knew that he'd signed himself up for all of it, so if he was feeling stressed it was his own damn fault, but the never-ending incompetence of others didn't make his life any easier.

Both at practice and at the Prefect meeting, it seemed like he kept having to tell people—who he thought were experienced—how to do their jobs, and then wipe their arses for them on top of it. At Quidditch, he frequently alternated between getting each of the Chasers to realise that each play was not just an opportunity for their own personal spotlights and yelling at the reserve team players, who weren't taking the first captain's practice seriously. Most of them were just dicking around in the air. Sometimes it felt like his whole team was still a bunch of Third Years just looking for a shot a notoriety amongst their housemates. Only Blaise and a few of the other defensive players could be truly depended on for constant good performance.

The Prefect meeting, however, was an entirely different story. He had expected that the non-Slytherin (and even some of the Slytherin) Prefects would not immediately respect his authority, but he hadn't thought it would be as bad as it was. Anytime he would make a suggestion, assign a task, or even just explain something many of the students would glance sceptically at Granger for confirmation. It was ridiculous, and it seemed like even Granger realised it. He noticed that she had stopped dignifying their questioning gazes with looks of her own, choosing instead only to nod along when he said something or occasionally voice her agreement. He grudgingly admitted to himself that he was grateful to her for it, but he was more annoyed that it was even necessary. Sweet Circe, he was on their side now! It wasn't as if there was some conspiracy behind him explaining why Prefects couldn't take points off from other Prefects! That rule had been cemented long before he ever assumed his position (and long before he even set foot in the school), and it was infuriating that the snotty, holier-than-thou Prefects ignored that fact just to stick it to him.

Well, he'd be keeping a list of the worst of the bunch. Little did those pesky little buggers know, but he and Granger would both be submitting half-term reviews of all the Prefects to McGonagall, just as a precaution in case one of them was abusing his or her privileges. Come to think of it, it was remarkable that he had managed to retain his Prefect status into his sixth year given how little he actually helped the school. In any case, it wasn't as if he was going to write scathing remarks about every Prefect who didn't like him—they could hate him for all he cared. What was important was that they all did their jobs and respected his position in spite of it. If they couldn't do that, well then he would just have a wonderful time selecting their replacements.

But now, blessedly, it was Saturday morning, and Draco wasn't about to waste another moment of his beautiful two-day reprieve moping about the incompetence of his peers. Instead, he laced up his boots, grabbed his bag, and sauntered out of the dorm and down the many flights of stairs to the Great Hall.

Despite it being well past a reasonable hour of the morning, most of Draco's friends apparently hadn't yet emerged from their rooms, and only Theo and a small spattering of First and Second Years occupied the Slytherin table. Theo himself was practically inhaling some sausage links as he perused the Sunday Prophet.

"Hey, man," Draco said as he plopped onto the bench across from his friend. Theo merely grunted in response and continued to shovel food into his mouth, never taking his eyes off the paper.

"The world any shittier than before?" Draco asked, pouring himself a glass of pumpkin juice and a coffee. Another grunt was all he got from Theo.

Theo differed from the rest of Draco's friends in that he was very political, and was always aware of everything going on in the Wizarding World. He read every newspaper front to back whenever a new one became available, which was very often. Apparently he didn't mind reading the same story six times if it meant gaining new perspectives. Draco had learned that when Theo was in his "current events" zone, he was unreachable. So after his second attempt to engage his friend in conversation failed, he resigned himself to a quiet breakfast.

He was halfway through his buttered toast when Theo suddenly closed his paper, pushed himself off the bench, and made to leave. "Did you ask the girlie about the party?" He asked insouciantly, gathering his belongings.

Draco stopped chewing. "Uh…what?"

Theo gave him an impatient, unamused look. "The party, Draco. The one in your dorms." Draco's expression remained as confused as before. "Come on, mate, I told you about this last week and you said you'd ask Granger if we could hold it in your rooms."

"Okay I have zero recollection of that but whatever. I'll ask her during patrol tonight." Draco replied, sifting through his memories of the past week.

"Great," Theo said, slapping him on the back, "see you later, then."

Well, that was just brilliant. Now not only would he have to suffer through a two-hour patrol with an irascible girl who hated him, but he would have to suck up to her enough to get her to vacate their rooms and allow for a morally ambiguous Slytherin party. He had about as much chance with her as a troll would have trying to learn advanced Arithmancy.

At that thought, he was reminded of just how much work he had to do before his entire night was taken over by his newest obligation. So he scarfed down the remainder of his breakfast and headed to the library, trying to push thoughts of his patrol duty out of his mind.

---

It was almost sad how predictable the scene was. As expected, Granger had arrived to their prearranged meeting place earlier than he, and was waiting patiently on one of the large window sills. She was reading what looked like the last chapter in one of her textbooks, her legs crossed and her hanging ankle drawing lazy circles in the air. She was so engrossed in the book that she did not notice him as he approached.

He would never admit it to anyone, but in the early evening light filtering through the window, she was somehow softer. He didn't think he had ever seen her truly at ease, and in the way she held her back perfectly straight he could tell that even now she was still on edge. And yet there was a sense of calm about her; something in the way she delicately fingered the page corners before turning them, how she smiled ever so slightly, when her tongue peaked out to wet her lips but she forgot to close her mouth immediately afterwards—

When he was within reach of her, he lightly kicked her foot to alert her to his presence. Her head immediately snapped up. "Oh, Malfoy," she breathed, bringing her palm to her heart, "you startled me."

"How the hell did you lot manage to defeat the Dark Lord when you didn't even notice when I was stood two feet from you?" He asked sardonically.

She harrumphed and shut her book immediately, emitting a satisfying snap, and quickly—though not without the necessary care—returned it to her bag. "Well how did you manage to lose the war when apparently I am such an easy target?" She spat back at him.

"Touché, Granger," he smirked, "although technically I didn't lose."

She waved him off. "Semantics. But I definitely would not rule your result as a victory."

"Well it's a good thing you're not the officiator then." He snarked, irritated that she was revisiting his least favourite topic. "Should we maybe get on with this?"

Granger narrowed her eyes at him for a moment before abruptly turning on her heel and strutting down the corridor. Good thing these rounds were off to a brilliant start. Draco followed her, lengthening his strides to keep up with her vexed pace. At some point in the next hour he had to broach the subject of the party, and he needed her to be in an agreeable mood for that. He glanced around the halls, hoping to find something to inspire conversation, but they were bare save for a few suits of armour and the many sleeping portraits. Just as he was about to launch into what probably would have been a painful diatribe about the differences in painting style, a screeching, burning pain shot up his spine from his right foot.

"Motherfucking shit bloody fucking Merlin's arsehole fuck me!" Draco cried, uncaring of the many portraits he awoke and scandalised with his language, "Fuck that fucking hurts!"

Granger, by this time, had hurried back to him, probably thinking Voldemort had somehow found a way to come back and was now in the process of disembowelling his once loyal servant. At least that would have been a dignified way to go.

"Malfoy, are you alright?" She fussed while shining her lit wand around the hall, obviously searching for his attacker. When she found none, she turned back to him in confusion. "What just happened?"

"I ran into the bloody suit of armour, that's what fucking happened." Draco spat as he leant against the nearest wall and gingerly rubbed his foot. "Bloody thing probably broke my foot!"

Granger just stared at silence for a few moments, and the depth of her gaze was so intense it felt like she was looking right through him. It was uncomfortable, her looking at him that way. Normally it would have caused him to cast his eyes in another direction, but something held his eyes to hers. In the bright, warm glow of her Lumos spell, her irises seemed like they had been formed from pure, molten gold. He was transfixed; his head felt strangely light and incredibly heavy all at once, as though his mind was clouded but he was somehow floating above it all. He barely even registered the pain anymore. He barely remembered his own name.

He started to come back to the present when he noticed small creases forming next to her eyes. She was laughing at him, and it didn't appear to be stopping anytime soon. In fact, she was now doubled over, with her arms wrapped around herself as she gasped for breath through her cackling.

"Granger, I'm in some serious pain here!" He exclaimed, quite irritated at her mocking.

This didn't help, however, and instead she only started to laugh harder.

"Just what, may I ask, is so frightfully amusing?"

"Malfoy," Granger choked out as she wiped the areas under her eyes, "you just stubbed your toe."

"Yes and thank you so much for laughing at my pain," Draco replied bitterly.

Granger was still giggling a little despite his biting retorts. "Oh grow up. I thought you got attacked or something. I guess you just have very sensitive toes!" Her voice rose about two octaves over the course of her last remark—clearly she was beyond entertained by her own wit.

"Can we just get on with this, Granger?" He pushed off the wall and sped by her, and in the process the smell of her perfume flooded his senses. He'd never smelled anything like it—it was clean and warm and comforting and yet it was deep and and luxurious and…seductive. He grimaced at the thought of using that word to describe Granger in any context, but nothing else could explain it better. It was intoxicating. The effect it had on him was almost visceral; a warm shiver shot down his spine and spread across his shoulders and ribcage. He rolled his shoulders a few times in an attempt to shake it off, and while it partially relieved the feeling, a subtle kind of itchy numbness persisted. Draco couldn't recall another time when he'd had such a response simply to a scent, so he passed it off as a delayed reaction to his injury. However, he could not, much to his dismay, deny that Granger still smelled fantastic.

Despite his pride (and his toe) still stinging from the previous debacle, at least it had served to put Granger in a better mood. She was no longer walking like she was trying to keep her beloved stick so firmly stuck up her arse. Thankfully, however, she had not taken the foot-breaking incident as an indication that they could now converse freely—their dialogue was minimal, and only occurred when they encountered the occasional student out past curfew.

His stupid back would not stop twinging, though. There was absolutely no way a feeling lasting this long could have been caused by hitting his foot almost two hours ago. Hell, his toe didn't even hurt anymore. This was something else, and it was pissing him off. He he must have just slept wrong the night before, but he thought he would have felt the symptoms of it earlier in the day. Nevertheless, it was the only logical explanation.

Granger must have eventually noticed his irritation, most likely because he couldn't stop rubbing and stretching his back. "What's wrong with you now, Malfoy?" She half-snickered.

He was too frustrated to think up a witty retort. "Honestly I haven't got the slightest idea. I was fine all throughout today and now my back feels like I slept on a pile of uneven bricks."

"The big beds in our private rooms not soft enough for you?"

Draco didn't deign to respond to her jibes. Instead, he tried to give her his most withering glare, but his back throbbed again and he was forced to twist his face back into its usual grimace.

Possibly realising Draco was in actual discomfort, Granger straightened and lost the mocking in her tone, "How long have your symptoms persisted?"

Merlin, she sounded like a medi-witch. "Look, I don't know. Maybe two hours or so?"

"Two hours? Maybe you should go to Madame Pomfrey, Malfoy."

"That old cow hates me. She'll probably just give me something that tastes like troll bath water but won't actually help me."

"Malfoy, most of the people in this school don't like you. Aren't you used to that by now?"

"Well, sure, but I initiated most of those relationships intentionally, and I never put my life in their hands."

"I seriously doubt Madame Pomfrey would try to kill you."

"But she could."

"But she wouldn't."

"How would you know, Granger?"

"Because I could have killed you five minutes ago when you started bothering me with this fatuous argument, but I didn't because I'm a logical being and I know how it would affect my future."

Malfoy raised his eyebrows at his companion. "So you wouldn't choose not to kill me because it would be morally wrong?"

They had long since stopped walking. "I'm not sure you're the best person to lecture me on morals, Malfoy."

"Oh I'm not lecturing," defended Draco, raising his palms to her, "I'm just trying to understand your reasoning."

"Well, in general morals would affect my decision of whether to kill someone or not, but I think I would be safe in ignoring them in your case."

"You wound me." He said dramatically, holding one of his hands against his heart.

"Well maybe you should see Madame Pomfrey about that too, then." Granger responded sassily before resuming the patrol.

Draco had to give her credit; she was remarkably quick-witted. Other his close circle of friends, there were only a few people in the school who could hold their own in a verbal sparring match with him. Most of the time, people were just too afraid of the repercussions of being as blunt with him as he was with them. Not Granger, though. No, she never held back, and she was never worried about going all the way down to the bone with her piercing words. It was what made their arguments so much more interesting.

"Well," he said, catching up to her, "since one of these debates is bound to kill me, may I be permitted a final request?" He figured he might as well take his shot while she was still high on the thought of him being dead.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" She asked apprehensively, narrowing her eyes at him again.

He unconsciously started scratching his back, mostly out of discomfort in asking her permission for something, but it reminded him of his lingering ache, so the action morphed into an actual attempt to alleviate the itch.

"Some of the Slytherins in our year wanted to have a little…gathering…in our dorms." He shifted his eyes to her, trying to gauge her reaction. She seemed relatively ambivalent.

"A gathering?" Granger clearly doubted the innocence he was implying.

"A night of revelry and merrymaking, if you will."

"Ah, I see." She let out just the slightest laugh, but Draco took it as a good sign. "Is there something special about your brand of merrymaking that makes it unsuitable for your own common room?"

There was just no getting past her, was there?

"I think the forty or so different vintages Theo and Blaise are planning on bringing make it wildly unsuitable, especially for the highly impressionable little First Years." He cheeked.

To his surprise, she actually laughed at this. He was sure she would have been at least a little shocked that he seemed so nonchalant about exposing eleven-year-olds to such "objectionable behaviour". But nothing would surprise him as much as what Granger would do next.

"It's fine with me," she replied casually.

"Pardon?" He couldn't believe she was acquiescing so easily.

"Oh I have terms, believe me."

Of course she has terms, he thought, I'll probably have to sign a fucking contract in my own blood.

"Fire away."

"No one goes in my room," Granger started, her tone now completely serious.

"Fair enough," Draco agreed.

"And put wards on the all the book cases to prevent them from your less-considerate housemates." She actually cringed afterwards, and it amused him how she didn't care about anything but her privacy and their books. If the roles were reversed, he would have demanded she fulfil infinitely more conditions. Apparently that was the difference between Gryffindors and Slytherins.

"Oh, and do try not to completely trash the rest of the common room, please?" She practically pleaded, "I've grown awfully fond of the décor in our short time here."

He smirked at her. "I'll try my best, Granger."

They were just passing the Ancient Runes classroom on the sixth floor, and only had the seventh floor to check before they would be done for the night.

"Why don't you head off now?" Granger offered. "I can do the seventh floor by myself, and I'll just go to the Gryffindor common room when I'm done."

He officially did not recognise the girl beside him. The Granger from two years ago would never have let him skip off the last leg of his patrol duty to go get sloshed with his Slytherin housemates.

"Are you sure?" Shut the fuck up, you idiot, Draco chastised himself, just shove off before she changes her mind!

"Yeah it's no big thing. We did all the hard parts, anyway." She actually shrugged. Shrugged. Draco had never see her do something so casual. Maybe hurting himself was the key to getting what he wanted. He cringed—hopefully there was an easier way than that.

"Well, um, thanks, I guess," Draco replied awkwardly, not really knowing how to leave. He restlessly rubbed at his neck again.

"Oh and don't forget about that relaxant potion," Granger repeated, "seriously, you're probably just tense from start-of-term stress and all that."

Oh, sure. It was definitely the start of term that was stressing him out.

"Yes, yes, I'll go get one." Draco grumbled as she began walking away from him. "If I go into shock and die tonight, though, I'll blame you."

"Goodnight, Malfoy." She called, not looking back.

He did a little mental jig in celebration of how easy it was to get Granger to agree to the party. He then ran down the many flights of stairs to the dungeons, but ended up making a detour when he got to the first floor. Stupid Granger's nagging voice had worked its way into the back of his mind. He hadn't noticed it earlier, but at some point in the last few minutes the aching feeling in his back had actually vanished. However, Draco didn't want to risk it coming back later and having to skip out on his own party.

In an unfathomable bit of luck, Pomfrey was nowhere to be seen, so Draco sauntered over to her cabinet of relatively harmless and non-addictive potions. Thank Merlin for his Head Boy privileges. He quickly found the potion he needed, threw it back with practised skill, and was soon leaving the Hospital Wing, practically flying down the last flight of stairs to his old common room.

Blaise was sitting on one of the black leather couches when Draco arrived, so he told him to go get Theo and Pansy and start getting things ready for the party. While he waited, he pulled a pouch out from his pocket and poured the contents out onto a nearby end table. The bag had contained roughly fifty smooth silver stones, and over them Draco cast a purple-hued directional charm before returning them to their carrier. Although he was fine with Blaise, Theo, Pansy, and a few of his other close friends knowing exactly how to get into his dorm, it wasn't the same for all his Slytherin friends, let alone those who were just acquaintances. His room was really the only place he could go where was guaranteed to be left alone, and he didn't want to jeopardise that by letting every Slytherin in the top two years know its location. But one cannot exactly host a successful party without giving directions to those invited (unless he were to blindfold them all, but that would inevitably lead to at least a few injuries, which would also be quite difficult to explain to Pomfrey). And so Draco had conjured the bag of stones and charmed them all to direct the beholders to his dorm. However, the charm would become inactive at midnight. After that, anyone inside or outside the room would not recognise where they were until they were at least one floor either above or below the library. It was a clever piece of magic, though it was unlikely anyone at the party would appreciate it.

Within the hour, the party was in full swing in the Head Dorms, and Draco was completely pissed. He hadn't intended on drinking that much, preferring to keep a slight watch over the Slytherins, who were bound to get rowdier if the beverages kept flowing. Well, it was the thought that counted, right? At least he complied with all of Granger's conditions before getting wasted.

"Draco! Get over here!" He heard Pansy shout at him from over by the fireplace. He reluctantly turned away from his conversation with a cute, blonde Seventh Year witch to see that many of his friends were starting a game of Multiple Choice. It was sort of a drinking-game-amalgamation of spin the bottle and truth or dare. Instead of spinning an empty bottle, however, the players spun a large, full bottle of alcohol, and whoever spun it had to either ask a question, provide a dare, or kiss the person the bottle landed on. If the latter person refused to do whatever was asked, he or she had to take a shot from the bottle. Obviously, the game became more interesting and the players got braver as the bottle emptied, and the game was over when all of the alcohol was gone.

Draco perked up instantly when he saw what his friends were gearing up for. Although he would have to avoid any possible kissing (which was a definite drawback) the game was still immensely entertaining without that aspect. He abandoned the blonde, forgetting his years of etiquette schooling that demanded he either bring her along or politely excuse himself, and hurried over to join his friends.

In the circle sat Blaise, Theo, Pansy, Daphne and Astoria Greengrass, Gregory Goyle, Millicent Bullstrode (who had, over the last few years, actually grown into her curves and was now quite beautiful) and Pike (who wasn't as lucky as Millie, unfortunately). He was a little irritated that Astoria was there at all—she probably whinged to Daphne about coming until her sister finally caved, as evident in the severe look of irritation present on the older girl's face. Astoria wasn't the most annoying person in Slytherin (that would be a pretty incredible accomplishment, actually), but she did rank relatively high on Draco's list of people to avoid. Not only was she even more spoiled as a child than he was, but she also had that baby-of-the-family attitude that was just so incredibly fake and manipulative. Essentially she was just the exaggerated embodiment of all the nastiest qualities in Slytherins. The worst part of it, however, was that she had had a massive crush on Draco ever since she met him, and she wasn't shy about it either. No, she made it blatantly clear that she wanted him, and practically everyone in his life encouraged it. This was the one time in his life he thanked Circe's left tit for his Veela heritage, as it least it guaranteed he would never end up with the bint.

On the table between them was an absolutely enormous bottle of Blishen's. Truly, it was the alcohol more than anything that set Slytherin parties apart from the rest. Most of the other students didn't care what they put in their bodies as long as it was cheap and it got them feeling feeling dizzy and brave. Conversely, Slytherins were never worried about spending the extra money (even if they weren't as rich as others) in order to get the premium brews. Perhaps it was unnecessary (and definitely pompous), but it was more of a tradition than anything.

"So who goes first?" Pansy half-yelled over the din of the party, lightly slapping the table once to get every player's attention.

"Youngest goes first!" Astoria chimed, her red cheeks already betraying her blood-alcohol content.

"Fat chance, twinky," her sister said, smacking Astoria's hand out of the way of the bottle. Daphne gripped the sides and gave it a firm spin. The fullness of the bottle contributed to a large centrifugal force, and it took a while before the amber liquid settled and the bottle's neck focused on one person.

"Well that's boring," Pansy said, the neck facing her, "you know everything about me."

"Yes but not everyone here does," Daphne snickered evilly. When her friend's face turned almost ashen, she quickly backpedalled, "No no, don't worry I won't. I will challenge you, however, to go over to that sad, sad boy over there –" she pointed to a stringy boy who was obviously only there to make sure his friends got home alright, "–and ask him if he's seen your armpits anywhere."

"What the fuck, Daphne?" Pansy cried.

"Hey, don't hate me for my creativity." She shrugged casually, as if nothing about her dare was anything more than inventive.

With great amusement, Draco and his friends watched as Pansy strutted up to the kid and, with her usual flair for drama, inquired with very believable anguish as to the location of her underarms. The boy looked completely perplexed for a few seconds before glancing around the room, whereupon he noticed the game being played. He snickered at Pansy's growing discomfort before giving the rest of the players a small round of applause.

"Very funny," Pansy griped as she returned to the circle, "my turn, though."

Pansy spun the bottle now, and it eventually landed on Blaise. The circle was silent for what had to be the longest half second in history. Pansy and Blaise dated for around seven months during their Sixth Year, but they plateaued. They tried to remedy it by opening their relationship to other people, but it led to such systemic issues of trust and jealousy that they both decided it was time to end things. Draco was almost certain they both retained major feelings for one another, but were both too stubborn and too afraid to act on them.

Pansy cleared her throat. "Was there anyone you were with during the unexclusive part of our relationship who was better than me?"

Merlin, she really did have no filter. Draco both respected and hated that about her. He knew there were several things Pansy had been stewing over concerning her relationship with Blaise, and this was clearly one of them. She also apparently didn't care that she was making everyone else squirmingly uncomfortable in how she satisfied her curiosity.

Blaise, however, seemed to contemplate his options for only a moment before reaching for the bottle. Pansy just stared at him as he threw back a large shot of the premium whisky, shook his head to clear it of the burn, and smacked the glass upside-down on the table.

To the immense relief of everyone, Blaise quickly returned humour to the game by daring Astoria to go dance behind three people without them noticing. She definitely looked ridiculous, attempting various moves that she hoped would remain out of her victims' lines of sight. When she returned to the couches, she tried very hard to seem like she was laughing with the rest of them at her antics, but it was clear to Draco that she was quite embarrassed. It almost made him feel sorry for her, but then he remembered exactly who she was, and he no longer felt any pity.

As luck would have it, when Astoria spun the bottle, it landed on him. Figures, he moaned to himself.

"Hmm…" Astoria pondered, obviously trying to look like she was thinking of a question or a dare. However, Draco knew instantly what was coming. "Well I can't think of anything funny. I guess we should just kiss?" Oh, how he wanted to wipe away that face-splitting, shit-eating grin she had on.

"Sorry, love, I'm afraid I can't," Draco shrugged, not actually sorry at all. He reached for the bottle and took a quick shot of the burning liquid. Mistakenly, he chanced a quick look at Astoria, and felt just a twinge of guilt at her crestfallen countenance.

His spin landed on Pansy, again, and he chose to ask how many times in the last year she had naughty dreams about him. Not surprisingly, she chose to drink, throwing just the tiniest hint of a smirk in Blaise's direction.

The game continued in that fashion for well over an hour, and somehow in that time he managed to consume the majority of the whisky. He couldn't remember having the bottle land on him that often, but he guessed it must have done given how incredibly drunk he was. It was quickly becoming almost too much for him, and it was already far too much for his bladder.

Walking to the loo was slightly more difficult than he anticipated, but, luckily for him, Astoria was kind enough to run over and offer her shoulder as a support. He really didn't want to touch her any more than was absolutely necessary, but he was almost certain he would break his face on something without someone to lean on. When they had climbed up the seemingly innumerable steps to his and Grangers' shared lavatory, Draco not-too-delicately untangled himself from his human crutch and practically slammed the door in her face. Finally alone, he supported himself on the soapstone countertop, his hands on either side of the under-mounted sink. He squinted as his reflection, slightly disturbed at his overly bloodshot eyes and slightly haggard cheeks, both of which were more an affect of the past week than anything else. His mouth hung open a little, but that would close up as soon as the alcohol left his system.

He remembered that he had come to the bathroom because he had to take a piss, so he quickly relieved himself, splashed some water on his face, and went to rejoin his friends. Astoria was not waiting on the landing when Draco emerged, nor was she sitting with his friends when he got back to the common room. He figured she finally got the hint that he wasn't interested (and, actually, that none of his friends really wanted her there), and decided to leave before she made an even bigger fool of herself.

Soon enough, almost everyone had followed Astoria's example and returned to their various rooms before they lost the ability to walk. Daphne had been irritated because she hadn't noticed Astoria leave, and she had intended to make sure her sister got back alright. She had made her hasty goodbyes and rushed out, hoping that maybe Astoria hadn't made it too far.

Vince and Theo left shortly after that, but Draco managed to persuade Pansy and Blaise to sleep over. It wasn't so much a generous offer as it was a chance to split up the morning's immense undertaking of cleaning the entire dorm. Being fellow Slytherins, they undoubtedly knew Draco's ulterior motive, as they would have the same mentality were the roles reversed, so Draco didn't feel too guilty about manipulating his friends.

Draco half-stumbled up to his room as his friends transfigured the armchairs into small beds. However, due to his inebriation, Blaise's end product was more akin to a slightly cushier table than anything else. Draco's room was almost pitch black when he entered—only the dim light of the moon seeping through the window guided him to his bed. Even in his drunken state, he managed to navigate around his couch and desk, but when he passed the latter of the two he paused, something peculiar catching his eye. Faint whispers of smoke rose from an extinguished candelabra, but earlier he purposefully left all the candles in his room unlit, to avoid the risk of lighting something on fire while under the influence. Draco glanced around the room, and his suspicions were confirmed when he saw that every window in his room was latched shut.

He was instantly alert; although his senses were still slightly dulled by the alcohol in his blood, his Veela genes were stronger than even the highest-proof vodka. With his hand poised over his pocketed wand, Draco again surveyed the room and focused his ears. Neither action indicated the presence of an intruder, until a heavy, sickly-sweet aroma invaded his nostrils. He whipped around, coming face-to-face with Astoria, clad in nothing but the tiniest knickers and a matching bra.

"Wha–?" He started, trying to shield his eyes from his friend's younger sister. Oh, Daphne was going to castrate him.

"Shh…let me show you what you can have," she purred at him and grabbed his crotch through his trousers. It was an attempt to be seductive, but the motion had been more effective at crushing his testicles than prompting an aroused response.

He managed to shimmy out of her grasp, though not without sustaining a few injuries to his delicates. When he was free, he shouted "What the fuck, Astoria?" and cast his wand towards any source of light in the room. Within seconds, Pansy and Blaise both burst into the room, having been alerted by Draco's screech.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" Blaise cried before his eyes adjusted to the brighter room. "Oh shit."

"Astoria?" Pansy gasped, "What are you doing?" An almost motherly pity in her voice was obvious.

Astoria's eyes flickered between each of them, unable to decide who to focus on. After several very tense second, she finally settled her gaze on Draco. He could see the moisture building up beneath her irises and a faint quiver in her lower lip. He cringed, hoping they wouldn't manifest in the real thing. He had never been able to handle women when they were crying. No matter what people said about him, he wasn't a completely heartless bastard, and he lost much of his ambivalent edge when the tears started flowing. So when she looked at him so pathetically, all he could do was look away.

"Could you ever want me?" She whispered, her voice broken and defeated.

It took an obscene amount of effort to pull his eyes off the floor. He felt that if he was going to reject her he should at least look into her eyes while he did it. "Even if I wanted to I couldn't," he admitted softly. That was completely true. Although he definitely didn't want her anyway, he also could not help the fact that his Veela had not chosen her.

"Oh" was her only response, somehow sounding even smaller than before. She silently summoned her cloak, covered herself, and pushed past Blaise. Seconds later, the sound of the outer door crashing into its frame startled each of them out of their immobilised states.

"What the fuck just happened?" Blaise exclaimed.

"I have no idea!" Draco defended, "I just wanted to come up here and pass out but then she was just in here and it was dark and she jumped me!"

"Well is anyone going to go after her?" Pansy asked. The blank looks from the boys were her only answer. "Ugh, you're cowardly, the both of you," she huffed as she hurried out of the room.

Draco and Blaise stood stock still, both silent for a few minutes after Pansy left. Slowly, they turned to look at each other, staring for a few more seconds before a mocking smile started to creep up Blaise's face. Soon both boys were crippled by stitches of laughter, so much so that they had fallen to the floor. Draco felt a little guilty to be laughing so shortly after Astoria had embarrassed herself so badly, but the absurdity of the situation was too strange to ignore. The sight of Astoria standing, practically naked, just a few feet from a ball-clutching Draco must have been one for the books. Draco would have to get that memory from his friend after an appropriate amount of time had elapsed.

Suddenly, Blaise sat straight up, his laughter ceasing instantly.

"What did you mean, you can't?" Blaise inquired, completely serious now.

"What?" Draco wheezed, trying to reassert control of his laughter.

"Astoria asked you if you could ever love her."

"Yeah, and…?"

"You said you couldn't even if you wanted to. What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Blaise's suspicion was unmistakeable.

"I don't know, I just wanted to let her down easy…"

"Oh bullshit," interrupted Blaise, a new, icier edge to his voice, "Draco Malfoy never says anything he doesn't mean."

"Well Draco Malfoy is drunk and tired and not on his regular Draco Malfoy game."

"Draco Malfoy has used his own name too many times to be believable."

"Draco Malfoy would like his friend to shut it."

"Well his friend wants to know what in Merlin's name is going on."

"Nothing is going on!"

At this, Blaise just looked him straight on, his unblinking stare so piercing Draco felt two-dimensional. It wasn't that Draco didn't want to confide in Blaise; in fact, Draco shared almost everything with him. Draco hadn't even come to terms with his…inheritance…yet himself, and it just wasn't something he felt ready to discuss with anyone but his family.

Blaise shook his head and looked away. "Listen, you don't have to tell me everything. But I know when you're lying, Drake. Don't insult me by pretending I don't know you."

Draco raised his eyebrows at his friend. "Are we having a heart-to-heart?"

"I'm serious, mate."

"So am I! I'm seriously uninterested in discussing this." He was being a little petulant, he knew, but he would do anything at this point to avoid the subject.

"Okay, I get it. No details, fine. Just give me something so I don't have to tell all our friends that you're terminal."

Draco chuckled a little and laid back on the floor. Maybe he really should tell him. Blaise was his closest friend, after all. Also, if he was going to have to sort through the hundreds of girls at this school for his mate, he might as well have someone to help him. He'd never said it aloud before, though, at least not to anyone who did not already know it, and he was struggling with how to describe it. He conjured a small flame between his right thumb and forefinger, juggling it across his knuckles. He was stalling, but he needed something to distract himself from thinking of what he was about to reveal.

After what felt like forever, his explanation came out in one long exhale. "I can't do anything with Astoria because for one she annoys me and she's Daph's baby sister but also because I can only be with one girl for the rest of my life and I don't know who she is so on top of all the other shit I have to do this year I also have to find her and convince her to be with me." Somewhere in his monologue, he had extinguished his little flame in his clenched fist, charring his palm slightly in the process. If there was any pain, he didn't feel it.

"Wow," breathed Blaise, clearly not expecting that explanation. "Well, at least it's not as bad as I thought it would be."

"What could be worse?" Draco cried, propping himself up on his elbow. "If I don't find her before my next birthday I will inevitably die alone and I will be sex-deprived for literally the rest of my life. Explain to me how exactly my life could possibly get any worse."

Blaise was silent for a moment. "Yeah, that's pretty fucking bad."

"You're telling me! I'm fucked, Blaise."

Blaise gave him a small smirk. "Well, technically you're the opposite."

"Oh shut up," snapped Draco. His friend only continued to laugh at him, however.

"Sorry, sorry." Blaise apologised through his giggles, seeing Draco's thoroughly unamused expression. "Seriously though, we'll find this girl, Drake. Whatever magic is causing this wouldn't want you to be unsuccessful. You've got fate on your side."

Draco rubbed his hands over his eyes. "Please don't start with the philosophy."

"I'm just saying…" Blaise backed off, "…well anyway what have you done so far?"

"Ugh, I don't know, I just got here. I haven't exactly had a lot of free time since I arrived." He wracked his brain, trying to come up with some show of progress. "Oh! I talked to that one blonde girl!"

"What was her name?"

Shit.

"So…nothing, really."

Draco didn't look at his friend. In his mind, it had only been a week. He told himself he needed to give himself some time to settle into his routine before he began the search for his mate.

"Okay well we're going to figure this out now—no friend of mine will be celibate any longer than absolutely necessary." Blaise said determinedly, pushing himself up and heading out of the room.

Draco raised his head off the floor. "Wait, where are you going?" Blaise couldn't leave him at a time like this!

"We're going to need more alcohol."

---

The halls were always remarkably quiet on Sunday mornings. Students were either making last ditch efforts to catch up on sleep, secluding themselves in various corners of the castle to study, or (in the case of apparently every Seventh and Eighth-Year Slytherin) trudging into the Hospital Wing with all sorts of bizarre excuses for their need for pain-relieving potions. At breakfast there had been an inordinately large number of older Slytherins tossing back vials of the unappetising brown liquid before chasing it with their morning pumpkin juice. Hermione couldn't hold back her groan. If there had been enough substances to sufficiently inebriate that many students, Merlin knew what kind of state her dorm was in. She just hoped that Malfoy had actually had the decency at least to make sure her own door stayed shut. Obviously it was warded with every relevant (and even the occasional irrelevant) spell she could think of, but she would rather be able to trust Malfoy with that one request instead of exhausting herself every time he wanted to get pissed with his friends.

"Did Malfoy tell you anything about his party?" Ginny asked, sitting beside Hermione and buttering up a slice of toast. Like Hermione, she too had noticed the hangover cloud that blanketed a large portion of the Slytherin table, though the look on her face displayed an almost jealous kind of admiration.

"No, and I didn't ask either. Also I don't think it was really his party, he just let his friends hold it in our common room."

Ginny took a generous, open-mouthed bite out of her triangular toast, allowing for a loud, satisfying crunch. "Well," she talked around her breakfast, "next time do ask him. And ask if we can come, while you're at it."

Hermione turned to face her friend again, a look of utter distaste marring her features. "Um, why…exactly?"

"Oh come on, Hermione. Look at them," she nodded her chin at the Slytherins as she took a smaller—though still substantial—bite of crust, "now obviously they're in pain, and they'll probably be in pain for the next few minutes or so before the potions kick in. But do any of them look really unhappy?"

"Ginny, I think they're all unhappy if they feel like their heads are being split apart," Hermione said, rolling her eyes.

"No, I mean do any of them look…regretful? Really look."

Hermione decided to humour her friend. Turning back to glance across the hall, she was ready to point out at least a dozen students who wished they had never heard the terms 'party' and 'alcohol' in the same sentence. However, when she actually focused on their behaviour, she couldn't find a single student to fit that description. Hell, many of them were even smiling while they rubbed their temples and sipped their coffees. Their eyes gleamed; their mouths turned up in playful smirks; their fingers lazily traced the rims of their goblets. They were in pain, yes, but the pain had been pushed to a back burner to simmer as the reminiscing of night's events began.

One girl looked genuinely unhappy, but there was something about her sadness that seemed like it was more than just an effect of her hangover.

"See what I mean?" Ginny asked, a mischievous smile creeping up her face. "That means it was worth it. Must've been some party."

Ginny's comment reminded Hermione of her initial worries, so she excused herself to go do damage control on her dormitory. She passed a few more Slytherins as she ascended the Grand Staircase, all of whom were carrying the now familiar vials in their fists. She was less surprised at the sheer number of people that must have been at the party as she was that Madam Pomfrey had had enough pain potions in her stores to supply them all.

When she had revealed the door in the bookcase, she gave the phoenix handle a gentle pet, soliciting a kind of metallic coo in response. According to the Headmistress, the playful adornment was called Sansom, and while it was cute how it responded to the name, Hermione wasn't sure why exactly it needed to have one.

She trudged up the now familiar path to the common room, bracing herself for what she would discover inside. When the door swung open, Hermione slowly peered around the doorframe, her face contorted into an anticipating cringe. She straightened up almost instantly, however, as from her vantage point the damage didn't seem too ghastly. There were several empty bottles strewn about the room, and someone had apparently decided to crash on their couch, but she had been expecting to walk into an aftermath equivalent to that of a major natural disaster. At first Hermione thought the sleeping form belonged to Malfoy, but when she looked again she noticed he was missing a shoe, betraying skin of a much darker hue. With a quick whip and twist of her wand, she Vanished all the bottles and refuse from the room, followed quickly by a second spell to right all the shifted furniture and décor. Satisfied with her work, Hermione moved to the staircase, ready to see if Malfoy had kept his word.

"Specialis Revelio," she said when she reached her door, flicking her wrist in the appropriate motion. The numerous wards she had placed on her door all appeared as various coloured mists, signifying that unless someone had reinstated the wards after breaking through them (which was quite unlikely given the copious amounts of alcohol), her request for privacy had been respected.

Hermione sighed contentedly and entered her room, relieved to be back to a place of peaceful seclusion. She didn't think of herself as unsociable by nature, nor did she mind living closely with other people; she just wasn't the type who loved to sleep five feet from four other girls. It made her feel claustrophobic and self-conscious. Of course, she'd had a fantastic time with her housemates the previous night, but at the same time she was glad to be able to return to her own dorm today. Her greatest relief was that she didn't have to endure the chaos and slight trauma that accompanied the community showers of the dorms. Though she did have to share her bathroom with Malfoy, their hygienic schedules never overlapped. If it weren't for the few decidedly male products in the cupboards, it would be as if she had a private bath as well as a private room.

Thoughts of her bathroom now at the forefront of her mind, she was inspired to experience it, so she donned her bathrobe and gathered up a few toiletries, intent on having a relaxing soak.

Such a thing was not to be borne, however, for when she reached the edge of the sunken bath, she let out a shocked cry at what she found within. A totally naked Malfoy, covered only by a small, deliberately arranged hand towel, was asleep in the bath. He didn't stay asleep for long, though, as Hermione's scream startled him out of his slumber. He flailed about for a bit as he tried to stand, slightly dislodging his sole covering. Hermione jerked her head to the side, determined not to have a full view of the Malfoy family jewels. After a few moments he seemed to regain his bearings, as Hermione saw him in her peripheral reassume his seated pose and reposition his towel.

After a long silence, Malfoy cleared his throat, and Hermione slowly turned her head back to face him. "Think you could get me a bigger towel?" Malfoy rasped out, his voice haggard from sleep and alcohol.

"What are you doing, Malfoy?" Hermione screeched, not responding to his request.

"Shh, not so loud," he held up his hand and clenched his eyes shut, as if that would magic his headache away.

"Oh I'm sorry," she whispered harshly, "but could you please explain why you're here?"

Malfoy was silent for a few more moments, as he seemed to be asking himself the same question. "Well this all your fault, really."

Hermione scoffed. "My fault? How is this possibly my fault?"

"I seem to recall someone advising me to get a muscle-relaxant from Madam Pomfrey," he retorted, rolling his eyes, "well when I got up this morning to piss and wash, I only got this far into the washing."

"Just decided you weren't in the mood?"

"No. I fell over, didn't I? And thanks to your gentle wakeup call I know that I've regained some muscle control, but I still can't actually stand up all the way."

"Well you're not supposed to chase a muscle-relaxant with a gallon of Firewhiskey!" Hermione admonished. "Alcohol is a depressant, Malfoy. That means it slows your reaction time by numbing both your brain's and your muscles' routine response patterns. Combining the two…I'm surprised you even made it out of bed before tumbling into a useless lump."

"Yes well it's a good thing I exceed expectations in all areas then," he sneered, "now could you actually get me something to put on? I know you're just taking in as much of the view while you can, but I'm cold and hungover and I really just want to go back to sleep."

Hermione stared at him for a few seconds, contemplating her options. "How did you get the one you have?" She asked, wiggling her finger towards his towel.

"I Summoned it." He said tersely.

"Wandlessly, I presume?" She continued, the barest hint of a smirk showing on her face.

"Clearly," he answered through clenched teeth.

"Well since you exceed expectations in all areas, I'm sure you can Summon something larger, especially now that your muscle control is returning and your mind has cleared," she trilled as she gathered up her bath supplies, "I'm confident you don't need to be outstanding to do the job right. And I'm clean enough at the moment, so you can just have as long as you need to recover."

Hermione practically skipped back into her room, a satisfied grin painting her features. Her smile only grew when she heard him breath out a few choice curses as she swung the door shut. She was probably acting childishly, but the opportunity to leave a naked Malfoy stranded in the bath came so infrequently that she felt it would be a shame to ignore her more immature instincts just this once. So instead of bending to the will of her bleeding heart disposition, she donned a baggy shirt and lounge pants, grabbed the first book on her bookshelf, and settled onto her bed to read.

---

Several hours later, Hermione was sitting back on her heels and pushing her fringe away from her face as she let out a long sigh. Not only was she now thoroughly convinced that her copy of New Theory of Numerology was not in her schoolbag, but the former contents of said bag were now surrounding her in disorganised stacks. She was positive that it was in her possession when she came back from Gryffindor tower this morning, and she never lost anything. It was against her principles. And yet the fact remained, the book was not in her bag, nor was it in her trunk, under her bed, or miraculously misplaced on one of her bookshelves.

That meant that it was somewhere out in the common room, which meant she had to be in the same vicinity as Malfoy.

For the first few days of term, she and Malfoy had come to this wonderful, unspoken agreement whereupon if they were not required to appear together, they rarely spoke to one another nor did they occupy the same spaces. If one of them returned to the dorms to find the other using the common room, the first would either gather a few things and leave the dorms entirely or retreat to his or her room. There were no arguments if one Head claimed the common room for two consecutive nights—only a silent promise from the other that the roles would be reversed the following day. It was a cold and passive-aggressive form of communication, but it worked, dammit!

Now things were all mucked up between them. They were far from friends, that much was absolutely certain, but now the term 'enemy' seemed too harsh. After a not entirely unpleasant patrol and the experience of waking up a naked and slightly immobilised Malfoy—the memories of which were provoking just the slightest tweaks at the corners of her mouth—she wasn't sure how to label their relationship. She guessed the closest approximation would be to call them acquaintances. However, even that sounded off given the fact that they had gone to school and interacted with each other for what would eventually be eight years.

Regardless of their label, she was still faced with the task of being in the same room with Malfoy. Merlin, the last time she was in that position he was naked in the bath. Of course, now all she could think about was Malfoy in the bath, though he looked infinitely more tantalising surrounded by bubbles and candles as he was in her imagination. The thought made her release a small giggle, and it morphed into a full-on cackle when her subconscious gave the naked Malfoy a glass of wine to hold and added a rubber duck and a battleship to the suds.

Okay, now she was just stalling.

"It's just a book, Hermione," she told herself, her hand primed on her door handle, "it's not like you'll have to talk to him or anything. Just go down there, find it, and come back up."

With a quick, all-body wiggle followed by a firm pull, Hermione exited her room and quickly descended the stone steps to the common room. She stood at the base of the staircase; her eyes were squinted slightly as she first inspected the coffee and end tables near the fireplace. There were a few books strewn across each of them, but she could tell from her vantage point that none displayed the silver and black cover art specific to her text.

As she began to shift her gaze to the right, something reflected a small ray of light into the corner of her eye. Immediately she snapped her head towards it, and breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction when she noticed the familiar spine of her tome. It was resting on the large, rosewood table, nestled underneath a thinner, much older-looking text. Hermione approached the table swiftly, and was about to retrieve her book when the cover of the top one came into view. The title read Alchemy, Ancient Art and Science, and Hermione couldn't help but run her thumb and forefinger along the edges until they met in a pinch at the bottom corner. It looked exactly the same as it had seven years ago.

She gently lifted it from is resting place and allowed it to fall open, revealing the middle pages of a chapter on Nicolas Flamel. A small smile crept up her face, and she bit the corner of her lip as she leafed through the pages in the chapter, intent on finding a specific detail. And yes, there it was. On page twenty-six, there was a small, vertical white mark about a centimetre in length extending from the bottom of the page. That mark was put there by herself in her first year, when she had been too zealous in her page turning and had accidentally created a small tear. Her younger self had attempted to repair the rip using the Mending Charm, which she had only taught herself a few days prior. Due to her inexperience and the delicacy of the page, the restoration was imperfect, and it left behind a scar.

"Can I help you, Granger?" Came the voice of her counterpart, jarring her out of her memories, "Or did you just come down here to manhandle my books?"

She'd nearly dropped the precious book when his words had cut through the silence. Her thoughts had been so focused on locating her own book, so much so that she hadn't registered where in the room Malfoy was situated. As it was, he was sitting crookedly on his chair, with his legs crossed and one elbow resting on the back. She could tell from his posture that his one foot was pressed against the nearest table leg, and she cringed at the thought of his boot scuffing up the beautiful wood.

She cleared her throat and drew herself up to her full posture before replying. "For your information, Malfoy, I left my book down here."

"Well I hate to break it to you, but that's my book, not yours."

She looked down at her hands, finding that she was still grasping the alchemy book, though her grip had tightened since the conversation began. She quickly loosened her clutch, worrying that such close, high-pressure contact with the oils in her hands would damage the coverings.

"Yes, well," she choked out, pursing her lips as she returned Malfoy's book to the table and snatching up her own. She clutched it firmly to her chest, holding it beneath her crossed arms as though it would keep her from releasing the deluge of questions that were quickly building up inside her head.

They just stayed like that for what felt like hours, though in reality it was barely longer than a minute. She felt as though she was being scrutinised, and she tried to fight against it by appearing as apathetic as possible. She didn't think she was doing very well. Her insides felt like she'd swallowed a live jellyfish and it was now finding enjoyment in shocking all the surrounding organs.

She had just about worked up the nerve to turn away and march confidently back to her quarters, but Malfoy stopped her again with a well-timed remark. "Go on, Granger," he said, now inspecting his fingernails with obvious disinterest.

She was confused for a split second; was this his way of dismissing her? It was her first instinct to interpret it as such, but something in his tone didn't make it seem like he was telling her to leave.

When she didn't respond immediately, he looked up at her and must have interpreted her confused expression, as he uncrossed his legs, turned in his chair to face her straight on, and glanced away briefly before clarifying. "You look as though you're fit to burst. As long as whatever you're holding in won't be accompanied by a vile odour, please spare me your spontaneous combustion and spit it out."

Well, if that's how he wanted it…"What's your research?" It was a distinctly ambiguous and uninspiring question, but it was the one thing she was aching to know, and she didn't want to waste this opportunity by debating about how to phrase it.

His eyes narrowed. "You really don't beat about the bush, do you?"

The shift of her weight onto her right leg and an abrupt tilt of her head constituted her reply. He sighed again, then stood and leaned over the table to retrieve a thick packet of parchment from beneath a stack of books. He then straightened, sidestepped the table, and handed her the packet before going to lean against the back of the couch.

After following his movements, she shifted her gaze downwards and recognised what he had given her from her own version residing in her room. She narrowed her eyes, unsure as to why he had offered her this so freely, but decided not to question it. She scanned the first few pages of his proposal quickly, her eyes growing increasingly wider as she continued before snapping them back to his.

"A universal cure?" She asked, her eyebrows raised in disbelief. "Your plan is to create a cure for all disease?"

Malfoy ran a hand through his hair and pushed himself off the back of the couch, moving to plop himself down in one of the armchairs and gesturing for Hermione to join him. Despite him seeming annoyed, she couldn't deny that the potential for an intellectual debate was what had her scurrying to sit so they could begin.

"Firstly, given my specialization, that goal isn't too outlandish," he defended. When she tilted her head in confusion, he sighed and explained, "one of the three main aims of alchemists is to create the Panacea—the remedy to cure all ails and prolong life indefinitely."

"Oh, no, I know that; I'm not trying to say your objective is irrelevant or unrealistic. I'm just wondering why you would choose this as your research given the history of the Stone. Even Flamel, who was only using the Stone for personal reasons, agreed that the world was better off without it."

"That's the thing, though. Even without my intended modifications it could never really be a universal cure, mainly because of some logistical faults but also due to properties of the potion. With the changes, it would be even more impossible."

He silently requested the return of his notes, putting them back in order and evening them against his leg before resuming the conversation.

"Firstly, the production alone would be ridiculously expensive. In fact, it would be so expensive that the cost would negate the purpose of its creation. Almost no patients would be able to afford it, so it would never really get around to curing anyone. Secondly, it would have to be incredibly well regulated, if the events of our first year are anything to go on. Even with the fact that I would only be creating an incomplete Stone, which wouldn't allow for immortality, it would be disastrous if the synthesis method fell into the wrong hands. It wouldn't take a genius to modify the process and recreate the Elixir of Life. Unfortunately, this means that only a few labs would have clearance to brew the potion, which would only serve to make it even more expensive. Plus, it could never be prescribed as a self-administered remedy due to the potential for home analysis, so it would essentially be limited to one in-hospital use per patient.

"Finally, if you remember your research from first year—which I'm sure you do—you'll recall that the Elixir of Life wasn't a permanent solution. Flamel had to brew and consume it relatively frequently in order to remain immortal. So—"

"So you can assume that your modified potion would have the same limitations." Hermione interrupted him, having already realised where he was headed.

Malfoy smiled and nodded, obviously pleased that she understood. "Exactly. And due to the expense and regulation of the potion, the multiple doses necessary to prolong a patient's health would be utterly implausible."

"So what's the purpose then?" Hermione asked, though she had a theory as what his answer would be, "What's the point of creating a common cure if it can't be used as one?"

"Well, dear Granger, the idea is to use it as a kind of secondary diagnostics potion—essentially a single intermediate step between realizing the affliction and curing it. For patients with seemingly incurable maladies—take magical cancers for example—I would administer the potion while casting a Body Monitoring Charm on the patient. After the potion had run its course, I would examine the potion's effects on each of the patient's various systems and organs. From there I would try to replicate the results using less expensive and less…risky materials. Basically the idea is I would use the potion to help create cures specific to each case."

Neither of the two spoke for a good while after Malfoy had finished explaining. Malfoy was just staring at her, seemingly awaiting a response, but Hermione was still processing everything he had told her. It was amazing, really, how one could know something to be true but not realise the depth of its meaning until the facts were thrown in one's face. Hermione had known all along that Malfoy was smart; he wouldn't be sitting across from her right now if he weren't. But she always delegated him to a kind of second-tier intelligence, somehow subconsciously attributing it to his upbringing as opposed to his own skill and discipline. But there wasn't any room to deny it now. Malfoy was brilliant.

It was clear from their conversation that not only did he understand the principles of multiple fields, but he also understood how to combine what he had learned from each of them and apply them to a wholly different context.

It was ridiculously sexy.

Hermione blinked several times as she shook herself out of her temporary insanity. 'Sexy', Hermione? She thought, 'sexy'? This is exactly the reason why Ron needs you to practice—because you think this kind of thing is sexy.

Well, it also helped that Malfoy looked like he'd just finished a photo-shoot for the cover of Men's Health. Hermione knew it was shallow, but she just couldn't imagine this conversation having the same results if it were between her and someone like Marcus Flint. She felt a little guilty blatantly insulting someone and rarely condoned her friends doing it, but when Harry speculated that Flint had troll blood in him, Hermione just couldn't find it within herself to berate him or disagree.

But none of that mattered, because Malfoy wasn't sexy. If Hermione was brilliant (and she knew she wasn't modest enough to deny that) and Ron didn't find her that alluring, then the same logic would apply between her and Malfoy. The only reason these ludicrous thoughts were running rampant through her head was because she had been stuck living with Harry and Ron for so long and had thus been virtually starved of intellectual conversation.

As she finished coming to the conclusion that no, Malfoy was definitely not sexy, she noticed that he was still staring at her, though he looked decidedly more fidgety. It was then that she remembered that he had been waiting for her to respond to his research plans.

"Wow" was all that came out. She was still too amazed by his brilliance and confused by her earlier train of thought to come up with something more meaningful. She slowly sneaked her right hand behind her to press two fingers firmly into a pressure point on her lower back, sending a shiver through up and down her spine and clearing her mind. Slowly, she began to feel much more cognisant.

"I do have another question, though, if you don't mind?" She added poste-haste.

Malfoy seemed to relax at this, and she even thought she saw a small smile before he leaned back into the corner of the couch, bringing one foot up to rest on the opposite knee. "Fire away."

"This isn't meant to be a question of your abilities," she began tentatively, "but do you actually expect to finish all this before we graduate?"

"Oh no, not at all." Hermione swore she saw him laugh a little as he said it. "Just the production of the stone could take years even if I somehow get my hands on Flamel's notes, which I'm assuming I won't be able to do.

"At the moment my plan is just to take advantage of the guaranteed funding and facilities to get to a praiseworthy transference point. If I can show even the smallest degree of progress towards the development of the stone, then hopefully either a research lab will hire me or I'll get a grant from the ministry to continue working on my own time."

"And what's your plan for making it less costly?" She reached for his notes again but he whisked them out of reach.

"Merlin, you sound like my advisor," Malfoy whinged.

"No seriously, you must have some kind of plan, or else all your work would be wasted."

To her surprise, Malfoy's cheeks became slightly tinged with pink when it became clear that she wouldn't be dropping the issue. "Well…er," he coughed a little to clear his throat, "I'm still sort of working on the official plan."

Hermione shot him a confused look. "The 'official' plan? So does that mean you have some sort of 'unofficial' plan, then?" She could tell she was getting worked up over this, in fact, looking at Malfoy's face, he appeared slightly worried about her sudden inquisition. He scratched the hairs at the nape of his neck, crossed, uncrossed, then recrossed his legs, and fiddled with the corners on his proposal.

"Well if you must know the plan was to…self-invest, so to speak," he rushed out, looking just past her right ear.

Her sceptical countenance didn't budge. "And…just how would that help, really? You're just going to pay every patient's Mungo's tab?" She chuckled humourlessly. "Malfoy, I know you're well-off, but you're not that well-off—you can't just foot the bill for everyone who's dying—"

"You think I don't know that?" He exclaimed angrily, pushing himself off the couch to go lean on the mantelpiece. He spent a few seconds pinching the bridge of his nose before turning back to her and continuing. "I may not have any money at all by the time I finish—if I finish—because if I don't make enough progress in time I won't get any funding, and I'll have to finance the whole project myself. The problem is that I have no idea what to expect with this potion. I have all these plans laid out for the research and I know exactly what to do with it after it's created, but there is no way for me to figure out how to make the process less expensive when I don't even know what the process is."

Hermione waited for his breaths to become less jagged before replying. "Well maybe you don't have to know it is—at least not all the specifics, that is," she hinted.

The look he gave her showcased his frustration at feeling so stymied. "What are you on about, Granger?" He asked tiredly, drawing his thumb and forefinger over his closed eyes.

"I mean, how do you know your potion will be expensive?"

He sneered at her, "Why wouldn't it be? It would be a potion to help cure all ails; it wouldn't be capitalism if it weren't expensive."

"No, no, that's not really what I meant. What is it that you know—now—about your potential recipe that will bump the price up? Do you know of rare ingredients that will almost certainly be involved? Or specific processes that cannot be streamlined?" She was leaning towards him now, her elbows and forearms rested on her knees, her head tilted up to meet his eyes.

"I can't just think up some sweeping generalisations and use them to formulate a plan," he sputtered, though his eyes flicked back and forth as if such a plan was developing as he spoke.

"I think you'll find they'd be more specific than you would think," she smiled reassuringly at him, "And I think what you call 'specifics' are actually incredibly minute details that would obviously be impossible to predict, and you feel that you've reached a major obstacle because you're trying to do just that! Just…work with what you know, not with what you hope you'll learn. Otherwise you'll just be forever amending your plans instead of having a framework to build upon."

Malfoy still looked sceptical, but Hermione could see the gears in head starting to spin again. His eyes narrowed, then widened, then narrowed again before he brought them back to hers. "Interesting suggestion," he said somewhat contemptuously, though Hermione could tell he was just embarrassed that he didn't realise it first and was trying to save face.

"Anytime, Malfoy." She gave him a faint smirk as she said it, though it went unnoticed. Malfoy didn't move from his position, but his mind was clearly many miles away. "I guess I'll just let you think on that one awhile, shall I?" Again, she got no response from her co-Head, so she pushed herself out of her chair and headed back up the stairs to her room.

On the way, she couldn't help but think that, if she and Malfoy resisted the temptation to bait each other into their characteristically volatile arguments (which, admittedly, would be no small task), they might actually develop into a formidable team. On top of that, she could see potential for many more intellectual discussions, similar to the one they just had. That thought excited her much more than it should have done, given it was Malfoy she was thinking about. It was strange thinking about him in such a cordial sense, but she was willing to try if it would allow for a more diplomatic atmosphere.

Hermione smiled to herself as she curled up in the alcove of her room's bay window. If things continued to progress in the same manner, her eighth year could end up being her least stressful one yet…

Chapter 4: Out of Mind

The autumnal and winter months always seemed to pass by in a blur. Hermione felt that the spring dragged on forever, as if the added daylight actually meant the days themselves were longer. But the ones leading up to the Christmas holiday flew by in record time, maybe even more so this year than in the past. The first two months of term had come and gone, and a firm frost was now permanently glued to the grass. The sun rarely shone a direct path anymore; thick blankets of dark clouds interrupted its rays, the heat unable to pierce it.

Despite the days passing by her quicker than Harry on his newest broomstick, her fellow students seemed to move with all the speed of a blocked river. Their thick wool robes obscured their feet, making them appear to float from building to building like lifeless wraiths. Hermione observed them now from beneath one of the great elm trees, her focus occasionally broken from her work when she would have to recast her Hot-Air Charms. The breadth of the branches protected the ground from the plague of frost, but her thick cloak wasn't quite enough to keep warm on such a frigid Thursday.

She only had two classes that day, one at the beginning and one at the very end, so she had a good amount of time in between. She should have returned to the castle for lunch about an hour before, but she hadn't thought of it at the time and figured it wasn't worth the effort now. She wasn't really a lunch person anyway. She drank a stiff cup of black coffee in the morning, and that was usually enough to hold her until an early dinner.

Sometimes she would have two coffees.

The last time Hermione had gone to lunch, Ginny grabbed her by the collarbone and insisted that she was too skinny.

"Hermione, I'm going to have to start coming to your dorms in the morning to force a muffin in you if you don't start eating more."

She laughed, not taking her friend seriously.

"Stop it, Hermione," Ginny reprimanded her in a much more authoritative tone, "honestly I'm starting to get worried, what you're doing isn't healthy." The way she spoke, her tone sounded like the perfect mix between her mother's nagging and her Quidditch captain's commands.

"Really, I'm completely fine," she smiled genuinely, "this happens every year when I come back to school. It's the result of not enjoying your mother's cooking every day."

"Well, then why do I not look like you?" Merlin, this was starting to sound like an inquisition.

"Because, dearest Ginny," she responded with just a hint of condescension, "you are Gryffindor's prized Quidditch Captain. You must burn thousands of calories a day at practice, so you have to eat a boatload.

"I'm definitely not saying you're fat," she amended quickly, seeing Ginny's horrified expression, "I'm just saying you have to eat more to build the muscle you need to play as hard as you do. Q.E.D., since you've got more muscle than me, I look thin to you."

Ginny had given her a sceptical look, but dropped the subject altogether. However, she had suggested Hermione come to one of her practices if she wanted to gain some more muscle, to which Hermione quickly responded that she would rather just exercise her mind in the library. She did promise to eat a scone with her morning coffee a few times a week, but she broke that promise too many times to count. Ginny must know that breaking habits was infinitely harder.

That had been several weeks ago, and since then Ginny found numerous occasions to comment on her eating habits. She also developed a not-so-subtle strategy of making Hermione try bits of all her food at dinner. The one time she mentioned it to her redheaded friend, Ginny just said she was trying to expand her palette. Hermione was sure they both knew it was a sorry excuse, but she continued to humour her friend for now.

She dropped her textbook on her lap and held out her wrists. She examined the tops, then the undersides, seeing nothing noteworthy about them. Perhaps they were a bit pale, but it was winter in the Highlands of Scotland, for Circe's sake. Even Dean was looking a bit ashen. At least she wasn't translucent like her ginger best friend. And if the bones of her wrist were any more pronounced than before, she couldn't see it. Her hands were a bit thin, perhaps, but they had always been that way—a lasting result of the years of piano lessons imposed upon her by her mother.

She ran a gentle finger along her opposite palm, feeling the once smooth skin that was now rough and calloused. Her year on the run had not been gentle on her body, and while the bruises healed and many of the scars faded, some proof of her experience persisted. The texture there was like that of thick paper, as if the skin was woven back together after years of abuse, and now only its shape made it recognisable.

Still, the veins that lined her forearms were kind of fascinating. Their deep colour struck an eerie contrast against her white skin, and it made her feel cold looking at it. Hermione knew, of course, that deoxygenated blood ran blue through the veins, causing them to appear that colour when kept beneath the skin. She had learned as much at her Muggle primary school before she came to Hogwarts, and sometimes she still liked to read the Muggle textbooks she once used. If her friends ever found her reading them, usually she would say that she liked to get the best of both worlds. She tried that line on Ron once, but he didn't understand her desire to learn about things outside of magic. She mentioned that Muggle subjects weren't really that far removed from the Wizarding World, as things like biology and chemistry still existed there, just without the added twist. Ron had laughed and pinched her chin, telling her that it was only the twist, as she called it, that should matter to her now.

Now, she would tell him she read those books because she was bored and had already read everything else available. Most of the time, it wasn't untrue.

She shivered again, remembering it had been a while since she last Charmed the air. She did not do so immediately, choosing instead to breathe the icy air deep into her chest. She closed her eyes, imagining the air flooding her body through the system of blood vessels, creating a frozen expanse of woven strings. She pictured her brain ensnared in the web, wondering if it would blend together like a tangled nest of ice or stand apart like a rock trapped within a cage of frosty claws. Maybe her whole body would run blue.

Smiling to herself, Hermione took another deep breath before rustling through her robes in search of her wand. Frozen expanse or not, she liked the cold air—it kept her head clear and her focus sharp. As her fingertips closed around the familiar vine wood, she heard the ringing of the clock tower bell in the distance. She expected to hear the two chimes signalling the new hour, but the tune suddenly stopped short. Hurriedly checking her own watch, she noticed she only had a quarter hour until Ancient Runes. How could she not realise how long she'd been out there? She never lost track of time like this, and she hadn't even accomplished that much.

She quickly gathered her things and hastened across the grounds, huffing with frustration for being so forgetful. As she passed the greenhouses, she saw a tawny owl soar over the castle parapets, heading in her direction. The post likely came during lunch, and the bird had missed her until now. Hermione stopped in her path and extended her arm, taking the letter from the owl's clutches as it made purchase. It gave her a not-so-gentle nip on the knuckle when it realised she didn't have any treats, and it abandoned her to fly off into the darkening sky. Hermione thrust the letter into the pocket of her cloak as she returned to her hurried pace, not stopping to identify the sender.

xx

Several hours later, the night had become a rainy one, and the Heads' common room was—unsurprisingly—silent. Other than the occasional crack of the fireplace logs and the rain battering against the windows above, nothing disrupted the atmosphere. To an observer, the room would appear to be devoid of life entirely, its occupants having abandoned it to weather out the storm alone.

And perhaps she was lifeless. Hermione sat on the plush rug before the hearth, her fingers and toes buried in the soft fibres. Her eyes were glued to the flames, which were becoming increasingly hypnotic with each passing moment. And indeed, many moments had passed. She wasn't sure how long she had been sat there, all she knew was that she wasn't intent on moving anytime soon. Honestly, she wasn't sure if she could even move anymore. Her back ached some hours before from a lack of support, but eventually she became numb to the discomfort. Now she felt nothing. She thought nothing. It might have scared her at any other time, but she had been overcome by a cloud of ambivalence that dulled the motions of her mind to a soft hum, playing its tune somewhere else outside her head.

She closed her eyes for a few seconds at a time, still seeing the flames through her lids like dancers behind a thick veil. Maybe it was an automatic response to prevent herself from becoming blinded. If she had been blind before, maybe she would never have read the words. But then she would not be here now, and she liked it here. The snaps and pops of the fire drummed a consistent yet never repetitive rhythm—impossible to predict but soothing in its regularity.

Someone like you.

Hermione's eyes closed again, reopening moments later. She imagined someone had flipped the off switch on her mind, and she didn't want to flip it back. If a horde of people were to charge through the room, she liked to believe her focus wouldn't stray from the flames.

The paper lay discarded, tossed somewhere behind her and out of view. She had crumpled it to make it more aerodynamic, not because it evoked any negative feelings. She threw it as she had done with everything else on her person, not because it was particularly offensive. She wanted her space free of distractions or obstacles that would otherwise interfere with her solitude. Truly, the words meant nothing, they were just a disruption. She was alone within herself, and she wanted to stay a while longer.

Sometimes, the words crept back into her head. They were annoyingly persistent, screaming to be heard over the din of her silent mind. Sometimes she forced herself not to blink, keeping the stinging feeling at the forefront of her thoughts.

The fire was enchanted to be everlasting; wood from some hidden cache constantly supplied its fuel, so theoretically she could live and die by this hearth. It would be ironic, surely—Hermione Granger, the girl from whom everyone expected so much, forever immobilised in front of undying flames. The world would find someone else to take her place. There would always be smart people in the world, or people who knew how to read well enough to pretend.

Someone like you.

She was being ridiculous. Eventually, she would arise from her watch by the fire, and she would continue to be smart and read her beloved books. There were enough of them in this room alone that she could not name; indeed, they would give her purpose for some time to come. Without removing her eyes from the flames, she counted them in her periphery. Sixteen on a shelf to her right. Ten on the one above it. Twenty directly above the mantle. Eighteen to its left. Fourteen on the one—

"What the fuck is this?" A sharp voice resonated around the room.

Hermione gasped at the unexpected intrusion and spun around instantly. Malfoy was stood behind the couches, holding a piece of parchment bearing characteristic creases from being balled up only seconds prior. For a moment, all she could do was stare at him; standing in his Quidditch robes, soaked and covered in mud, holding her letter, he wore a sneer that was a terrible mixture of reprehension and disgust.

The words came back full force, streaming through her head on a constant loop. They seemed to cycle through hundreds of times in just a few seconds.

Someone like you.

Good girl.

Two deep breaths into her dry lungs. One muscle spasm in her right hand.

Be ready.

The last two words echoed through her skull like a snare on a drum. The effect was immediate, and she felt her mind clear as if she had been doused with a bucket of ice water, and all its coverings were washing away. As much as she felt nothing before, now she seemed to feel everything, and the shocking contrast made her breath catch in her throat. Suddenly, she could not stop her mind as it replayed the whole piece from start to finish, and her eyes shut as everything else fell away. She breathed in again, and the words seemed to follow the path of the air down her throat, burning her chest and igniting her blood as it expanded.

I can't believe you've got to live with Malfoy for the whole term. Merlin knows what possessed McGonagall to trust him with a position like that. I almost made Harry Floo call her to complain about it with me—I'm sure the words of two famous war heroes such as ourselves would surely change her mind. But Harry came at me with all that "building bridges" crap, so I guess you'll just have to put up with him for now.

I suppose I should be a bit relieved about all this. Obviously I knew I'd never have to worry about any guy trying anything with you, because you don't attract that type of attention and everyone knows you're taken. But at least with Malfoy I know he'd never even think about considering anything like that. There isn't a chance in all seven hells that someone like him would want anything with someone like you.

At work, girls are always trying to get me into compromising positions. I'd never do it, I can't since I'm with you. A lot of guys wouldn't have that kind of self-discipline, you know. These girls though, sometimes they're so desperate to meet the players they'll offer me anything. You and my boss are lucky I have such restraint.

Well, I should wrap this up. I'm already late for dinner and Mum's made kidney pies. I'll come visit sometime in the next few weeks, and we'll see how much you've been practising. If you're a good girl, maybe you'll get to do more than sleep in that nice big bed of yours, how's that sound?

Be ready for me.

"Granger," Malfoy growled again, his voice low and threatening, "what is this?"

Malfoy's words broke her out of her trance. Stumbling to her feet, she hurried across the room towards him, his murderous expression holding steady. She reached for the letter, but he brought it high above his shoulder. She narrowed her eyes at him, but made no further attempt to retrieve it; he was far too tall for her to reach it, and given he was clearly already familiar with its contents, there didn't seem much point to trying.

"It's a letter from Ron, obviously." She replied haughtily, outstretching her palm. "Now may I please have it back?"

Somehow, Malfoy's sneer managed to become even darker. "I can see who it's from. I can practically smell the poverty on it—"

Oh, here was the Malfoy she knew and hated; she was wondering from the start of term when he would make an appearance. He really knew just what to do to make her blood boil. Up until now, she thought maybe the term wouldn't be so bad—Malfoy was still just as infuriating as always, but so far it had been tolerable. They constructed an unofficial rulebook for how to put up with each other, and it resulted in a delicate but steady familiarity that made their situation bearable. Now, however, she could feel all of it shatter beneath them as if he were taking a hammer to it himself.

"Look, Malfoy," Hermione brought both hands to her hips, welcoming her anger as it quickly drowned out all other emotions. She was sure she wouldn't be able to return to her prior occupation now; she was becoming much too riled up to sit still. "I'm sorry if you've got your wand in a knot over what Ron said—"

"You think I give a fuck what the Weasel says about me?"

Hermione attempted to disguise her flinch, but if his leer was anything to go by, her reaction had not escaped his notice. Without waiting for a response, Malfoy continued his tirade.

"I don't care about what Weasley, or Potter, or you, or anyone else says about me," the words were practically spat from his mouth.

"So what's got you so pissed off?"

The blonde wizard's brow furrowed, and he seemed to be considering how to respond. He glanced at Ron's letter, then quickly back at her, his disgust reinvigorated. "You read this?"

"Of course I read it; what else would I have done with it?"

"And you put up with it?" He asked, apparently ignoring her sarcasm.

His question surprised her. Put up with it? She didn't remember anything truly offensive in the letter. Not knowing how else to reply, that was just what she told him.

"Put up with what? It's just Ron."

From the look on his face, it was like he had just smelled something foul. His reactions were making her uncomfortable and on edge. She had never seen him act like this in all the years she'd known him—at least, not directed towards her—and she did not know what to make of it. She had seen him angry often enough, that was for certain, but it was always due to him not getting exactly what he wanted. Clearly, that wasn't the case here, and she wasn't prepared to deal with the situation.

"Why are you so bothered over this?"

"Because apparently, you're not!" He ran a frustrated hand through his wet hair, which was beginning to stick to his forehead.

"This has nothing to do with you! Excuse me for not losing my head over a random letter from my boyfriend." She sneered back at him, now just as angry with him as he apparently was with her. "I didn't know you cared so much."

"I don't give a shit about you."

"Oh, my apologies. How could I have ever misinterpreted your ridiculous behaviour?" Hermione was at the end of her patience, and her voice dripped with sarcasm.

"Well, forgive me for thinking you actually had a spine," he bit back, "why everyone calls you the brightest witch of your age is beyond me."

"At least I was bright enough to pick the winning side."

She expected him to throw some other clever retort, maybe about her parentage or choice of friends, but again he surprised her. He did not say anything at first, and instead just let out a derisive snort as he moved to lean against the large table. She mentally cringed at the thought of his dirty robes marring the beautiful wood, but she held her tongue. The two Heads stared at each other for some moments, the air between them crackling with the tension from their silent duel. Such an interaction was common between the two of them, and Hermione almost never broke first. This time, however, she couldn't be confident in her position because she didn't fully understand his. She shifted her stance and crossed her arms, observing the slight smirk that appeared on his face as she did so. It was a form of concession, albeit a minor one, and it confirmed her position as the defensive one. It was part of a dance they had rehearsed for years.

"You really don't get it, do you?"

"No, I don't. Please, enlighten me." Hermione's voice was flat and emotionless.

He pushed off the table and strode over to her until they were nearly toe-to-toe. She watched his steel-grey eyes as they passed over her face, not expecting to see the pain held within them. Quickly, the creases of his brow relaxed, and his face returned to its regular, unreadable mask. He was so close, she could smell the dirt and the rain-sodden leather of his uniform. He raised a hand, and instinctively she flinched and leant away, expecting him to strike her. Hermione relaxed when she saw he had only done so to rub his back, but flushed when she realised that he registered her reaction.

"Tell me something, Granger," Malfoy began a few moments later, something in his tone telling her he already knew the answer, "if I claimed you couldn't beat me in a duel, what would you say?"

"What are you playing at?"

"Just humour me."

A few irritating curls were falling over her face, and she combed them back before responding. "Well, I would invite you to test your theory, then swiftly prove you wrong."

Malfoy smiled, though it was clearly not a happy expression. "And if Potter told you he defeated the Dark Lord with little help from anyone else, would you concede to that?"

"I would respectfully disagree," she said between her teeth. One of these days, he was going to give her an aneurysm.

"Undoubtedly." He stepped back a few paces, yet somehow the added space made it harder to breathe.

"What's your point, Malfoy?" She made no effort to hide her exasperation, but she admitted to herself that it was more due to knowing she was losing an argument she didn't understand rather than having to deal with an irritating Malfoy.

"I don't like you, Granger,"

"How shocking."

He sent her a withering glare, but this time she maintained her even countenance. "I don't like you, but I did respect you."

"And I'm assuming you don't any longer, is that it?" She could have laughed. "Well, sorry if I don't seem too cut up about it."

He seemed to ignore her taunt. "I respected you because you didn't take anyone's bullshit, not even mine."

When she was too shocked to respond, he moved towards the stairs to his room, but stopped after ascending the first few. "I tried for years to put you in your place, but you fought me every time. Practically everyone in this school had something nasty to say about you at some point in our time here, but you never bent and you never let anything get to you. I hated you for what you were, but I envied you more for your infuriating resolve and tenacity.

"But this?" He held up the letter, and paused for just a moment before crumpling it back into a tight wad with one hand. "Despite all of that, you listen to shit like this. You believe shit like this."

She began to respond, but he raised the same palm to her, still holding the letter to it with his thumb.

"Weasley is a pathetic excuse for a wizard who fucks with your emotions to keep you beneath him because he knows he could never beat you down in any other way. He obviously knows how powerful of a witch you are—how much better you are than him."

"I'm not better than him—"

"Oh, you bloody well are and you know it. Everybody knows it. You've spent eight years shoving it down the throat of the entire Wizarding World, so don't try to give me some fake modesty now."

His words continued to rain down on her like piercing shards of ice, and it was getting harder to stay upright under the weight of the thick atmosphere.

"Like everyone else, Weasley knows you're too good for him. If I can see it, Granger, Merlin knows he can too. That's why he feeds you shit like this," he spat, enunciating his argument by fiercely tossing the letter across the room, "so that he can own you and feel powerful in subduing someone he and everyone else knows is above him."

"What makes you think you know anything about this?" Hermione practically had to force the words from her mouth. She was focusing all her energy on not buckling beneath his remarks, and it took all her reserve to do more than choke out her question.

He scoffed again, but this time the accompanying smile was just pitying rather than threatening. "Like I said, Granger, this is what I tried to do to you for years."

"Maybe the difference is I actually care about what Ron thinks of me," she tried to put some strength into her defence, but she had to admit it sounded like a pathetic whisper even to her own ears.

"Well, then you're stupid and weak, which means you deserve each other." Malfoy did not allow her the chance to respond, already taking the stairs to his room two at a time. She heard the sound of the bath filling with water moments later, and she resigned herself to her earlier post by the hearth.

Hermione trained her eyes on the flames as before, but—as she predicted—her mind wouldn't stop buzzing with confusion and conflict. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she encircled them with her arms and rested her cheek against them. While she might be facing the fire, this time she neither enjoyed its warmth nor did she really see it burn.

Ron was just Ron. He loved her and she loved him. In his letter, he expressed worry over her living with Malfoy. Clearly, he cared for her; he made that point obvious enough. The Slytherin was a total outsider to her relationship with Ron, so who was he to talk about their dynamic?

Fuck Malfoy, and fuck his high horse too. From what she had heard, he didn't know much about real relationships anyway. Each girl was just another notch on a bedpost to him, nothing more than a nightly conquest to satisfy him and be swiftly discarded. He wouldn't know love if it came up from behind him and slapped him on the head. What she and Ronald had was real, and it was eternal. She wouldn't doubt that for a second, no matter how much Malfoy tried to convince her to do otherwise. Regardless, Malfoy hated Ron, so if he had anything worthwhile to say, it was tainted by the obvious conflict of interest.

But something kept niggling at her internal arguments. Hermione tried to push it back, focusing on the flames to try and clear her head. But she just kept hearing the pureblood's infuriating voice in her head, the words "stupid" and "weak" creating a maddening mantra that wouldn't let her be.

She was lucky to be with Ron. Yes, she was a powerful witch, and she knew her way around a classroom. Her book smarts may be legendary, but they had long been a tool she used to negate all her other shortcomings, such as her average looks and bossy attitude. She was lucky to have someone like Ron who accepted that exchange. He could never say a negative thing towards her that would not be vastly outweighed by his willingness to love her when few others would.

Hermione registered the pain in her eyes from staring at the fire for too long, and blinked quickly to return some of the moisture to them. When her sight became sharp again, she noticed a corner of parchment peeking out from beside one of the armchairs. Extending her body, she reclaimed her letter, but kept it in its condensed form for just a few moments. She traced its creases and folds with her thumb, closing her eyes as her hands memorised the parchment's texture. It wasn't expensive, she could tell by its weight. Ron always used to say that expensive parchment was an unnecessary luxury—money was better spent on things like brooms and robes and gadgets. She always used to sneak away from her friends during their Hogsmeade visits to go into Scrivenshaft's, packets of beautiful parchment hidden deep beneath her robes when she would meet them again. Once, Ron asked to borrow some and she had given hers away without thinking. When she realised what she had done, she grew momentarily worried that he would be angry with her for such a frivolous purchase. Her anxiety was needless, however, as Ron took the packet gratefully, not noticing the difference. He replaced the packet later, of course, with one of his own, but she never used it.

Ultimately, Hermione decided she was tired of thinking. Taking the letter in both hands, she gently unfurled and flattened the parchment against the top of the coffee table. She stared at the words for a few moments without reading them, just studying the messy lines of Ron's penmanship. She thumbed one corner that refused to lie flat, then proceeded to fold the page once in half, lengthwise. She turned down the top corners to meet in the middle, repeating the move first on the backside, then again on the front. The bottom corners mirrored the action, and she bent the top edge backwards. Triangular flaps became squares, squares became folded diamonds. Several steps later, Hermione looked down at her paper masterpiece.

Wandlessly, she animated the phoenix to fly over her head, feeling the corners curl up into a small smile. As the bird soared in front of the fire, the light from the flames shone through the fibres, illuminating the black words hidden within. Unthinkingly, she floated the bird closer and closer to the hearth, her smile never faltering as first the tail caught fire, then the wings as its whole body was dragged into the heart of the flames.

For a whole minute, she almost expected the bird to be reborn from the fire, as if she had created a real phoenix instead of just its paper shadow. She ran her thumb and forefinger across her lower lip, tracing the ghost of her smile as it dripped from her face. Hermione gazed into the flames for a few long minutes, and she wondered if they crackled because they were glad to be fed.

---

Draco nearly stumbled backwards at the brunt of the thick, wet air that hit his body the moment he pulled open the iron-wrought door to the Potions classroom, and he had to brace himself on its frame to stay upright. He pushed himself through the dense cloud, passing the fray of already bubbling cauldrons and sweating students towards his assigned seat next to Granger. Traditionally, Head students were not encouraged to work together during classes, as such combined talent and intellect would often give the pair an unfair advantage over the other students. In Draco and Grangers' case, however, McGonagall felt the two should work together at every opportunity to foster a peace between them.

Given the current level of animosity between the Head Students, the arrangement was accomplishing very little. After their rather heated discussion the previous day, he and Grangers' relationship was tenuous at best, and it relied on a lack of interaction between them to keep it from worsening. It wasn't difficult to keep it up, however, since it wasn't as though he had anything further to say. He thought she was an idiot for putting up with the Weasel. Actually, she was an idiot for even getting with him in the first place.

He still didn't know why he cared about any of this, though. If Weasley wanted to be a manipulative arsehole, it wasn't Draco's job to be bothered about it. If Granger wanted to be weak and pathetic, that was her bloody problem, not his. He repeated the words like a chant in his head. Forgetting about Granger and her doomed romantic future would make it even easier for him not to talk to her. After all, with everything else he had to deal with, thinking about how Granger deserved better would certainly not be of help.

At the start of term, he and Granger had established a very efficient method of completing their coursework with the least amount of communication and interaction as possible. Draco was thankful for that strategy now. In Potions, Slughorn and the rest of the students would observe in awe as the two worked, weaving around each other as they would slice, chop, and stir, only the occasional request for a tool or an ingredient disrupting the air between them. So long as they never spoke, they always ended up leagues ahead of their classmates and were often allowed to leave early with some extra House Points in tow.

He dropped his bag on the floor beside his stool and waited for Slughorn to begin his daily overview. A shuffling sound next to him caught his attention, and he turned to notice Granger—or at least, he believed it was Granger. The humidity in the room made her hair so big and wild it looked like she just resurfaced from a yearlong trip to the rainforest. Before he could hold his tongue, an easy insult spilled from his mouth out of habit, accidentally breaking their no-speaking agreement.

"Granger, please try to tame the thing on your head before you come to class. I'm afraid it might swallow me." Draco quipped, making a dramatic show of leaning backwards and using his textbook as a shield.

She flashed him one of her deadliest sneers. "Oh, don't worry Malfoy, I'm sure it would spit you right back out. I hear that's what most girls do with you anyway." She raised her eyebrows at him, challenging him to deny her innuendo.

Draco tilted his head at the witch sharing his bench and, with all the nonchalance in the world, replied, "Want to test that theory?"

His retort earned him a few snickers from some nearby Slytherins as well as a very satisfying sputter from the girl next to him. She was just too easy to rile up. Doing it before a class was a risky game to play, though, especially now. Pushing her too hard could make her a bear of a partner—in one such instance, she charmed all his pieces of parchment to give him papercuts regardless of how picked them up. And that was when she wasn't already mad at him. If he pushed her just right, however, she would be just mad enough to want to work as quickly as possible, and then he would get out of class even more quickly. Given the events of the night before, however, he wasn't sure his fingers would escape unscathed this time.

Before she had time to throw anything back at him, however, Slughorn cleared his throat to refocus his students' attention on the front of the classroom. "Everyone," the rotund professor began, "in today's class you will be begin developing an antidote to the mixed poison I have before me." Almost as if on cue, the concoction in Slughorn's cauldron released an ominous hissing noise. A small cloud of dark violet smoke followed, tumbling over the sides and hovering on the benchtop, disintegrating some nearby pieces of parchment before dissipating entirely. "This project could take you anywhere from a few days to a month, depending on how you structure your research and your experiments, so I am allotting around two weeks of class time. If you need additional time, you may continue to work on it outside of class, and come in on weekends to complete any brewing work." He looked around the room at the expressionless faces of his students, likely waiting for any questions or complaints. When there were none, he clapped his hands together, rubbing them slightly before gesturing for the students to join him at the front of the room.

"If one person from each pairing would like to come up here, you may retrieve some of this poison for your own testing." At his bequest, Granger shot off her stool, a phial in her hand since Slughorn had uttered the first syllable of "poison".

"Now, I don't have to remind you all to use extreme caution with handling poisonous substances," the Potions Master continued, "a few drops of this particular brew could probably knock out a basilisk, so anyone not wearing protective gear should remedy that immediately."

Granger soon returned to their bench carrying the viscous, black substance. Inspecting it for himself, Draco observed that the mixture was somewhat biphasic—nearly undetectable to the eye, but the way the potion managed to swirl in two directions simultaneously helped him to notice that some parts were ever so slightly lighter and tinged with purple than the rest. Where the two layers touched, a thin emulsion seemed to form, implying neither component could dissolve the other.

"Two substances, yes?" Granger startled him out of his scrutiny. She wasn't even looking at him, but was already furiously scribbling down notes.

"Yes," Draco confirmed, "assuming there isn't a third or fourth component dissolved in either of the first two."

"Unlikely. Acromantula venom turns brown in the presence of any other naturally occurring poison, and any other draughts would inevitably result in some sort of a precipitate forming." Granger spoke quickly and in a monotone. She also still hadn't looked up, and was now scanning over her notes, making the occasional amendment.

Draco stared at his partner, unblinkingly. "How did you reach that conclusion?"

She threw him an unimpressed glance. In an almost reproachful tone, she dropped her quill and assumed her tell-tale lecturing posture. "Malfoy, mixing draughts in the presence of an organic substance will result in an oxidation and reduction reaction, which produces a salt—"

"Thanks for the refresher on first-year material, Granger," he bit back, glaring at her for thinking him so dense, "I meant, how did you get to Acromantula venom?"

"Oh, easy. It's the only natural toxin that makes the Draught of Living Death retain its lilac colour," she replied, not missing a beat.

He could only manage to alternate between staring at her and the phial, not quite willing to sacrifice his pride to ask her how she identified the other component.

"Look at the emulsion again," his partner spoke, as if responding to his internal struggle. He followed her advice, squinting to get a better look at the layer in question. At first glance he saw nothing new, but just as he was turning back to Granger to tell her she had officially gone mental, he caught the faintest glint of silver out of the corner of his eye.

"Sopophorous bean," he whispered.

"Exactly, one of the principal ingredients of the Draught of Living Death. So glad we're all caught up." She said haughtily, hopping off her chair and handing her notes to the professor. The man was good enough to appear only slightly surprised with being presented a partial solution not ten minutes into class time. Still, he beamed at the girl with an expression Draco could only ascribe to one of almost grandfatherly pride.

Draco glanced about the room, noticing that most of the other students were either just now beginning to inspect their potion samples or were just shooting him and Granger decidedly admonitory glowers. He could do little but smirk in response. He may not have reached his conclusions in Granger time, but he still got there before the rest of the plebeians.

"If I could have just a few more ticks of your attention, please?" Slughorn called again as Granger retook her seat. "This task is intended to test your ability to apply Golpalott's Third Law, something I know was a struggle for many of you in years past," he teased, throwing a few well aimed smiles at some of his students. Beside him, Draco noticed his partner's face doing an excellent impression of a tomato. "For today, I hope that you all will be able to determine how many components make up this poison, and make strides towards identifying them. As you undoubtedly observed from the Heads' example just a few minutes ago, such an assignment is more than achievable in the time provided. If you have time to spare, you are more than welcome to begin your research or perform any tests. If you have any questions, you know where I will be."

With that, Slughorn released the students to their work, and Draco continued with the burdensome task of working next to Granger while trying to work together as little as possible.

xx

He was measuring a very precise amount of powdered root of asphodel when it happened. Someone on the other side of the classroom was setting off some Cold-Air Charms to achieve some much-needed circulation in the stuffy dungeon room, when suddenly the most intoxicating scent was assaulting his senses. It was foreign and familiar all at once. It was the gentle brushing of a phoenix feather against skin, followed by a tantalising shiver from drawing it against the grain. It was tart green apples soaked in honey and dusted with cinnamon and cardamom, and dew dripping from freshly cut grass. It was the curled edge of a scroll of parchment holding some secret still unread. It was the warmest amber and the deepest indigo. It burned a fiery path through Draco's blood and set his bones alight. He could feel every individual bead of sweat as they awoke atop his brow and crept down his neck. He could hear every metallic hiss of the cauldrons as the students performed their miscellaneous tests. He could practically feel his pupils dilating as they focused on the individual particles of dust coating the wall sconces.

But out of all of that, nothing compared to the feeling in his shoulders.

It started in his lower back, just above his tailbone. At first, he might have described the feeling as a deep itch beneath the skin. But as the sweet aroma continue to flood his brain, the sensation seemed to coil around his vertebrae like a sprouting vine, unfurling across each rib as it inched upwards to bloom across his shoulder blades. His body felt heavy, somehow even hotter than before.

Suddenly, the feeling morphed into one of a sharp, tearing pain. It felt as if a pair of invisible hands were making two parallel incisions down his scapulae, and they weren't being gentle about it. His eyes shot over to Blaise, who was sat just a few tables away and who already had his dark eyes trained directly on him. They were narrowed, and Draco could see they were full of apprehension. His friend cocked his head toward the supply cabinet, and Draco managed to choke out something about needing "fresh Wormwood" to Granger before hurrying as inconspicuously as possible towards the back of the classroom.

Just steps from the stockroom door, Draco could barely stay upright. He was beginning to feel rivulets of liquid slithering down his back, and he thanked Merlin for the thick woollen cloak shielding his shirt from view; the once-pristine material was now almost certainly stained with sweat and blood.

He managed to push himself into the small closet, throwing the door closed behind him not a moment too soon. Almost immediately after he passed the threshold, the pain in his back exploded. Draco felt to his knees, bracing himself on his palms and feeling parts of himself crash into the surrounding shelves and cabinets. A few phials crashed to the stone floor and burst around him. Through the muted ringing in his ears, Draco heard the latch of the stockroom door quickly rise and fall as someone shuffled in. He was too exhausted to raise his head from where it was hanging between his arms to check who it was, but the whispered expletive followed by quick a Silencing Charm confirmed his suspicions.

"Oh, bloody hell," he heard Blaise shudder.

"Honestly, I don't even want to know what just happened." Draco groaned, collapsing further so his upper body was resting upon his forearms.

"You haven't seen them?"

"Them?" He asked, using all his remaining energy to look over his shoulder, where he could barely see the top of Blaise's head over a wall of obsidian-coloured feathers.

Feathers.

Feathers. Why were there feathers?

"Okay mate, just try to stay calm," Blaise tried to soothe him, but it did little to abate Draco's staggered breathing that was quickly becoming hyperventilation. In a burst of shock-induced adrenaline, he shot up from his nearly prostrate position, twisting his battered shoulders every which way to get the best look at what had sprouted from them.

"Whoa, whoa, Draco, careful! You're making a mess in here. Plus, you'll blind me if you don't kill me first."

Taking in a better look at his surroundings, Draco noticed he had succeeded in freeing the stockroom shelves from many of their various burdens, and the latter now formed an interesting collage on the floor. He noticed Blaise's arms were still slightly raised in a defensive position, where clearly moments before they were shielding his face. Swallowing the lump in his throat, Draco focused on turning just his head to look over his shoulders.

Despite being almost certain about what would be behind him, he could not help but inhale sharply when he saw it for himself. Two large wings had erupted from his shoulders, each consisting of hundreds, perhaps even thousands of feathers the colour of a raven's. The feathers lining the edges were tipped with slight hints of platinum, which gave his silhouette an almost pearlescent glow. The somewhat angelic effect was negated, however, by the blood that ran from the wings' juncture with Draco's back, down their lower edges and onto the floor, painting the spilled ingredients with spots of red. As the wings ruffled, seemingly of their own accord, Draco took note of how traces of purple and green appeared on the inner feathers when they were angled against the light. It reminded him of how water could make black ink run across parchment, slowly dividing into a wide array of hues. People always said it was white that was made up of all colours and black was completely devoid of them. And yet, it was the latter that created them when forced.

Draco awakened out of his musings when one of the wingtips began to tickle his calf.

"Well, fuck me right in the arsehole," Draco grumbled, reminding himself of his current predicament.

"I definitely did not see this coming."

Draco scoffed, flashing a glare towards his companion.

"Oh um, Draco," his friend started, uneasily, "you've another problem."

"What?" Draco snapped, turning back to face Blaise. "How could this get worse?"

Blaise did not reply verbally; instead he cleared his throat and dropped his gaze to a spot lower on Draco's body. Draco followed the line of sight down his body until he discovered what had captured his friend's attention.

"Well, I guess that's how." He said, answering his own question.

As his luck would have it, Draco was sporting a raging boner, so much so, in fact, that it surprised him that he did not feel it before then. "How the fuck am I supposed to get rid of this in here?"

"I can leave if you'd like." Blaise waggled his eyebrows at his friend, clearly trying to subdue a smirk.

"Blaise, I'm not wanking in the bloody stockroom."

"I wasn't aware you had standards. Suit yourself, though. Just think of Great-Aunt Walburga in Astoria's lingerie. I seem to remember that being of help in the past."

Draco glared at the dark-skinned wizard, but took his advice nonetheless. It was of no use, however, as his once favourite lower extremity was still pulsing with blood.

"Fuck, it's not helping."

"You're sick, mate."

Draco just sneered at him again. "Something about these damn wings makes me think it will take more than the mental image equivalent of a cold shower to make my problems go away."

"Well, how do you think you'll get rid of those, then?" Blaise revisited the elephant in the room, wiggling his fingers at the parts in question. "If you can get rid of them, then maybe going to sit next to Granger for the next hour or so will help with your other problem."

"Very funny, but how am I supposed to know how to get these…things to go back in?"

His friend looked contemplative for a few moments, drawing some designs in the chaotic array of ingredients on the floor with his feet. For his part, Draco tried to focus his energy on controlling the muscles in the wings, but he only managed to make them ruffle violently, knocking a few more jars to the floor. He turned his attention back to Blaise at the sound of his uneasy cough. Blaise seemed to be looking at everything else but him, and it took snapping his fingers several times in front of Blaise's face to get him to meet Draco's gaze.

"What are you thinking?" Draco prompted. "I'll take anything right now, I swear."

"Okay, this is just a theory," Blaise hesitated, having to clear his throat every third word, "but what if the two problems are connected?"

Draco paused, trying to process what his friend was suggesting. "Are you saying that these wings are going to slice open my back each time I get a stiffy?"

"Well, that's not exactly what I meant," Blaise answered, averting his eyes again.

"Okay, spit it out then."

"What I mean is, something triggered your Veela instincts out there, right? And that was the first time you've been…aroused…" both wizards grimaced trying to discuss the subject aloud, "…since this whole debacle started, correct?"

Draco could only nod slightly, scared to think where Blaise's logic was leading him.

"So," his friend continued, "maybe the Veela part of you felt like it had an opportunity to mate. It would definitely explain one of your current afflictions, and maybe the other is a mechanism for protecting the two of you while you…you know, for the first time, or for warding off any nearby blokes. Very primal, if I may say so."

When Draco still could not bring himself to respond, Blaise carried on with the conjecture.

"It could be that the wings stay out until you finish mating…or, at least, maybe until you make your Veela think that you finished mating."

Draco blinked at his friend in disbelief. "Until I wank myself off, you mean?"

Blaise grimaced at Draco's sharp tone, but did not contradict him.

"Well, like I said, I can't very well do that in here, even if you are right."

"If I'm right, Draco, there are far greater implications."

The two wizards stared at each other for a long while before Draco turned to face the door.

"If I'm right," Blaise repeated, seeing that Draco was coming to the same conclusion as he, "it means she's right out there."

A staggered "holy fuck" was all Draco could choke out, his eyes still glued to the exit.

A few heavy minutes passed without words from either wizard. Draco was still struck dumb in disbelief that his mate, the woman who was both the source of and the solution to all his troubles, was sat no more than thirty feet from where he stood.

He walked towards the door on shaky feet, still unable to process what was racing through his head. Reaching the arched doorway, Draco let out a long breath and rested his forehead against the cold stones. He didn't think about how long he had been in the storage room, or how Granger would likely be too caught up in her own research to even notice his absence. He wasn't worried about how he was going to get out of there without everyone seeing him for what he was. His thoughts were unilaterally focused on the woman on the other side of the door. She had bewitched his soul and enslaved his body. He could feel her seeping into his bones; every moment he stood there, it was as if his Veela knew it was breathing the same air as her. It revelled in that knowledge. His instincts screamed at him to break down the door and find the woman, but he used all his remaining energy to keep his head firmly pressed against the rocks. Not only was the idea a foolish one, but it would be entirely futile. Revealing centuries-old family secrets aside, bursting into the classroom shouting for his mate surely would only serve to scare the knickers off every woman present.

Draco winced at his mind's choice of words. The very thought of his mate without knickers only made his other problem—which was undoubtedly less important but still just as irksome—more obvious.

He pushed himself off the wall and turned back to his friend, grimacing when he forgot to account for his newest extremities, which dragged against the walls and pulled at his wound sites. Blaise's expression was one of confusion, excitement, and worry, encapsulating all the feelings Draco was too exhausted to emote himself.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" Draco phrased it as a question, but he was too drained to put any of the normal emphasis in place, so it came out like a whisper of defeat.

Blaise pondered his words for a moment, moving to the shelves to fiddle with some of the ingredients. Apparently finding one of interest, he removed the phial from the shelf and rolled it between his palms before he acknowledged Draco's query.

"Consider this," Blaise began, freeing one of his hands to wave his wand, wordlessly removing the stain of ingredients from the floor. "We Disillusion you, and you go back to your rooms to deal with your…other problem." He gave a well-placed nod to Draco's lower half. "I'll tell Sluggy that you got a bit of this Bloodroot on your hands and you're going to the Hospital Wing to get some salve. It's such a slow-paced class today that I don't think he'll care you've gone."

Draco nodded, satisfied with the plan. "Alright, but you're going to have to perform the charm. Right now, I don't think I could Summon a teabag."

Blaise did not respond, but raised his wand to begin the charm. As the feeling of a cracked egg spilling its contents down his neck began, Draco was simultaneously surprised and yet not surprised at all at how adept his friend was with nonverbal magic. Blaise had a way of never revealing his strengths, preferring to be forever underestimated by his peers. Draco, however, knew better than to doubt his friend's capabilities, nor to believe he would ever know the full extent of them.

"The charm will wear off in ten minutes, so make sure you're back in your rooms by then." Blaise advised to a seemingly empty stockroom.

"Thanks, mate," an invisible Draco breathed in reply, "really, thank you for this."

His friend smiled and nodded at where he must have presumed Draco's face to be.

"Oh, one last thing—" Draco began, but Blaise interrupted before he could finish.

"I'll make a note of all the girls in the class." Blaise smiled again, this time a touch patronizingly. "I'm leagues ahead of you, Draco. Now go have some fun with little Draco and stop wasting the precious time you have." Blaise gave him the most lascivious of Slytherin smirks, and Draco could not help but smile back at his friend's quips.

Draco took a fortifying breath and opened the door to the classroom. He heard Blaise move close behind him, and together they re-entered the hot dungeon room. Making his way towards the exit, he could not help but turn back to the classroom, unable to resist the temptation to examine the women present.

From such a distance, however, even his Veela senses could not identify the source of the intoxicating scent. All the students faced the front of the room, so he could not tell if their appearances awoke anything within him. Well, he mused with a smirk, at least your beastie isn't completely superficial. He resisted the urge to go around and inspect the female students further. Despite his Disillusioned state, the possibility of the charm wearing off in the middle of his examinations posed far too great a risk. Pushing off a nearby shelf for momentum, Draco quickly and quietly exited the room and practically sprinted up the five flights of stairs to the Restricted Section.

When he was safely within the hidden bookcase, Draco frantically pulled at his tie, nearly choking himself as he fought to remove the noose-like pressure at his neck. The buttons on his once-immaculate Oxford shirt were torn away by desperate fingers as his magical signature spread throughout the enchanted door. Not waiting for it to open all the way, Draco forced his way into the room, feeling the Disillusionment Charm pull away from his body like a shedding skin. He took the steps upstairs three at a time, but paused when he reached the landing.

It had been his intention to deal with the pressure in his groin as soon as he was alone, but he recognised through his frenzied haze that he would never achieve relief if he was this on edge. Changing course, Draco made his way into the bathroom, this time at a more controlled pace. He leant his palms against the sink ledge, his head hanging between his arms. His shoulders screamed at the contortion, but he ignored it, not having the strength to raise up and face his reflection. Without the scent of his mate filling his mind, however, Draco was no longer as numb to the pain. It spread across his back like a field of a thousand tiny thorns blooming all at once. Every micro-adjustment seemed to tear apart any skin that was already healed, and he felt the cold air of the room like a slap on his skin as it hit the fresh blood on his shoulders.

Unable to endure the pain any longer, Draco straightened and faced himself in the mirror. If he had any energy left, he would have gasped at what he saw. Despite seeing the wings back in the dungeons, it didn't feel as real until he saw all of it in his reflection. In their resting position, the wings extended a few inches above his head and about half a metre from each side of his body. They drooped downwards, reflecting his fatigued state, and it gave him a distinctly fallen-angel appearance. In the middle of his examination, his eyes caught hints of dark red streaks that stained the alabaster skin of his ribs. He twisted to get a better look at his back, ignoring the stabbing pain that ravaged his nerves. The pain made it impossible for Draco to bend past a certain point, but Draco had already seen enough. From what he could see, his back was all but covered in dried blood, the only blank spaces caused by rivulets of sweat clearing their paths. It appeared as if his back had been painted by some sadistic artist with a taste for the macabre, and now that he had seen its extent he couldn't stand to have it on his body for a second longer.

Aiming his wand behind him, he filled the large bath with tepid water and shed the remainder of his clothing. Slowly, he lowered his aching body into the water, hissing as it hit his shoulders. Soon, the stinging dulled, and Draco sighed in contentment as he leant his head back to rest on the stone ledge.

He was fortunate to have Potions right before lunch. Given that he fled to his rooms not even an hour into class, he had more than enough time to relax a bit and—hopefully—rid himself of both problems in time for Transfiguration.

The wings, however, made it difficult to become fully relaxed. Leaning against the side as he was, the wings pushed against the walls at a strange angle, which caused his back to bow and forced his body into a diagonal position with respect to the floor. Draco sighed in irritation. It would be impossible to regain control of his Veela if he couldn't get comfortable enough to calm it.

He pushed away from the walls of the bath and resigned himself to an alternate method. Testing a bit of his wandless magic, Draco Conjured a soft sponge and Summoned a few phials of soaps and oils from the shelves above him. How's that for outstanding, Granger, he thought sardonically when they all landed perfectly in his hands. Smirking to himself, he directed the focus of his ablutions to the wings—his wings—which were still soiled with blood, sweat, and the occasional potions ingredient. Slowly, he filled the sponge with water and soap and drained it first over his left wing, followed by the right, and watched the surrounding bathwater become stained from the runoff. Draco continued with his administrations, preferring to cleanse himself by hand rather than by magic, and he felt his Veela keen contentedly in response. As the water ran down his body, his new features began to feel more familiar—truly an extension of his body rather than an unwelcome adornment. He learned the specific feel of the feathers, the curve of the upper edges, the angle of the taper at the bottom. He breathed deeply into his lungs, and felt his wings rise and unfurl at the action. His eyes closed as he listened to water drip from each feather, creating a symphony that echoed around the small cavern his wings created.

Draco kept his eyes closed, focusing his energy on maintaining his calm breathing. He flexed his fingers beneath the water's surface, and the tips of the wings curled inward in response. He relaxed his hands, and his wings mirrored them. He could not yet control the wings themselves, but he was satisfied with this modicum of progress.

He moved back to the edge of the pool and braced his palms against the ledge to push himself out of the water. For a few moments, Draco stood still on the cool tile floor, letting his body drip dry as he heard the bath drain. He looked up, staring unblinkingly as his reflection gazed back.

The mirrored image seemed to blink first, breaking the contest.

Taking the bottle of oil from the bath, Draco padded out of the bathroom and into his room to stand in front of the full-length mirror by his bed. He breathed deeply as he observed his entire appearance, taking in how his body had changed from just a year prior. His Veela inheritance toned his muscles and gave him greater physical strength. Though he would never carry the imposing physique of many of his Quidditch teammates, he preferred the smaller adjustments that enhanced his genetics rather than altering them altogether. The muscles had existed all along, but the shadows that enunciated their presence were darker now, and the veins lining his arms stood stronger against the skin. In all, he retained the same overall build, which he had developed over the years to bolster his skill as a Seeker.

With seemingly automatic movements, Draco poured some of the oil into his palm, coating his hands with it before combing his fingers through his wings. Occasionally, he glanced back over his shoulder to watch himself in the mirror, noticing the healthy glow his feathers were achieving. While he felt them brush against his back earlier, he did not appreciate the variety of textures in his wings until now. The inner feathers were soft and downy, despite not having the characteristic fluffy appearance. The outer ones were sleeker, smoother—like rocks whose edges had been worn away by a strong current over the years. What fascinated Draco most, however, were the feathers that lined the edges. They were like the other outer feathers, yet they were coarse in a strange way, almost like a metallic leather, if such a material existed. He ran his hand gently down the plume, so lightly that he barely touched them. He applied just a little more pressure, and gasped when the feathers sliced through the skin of each fingertip. Despite the sting, however, the wound fascinated him, and he took several minutes to glance between his fingers and the thing responsible for his injury. The knifelike edges would account for the excruciating pain he felt when the wings exploded from his back, and Draco hoped he would not feel them slice his bones and skin every time they emerged.

He continued to massage the oil into his plumage, and did not immediately notice when his left hand diverged from its path. Almost of its own accord, his hand glided up and down his ribs, feeling sore points on his skin that would soon be marred with bruises. Fingers dragged over his stomach, the residual oil easing their path. The hand slipped lower, grabbing a gentle hold of his upper thigh while he traced the raised outline of one hipbone with his palm. His other hand continued to brush through his feathers as his left splayed across his lower abdomen. He pressed firmly onto the skin above his groin, feeling the cords of muscle push back from underneath.

He met his own eyes in the mirror the second his fingers wrapped around his cock, which seemed to have become even harder since leaving the Potions classroom. Draco watched his reflection as his hand pushed and pulled the taut skin over the hard shaft, circling the head with two fingers before running them along each side. His usual cloudy-grey eyes were now the colour of an impending storm, and Draco found he could not look away, not even to watch the rest of his body.

He felt his fingers make a tight fist around his penis, and the vein running along the underside pulsed a slow, angry beat against his palm. His slow pace was agonising, but his muscles refused to go any faster. His right hand finally removed itself from his wings to join in. With one finger, he ran along the groove between his balls to press against the soft skin at the base. Still staring straight ahead, his reflection began a steady rhythm, twisting his fist around the sides and over the crown each time he pulled up and down. In the mirror, his lips opened, releasing shaky, whispered breaths into the room. The muscles in his groin were tense. Beneath his fingertips, the skin of his balls pulled taut. The swollen head wept beads of fluid that mixed with the oil and facilitated his movements. As his breathing became more stuttered and his pace began to falter, he broke the staring contest with his reflection and shut his eyes. His orgasm crashed through him like a broken wave, and he felt the stickiness of his seed on his hand as he continued in the rush to completion.

Staggering backwards on unsteady legs, Draco felt the backs of his legs hit his bed, and he fell backwards in exhaustion onto his soft duvet. A few spots of light danced across the backs of his eyelids, and he could feel the heaviness of sleep begin to dull his mind. Just before it could overtake him, however, a pair of deep brown eyes emerged from the blackness. They did not startle him, as somehow Draco could tell they were smiling. They shone a warm gold, and it shrouded him in warmth and security. Taking one last breath, Draco allowed his body to succumb to the darkness.

Chapter 5: Invisible Ink

Cool, slender fingers traversed the ridges of his stomach, feathering over his ribcage and tracing the shadows by his hipbones. Her wrists were small—a product of her delicate bone structure—and he found he wanted nothing more than to place gentle kisses along them. He wanted to admire the vessels that lay underneath the thinly stretched skin there, feeling her life force pulse through her as he worshiped every inch of her smooth skin.

A pair of full lips followed the path her fingers made, gradually drifting lower as they travelled along his torso and causing a wave of gooseflesh to erupt down his arms. The pleasure she was bringing him was agonising, and by the slight upturn at the corners of her mouth, it was nothing less than her intended result. Her eyes flashed up at him, momentarily abandoning her task to focus her attentions on his face.

Merlin, her eyes.

Something about them made him simultaneously afraid to hold her gaze, yet despair at the prospect of ever having to look away. He felt he could drown amidst their golden depths and be nurtured by the warmth he found there. And yet he knew she held complete power over him; if she so chose, she could finish him without even so much as a prolonged stare.

She resumed her previous task, eliciting a long hiss from him as she trailed her tongue just below his hipbones. He longed to drop his head back and become immersed in the feeling of her mouth on him, but he could not bring himself to tear his gaze away from such a magnificent sight. She met his eyes once again as her lips finally touched the part of him that longed for her so terribly, and he heard an undignified groan escape from deep within him. Burying a hand in her hair, he marvelled at the soft curls. He expected them to be coarser given the tangled mane they formed, though he acknowledged with an inward smirk that he probably deserved much of the blame for their messy appearance. Another low hiss passed his lips as her tongue swirled around him, mixing her saliva with his own lubrication and allowing her fingers to join in smoothly.

He knew from the second her fingertips grazed the underside of him that he was gone. It was a pathetic showing to be sure; she had been working him for only a few minutes and he was already fit to explode like an inexperienced Fifth Year. He could feel the pressure building within him, and nearly succumbed to the temptation to let his eyes drift shut when she returned her gaze to him, as if she were daring him to look away. Her eyes dancing with a tantalising mixture of lust and mischief, she took him into her mouth, slipping lower, and lower, and lower, his breath growing shallower all the while. She let her eyes close briefly while she took all of him in, her lashes tickling his pelvis for just a moment as the tip of him hit the back of her throat.

His final exhale left him in the form of a litany of curses that filled the heavy air between them. The pressure beneath his groin had reached its maximum, and he knew he was mere seconds away from completion. The edges of his vision darkened as his body tensed, and he felt the last fragments of conscious thought leave him as her cheeks hollowed, sucking him hard into her mouth. His back bowed above the bed, one hand tangled in her hair and the other grasping the sheets as though they were all that anchored him to this earth. She hummed in pleasure at his responses to her, and the vibrations sent him spiralling into an abyss of pure desire for his witch. At last, he felt the taught cord of his resolve snap and her golden eyes met his again as his release erupted from him—

"Why can't we stick with the classics and make the sculptures shaped like boars' heads?"

Draco barely kept his expletive silent as he surreptitiously checked to see if anyone had noticed him daydreaming.

The images from his dream had haunted him ever since he awoke after that eventful afternoon in Potions, covered in the evidence of his imagination being just as active while he slept. Every time Draco closed his eyes, the golden ones of the mysterious woman would reappear and reignite the fire that threatened to consume him. As the days passed, the dream had grown clearer and more complete in his memory. At first, it had driven him spare to have gaps in his recollection. Gradually, however, a few sparks of gold would dance behind his eyelids, as though they were trying to trigger a memory hidden far below the surface. At the time, it had felt about as difficult as trying to remove a rug from beneath an enormous boulder—now, he almost wished he had left it well alone. Those golden sparks had first developed into brief images of hands and lips dashing across his vision before dissipating, but when all the gaps filled, the entire scene was provocative enough to make even him blush at the thought of it. It didn't help that the sequence seemed to be on an infinite loop in his mind, and that despite its inconvenience he longed for it whenever he was granted a reprieve. That he was forced to remain in this Prefects meeting—using every sliver of his self-control to subdue his arousal and avoid another incident like the one in Potions—was a particular brand of torture Draco wouldn't wish upon any man. And in this case, that term "torture" was about as literal as it could ever be.

The meetings were usually no more than an annoying inconvenience, but in the last few weeks they had become increasingly unbearable, and combined with his current discomfort they were now positively brutal. It also didn't help that his and Granger's rapport had not improved since their fight a fortnight ago. She wasn't directly antagonistic towards him, but she made great strides to avoid him at every turn. Normally, he would welcome such an arrangement, as it had constituted the structure of their relationship for years. But now that they were supposed to be partners, even he recognised that they needed to communicate—and preferably amicably so—on at least one or two key occasions. And this was one of those occasions.

Even without their regular classwork and the end-of-term exams, the days leading up to the holiday were sure to be insanely busy and stressful. McGonagall would be announcing the upcoming Winter Ball at tonight's dinner, which meant he and the rest of the Prefects had officially three weeks to finish preparations. It was no small project, either; before the start of term he and his "partner" had devised a plan to split up the tasks, but getting them completed was a whole separate problem altogether. Trying to get Prefects from four different houses and as many class years to agree on decorations, music, refreshments, and all other mind-numbing details was a near impossibility, even when the Head Students were getting along.

The most recent problem arose when the only still-living Creevey brother suggested decorative ice sculptures. Pansy and Theo proposed they be shaped like dragons, since it would mirror the school's maxim. Surprising everyone in the room, Granger agreed with his Slytherin friends, but then the utterly useless MacMillan had thrown in his own two knuts with the boar's head concept. In these meetings, if a Gryffindor wasn't the one giving him an aneurysm, it seemed a Hufflepuff would always be more than happy to volunteer for the task. After a seemingly endless discussion regarding which animal was more spirited, or which was more "inviting" (Merlin give him a swift death), Patil finally chimed in and agreed with the first suggestion (bless her), which broke the tie.

Honestly, though the Prefects' incessant bickering was a legitimate cause for his frustration, it was nowhere near the principal reason Draco so desperately wanted to abscond back to his rooms.

A few days past, as he was readying to leave the Great Hall from lunch, a letter had arrived for Draco with his father's elegant script inscribed on the front. He hadn't been able to extract himself from his friends and classmates until the end of the day, and yet something kept him from breaking the seal even then.

He had first written to his father after waking from his wing-induced haze and noticing the lack of feathers pressing into his back. Relieved, he had arisen from his bed, feeling an uncomfortable rush of blood to his head and an incredible stiffness in his shoulders. Merlin, it had felt like he slept on a bed of spiked bricks. He moved to the mirror, blushing a little when he remembered what transpired there just a few hours earlier. Not pausing long enough to dwell on his actions, he twisted his body to inspect his back, and noticed only a pair of faint pink lines marking the spots where his wings emerged. He had been thankful that there were no unsightly gashes to be seen.

Despite spending only a small amount of time with his new extremities, he had felt strangely naked without them. Well, technically he was naked at the time, but that was beside the point. Now more than ever, he had felt like a part of himself was missing. He supposed his Veela had become overly stimulated by the prospect of sensing his mate was so close by—hence the wings—and it became even more distressed to be without her.

Draco had redressed quickly, checking his watch and seeing he still had time before he would need to leave for Transfiguration. He had to know more about what happened; neither of his parents ever mentioned anything about wings. He wasn't particularly against having them—they certainly posed quite an inconvenience in times like that morning, but otherwise he was almost fond of them. Regardless, they were an unexpected development, and Draco needed to resolve that fact. He had grabbed a scrap of parchment from his desk and scribbled a messy letter to his father, cringing at how his mother would have scolded him for his untidy penmanship. He did not have time for such formalities, however, and instead focused on explaining in detail what happened.

Obviously, he left out some of the messier specifics.

Draco had received a response from his father a few days later, and Lucius' own confusion at the events had been equally apparent in his words. His father had told him to be patient whilst he scoured the Manor's libraries for anything that could shed light on the issue. It had taken over a week, and now the letter was all but scorching a hole through Draco's pocket. Though he could not bring himself to read it when it first arrived, now it was all he could think about. His mate had to be close by—he seldom went half a day without feeling the familiar discomfort in his back, the cause of which he could now properly attribute—and now that it was becoming damn near impossible to ignore his Veela, he couldn't go on any longer without knowing what was happening to his body.

Of course, it didn't help that thoughts of the upcoming ball were bringing him even more anxiety. Now that he established his mate was indeed one of the female students at Hogwarts (he was denying all possibility that she could be one of the professors—fate could only be so cruel to a person in one lifetime), he would spend the entire night of the ball knowing he was in the same room as her. Obviously, he had been in the same room as her before (unless the whole wing incident was just a fluke), but he hadn't really known about that until afterwards. The ball was sure to drive him insane, as not only would he know his mate was within reach, but she would likely be in the arms of another man. Draco knew from his research that Veela were highly protective and possessive creatures, but he wasn't keen to learn how such jealousy would look on him.

Blaise had already helped him devise an escape route, just in case anything like the events of Potions class happened again. He very much hoped nothing did happen, mostly because his robes were far too expensive to become ruined by a pair of ruthless wings.

His friend had also given him the list of female students who were in their Potions class on that fateful day, but it had been largely unenlightening. He may not know exactly who his lifelong mate would be, but he had a certain level of confidence to know who it wasn't. It was nothing personal against the girls in question, in fact he was sure most of them would have no trouble charming the robes off their own set of lucky wizards. They just wouldn't be his robes. No one on the list of seventh- and eighth-year Gryffindors and Slytherins excited him at all, not even negatively. He read over the list so many times he had memorised it, hoping that eventually one of the names would stand out. But other than the girls who were already his friends, whom he would never consider romantically in a millennium, he was just ambivalent towards all of them:

Dunbar

Millie

Pansy

Daphne

Davis

Patil (the dumber one)

Midgen

Morag

She-Weasel

Draco supposed Weaslette was fiery enough; in fact, she'd held her own against him in more than one Quidditch match. But there was no way the girl was his mate—far too much family baggage there. In the end, he concluded that Blaise had been wrong to assume his mate was in the Potions classroom at the time his wings emerged, which left his list of potential partners no shorter than before. Well, technically he eliminated all the girls on Blaise's list, so he was a whopping…nine girls further along than before. Wonderful progress.

One of the younger Gryffindor Prefects reminded him of his current predicament by winning this year's "Biggest Idiot" award. She suggested that refreshment trays should hover over people's heads in the ballroom, so that everyone could get a drink when they wanted one, and they wouldn't have to delegate floor space for a refreshment table. He noticed Granger was unsuccessfully attempting to disguise a grimace.

"That might help avoid the problem of people spiking the punch," he heard her reply, probably in the nicest tone she could manage, "but it exponentially increases the chances of getting spilled drinks and broken glass all over the floor. Anyway, we're already delegating space for the food, so we won't gain that much by cutting out the drinks."

Granger seemed to have this covered. Draco, meanwhile, wasn't the least bit interested in helping plan for the ruddy ball. He didn't even like balls, really. When he was a child, his parents never let him accompany them to the parties and galas held at the Manor, as they didn't trust him to rein in his rambunctious character for an entire evening. So, he and his favourite house elf, Muppy, would spend the nights peeking through gaps in the doors to the ballroom, watching men in dapper dark robes spin around pretty women in colourful dresses. When he was finally allowed to attend as a young teenager, all the years of pent-up excitement culminated in a night of severe disappointment. At first, he preened at the attention many of the society women were paying him, especially when they pushed their daughters towards him and encouraged him to dance with them. Draco loved dancing, especially with so many pretty girls. During a reprieve, however, he felt the heavy hand of his father on his shoulder, who saw fit to remind him of their heritage and that any girl so obviously after the family fortune could never be the one.

Ever since that night, parties were forever tainted, his father's words constantly echoing through his head. In fact, almost all his encounters with girls had become overshadowed with those words. He knew that, eventually, he would find his mate, and she would be perfect for him. Until then, his parents had encouraged him to date, hoping it would make it easier for him to find his mate when the time came. However, he could never shake the paranoia that most girls were more interested in the contents of his Gringotts account than they were in him as a person. Other than Pansy, who he trusted both as a friend and as someone who definitely didn't need his money, he never went past casual with anyone.

He would be lying to himself if he claimed his romantic history (or lack thereof) didn't worry him now. He had only been in one relationship, and even that had just been a continuation of his existing friendship with Pansy, with a few…added benefits. Now, he was supposed to jump into a lifelong, committed relationship, and even he could admit that he wanted it to be based upon more than just sex. Sex and physical compatibility were crucial, obviously, but he conceded that he should probably have the occasional conversation with his mate throughout their relationship.

Draco hadn't discussed any of this with Blaise, who was still the only one of his friends who knew of his problem. His romantic shortcomings weren't something he was excited to talk about with anyone, especially another wizard, and especially another wizard like Blaise, who would gladly take the mick out of him given the opportunity.

Regardless, the most important thing was that he fully understood what was happening to him. To do that, he needed to know what his father discovered, and to do that, he needed to clear out of this blasted meeting. He checked his watch, cursing as he realised the meeting was meant to have ended already.

He waited for some Hufflepuff (whose name he had long since forgotten) to finish his recommendation for floating icicles before interjecting.

"As much fun as this is, our meeting has unfortunately run over. I know most of us will want to drop off our things before dinner, so we shan't hold you up any longer. If any of you have any further suggestions, comments, or concerns before next week, direct them to Granger or myself and we'll add them to the agenda."

Draco hadn't even finished speaking before he was out of his seat and heading for the door. From behind him, he could hear the whining, nasally voice of Michael Corner asking Granger if she could stay behind for a few minutes and go over some details of the ball. He let out a snort, recognising Corner's question as a pathetic façade. If the man wanted to make an idiot out of himself by asking Granger to the ball, Draco surely wasn't going to stop him. Too bad he had rejection coming right towards him, if the Weasel were to have anything to say about it.

He continued to rush out of the room, focusing on his desperation to read the letter instead of the annoying itch on his nape and feelings of oncoming nausea.

Draco leapt up the castle stairs as quickly yet inconspicuously as possible. Few students meandered through the corridors, but regardless Draco was not interested in garnering any unnecessary attention. When he reached the common room, he dropped his bag and plopped unceremoniously onto one of the chairs around the large table.

Barely avoiding a papercut in his haste to retrieve the letter from his robes, he tore through the emerald wax and uncovered his father's writing.

Draco,

I know it has taken too long for me to give you a response. As you may remember, our family library is one of, if not the most extensive source of Veela literature in existence. And yet, even ours is far from complete. I was however, able to unearth some insight into your problem.

It was much a surprise for your mother and I to hear about this development as it was for you, though you may dispute this. It is not a common occurrence for a Veela, especially a male one, to sprout wings, and as far as I could discover it has not happened in our lineage for some twelve generations. Even then, the colouring you described differs from our ancestor's, though that could be as insignificant as a difference in eye colour.

One thing that is significant, and something that is consistent across all sources, is that the wings foreshadow the strongest of all Veela bonds. You know that all Veela pairings constitute incredibly powerful partnerships based upon intense love, trust, and passion. But it is said that the pairings for which wings emerge are the strongest of the strong. The purpose of the wings is to give the male Veela in question a heightened ability to win over his mate, and fight for her if necessary, to ensure that bonding occurs.

I know you expressed to your mother that you had doubts about your future mating. I hope this information serves to give you hope, and further incentivises you towards finding your mate soon. I can speak to the reward that doing so will bring you, and what the books say is true: your future union will be even more powerful than mine. Your mate is sure to be a fearsome witch to behold.

Do not hesitate to contact me if there are any other developments. Your mother sends her love.

– Lucius

His father only ever signed letters as "Lucius". Even to Draco, the wizard's own son, the signature would never read as "Father", or—Merlin forbid—the ever informal "Dad". However, Draco knew this was the least important part of the whole letter.

Though he had imagined thousands of other explanations of various probabilities, this one seemed the most obvious and still the most unbelievable of all of them, which was probably why he didn't consider it before. And yet, he still had difficulty processing the new information. Why should his mating be any more powerful than those of ancestors? His parents had told him that his mate must be intellectually and magically gifted, if she were to be considered as his equal. But he already came from a line of powerful witches and wizards, so why was his pairing fated to supersede those of the previous dozen generations?

He didn't have long to ruminate on the issue as Granger suddenly burst through the common room door. He was surprised not to have heard her stomping in the outer stairwell, given her apparent mood. Thankfully, he did not seem to be the focus of her anger this time, as he heard her breathe a few unexpectedly colourful expletives, followed by "ruddy Hufflepuffs" as she stormed towards the stairs. Well, at least they could agree on one thing.

Draco swiftly tucked the letter from his father beneath his robes as she came nearer, not ready to share the information it held with anyone yet, let alone the Head Girl. She must have caught his movements, however, as she slowed to a halt and narrowed her eyes at him menacingly.

"Oh, so you're allowed to read my letters, but Merlin forbid I contaminate one of yours?" She spat at him ferociously.

"Your words, not mine," he replied defensively, raising both palms in a conciliatory fashion, "it's just rather private, is all."

"Oh, and mine wasn't?" Her tone was not forgiving in the least. "Well, excuse me whilst I let the world know that a Malfoy's privacy is forever paramount, and that of a Mudblood like me is of next to no importance." The sneer that contorted her face could rival those of all the Slytherins combined, and he was surprised to note how much it affected him.

Granger angrily spun on her heel and moved to continue her warpath up to her rooms. But before he could stop himself, he pushed out of his chair far enough to grab her wrist, stopping her in her tracks. His hold was fleeting, however, as almost as soon as his fingers wrapped around her skin, a powerful force pushed him back several paces. He furrowed his brows at the brunette. She must be well past furious if her magic was out of control enough for her to send wandless and nonverbal Repelling Charms across her whole body.

"Bloody hell, Granger, what was that for?" He shouted at the witch.

"What are you on about?"

"Me?" He replied in disbelief. "You fucking shocked me you bint!"

"I didn't do anything to you. Even if my magic isn't as pure—" she spat the word at him as she stalked back into his personal space, pointing a slender finger first at his face and then at the floor, "—as yours, it is refined enough to be under my control."

"Whatever you need to tell yourself, Granger, but you were the one who brought up blood purity, not me."

It was a legitimate point. Truthfully, he had never actually ascribed to the ideals of blood purity that were popular within his parents' social sphere. Not that Granger—or anyone else for that matter—should know that, of course. He and his family played along with the notions of blood bias, but in true Slytherin form, it was more for the purpose of self-preservation than anything else. Keeping a family secret as big as the Malfoy's heritage was no small challenge, especially from such a powerful Legilimens as the Dark Lord. Staunch blood purists disliked magical creatures just as much as mixed blood, and while Veela were not the most offensive to them, they would still target the Malfoys if they knew the truth. His family, as far as the Dark Lord and his followers would be concerned, had been stealing away and defiling the noblest of pureblood women for generations. His parents determined that the best way to keep their secret hidden and their family safe was to slither their way into the Dark Lord's most inner circle. Despite the many other problems the Dark wizard might have had with Draco's family, he never suspected them of having anything other than the purest of pure bloodlines.

Contrary to popular belief, however, Draco and his family cared fuck all about blood purity. Frankly, they would all be a bunch of hypocritical shits if they thought otherwise. But now, he had to live with the vast majority of the Wizarding World, including the enraged witch before him, thinking he was a bigot. However, it was still a small price to pay for his whole family surviving the past twenty years.

"Whatever. You were probably thinking it anyway, even if you didn't say it." The Head Girl brought him back to the conversation with her nearly tangible anger. Her face was so close to his that he could feel her breath hitting his face with every word she threw at him.

This time, Draco didn't stop her as she huffed her way up the stairs.

"If you say so," he twittered at her retreating form, surprisingly amused at the occurrence. Even from his place in the Common Room, he could hear her snort echo down the stone stairway from above.

It was strange how quickly he fell back into his old routine regarding Granger. As soon as the focus of her anger shifted from him onto some other poor sod, it seemed like they were ready to stop ignoring each other and return to their sharp banter. Either that or he couldn't stand not being her primary source of antagonism. He smirked, unable to deny how much fun it was to watch her fume.

In need of further distraction from his father's letter, Draco decided to go to dinner early that night. Given the time, he was unsurprised to see only Theo sat in their regular spot at the Slytherin table, but it was surprising to realise the table was not littered with the evening edition of even a single Wizarding newspaper. His friend, an aspiring politician who used every sliver of his free time to inform himself of the goings-on of the world, simply sat at the mostly empty table with his focus directed towards slicing his roast into perfectly even chunks.

There weren't many people who could intimidate Draco. Other than his father, he was hard pressed to name a single witch or wizard who had such an effect on him. His mother certainly came close, but her talents resided in effusing such a severe aura of disappointment that it made his insides want to fold over on itself and recede into the deepest pit of his stomach. That was a whole separate category from his father, whose icy glare was unparalleled in its ability to turn his organs to dust. Draco was quite certain he had not even experienced the worst of his father's intimidation tactics, which only served to frighten him all the more.

Sitting at the Slytherin table, however, Draco was reminded of the third category. The piercing stare of Theodore Nott was simultaneously indifferent and challenging—so much so that it was deeply unsettling. Draco had to fight to keep the twitch out of his eyes as he held his friend's gaze, which seemed powerful enough to melt the skin right off his face. Eventually, Theo's interest in him appeared to wane, as he returned to his roast with increasingly calculated slices. Draco's eyes burned as he finally allowed himself to blink, his lids seeming to drag over the dry orbs. After several minutes of sitting motionless across from his fellow Slytherin, who made no move to engage him in conversation, Draco cracked.

"The fuck is wrong with you?" He asked incredulously.

Theo looked up languidly from his meal, still chewing while bearing that same combination of aggravation and boredom in his dark eyes. He laid his utensils on the edge of his plate—taking care to ensure they were perfectly parallel—before resting his elbows on the table and interlocking his thin fingers.

"Were you ever going to tell me?" Theo's drawl was an almost perfect mask, infused with just enough disinterest to make most people think he was unaffected. But Draco knew more than most about masks, and could sense underlying hints of something else.

Hurt.

Well shit.

"Tell you what?" Draco wasn't stupid, he was almost certain what this was about. But he couldn't just give in without total assurance.

His friend merely scoffed, casting his eyes back down at the table. "Whatever, Draco," he replied, lifting his legs over the bench as he made to leave. If that wasn't a clear indication, Draco didn't know what else was. Theo knew. Draco didn't know how he knew, but he knew. And his friend was pissed. Very pissed.

"Theo," Draco said through his teeth, annoyed at having to be contrite for once. "Just hold on a minute."

Theo looked down at him, all traces of apathy having left his eyes. He jerked his chin upwards, signalling Draco to make a move. In response, Draco cast his eyes at the spot Theo had vacated and back at him, and was encouraged when Theo followed the prompt and retook his seat.

"So, I guess you know." Draco drawled uneasily.

"How astute of you to notice."

"Okay, so what's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Theo's voice was harsh. "Seriously? You went to Blaise with this and didn't even stop to think that maybe, I could have helped too?"

"It wasn't like that. Blaise was just…there at the right place and the right time and got it out of me." Draco tried to placate the hurt wizard. "I wasn't planning on telling him—or anyone else—initially, if that's any consolation."

"Well that just makes you even stupider than I thought."

He bit his tongue on the side of his mouth. He was never very good at taking criticism, but he was trying to convince himself that he deserved to be told off.

Theo seemed to take his lack of a comeback as a sufficient apology, as Draco noticed a hint of a smirk start to appear on his friend's face.

"Well, let's see the list, then." Theo remarked offhandedly as he resumed eating his dinner.

"What list?" Draco asked, confused.

Theo looked up from his plate, his face now bearing a look of annoyance and impatience. "Keep up, Draco. The list of girls from that one Potions lesson." At Draco's continued silence, his friend rolled his eyes and continued. "The one that Blaise gave you during breakfast a few weeks ago—and not very subtly done, in my opinion."

Draco was sure his face was contorting even more into a look of totally unflattering disbelief with each word coming from Theo's mouth.

"How the fuck do you know all of this?" He sputtered. "You're not even in Potions with us."

Theo's small smirk grew significantly. "You might fool the Gryffindors, but you're really not as mysterious as you'd like to think."

Draco rolled his eyes and huffed. What a fantastic time for him to be losing his edge.

"Oh also, Blaise told me."

"You cunt."

"Guilty." Theo continued to smirk as he skewered another mouthful of beef.

Draco scowled at his own plate of food, choosing to take his anger out on the roast.

"Anyway," Theo drawled as he snapped his fingers in Draco's face, "the list, please."

"I'm not a bloody dog," he said as he swatted Theo's fingers away.

"Maybe not, but technically you're not really human either."

"Snap at me again and I'll show you how inhuman I am."

"Cute. Did you want my help or not?" His friend raised his brows and sent him a challenging look.

Grinding his teeth, Draco held Theo's gaze for a few long moments. He weighed his options briefly, and audibly grumbled as he dug into his robe pockets for the list. Theo may have been a royal arsehole, but he was also annoyingly clever and an invaluable resource—one that Draco would be stupid to pass up.

Theo's eyes lit up as the parchment came into view, and he all but dove over the table to snatch it from Draco's grasp. Holding it before his face with both hands, he perused the names written in black ink.

"None of these mean anything to you?" His friend asked.

Draco rubbed the nape of his neck, feeling slightly awkward admitting his lack of progress. "Not really, no."

Theo simply hummed in reply, squinting at the somewhat crumpled page. After a few moments, he folded the list over his index finger and handed it back to Draco. "You forgot Granger," he mentioned as he did so.

"What?"

"You're slow today, mate. Granger? Gryffindor princess, muggleborn extraordinaire, kind of a swotty bitch, the girl you share a dorm with? Remember her?"

"I know who Granger is," Draco replied shortly.

"Well, it seems you forgot she's your bloody Potions partner, since you left her off the list. You complain about her often enough that probably everyone else would remember that except for you."

Draco quickly unfolded the parchment and scanned down the list of names. Sure enough, Granger's name was missing.

"Oh, fuck."

---

"I can't be this predictable and wear my own House colour," Hermione remarked unenthusiastically from within her dressing room.

"Can I just see it, please?" She heard her friend plead.

She and Ginny had been at it for hours now, looking for robes for the upcoming ball. Now that they were both of age, they had been free to Apparate to and from Hogsmeade at their disposal, so long as they did not abuse the privilege. When Gladrags held nothing of interest to either of them, they left Hogsmeade in search of shops with wider selections.

Madam Malkins was also a bust, however, along with Twilfitt and Tattings and nearly every other shop on the Alley. Truthfully, they deserved much of the blame for their predicament, as they had left their shopping until the night before the ball, and the Hogwarts population probably cleared out much of the desirable inventory. They had been ready to give up hope when they happened upon a tiny shop hidden at the very end of the street, almost no larger than the adjacent café.

It might as well have been a treasure trove. The walls were lined with beautiful robes of every colour, style, and texture. The prices weren't ghastly either.

Ginny essentially took over the entire excursion, nixing each and every dress Hermione liked as "too modest" or "too plain" or "too Madam-Pince-esque", whatever that meant. She explained to her feisty friend that she had no intention of walking into the ball looking like a classless harlot, but Ginny just gave her sass about a "classless harlot always turning more heads than a classy nun."

She didn't want to turn heads, though. She liked to blend in. Though it would be impossible for her to do so as Head Girl, she could at least not make the experience wholly worse than it had to be.

Bending to the redhead's will, Hermione stepped out of the private room and showed her friend the latest in the long line of frocks. This one was a deep crimson, and if she were in any other House she might have considered it. The cut was very flattering, and by the look on Ginny's face, it passed her "anti-librarian" test, as she liked to call it. Hermione liked that it clung to her body and made her look like she had real curves, tapering out just slightly around her thighs to allow for better movement. The beaded, sleeveless straps fell into a simple, scooped neckline. Other than the colour, the other major detractor for Hermione was the back, which was completely devoid of all material. The dress started up again right above the base of her spine—low enough to make her both cold and self-conscious.

"You look gorgeous!" Ginny practically squealed. She looked like she could be watching her daughter pick out a wedding dress, with all the hand clasping and sighing going on.

"Well, as I said," Hermione rebutted acerbically, "I'm not buying anything red. I refuse to listen to 'well don't you look spirited' and 'showing some House pride, are you?' for the whole night."

"Who says that?"

"Everyone!"

"So…no one, you mean." Ginny's smirk was hardly withheld.

Hermione glowered at the girl. "No, Ginevra," placing extra emphasis on the name she knew the witch hated, "loads of people said things like that when we went that 'War Heroes' gala in the summer."

"That gala was full of old, farting wizards and shrivelled witches who probably would have pinched your cheek if given the chance. They're hardly an example of what a ballroom of people born in this century would say."

Hermione didn't have a good enough retort, and she was forced to admit her logic was slightly flawed. She would never admit that aloud, though. "Regardless, I only tried this on because you say you'd hex me if I didn't. This colour is ruined for me, and besides, you said if I didn't feel comfortable in a dress then I shouldn't wear it."

Ginny harrumphed. "Fine. Go be a traitor to your fellow Gryffindors and try on that other one."

Hermione smirked in triumph and practically waltzed back to her dressing room. She eyed the next frock with excitement and hesitation. It had caught her eye almost immediately after she entered the small shop, but again she was unsure about the colour. She might get comments about "House spirit" and whatnot with a red dress, but Godric knew the kind of quips she would get with wearing a green one.

But it was just so…alluring, she supposed. She couldn't find the right words to describe it, really. Something about it just drew her in and begged her to feel the soft material against her skin. She quickly slipped out of the first dress and stepped into the one in question.

Well, if she couldn't find the words before, now she was positively speechless.

It was the kind of piece she would normally never pick. It was exciting in its simplicity, bold, and—dare she say it—sexy. It had the same general silhouette as the red dress, in that it clung to her curves until about mid-thigh. But instead of flaring out, a long slit ran up one side of the dress, displaying an almost indecent amount of leg. In fact, the whole dress toed the line perfectly between classy and licentious. The back on this one was also non-existent, although it restarted a little higher up her back than the previous dress had done. She was thankful for it, otherwise she would have been constantly fretting about whether her arse was about to sneak out.

What she loved the most, however, was the neckline. At the level of her breasts, the top of the gown sloped upwards to wrap around her neck, whereupon a thin strap wrapped around her nape to form a high-necked halter. Perhaps it was not as risqué as the previous frock, but this one still hinted at her curves without giving too much away, doing more to showcase her tanned shoulders and the outer tips of her collarbones.

She loved it, and she loved the colour, even if it was the symbol of her rival House. It wasn't quite emerald-green; it was much darker, closer to the colour of the Forbidden Forest at night. She was almost nervous to show Ginny, fearing that her friend would hate the one to which she had nearly become committed. It was a stupid thing to worry about—it was just a ruddy dress after all. Strangely though, Hermione always strayed from her rational frame of mind when it came to formal events like this. But was it so terrible to want to look and feel good about herself just once a year?

And she definitely felt good. Bearing that in mind, she smoothed her face into what she hoped was a blank countenance, and tried to brace herself for whatever Ginny would throw at her.

"Okay, I'm coming out again." She was proud that her voice held steady despite her nerves.

She stepped out from behind the curtain, trying to read every change in her friend's face for clues as to her opinion. Ginny's face, however, was equally as emotionless.

"Well?" Hermione prompted. "What do you think?"

Ginny stayed silent for a few long moments. Suddenly, the corner of her mouth turned up ever so slightly, and she let out a breathy laugh.

"Sweet Circe, Hermione."

"What? Do you hate it?"

"Are you joking?" Her friend only laughed harder. "You're not going to find one better than that."

Hermione couldn't hold in the huge—and probably dopey—smile and blush that spread across her cheeks. "You really think so?"

"Um, absolutely. Give us a spin!" She enunciated the command by twirling her forefinger a few times.

Hermione did as she bade, enjoying the feel of the soft fabric as it grazed her calves. She also couldn't help but giggle as she did so, becoming increasingly convinced her choice was the right one.

"I'm glad you like it," Hermione continued to giggle, "I just might've had a fit if you didn't."

"Yeah well, I might love it more than you do, actually. Care to trade?"

"Funny, Gin. Unfortunately, I wore robes too similar to yours to your brother's wedding and the Yule Ball, so I've used up my quota for that colour."

"You just can't stand being predictable, can you?" Ginny said, teasingly.

"I loathe nothing more."

The two witches ceased their giggling for a few seconds as they focused on admiring the way Hermione's gown swished and flowed as she spun round. When she finally stood still, Ginny broke the silence.

"You might cause one or two strokes among the male population, though."

Her comment confused her for a second. "Why? Is the colour really that controversial?"

"Oh no, that's not what I meant," Ginny quickly backpedalled, "I just think perhaps some will like it a bit too much."

A quiet hum was Hermione's only form of reply. She did like the idea of finally being appealing, though she was disappointed she wouldn't be able to use the dress to appeal to Ron more than anything else.

Well, that was both true and untrue, now that she thought about it.

She wanted Ron to want her, that much was obviously true. She wanted Ron to think she was beautiful—that was no lie, either. But honestly, she didn't know if she wanted the things that would surely follow her becoming physically appealing to him. Ron always initiated that side of their relationship, as she never felt comfortable starting things when she knew she lacked the experience to be properly good at them. Once, he became a bit terse with her for being so prudish, and told her that at some point she would have to accept that physicality was necessary for their relationship to flourish. She was defensive and avoidant about it at first, but she wanted Ron to want her, really want her, and she was beginning to recognise that achieving that would require some sacrifices.

Thankfully, she could ignore that issue for at least a little while longer. Ron said in his letter than he would be visiting soon, but had not yet given her any new notice for when that would be. Part of Hermione expected he would continue to put it off, and the next time she would see him would be over the Christmas holiday.

Refocusing on the task at hand, Hermione and Ginny spent another hour rounding out their outfits, picking out shoes and jewellery to complement the gowns. Ginny had a relatively easy time, quickly finding a pair of strappy silver pumps and matching droplet earrings to go with her light purple robes. Hermione took a bit longer, but in the end she settled on a set of nude suede heels and glass earrings of the same hue, and the two witches' work was finally complete.

xx

By half three the following day, Hermione was exhausted. After having breakfast with Ginny, her morning was spent helping the Prefects set up for the evening. She had spent hours making decorative icicles, readying the stage for the band, Charming the floor to appear snow-laden, among hundreds of other tasks. It might have seemed relatively straightforward, given that magic allowed for simple Conjuring, Summoning, rearranging, and lifting—tasks that would otherwise be much more time- and energy-consuming without it—but the job was rather more complicated than that. Every time she Charmed a candle to hover high above the floor, she had to add multiple Stasis Charms to ensure it wouldn't die out, or drip wax onto the dancers, or fall from its position—not to mention the Repelling Spells needed to prevent disorderly students from playing with them.

Magic and spells allowed for many things that would be otherwise impossible or tedious, but it would be a major oversight to assume they didn't come with their own list of caveats. Overall, Hogwarts students were a well-behaved bunch, yet there were always one or two trying to earn the title of the next Fred or George Weasley, and no amount of preparation ever seemed to be sufficient when those students made themselves known.

She and Malfoy had both retreated to their respective rooms after the preparations were completed, enduring a horribly awkward walk back from the Great Hall together. Hermione thought it might have been less uncomfortable given they just spent hours upon hours completing repetitive spellwork together, and for her part she was too drained to care about the proximity of wizard who shared her bedroom wall. But Draco visibly tensed when he saw they would be sharing the trek up the four storeys to their Common Room, and seemed to make a strong effort to avoid eye contact the whole way there.

Hermione opted for a long bath upon returning to their sanctuary, hoping the steam and soaps would wash away the ache of the morning and dull her thoughts enough to take a nap.

Unfortunately, it had accomplished just the opposite. Whilst attempting to shave her legs, she gave herself no fewer than twelve nicks and cuts on her ankles and knees. Using magic to shave was a tricky business; usually, it avoided all possibility of injury, but when the spell was cast at all improperly, it felt like being stung by a baby Blast-Ended Skrewt. She cast all the standard healing charms, of course, but they did nothing to alleviate the burn of her frustration at making such a novice error.

She wrapped her dripping hair in a towel and donned her favourite silk dressing gown. One of the few luxuries she allowed herself, she relished in the way the expensive fabric swished across her thighs as she strode across her room

Speaking of expensive fabric, Hermione eyed the garment bag hanging on the outside of her closet door, and she sighed contentedly as she remembered what it held within. Just as she was about to give into temptation and try it on again, she heard a knock at the common room door. She looked up in confusion—to her knowledge, she wasn't expecting visitors, and Malfoy was likely still asleep in the next room. Stealing one last look of longing at the garment bag, she secured the tie on her robe and descended the flight of stairs to the common room. As she grasped the heavy, iron-wrought handle of the door, she primed herself to face one of Malfoy's irritating friends. She hoped it would not take too long to tell them he was asleep so they would go away and reduce the number of bothersome Slytherins to one.

To her surprise, the people on the other side of the door weren't Slytherins at all.

"Hermione!" Harry and Ron sang her name like a chorus as they bounded through the doorway. Harry quickly drew her into a hug whilst Ron began to inspect the common room.

Hermione was momentarily speechless, not expecting to see her friends until the holidays. After overcoming her shock, she regained her voice to splutter a greeting to the two wizards.

"What are you boys doing here?" She exclaimed, her side pressing tightly against Harry's as he slung an arm around her shoulders. "Not that I'm not happy to see you both, you just took me by surprise, is all."

Harry simply chuckled beside her, making her own body vibrate due to their proximity. "That was the reaction we were hoping for. Ginny told me about the ball a few weeks ago, so Ron and I decided we might as well save the two of you from having to go alone."

She slapped Harry gently on the chest as the two boys snickered at her. "I'll have you know the both of us could have got dates if we wanted to do. Michael Corner was quite keen."

"Even better that we came, then," Ron added, "I would never have let a smarmy bloke like Corner escort you anywhere."

Hermione ignored the involuntary bristle that made her eye twitch. It would do no good to have another discussion about him allowing her to do anything when he'd gone out of his way to do something so nice for her. It was very sweet, actually, that he was giving up part of his weekend to spend time with her, and she relayed her gratefulness to her friends.

"Not like we had much better to do." Ron chuffed, his back to her and Harry as he craned his neck to look up the stairs to the private rooms. "Even going to the pub with Quidditch players every Saturday can get boring, sometimes." The mischievous smile he threw over his shoulder made Hermione not believe his words for second. She doubted there was anything Ron would rather do on a night off than get drinks with Quidditch players.

Still, Hermione knew how much Ron disliked school events, and especially those that involved dancing. It was moments like these that reminded her why she was foolish ever to think she would be happier with someone else. Ron's sweeter moments may have been few and far between, but she knew he cared about her, and he would be with her when it counted.

"Does Ginny know you're here?" She asked, remembering the other Weasley was due to show up in her rooms momentarily so the two witches could get ready together.

"No, not yet," Harry smiled again, clearly enjoying being so conspiratorial, "we were headed up to Gryffindor Tower after this to surprise her next."

"Save yourselves the climb—she should be here any minute now."

As if on cue, a sharp knock at the common room door had Hermione disentangling herself from Harry and moving to let in her unsuspecting friend.

"I've come prepared!" Ginny burst into the room, barely waiting for the door to open enough to squeeze through. Her head and arms were buried in one of the main bags slung over her shoulders, obscuring her view of room's occupants.

"Gin," Hermione attempted to get her friend's attention.

"Hold on, I've almost got it," Ginny's muffled voice came from inside the duffle.

Now Hermione herself could barely contain her smile. "Ginny," she tried again, this time in a sing-song voice.

"You need to learn some patience, girl. You'll be happy you have such a good friend like me once I get my hands on this thing."

Hermione giggled, and was about to pull her friend's head out of the bag herself before the other Weasley beat her to it. Ron lumbered over to his sister and yanked her upright by her neck.

"Fucking hell! What was that for?" Ginny coughed and rubbed at her throat, but blinked quickly in surprise as she noticed who stood in front of her. "Ron? Why are you here?"

"Great to see you too, Gin." Her brother scoffed as he rolled his eyes. "How do you put up with her, Harry?"

"Harry?" Ginny looked around Ron's imposing frame. Everyone knew the exact moment she recognised her own boyfriend's presence, if the ear-shattering squeal was anything to go by. The redheaded witch immediately dropped all her burdens and pounced on Harry, whose reflexes were thankfully quick enough to catch her and keep them both upright.

Hermione beamed at her friends, smiling at their unconcealed happiness and obvious affection for each other. She heard Ron grumbling next to her, and saw him turn away from the couple as Harry gave Ginny a playful kiss on the nose. Ron was firmly against public displays of affection. Outside the privacy of their rooms, he limited his contact with Hermione to an arm around her waist or the occasional hand holding. She had agreed with him; they didn't need to make a spectacle out of their relationship, or convince others of their feelings for each other. Ginny didn't seem to care about that, though. Even with just Ron and Hermione as her audience, she was clearly more concerned with showing Harry how much she'd missed him than anything else.

Ron, however, apparently didn't care about her motivations.

"Will you two finish up over there, please? For the love of Merlin…" He made a few mock gagging noises to accentuate his discomfort. His sister threw a cold glare over her shoulder at him for disrupting her moment. She quickly changed it back into a smile for Harry as she turned to kiss him quickly on the lips before untangling herself from him.

"As lovely as it is to see you both," Ginny focused on Harry, making it pointedly obvious that she couldn't have cared less about seeing her brother, "Hermione and I need to get a move on. It takes time to transform ourselves into attractive people."

"You could wear a burlap sack and you'd still be prettier than all the other girls down there, Gin." Harry complimented her ask he wound an arm around her waist and kissed the side of her head. "You too, Hermione."

Hermione blushed and smiled at his flattery, appreciating him for including her, even if it was as an afterthought.

"Well, maybe. But you won't see me taking that chance." Ginny gave Harry a parting peck on the cheek as she removed Harry's arm and collected her bags she'd strewn about the room. Seeing just how much stuff her friend brought, Hermione couldn't help but be slightly apprehensive about what the next few hours would entail. She just hoped Ginny still hadn't mastered Extension Charms.

"Don't give me that look, Hermione." Apparently, her trepidation was not well disguised. "We'll have fun, don't you worry."

As if sensing Hermione's continued hesitation, Ginny reorganised her bags and used her only free finger to grab Hermione by the tie on her robe, pulling her up the stairs to her room and yelling goodbyes to the boys. Once they reached Hermione's room, Ginny once again relieved herself of her luggage and pushed Hermione into a chair before the full-length mirror. She kept one hand resting firmly on Hermione's shoulder—as if she thought Hermione would try to escape—whilst she Summoned some products and tools from each bag. The redheaded witch Charmed the tools to hover by her shoulders as she began to comb through Hermione's hair with her wand.

"I've brought Sleekeazy's, plus that new potion Fleur suggested. That witch might not have much going on upstairs, but her hair is fantastic, so I trust her when she raves about Asian Dragon Hair and the Italian version of Gomas Barbadensis. By the time I'm through with you, you'll look like the perfect mix of regal princess and skanky milkmaid."

Clearly seeing Hermione's look of horror, Ginny rolled her eyes and amended her description. "Trust me, Hermione, you'll be singing my praises when I'm done. Also," her friend added as she shot Hermione a hooded smirk in the mirror, "Ron won't be able to take his eyes off you."

Hermione sighed, giving her friend a resigned nod and let her get to work.

A truly unreasonable number of hours later, the two witches peaked around a pillar, spying on Ron and Harry as they stood in their dress robes at the bottom of the Grand Staircase. Both boys looked equally uncomfortable, never having grown accustomed to the slightly scratchy material of formal wear. Ginny stifled a giggle behind her hand when they saw Harry try to itch a spot on his back. It was clearly just out of reach, judging by the unnatural contortion of his shoulder.

Unfortunately, it seemed Ginny hadn't been quiet enough, and both wizards' heads spun towards where the girls were hiding.

"Looks like I should have brought my old Sneakoscope." Harry chuckled with Ron before calling back up the stairs. "We know you're there. Come out and let us have a look at you."

Ginny gave Hermione a once-over, tucking a stray curl behind her ear and releasing a satisfied breath. She gave a questioning nod, asking Hermione to affirm that she was ready, before taking her hand and leading her out of the shadows.

Sweet Merlin, there were a lot of steps between Hermione and the Great Hall. She thanked everyone she could think of for the Cushioning Charm on her shoes, but to say they were a death-trap was a gross understatement. They may be comfortable beyond reason, but she was still rickety atop the five-inch stilts. She held onto Ginny's hand so tightly she was undoubtedly depriving her friend of circulation, but she kept her gaze firmly trained on the stone steps beneath her feet.

When they were close to the bottom, she heard Ginny murmur next to her in the smallest breath of a whisper, "Look up, Hermione."

Tentatively, she followed her friend's order and raised her eyes from the floor, noticing they were receiving astonished looks from both wizards, as well as from a small crowd of others also waiting in the outer hall. Ron's mouth was gaping like a hooked trout, though he looked more like he was trying to solve a difficult Arithmancy problem than anything else.

"You look like a girl." Ron actually looked surprised as he eyed her up and down.

"Very well spotted, Ronald." Hermione replied sarcastically, but smiled at him nonetheless. She was choosing to bathe in Ron's clumsy praise, knowing that he clearly liked the way she looked tonight, instead of dwelling on what it implied about her daily appearance.

"Oh wonderful, the both of you are finally here." The sound of the Headmistress' voice behind Hermione prompted her to turn around, and as she did so she noticed Malfoy was stood just a few paces away.

"Well, now that you and Mr. Malfoy are in attendance, you may open the ball together." Professor McGonagall stated primly, straightening Ron's bowtie as she talked—to his clear displeasure.

"Pardon me, Professor?" Hermione inquired, already fearing the worst.

"Oh, surely I told you?" The elderly witch twittered. At Hermione's frantic shake of her head, she continued. "The Head Students always begin the ball with a dance, as accompanied by the Prefects."

"WHAT?" Hermione winced at Ron's deep bellow, which erupted far too close to Hermione's ears for her liking. She couldn't help but lean away slightly to protect her hearing.

"Mr. Weasley, if you wouldn't mind withholding your feelings for a few passing moments?" At her stern words, Ron pursed his lips, clearly using a lot of energy and discipline to contain himself. "Thank you. Now, as I was saying…Mr. Malfoy?"

She gestured for the blonde wizard to approach, and he followed her order with his characteristic smirk in place.

"After I rejoin the rest of the professors in the Great Hall, please accompany Ms. Granger and lead the rest of the Prefects in the dance. I expect all of you to act maturely," she sent pointed glances at all of them to emphasise her instruction, though she lingered the longest on Ron and Malfoy. "This should not take longer than ten minutes. I trust you all can control your behaviour for that long? Wonderful."

Without waiting for responses from any of her students, the Headmistress turned on her heel and re-entered the throng of students in the Great Hall, her dark burgundy robes billowing out behind her.

"Well, Granger," Hermione's head snapped towards Malfoy as she heard his drawling tone, "shall we?"

Seeing him approach her, she was just about to offer her hand when Ron held her still.

"Don't touch her, ferret."

Ron gripped her firmly at the waist, his fingers digging deep into her side.

"I'm afraid neither of us have much say in the matter, Weasel," Malfoy spat back, his eyes narrowed in the direction of Ron's hands. "If you'd like to go argue with McGonagall about this, please, be my guest."

"Ron, please," Hermione begged the short-tempered wizard, not wanting to start the evening with an argument. She stepped in front of him, putting herself between him and the Head Boy. "It's fine, I can handle one dance with him."

"I'm not letting you within arm's length of a Death Eater!" Ron spluttered, trying to lean around her to face the wizard in question head on. Behind her, Hermione could hear Malfoy's teeth grinding together, and she appreciated him remaining silent when she was sure he would rather do anything else. She didn't need two displays of testosterone; one was more than enough.

"If he steps on my toes, you'll be the first to know." She offered Ron a small smile and placed a hand against his cheek, hoping he wouldn't continue to put up a struggle. He let out a forced breath and released her, taking a step backwards to stand with Harry and Ginny.

"Alright, now that's sorted," Malfoy quipped, and Hermione rolled her eyes at his tactlessness as he came up behind her and held her by the upper arm. Almost instantly, however, he released his hold before her gaze could flicker between where their skin met and Ron's face. The latter was becoming increasingly purple with each passing moment, which likely had been Malfoy's motivation for letting go.

Hoping to get through this formality as quickly as possible, she called for the Prefects, all of whom were mingling in the outer hall. As they formed a queue behind her and Malfoy, Hermione sent another calm smile to Ron, who she could tell was barely containing one of his explosive outbursts. Her attention was brought back to her partner when he offered his own arm, this time for her to take. Giving him a glare that she hoped was an adequate warning, she curled her hand around the crook of his elbow and allowed him to lead her into the Great Hall.

Chapter 6: Lessons and Distractions

Despite helping with the décor just a few hours prior, Hermione was still surprised by the splendour of the ballroom. With all the students and professors dressed to the nines, all the elements finally came together and created a magnificent spectacle.

She felt Malfoy’s slender arm slither around her waist, a surprisingly warm palm finding purchase at the dip of her lower—and very naked—back. Meeting his eyes, Hermione realised he had led her toward the centre of the room. In her periphery Prefects paired off and assumed their positions surrounding the Head couple. She schooled her face into one that was equally as blank as her partner’s, using an obscene amount of effort to conceal her anxiety. 

A corner of Malfoy’s mouth turned up in a half-smirk, which initially made Hermione think he could still sense her nervousness despite her best efforts. Seconds later, however, she felt his hand slip lower, down to the edge of her dress, whilst his thumb began to trace a tantalising pattern across her bare skin. She furrowed her brow, following Malfoy’s gaze to a place behind her right shoulder, where Ron was stood visibly fuming and somehow even more red-faced than before.

“Careful, Malfoy,” Hermione murmured as she turned back to him. Though even as she said it, she couldn’t help but shiver a little as gooseflesh erupted down her arms. He caught her movement, and his shit-eating smirk spread to engulf his whole face.

“Your guard dog looks awfully rabid.” He sneered as he turned back to her. Almost as quickly as he met her eyes, he glanced away again, focusing somewhere just over her head.

She didn’t have the opportunity to chastise Malfoy before she heard three ominous taps of Flitwick’s wand against his music stand. The orchestra played the first notes of a waltz, and all too soon Malfoy was whirling her around in time to the music. Hermione was not surprised—but a tad annoyed, nonetheless—to discover that the pretentious wizard’s technique was flawless. Hailing from the highest of the upper wizarding echelons, Malfoy had likely been tutored to dance properly before he could even walk. 

“Who did you wear this for then, princess?” Malfoy’s superior tone interrupted her internal analysis of his upbringing.

“Excuse me?” Hermione tried to sound as bored as possible whilst concealing how focused she was on not tripping over her own ankles. 

“You can’t tell me you wore this for Weasel, can you? Your choice of colour gives you away.”

“Why does everyone read so much into which dress I picked? And what makes you so sure, anyway?” 

“Well if you truly cared about him, you would have tried to colour-coordinate with his face.” 

“It’s lucky then that I’ve seemed to match with your obvious envy.” She spat back at the blond wizard.

“Envy?” He scoffed, and she was pleased to see him finally off-guard. “Envious of what, exactly?”

“Hmm, I don't know, maybe of not being a social pariah?”

“How original, Granger. Let’s play the Death Eater card again.” She could feel his fingers increase their pressure on her waist as he kept them spinning in perfect time.

“You’re one to talk. You’ve only used the same slur against me since we were twelve. I think I’ve earned the right to play that card at least through the end of term.” If she weren’t trying so hard to keep from falling, she would have tried harder to step on his feet and mar his shiny dress shoes. 

“And here I was thinking Slytherins were the merciless ones. Maybe green suits you perfectly, after all.”

She rolled her eyes in response. He really was a monstrous prick. 

“So how does dear Weaselbee feel about this little number, then? You never really answered my question before.” Malfoy drawled, the irritating, teasing lilt returning to his cadence.

“What are you on about now?”

Malfoy chose to give her body a long look in lieu of clarifying with words. As his eyes snapped purposely back to her face, Hermione expected to be met with sharp, mocking silver. What she saw instead was deep mercury, glossy and dancing with light, yet somehow deep and secretive. Damn snake, she thought.

“Just keep your eyes up here, Malfoy.” She released her hold on his shoulder to gesture towards her face.

“I’ll be the only one in the room doing that.”

“Careful,” she warned him again, “one almost might think that was a compliment.”

“Hardly.” Malfoy jeered, but the new, playful glint hadn’t yet left his gaze. “But I’m surprised Weasel let you leave the Common Room.” 

“He doesn’t have to let me do anything.” 

“Oh, doesn’t he?” Malfoy’s eyes flashed back at her, positively oozing with derision. Hermione chose to ignore his implication and return to the original topic. She wasn’t sure why she was allowing him to bait her, but she felt a duty to stand up for Ron even if it made her look like a fool in front of Malfoy.

“And, to answer your impertinent question, he actually said I looked nice, thank you very much.” Those mightn’t have been Ronald’s exact words, but Hermione could read between the lines of her boyfriend’s clumsiness. 

“Nice. Who knew his vocabulary was so expansive.” Malfoy’s infamous sneer was back. Wonderful. “I’m sure even Goyle could do better than that, and I’m still not entirely convinced he can read.”

“Harsh words for your own friend.”

“That’s actually high praise for our darling Gregory.”

“How is it that you have any friends at all when you’re such an exceptional wanker?” She glared at her dance partner.

“Well you said it yourself: I’m exceptional.” Malfoy flashed his characteristic smirk at her. “I’ve also heard that I have kind eyes.” As if to emphasise his point, he smiled in a way that Hermione supposed was intended to be friendly, but on him looked entirely unnatural.

“Did your mother tell you that? I’d heard her sight was going—such a shame.” By now she was confident her own sneer matched his. 

“Ah, insulting my mother now? New low, Granger.”

“Pardon me, Malfoy.” She drawled, deadpan. “Most other days I would be beside myself at the chance to waltz with the person who has literally wanted me dead since first year. I’m afraid you’ve caught me on the one day I couldn’t be arsed to play nice.” 

“Oh, so this is anomalous behaviour? What luck I have.” 

Hermione’s eyes narrowed to slits. “If we weren’t surrounded by professors and supposed to portray the picture of interhouse unity and decorum, I’d show you how I’d like to behave toward you.”

“My favourite kind of behaviour; the private kind,” the Slytherin leered at her, suddenly making her feel even more exposed. “I don’t think Weasley would take kindly to hearing you say such things, about me of all people.”

“Why you slimy—”

“Careful now, Granger. Picture of decorum, remember?”

She bit her tongue hard, quietly fuming. They danced in silence for several bars, the repetitive three-step movements seemingly endless. So much for ten minutes, she thought to herself, remembering how short McGonagall promised this dance should be. Yet even her annoyance and the monotony of the dance were insufficient to distract her from Malfoy’s warm hand, which was maintaining the perfect balance of a firm but gentle pressure on the small of her back. It was ridiculous how such a small thing could be such a focus of her attention. But the dizzying effects of spinning round and round the room coupled with the surrealistic realisation that a part of Malfoy could be warm, soft, and steadying rather than cold, irritating, and unnerving had her thoughts becoming increasingly muddled. 

“Alright, get ready,” her partner whispered, bringing her out of her daze.

“Ready for what?” She hissed in response, her anxiety breaking through the veneer for the first time. She was confident enough in her dancing skill—she was no Malfoy apparently, but she practiced enough before the Yule Ball in fourth year to hold her own. All of that flew out the window, however, if the steps became unpredictable. Quickly, her heart began racing, and she was sure an unflattering flush painted her skin.

“Just follow my lead.” Malfoy uttered his quiet command far too close to her ear for comfort, his smooth baritone eliciting yet another shiver to pass through her body.

She did not have much time to fret about what he was planning. One minute, she was moving her feet in time with his, twirling in circles and trying not to care that her palms were probably sweating, and the next, her feet were no longer on the floor. Hermione held her breath tightly in her throat, afraid to move a muscle as Malfoy first lifted her into the air by her waist, then dipped her backwards as he lowered her back down to Earth. For the first time that night, he kept her gaze throughout the entire movement; his eyes bored into hers, and they looked like pools of pure liquid moonlight.

He brought them back upwards to spin around again, and she welcomed the cool, refreshing air that whipped around her warm shoulders. The momentary reprieve, however, was short-lived. Her mind became suddenly clouded over again as she inhaled the most delicious aroma. It was equally disastrous that it only took her a few short seconds to identify the source. 

Malfoy may be a world-class prat, but he was a world-class prat who happened to smell incredible. She couldn’t believe she was even thinking such a thing—all the twirling was definitely affecting her. It wasn’t as though she was trying to smell him either, but their close quarters and the spinning made it impossible to avoid catching a whiff of his cologne (was it cologne? Maybe it was his aftershave? Or was he just one of those infuriating people who naturally smelled wonderful?). But Merlin, it was messing with her brain. Every breath was like inhaling a bit of paradise. 

Ron’s scent was just a tad heavy for her tastes, not that she would ever say such a thing to his face. In their earlier school days, Ron smelled like comfort: fresh bread, crackling fires, scratchy wool. Ever since the war ended, he seemed to want to look (and smell) the part of a war hero. He bought himself Gordon Horton’s signature cologne and went to town with it. It was a mix of musk, something that hinted at vanilla, and entirely too much citrus. Hermione suspected he bought it more for the packaging and brand than the scent inside. The ovular bottle was mottled to appear like dragon scales, though to Hermione it looked more like a Muggle hand grenade. It also appeared to be made from solid gold. When she’d dropped it accidentally whilst helping him move back into the Burrow, Ron was so irate that it had been scratched. Through the scuffs, a darker metal had shown through what was clearly just gold paint.

Malfoy’s scent was the complete opposite. He smelt of the forest after an autumn rain, like cedar wood and rowan berries. It reminded Hermione of the more peaceful moments whilst being on the run—sitting by a trickling brook, reading beneath the sheltering arms of a large alder, hearing the frost crunch beneath her boots. It triggered memories that were often overpowered by those of stress, terror, and heartbreak. Strangely, Malfoy did not summon the latter types to the surface. He smelt of tea and cardamom, and something else unidentifiable. It vexed her that she could not pinpoint that last element; it was almost metallic, yet somehow it smelled more like the texture than the smell. It didn’t really smell like rust or molten ores—rather, it felt smooth and hard, like cool plate armour. 

She rolled her eyes inwardly as she awoke from her Malfoy-induced stupor, horrified that she had spent so long ruminating over his scent. Her hands had become mispositioned during her temporary loss of sanity, which she remedied quickly. It was so irritatingly typical of Malfoy to smell like a bloody texture. The wizard was a giant enigma, one she kept trying to convince herself she didn’t want to crack.

In an attempt to distract herself from her partner, she focused her attention on everything else in the Great Hall. At her height, she could just see over Malfoy’s shoulder. It wasn’t difficult to pick her boyfriend out of the crowd of people watching her dance. With much of the décor being largely monochromatic in its range of frosty blues, Ron’s bright red face and his matching hair provided a stark contrast. She knew he wouldn’t be happy with her dancing with Malfoy; she just hoped he realised she’d hardly a say in the matter. To Ron’s right, through a gap in the crowd, she spotted two mischievous Fourth Years (who were well known to the Prefects, to their discredit) pouring the contents of a silver flask into the punch bowl. It was fortunate she had asked the house elves to keep a spare on hand. Above their heads, eight-pronged candelabras floated throughout the hall. She narrowed her eyes when she caught sight of one dripping its wax onto an unsuspecting student’s robes. Clearly one of the Prefects slacked with their stasis charms...

When the waltz finally concluded, Malfoy dropped his hands immediately. He spared her the absolute smallest of bows, which barely qualified as polite protocol, before absconding from the Great Hall post haste. So much for chaperoning, Hermione berated him internally. Glancing back around, Ron was no longer in sight. She swore she had just seen him bickering with Ginny, but in the few moments she had tracked Malfoy’s escape the elder Weasley vanished from view.

A few minutes after reuniting with the rest of her party, Harry cleared his throat to divert Hermione’s attention from her conversation with Ginny. Grimacing slightly, he nodded his head slightly to the right. She turned and was welcomed with the sight of Ronald dancing (if one could truly label shuffling and gyrating as such) with none other than Lavender Brown. She supposed she had no legs to stand on feeling as irked as she was, seeing as he sat quietly through her dance with the Head Boy. And yet, it was not even a nuanced difference that she had not chosen to dance with Malfoy. She had little doubt Ron started salivating the moment Lavender’s…twin prominences came into view. As if he could sense her observation, Ron’s eyes suddenly caught hers from across the room. He gave her a sheepish grin, as if to say he couldn’t be helped, before being distracted by something his voluptuous partner whispered to him.

Hermione watched them for a few more moments before it became too nauseating to bear. She turned back to her companions with a disingenuous smile, but their twin looks of pity only worsened her mood. Attempting to maintain her air of nonchalance, she left the couple to find others who could distract her from what was quickly becoming a nightmare of an evening.

xx

She was in the middle of talking to Neville about his research on alternative uses of gillyweed when she felt an arm trap her to the side of a too-warm body. Turning in surprise, she was met with the face of her boyfriend, now flushed red and sweaty from dancing.

“Let’s get out of here,” he murmured into her neck, though his voice still seemed loud enough so others could hear. 

“Oh, well I was talking to Neville—” she gestured to their friend, who was now shifting his weight awkwardly between his feet.

“I’m sure he doesn’t mind, right mate?” 

“Oh right, um, sure. I think I saw Luna somewhere around here anyway…” Hermione only heard his parting words trail off behind her, as Ron was already pulling her away. 

“Don’t you think that was kind of rude of us, Ronald?” She whispered disapprovingly, trying to look back and see if Neville was okay whilst Ron tugged her through the crowd. 

“He’ll get over it. You’re my girlfriend, ‘Mione; people know I’ve dibs on your time.” His answering smile was lascivious—an expression she felt did not entirely suit his otherwise kind features.

“I’m not really supposed to leave early…I’m meant to be helping Malfoy and the Prefects with supervising—”

“Who cares about Malfoy? If that pompous prick managed to make Head Boy, I bet he can keep watch of a few students for an hour or so.”

“I don’t know, Professor McGonagall gave us specific instructions—”

“Come on, Hermione! Take your wand out of your arse for just one night and live a little. Don’t you see all the other couples leaving?” He pointed throughout the ballroom, and several other pairs of dancers could in fact be seen scuttling off to dark corners. As she looked, she also tried and failed to locate Malfoy amongst the crowd. She knew this was all the more reason to stay, as having both Head Students absent was potentially problematic. But glancing back at Ron, she could see the frustration and irritation brewing in him. All the times she was called swotty, boring, rule-loving, and about every other depressing adjective flashed through her mind. She recalled Ron dancing with Lavender not even an hour before, and she knew that her tendency to follow protocol at the expense of fun would provide an even harsher contrast now. Hermione was not naïve; she knew what Ron envisaged for the remainder of the night. If she denied him now, perhaps he would be tempted to seek solace elsewhere. It would be her fault that he strayed—her fault for failing to provide the one thing he asked for. 

Taking one final, long look toward the front of the room, where Professor McGonagall was using her wand to demonstrate how far dancing partners should stand from one another, she nodded silently at her boyfriend and allowed him to pull her from the room.

Ron did not verbalise his intended destination, but she recognised the route they were taking as the one that would lead to the seventh-floor corridor, and she let out an internal breath of relief. She was nervous, unprepared, and starting to sweat in places she’d not known she had glands. But at least in the Room of Requirement, she could ask for amenities that would smooth the path toward satisfying Ron. She hated to think about going to the Head’s Common Room, where she could encounter Malfoy (either before, during, or after). She also could hardly bear to imagine wading through a crowd of her housemates to get to a private area in Gryffindor Tower, all of whom would surely know what she was about to do. She silently thanked Ron for planning ahead for once and securing a place where she would be comfortable. 

Almost as soon as she thought it, however, her relief morphed into dread.

“Sod it.” She heard Ron mutter as they reached the fifth floor. Instead of continuing toward the next flight of stairs, Ron pulled her down the corridor.

“Wait, Ron! Where are we going?” She hissed, trying not to alert any of the sleeping portraits to their presence. 

“There are too many fucking stairs in this place. I waited long enough and I’m not wasting more of my time and energy climbing the bloody things.” He didn’t turn around or stop walking as he spoke, but she could hear him panting slightly through his words. Well, at least she needn’t be the only sweaty one this evening.

He chose the first classroom they passed. If she were feeling generous, perhaps she could commend the array of easels and paintings as creating somewhat of a romantic atmosphere. In reality, the room reeked of expired paint and failure.

“I didn’t even know they taught art here.” Ron said.

“Did you ever read Hogwarts, a History?” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. 

“Don’t ruin this with a lecture.” He beseeched her as he approached, his usually jovial eyes appearing much darker in the poorly lit classroom. He jerked his head backwards from whence they arrived. “Get the door, would you?”

“Uh, right.” She muttered dumbly, fumbling with her hem to remove the wand from her thigh holster. She set about casting the perfunctory locking and silencing charms and added in a few extra wards to deter any wandering students. The additional spellwork was relaxing. It provided a source of concentration that was not the wizard in the room, if only a temporary one, and a challenge she could face with confidence. 

Ron came behind her and ran his thick fingers under the delicate band that held up her dress, an unspoken command for her to remove it. It was a tricky business, removing a halter dress. She carefully lifted the neckline above her head, taking care to keep it from catching on any of the thousands of pins holding her hair in place. 

“Come on now,” Ron urged with an impish grin, “your hair’s going to get as fucked as you will be. No point in delaying the inevitable.”

She laughed nervously, unsure how to respond. She removed the rest of the gown and stood before him, bare save for her knickers and heels. 

“Were you not wearing a bra the whole night?” He gaped at her.

She crossed her arms over her chest, sheepishly trying to conceal her nudity. “Er, no…the dress, I mean—it’s backless you see…” she starting to waffle pathetically. Surely Ron held no interest in the mechanics of women’s underclothing, yet anything to distract from the painful awkwardness of the moment seemed a welcome plan. However, Ron quickly recovered from the shock of learning about the unconfined nature of her breasts and began hastily removing his own dress robes.

“Want to help me with my trousers?” He smiled at her, breaking her concentration on the number of bricks lining the far wall. Her eyes snapped back to him, and it took a great deal of effort not to think about the tented slacks she saw in her lower periphery. 

“Oh um, sure.” She shuffled towards him gracelessly, still encumbered by her stilettos. She bent down to remove them, but he stopped her before she could continue.

“Leave them on.” He looked at her through hooded eyes. “I think I’d like to feel them on my shoulders.” 

She broke eye contact again and focused instead on unlatching his belt. When she succeeded, his trousers pooled around his ankles, revealing that he too was bare underneath.

“I guess we’re both full of surprises, eh?” He smirked as he pulled her hands to encircle him. It was a strange sensation, feeling a man at his most sensitive area. The skin felt soft—almost like silk, but slightly too clammy to exude luxury. It wasn’t as large or as thick as she had been dreading, yet somehow it looked more invasive than she imagined. She experimented with pulling the skin gently forward and back along the shaft, waiting for any sounds of disapproval. She tried gripping him more fully at the base, then slowly moving her hand back to the top. When Ron rested a hand on her shoulder, she thought it was a signal she was doing well. She soon realised he was instead encouraging her onto her knees. 

Having him in her mouth was not an altogether horrid experience, though it was stranger than holding him in her hands. She definitely wished there had been a more gradual build up to that moment. He tasted the way his breath smelled after he spent an evening biting his fingernails, which wasn’t the most palatable. However, she did preen in response when Ron sighed in satisfaction, but she subsequently gagged when he thrust himself deeply down her throat. There seemed to be a steeper learning curve with this activity than she had anticipated.

Ron pulled her up unexpectedly and walked her backwards, pinning her against the desk where the professor would have worked. She gasped at the cold wood and splintered texture that grated against her naked skin. Ron seemed to misinterpret her response as one of pleasure and sent her a salacious look in return. Stepping before her, he reached down to her waist and quickly pulled down her knickers. He didn’t bother himself with them when they caught on one of her shoe straps, instead leaving them to dangle. She automatically moved to close her legs, but he shuffled between them before she could manage it and snaked a hand up to her centre. Ron spat into his hand and rubbed it into her. She grimaced; was her body not supposed to do that on its own?

Clearly reading her expression as one of confusion, Ron supplied, “Don’t worry about it. Lots of girls can’t get wet on the first time. But trust me, you’ll want this.” 

He hiked one of her legs around his hip and slid into her before she could reply. She gasped from the immediate pain from being stretched and filled, which Ron seemed to think was a sound of pleasure. He set a steady pace, and she closed her eyes, waiting for the pressure and discomfort to subside. At least it would be over relatively quickly, she supposed. She heard boys usually didn’t last long, and it was far from the most unpleasant thing she had ever experienced. She survived Bellatrix, for Circe’s sake—she could handle keeping Ron happy. Eventually, she would learn to enjoy this. 

He surprised her again, however. With two hands beneath her bum, he lifted her so she lay flat on the desk and placed her legs to rest on his shoulders. She ought to have expected the move, since he had warned her earlier. The angle of the new position reopened the wounds to which she was growing accustomed, and now he drove too deep into someone so recently deflowered.

She raised a hand to his chest and pushed him back enough to lower her legs back down to his hips. 

“Stop, Ron, stop,” she said breathlessly, “that way hurts a little.”

“Okay, we’ll come back to it later.” He shrugged and continued his pace in their previous position. “Guess I just need to break you in a little.”

He dipped his head to her neck, and she could feel his hot, wet breaths coating her skin. The outlines of the bricks on the ceiling were just barely visible as the strength of the moonlight varied through the passing clouds. The sound of Ron’s exertions filled the otherwise silent room, and the growing smell of his sweat began to permeate the air between them.

It was in that moment that she realised his movements inside her hardly felt like anything. She felt the hair on his legs as it scratched against her inner thighs. She felt the dampness on his arms as they formed a sticky junction with the flesh of her ribs. She felt the reflection of his efforts in the frantic beat of his heart against her own breast. But at her core, it was neither painful nor pleasurable. It just felt like nothing. 

And suddenly she knew all of it was wrong.

Her hand crept between them to push gently against his chest again. “Ron, I-I’m sorry, but could we stop, please?”

He grunted, peering up at her again from his perch at her neck. “What’s the matter now?”

“This just feels off, I’m sorry.” She apologised again whilst trying to squirm out from under him, but almost his entire weight was atop her and the feat was unmanageable. 

“What d’you mean it feels ‘off’? It’s fucking.”

He pushed onto his elbows, allowing her to take her first full breaths since this debacle started. “This, Ronald,” she said, gesturing between them, “it just doesn’t feel…natural. I think it would be best if we stopped.”

Ron’s new position finally allowed her to push him out of her and extricate herself from his hold, and he seemed too shocked to keep her there anyway. When she started gathering her clothing, however, reality seemed to have set in for him.

“Are you seriously going to leave me like this?” He exclaimed, gesturing southwards to his sustained erection.

She glanced around the room before returning her gaze to him. “Um, what do you expect me to do about that?”

“Literally anything?” He spluttered. “I reckon you could at least suck me off if you don’t want to fuck anymore.”

“At least?” She shrieked, the years of pent-up frustration starting to bubble to the surface as if the lid on her emotions was suddenly lifted. Innumerable conversations wherein she held her tongue and smiled along with the blithering idiot in front of her flashed across her memory like they were on a highlight reel. Thousands of times she put his interests before her own. She feared she might lose him if she did otherwise. She told herself it was worth it, because he would make it up to her one day. One day he would acknowledge everything she provided him and would show her his appreciation. But looking at him now, blotches of red covering his face and chest, sweat plastering down his hair, and a disappointing erection bobbing every which way with his steps, Hermione knew she was wrong. He would never make it up to her. Not because Ronald Bilius Weasley was a malicious person. He was a moron, that was clear, but he was not cruel. Ronald Weasley would never make it up to her because he was plagued with the same affliction that befell most people born with testicles: 

Ignorance. 

There would be no impetus to repay an action if one was unaware of the action in the first place. Ronald Weasley would never make up for the countless sacrifices she made in devotion to him because he would never recognise they were made. Instead they were only signs of their relationship’s natural progression. If he noticed the hard work nearly always fell to her—well, that was merely her job as the woman to fulfil. 

“I’m supposed to be your girlfriend,” she sneered, “not some disgusting combination of a sex doll and your mother. You’re not entitled to anything—not my hands, not my mouth, and certainly not what’s between my legs. If you want those things in life, you either have to buy them or earn them. What I’ve got isn’t for sale and you’ve certainly not earned me.”

She was pleased to see that her little tirade caused him to deflate a little. Good riddance. 

“But ‘Mione,” he whined, and Hermione could finally admit how petulant he sounded, “we’ve been together for like, six months! How haven’t I earned this?”

“Firstly, it’s been seven months. Secondly, I have always hated that nickname. But more importantly—and the fact that I even have to explain it like this is disheartening, even for you—do you think Ginny owes Harry something sex-related at every new relationship milestone? They’ve been dating for much longer than us. What does she start owing him after they’ve been dating for two years? A threesome? And when does Harry get to cash in for anal? Is that after three years or four?” 

Hermione’s language was shocking even to her. Where all this came from, she was unsure, but she had a strong suspicion these thoughts had been lurking and building beneath the surface for quite some time. Clearly, her filter decided it was no longer needed. 

“Why do you have to say it like that?” he grimaced. “Ginny’s my sister!”

“And I am your bloody girlfriend! You should afford me the same respect.” She roughly replaced her wand into the holster and crossed to the door, her stilettos punctuating her statement in the deathly silent room. 

“So, what now then? Shall I let you have some time—” he cast his eyes to the celling as he said the word, as if the idea was ridiculous to him, “—to mull all this over, and then we’ll get past it tomorrow?”

She rolled her eyes at the door as she wrenched it open. The answer came from her before she realised she’d made a decision. “No, Ronald. I’m not interested in ‘getting past it’ with you. I’d rather get past this entirely.”

“You’re finishing with me then?”

Hermione hated that she felt guilty, like she was the aggressor here. How could it be that even after enduring all his poor behaviour—all the tantrums, the misplaced jealousy, the unfair expectations—she couldn’t help but feel like the villain for exposing it all. Despite Ron’s many faults, Hermione knew he cared for her, and now she was hurting him. Perhaps she should have tried harder to stand up for herself earlier, a little at a time instead of all at once. Maybe he would have been less sensitive, learned to be more aware of her feelings, and more amenable to changing for her.

But even the fleeting thought of giving him another chance was exhausting to entertain. It made her feel like she was a puddle spread thinly across the floor, toiling in vain to pull herself back into corporeal form. 

She felt even guiltier for feeling so drained. Not only was she abandoning Ron, but she was too weak to try and make it better. She was quitting, because she was too tired, because the task was too difficult, because—

No, stop. Get a hold of yourself, Granger. Hermione told herself. She was too tired because she had tried time and time again to make her relationship function. She was quitting because despite her best efforts, Ron refused to listen and meet her halfway. She was not abandoning Ron; she was regaining her autonomy from where it had been caged by his jealous, self-conscious clutches. 

Truthfully, Ronald Weasley had abandoned her a long time ago. The person with whom he had been in a relationship was not the real Hermione Granger any longer. All she was doing now was making the distinction clear. 

“Yes, we’re finished.” She turned back to the door.

“Everyone said you were a frigid bitch, you know.” Ron spluttered at her back as she grasped the door handle. “I defended you. And now you’re breaking up with me because you don’t want to fuck?”

The force of her eyeroll was Herculean. If she had not felt confident in her decision to leave before, she surely did now. The fact that he’d been around her for eight years and could still be so woefully idiotic was astounding. 

“Oh, get over yourself, Ronald! This isn’t about the sex; this is about us. We have no chemistry, only a few shared interests, and I don’t want to permanently ruin what was a wonderful friendship by trying to force a relationship that has no foundation.

“You don’t recognise or appreciate the things I’ve done for you and I’m tired of waiting around for you to notice them. You’re not ready for a relationship with someone like me. Right now, what you need is a groupie, a brainless twit waiting at home for you with a closed mouth and wide-open legs. I will never be able to give that to you, and you can’t make me want to.” She took a deep, calming breath before continuing. “I am not going to make myself suffer however many years it takes for you to outgrow that phase.”

She finally wrenched the door open but could not resist speaking to him one final time, but now much more softly.

“Goodbye Ron. I’ll always be there for you, just not this way. I’ll always be your friend.” Because she had known him since they were eleven. Because they had been through a war together and survived. Because—despite a brief interlude—they had spent the better part of a year holed up in a tent with no one to talk with but each other and Harry. Because he knew her, even if it seemed like he had forgotten recently. 

She shut the door behind her, too exhausted from the past few hours to demonstrate any of her emotions. Despite her anger and resignation, she was still a little heartbroken, but she was still too tired to cry. In the distance the bell tower chimed half eleven. Most of her classmates would still be downstairs. Hopefully McGonagall had not yet noticed her absence, but she still made haste down the many flights of stairs toward the Great Hall.

Just as she began her descent from the second floor, however, a flicker of movement alighted in her periphery. A small flock of birds hovered outside a nearby stairwell, fluttering in the pattern characteristic of the Avis charm. Hermione approached, and slowly the tip of a wand and one elegant, stiletto-ed foot came into view from around the wall. She couldn’t help her small, shocked gasp when the rest of the figure was revealed. 

“Parkinson?”

 

---

 

There was no use trying to deny it.

Watching her descend the stairs, he’d been transfixed even from a distance. She was breathtaking, from the controlled chaos of her intricate braids, to the delicate sharpness of her exposed clavicles, to the purposeful grip of her fingers on the banister. And, as if to prove to him that his fate was sealed, she had chosen to drape her glorious body in Slytherin green. She might have been oblivious to her effect on him, but his bereft lungs clearly were not. It was only when he started to feel faint—although he wasn’t convinced it was entirely from lack of oxygen—that he took three, steadying breaths. He quickly realised this was far from a solution, however. As his blood re-saturated, so too did it fill with the torturous scent of her.

He was amazed that he had gone so long being unaware of it, especially given he had been physically closer to her in the past than he was now. Perhaps it was an effect of his Veela acknowledging her as his that everything about her became magnified.

Now that he’d caught her scent, he knew it was engraved on his soul. That fateful day in potions came back to him full force, only even sharper now. Her perfume was deep and multifactorial, yet it was also simple and pure. It was the essence of comfort. She was seeping into each of his millions of pores, curing him, soothing him, ruining him for all others.

He was positive the centaurs, all the way in the Forbidden Forest, could hear the frantic beat of his heart.

He felt drunk on her, and she’d not even bestowed him a single glance. It was unnecessary; it was her, and he knew it more surely than he knew his own name.

Just as he was starting to feel deliriously happy, an invading presence threatened his contentment. The Weasel, so appropriately titled, was a thoroughly disgusting being with more grease than blood in him. He thought himself worth of touching her, of touching his witch. There were few things Draco felt could be more offensive. Such a lowly wizard had no ability of appreciating the perfection that was his fearsome and beautiful creature.

Weasley was the most irritating kind of obstacle. He used to think Saint Potter was his nemesis and Weasley was just his annoying but useless sidekick. While that assessment still rang true, Draco now recognised the wizard inhabited all three top spots on his list of enemies. He busied himself by daydreaming of various methods of dismemberment and castration. His favourites were the ones in which Granger sat on his lap and watched while he buried his face in her neck.

When McGonagall joined them, he recalled the Head’s dance she told him about when he arrived. He had dreaded it then, already having suspected her status and fearing the result of holding her so close to him. Now, he both praised and cursed Merlin for his predicament. How he would last the night without his Veela revealing itself and claiming her in front of the entire school, he didn’t know. Fuck if he wasn’t having a hard enough time with her more than twenty feet away. The needling pressure of his wings under his skin had already increased tenfold since she came into view and was only bound to worsen. But despite the pain he knew it would cause, he longed to hold her. He yearned to feel her soft body in his arms, to coax her magic to coarse across her skin to his.

And he was unashamed to admit that angering the Weasel whilst doing so was a welcome bonus. He should be made to watch Granger be held by a real wizard, someone who knew how to act like a gentleman and care for a witch properly. Perhaps not tonight, but someday Weasel would be helpless as she slipped away from him into Draco’s welcoming embrace.

Draco would wait for that day with baited breath and a prayer on his lips.

The look of unadulterated rage on the redheaded wizard’s face when McGonagall informed him of their dance gave him an idea of how that day would feel. The ex-Gryffindor’s skin turned an unsightly purplish shade, one he’d only ever seen before on his dick after a particularly horrid case of blue balls in fourth year.

At some point in their three-way argument—of which he could recall only a little, too infuriated as he was at the sight of Weasley’s hands on Granger—she turned her back on him. What was left of his breath vanished. He swore he could feel each of his alveoli collapsing, one by one. He hadn’t been able to tell from his prior vantage point, but Granger’s dress seemed to be missing a large portion of fabric. She should sue the maker. But not before he rewarded them handsomely. The witch’s entire back was on display for him, and the green of her dress where it restarted just above the curve of her bum looked like it had been painted on. The voices around him dulled to a low ringing in his ears as his eyes tracked the adjustments of her scapulae under her creamy, flawless skin. He wanted to bite them.

She was gesturing between him and Weasley, and the position of her arms allowed him a glimpse of the side of her left breast, peeking out from underneath her dress. The delicate swell of her breast separated the fabric from her abdomen, and everything in him longed to trail his tongue along the gap there. Perhaps she would taste sweet, like goosegrass. Or, she might be fresh, like a crisp breath on a Scottish autumn morning. He knew no matter her flavour, it would be perfectly maddening. He would gladly drown himself in it given the chance. These thoughts penetrated his body and went straight to his cock. As if his brain hadn’t been deoxygenated enough.

She turned to him fully, and he realised she had relented to her assignment. His Veela preened, giddy at the thought of her choosing him over Weasley. He moved to grasp her by the arm but released her almost immediately. The same shock he’d felt after touching her in their Common Room after the Prefect meeting flooded him again. It was not powerful enough to bring him to his knees, but it still smarted. The last time, he had chalked it up to a bout of uncontrolled magic on her part, as a result of her unbridled rage. She was likely irritated now as well, if her cold glare was anything to go by, but she seemed controlled enough. He’d be sending another letter to his father shortly…

He offered his arm to her instead, hoping that he would be protected by his sleeves. Bracing himself, he felt only the gentle curve of her fingers around his elbow. She anchored him and guided him home. She just didn’t know it yet.

He assumed his dancing position in front of her, holding his arms out and waited for her to walk into them. She did after only a short hesitation, and he found heaven.

Predictably, their dance had been more intensely punishing than his insane aunt’s worst Cruciatus. A thousand times worse than waking up in his childhood bedroom to find Nagini curling into a pile at the foot of his bed. A million times worse than having the Dark Lord invade his mind, hoping against hope his Occlumency shields were strong and subtle enough to protect his one secret.

He verbally sparred with her as they always did, keeping his façade in place the only way he knew how. At best, he was being rude to her, and it hurt. Fuck, it hurt. To see her undisguised hatred of him painted over her delicate face made him want to curl into himself and waste away.  

And yet, from the moment he dipped her over his arm and her eyes focused on his, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that all the pain in the world would be worth this. To have her in his arms, to be surrounded by her, to feel her as she felt—it was worth countless agonising deaths, each more creative and gruesome than the last. One look in her deep, amber eyes that were so open with emotion and he knew. No one else would ever come close. His fingers barely ghosted over her curves, and he knew that no other body could ever compare. No woman (or man, for that matter) would fit so perfectly to him. None would shiver so deliciously at his unexpected touch. None would develop such a pretty blush on her cheeks from unwanted attention—a blush that surely painted her breasts as well, had her dress not covered them.

And above all, none could compare with her mind. Unlike his other revelations that evening, the knowledge that her intelligence and wit complemented his was not news to him, loathe as he had been to admit it for so many years. Just like their bodies, their minds danced together. Except this dance was a performance only for only for each other. It was one they had practised dozens of times throughout the years and they now knew the steps by heart. Beat for beat, they were in time with one another. One never a true leader or a follower, both just moving together.

On that day, somewhere in their future, he would show her that he was more than just a limitless supply of superficial barbs. They would dance together again, and this time nary a word of hate would pass between them.

He realised he’d likely been staring at her for far too long. Momentarily, he worried that she noticed, but she strangely appeared highly focused on him and also completely oblivious to his behaviour. Her eyes had a faraway look to them and an adorable furrow between her brows deepened. She looked as though she was trying to parse him out and fit him into a multitude of labelled and sub-labelled boxes.

She must have got lost within that massive brain of hers, because Hermione Granger’s body did something Hermione Granger would never do. Her gaze steady, looking more through him than at him, the hand at his shoulder began to creep toward his neck. There was no way Granger knew what she was doing, else she would have jerked away in disgust. He hadn’t time to tell her to snap out of it before a set of well manicured nails slowly scratched the nape of his neck, burying into his occipital hairline. It was the final ingredient, stirred in the proper direction, incanted with the requisite words. Nearly every remaining hold he had on his control snapped. His throat felt ready to collapse under the pressure of his breath, and the pressure in his back exploded. He was not bleeding yet, but he reckoned he didn’t have long. Long enough to make it through this blasted dance, maybe, but not much more.

Suddenly her fingers returned to his shoulder. Sanity clearly prevailing, she was now glancing around the Great Hall, focusing on everything but him. He could not tell whether she was cognisant of what she’d just done or not. Regardless, his Veela cried out in anguish. Having a taste of her affection was enough to make it greedy for more. It was like being a child again and having a sweet unwrapped and ready for his consumption, but only to have it snatched away just after beginning to dissolve on his tongue.

The pain mounting, Draco thanked all four founders (even Helga) as the waltz finally concluded. He all but sprinted out of the room, only taking the time to see if Blaise and Theo were following him. They were. His eyes clearly betrayed his crazed state, as his friends chucked their drinks and moved towards the exits. He proceeded through one of less frequented passages out of the Great Hall.

His Veela fought him the whole way. It was screeching at him to return to the woman he abandoned, cursing him for leaving her where Weasley could steal her away again. But for the first time in a long while, Draco’s human side won out. Revealing himself in front of all his classmates, in front of her, was not a viable option.

Turning the corner, he leant against a pillar and sighed a shaky breath as the cool stone felt refreshing against his blistering back. But it did not halt the slicing sensation he now recognised as his wings coming to life. He pushed off the wall and stumbled down the corridor, stopping at the first classroom he found. Almost instantly after crossing the threshold, the pain contorted into the white-hot agony of his new bones forcing their way out from under. He wondered if there was a set number times he would need to endure this literally backbreaking process before it became as commonplace as raising a hand. He crumpled to the floor from the pain, lying in a tired and twisted heap with his wings hanging behind him limply.

“We’ve got to stop meeting each other like this, mate.” Blaise teased from the doorway. Draco hadn’t heard his friends enter, and he was unsure if he was relieved or regretful that they were there to witness this.

“Fuck off, Blaise.” Draco was surprised to hear the reply come from Theo. The wizard didn’t curse often, always claiming he needed to practise “proper speech” for his future political career. Despite breaking this pattern, he still maintained his poker face given that Draco’s appearance didn’t seem to startle him in the slightest. “She’s it, then?”

Draco shook his head slowly in defeat. Eyes downcast, “There’s no way it’s not her. I’m well buggered.”

Before, all Draco could think on was how perfect Granger was—how perfect she was for him—and all the ways he’d love to take her as far from the Weasel as possible. Now, however, the separation from her provided him with some clarity.

She would never want him. He, who had bullied her mercilessly for years? He, who had stood by and done nothing whilst Bellatrix carved into her in his own house? He, who had his supposed hatred of her and her kind branded into his skin? Weasel may be undeserving, but he was not worth the dirt on her shoes. Their dance was a gift he should not have accepted. It only gave him a brutal taste of what he could never possess but would eternally dream.

No, she hated him, and was right to do so.

Theo crouched beside him. He blinked slowly, and Draco could feel the stoic wizard assessing him. It was unnerving, to put it mildly.

“Sit up, Draco.” His words were gentle, but no less commanding.

Draco sneered up at his friend. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve a pair of fucking wings that just ripped my back apart.”

“Bully for you. Now sit up.”

“Fucking wanker.” Draco seethed under his breath, but still intentionally loud enough for Theo to hear. He focused on bending one knee at a time until he could kneel next to his housemate. Every infinitesimal muscle contraction felt like a colossal effort. Hissing as he manually rearranged his wings, he leant back against the legs of a nearby desk for support. His wings didn’t love being as squashed as they were, but it was preferable to trying to move again.

He resolutely avoided Theo’s gaze, instead choosing to count the bricks on the opposite wall.

“You’ve always been good at self-pity.” That garnered his attention. Draco’s sharp glare focused on Theo, and he could feel his wings bristling behind him.

“Not sure antagonising him is the best move right now,” he heard Blaise say from across the room. Theo ignored him.

“I know what you’re thinking, and you need to get over yourself.” The wizard’s blue eyes were firm and piercing, but Draco’s attuned senses could detect no threat in them. Breathing deeply, he inhaled his friend’s crisp, sharp scent that reminded him of the first burn of Firewhiskey. He looked down at his hands, seeing the evidence of where his talons pierced his palms earlier. Suddenly, however, the wounds began to knit themselves together, the soft white-blue of Theo’s healing spell soaking into his skin.

A heavy sigh passed his lips as a preamble. “She detests me. And she should, for all the hell I’ve put her through. I detest myself too. I’ve no claim to her, regardless of my blood or what this beast in me might think.” His fists clenched and flexed again, and he felt the newly healed skin stretch in resistance.

“You’re forgetting a crucial factor in this. You’re as much her mate as she is yours. As pathetically Gryffindor-ish as it sounds, you’re literally made for her. No one can love her, protect her, or care for her like you will. She’s wasted on Weasley and you know it.”

Draco was unsure whether his friend was intentionally pushing at his pressure points (he probably was, bloody politician), but it was working nevertheless. He bared his teeth and growled. “I hate that fucker.”

“Weasley is a right knob.” Blaise voiced his agreement as he hopped up onto the professor’s desk.

Draco snorted. “Hey may be that but he still somehow convinced Granger to go with him.” He sighed and dug his palms into his eyes. Theo quickly pulled his hands away, and Draco was nearly overcome with the need to fight him for invading his space. His Veela was clearly on a tightly wound string.

“Listen to me. You’re hers. You belong to her. She might not realise it, but you’re her home.” Theo shifted his weight from one leg to the other, his muscles likely straining in his squat position. “Help her find the way back.”

Theo’s words were affecting him, softening him. But they weren’t enough.

“Maybe. But it’s still Granger we’re talking about, to address the hippogriff in the room. Even if she miraculously decides to overlook the past seven years—which she won’t, by the way—she’s still the swotty, stick-up-the-arse, virginal Granger.” He grunted out his returning depression. “She’ll not take kindly to me storming in and trying to steal her virtue.”

“Well, haven’t you the promise of undying love on your side? That’s a universal knicker dropper, that is.” Blaise obviously found humour in the situation to which his companions were oblivious.

Draco snarled, teeth bared again. “And you think I can get Granger to buy into my ‘undying love’ in six months?”

“Hey, I didn’t hear you say she has to love you by then. You’ve convinced plenty of girls in less than ten minutes to do what you need to do to her.”

“Watch yourself, Zabini.” His wings unfurled, their platinum edges glinting their sharpness in the cool light of the classroom. “She’s my mate, not just some easy shag.”

Blaise did not cease his taunts, disobeying his previous advice to Theo. He swung his legs against the desk with an air of nonchalance. “Oh, so now she’s your mate again? I thought you’d decided to give her up to Weasley.”

Draco rose to his feet, his exhaustion forgotten. Grey eyes narrowed at the ebony-skinned wizard and past feelings of friendship were wearing thin.

“Keep going,” Draco heard Theo say from behind him, and he would have turned to snarl at the other wizard had Blaise not recaptured his attention.

“And you called her ‘virginal’. You sure about that? Who’s to say Weasley hasn’t already claimed that for himself?” Blaise stared him down with too much confidence. It was a clear threat, one that tested Draco’s flimsy restraint. “You seem to like letting him have everything that’s yours. D’you reckon she’ll let him bite her too?”

“Fuck, too far, Blaise.” Theo hissed, but it was too late. Draco had already rushed at his once friend. A pale hand clutched tightly around a dark throat, lifting the wizard off the desk and slamming his head into the hard classroom wall with a satisfying thud. Talons emerging once again, Draco smiled darkly when they pierced the thin skin. So many vessels in the neck. So easy to make a small prick in each one and watch the haemorrhage develop slowly and steadily. Even easier to strike once, hard and true, shredding them together beyond any hope of repair.

“No one bites her but me.” Draco’s voice was not his own. This one had a timbre that came from deep in his throat and cut through the air like a Slicing Hex. Blaise’s blood painted the tips of his claws, and it delighted him.

Roughness coursed across his arms. Looking down, he saw ropes beginning to wind round him. Despite the strength of his hold on Blaise, Theo’s magic overpowered him and he was pulled away. Still able to move even within his binds, Theo adhered him to the wall with a Sticking Charm. Meanwhile, Blaise had doubled over, coughing and gasping to catch his breath.

Theo approached him. “Remember yourself, mate.” He said, his voice deceptively calm. “You don’t want to hurt Blaise; he’s an idiot, but he’s not the one keeping your mate away from you.”

Draco’s nostrils flared. He was not even trying to control his anger. The Veela seethed and struggled against the enchanted ropes. If he could just loosen one finger, Blaise was done for…

“Hey!” Theo barked this time, his sharp tone a clear contrast to his previous demeanour. Draco watched as his eyes flashed, then reassumed their careful blank mask. “I need you to focus, Draco. I need you to bring yourself back from the Veela you’re hiding behind. Let me talk to my friend again.”

Draco’s breathing hadn’t evened, but he felt the fog of his rage start to lift from the edges of his vision just a little. Theo, his childhood friend, was stood before him. Theo, always trying to be the voice of reason whispering into an abyss of chaos. He locked eyes with the wizard and withdrew. His wings, even in their confinement, relaxed slightly.

Theo nodded, satisfied. “You know Blaise was just trying to rile you up—”

“Trying?” Blaise wheezed, “I think my neck would argue I succeeded.”

“Really not helpful anymore.” Theo hissed at their third companion before turning back to Draco. “If your little display of testosterone just now showed you anything, it should be that you’ll never be able to let Granger go, not when you know what her alternatives are.

“I’m sure you think you’re being a hero now by not trying to pursue her. I’m not sure where that came from, because it’s stupid. Draco Malfoy, the man always looking out for himself, living by the Slytherin mantra of self-preservation, but who gives up the one thing he ever really needed? And all just for the sake of punishing himself?” Theo’s voice sounded accusatory, but his face still appeared blank. “That’s what this is. You’ve never been a hero, it’s not our nature. Don’t try to change yourself now.”

The brown-haired wizard stepped nearer to him, each footfall enunciating his words. “This is the one time you need to take what’s yours by right. You are in her best interests, or have you already forgotten again? You need to realise that taking what you want is actually the less selfish move this time.”

“Touching speech.” A faux-sniffle came from the corner.

“Blaise if you don’t shut your mouth, I’ll sew it closed.”

“Kinky.”

“Theo,” the raspy voice of Draco interrupted his friends’ bickering. “Would you let me out?”

“Will you try to eat me again?” Blaise teased, clearly having learnt no lessons that day.

Draco rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t going to eat you, you prick. Just knock you about a bit.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure these battle wounds would agree with you.”

“I’m not going to tell you again,” Theo scolded Blaise. Returning to Draco, “if you’re controlled again, I’ll let you out.”

“I’m fine. But if I have any rope burns I’m sending you my Mungo’s bill.”

Theo snorted and cast a Finite at the ropes. Draco’s wings shook upon their release, having become stiff in the time they were restrained. Cautiously, Blaise approached him.

Draco still felt obliged to bestow a final warning to his friend. “Don’t ever try that shit with me again.”

“I think I taught you a valuable lesson about yourself today.” His friend replied, his tone too light for Draco’s liking.

“What, that I can be dangerous and want to kill my friends when I get angry? Thanks for letting me know.”

“No, idiot.” Blaise came within a foot of him and grasped him by the shoulder. “You tried to kill me when I spoke ill of her. You know that everything in you will protect and care for her. Maybe past Draco didn’t deserve her because of the things he did, but you will earn her because of the person you are now.”

Choosing not to acknowledge the disturbingly low levels of toxic masculinity in this conversation, Draco trudged onward. “So, wise ones,” he addressed both his friends now, “how do you suggest I earn her, then?”

Blaise’s hand slipped from its perch and he winced. “That’s a tougher one, I’ll admit.”

“None of us has ever tried seducing a Gryffindor before.” Theo agreed.

“I’m not just trying to seduce her—” Draco started, offended.

“Semantics, mate,” came Blaise’s retort.

“Maybe you could get her something?”

“Bribery, Theo? You’re settling into politics already, I see.” Draco arranged one of the chairs so he could sit upon it backwards, his wings not amenable to the normal construction of classroom furniture. Unconsciously, he started combing through them slowly and removed those feathers that were loose or out of place.

“You could get her drunk?” Blaise back-peddled the minute he received two equally pointed, frosty glares. “Not like that. Merlin, who d’you think I am? I meant just as a way to break the ice, you know?”

Draco still shook his flaxen head. “It’s no good. Even if it’s just to get her to talk to me, there are too many variables with drinking. Plus, no matter my motives she will always suspect something.”

Theo jumped in again. “Okay, you know her best out of the three of us. Don’t snort at me, Draco, you know I’m right. You’ve literally been living with her for months now; you’ve got to have some idea what might work?”

Draco’s silence elicited eyerolls from both his friends. “Sorry I don’t spend my limited free time stalking Granger and spying on her day-to-day activities.”

“Clearly not, elsewise this would be a hell of a lot easier.” Blaise muttered under his breath.

“Piss off.”

“Back to the problem, please,” Theo sighed dramatically, “is there really nothing we know about Granger that we can use?”

After a few ticks, “Well, she likes books.” Draco cringed at how pathetic he sounded. “But that’s common knowledge.”

“No, no, that’s brilliant.” Blaise’s eyes began to sparkle and dance, his excitement practically palpable. “You’ve each your own independent studies, right? Well, that’s a proverbial gold mine. Granger’s two favourite things in life are research and forcing everyone to see how bloody smart she is.”

“Please don’t tell me you want me to—”

“You should ask for her help.”

Draco immediately began to argue, but Blaise wouldn’t hear any of it. “Think about it. What other scenario allows you to talk to her without making her suspicious?” He turned to Theo. “He can’t just start giving her stuff. The last time he tried handing out gifts, one of her housemates ended up cursed and her lump of a boyfriend got poisoned.”

“I do miss seeing Weaselbee unconscious in the Hospital Wing,” Draco sighed wistfully.

“My point is,” Blaise continued as if Draco hadn’t spoken, “Granger won’t just accept a gift and then ride off with you on a bloody thestral. Witches aren’t blindly trusting, and the clever ones are even worse. She’s going to be wary of everything you do and will read into everything you say. Which is why you also can’t just start being nice to her. That’s out of character for you—fuck off, you know it is—and she’ll think you’re up to something, which you are. You need an in, one where she feels like she has the upper hand.”

Theo was pacing throughout and after Blaise’s rant, and Draco tracked his movements closely. The wizard stilled, seeming to have reached a conclusion.

“What was that thing you were talking about the other day?” Theo inquired. “The ingredient you need that’s not described in any of your books?”

“Sulphur Vive.”

“Right, that. Figure out a way to solicit her help with that ingredient. You work on your research in your dorms often enough, so that will be normal to her and not suspect.”

Draco snorted. “Oh, great. Your sage advice is I should ‘figure it out’?”

Blaise answered for Theo. “Honestly, he’s right. We can’t do all the work for you, and you’d definitely murder us if we did.” His dipped brow made the innuendo all too clear. “Plus you’ll need to adlib this a good deal. If it’s too rehearsed, she’ll know.”

Draco’s response was a grumble. His friends were right, not that he would acknowledge it openly. They would both be intolerably smug if this foolish plan was successful. No need to start the process before it was absolutely necessary.

He leant his forearms against the back of the char and rested his chin upon them. “I’ll have a go at it, but do we have a plan B if this all goes to shit?”

Theo looked speculative for a minute, but again it was Blaise who supplied an answer.

“If this doesn’t work, drop trou and show her why Weasley can never satisfy her like you.”

“You sure know how to stroke my ego, Zabini.” Draco drawled monotonously with a shake of his head.

“Well, let’s hope Granger can do it even better.”

Chapter 7: Presque Vu

It was a good plan. 

Well, it was probably a good plan, were he ever to get around to testing it. 

In the weeks following the ball, Draco waited for the moment he could enact Theo’s strategy to solicit Granger’s help as a researcher, hoping it would allow him into her good graces. But, as his shoddy luck would have it, the witch had become more unpredictable than a snake backed into a corner. She had previously been notorious for spending hours cooped up with a book on the couches in their Common Room. She would always be sat at the same library table on Saturday mornings, and the walnut one in their dorm was her favourite study spot for Sunday nights (surprising no one but him, he had actually been paying attention to her day-to-day activities). But she'd abandoned all her known haunts. Even when most of the castle’s inhabitants abandoned the castle for the winter holidays, he barely saw her save for a few scant minutes each day. 

And with his Veela acknowledging her as his mate, the pain of separation was worsening exponentially. It was surreal, to say the least, how he could last a whole day in a surly mood, but thirty fleeting seconds of watching her skip into the Great Hall to nab a scone the following morning had his spirits lifted to soar with the mail owls. Those brief moments sated his growing addiction, but only barely. 

He couldn’t tell if he hated or craved them. 

Granger’s erratic schedule was an unforeseen obstacle. It was not exactly simple to ask for her help casually whilst she charged through their dormitory or the corridors like the Dark Lord himself was on her tail. To make matters worse, any potential invitations for conversation from him would appear highly suspect given they’d not spoken a word to each other since their dance.

That dance, by the way, which now invaded his dreams half the nights. The other half was still full of her, but more diversely so.

The first torturous dream had focused on her eyes. 

That one had been the preference of his subconscious if the innumerable nights he awoke with wings squirming between him and his mattress were any indication. Still, others had managed to join the fray. In some manner, each of the newer dreams highlighted another of his mate’s features, as if knowing her identity meant more material from which his imagination could draw.

His heart had picked its favourite, and it was the choice his brain dreaded most. Not because his brain did not enjoy the scene as well, but because it understood the pain of knowing the images were so far from reality. The dream was a simple one and far less licentious than the original. But it screamed for him to reach out and grasp it. It longed to be borne into his world and to be lived. It lingered in his memory long after he would wake, haunting him throughout the day more than any of the others would do. 

In the dream, she lay beside him. The setting was hazy; clearly, his imagination focussed on making only her clear to him. For what was context when she was at the centre? His head upon her chest, Draco knew his eyes were closed but somehow he could still see everything. Dreams were curious like that. 

Whilst he rested—awake or asleep, he was unsure—she read to him from one of her Muggle fiction books. He’d no clue what the story was about, but he knew that her words soothed him. They were like nectar, flowing from her mouth to his, nourishing him. 

Her fingers mirrored the cadence of her speech. They dragged gently and aimlessly across his scalp, and the slow push and pull of his hair was hypnotising. After spending so many years of his life forever tense, always on edge, her hands and the steady rise and fall of her chest brought him immeasurable peace. 

Recalling that sensation whilst awake made Draco feel like he’d been drugged. Numerous times, Blaise or Theo needed to shake him out of his stupor in the middle of class, and it was akin to being pulled out of a Pensieve mid-memory. His body may be in the real, but his mind always felt very far away.

The dream itself came only rarely, but even that was much too frequent for his splintering sanity. Suffice it to say, the circles under Draco’s eyes were getting deeper and more pronounced as the days wore on.

He had tried to garner Granger’s attention by sighing dramatically at his notes whilst she walked past. He had tried laying a figurative breadcrumb trail by leaving snippets of his research around their dorm, books falling open to strategic pages. He even tried avoiding her completely. Becoming a recluse seemed to pique Potter’s interest in him during his sixth year, and he queried whether a similar strategy would work with Granger. 

It didn’t. Nothing did. 

She was just too concentrated on something else—or someone else, the Veela hissed angrily in his mind—for him to be able to capture her focus. It was beyond maddening. 

Theo carried on telling him he wasn’t trying hard enough. Blaise filled his ears with increasingly scandalous innuendos that only made his dreams more vivid and disruptive. Last week in Charms, his traitorous friend had passed him a drawing of Granger that was much too anatomically detailed (and accurate, the dishonourable part of him hoped) for his liking. He’d Levitated the crumpled parchment back to his friend’s desk, where it suddenly burst into flame along with all of his friend’s notes from class. 

On the subject of notes, he’d sent his father another letter, explaining briefly that he had discovered his mate but was having difficulty claiming her. He purposefully excluded her name for the time being. His parents, specifically his mother, were a meddlesome duo. He dreaded to think what they might try to help the process along if they were aware of her identity, especially now that his single year to claim her was more than half gone. However, he did ask for assistance regarding the strange pain he experienced when trying to touch her. It seemed largely counterproductive from a mating standpoint if he were to be in pain every time he wanted a cuddle. 

His father responded swiftly. There was an element of his ancestor’s curse that he conveniently forgot to tell Draco. According to his father, he never had to deal with this aspect of the curse and assumed it would be thus irrelevant to his son.

Draco’s ancestor hated himself for biting his mate against her will, that much Draco knew already. The act had been unintentional, but it still ultimately led to the young woman’s death. When the elder Malfoy cursed himself (and all future progeny, by mistake), he included a clause about consent. Until the time came when they could be mated, Granger would need to initiate all forms of physical contact. It was far from being offensive to Draco; in fact, he lauded his family for having relatively progressive values even centuries ago. And yet, it would pose a bit of an obstacle should he ever desire to hold her hand spontaneously. 

Both fortunately and unfortunately (and more so the latter), that was a bridge he needn’t be bothered crossing for a long while. Holding hands was an advanced course that demanded the prerequisite classes of just fucking speaking to the witch at all. And preferably more than once. 

A few days later, an opportunity finally presented itself. 

Theo’s patrol partner for the night caught the Vanishing sickness and needed to spend the time scouring the castle for his missing leg. Granger, bless her, had volunteered to cover for him. Theo told Draco about the situation at breakfast, and they spent the better part of the meal coming up with a valid reason to swap out the two wizards. Theo too becoming ill was not preferable, as he had been feeling well enough when Granger talked to him earlier that morning. Detention was no good either since the wizard outright refused to let anything tarnish his perfect record, even if it wasn’t true. 

Eventually, they settled on Theo sustaining a minor flying injury. Both wizards prayed Granger was not observant enough to know that Theo was deathly afraid of heights and never hovered more than two feet off the ground. The man had even begged off taking Astronomy lessons after completing his O.W.L. in fifth year. 

The remainder of the day passed by slowly. Having been unable to sit still in his Common Room, he began a sort of preliminary patrol through the corridors. Even after taking the longest possible route, he still arrived at their arranged rendezvous point absurdly early and opted to conceal himself around the corner and pace erratically.

He tried to envision how the night could progress. How should one start such a conversation? Hey Granger, lovely night, eh? Nice patrolling skills you’ve got there. You’re skilled at everything. In fact, you’re so smart, maybe you’d be able to help me on my project that was definitely intentionally titled independent research, perchance? Also, any interest in letting me mutilate your neck with my teeth so we can have lots of sex and babies?

Yes, that would go over swimmingly. 

He was completely and utterly fucked. 

He gave up trying to plan everything, instead focussing on Blaise’s advice about sounding too rehearsed. Leaving his hiding spot, he resignedly perched himself on a windowsill by the meeting point. For the next quarter of an hour, Draco tried to purge Granger from his thoughts. Luckily, he forgot to empty his trouser pockets before leaving the Common Room. They contained a few packets of parchment relating to his research, and he opted to read and reread his detailed notes on Sal Ammoniac, another of his necessary ingredients but one he’d had much more success in researching. The promise of academic intrigue managed to quiet his mind at last and allowed him to relax just a little. 

Until he started to smell her again, that is. She was likely separated from him by at least two floors—it mattered little. The gentlest breeze had fluttered through the empty corridor, and she might as well be standing right next to him. 

He resolutely kept his eyes trained on the pages. If the edges crinkled more than usual from his too-firm grip, he ignored it. A small hole burned through the margin where he stared a little too long, but he blinked away the smoke. He would be lying to himself if he claimed to be reading any of the words any longer. Eyes merely moved across the page, seeing nothing. 

Granger’s scent built and built, and he knew when she was mere footsteps away long before she spoke. 

“What are you doing here, Malfoy? I’m meant to be patrolling with Nott.”

“Flying mishap, I’m afraid.” He said through clenched teeth, trying not to breathe. “He sends his apologies for stranding you with me.”

She frowned but did not respond. He caught her sneaking a glance at his notes, and an idea formed. Squinting down in faux-surprise, as if he forgot they were still on display, he quickly (but not too quickly) shuffled them into the correct order, folded them neatly, and fit them back into his pocket. 

Meeting her eyes again, he could see her curiosity as plain as day. He sucked his tongue between his teeth in frustration when she did not indulge it. 

“Come on then.” She spun on her heel and took off down the corridor at a furious pace. 

The following hour was a trial by fire. He quickly learned to avoid letting her walk too far ahead of him. Firstly, it meant he was downwind and caught each tantalising note of her perfume. Every time she turned her head even a fraction of a degree, the scent of her hair would permeate the too-short distance between them and chip off another bit of his already fragmented control. Secondly, it provided the most spectacular and delicious view of her arse through her Muggle jeans. He made himself clench his eyes shut the second he laid eyes upon it. Any prolonged look and he’d have needed to call out himself in favour of three consecutive ice baths.  

That left him either with walking ahead of her or side-by-side. His Veela vetoed the former, unwilling to let her out of his sight whilst they were technically out looking for trouble. So instead he prowled along beside her, trying to distract himself by counting how many seconds he could hold his breath. Spots coloured his vision when he repeatedly tried to break his record.

Surprisingly, the night did have one silver lining: Draco accidentally stumbled upon a method for reigning in his wings. Walking beside Granger for so long had them threatening to say hello even with his careful breathing and, without thinking, Draco did what his late godfather taught him to do whenever he felt his emotions running high. Occlumency shields firmly in place, the pressure in his back diminished substantially. It was definitely still there; Draco thought his wings would sprout faster than a mousetrap could release should he even think about touching her intentionally. But the sensation was manageable. He felt he could carry on a conversation passably, perhaps do something crazy like read a book. 

Though he was unsure if he should risk looking at her. 

Three detentions, one scolded pair of snogging Ravenclaws, and forty house points later, Granger’s tamper on her curiosity apparently failed.

“What were you working on earlier?” She asked, forced neutrality and apathy both appreciable in her voice. She would never have survived in Slytherin with such translucent motives. 

“Research.” Musn’t give too much away prematurely.

She pursed her lips, clearly trying not to ask a follow-up. Her resolve lasted less than a minute. “I saw that diagram you had; is that a crystalline structure?”

“Yes, it’s for Sal Ammoniac.”

He could see her nodding in his periphery. “Right, one of the five ingredients in the Panacea.”

“Ten points to Gryffindor.” He hoped his sarcasm was clear enough for the castle’s magic not to take him seriously. 

“I wouldn’t have thought that part of your project would be very difficult.” She artfully ignored his sarcasm.

He scoffed. “What, researching ingredients?”

“No, no,” she clarified quickly, “I reckon the urine part alone is rather complicated.” She punctuated her statement with a cute giggle. He couldn’t allow her too many of those naughty things; somehow, her laughter penetrated his shields more delicately than Bellatrix ever had.

“You might be surprised.”

She giggled longer and louder this time, and the pressure soared. He knew it was too risky, but he yearned to make her laugh for the remainder of the patrol—anything to elicit a more savoury response from the woman who pulled all his strings. He forced himself to walk in silence nonetheless.

After a few ticks, she resumed her inquiry, clearly unaware of his trials. “Anyway, I meant I didn’t think the Sal Ammoniac specifically would be much of a challenge for you.”

“It’s not really.”

“You looked kind of frustrated.”

He momentarily abandoned his self-imposed boundaries and smirked down at her. Curse her big, open brown eyes, making him forget himself…“Feeling observant tonight, are we?”

“No more than you, Malfoy, I’m sure.”

“And if I am?”

“...Am what?”

“Feeling especially observant.”

“Then I’d commend you for finally taking your job seriously,” she gestured to the dark corridors before gracing him with a mocking smirk of her own, one elegant brow raised in challenge. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she would have fucking ruled over everyone in Slytherin. 

She could certainly rule over this Slytherin anytime she liked…down boy. 

He hummed, facing forward again and fighting to keep his smirk from evolving into a genuine smile. It didn’t take a strong imagination to see how easily she could slip under his skin. She was so quick-witted, so fast with her words and each of them was spiked with delicious venom. He simultaneously praised and cursed his Veela; it had blessed him with a witch who was clearly, and in every sense of the word, his perfect match. But it also had shown him how impossibly unattainable she was. 

Draco was suddenly struck with the image of a Kneazle with an abusive minder, the kind that might fasten a stick with a treat to its collar and leave it to dangle above him forever. 

“You didn’t answer my question.” She didn’t look at him as she sent a Lumos Maxima down a dark, short corridor, passing it by once she determined it was abandoned. 

“Didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“How awfully remiss of me.”

She waited for less than a beat before scowling at him. “Don’t be a dickhead, Malfoy.”

“Fine. You really don’t let up, do you?”

Granger shrugged, unaffected. “I doubt Snape called me an insufferable know-it-all for lack of a more appropriate moniker.” 

He smirked again and ducked his head into a classroom, cast a Homenum Revelio, and returned to his partner when it exposed nothing. 

She was waiting for him with an expectant expression and this time, he obliged. If he weren’t actually trying to garner her help, he’d be much more reticent about his project, or at least the areas where he’d been unsuccessful. But, he knew he had her, and he was willing to bet she would glance over him being uncharacteristically forthcoming in favour of sating her curiosity. 

“The Sal Ammoniac is straightforward enough,” he sighed, “but the Sulphur Vive is a right bastard of a problem. Most of the texts I’ve been able to get my hands on suggest it’s most likely sulphurous acid—”

“But that’s a gas.”

“You’ve lost the ten points for speaking out of turn, Granger.” He looked down his nose at her and she rolled her eyes, refocussing on her task. Why was it so easy to talk to her like this, to tease her like they were friends? He glanced forward, trying to blink away the fog that was slowly clouding his peripheral vision. “But yes, the Panacea calls for oil. No one has ever isolated sulphurous acid in solution. Potion masters have created an oil by-product from the synthesis of sulphurous acid gas, but the stuff’s toxic.”

“Kind of counterproductive, then.”

“Yeah, no shit.”  Draco ground the toe of his boot into the floor and sighed. “Besides, it might be too impure by that point to work anyway.”

Granger adopted his favourite puzzled look. Wait, he was picking favourites now? What a sap…“So, your notes…”

“Just seeing if there is anything about the other ingredients that could help narrow my search.”

“And is there?”

He gave a short laugh and shook his head sadly. “Not that I could tell.”

She hummed in response, pensive. His traitorous imagination could not help but wonder how it would feel if she did that whilst her lips were around his—

“Have you tried raiding Snape’s private book collection?”

“Yes,” he all but choked out a response, trying to banish the mental image, “nothing there either.”

Despite the efforts of his Occlumency shields, their continued proximity allowed her to creep slowly over and under his walls. Certainly, it was unconsciously done on her part. She was too busy tapping her wand against her lower lip in thought—at which he was decidedly not looking, thank you very much; he was definitely not watching the way the gentle trauma caused her lips to become extra plump and rosy…get stuffed, fucking Veela twat—to be actively practising Legilimency. Nevertheless, his walls crumbled. He could feel each figurative brick tumbling away, each bit of mortar dissolving to dust. It would be so easy just to let go and break the whole damn thing down. He was strong, and she was stronger. What was the use of walls when it pertained to them?

He could let everything fall away. He would show her who he was, who he really was, and how far he would go for her. Anything she wanted, he would bring for her. Any version of himself or any other person, he could be that for her. He would take her so far away if she wanted, wherever she wanted…

A steadying breath filled his lungs, and he came back. Granger was busy behind a tapestry, inspecting a hidden alcove. She returned to him tugging two dishevelled and flushed fifth years in tow.

“Have you tried owling the Ministry?” She only glanced his way briefly whilst handing the students their detention slips. Bless her, for she was still playing this foolish game he’d concocted. He tried to shake off the thoughts that were plaguing him, forcing himself to remember who they were to each other within the appropriate context. 

Draco bent to watch his boots hit the flagstones. “I highly doubt any Unspeakables would want to share their alchemical secrets. Especially not with me.”

“Well, maybe I could—”

“Granger, thank you, really.” He braced himself before turning to look at her full on. “But you needn’t help me with this.”

She pushed her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, and every last bit of his strength was channelled into keeping his gaze steady and not following the movement. “I know. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still offer, does it?”

Draco looked away again. She was far too good for him. Here he was, trying to trick her into “helping him”, and she was all too willing. It was almost too easy, and he felt dirty and cheap. She didn’t deserve this.

Proceeding along their assigned route, they began their descent to the fourth floor via a narrow staircase. It was not quite wide enough for them to continue walking two abreast, so he swallowed his Veela’s discomfort and went ahead of his partner. 

It was a few seconds longer before he responded to her, focussed as he was on bypassing a vanishing step. “It’s not like I could stop the Golden Girl from including herself in whatever she wants.” Why did he say that? Did he enjoy self-sabotage? Did he relish the sensation of his heart being ripped from his chest, one chamber at a time?

An irritated scoff came from behind, as expected. “Excuse me? I’m sorry for trying to lend a helping hand. You know, Malfoy, maybe if you weren’t such an arrogant little—”

Her developing tirade against him was cut short by a startled shriek, and he’d never moved faster in his life. Heart in his throat, nerve endings on fire, he dreaded whatever had happened. No sooner had he turned back to her that a flying mane of riotous curls and an attached body came hurtling toward him. He caught her easily enough. She weighed hardly anything, though he doubted it would have made much of a difference to him. Arms wound tightly around her thin frame, his eyes scoured from her face to her toes and back again for any signs of damage. He could detect none, but she was clearly still shaken and he was reluctant to let her go. Granger had clenched her eyes shut and her breathing was only slightly less erratic than his own. Releasing a shaky exhale, he unconsciously began running his hands up and down her arms. To warm her? He was unsure. He just could not bear to stop.

“Granger, what happened?” There was blatant concern in his tone, and he did nothing to conceal it. His mouth hung open as well; the air was too thin to catch a proper breath. Perhaps he was trying to breathe for her, as well.

After a moment, Granger opened her eyes with a series of rapid blinks. “I-I’m…terribly sorry,” she breathed, and he could taste her words on his tongue like they were his own, “I miscounted. I…I missed the vanishing step.” She cast her eyes downward to where their bodies connected, hints of red staining her cheeks. 

“Are you alright?”

She met his gaze again and held it this time. She was so close. He could count each freckle that dotted her nose if he wanted. And he wanted. There were thirty-four of them. He could watch every individual eyelash as it curled and fluttered minutely under the force of his breaths. He could feel the warmth radiating from where her palms grasped his chest for support. He never wanted her to let go. Please, hold on to me.

He could kiss her. It wouldn’t take much. Two or three inches, give or take. Just a few breaths. But so much more. 

Please, he begged to anyone, please don’t torment me like this.

A whispered “yes” escaped her lips, and his imagination ran wild with all sorts of other ways he could hear her say that word. But she had that look on her face. The same one she wore when they danced together, but worse this time. The one where it seemed like she was looking through him, studying him and trying to solve a puzzle. It was the most disconcerting sensation, being on the receiving end of that look. Because despite her eyes being trained on his, she was not seeing him. He could tell the difference. It was the way the Dark Lord looked at him when he knew Draco was hiding something. There was always a moment where the other person’s eyes refocussed, their pupils dilating slightly from the shorter focal length. 

That moment was now. Granger’s eyes widened, then narrowed by just a fraction. It would have been almost comical, were it not also terrifying. She looked at him—at him, this time—and something had been altered. 

She had seen something, something she was not meant to see. He’d no idea what it was, but it petrified him nonetheless. His walls were gone, having toppled to the floor ages ago, and he was sure his fear and anxiety and hopelessness were all on display for her. 

He released her and heard his Veela scream. 

He couldn’t bear this torture any longer, so Draco did what he did best. 

He ran. 

He could not begin to explain why.

She’d been right there, after all. She’d clung to him like he was her lifeline, and everything in him had longed to be that for her. So why was he running? Why was he abandoning the one thing he knew with complete certainty was entirely right for him?

He’d no idea at all. Neither did his Veela, who he could feel wailing in anguish and pounding at the back of his skull.

But he ran all the same. Down and down the countless flights of stairs he fled toward the bowels of the castle, desperate to feel the familiar, cool damp of the dungeons seep into his aching bones. He knew his chest was fit to explode under the force of his staggered breathing, but he followed the rhythm it created as if it were a delinquent metronome. His eyes watered as lactic acid burned a wretched path through his calves, but his nerves grew immune. It was a strange sort of meditation; simultaneously he suffered the exertion of his body but felt like a third-party viewer to his actions.

He imagined himself as a figurine, all manufactured limbs and elastic bands in place of tendons and ligaments. One by one, the bands would snap, but he would feel nothing as his fake body crumbled into a rubbish pile of used parts.

But, as his luck would have it, his body was real, and it was one of a Veela in immeasurable pain. He could feel it thrashing within him, occasionally overtaking his movements. Whilst his feet continued to slap against the floor, at times his arms would flail unpredictably, hurtling his body into the castle’s stone walls. His sleeves had torn beyond hope of mending. One side of his face was mangled from brow to jaw after being dragged across the uneven rock. He could feel particles of rubble as they mingled with his blood and embedded themselves into his skin.

The journey was one of punishment.

Draco was within steps of the Entrance Hall when he tripped, tumbling painfully down the last steps of the Grand Staircase. The appearance of his wings had always been a gruelling birth from within, but before it was a relatively clean process, emerging as they did via two elegant slices along his back. But now, they burst through brutally. They seemed to want to surface whilst already spread wide, the broad plane tearing apart every inch of skin it could reach. It was white-hot agony, feeling each fibre and each cell exploding from the base.

It didn’t take a genius to determine that his Veela was furious with him.

But despite the pain, he needed to get out of there, and quickly. Even with the late hour, there were plenty of people in the castle who could find him crumpled at the base of the stairs. This section of the castle was meant to be patrolled by McLaggen, the prince of douches, and a sixth-year Hufflepuff Prefect he couldn’t remember. They could be by at any minute, and he’d no luck of making it to the dungeons now. Even if he physically overcame the pain and dragged himself the distance, he’d leave behind a thick, opaque blood trail that even the most inept Prefect could follow. There would be nowhere to hide.

The wings twitched above him and, unbidden, began to unfurl gradually. Their northernmost tips met the floor near his shoulders and propelled his body upward. While at first he stumbled, he managed to thrust one solid foot under himself and gained a measure of stability. On quivering legs, he started to step toward one of the quieter corridors, but the wings resisted. They warred with the rest of his body for control and won readily. His autonomy was lost. One of the wingtips reached out to push against a nearby wall, steadily forcing him to the balcony that circled the Great Hall.

His mouth grew arid when he realised his Veela’s intentions. While it was true he’d likely be unable to hide in this or any other part of the castle in his current state, he never considered leaving it entirely.

Draco was impelled forward by a strength he knew he didn’t possess, and a blast of icy January air greeted his blood-soaked skin. The feathers fluttered around him, sensing the wind, acclimating to the conditions. Reaching the nearest edge, they rose around him and manoeuvred his body over the balustrade similar to how a bat might do. Craggy cliffs overtook his vision, followed shortly by the inky depths of the Great Lake. His body was in freefall, having been wholly unprepared for the descent.

He dared not scream. Eyes shuttering slowly, he awaited the inevitable impact.

It never came.

He still felt the wind whip through and around his body. Bits of snow cut across his brows and cheeks, but the fall seemed eternal.

Chancing a look, he opened one eye just a sliver and found a forest beneath him. He immediately tried to scramble for purchase; but up in the air as he was, logically he should have known none existed. As he soon discovered, however, it was unnecessary altogether. Without any input from him, his body moved parallel to the treetops instead of plummeting into them, and glided effortlessly.

He was flying.

It was a surreal thing, to experience flying for the first time twice.

Flying a broom was a totally different feeling. There were numerous tools he could harness to accomplish a task, isolate a sensation, find an emotion. But it wasn’t the same as having something be part of his core being—to know that it was one of his truest purposes. It was completely overwhelming, but staggeringly freeing at the same time.

The wings tilted to the side and his body turned in response. They were pulling him back toward the northwest end of the lake, but still keeping him hidden by a conservative margin of the Forbidden Forest.

He soared in aimless arcs and circles for ages, letting the Veela have full control without complaint. It was the first time he’d ever been grateful for its presence, the first time he’d a sense of why his mother called it a gift. Glancing up, the sharp edges of the feathers shone an ethereal but dangerous gleam in the crisp moonlight. He expelled a single, deep breath.

The right side of his body dipped suddenly and, without thinking, he raised his corresponding shoulder accordingly. Righted again, he hovered through a few staccato heartbeats before the same exchange occurred on his left. While he managed to steady himself once again, the confusion at his body’s apparent desire to maim him was not abated in the least.

The next time he was wrenched backward, the wings threatening to pull him into a tailspin. But he learned if he clenched the muscles in his lower core and hunched his back, he could manipulate the angle of his form.

Realisation blanketed him. He was learning. His Veela was teaching him. It was allowing him his control back in pieces after having borrowed it for a while, just long enough for Draco to remember the creature’s value.

A quiet chuckle cut through the air. It might have become more full-bodied, had he not lost his balance and nearly plunged downward after laughing too hard.

The two warring parts of him had met at a compromise, and he was very nearly whole. He’d just one last part still missing.

Emboldened, Draco swooped through the trees surrounding the Quidditch pitch, with limbs and wings that bore only a touch of a wobble. His Veela helped him to balance atop a lonely Scots pine, and he would have been content to be sat there for hours, surveying the grounds. But tinges of pink were starting to flicker along the horizon’s edge, and he’d lingered too long.

He left his perch with his own strength this time and began the now brief crossing back to the castle. With luck, he would find the window into his dorm, arriving timely enough to evade the alluring early riser who shared his quarters.

Eyes trained forward, he flew with unwavering wings and a lighter heart. He did not look to the left nor the right, entirely focussed as he was on his destination.

So focussed, in fact, that he failed to notice the redhead hovering on a Cleansweep above the Quidditch pitch.

---

Hermione had seen it once before. 

It tickled her memory, trying to tease something into breaking through from the depths. But she couldn’t place it. She cursed her overzealous need to learn everything and anything; it made certain obscure details harder to recall. 

After catching her foot in the vanishing step—whatever happened to “constant vigilance”, Granger, honestly—she’d tumbled into the outstretched arms of Malfoy like a clumsy idiot. Once there, however, she could not help but acknowledge how secure she felt in his steady hold. Her chest rose and fell with her shocked breathing but moved in time with his. His hands comforted and slowed her racing heart as they coursed up and down her arms. Did he know her mother used to do that when she would start to panic as a child? Of course he didn’t, stupid girl…

She kept her eyes shut, hoping she could forget about object permanence. If she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see her, right? That was how that worked?

It didn’t work. Not because she was a functioning adult, but because even with the barrier of her eyelids in place she would always still see him. She felt him. His anxiety swirled around her like a shroud. His concern sparked around her, and she could see bits of his light in her self-imposed darkness. 

And his magic—it consumed her and lit her aflame. Never before had she felt anything like it, where she could picture reaching out and touching his magical core. She could feel herself sinking and spinning away with the soft hypnosis of his hands and his aura. Forcing her eyes open, she hoped for a sense of clarity. 

It was a bad idea. 

She was rewarded with grey eyes full of fear. Fear that was for her, though she hadn’t a clue from where that came. 

Draco’s shirt crumpled under the strength of her grip. She knew he would probably yell at her for wrinkling the expensive fabric, but she feared she might slip through each of the stone floors, one by one if she let go. There wasn’t a stone strong enough to stay her fall. 

She heard him speaking to her and heard herself respond, her subconscious taking over her faculty for speech as her brain momentarily lost function. Her body was running on autopilot, relying only on instinct, something in his eyes calling her back. Something there wasn’t quite right. It pushed Malfoy through the logical boundaries she had carefully constructed to define him. 

The whites of his eyes were bloodshot, and the weaving, angry vessels looked like the map of a complex root system. Is there something keeping you awake at night?

The blacks of his pupils were deep and wide, focussing as he was on such a close subject. Can you see more clearly than I see you?

The greys of his irises invited her to swim in them. She imagined them swirling and flickering in the dim light of the castle, drawing her in. Would you take me if I asked you to?

There it was. At the boundary of grey and black, barely perceptible even at this distance. A faint ring of what looked like pure, molten silver rimmed the outer edge of his pupils, and it made his eyes dance. Eyes that were so full of apprehension, and the seemingly metallic flecks reflected and amplified everything in them.

She had seen it before. She knew she had. 

But she had just seen so much in her short life, especially in the past few years, and the harder she reached for the memory the farther away it seemed. Like clinging to a gust of wind so determined to disperse, it eluded her. 

Her gaze pulled out from within him. He was something different, she realised. Something secret, something forbidden. A sentient, devious puzzle, removing pieces from the borders of its own volition even as she slotted others into place. 

Draco seemed to recognise her discovery and released her brusquely. A few steps backward and suddenly he was moving away. No words passed between them before he vanished into the darkness of the corridors, travelling swiftly in the direction of the dungeons. 

She stood stock-still for several moments, unsure of how to process everything that had just happened. How long had she lingered in his arms? It felt both like hours and seconds, so deep was her sense of security and concentration. She’d never become lost in anyone before. But being held by him had felt like reading a good book; she could start in the evening and take no notice when it became morning again. 

Well, now she was just being ridiculous. She knew that she knew what she had seen, even if it was currently trapped under the weight of other erroneous information. Like countless other pieces of stubborn knowledge, it would be discovered eventually. As long as a book was sat on a shelf somewhere in the world collecting dust, Hermione would read it. She had never failed before. She would find out what Malfoy was hiding. She would find what was clearly stealing his nights. 

xx

She was failing. 

Failure was a foreign concept to her. Certainly, she had disappointed herself before, that was nothing new. But she had always been able to hang her hat on something. Perhaps she had not been the fastest one to master a new potion, but hers was always the most potent. She mightn’t have achieved every possible piece of extra credit, but her scores were still leagues ahead of her closest competitor. 

But here, she had not even glimpsed success. Even a mere modicum of progress lay leagues ahead in the distance, far past being out of reach. Every time she thought she hit a clue, somehow she only felt farther from the truth. 

Her first, second, and third passes through the library’s resources revealed nothing, to her enormous frustration. She tried searching by innumerable different keywords and phrases but came up dry each time. Not even the more eclectic selection of tomes within her own Common Room could reveal anything.

To make matters worse, the wizard in question was undoubtedly (and very adeptly) avoiding her. While it only served to fuel her curiosity like it had been doused with petrol, it also made opportunities for observing him sporadic at best.

He practically never came down for meals; she would know since she’d taken to waiting from when the doors opened to the Great Hall until everyone cleared out for lessons.

The only chances she got were during classes, where he couldn’t escape her lest he risk his grades. Unfortunately, she was hardly willing to risk her own, and thus had to balance absorbing lecture material and performing flawless practicals with her measured studies of the Head Boy.

Other than the deep purple shadows that lined his eyes and the fact that he looked a bit peaky, however, Malfoy’s face gave nothing away. She’d been examining it for nearly a fortnight without any breakthroughs or revelations. The strong brow, the patrician nose, and the firm set of his sharp jaw were so ingrained in her memory that they started weaving their way into her dreams, mocking her inability to see through them.

She’d once accidentally spent a whole five minutes watching the bobbing of his Adam’s apple as he completed a quiz in Ancient Runes. She wasn’t sure if she was more astonished by the elegant curve of his neck, or rather by how wholeheartedly transfixed she’d been watching it undulate. Once she’d remembered herself and her surroundings, she hadn’t been able to look at him the rest of the day.

Nothing she did or read or observed was of any use.

Normally, such an issue would mean she solicited Ginny’s help. Hermione did have more friends at Hogwarts now than she did in her earlier years, but she still gravitated to the sole female member of the Weasley brood when she wanted a chat or needed to set her mind loose. Recently, however, their friendship had become slightly tense, though not by Ginny’s doing. 

She had yet to tell her friend about her split from Ron, though she suspected the redheaded witch already knew. Likely her brother broke the news to her shortly after the event in question. Hermione had been fearful of Ginny’s reaction and the potential strain it would put on their friendship. Weeks later, and she knew she’d been unfair; she had not accorded her friend the chance she deserved. 

But as it was, the longer Hermione waited, the harder it became to avoid Ginny. But it also felt harder to consider approaching her, now that she would need to explain her poor behaviour on top of the situation with Ron. She just didn’t trust herself to find the right words. Knowing Ginny already understood only made their inevitable conversation that much more difficult. In attempting to avoid putting a strain on their friendship, somehow Hermione had created a more gruesome obstacle. She’d no justification for her actions, no reason to be so cowardly. Half of her wished Ginny would do the troublesome job and just confront her first, but she knew it was unfair to rely on others to deal with her problems. The other half hoped Ginny would accidentally Obliviate herself and forget Hermione had ever been with her brother at all. 

How much simpler that would be. 

Even if she could dredge up whatever Gryffindor qualities she still retained, she did not want to mend her friendship solely just to gain Ginny’s help. Hermione might be suffering from a stupid bout of cowardice, but she was far from callous. 

Ginny was another problem, for another time.

And regardless, hashing everything out with Ginny would take far too long, and Hermione’s hunger for information was becoming increasingly debilitating by the hour. Without Ginny, she had only one last potential resource to tap. Unfortunately, she was unsure of their rules of engagement. 

Hermione’s meeting with Pansy Parkinson happened rather by accident and, in retrospect, their conversation was both bewildering and difficult to rationalise. 

Stumbling upon the Slytherin witch after the ball, she hadn’t immediately known how to proceed. She considered berating Parkinson for abandoning her post as a Prefect but bit her tongue when she realised how hypocritical it would make her. Plus, she just wasn’t in a mood to care all that much about Prefect or Head duties anymore. When Parkinson held out a silver flask in offering, she felt initially apprehensive and unsure but gave in when “you look like you could use it” came from the other witch. 

As it turned out, Hermione did need it. 

A wet tongue was a loose tongue, and in the company of a witch who knew very little about her, Hermione felt freed. She talked about Ron. Spilling the details of her very recent breakup, she received a “You broke up with him while his cock was hanging out in the open? Ice cold, Granger” in between hiccups and some cackles from her drinking partner. 

To Hermione’s immense surprise, Parkinson returned the favour. The Slytherin must have been nursing her flask for some time before encountering Hermione for her to be as candid as she was. Either that, or she’d been starved of proper conversation and needed an outlet. Whatever the reason, Parkinson regaled Hermione with stories of her own. She spoke of her own first time (it had been with Malfoy, predictably), and how painfully awkward that had been. Cheekily, she described the various tricks she had discovered since then, some with Malfoy and some with others—and by herself, she added with a wink—all of which convinced Hermione she’d been correct to claim she lacked chemistry with Ron.

Hermione also had never blushed harder in her life. 

In the middle of describing what sounded like an acrobatic experience in a broom closet with the now Head Boy, Parkinson chuckled sadly to herself and ordered the topic of boys “verboten”. When Hermione tried to clarify, Parkinson merely rubbed her ankles and said softly, “If the git isn’t going to talk to me about what’s bothering him, I shan’t bother talking about him.”

Hermione left the topic well enough alone after that. The two witches managed to natter on for what felt like hours about various boy-unrelated subjects, some substantive, others bordering on banal. It was simultaneously one of the most bizarre and refreshing chats she’d ever had. Hermione didn’t recall how it ended; in fact, she hardly remembered even returning to her dormitory. Their conversation felt like a distant memory now. If she hadn’t awoken with a rippling hangover the following morning, she might have been convinced it was a dream.

Much like Malfoy, a sober Pansy Parkinson was completely unreadable and unpredictable on a good day. Hermione wondered if these were qualities mandatory to get sorted into Slytherin, or if they were acquired as a means of surviving their slippery housemates. They were off-putting, to say the least, and made the entire Slytherin lot wholly unapproachable. 

But the need to unveil Malfoy’s secret gnawed at her insides; it pierced her skin, crawling across her arms and chest like a million trailing ants. She was self-aware enough to admit the issue was driving her a little insane. Any trepidation she may have had with seeking out Parkinson was far outweighed by her visceral thirst for clarity.

And that was how Hermione found herself sitting across from the raven-haired Slytherin at a secluded table in the Hog’s Head. Parkinson’s glowing complexion and acutely angled haircut were a stunning contrast to the untidiness and rough edges of the inn, but the severity of her countenance looked right at home.

“Remind me again why you summoned me here?” She inspected her flawless hands with a careful air of boredom.

Hermione shifted in her seat, still unsure how to proceed. “Um, how are you?”

Parkinson frowned deeply. “Peachy. Will that be all?”

“No, no wait, please.” Hermione held the witch’s forearm onto the table, and Parkinson looked appalled at having to contact anymore of the bar’s furniture than she already was. Hermione did her best to ignore it and continued, but at a much lower resonance. “Do you remember what we talked about before?”

“Apologies, but my memory’s been going lately.” The witch blew imaginary dust from her nails, then buffed them against her tailored jumper. “Do refresh me.”

Hermione breathed through her nose audibly. Why did she get herself into this? Because you can’t let anything well enough alone, can you? Foolish girl…

“You told me you think Malfoy’s keeping something from you.”

“Oh, did I? That doesn’t sound like the kind of conversation I normally have with a Gryffindor.” Parkinson levelled her with a short but hard glare. “I’ve just had so many, you see, so I should know.”

“Look, Parkinson, I know you don’t like me. I don’t know why you talked to me that night, but you did, and you can’t take it back now.” She took a few calming breaths and pleaded, “I’m trying to help us both here.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“I think you do.” She challenged the other witch this time, leaning forward across the table.

There was a nearly inaudible click of Parkinson’s jaws coming together before her practised nonchalance returned. “Really?” She drawled. “Convince me then.”

“I saw something.”

“That’s not very convincing.”

Hermione rolled her eyes and started again, trying to tamp down both her irritation and how ridiculous her upcoming words would sound. “Malfoy’s eyes are different.”

Two black brows arched upward but caused no wrinkles to form on Parkinson’s immaculate forehead. “His…eyes are different?” Her next words came slowly. “You dragged me all the way down here to tell me that?”

“No, listen. This is significant, I’m certain of it. I noticed his eyes during our last patrol together, and he ran off the second he realised it.”

This time, Parkinson’s lips pursed and her eyes narrowed just a fraction. She said nothing, but Hermione could tell she was intrigued. 

“The only other time he’s done that was after I slapped him in third year. And he looked well scared. I know what I saw means something.”

Parkinson hummed. “And what, exactly, did you see?”

Hermione told her. It was a brief explanation given she’d been unable to find any supplemental information in the library, but she detailed what she witnessed as well as all her unsuccessful attempts to learn more. Parkinson simply looked at her throughout, occasionally focussing her blank stare on the wall behind her, above her, to the bar, but still nodded minutely at key points. She was silent for several moments after Hermione finished, and she thought the Slytherin might laugh her off and leave. 

But Parkinson remained, impassive. “So, what’s your theory? And before you let loose,” she held up a hand as if she was afraid Hermione would all but projectile vomit on her, “I heard you when you said you’ve found nothing. But surely you must have some semblance of a guess.”

Hermione winced. “Not really, no. Normally I can come up with at least a few, but I know I’ve seen this feature before; I just can’t place it. I'll come up with an idea and then immediately chuck it in the bin because the only thing I can say for certain is what this isn’t.” She rested her elbows on the table before digging her hands into her hair by her temples.

Hands that were quickly swatted again by elegant fingers. “Take your hands out of your hair, Granger. It’s already enough of a rat’s nest.”

Hermione sneered at her but lowered her hands all the same. “This is driving me barmy. But I just have this niggling feeling that if I can remember where I saw this before, I’ll get the whole thing.”

“Yes, so you’ve said.” Parkinson sighed exasperatedly. “If you want progress you’ll need to stop thinking in circles. Now, is it reasonable to assume you saw this same thing on another person, not in a book or something?”

“I reckon that’s probably true.” Hermione mused.

“How could it not be true?”

Hermione laughed humourlessly and directed her eyes toward the rafters. “I dunno; I could be completely insane and misattributing a completely unrelated memory?”

Parkinson shrugged, and it looked far too casual a gesture for such a regal-appearing witch. “Has that ever happened to you before?”

She feigned thinking for a second despite knowing the answer immediately. “I don’t think it has.”

“Spare me the false modesty,” her tablemate scoffed, “the correct answer is ‘no’, Granger. You know it, I know it.”

“Fine, no.”

“Splendid. So, for the purposes of this conversation, we shall assume the working theory that you’ve seen the same or similar eyes on someone in your past. Now, you’ve been living with Draco for months and never noticed anything odd about his eyes before. What was different about that night?”

Hermione blushed. “Er, I tripped, and he…he caught me.”

This time, only one brow rose in time with the corner of Parkinson’s mouth. “Hmm. So, you got close to him then?”

Hermione muttered in the affirmative. 

“One could, therefore, deduce that Draco’s mystery eye twin must have been close to you as well.”

“That seems like a reasonable explanation.”

“Well, that gets rid of all the other Slytherins. And unless you’re a much naughtier little lion than I thought, I expect it also rules out the professors?” 

“Of course it does!” Hermione spluttered, affronted at her inference. 

Parkinson donned a devilish smirk. The elder Slytherin students must haze the younger ones until smirking was more natural than breathing, Hermione thought. 

“Just being thorough. It’s always the quiet ones, you know?”

“You think I’m quiet?” She wasn’t sure which accusation made her feel more offended. 

“No, you’re correct. You never shut up, actually.”

Hermione clamped her jaws shut as if to prove a point. Parkinson’s smile persisted, and somehow the Gryffindor felt she lost a battle before knowing one began. It was little wonder the majority of the Wizengamot—and the rest of the Ministry, in fact—had been dominated by Slytherins for so long. Between their monstrous wealth and cunning, they were practically bred for the corruption of establishment politics.

Yet another problem, for yet another time.

“Is there anyone in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw you’ve cosied up to as much as you did with our darling Draco?” Parkinson inquired.

“I didn’t cosy—” she cut herself off at the impatient set of Parkinson’s lips, “I’ve probably been that close to Luna—and no, not like that—but it definitely wasn’t her. She’s crazy enough in her own right.”

“We can agree on that.” Parkinson held a small smile, and it nearly looked genuine. “Anyone else?”

“Not that I can recall.”

“That limits the search then, doesn’t it?”

Hermione laughed again. “You mean to the tiny population that is Gryffindor House, my family, and my friends’ families?”

“Unless you’ve been lying about your blood status all this time, I think we can count your family out.”

“Why, because they’re Muggles?” She asked hotly.

“Yes.” Parkinson answered with an air of indifferent finality. Begrudgingly, Hermione acknowledged the other witch’s point. Not aloud, of course. Whatever was going on with Malfoy was more than just unusual; it was undoubtedly magical too.

“And all of Gryffindor House?” Parkinson continued, “I knew you lot are a touchy-feely bunch, but that’s practically incestuous.”

Contacting the Slytherin had been a bad idea. Apparently, those were the only kind of ideas Hermione had left anymore. 

“Fine, not all of my house.”

The witch across from her withdrew a self-inking quill from her bag and Summoned a napkin from one of the nearby tables. The drunken wizard at that table sent her a watery glare in return, but she paid him no mind. She placed the tools neatly before Hermione, their axes perfectly parallel. 

“List them.” Perfectly enunciated for such a short statement.

“Ask me nicely.” Hermione hissed.

“Claws away, darling. I thought you wanted to help me.” 

One day, Hermione would learn how to make someone spontaneously combust just by looking at them. Parkinson may be helping her sort through her thoughts, but calling it an infuriating process was putting it mildly. For the time being, Hermione would have to live vicariously through her imagination. 

Another fucking problem, for another—fuck this, she would need her old Time-Turner back.

Hermione did as Parkinson bade and jotted down the names of her friends to whom she’d ever been physically close. She was liberal with her list, including people with whom she had only ever shared a library table, just to be careful. Still, each time she wrote a name, it was quickly crossed off with a definitive stroke. The elusive person might be just out of reach, but she was fairly confident in who it wasn’t. When she completed the list, the limp napkin resembled the work history of a very successful hitman. 

“This is hopeless.” She grumbled, throwing down the quill.

“That’s supposed to be my line, Granger.” She picked up the quill, smoothing out the gaps in the feathers that resulted from Hermione’s abuse.

“It’s clearly not anyone in my house.”

Parkinson pushed her work back in front of her and placed the quill back in her fingers. “You mentioned your friends’ families.”

Hermione groaned. “Bloody hell, that’s so many people.”

“Language.” Parkinson admonished her snidely. “Get out of your head and narrow it down.”

If Hermione didn’t know any better, she would have thought that was the Slytherin equivalent of a pep talk. Now she understood why Slytherins were always politicians, but one had not been Minister for Magic in over a century. They were evidently well suited to hosting whispered symposia in smoky rooms and pulling strings like expert puppeteers, but less so to motivational speeches intended to uplift the downtrodden.

Hermione flipped over the makeshift note and started again. This set took her longer than the first; she hadn’t been exaggerating when she said the families of her friends formed a large population. Circe, even the Weasleys could make up a small village. Actually, probably a large village…

There was Ginny (I really should have just talked to her), Ron (good riddance), George (poor George…), Fred (Merlin rest his soul), Percy (kind of a prick), Charlie (I always liked his dragon tattoos), Bill (his face still scares me a little), Molly and Arthur (I do hope they still like me). Those were all wrong. The nine names were each swiftly crossed out.

Then, there were the newer additions: Bill’s wife, Fleur, Percy’s girlfriend, Audrey, Angelina Johnson…

…wait. The quill paused. 

Hermione glanced up slowly, head still bent. 

One of the complications that came with having an expansive vocabulary was that there were too many choices for how to describe something, but there would only ever be one perfect fit. Finding that word could mean wading through an ocean of inadequate half-synonyms. And sometimes, that ocean was one of mud, and she was tasked with finding a tiny brown pebble buried down deep. 

Somewhat ironically, some years ago her mother taught her a word to describe that feeling. Lethologica: from the Greek myth of the river Lethe, from which troubled souls would drink to forget their earthly memories. But having a name to match a feeling hardly made the feeling itself any more pleasant to experience. It felt like choking—the word would fight so hard to be spoken but her body refused and held it down. Her eyes would flit around, passing from one subject to the next, hoping something in her environment would trigger a helpful thought.

Her mother never taught her the word for finally remembering. 

Was there a single way to describe a powerful exhale, the kind released after holding a breath for far too long? Did a term exist for the pulse that thrummed at the back of a brain, the product of rushing adrenaline? Had someone thought to explain the need to clench one’s eyes shut, for suddenly the world became much too bright?

The other problem with having a diverse lexicon at her fingertips was that it was exponentially more unsatisfying when that one perfect word didn’t exist—because she would know it if it did.

If there was no word, Hermione would need to create one. Some feelings require names, and this was one of them. More powerful than relief—it was more like requisite salvation. 

At the wedding right before she and the boys went on the run, Hermione watched Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour bind themselves to each other eternally. Too much dancing—and likely too much Elf wine—later, and Fleur had approached her. Unsolicited, Fleur grasped Hermione by the cheeks and brought their faces much to close together for comfort.

“’Ermione,” the woman with normally impeccable behaviour had a touch of a slur to her voice, “un jour, zis will ‘appen pour vous.”

“Er, thanks Phl- uh, Fleur.” She cursed Ginny’s influence for causing her near slip. Luckily, the other woman seemed too distracted to notice.

“Look at me.” Hermione had, and she saw it. “It will ‘appen for you.” Fleur was being pulled away to dance with her new husband again, and Hermione had only a moment to marvel at what she’d seen. A bright ring of white gold sparkled inside the icy blue depths of Fleur’s eyes. She would have asked about it, but then Kingsley’s Patronus appeared, and all hell broke loose…

It hadn’t been exactly the same as what she had seen in Malfoy; it was more prominent and glowed more brightly. But it was the same. She would bet her wand that it was the same.

“Spit it out, I haven’t got all day.” Parkinson’s sharp tone brought her out of her memories—memories that now wouldn’t stop shouting and echoing about in her skull. Bits of knowledge, facts, characteristics she’d seen in her limited years all zoomed past each other behind her eyes, longing to knit together into a complete explanation.

“It was Fleur.” Hermione said simply.

“The Beauxbatons witch from our fourth year? The Triwizard Champion?”

“The same.”

“Hmm.” Parkinson swiped a few crumbs into a pile with her index finger. “Well, have a nice evening.” She rose from the table and began gathering her belongings.

Astounded, Hermione tried to stop her. “Hey! I did everything you said and now you’re leaving?”

“Slytherin, darling.” She gestured to herself. “I would have thought you knew better.”

“Oh fuck that, you’re staying.” Hermione grabbed her by both arms and pulled her back to her seat, uncaring if she caught the attention of the bar’s other patrons.  They were all at least three sheets to the wind anyway and likely wouldn't remember anything they saw or heard. One was even resting his head on the bar in what appeared to be a pile of his own drool…

Looking back at her companion, she saw that Parkinson had adopted a face of disgusted horror at being manhandled. Hermione didn’t once consider relenting.

“You cannot expect that I don’t know what this means.”

“I don't have to indulge this conversation.” Despite having grown into her nose over the years, Parkinson suddenly looked remarkably pug-faced all of a sudden. Likely every pretentious pureblood lesson was being put to good use via the witch’s strict posture, her aloof expression, and the resolute (but yet not-too-firm) set of her elegant chin.

“Fine, I’ll talk.” Hermione spat and stared her down, unwavering. “Fleur is a part-Veela.”

Silence.

“But male Veela don’t exist.”

Silence.

“Well, perhaps one does.”

Silence.

“Fuck.”

Chapter 8: Five Stages

“Hi,” she said lamely, digging her shoes into the carpet pile as if asking the floor to swallow her up.

“Hi.” Ginny responded with an air of finality, leant against the frame of the archway.

A pregnant pause followed. Just how was she to start up this conversation, like she’d not selfishly tried to put their friendship on pause? Should she jump to grovelling? Would it not be better to ask how Ginny was doing first? Or would Ginny interpret that as a placatory tool (which it undoubtedly was)?

Hermione hated not knowing how to speak to her friend.

She was here because she’d had enough.

So forget Malfoy, forget being bothered by his secrets. Truth be told, forget Ron and school and life and everything in it. She just wanted her friend back. She was tired of the endless tension that built each day she failed to remedy the situation—which you needlessly created in the first place, she chastised herself regularly—and it was time to put things right.

Ginny had been her person since the war ended. She was the sort of friend that made Hermione feel like she’d not fully experienced something unless they did it together or until they nattered on about it for hours afterwards. If Lavender said something tactless (a frequent occurrence) or Madam Pince finally restocked a part of the library or the House Elves changed the variety of pumpkin used in their juice, it all passed through Ginny. The nothing-is-important-but-really-everything-is sort of friend.

Without her, Hermione was exhausted. It was gruelling work, forcing a gap betwixt them that had no reason to be there.

And that was why Hermione had ended up, at dawn on a cold Saturday morning, sat in one of the plush armchairs in the Gryffindor Common Room. It was the only day of the week Ginny could be counted upon not to be flying a truly egregious number of laps around the Quidditch Pitch at a morning hour that even Hermione would call ungodly.

The trek to Gryffindor Tower had felt especially arduous, Hermione’s feelings of guilt and contrition smelting iron into her legs. Predictably, the Common Room was deserted when she arrived, given she had come early in the hopes of ensuring she would catch her friend before the witch trotted down to breakfast. They’d not be able to talk there—not the way they needed to.

There was so much Hermione wanted to say, so much she wanted her friend to know. But that wasn’t why she came. She could not continue treating her friend like some sounding board for her problems when she felt fit to bursting, but then switch to shutting her out the rest of the time. That wasn’t who Hermione Granger was. She was meant to exemplify the strength, bravery, and loyalty characteristic of her house.

Hermione needed to take the Gryffindor back from whatever dusty corner her cowardice had swept it into. Giving her head a brisk shake and stealing a fortifying breath, she decided to rip off the plaster.

“I’ve been a crap friend recently.” Her hands curled and rubbed together in her lap, thumbs unconsciously pressing against pressure points on her palms. “There’s no excuse for it. I’ve just been letting a lot slip, and I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

It wasn’t enough. Not even close, but it was a start.

Ginny wrapped her arms around herself but stayed in the stairwell, staying silent for just a moment. “I know you’ve been dealing with a lot,” she said softly, her gaze cast somewhere above and to the right of Hermione’s head, “I know I have, and I didn’t go through half of what you did.”

Hermione winced instantly. “Ginny, you shouldn’t compare or minimise—”

“Could you let me finish?” Ginny’s tone wasn’t sharp, but it was brisk enough to remind Hermione why she was such an adept Quidditch captain. Just the right amount of Molly Weasley was woven in to command attention, but the comforting softness of her father still peeked through, cushioning the blow. She continued after Hermione stayed quiet for a beat, sighing. “Anyway, you went through a lot last year, and this one hasn’t been easy on you either, I know that. But you know I want to help you with all that, don't you?”

Hermione couldn’t help the single tear that escaped, for she had been hit too suddenly by a tidal wave of emotion. Gratitude, for having such a lovely friend for whom she would sacrifice anything. Loneliness, that she could have this wonderful friend who felt so very far away. Guilt, for being the one to establish that distance. Fear, knowing there was a risk the gap between them could be permanent. Selfishness, for wanting this friend back even though she knew she did not deserve her.

Love, and determination: the yearning to give this friend everything she deserved; being willing to do whatever it would take to achieve that.

She would take the Gryffindor back.

“I know,” she breathed shakily, aiming for honesty and truth, “but sometimes you know something without really knowing it, you know?” It was true, if a little ineloquent.

Ginny grimaced and pushed off the wall. “I know.” She kept her arms crossed, her fingers clutching the jumper where it balled up at her hips as she crossed to one of the overstuffed armchairs. “Did I make you feel like that?”

Hermione’s head snapped up abruptly at her friend’s small voice and the speed at which she shook it would have been comical in any other context. “No, no, please don’t ever think that. All of this is on me; I think I’ve just forgot how to be a good friend in normal times. Like,” she swallowed and glanced around, as if the right words would be painted somewhere on the walls, “when you’re fighting in a war it’s easy to protect someone or cover their back or sacrifice yourself and call that friendship and loyalty.” She paused and picked at her cuticles, hissing when she pulled one a bit too far back. "I can't remember how I was a friend without having a war for a crutch.”

The silence that filled the room was thick, and she felt her anxiety thrum like someone had trapped her under a heavy blanket. She wanted to get out, for it would almost certainly be better than staying underneath. And yet, there was pleasant darkness and warmth to her soft cage. Trying to pull it off always made her feel more stifled and choked right up until the end.

Ginny pulled her eyes away from where they had been trained on the hearth. Mirrored in them, Hermione could see the pops and sparks, and it was odd to watch them flicker when the rest of her face remained still.

“It’s okay to be vulnerable around me, sometimes.”

Hermione nodded but said nothing, pulling the blanket closer.

“And it’s okay if you’ve forgotten how.”

She couldn’t help the onslaught of tears even if she tried. They rained down her cheeks, dripping onto her folded hands. A strange sort of numbness filled her, as though all of her emotions were warring for dominance but each just cancelled out the others. All she could do was cry and feel them as they flitted by.

The carpet muffled Ginny’s feet enough that Hermione did not hear her rise, but she felt it when a pair of slender legs slid into her chair. Two sets of hips now pressed tightly against the sides. While the chair certainly hadn’t been made to fit two grown witches, Hermione would never dream of calling it uncomfortable. And when a matching set of arms slipped around her shoulders, the snug position felt like being hugged from all sides. She leant her head against her friend’s woolly shoulder and released a watery chuckle.

“God, I’m really such a shit.”

“Oh, come on now—” Ginny started to tut at her.

“No, this was meant to be an apology, and now you’re comforting me.” Despite her words, Hermione wound her own arms around Ginny’s middle and tugged her even closer.

The other witch giggled, nuzzling into Hermione’s hair. “Well, we can’t be good at everything, now can we?”

“I think I’m obligated to disagree to that.” She sniffled.

Ginny tugged on a crazed curl, encouraging Hermione to meet her eyes. “Don’t worry about what you’re supposed to do for a minute, alright? Just sit here and have a cuddle with me.”

She snuggled a little deeper into the warmth of the jumper. Her guilt still gnawed at her, imploring her that she wasn’t nearly done apologising. And she wasn’t, she knew that. But they would have time to talk later. For now, they both just needed a little of each other. Hermione was content to wait, rein in the need to unleash every insignificant thought she’d had since they last spoke, and bask in the rays of Ginny’s unrelenting love.

“Alright.”

xx

She’d intended to spend the rest of the day doing absolutely nothing with Ginny. But, as she really should have understood by now, being any sort of authority figure meant her plans often went interrupted.

One of the fifth-year Ravenclaw Prefects (Oona? Olga? Orla!) had been told by her year partner who’d been told by one of the older students that Geoffrey Hooper could no longer chaperone the Valentine’s Day party in Hogsmeade later that night. Though it was no fault of Orla’s, Hermione positively despised third-party information, or however many degrees removed this was. The detail was always lacking, and Hermione thrived on detail. She and the boys would have surely died in minutes whilst they’d been on the run had it not been for the intricacy of her ward patterns.

Case in point, the Ravenclaw hadn’t known why Hooper was suddenly indisposed, providing only some half-arsed excuse about him needing to supervise detention for an unnamed professor. Calling it dodgy was a wild understatement. Professors often watched over their detentions personally and with hawk-like supervision, or wholly abandoned the students to their sentence after administering a set of charms to ensure the tasks were completed. However, she’d no help from Orla in sorting it out, and she’d not been about to go traipsing through the castle hunting for Hooper when the party was only a few hours away.

As it was being held off school grounds and past the school’s curfew, the event was open only to students of age (although Hermione fully anticipated a few rogue sixth years sneaking their way in). Hence, only Prefects of or above the same year were allowed to chaperone. The fact that Hermione was the only remaining option for the job had made her teeth grind together in rage.

She had specifically signed up for double patrol shifts earlier in the month to avoid having to be present at this disaster of an evening. And whoever suggested Madam Puddifoot’s as the venue would feel her wrath in the morning.

On a good day, the tea shop gave her a splitting headache with its all-pink theme and twittering, flying cherubs, not to mention the too-sweet aroma that could be smelt across the village. But add in mood music and entirely too much perfume—which still somehow didn’t mask the stench of two hundred sweaty bodies—and she’d bet the migraine would outlast the weekend.

Thank Merlin she had made up with Ginny before this. The witch was a lifesaver, offering as she had to spend the night at Hermione’s side (“sounds like a lark to me”, she’d said earlier). She’d been a steady source of entertainment, busying herself by taking the piss out of the partygoers making utter fools of themselves. Without Ginny, Hermione would have surely slunk into a corner and tried to block out the noise and disturbing visual. She still dreamt of doing so, but she was meant to be doing a job.

If she were being honest, however, one could only be so competent at it. Being of age, the dense mob of students were largely free to do as they wished. Any of those who happened to be under the age of seventeen were huddled near the centre, wisely staying out of sight. The Prefects patrolling the periphery were doing their best, but it was a bit like trying to contain the Weasley twins once they were determined to pull pranks. The more she would try to rein them in, the craftier they got and the more horrid the result became. Best to avoid the most major offences with simple monitoring charms and let the rest pan out as it may. 

Ginny, bless her, volunteered to grab them some butterbeer when the heavy taste of sweat in the air made her mouth feel like it had bathed in the stuff. Hermione would have opted to accompany her, but she was a better chaperone from her current vantage point against the wall than she would be stuck amongst the throng of gyrating bodies. Alone, however, she was reminded what a dreadful party this was. At least the responsibility-free students seemed to be enjoying it. Perhaps they were too sloshed or hopped up on hormones to care.

In the attempt to perform her task, her gaze scattered about the room. Practically every nook and cranny were occupied by couples snogging or thrusting against each other in what was a loose, loose translation of dancing. The spectacle appeared more like a well organised, vanilla orgy than a school-sponsored event. Rather a vomitous display, really.

McGonagall had informed her that ever since the year a seventh-year Ravenclaw decided to aerosolise Amortentia and sprayed it throughout the crowd, all the professors vehemently refused to attend this event ever again. Now, she understood why. She’d have a hard time looking some people in the eye after this as well, and she wasn’t responsible for marking their essays.

“See something you like out there, Granger?” A deep voice from her left startled her.

“Cormac,” she huffed out a breath of surprise before turning back toward the room, “just the opposite, I’m afraid.”

He tutted at her and she bristled. His misplaced familiarity with her had always been Hermione’s biggest trifle about him—how he’d act like they were friends when he knew hardly a thing about her. She bestowed upon him the requisite respect from him fighting with the rest of the D.A. and the Order, especially since he’d no personal impetus to do so, but she felt no obligation to like the wizard.

It was just her luck to be partnered with him for the night. She could hardly believe it when his name was included on the list of Prefects at the start of the year. But apparently, as McGonagall had informed her, the wizard needed to be awarded for the unspecified “acts of courage” he performed during the previous year. Privately, Hermione suspected it was an incentive suggested by the Governors to entice the family (and hence his tuition) back to the school, since it was to be his second time repeating his final year.

She’d no proof other than the fact that Cormac was more fatuous than Crabbe had been, and that boy had cast a Fiendfyre without knowledge of the counter curse before proceeding to die in it. Yes, it was poor form for Hermione to speak ill of the dead, but everyone had their faults…

“You looked intrigued from where I was stood.”

…And Cormac’s was that he never knew when to take a hint. Or, more likely, that he constantly refused to acknowledge them.

“What?” Hermione scrunched up her face in confusion, as well as in irritation that he was prolonging this interaction.

“I scarcely think your Weasley showed you what all that can feel like,” Cormac leered at her as he gestured blindly toward the mass of interlocked couples, “and an avid learner such as yourself would only be in her rights to be curious.”

“That’s really none of your business.” She spared him only a short, purposefully disinterested glance before looking away, subtly searching the crowd for Ginny. Sadly, the red hair that normally served as a beacon in congested spaces now became expert camouflage given the environs. Hermione willed the witch a swift return journey for both their sakes.

“Sensitive subject, I reckon,” he manoeuvred the bulk of his body to block most of her view, and she immediately turned so her back couldn’t be pressed against the wall, “given your recent split, I mean.”

“Is there a purpose for this conversation?” Her tone was hot, and she no longer cared if her irritation showed through. It was doubly annoying that Cormac was obviously enjoying her growing ire. Boys. “You’re here to do a job, you know, not bother me with personal issues.”

“I’d be happy to keep you company if you start feeling lonely.” He ignored her castigation and continued to crowd her space, pushing her slowly toward the other end of the room. “I’ve been told I’m a remarkable rebound.”

She snorted most indelicately before she could help it, but didn’t regret that it had escaped. Hoping he would lose interest if she simply stopped responding to him, she held her ground and turned away from his insistent smirk. The amount of chaperoning she could accomplish was practically negligible given her limited visual field. And yet, it was still preferable to the alternative that was reminding herself of Cormac’s odious features.

“Come on, Granger,” he growled, “I can show you a good time, if you let me.”

“I’m having a good enough time by myself, thanks.”

“But where’s the fun in that?” He wrapped one thick, hot arm around her middle and pulled her tight against him before she could react, and her hands immediately flew to his chest to try and push him off. Unfortunately, Harry’s assessment that he could probably block all three Quidditch hoops at once rang true. Cormac’s body moved about as much under the force of her palms as would the walls of Hogwarts itself. “Just a dance, then? I’ll give you a complimentary trial run.”

Hermione shook her head, disgusted. Christ, he was vile. She couldn’t make this stuff up if she tried.

“You’re serious, aren’t you? Look, I’m not interested. Now please, let me go.” She managed to wrench his arm out from around her torso, but he simply grabbed onto her wrist as soon as she’d released him.

“You’re just gonna run off without giving me a chance, then? Let me show you what I can do.” He sounded exactly as he had back in her sixth year, when Harry had favoured Ron to be Keeper over him. Somehow, his petulance was even worse now. Perhaps it was because she had become its focus.

“I told you,” Hermione hissed through clenched teeth, “I’m not interested.” She tried to twist her arm such that he would be forced to let her go, but he was just too large. She couldn’t gain any leverage over him.

“I’m just asking for a bloody dance—”

“And I do believe she already gave you her answer.” The smooth, dark voice passed above her head from behind, and it drew Cormac’s attention upward. She would know that deep timbre anywhere. The wizard’s eyes narrowed and his hands tightened their grip on her. She gasped from the unexpected pain, but he ignored her.

“Fuck off, Malfoy. This doesn’t concern you.”

“You’re distracting the Head Girl from her duties. As Head Boy, I find that concerns me greatly.” With her back to him, she couldn’t see Malfoy’s face. But something about the way he spoke sounded…off. His standard snark and terseness were there, yes, but they almost seemed artificially added in as if they were an afterthought. In their place was a sepulchral reverb that she’d never heard before in his tone. It dripped with anger and persuasion. Hermione shivered as it crawled over her skin, the vibrations lifting the hairs on her arms.

“I reckon the Head Girl can stay with me if she pleases.” Cormac’s sneer was an ugly beast that managed to make his existing face even more rank. The fact that she was at all associated with it made her feel ill.

“And I’d reckon she doesn't, McLaggen.”

She rolled her eyes to high heaven before using Cormac’s distraction to push him off. Finally. “Would you both stop talking as if I’m not here?” Hermione screeched, massaging her tender wrists. “Cormac, kindly piss off, would you? Get it through your thick skull that I’m. Not. Interested.” Ready to storm off and haunt a lonely wall on the opposite end, she turned her back on the wizards but found a bewildered Ginny standing a few metres away. Clearly, the witch had observed at least some of her interaction with the two ruffled peacocks. Ginny looked frozen in place with a butterbeer grasped in each hand.

Hermione marched toward her friend and tugged her away by the elbow. She needed to breathe, and she’d not be doing much of that in this godforsaken tea shop. Uncaring of the bitter temperatures of the Scottish February night, Hermione directed them to the back door.

The air was bitingly crisp; the speed at which it cleared her head was enough to make her dizzy. While it almost burned her lungs to breathe out here, anything was better than the slow suffocation occurring inside.

Ginny was silent beside her, save for the puffs of hot air that trilled off every few seconds. Due to the layers upon layers of Silencing Charms placed on the shop to avoid disturbing Hogsmeade’s residents, her shuddering exhales were deafening. Hermione wished the little clouds that broke up the night would be less intemperate, for perhaps she could Transfigure them into soft little beings before they disintegrated into the dark.

When her friend finally broke the silence further, her whisper rattled Hermione’s bones like a bellow.

“The fuck happened in there?”

Hermione sighed in exasperation and took one of the butterbeers. Brushing away a layer of snow and casting a nonverbal drying spell, she sat upon one of the discarded stacks of shipping pallets. “Cormac was being his arrogant, prickish self, as per usual.”

Ginny leant against the brick wall across from her and sent her a knowing look. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh, Malfoy?” She shrugged. “Probably was pissed there were two chaperones not doing a lot of chaperoning.”

“Looked more like a testosterone-fuelled jizz fest to me.”

“Ugh, spare me the visual.” Hermione coughed up her butterbeer with a grimace. The liquid might have warmed her insides going down, but it tickled more than a carbonated Muggle soft drink coming back up.

“Hey, if I had to see it, you get to see it.” The redheaded witch chuckled and took a long pull from her bottle before chucking it end-over-end into a bin that should have been out of range. Alas, she had perfect aim, as always. When she looked back at Hermione, her countenance had sobered. “I’m sorry I was gone so long that Cormac harassed you.”

Hermione waved off her friend. "Don't worry about it. He's a right dickhead, but I can handle him."

Ginny smirked, only a hint of contrition remaining. “Of course you can. And if you can’t, looks like Malfoy will be happy to swoop in and save you.”

“You’re hilarious.” She drawled. Checking her wristwatch, the dreadful party still had just over an hour before it concluded. Reminding Ginny she was free to leave whenever she wished, the witch just tugged Hermione off her perch and back toward the shop door.

“Come on, witch. Which shall we recommence first: the simple ‘snog technique critique’ or the advanced ‘whose dance best resembles the mating practices of the Crumple-Horned Snorkack’?”

Hermione cackled and smacked her friend on the arm fondly. “You’re a gem, Gin.”

Ginny held open the door with one arm, bowed her head, and gestured for Hermione to pass through first. Curtsying in thanks, Hermione entered but stopped abruptly at the sight the welcomed her. Any speck of frivolity Ginny had bestowed upon her was now blown away with the February wind.

Ginny stepped around her and murmured, “Merlin’s baggy Y-fronts; we weren’t even gone five minutes.”

Before them lay a cousin to the scene to the one they’d exited. All the original cast of characters were there in the same setting. But they’d rearranged themselves so drastically that they now told a very different story altogether.

Cormac lay prone on the floor, his head turned to the side so Hermione could see sticky red blood flowing from his nose and lips. It stained his teeth and dripped into the uneven cracks in the floorboards. With his eyes closed, she couldn't ascertain whether he was conscious, but at least the small rises and falls of his back meant he was still breathing. Above him, Malfoy was openly seething. The knuckles of his right hand were cut and bloodied themselves, though the wizard certainly didn't appear worse for wear. One of the Slytherin Prefects, Nott, had him grasped by the arm. Clearly, he'd done a piss-poor job of reining in the violent impulses of his friend.

As if sensing her presence, Malfoy’s eyes snapped to hers, and she was shocked to read the rage and aggression in them even from her distance. Suddenly, he shrugged off his friend roughly and stormed off in the other direction. If he left the shop entirely or just disappeared into the crowd, she couldn’t be sure. However, she was leaning toward the former.

Talking of the crowd, she was surprised to find it largely intact and unbothered, the swaths of bodies too preoccupied with who could get more face into their mouths to notice the fight at their feet. Only a few had become onlookers. Passively glancing down at Cormac’s limp body with only the barest hints of concern, none were spurred into action.

Hermione came back to herself at the thought. Her feet broke their seal with the floor and she hurried over to Cormac. The wizard was a prat with overly aggressive romantic inclinations toward her, yes, but he was still injured. Hermione was no sadist; she’d endured far more than her fair share of violence in her lifetime and did not relish the idea of experiencing more.

She shook her head as she set to performing the basic healing charms. Here she had been, fretting over Malfoy’s heritage and its implications, and she had forgotten what he was like. Sure, maybe he was an anomalous magical being, the kind that spiked her curiosity. But still, he was the same horrible boy who jumped too prematurely to acts of violence. How many others had he dealt with like he did Cormac?

She doubted he always used Muggle methods as he had this night.

The thought made her shudder as she reset his nose with a quick Episkey, followed by a Tergeo. Satisfied with her work, she glanced around to ensure she had a wide enough berth to levitate his body out of the shop. As she did it, she caught eyes with another Slytherin lurking in the shadows. The moment was brief, and Parkinson’s expression remained as stoic as ever before it was gone from her sight.

Fucking shady, the lot of them.

“It’s like I said,” Ginny sighed, bending to kneel beside her. At Hermione’s questioning look, she elaborated, “bloody jizz fest, that was.”

Hermione grumbled and turned back to the incapacitated Cormac. She was so done with boys.

---

Draco couldn’t bear staying a moment longer. Not when she was stood across from him, those deep, doe eyes shining with shock and concern. Concerned, not for him, but for the pitiful excuse for a wizard lying at his feet. Shocked at what he’d done.

He had been feeling increasingly nauseous throughout the night with the veritable shroud of hormones filling the air, but he’d not felt like he would truly be sick until he looked at her.

She didn’t appear relieved that the wizard who had harangued her, who spoke of her like a plaything, who touched her without right, was dealt with cleanly. No, he had upset her, and it made him want to tear a hole in his chest with his talons so he could crawl within himself and die.

Bloody grim, that was.

It was the only time he could recall his Veela feeling as conflicted as his human side did. He hated leaving Granger there, sharing air with the offensive cunt who’d only moments before been regaling Draco with obviously enhanced retellings of their shared past. They were ugly words he’d not hear repeated if he had anything to say about it. He yearned to steal her away and bring her back to their quarters where she would be safe.

But she was looking down at the lump of McLaggen with fucking concern--like he was worth anything from her. The Veela recoiled painfully and with such force, he nearly staggered. The rips on his knuckles were a superficial irritation at best, and they yearned to be torn into even smaller ribbons as Draco laid into Mclaggen again. And again, and again.

Just to make himself perfectly clear.

Actions had consequences, he knew that better than anyone. McLaggen had earned a punishment and, as far as the Veela was concerned, he’d not received even a slap on the wrist. It ached to feel the other wizard’s skin give way, to feel his bones collapse under the pressure of Draco’s bare fists. Even that seemed too merciful in light of what had been said.

It was a small miracle that his wings stayed tucked away. Maybe the Veela knew they weren’t needed, that Draco was more than capable of doling out McLaggen’s just deserts all on his own. Maybe it also recognised that slicing apart Draco’s back would only weaken him in a time he needed his full faculties.

Then again, he was feeling awfully eager about putting the razor-sharp wingtips to the test.

He knew others would question his methods of disposing of the wretch. But sometimes magic was just too impersonal. Sometimes the connection of flesh to flesh, bone to bone, and blood to blood was necessary. A Crucio was draining in its own fashion, but not in a way McLaggen would appreciate. Draco wanted the wizard to feel his exertion and the force he funnelled into his rage.

But the second he scented his witch in the room, the Veela faltered.

Even in the dim light, he could read her perfectly. Even in the deepest, darkest cave beneath the earth, he’d always lose himself in the light of those expressive eyes. And Draco had never before felt so lost.

Pivoting, he absconded from the building. The Veela was silent the whole way.

Behind him was the crumpled form of his opponent, whose mediocre blood mingled on the floor with the dust and the grime and the decades of spilt tea. Behind him was his mate, the one who threatened to pull him into a steady descent into madness whenever he remembered that her most positive feeling toward him was one of indifference. She was everything to him already, but he was less than a speck of nothing to her.

He trudged a messy path through the snow-laden Hogsmeade roads, abruptly turning down a secluded alley. Standing there, the snow soaking his trousers halfway to his knees, he breathed in deeply for only a moment before driving his fist into the nearest brick wall. The bones crunched and screamed for mercy, but he didn’t obey. Over, and over, the stony ridges forged new trenches in his skin. The wall showed little evidence of his act of self-destruction save for bits of chipped mortar here and there. It was likely painted with his blood, but it lay invisible against the red brick.

“Merlin, fuck me.” The frantic words of Theo echoed between the close walls as he raced to push Draco against the opposite one. Draco struggled against his hold, but his friend refused to budge. “Don’t make me bind you again.”

Draco snarled at him but said nothing, ceasing his resistance. He flinched away when Theo made to grasp his damaged hand. “Leave it.”

“You practically mangled yourself, mate.” Theo implored him.

“Leave it.”

Theo stepped back. Draco didn’t care for the way his friend’s eyes passed over him, assessing him like he was an unstable potion being brewed in the wrong cauldron. Well, he thought to himself, perhaps that’s precisely what I am.

“You’re getting worse.”

Draco snorted. “Incredible deduction. What could have ever led you to such a conclusion?”

“Don’t be a twat. You need to do something about this, and quickly.”

He rolled his eyes at Theo’s ignorance. “Yeah? What d’you propose I do, hmm? Have you another cock-arsed plan to trick her into tolerating me?” He held his injured hand up with the other, purposefully pressing into the pit of one fractured knuckle. The pain roared its beleaguered head, but all he did was shut his eyes gently. Quieter now, “I won’t do it, Theo.”

Theo looked up the alley, squinting to focus in the low lamplight that barely spilled past the walls. “I guess we need a change of strategy then.”

“Don’t you get it?” Draco hissed through the thin air, his anger returned in full, “I’m finished with your strategies and your plans. The way I am—” he dragged a hand down his face and cupped his jaw, “—she’ll never want me. Best to get used to the idea sooner rather than later.”

Theo narrowed his eyes and looked primed to contradict him, so Draco continued before he could. “No, listen. If she happens to experience some drastic, life-altering change of heart in the next few months and wants to come to me, rest assured I’ll be a selfish-enough prick to accept that gift. But until then, I’ll be leaving her alone.”

“But she doesn’t know anything, Draco!” Theo cried. “I mean, you barely spared her a thought before you knew who she was. And when you did, it was never done in a good light.”

Draco fixed him with another glare, speaking lowly. “You know I had to behave a certain way.”

“Of course I know that. But I also know you genuinely disliked her for reasons unrelated to her blood status up until a few weeks ago.”

Draco paused a beat. “Your point?”

“My point?” Theo scoffed, raking a hand through his dark-brown locks before bringing it down roughly against his hip. “My point is: you’ve gone from barely tolerating the witch to wholeheartedly accepting her place in your life—even if you’re unwilling to act on it—in an incredibly short time. And all that’s changed is you know who she is. You let your Veela open your eyes to all her more positive qualities.

“But she’s still the same know-it-all swot she was nearly two months ago. Only difference is your Veela realised she’s fit enough that it doesn’t matter.” When Draco’s head snapped up and a snarl started to mar his lips, Theo held up his hands and retreated. “Or, perhaps your Veela—and you, by extension—have secretly got off to it all along.”

Draco busied himself by carving crude runes into the snow with his feet. He knew where Theo was headed but was in no rush to get there. Hearing the words aloud would only make them more real, more true.

Truth led to hope, and he knew how fickle and dangerous that could be.

Theo sighed and strode back toward him, clapping a hand on his shoulder and ignoring when Draco tried to shrug it off. “All I’m saying is maybe we’ve been going about this the wrong way, the Slytherin way. Maybe,” he continued, grimacing, “and I hope you know it causes me great physical pain to say this, but maybe we need the Gryffindor approach.”

“Well I already tried the upfront display of mindless brawn and she didn’t seem too tickled by it.” Draco huffed. “So I reckon that’s out.”

Theo scoffed. “Not quite what I had in mind.”

Draco rolled his eyes but did not respond, choosing instead to pick at the flaky siding of the wall he was leant against. Pity he’d not chosen this one to mutilate his fists; at least he’d have had something to show for himself.

“What I mean is—”

“He’s talking about being candid, Draco,” a feminine voice called from the other end of the alley, “not that you’d know much about that.”

“Pansy!” both wizards cried out before Draco added, “How long have you been there?”

“Long enough.”

Fuck.

He’d thought Theo was scary when crossed.

Fuck any life lessons about love, trust, or candour. This whole experience had taught him he was shit at keeping things from his friends. Why he still bothered trying at all was beyond him; all of them were bloody terrifying when he did.

Pansy approached in long, elegant strides. Expertly cast warming and drying spells on her shoes melted the snow straight to the pavement before her feet could touch the floor. She carried herself daintily, but with marked precision. Such a gait would have taken years to perfect; a straightening spell would have been used on her back for years, even whilst she slept, to ensure unwavering, flawless posture. She would have been made to count whilst she walked so that all of her steps were impeccably spaced.

She always knew how long it would take her to cross from one point to the next. She always timed it a few seconds too short for her victims to conjure up any kind of clever veneer.

Her march was a bloodless sort of execution, one that left no marks save for those on his conscience, and he loathed that it worked every time.

Suffice it to say, it hadn’t taken Draco’s ego long to admit Pansy Parkinson was more Slytherin than the rest of them combined. Potter didn’t know how lucky he was that the Dark Lord set his sights on Draco and not her.

The witch arched a dark brow, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well?”

The single word was enough to shake him back into action, but he’d wasted the valuable time he should have been using dredging up an excuse. Helplessly grappling for distraction, “Why are you even here? Theo was meant to be minding the party with—”

“Cut the shit, Draco.” Her tone was harsh and unforgiving, echoing with the disappointed frostiness he’d only ever heard before from his mother.

When neither wizard moved to speak, she rolled her eyes and sighed dramatically. "Circe, give me strength; I'm forced to barter with children and idiots.”

“Well, hang on just a minute,” Theo started but she waved him off, pinching the bridge of her nose as if just hearing him speak was enough to induce a migraine.

“No, no. Facts aren’t up for debate here.”

“Why are you here, Pans?” Draco repeated tiredly, but it held a different question this time.

She looked over to him. In the dark, her already murky irises were practically indistinguishable from her pupils. Coupled with her porcelain skin and the sharp angles of her face, she looked like a frightening cross between an angel and a demon. Stepping closer, she reached out and gripped his face roughly. She pulled it closer to hers before he could react, now staring directly into his eyes for a beat. It would almost have been intimate if not for her calculating gaze and the fact that she’d not spared him from her pointed fingernails. But then, as quickly as she’d done it, she released him with a contemplative hum.

“To hear it confirmed.”

“Confirmed?” He mirrored carefully.

She hummed again, this time as an answer in the affirmative. "Now, if your little boys' club has exhausted its usefulness, allow me to present an alternative."

“If you recall,” Theo interjected, and Pansy was obviously vexed to tear her focus from Draco, “I was in the middle of outlining a new plan when you decided to pop in.”

“Yes, and your plans have just been so successful thus far, haven’t they?” Pansy sneered but still angled her head back a little. “However, I do think you’ve finally come close to the mark. Mind you—” she turned to Draco, “—you’d have got there a hell of a lot sooner had you enlisted me from the start instead of this numpty.”

“I’m still preferable to Blaise…” Theo grumbled in defence of himself.

It earned the smallest of smiles from the raven-haired witch. “That you are, darling. Pity it’s such a low bar.”

Theo scoffed, affronted, but Pansy ignored him and faced Draco instead. “How long have you got?”

The query was vague, but Draco heard its meaning as clear as day. “Just under four months, until my birthday.”

“Well, damn. That’s not nearly enough time for me to stay mad at you before you ultimately swallow your pride and come crawling and begging for my help.”

Draco breathed a laugh through his nose and shook his head. “Yes, we’re all aware that calls for at least six.”

Pansy tapped his nose with her index finger. “Precisely. But,” she continued, now using the same finger to prod him in the chest, “don’t you dare think for a second I won’t make up for it once you’ve settled and become gaggingly happy.”

He knocked his head back against the wall. “I shall look forward to it.”

“Not the way I’ll do it, you won’t.”

“Yes, lovely as this is,” Theo interrupted again, “what wise crumbs have you come to spit on us, if we’re so hopeless?”

Pansy dragged her head slowly toward the other wizard, pausing just long enough to show Theo how truly bored he made her. “Champion dimwits numbers one and two” she waggled her hand in Theo’s direction as if he were an obsolete member of the help, “have forgotten that your little Gryffindor is a person, not an objective. You shouldn’t strategise about her as if she’s some prized pony to be won.”

"That's awfully rich, coming from a Slytherin," Theo mumbled in the background.

“And you,” she continued to address Draco as if Theo had not spoken, “are forgetting that you’re supposed to love her. But, you get half of a pass here because I reckon you don’t love her yet. Not fully, at least. And I mean, how could you? The creature in you has made up its mind, but the part of you that’s still human needs some convincing.”

Theo kicked snow against one of the walls. “I don’t see how any of this—”

“Real love is about equality.” Pansy spoke over him, just a touch of melancholy dripping across her words. “Trust me, when you start believing that you know better…when you stop treating someone like they have the right to think for themselves, you’re done for.”

“So you’re suggesting,” Draco hesitated and grimaced, the words tasting like barely suppressed sick on his tongue, “that I should just come out with it and tell her everything?”

“Sweet Merlin, no; we’re not animals—”

“Speak for yourself.” Theo grumbled again and shot a dirty look toward Draco, this time kicking snow directly onto his boots. He rolled his eyes; none of his friends seemed to take kindly to being overshadowed.

“Granger deserves to have a choice in this, Draco. Would you not want the same if the roles were reversed?”

“Ugh,” coughed Theo, “so that’s how empathy sounds coming from your poisonous mouth.”

She glared at their mutual friend before beginning to walk away, her job done. “I hope you paid attention. I shan’t be doing that again.”

Draco’s head was spinning, his imagination warring with ideas and permutations of potential outcomes. Following Pansy’s advice was a terrifying notion. But, he considered, Theo had suggested he embody the Gryffindor headspace. If courage that was really just well-dressed stupidity trudging into a situation almost destined for failure was not the picture of Gryffindor, Draco didn't know what was.

Pansy was almost around the corner of the alley and out onto the main road when Draco realised she’d never fully answered his earlier question.

“Wait!” He called out, jogging toward her. He tried to keep his feet within the dry path hers had forged already, but his stance was naturally wider and his trousers clipped the edges. His legs were soaked, but he ignored them. Pansy looked expectant when he finally caught up to her. “How did you find out about me?”

A coy smirk graced her elegant features as her tongue peeked out to wet her lips. "I think all pureblooded children hear the story at some point, the one about ancient Veela bloodlines hiding somewhere within them. It was only ever a myth, but with your features—” she ran her thumb along his brow before gently holding his jaw in her palm, “—and how odd you’ve been all year, it’s a wonder only the four of us clued into it.”

She resumed her journey, leaving him to mull over her wholly unsatisfying answer. But after travelling about twenty paces, she looked back over her shoulder.

“And,” she blinked coquettishly, “someone might have given me a wee bit of a hint.”

xx

Just as he was starting to fall into a fretful sleep, a relentless pounding began at his door. Or was that just the persistent pain in his skull, hounding him for his lifetime of poor decisions?

No, that really was just the door this time.

He remained in bed, reluctant to face the force on the other side of the wood. He’d known she was there before the knocking began; he smelt her the instant she’d entered the library below their dorms. The scent haunted him at all hours, and he’d found it useless to try blocking it out with Occlumency. It managed to seep through every crack and crevice of his crumbling resolve.

“Malfoy! I know you’re in there!”

Well, ignoring her had never been a viable option.

Dragging off the thin coverlet, he sat upright and held himself there, his stare emptying as he tried to pull his walls back together. Her troublesome knocking got in the way of his construction.

When it was clear she’d not be giving in, he sighed and crossed the room. Coming face-to-face with the angry witch whilst she seemed out for his blood was far from his preferred form of sleep aid, but he was feeling remarkably masochistic this night. Actually, he thought as he glanced back at the clock on his nightstand, this morning.

How was she still so beautiful like this? With her gentle features contorted by rage, the evidence of too many nights without sleep tightening her eyes and deepening her frown? With her barely contained magic sparking through her curls, making them even wilder and bushier than normal?

He had to clench his hands at his side to prevent them from falling into her hair. They would give anything to touch the sweet silk, to feel the magic she let loose for him.

Only for him.

But then, she was shouting. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Draco released a weak scoff, remembering himself and all his innumerable shortcomings. His friends were beyond clueless to think him telling her everything was the best way forward. This witch hated him, she’d always hated him, and the sentiment was permanent if her words were anything to go by.

“No one, I assure you.”

Her brows furrowed and she opened her mouth, incredulous and disgusted. With him. “That’s not an answer, Malfoy. ‘No ones’ don’t just go around, beating innocent wizards within an inch of their lives!”

Sparks flashed at the back of his mind, his eyes narrowing to slits. Practised ambivalence be damned. "Innocent?" He whispered dangerously.

She narrowed her eyes right back at him. “Cormac is a prick, but he didn’t actually do anything. And if he had, I’d have been perfectly capable of handling it myself.”

The sparks threatened to envelop his vision. Without thinking, he crowded her and blindly grabbed her wrist, raising it between their faces. Pain flooded his arm from the unsolicited touch, crawling a gruelling path up to his shoulder, but he held firm until she looked down. “Yeah? Was this you handling it then?” Faint tinges of purple and blue were already beginning to mar her creamy skin. Tell-tale ovular smudges blossomed in the pattern of McLaggen’s meaty grip. Watching the wizard manhandle her had been nearly enough to drive him spare, but seeing the evidence of their interaction sparked visions of tracking the fucker down later to revisit those blessed consequences.

He ached to kiss them away, to replace them with his marks of his own. They would be born of promises, of devotion, not of greed and entitlement.

But she’d never let him close enough.

“You’d do well to remember I won a war with these hands.” She spat as she wrenched her hand away, more powerfully than she’d done earlier that night. “Everyone always seems to forget that about me; because I’m just a girl, aren’t I? Don’t deny it. Yeah, you did a bang-up job hiding out in your manor whilst my friends died, while I bled my dirty blood for your freedom as well as mine. But now that’s all over, who cares? I’m just a fucking girl at the end of it. I can’t possibly be as capable of dealing with my own problems as the boy who sat back and did nothing, can I?”

“But you didn’t deal with him!” He shouted back at her now. He tried to let her words roll off him, tried to tell himself that she didn’t know him. She didn’t know what his family had done to survive. But some held firm onto his walls with their hooks. They sunk in, melding with the mortar, hardening them. And he felt all the more brittle for it.

“What, because I didn’t whip out my wand and hex him?” He crossed his arms and shrugged dismissively, and she barked a laugh. “Some people aren’t worth wasting my magic on.”

He dug his fingernails into his palms. “But they’re worth your pain?”

She sent him a withering glare, one full to the brim with memory. Hers and his both. “I’ve had worse.”

The screams, so many of her screams. He’d boxed them up, pushed them under a rug, somewhere hidden. But now they were rattling their cage, peaking their wispy fingers out through the bars to taunt him.

Occlumency was just as much about keeping himself in as it was keeping others out.

“Why did you do it?” She wasn’t finished with him, and her shrill tone cut through his recollection. But now it held just a bit of genuine curiosity that only just strayed outside the shape of her anger.

Draco shook his head. “He deserved it.”

Granger’s jaw ticked. “But why did you do it?”

“Why not me?”

She threw her hand in the air, the sconces behind her illuminating suddenly. Her control was slipping, perhaps in time with his. “I dunno, maybe because you’ve not once bothered yourself over me before?” She stared him down. “You don’t exactly like me.”

He sighed and retreated half a step into his room. “Just forget it, Granger.”

Her jaw dropped. “Forget it?” She screeched in obvious disbelief. “You know,” she enunciated lowly, poking him harshly in the chest. He’d not realised he hadn’t donned a shirt until he felt her touch on his bare skin, so close to his heart, enticing a shaky breath from him. His eyelids drooped under a new weight. Forcing himself to blink thrice in quick succession, he toiled in vain to lift the cloud from his mind that smelt so strongly of her.

“I could report you for this,” he heard her voice continue through the haze, but still sounding as though he was underwater, “you’d lose your Head status, maybe even be expelled—”

He grasped her wrist, more gently this time, pulling it so her fist was flush with his chest. Even knowing he’d regret it later did nothing to deter him. Just one, simple indulgence. One short glimpse into a life that would never belong to him. His body felt like it was floating but his head was heavier than the moon, and the imbalance threatened to spin him end over end.

He blinked at his mate again, slowly, challenging. “So why don’t you, then?”

But she wasn’t looking at him. Her mouth had dropped open slightly, just enough for him to taste her sweet breaths, her gaze trained on something over his shoulder.

Turning, he felt his heart stop.

They had taken him by surprise before, but never like this. They’d always given him time to escape. The appearance of his wings had always been a gruesome, dramatic business. He’d never imagined they could creep up on him, slithering out from under his skin without so much as a twinge.

The brutal irony of the moment was not lost on him.

But as confusing as it was, Granger’s face was the greater mystery in the room. She didn’t look scared, at least not yet. And while surprise coloured her eyes and her lips, she looked more like she was closing in on an Arithmancy derivation rather than hovering over an exploded cauldron. She tried to step back but was anchored in place by her hand in his.

Well, he posited, it’s as good a way as any.

He narrowed his eyes when hers finally pulled back to him. “You don’t look half as shocked as you should.”

She held his stare for a heartbeat but didn’t grace him with a reply. Her breathing was heavy, evident by the stuttered rises and falls of her chest. The sharp puffs of hot air hit his neck, and he wished for a shorter stature so they could dance across his face.

His senses were threatening to overwhelm him. Closing his eyes, he tried to block out the vision of her, but all it did was make her scent headier. It amplified the sound of the air passing through her lips and flooded his skin with warmth where her touch blessed him.

And even with his eyes shut, he could feel as hers tracked over the bestial form of his wings. A part of him preened at the attention. It was a carnal greeting they shared, one that had existed in times of less conventional civility—him on display for her, hoping he was enough to satisfy her. But the bigger part of him was standing on the edge, waiting for her to snap out of her temporary bout of insanity and run off. He was used to that sort of disappointment by now. This would be just the finishing piece for his collection.

But then, a gentle touch, almost too small to notice. And another, followed by a delicate stroke. Slender fingers slipped shyly through the feathers closest to his side, and his eyes slid open as his jaw disengaged. He swore he could feel his pupils dilate.

If his Veela had a voice, he was sure it would have moaned.

It was impossible to know when his walls had fallen. All he knew was she’d knocked them through, cleaned up the mess, and left nowhere for him to hide.

Granger jerked away suddenly, and he wasn’t ashamed of the breathy whimper that escaped him. She’d given him too much to expect any less.

“I-I’m so sorry,” she stuttered, gasping, “I shouldn’t have…I should have asked—”

He was almost crippled by the lack of rejection. Spreading his fingers across the back of her hand, the one she’d forgotten he had borrowed from her, he encouraged her to press it flat against him. His heartbeat was a painful rhythm as her fingertips dragged—ever too slowly—over his chest, and he knew she’d feel it too. He couldn’t be bothered to care.

“What is this?” Her whisper was barely audible. It sounded rough coming from her mouth, like it too had cracked through from some hidden place. Her eyes shot from one part of his face to another, likely searching for the clues hidden there. She was in luck—he’d left it open for her scrutiny.

His was an answer for a different question, the one he wished she’d ask. “It’s yours.”

Chapter 9: Newton's Cradle

There was nothing so wholly unpleasant or disconcerting as being aware of his own heartbeat. Draco had had his fair share of unpleasant experiences, so he felt it was a just assessment.

Once, in a fit of rage, his talons had ripped through his thigh muscle, straight to the bone. He'd lost count of the instances his wings sliced his back apart. Fuck, he'd been on the business end of his own aunt’s Cruciatus, and to this day he swore she’d modified it for the worse.

But feeling the slow yet impossibly firm thu-thump, thu-thump as it bubbled up into his throat, suffocating him, before trickling down to pulse in his fingertips and tickle like a lead Snitch in his gut—it trumped them all.

Her fingers slipped away from his chest, the accursed area now raw and scorched from where they’d rested beneath the tenuous shelter of his own. As they did so, the fragile and impermanent link between them severed. She would be free to drift away like an untethered ship, taking a piece of his soul with her.

Not that it would matter much. The thing was twisted and corrupted anyway.

The action might not have been a rejection in so many words, but the look on her face sure as hell made one seem imminent.

His breathing stuttered as the Veela curled inward, cowering in anguish and impending despair. It was all the confirmation he’d always knew would come, the kind he’d endeavoured to avoid like the plague. When everything was laid bare, when he was an open book for her perusal, she’d bestow upon him only a fleeting glance and put him back on the shelf. He was far from what she was looking for.

“Is this a joke?” Her voice barely rose above a whisper as it interrupted his self-loathing.

He almost wanted to laugh. The notion that this was some cruel joke was in itself a hilarity. That his whole existence was fucked from the start—simply thigh-slapping, that was. But the rough churning in his stomach was not a hearty chuckle yearning to burst forth; it was the start of his Veela’s suicide, his body beginning to spurn all forms of nutrition. It was the launch of a descent into a wraith-like state that would persist until he ultimately wasted away. It wouldn’t be quick.

“Malfoy?” He heard her call to him, but it sounded too distant. Raking his hands through his hair, he tugged hard at the strands that reflected his affliction. He wished he could yank them free, and by so doing, rid him of this curse. Free her of his dead weight. Allow her a life of her choosing with someone more worthy.

Granger called for him again but he turned away. Stepping back into the shadow of his quarters, he retreated.

He didn’t expect that she’d follow.

But then, a small hand grazed the spans of skin on his back where his wings didn't quite meet in the middle. Warmth spread from that spot like a fever. “Draco?”

Surely, this was what death felt like. Nothing else was quite so sinfully torturous that it felt heavenly. Encased in pure sensation, his blood boiling in his veins but his limbs quivering under a cold sheen. His birthright was a sickness, and he was sweating it out.

He’d not realised Granger moved, nor that he had halted until she was stood before him. Bottomless brown eyes gazed up at him, so full of concern. Some traces of shock were still present within them. But they held no fear, no disgust, no dread.

Bloody Gryffindor, through and through.

She raised her hand to cup his cheek and jaw—merely examining him, searching him out, logically he knew it was nothing more—and he could not help but lean into her touch. He could not prevent the Veela from uncurling, reaching out with its talons to cling to the tiny vestiges of hope she left in her wake. It was in for a world of hurt, but it seemed a glutton for punishment. Such gifts were just too sweetly wrapped when they came from her.

Slow-acting poison pills, doused in a honeyed syrup.

“Draco,” she said his name—his name—again and it echoed in his mind like a prayer this time, holding his attention firm. A thick lump settled in his throat.

“I’ve a fair few theories about what’s going on,” she started again, only a slight tremor to her words, “but infinitely more questions. And…I think I’m owed some answers.”

What he was thinking was that he could barely string two words together if he tried. However, something within him lent him the strength to nod. He regretted it instantly, as it seemed his concession made her drop her hand from his face. The absence of her warmth struck him like a stake to the heart, and the audible thu-thump, thu-thump returned to clog his ears.

She was speaking again but he could not make out the words over the rush of his own blood. Rolling his neck, he tried to release some of the tension, yet it remained locked in place.

“Forgive me,” he cut into what was surely a developing interrogation. The sound of his voice was muddled, his ears only interpreting it because they knew what to expect. Tentatively, his fingers moved to hover hear her wrist, the one mottled with that other wizard’s marks, the one she had pulled away. Not yet touching, but close enough to feel the heat from her skin. His gaze held hers. Begging for a lifeline, “may I? Please?”

She glanced down and back briefly before he felt her skin press against his. Absently, he noted the fragility of her joint, how thin the skin was stretched across the bone. How his fingers had to curl under the heel of his palm just so there would be no gaps between her flesh and his.

How it probably should hurt to grasp her, even as gently as he was, given the battered state of his knuckles.

But the thoughts were quickly banished, his mind too enveloped with the return of her heat. The rhythm of her pulse flowed into his fingers and easily overtook his own. While a new kind of fog flooded him, at least he was grounded now. His senses were relatively clear.

He raised his free hand to rub the space between his brows. There was no going back. His body had decided what his confidence could not bear to, but left only half-truths for her to find. And whilst it was hardly in his nature to be so forthcoming, it was in hers. And she did not deal in half-truths.

Breathing deeply, he forced himself to bathe in the calming aura that was her presence. “Okay.”

“Okay?” She parroted back.

“Ask your questions before I change my mind.”

She sneaked a glimpse back down to where they were joined, tracing his clasped hand with her smaller, free one.

“Granger,” he hissed through clenched teeth, and instantly scolded himself for startling her, “sorry, but could you…not?” When her brow furrowed in confusion, he lifted her other hand away from his. However, he still made no move to release her wrist. “I can only handle so much. I’m grasping at shreds of control as it is.”

Releasing a shuddering breath through her nose, she adjusted her shoulders. “Okay.” Silence reigned for a thick minute before she began again. “So, you’re a Veela.”

He allowed the small smirk to creep up his face. “That’s hardly a question.”

“Semantics, really?” She scoffed.

Draco sighed through his nose. “Was it the wings that tipped you off, then? That was unintentional, by the way.”

She shook her head. “No, it was your eyes. The night of our last patrol.”

Oh. Oh. The night he’d held her as she rattled like a leaf from falling. The night he ran from her like the coward he was. The night his Veela punished him for it by forcing him on a midnight joyride.

Of fucking course. Pansy’s “hint” from her unnamed source. He’d just assumed it was Blaise, being the mouthy wanker that he was, but should have clued into it with the way she’d said “the four of us”. Blithering idiot, he’d thought she was including him in the count.

However, this posed the troubling notion that Granger and Pansy had somehow knocked their heads together and sussed him out; they’d discussed him. Together. Well, he hoped the sense of awareness of his heartbeat would be satisfied with second place.

Weakly attempting to clear his throat, his voice escaped as a rasp. “I figured you saw something.”

Granger leant forward. Just a bit, but his Veela noticed. “Is that why you left?”

Draco blinked, realising as he did so that his eyes were as dry as sand. “More or less.”

“I’ll have the more, then.”

“Pardon?”

“More explanation.” Granger clarified, but he was still not entirely sure what she was asking. She frowned at him when he failed to elaborate. “I still don’t see how I could be part of all this.”

He searched her eyes again, but they were more closed off than he’d ever seen them. He’d not thought her capable of anything other than wearing her heart on her sleeve. But now he saw that for what it was: her choice. A cognisant choice to be open with her feelings when she could just as easily bury them deep within herself. He hated how it looked on her.

Draco gulped down a heavy breath. “Surely you can guess.”

“I could,” she conceded with a hint of sharpness, eyes narrowing, “but I’d rather hear it confirmed than start spouting off theories.”

He bit back a smile. “That seems unlike you.”

This time she did not respond, only narrowed her eyes further and cocked her head to the side, clearly daring him to push her.

Sighing, he closed his eyes. His free hand gripped the back of his neck as if he could use his own body as a support. There was no sense of plan for how to proceed; he'd never thought to write himself a script for this moment. Salazar, he'd ever expected this moment would occur.

Unannounced, his Veela resurfaced to loosen his tongue. An unplanned, thoughtless litany of words flew from his mouth, having bypassed his brain entirely.

“Male and female Veela could not be more different from each other;" he (or something else within him) started to explain, "females attract anything and everything they encounter, and a full-blooded female Veela rarely stays with a single partner for long.

“Males are the opposite. There are no charms or clouds of pheromones released to enthral hopeless swathes of potential companions. There’s no need to, because—” he choked on his syllables, the human in him pushing to engage his flight response and retain his dignity, or whatever was left of it.

But Granger wouldn’t be letting him off the hook this time, he was sure of that.

“Because, what?” She whispered, and the sound rolled through him like a burst of cold wind.

He stroked the skin of her wrist with his thumb. “Because,” he paused again, unsure which of his sides now governed his speech, “there’s only ever just one.”

Devastation, confusion, anger—those had all been anticipated. But none came. Granger’s face remained frightfully impassive, though he could practically hear each of her thoughts as they whizzed past one another. Her gaze cast to the side, focussed on something near his bookshelves as she started to nod frenetically.

Without looking back at him, “One what?”

Fuck me. She had to know the answer. He knew she did. Tilting his head down and to the left, he brought himself back in her sightline. “You’re gonna make me say it, then?”

The indignant look she adopted told him all he needed to know. 

“Fine. One mate, Granger.”

The stuttered nodding started up again. “And what does that entail?”

Draco released a clipped breath, a ghost of a humourless laugh. “In short?” Dragging his free hand over his face, he clung to his chin for a moment before releasing it harshly. “A perfect match. Complementary magical cores. The texts say each party make the other into the best versions of themselves, but having known myself since birth, I feel that’s highly impossible.”

The noise that escaped him afterwards was a crude bastardisation of a laugh and a whine, but it tripped when she brought her hand back to his face. Her touch wasn’t gentle. It was a tactile command against avoiding her inquiry.

“Why am I here?” Phrased as a question, her tone was firm and even. It was clear then; she wanted it stated explicitly, with no chance of a loophole nor a missed meaning. No way out.

Glancing down at their feet—hers enclosed in a pair of practical boots and his bare—he noted the scant distance they were apart from each other. He raised his hand to cover hers, if just to connect with her on a new plane.

His eyes dragged up slowly to meet hers, and they gathered what remained of his meagre courage along the way. “Because I reckon it didn’t take long for my Veela to choose you.”

Granger’s nodding stopped short. He’d not realised his eyes had been locked onto hers, tracking their movement, until he became dizzy from halting so abruptly. Raucous curls had spilled over her shoulders and fallen across her face, and he ached to nudge them back into position. But she had yet to speak. Holding him on tenterhooks, soon he would start to slip.

Draco released her entirely, only to replace both his hands on her shoulders. “Granger,” normally he would have despised the begging lilt to his voice, but now he couldn’t be arsed to care. He hardly knew why he begged. He didn’t even know what he wanted. Simultaneously, he yearned for her to say anything but also dreaded any words that might arise in scorn. 

If he ran off this instant, he would never feel the pain of her ultimate rejection.

But then he’d also have missed how the pair of chocolatey eyes, tinged with flecks of gold more precious than his mother’s fanciest luxuries, opened to him again as his mate seemed to latch onto a course. Flickering between each of his, he did not care that they held no tinges of warmth toward him; he just could not bear to see them look so empty. So much like his own.

“But you hate me.” Draco winced, dropping his hands instantly and turning away. He knew where this would lead. “You’ve been nothing but cruel to me since first year. My parentage disgusts you.”

The reminder of how much ground he'd need to make up with this witch felt like his veins were being pumped with tar. Obviously, he had known this fact beforehand. Hell, the main reason he'd resigned himself to a horrible, lonely existence was that he’d thought the feat unattainable. And yet, hearing his mate recount his past actions toward her made him want to pluck out every feather before tearing the remnants of his wings into ribbons.

His Veela must be mistaken. The golden witch who stood before him had endured a lifetime of cruelty—much of which orchestrated by his own tongue—and she deserved so much better than his sorry arse.

But even having less of a chance than finding bowtruckles in a pile of twigs, his Veela would not allow Granger to go another second believing he thought so poorly of her.

“I’m an arrogant, entitled prick, Granger. I doubt I’ll ever make up for how much of a shit I was toward you over the past eight years.” He couldn't bring himself to look at her yet, knowing the suspicion he'd find in her stare. "But perhaps I can start by saying that the blood purity bullshit was all a farce. I've never actually thought any less of you for it."

Even in his periphery, he could see Granger’s mouth gape open, her cheeks blooming with red. It would be adorable if not for the fact she was clearly piping mad at him.

“Excuse me?” He had expected a screech, not the deathly, low tone so foreign to him. Crackles of her magic burst from her fingertips and he fought against the impulse to flee. He would not be a coward with her again. “You expect me to accept, that after years of your bullying and insults centred around my blood status—which, if you’d bother to recall, we just finished fighting a fucking war over, on opposite sides, mind you—it was all, what? Just a bit of a laugh?”

His eyes snapped to hers, pleading, his head shaking slowly from side to side. “Not – not a laugh, not at all. Fuck, just—” he cut himself off, not knowing where to begin or how to attempt to explain himself. He'd not the faintest idea of how to describe his family's painful history and how it affected their motives. Groaning in frustration, he dragged both hands across his skull. He hissed when a hint of talon caught the skin at his nape. Control yourself.

Three breaths in, two breaths out. Hold.

He looked behind her, out the window to where the Forbidden Forest lay ensconced in shadow. “It’s a long story.” It was a piss-poor response, but he had nothing else to say. Granger always caused his brain to become less than functional.

The witch in question crossed her arms over her chest, clearly far from satisfied. “Well, it’s lucky we’ve got all night then.”

The Veela preened inopportunely, seemingly happy to forget its mate was pissing mad in favour of imagining her words in a different context. Draco had to tug hard on his hair to set his mind straight again. Now was far from the appropriate time for that, if such a time would ever exist at all.

What Granger wanted to know, and what he was working himself up to say, was personal; it was dirty and unpleasant. He doubted he had the strength to last through the full explanation. But it was what Granger was owed.

He crossed the room to perch in the window well, pausing when he noticed a letter resting on the ledge, marked with his father’s seal. He tossed it to his desk. Dragging his left wing out from where it would snag under his body, he rearranged his unnatural number of extremities until he achieved a modicum of comfort in the space.

“Before all of this, had you ever heard of a male Veela?”

The ire in her voice was appreciable without having to meet her eyes. “No, though I hardly see how that answers my question.”

He sighed again. Apparently, he was aiming for a record sigh count this day. "Yeah, well, there's a reason you’ve not heard of them, and trust me, it’s relevant.”

She scoffed. “Apologies, but so far you’ve only given me more reason not to trust you.”

“I know, alright?” Draco slapped his hands against the stone, frustrated with her despite knowing he’d no right to be. How many times had he told himself, or reiterated to his friends, that she’d never forgive him? That he’d never earn a teaspoon of goodwill from her? He’d never been foolish enough to believe Granger would just take his explanations in stride. But that burdensome sprig of hope he’d been saddled with had blurred the lines of the impossible and the improbable. Somewhere in the back of his mind, his Veela had envisioned a starry-eyed outcome. The fantasy managed to stick, likely in some fleeting moment of madness, and now it was coming back to claim its dues.

The witch had never given him false hope, not even close. That had been his doing. She was simply reminding him of his own grave oversights, but he couldn’t help wanting to fight her on it.

“Look, if you want an explanation, I’ll give you one. I shan’t guarantee you’ll be pleased with it, but it’s the truth. And if you don’t believe it’s the truth, then you can refer to that shelf.” Flicking his wrist at a place over her shoulder, he wandlessly unwarded a bookshelf containing copies of his family’s reference materials on Veela as well as his ancestors’ personal accounts.

Granger squinted at it briefly but hardly appeared moved. “Go on, then.”

Tracing the pearlescent edge to one of his feathers, the sharp side shaved into his finger pad. Superficial enough not to bleed, but deep enough that it felt raw and damaged.

“Over a thousand years ago, well before the time of the Founders, the Veela species was thriving. Human magic was still largely remedial, but witches and wizards studied the intrinsic magic of various Beings—including Veela— and other Creatures to develop their craft.”

“I recall beating you in History of Magic every year, Malfoy. I know this already.”

Draco rolled his eyes at her tetchiness. He had forgotten how much of a swot she could be. And whilst he still found it grating, strangely it didn’t make him want to throttle her as it once did.

“Fine. But Binns didn’t teach you that shortly after the Veela shared their magic, much of which revolutionised human magical healing, male Veela were systematically hunted down and slaughtered.” The final words were laced with undisguised resignation.

“What?” Granger’s small voice cut through his psyche. Turning to her, he saw her countenance start to shift from pure anger to something approaching confusion and betrayal.

“You know how some people use Veela hair as a wand core?” She nodded, subdued this time. “Well, hair is far from the only useful piece of Veela anatomy.”

Braced on his palms, Draco leant his body over of the well’s ledge. His wings blocked the already low level of moonlight streaming through the tempered glass behind him. If not for his enhanced eyesight, her expressions would be entirely obscured to him now.

“In the name of scientific discovery,” the words rolling out on a hiss, “all sorts of magical Creatures were captured and experimented upon. And despite having taught wizards all they knew about magic, suddenly the Creatures were declared inferior and subjugated to all sorts of torture.”

Granger sniffed haughtily. “Sounds awfully familiar.”

He shot her a pointed look. “Quite. The human race seems a bit of a broken record when it comes to delusions of supremacy.”

“That’s not funny, Malfoy.”

“Do you see me laughing? As I was saying, through their dissections and their trials, wizards found uses for male Veela blood, their feathers—” he gestured behind himself, “—even their skin. Some of their uses were medicinal, but most were used to provide literally inhuman enhancements. If a wizard wanted better night vision, why bother with the occasional Nox when he could pay to have Veela eyes surgically implanted in his skull? Never mind that they came from a live male Veela, caged in a dungeon somewhere, blind and mutilated.

“Or,” he continued, feeling almost drunk on the despair of his species’ past, “if someone was satisfied with their body’s abilities but didn’t want to tax them—say they needed a servant or a soldier. Kidnap a Veela’s mate and he’d do practically anything to get her back.”

He’d not needed dozens of texts or testimonials to know that was the truth. Frankly, it was an understatement.

“That’s disgusting. That's, that’s…” Granger covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes blown wide. His Veela screamed at him that she was in distress, that he should go to her and offer comfort. But he ignored it. He’d promised her the full truth, after all.

“It is. But save your sympathy. I doubt you’ll be pleased with what we did to survive.”

Her hand swiftly dropped from her mouth. Even in darkness, he could see the wheels turning in her head. It never ceased to amaze him how she could deduce so much out of an incomplete narrative. Even if she’d been uglier than a Banshee with a voice to match, his Veela probably still would have chosen her for her mind alone.

“The hunting escalated, and the number of male Veela fell dangerously low. It’s important to note,” he diverted from his ancestral history lesson to add in a bit of context, “only male Veela can carry on the species. Male and female Veela can mate with each other just fine, but Veela genes will be diluted if a female Veela reproduces with a non-Veela male. I believe your precious Weasel has a sister-in-law of such ilk. The more diluted the line becomes…eventually the Veela characteristics just fade away. But male Veela can mate with any humanoid species—witches, Veela, Muggles, Squibs—and their genetics will blend as normal but the offspring will be full-blooded Veela.”

“How is that even possible?” Granger asked, already moving to the bookshelf he’d revealed earlier.

“Before you go sniffing,” he called her attention back, pleased to see her nose wrinkle in annoyance, “you’ll not find the answer in any of those. Nor in any of the other texts my family has, I’m afraid. I’ve looked. One of nature’s great mysteries.”

She crossed her arms again, looking thoroughly put out at being denied an answer.

The feeling was one he knew well.

“You were telling me why I should start disliking you again?”

“I’m sorry, did I miss the time when you liked me?” Draco egged her on. He’d apologise for his ill-conceived taunts and his actions in the war until he was blue in the face, but riling her up was practically part of who he was. It was too strong a pull to ignore. He waved off her withering glare. “I know, I know. But it’s not so much ‘dislike’ as…I just expect you’ll disapprove of our survival methods.”

She scanned the room, a pained visage corrupting her normally amiable features. He didn’t presume to know her so well that he could predict her thoughts exactly, but he had been around her long enough to tell she was vacillating.

Unsure whether he could be trusted? Indubitably.

Feeling her huge, bleeding heart beat out of rhythm at the atrocities committed against his species? More than likely.

Furious that this history had been kept out of the textbooks for centuries? Swot that she was, probably.

Suspicious of where this history was headed, and how Draco became what he was? He would have been.

Willing to hear him out and forgive his sins and those of his ancestors, because perhaps that bleeding heart could beat for him, as well?

No. Not a chance. Those were the words of misplaced hope and cowardice. He didn’t want to buy her forgiveness with pity.

The truth was ugly, dishonourable. He was a product of that truth and had followed it without much question. Though it was debatable whether the truth or his family’s artful façade was more distasteful, Draco doubted it mattered.

But she deserved to know, and he’d made it this far.

“A small number of male Veela escaped. We estimate their initial population to be somewhere in the hundreds, but recapturing efforts coupled with the perils of a communal species now living individually dropped their numbers under thirty.”

“Thirty?” Granger gasped, dropping to sit on his bed in shock. It was a testament to his depressed state that neither he nor his Veela could enjoy the sight of her there, regardless of how often he had dreamt of seeing it.

“Those that survived scattered. My ancestors lived amongst Muggles for centuries by concealing their more…tell-tale characteristics.” He motioned toward his platinum tresses and ruffled his wings. By the sudden snap of Granger’s head, it seemed she had almost forgotten they were there.

She blinked at him owlishly for a moment before narrowing her eyes again. “Do you expect me to disapprove of your family finding shelter amongst Muggles? That's like…Tuesday for me.”

“Don’t hold your breath. Wizards eventually believed all the male Veela died off. After another few centuries, it was like they’d never existed at all. Instead, they became a topic of legend.” He scratched his palm absently. “It was quite fortunate humans did not understand the idiosyncrasies of Veela reproduction, else they would have questioned how full-blooded female Veela kept popping up. You can understand how they are a bit harder to disguise.”

“But you can’t just…erase an entire history!” Granger sputtered, aghast.

He allowed himself a wan smile. “Of course you can. History is written by the victors, after all, and victors often shy away from recognising, let alone publicising, the morally grey moments of their past.”

Granger’s whole posture slumped, her spine adopting an abnormal curve. If his wings had not been in the way, his might have done the same. But what was remained to be said was what he’d dreaded most, the part he tried hard to purge from his memory daily. 

Breathing shallowly, he began again. “Living amongst Muggles meant concealing their magic. Intrinsic Veela magic leaves too much of a trace without a wand to channel it, and trying to buy one without a reputable wizard to vouch for them would invite questions. And so when male Veela had passed out of all knowledge—or, I should say, when witches and wizards decided they needn’t feel guilty about having committed genocide because they’d written male Veela out of existence—they started to creep back into society, trying to find a way to reintegrate themselves into the magical community. At the time, anti-Muggle sentiment and notions of blood purity were at their peak. My ancestors—and I suspect many of the other survivors, if the legends are to be believed—saw this as the perfect opportunity to hide long-term. I mean, no self-respecting, pureblood wizarding family would allow a magical Creature, Being or not, to join their line, would they?”

“So if a Veela could manage it, he’d be above suspicion.”

He tapped his nose with his index finger but remained morose. “Brightest witch. One of my ancestors married Brutus Malfoy’s daughter, likely using no shortage of blackmail on the man. The witch wasn’t his true mate, just a tool of self-preservation, but he took her surname and wore it like a Protego. The fact that she was the last female Malfoy is not a coincidence. He died young.”

Granger was picking at the threads in his duvet. “So then you just…went along with it?” She blinked up at him briefly before returning to her task of petty destruction, but it was long enough to see the staunch disappointment in the curve of her brow and angle of her frown.

Expecting to be stabbed didn’t make the impact any less gruesome. Even if he felt he deserved it.

“You just carried on with the family tradition of hating Muggles and Muggleborns, you fought in a war over it—twice—just to stay hidden?”

Draco looked down at the stone floor. He knew his sins forward and back. They had been taught to him as a necessary evil, one they’d quickly eschew the second they had the chance.

“We never expected it to go as far as it did. It was just meant to be a bit of actionless posturing.”

"Well, then your family is a bunch of gormless bastards.”

He didn’t try to hold back his sneer. “I never said it was the right choice, Granger.” He took a breath, trying to steady himself. He didn’t understand how he could be so deeply ashamed of his own history, yet still feel so defensive hearing it spat back at him. “By the time the Dark Lord came around the first time, my family was too deeply entrenched. They had played their part too well. If they suddenly pulled an about-face, even just to be neutral, others would start asking questions. My father…well, he’d hoped it would all die down after the end of the First Wizarding War. But the anger persisted, the other Death Eaters didn’t just piss themselves off a cliff, and we had to keep up the act.”

A loud snap echoed through the room as Granger disembowelled a particularly thick strand of cotton. “That’s just about the most cowardly, disingenuous, selfish—”

“Fuck, Granger, I know!” He shouted, pushing himself off his perch to tower over her. She mirrored his stance instantly, and he was struck with how small she was compared to him. But the nearly tangible force of her magic in the air never let him believe that his size lent him any real advantage. “During the final battle, my parents tore through this castle, both of them wandless, searching for me. The Dark Lord already knew he could use me as leverage against them, but it would have been infinitely worse had we been found out. And if he’d discovered what my mother is to my father…I’m not proud of what we did, any of it. I hate that I was born into this, that my father and his father were forced to do this—"

“You’re not being forced if you don’t make any efforts to change—” she screamed back at him, but he couldn’t bear to hear it.

“And just what would you have done, hmm? Pray, tell me how I could have better protected my family from death and my fucking species from being closer to obliteration?”

Granger dug the heel of her palm into her eye before throwing it down at her side. “Magical Beings have rights now, protections. You could have gone to the Ministry, or even Dumbledore—”

“My family couldn’t just unveil a centuries-old secret, one that would expose an unknown number of other Veela bloodlines, just for the pitiful chance it would save our skins.”

“But you’d sacrifice countless Muggles and Muggleborns for it?”

The thick coat of disappointment in her voice pressed directly on his chest, constricting his airway. He heard the part of her question she left implicit and unspoken. He’d asked it of himself too many times to count.

“I told you, I’m not proud of it.”

“The Department for the Regulation and Control—”

“Would have done fuck all.”

She balked at him and huffed loudly. “You can’t know that. They could have protected—”

“Granger, you probably know better than anyone that the Ministry’s been historically defunct up until now.  It barely took more than two years for the whole institution to crumble after the Dark Lord returned, and it was already heavily infiltrated long before that.

“And forgive me,” he continued when she’d clammed up in anger, “if my family didn’t put much stock in Ministry ‘protections’. Centaurs and Merpeople, which we both know are Beings even without the classification, are ‘protected’. And yet, coincidentally, our contracts with them always allow the Ministry to seize more and more of their territory. Goblins aren’t such distant cousins of humans, but they’re only fit to join wizarding society if they’re guarding our money or forging pretty trinkets for us to steal and claim as family heirlooms. So forgive us for not trusting that any potential protection they could offer would be anything more than a path back to exploitation.”

He was breathing heavily now that he’d finished his tirade, as was she.

“I’ll never try to claim our choices were the right ones,” he practically panted, but he needed her to know his feelings resolutely. “I knew their cost, and I made them anyway. I doubt I’ll ever stop hating myself for that. But,” he stepped closer so they were but a hairsbreadth apart, “I’ll not apologise for being faced with an impossible dilemma and doing the only thing I knew would protect both my family and my kind. They aren’t enough of us left to be martyrs.”

Her jaw was taut, her breaths coming out of her nose in long, angry streams. She moved back slightly and he cast his eyes at the floor, awaiting the fall of the sword that would cut her loose. It had been nothing short of moronic to assume any other outcome than this had ever been plausible.

A sudden, hot pain seared across his cheek, rippling up to his temple and down his neck. Snapping his head up, he barely had time to register Granger’s hand, poised to strike, before it connected with his skin again. This time, he didn’t pull his head back. He let himself be moved by her force and stayed where she led him. His cheek surely wore an unflattering shade of red in the shape of her small palm and delicate fingers. To date, however, it was the only brand he would wear without wishing he could melt off the affected skin.

He nodded to the carpet. “I suppose I deserved that.”

She released a stuttered breath, followed by a few lonely drops that landed near her feet. One dampened her shoe. His lids clenched shut, but it did nothing to stifle the silent suffocation of her sorrow.

“I don’t know what you deserve,” she said shakily, and he nodded again. “I…need to leave.”

She interrupted her escape only long enough to snatch a few volumes from his shelf. At any other time, he might have interpreted this as a sign that she was still trying to learn about him. But as it was, all he could see was her walking away.

Leaving him. Knowing his story and needing to get out. He was a burden, one he should have never shouldered her with.

He was poison.

Fangs and talons extended in full. Wings drooped. All human thought trickled away. In the distance, a door shut softly.

Gaping holes were gouged into his bedsheets, starting from where she’d left off. Legs that once belonged to a desk were rent asunder by an autonomous pair of wayward wings. Deep trenches were carved into the stone walls and floors, not yet deep enough to bury himself in. But deep enough to hurt.

Through it all, the Veela wept and wept.

---

Before her grandparents pushed him to pursue dentistry, Hermione Granger’s father had dreams of becoming a naturalist.

When Hermione was six years old, her parents took her to Australia for a conference. But even at her young age, she knew it was little more than an excuse for her father to visit a heinous number of reserves.

He’d not been so hasty to book a hotel when the same meeting was held in Swansea the previous year, after all.

The flight to Perth was horrendous and the portly man in seat 23C couldn’t keep the fruit and cheese plate down. The roads outside the city were hot and dusty, and their bus drivers seemed to prefer becoming coated in sweat and grime by leaving the windows open rather than turning on the air.

Predictably, her parents opted to leave more than a day before the conference finished, insisting instead on a suspicious-looking train ride, then a derelict ferry voyage, just to visit the island of Tasmania. The place was home to some devilish creature—with which her father happened to be fascinated—whose population was rapidly dwindling.

Hermione never saw the appeal. The beasts were ugly, their screeches pierced her eardrums something terrible, and they smelt of sewage.

Her father explained that the indigenous Australian people kept and bred dingos for protection, companionship, and hunting, which she could understand perfectly. Those animals were much cuter, much more cuddly. And despite the devils' horrid odour, they were a favourite snack of the dingos. So as the dingo population grew, the devils became more scarce. The farmers hardly minded; the devils often ate their sheep, robbing them of their livelihoods.

But her father would hear none of it.

“See here, sweet pea,” he’d said, laying a conservation brochure atop the pages of The Three Musketeers, brought along in the dire hopes of distraction from the never-ending cacophony of greengrocers, “the Tasmanian devil is a keystone species in this ecosystem. That means—”

“I know what it means, Dad.” She’d spoken with petulance, but he just chuckled, intentionally ignorant of her grouchiness. His high spirits could not be toppled that day.

“Alright then, Professor. Tell me what it means.”

Hermione had huffed, reassembling the trifold leaflet with force and holding it out for him to retake. “It means,” she glared, “that they have a larger impact on their environment than expected for their population size.” Aiming for her father to leave her alone to read in peace, she’d laced her tone with the pretentious arrogance she knew would be grating. The kids in her school had told her as much.

But again, her father did not take the bait. He had just tapped her on the nose. She had fought a smile and lost.

“Right you are. Almost like you read the words right off the page.” He’d grinned up at her through his lashes and she couldn’t hold his gaze. “Still, the larger takeaway is this: all things have a place in this world. The Tasmanian devil is an ugly little bugger—”

“Darling, don’t curse in front of her.” From her mother, of course. Never mind that she was worse than a sailor when she tried to construct her Christmas trifle.

“—but it plays an important role. One that the dingo and the sheep cannot.”

“But if the devils come back, they’ll eat the lambs,” Hermione had protested, her age still finding a way to show through.

Her father had held her pudgy cheeks in his large, warm hands. Unfazed by her questions, always more keen to teach than worry whether his words were best suited to her ears.

“Individually, no creature has any right to live over another. I’m no more deserving of my life than that bird over there…not when we compare the relative weight of our achievements. But we don’t exist in a microcosm—that is, the world is an interwoven and complex system. What we do affects others. If the devils disappear,” he’d pointed to a burrow a few metres away, one that the tour guide had guaranteed housed one such creature, though it had yet to show itself, “this part of the system falls out of balance. It already has done. It may yet survive, but it will never be as it is now nor as it used to be.”

“So the lambs will have to die?”

He had nodded sagely. “Some of them will. But that supports the system. That will help ensure the devils can live to keep it in balance, so that other animals can benefit as well.”

She’d sniffled, thinking of the stuffed lamb her Gran gave her for her birthday a few months earlier. Though she’d asked for books, she still slept with it at the foot of her bed night after night.

“Everything has a place, sweetheart. We can’t deny others their place.”

Hermione had all but forgotten that moment until she neared the age of eighteen. Stood behind her parents, wand held aloft, she whispered the word to wipe herself away. But as she did her father’s words echoed through her memory like one of his lullabies.

We can’t deny others their place.

Unknowingly, she had lived by that lesson her whole life. Malfoy and his band of cronies had tried to deny her a place in their world. And so in every class, every subject, she had been the best. Proving beyond a doubt she deserved a place. She’d pushed back and won. She’d recovered.

Her future would consist of a still greater recovery, one wherein she would continue trying to restore balance to a system so deeply out of alignment. Their society would evolve into one that welcomed Muggleborns and children from other mixed backgrounds. Muggles would live in peace, no longer terrorised by zealots.

Hermione had bled for that future and those of others like her. Her parents, while safe in the place they'd always loved, were lost to her.

But why was she made to sacrifice so much, when all Malfoy did was lie back and watch the chaos ensue? How could he buy his way out with her freedom?

She could not care less if he didn’t believe in blood purity the way he’d helped everyone to assume. He still rode the wave. His existence flourished on the back of xenophobia, manufactured or not. Reluctant or enthused, it didn't erase the fact that he still chose to participate in Voldemort's cause. How many others had joined up due to his family's influence? Their actionless posturing?

Salty drops spread easily across thin, flimsy pages. Wandlessly and nonverbally, she Vanished them as they appeared. But more continued to fall. Eventually, she gave up, shoving the book closed and out of the way before resting her head in her hands.

She had intended to escape to some other part of the castle, somewhere much farther removed from Malfoy’s room. But she had collapsed to the floor the second she’d stepped through the hidden shelf. The avian handle of the door had cooed down at her with its strange metallic call, and she felt all the pent-up energy and fight leave her body.

Trudging deeper into the Restricted Section, arms laden with Malfoy’s books that felt heavier than they really were, she’d eventually settled at a decrepit table. This particular stack wasn’t considered Restricted for its collection of rare tomes or its dark contents; its shelves only held outdated texts containing incorrect theories and postulations, safely tucked away where they couldn’t be a source of confusion. Occasionally entertaining, horribly problematic more often than not.

Educational, in spite of it all.

Even at a more reasonable hour, no student or teacher would grace these aisles. Nothing of value was to be found within them.

Hermione’s tears were steady but silent. Trickling down her palms to lick at her forearms, they disappeared into her sleeves before they could slap against the table.

She tried to breathe through her nose but choked out a cough when she found the passage blocked. This was why she detested crying. Frightfully messy, it ruined her productivity and was a complete waste of time.

And over a worthless sod like Malfoy, of all people, she chastised herself. He shouldn’t be allowed to affect her like this. Not after so long.

She dragged her hands halfway down her face, manually forcing out some stubborn tears along the way. Her nose rested just above her knuckles as she stared at the countless spines before her. Too encrusted with dust and disuse to have legible titles; their words weren’t revolutionary enough to constitute classics despite being little more than fiction. They were just…banal in their wrongness. Disproved almost immediately after their publication. A waste of good parchment and ink and time.

Turning, she peered at her small reflection held in the window at the end of the aisle. The outside world was still shrouded in darkness, and at her distance all she could see was herself.

She redirected her stare to the chipped wood of the desk, feeling more steady.

Considering the events that had happened and ignoring all motives, Hermione recognised the outcome would have been largely the same had the Malfoys actually believed in blood supremacy. And before tonight, when she’d known him only as a spoilt little purist shit, Hermione had already begun to forgive him. Already decided he’d been a boy dealt a crap hand without realising he’d no way out until he needed it most.

She had already judged him and was prepared to grant him clemency.

And so why then—if it would not have made any difference—was the truth so much harder to stomach?

She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel, what she was permitted to feel.

Was the fact that Malfoy hid to preserve his species a token of his absolution, or a bitter betrayal that mandated condemnation? Because that truth meant they were cut from the same cloth. He should have been her ally, but he had accepted that it was easier to live as her enemy than struggle at her side.

She mourned the could-have-beens—the death of a friend she’d never had, the alternate timelines and realities that might have arisen had any of his predecessors changed course.

But there was no going back now. The system existed within its set parameters and it only moved forward. Even devolving would be a kind of progression, as destructive as it would be.

Hermione rested her head on the wood. The rough, coarse surface scraped at her cheek. Even at her acute angle, she could read some previous couple’s declaration of their commitment carved into the surface. It was hardly a good sign that such a statement was made in a place no one would ever witness it. Hidden in the shadows of the abandoned shelves, such a promise of love and loyalty held remarkably little weight.

Her eyelids drooped, the carved names losing their definition. Whilst her thoughts raged on at an outrageous pace, her anxiety and anguish seeking second and third meanings in every corner of this forsaken place, her body was at its limit. Eyes had gone too long without blinking as they pored over Malfoy’s face and body, searching for treachery amidst his disturbing candour. They had burned with briny tears as they sought to trap him in a lie, flying across pages and drawings at a terrific speed.

But it would be alright if she shut them, just for a few minutes. She could still think while the world was dark.

Just for a few minutes.

xx

Diaphanous wisps of black floated through her vision. Swirling and coalescing like a memory in a Pensieve, the world slowly became more clear through them. But her sight was still obstructed. She was barefoot in a dark room, one with no windows and a cold stone floor. A lone candle flickered dimly in the far corner, its flame moved by the occasional draft passing through the uneven brick siding. Instinctively, she drew near it, but soon found her path impeded.

A grid of iron bars, solid and impenetrable in their construction, separated her from the light. But behind her, there was only darkness. She could see the floor extend out from beneath her feet for a few metres, but then it and everything else was swallowed up into the inky abyss.

A muted groan cut through the oppressive silence and she spun around instantly, gripping the bars. In the dim light, a faint silhouette curled on the floor.

“Who’s there?” She hissed through the iron and, after a brief hesitation, “Are you alright?”

The shadow grew instantly. She had to crane her neck to take in its entire form, from the lower tip of each gigantic wing up to each apex, to the limp platinum crown that glowed under the flames like a beacon. A subtle twang thrummed against the back of her mind, niggling through the haze that something about him had been built incorrectly. She remembered seeing him in another time, the memory fleeting and blurry. How long ago had that been?

His body shivered violently.

“You came back,” he breathed through chattering teeth, the sounds reverberating through her body like it was as cavernous as the room, “I thought I’d lost you.”

His face was drawn and gaunt. Cheekbones practically cut through the overlying skin. His eyes seemed so sunken, she couldn't see their usual silverly glint. Actually, backlit as he was, she couldn’t see them at all.

And yet, strangely, every other part of him was perfectly appreciable. Emaciated and painted with filth, his chest and abdomen were decorated with gashes in various states of healing. The area along his left forearm was still openly weeping. An odd, rectangular patch seemed to be missing from his flank—like a quilt, missing a central square.

“What’s happened to you?” To her ears, her voice sounded like she was trapped underwater.

He dipped his head to his arm, the one causing a small, dark puddle to form on the floor. Cradling it against his abdomen, he pressed long, thin fingers to the wound. “Don’t worry about me. They just took a little too much this time, is all.”

He came closer to the bars and the light swelled suddenly, spilling far enough that she could see its warmth dancing on her fingertips. But the heat never came. And as she returned her gaze to his face, she gasped in abject horror at what she found there.

His eyes had not been hidden by the darkness as she’d assumed. Where once two pools of swirling, mercurial grey had rested, sparkling in his moments of merriment, of reverence, of rage, now there were only sockets as dark and endless as their cage. His face still angled toward hers perfectly, no doubt guided by his remaining senses. But his stare was so hollow and haunting she felt every vein in her body constrict, cutting off the flow of blood to her brain.

And yet, still there was something else that was not right.

Dizzy and lightheaded, she stepped back. She didn’t know what was wrong but she had to get away. But her movements were abnormally sluggish, weighted--as if her legs were no longer adequate to carry her through this world.

He grasped the bars in a white-knuckled grip and brought his face as far past them as they would allow. “No, please don’t go,” he pleaded to her retreating form.

She didn’t obey, but couldn’t tear her eyes away from where his had once been. She wasn’t watching her feet. And where the path had been clear before, this time she faltered. Tumbling backward atop an uneven pile, parts of her body met something soft and pliant whilst others encountered the hard and pointed.

Scrambling for purchase, she searched for a solid piece of the floor upon which to stand. But her body felt too heavy and disoriented, each attempt seeming to drag her further into the rabble.

“What is this?” She heard herself out, hopefully in his direction.

“I tried so hard,” his despairing whisper rang loudly in her ears. Somehow, she was both stood directly next to him whilst still struggling across the room. “It wasn’t enough.”

Finally manoeuvring onto her hands and knees, she managed to lift her body enough to see what stopped her fall. Arms and legs splayed every which way, torsos layered atop heads, innumerable faces she knew should be unique but were strangely unidentifiable, almost blank. The naked corpses were bent and misshapen; many had wounds covered in crusted blood, some showed signs of necrosis.

But they all had one thing in common.

They all carried the same word carved into every swath of visible skin, over and over. Countless.

She shot up onto her knees, covering her forearm with the opposite hand.

“It was to protect us, Hermione.”

She couldn't look at him, couldn't tear her gaze from the broken souls below her. Not as he called out her name, again and again, growing progressively more broken itself.

“Hermione? Please, come back…Hermione? Hermione!”

“Hermione?”

Gasping for breath, her body was covered in a layer of cold sweat. But the world was no longer dark. The world was red. Red and porcelain and far too bright and dusty and—

Oh.

Hermione exhaled harshly as her last waking moments slowly returned to her. Blinking groggily, the cold light that coated the shelves told her she had spent far longer sat in this half-decayed chair than intended. And even without the light, the trapped nerve in her back would be clue enough.

“Hermione?”

Her gaze snapped to the front to find Ginny sat across from her, an already pale face ashen with worry.

“Are you alright?”

Hermione shook her head quickly to clear it of those words, echoing through her memory in her own voice. “Yes, yes I’m fine. Just a dream.”

“Seemed like a nasty one.”

“Wasn’t my best, I’ll admit.” She pushed her hair away from her temples with both hands, twisting the pile—which had become even more unruly with sleep—into a messy knot. Heaving the mass atop her head, her fingers grasped for an elastic on the opposite wrist but found tauntingly bare flesh in its place. “Bollocks.”

“Here, have one of mine,” a thin black band appeared under her eyes as she wrestled her curls back into submission.

“Oh, thanks.”

Ginny shifted in her seat when she’d sat up straight again. “Want to talk about it?”

“About what?”

“Your dream. Or why you look like you were up crying half the night, here of all places.”

Hermione looked up and down the aisle, suddenly fully mindful of her surroundings and, specifically, that she had chosen this spot for how rarely others frequented it. Ginny’s question was instantly forgotten to her.

“How did you find me here?”

Lifting off her own chair to reach into her back pocket—in a deft display of core muscle strength—Ginny wrenched a familiar packet of parchment into view. Despite its distinct lack of markings, Hermione would recognise its tell-tale pattern of worn creases anywhere.

“Nicked this from Harry during the winter hols,” she explained with a sly smirk, “though I’m beginning to think he let me take it so I could feel a wee bit clever, poor sod. Haven’t had the need for it until last night.”

Hermione blinked. “Why was that?”

Her friend frowned, clearly taken aback. “I mean, you tasked yourself with looking after the tosser who manhandled you, then you were going to sleep in the next room over from the guy who beat the daylights out of said tosser." She spun the parchment on the tabletop. "Just wanted to make sure you were alright."

Hermione’s heart clenched. It was hard to remember sometimes that there were people in her world whose care came without strings, even if they shouted that truth at her regularly. Especially in the wake of the war, everyone seemed to hold her in their expectations. It was a task she felt she’d failed before she even knew it had begun.

“Thanks, Gin, really.” She said thickly.

Ginny replaced the map into the pocket of her robes. “Of course. I did have a proper fit when I couldn’t find you at first, but I reckoned you were in your dorm and the map just didn't recognise where that was. Just like the Chamber of Secrets, you know." Her words tapered off slightly near the end, evidence of the trauma from which she had never fully healed. 

“Anyway,” she pushed on with an air of forced vigour, “I stayed up and watched the bloody thing just to be sure, and eventually your little banner appeared. Came along just as soon as Pince would let me through the doors.”

It was then that Hermione noticed Ginny’s attire. Or, rather, how abnormally casual she looked for the day and time. “Did you sacrifice your flying time to come find me?”

Ginny shrugged. “It’s one day. Harry says I’m guaranteed a spot on the Harpies as it is.”

Despite her friend's nonchalance, Hermione knew the significance of the action. Except for the previous year—a caveat Hermione found herself using all too often—Ginny hadn’t missed a morning fly since she first sat on a broom. Her routine was as ingrained and as sacred as Hermione’s penchant for waking before six every morning, just so she could read at least two full books before breakfast.

Although, judging by the angle of the light pouring through the windows, both of them broke their patterns today.

No words would convey sufficient thanks in Hermione’s mind. Instead, she simply reached across the table to grasp Ginny’s hands in both of hers. “Of course you are. No one else even comes close.”

The smile she received in return was small, but it filled her with warmth all the same. Ginny had a way of smiling with her eyes more than her lips; little crinkles appeared at the corners and her irises glistened, like her happiness just couldn’t help but emanate from within. A reserved, yet pure kind of affection, perceptible only once earned. Perhaps it was not the most outwardly Gryffindor-ish trait on the surface, but it had been one of Ginny’s understated qualities that drew Hermione toward her years ago.

“So,” Ginny cleared her throat, casting her eyes across the span of their shared table, “shall I presume those red eyes and splotchy cheeks have something to do with this lot?”

Hermione looked down.

Oh no. The books.

Honestly, whatever did happen to “constant vigilance”, you big idiot? She scolded internally, furious she had to remind herself of this specific failing for the second time in as many months. Clearly, she’d gone half barmy, unintentionally falling asleep in the library with a table full of secret Veela texts, openly on display for anyone to stumble upon.

Regardless of their methods, the Malfoys managed to hold their monumental secret close to their chests—and too close, it seemed—for over a millennium. She’d not lasted six hours as its guardian. Was she even still the same Hermione Granger who had ruthlessly hunted down Horcrux after Horcrux and fought in a brutal war, not even a year ago?

Where was her presence of mind, her precision, her preparedness for anything outside the strictly academic?

Her mind and body, forced into overdrive over the past few years, now seemed like it had reached its quota and would not be moved.

Hermione’s wide eyes locked with Ginny’s calm ones. “Ginny, I don’t—”

“You’ve found out about Malfoy, then?”

No force could have kept Hermione’s jaw from unhinging. “What?” She screeched—more high-pitched than a barn owl denied a treat for its services—and instantly heard the hiss of a shh permeating through the stacks.

Like with any of her prior conundrums, especially those that were as delicate as her current one, Hermione expected to deal with it on her own. She meant no insult by it to any of her friends and confidants; it was simply habitual by now. A habit developed through years of being too many steps ahead of the rest, too impatient to stop and explain when her audience only listened with half of an ear. She grew so used to the appearance of glazed eyes and heads tilted too many degrees off the proper axis that she searched for them in every conversation. And there had been too many times when her cheeks burned, her throat tightening as she could practically feel a person pulling away—no, being pushed away by the grating quality of her soliloquies.

Using herself as a sounding board had never been her preference, but she’d survived well enough. It was better than knowing her friends easily grew bored of her. Better than pretending she’d not noticed.

Hermione could count the number of times she was the one to play catch-up on one hand. And, she’d have room to spare, at that.

Ginny was absently thumbing through a book with an olive-green, softcover binding. One of the histories, she identified. The pages turned slowly, such that a moving diagram of a Veela being flayed on a remedial operating table had time to sear into her mind.

Images of a ruined Malfoy with his vacant stare flashed before her. Scenes her mind painted and animated on its own, but terrifyingly rooted in truth. The sight of his leathery wings—practically skeletal with how they’d been pruned of every feather—was a haunting detail her subconscious overlooked at the time but had floated to the surface along with her lucidity. Recalling it now caused such a strong sense of unease within her that she barely suppressed a shiver. Malfoy’s wings, the ones she’d actually seen, were so rich and dark and full that power practically exuded from them. Even if the attached body seemed unwilling to harness that strength, she couldn't help but feel impressed by it.

And so the image of him, plucked bare in more ways than one, was just so intrinsically wrong. She hardly knew how or where Draco Malfoy fit into their society now, but she knew his setting in her dream was off; it was not his place.

She blinked those thoughts away, rapidly flourishing her wand to cast the overdue privacy charms. “How long have you known?”

Ginny pushed the book off to the side with the heel of her palm, leaving it open to the section on Veela mate bonds. Hermione’s focus left the page as soon as she’d read the title. She had skipped those pages on purpose.

“I spotted him flying back to the castle during one of my training sessions a few weeks ago. Didn’t figure it out instantly, of course, but seeing a bloke you’ve known for eight years suddenly sprout a giant set of wings gets you to wondering, you know.”

Hermione slumped back in her chair. “Yeah, I do.”

As Ginny traced the raised grain of the wood with her fingers, she explained the traditional folktales and bedtime stories common to old wizarding families (read: mostly those of pureblooded stock). How parents often exploited the fear of the other—predominantly magical Creatures, but eventually Muggles as well, so lovely to be included—to instil “good” behaviours and habits in their children.

“Like, every wizarding village all coincidentally had a rabid hoard of centaurs lurking in the woods nearby, waiting to stampede if they sensed a little boy or girl didn’t finish their porridge.”

It was the sort of rubbish that managed to stay deeply embedded in a child’s mind. The sort where, even after the child had grown and learnt that such iterations of boogie men did not really exist and they could abandon half a bowl of porridge to spoil without fear of retribution, somehow those dark paintings of anyone different stuck around. Lurking in memory’s dark underbelly, surfacing only to spout an ill-timed negative supposition and leaving the person to think, just where did that come from?

“My mum hardly needed to exploit vampires and Banshees to get us to do as we were told,” Ginny continued, wearing a nostalgic smirk, “she was scary enough on her own. But some of the original legends still made it in, minus most of the bigoted subtext.

“Bill always liked the ones about Veela—go figure. So when mum and dad were busy he’d tell us his favourites, ones about how everyone thought male Veela didn’t exist, but they were just masquerading as pureblood wizards and were hiding in plain sight.” She tapped the tabletop with her second and third fingers, establishing a beat with no discernible rhythm. “I think the purist twist to the narrative tried to frighten ‘innocent’ pureblood girls into securing betrothal contracts with ‘reputable’ boys so that they’d not be defiled by lecherous, sexually deviant Veela.” Ginny snickered at the ridiculous notion, rolling her eyes exaggeratedly.

“Anyway, with dad always going up against Lucius Malfoy at work, and especially after we had the displeasure of meeting Draco a few times as kids, some of the boys liked to joke that the Malfoys were like the family in our stories. That their outspoken views on blood supremacy were really just overcompensating for their…non-purebloodedness. And the fact that the whole lot of them is fucking platinum blond only egged us on. Pretty painfully ironic now that I think back on it.”

Hermione dropped her head to rest in her hands, elbows braced against the table.

“But what’s got you crying over this?” Ginny pressed in a gentler tone.

Moving her hands to grip the edge of the wood, she leant back in her chair so far that she could read the inverted titles of the books behind her. Eyes closing, she breathed deep.

“Apparently I’m his ‘mate’.” Her fingers raised to form air quotes.

Ginny’s eyes bugged so far out from her skull it was nearly cartoonish, and she slapped her hands flat against the table. “Bullshit.”

She glanced at the far window, just as she had done a few hours prior. Now though, the angle of the sun made the world outside so oppressively bright that none of the landscape could shine through.

“Afraid not.”

Stealing herself with a few ragged breaths, Hermione spilt it all. She figured Ginny had garnered the bulk of Malfoy’s secret already, having uncovered it by his own indiscretion, no less. And Malfoy’s words had sent her spiralling. She desperately needed someone to drive a stake through the middle of her consciousness, stopping her thoughts from spinning away like an errant discus.

Someone with the precision needed to properly lobotomise her, but with the blatant indelicacy of Phineas Gage’s pole.

Ginny was about as close to that as she could hope to get.

“Wow.” The redheaded witch exhaled when Hermione finally panted out the whole story, inclusive of her hours of inner monologue and tribulations over how she should be processing this. She noticed when Ginny’s eyes held a touch of glaze, but she recognised it as a sign of deep absorption rather than budding boredom. Her head never turned away, and Hermione couldn’t stop. Though truthfully, she had expected a more colourful exclamation in response, yet she found herself agreeing that “wow” pretty much covered it.

“I just can’t get his words out of my head,” said Hermione, searching for a place to hold her eyes in focus. Trying to read all parts of Ginny’s body language at the same time meant she ultimately gathered nothing. The witch still appeared to be slowly taking in the deluge of information Hermione had unleashed, delaying her response time.

“Sorry, I’m still getting over this whole mate business. Which ones now?”

She ignored the first half of Ginny’s statement, still hoping to avoid that particular brand of shit show for as long as possible. “When he challenged me about what else he could have done…I just keep waffling between thinking there are a thousand things I’d have done differently and loathing him for it, or being unconvinced that any of those would’ve actually worked and despising myself for it.”

That seemed to shake Ginny back into clarity. "Wait, why are you suddenly on the chopping block now?”

Hermione started to tear her hands through her hair in exasperation but recalled too late that the style she'd wrangled it into prevented it. She winced when she inadvertently tugged a lock of hair loose from the knot, its end still trapped and its middle left to dangle like a limp noodle.

“Because if there’s nothing he could have done differently,” she said, resigned, “then I’m condoning it. Everything he and his family did to people like me. I’m saying they made the right choice, and I dunno if I can like myself knowing I think that.”

Ginny leant her upper body over the table. “I don’t believe those are mutually exclusive,” she argued, “not completely, at least. I’d like to think you can acknowledge the lack of a better option and still hate that option, as well as that predicament as a whole.

“Not that I’m claiming there wasn’t a better option.” Ginny continued to speak quickly as Hermione started to interject. “Plenty of other pureblooded families gradually became more tolerant, slowly phased out the notions of supremacy until they taught themselves not to openly clutch their pearls if a Muggle walked a little too close.”

“Malfoy claimed it was too late for them.” Hermione voiced the reminder, though she was unsure whether it was intended for Ginny or herself.

“Yeah,” Ginny sighed, folding her arms through the open back of her chair, “and as much as I dislike the posh prick, I reckon he’s right. That’s something his great-great-great-and so on grandfather needed to initiate. But he didn’t, and so Malfoy was born into a position with no exit strategy.”

Hermione carved a line into the pliant wood with her thumbnail, followed by a second, parallel to the first. “So we’re condoning it, then?”

Ginny grimaced. “Not exactly. I’m still working this through as I go. You've got a good few hours' advantage on me here."

A pregnant pause followed, one in which Hermione anxiously refrained from speaking. She knew she’d the proclivity for waiting for others to finish (and occasionally hurrying them along) so she could confront them with her own arguments, keen to debate as her parents both taught her. It was an exercise in extreme restraint to wait for Ginny to speak whilst the thoughts in her head raged like a maelstrom. 

“Okay, a couple things,” Ginny finally began again with a careful cadence, her eyes flickering to a different part of Hermione’s face every few seconds, “but to start, I want to acknowledge that I’m a pureblood talking to a Muggleborn about oppression orchestrated by other purebloods—”

Hermione waved her off. “Go on, Gin. I know your politics enough not to assume the worst of you.”

Her friend chuckled nervously as she rubbed up and down the outer supports of her chair. “Well,” she swallowed, “first off, I reckon we can’t suss out some revisionist history for Malfoy so that we can crucify and condemn him for his actual past. Like, I mean we literally can’t. Because—now wait, wait, let me finish my thought or else I’ll forget it. Listen, you’re closer to his situation than I am, being part of a historically oppressed group. But even so, neither of us will ever fully have the capacity to know what his life’s been like—what it’s like to feel responsible for your entire species. Seriously, in the war I never once thought, ‘if I die today, I’ll never have kids, and slowly all witches and wizards will disappear too.’”

Hermione frowned. She hated to admit it, but she’d not thought of Malfoy’s situation in such terms. Worrying about her own longevity or her biological contribution to society barely crossed her mind during the war. That kind of thinking always seemed so selfish. And it might have been for her, but did the same rules apply to him? Did his selfishness not also bleed into selflessness and, if so, how the fuck did that make any sort of sense? Where did one end and the other begin?

Ginny was still talking, and Hermione recognised with horror that she, for the first time, had been the one to step out of the conversation and into her own inner monologue. It was hardly much better being on this end.

“I can’t fathom living with that sort of pressure,” she was saying, “but I can begin to imagine it makes you more amenable to going along with unseemly options.”

Hermione scoffed. “‘Unseemly’ barely scratches the surface.”

“Horrendous-to-the-nth-degree, then, if it pleases you. The point is, you and I can argue to no end that Draco could have defected. I think everyone wished he had. But I don’t see him—or myself trying to stand in his weird Veela shoes—considering it as a viable option if he sees a greater risk of exposure or harm to his parents.”

“But could he not have at least tried to push back a little? If he hated his options like he says he did, he didn’t do much to fight against them.”

Ginny’s brows lifted to her forehead. “Didn’t he? I recall you argued the opposite to Harry when you encouraged him to speak at Malfoy’s trial.”

Hermione winced, caught in her own hypocrisy. She’d done precisely as Ginny contended, referencing Malfoy’s hesitation that night at his Manor, the one she tried so desperately to bury under piles and piles of precocious study. His unwillingness to murder their Headmaster, even knowing all that was at stake for him and his parents. She’d believed it so assiduously at the time, but now she was scouring her memory for any of Harry’s more salient counterpoints. She could recall none.

It was all such a devastating contradiction to everything she said against him—hell, everything he said as well.

She admitted her fallacy with a grumble. “This is simultaneously wonderfully cathartic and deeply maddening.”

Ginny smiled and grasped Hermione’s hand again. “I think that’s just what nuanced conversations are like.”

Hermione glared at her in return, purposefully engaging her vestiges of immaturity, but squeezed her hand all the same.

“So lastly,” Ginny began again, reminding Hermione that she’d only covered one of her points, “and I know you're not going to like this, especially being in your…well, your much more complicated position with regards to him, but I don't think it's on you, or me, or any individual to 'pardon' Malfoy for what he and his family did. We certainly can't forgive him on behalf of everyone they ever hurt; no one would thank us for that if we tried."

“I know that,” Hermione said, barely more than a breath, “but I still can’t escape feeling like I’m letting them all down.”

Ginny picked at the corner of a book, thankfully stopping before Hermione had to slap her hand away. “Did it seem like he regrets it?”

“Honestly?” Hermione brought both feet up onto her chair, the abused carpentry groaning under the added weight. She considered her words for only a moment. “I think he resents his ancestors for putting him in his position. He said he wasn’t proud of what he did, and can I believe that. Somehow, I seriously doubt he wanted to hurt anyone. But that doesn’t negate the fact that he did, indirectly or not, or that I know he’d do it all over again if he had to.”

“But does he regret that, as well?”

Out through the window at the far end of the aisle, trees were just visible through the haze of the low-lying February clouds.

“I’m not sure.”

Soon the clouds would dissolve into the Great Lake, or float back to their relatives in the troposphere where they belonged—no longer amused by interrupting her perception. But they would be back, and at a time long enough removed that she would have forgotten what it was like not to see the world below her.

She was about ninety per cent convinced that what she'd said was a lie.

xx

In the future, if someone asked Hermione why she did it, she would claim temporary insanity.

Because truthfully, what other plausible explanation was there?

Why else would she be stood, hovering in the dead of night over a wizard’s supine body as he lay in his hospital bed, wand poised for use?

She’d not seen Malfoy since the night before. He had missed every meal in the Great Hall and she had studiously avoided returning to their dorms. And yet, the frequency of his physical presence seemed inversely correlated to how often her mind fixated on him. Suddenly, he was everywhere—staring up through the pages of her books, trailing her like a shadow in the corridors, dissolving the food as it touched her lips.

Hermione knew what insanity looked like. It was etched into her skin.

Everyone who ever cared about Cormac McClaggen was gone, two years removed from him in the class with which he was meant to graduate. There was no one left in this castle who could be bothered with him, not even members of his own house.

Not even the Head Girl, apparently.

We can’t deny others their place.

“Oh, I’m in trouble,” she breathed, but her hand still moved of its own accord, tracing the wonky circular pattern in the air, “Obliviate.”

Hermione stared at his unconscious form; in appearance alone, he was exactly as he’d been just a few moments before. But she knew she was the difference.

Turning in haste, no longer able to confront her choices, she barely withheld a shriek as she came face-to-face with three people she never expected to find here.

“Nicely done, Granger,” Blaise Zabini’s voice was low and deceptively warm, and Hermione couldn’t recall if he’d ever addressed her directly before then. “You beat us to it.”

She breathed heavily through her mouth. “I don’t know what you mean.”

To Zabini’s left, separated by the body of Theo Nott, Parkinson rolled her eyes. “I’m sure we don’t either. But now, you’ll need to come with us.”

Hermione didn’t have the chance to resist before she was Silenced, multiple sets of hands grasping her by the elbows as she was pulled out of the Hospital Wing and into the empty, moonlit corridor.

Chapter 10: Raison D'être

The Heads’ Common Room appeared much as she’d left it earlier that morning. The Everlasting Fire, choked down to scarcely more than embers, occasionally coughed out a dying crackle of sparks into the dark room. A collection of textbooks and journals lay scattered across the furniture in various states of reading. Many were bookmarked with whatever detritus was local and convenient. Malfoy favoured using spare scraps of parchment, littered with hurried notes and the occasional doodle, whilst Hermione tended to prop one book open with the edge of another, leading to a kind of mismatched knowledge train that could span the length of any couch or table.   

Malfoy once teased her that she would one day ignore a crucial detail in her research because it would be covered by the pages of another book. Aghast and unthinking, she’d thrust an overlying tome out of the way on a reflex and accidentally caused a waterfall of ancient volumes to go tumbling off the edge of her desk. She’d gaped on in horror whilst Malfoy snickered his way out of the dorm. But when she had returned that evening, the books she’d gathered into uneven stacks were laid out exactly as they had been before. The order, the preferred pages, everything was impossibly preserved. The only difference was that the corner of each overlapping book rested perfectly within the blank margin of the one beneath it.

No longer would any word be left unread.

So yes, the living quarters of two Head Students was a painting of organised chaos showing many things not where they should have been. Or, in other words, everything exactly where it was supposed to be. Nothing had changed. But stories and memories now burst forth from every corner, echoing a life lived but not observed. Coverings pulled back, like a membrane from within an eggshell, and Hermione’s world began to leak out.

Who existed in this space?

The Malfoy with whom Hermione had shared the past eight years seemed little more than a ghost, a dream she’d all but forgotten. Vestiges of that person endured—the eagle owl quill he’d abandoned on an end table; the rich black cloak (far superior in quality to that of standard Hogwarts’ issue) draped over the back of an armchair; the sleek silhouette of the ebony broom propped against the shelf by the stairs because he didn’t trust the security of the school’s storage facilities. When she’d suggested that she was perfectly capable of nicking it, he’d only offered her a single raised brow over the top of his book before he returned to his studies.

Whilst far from being friends, Hermione existed with that Malfoy in relative peace. He was predictable. And through the years of mutual hostility, Hemione’s character had been shaped by his. If her life began as a single point in space, it first grew into a line, then into a dimensional and definable form as it bent around him and everyone else in her orbit.

But now, possessing certain truths that had been previously withheld, she looked upon her form as one based heavily on pretence. Hers was not a foundation of solid earth and rock; she was merely Levitating.

And so, when she had twisted herself around misconstructions, did they leave wounds behind when they were revealed as such? Or did her boundaries bounce back like elastic, ready to mould around something new and valid?

If the latter, then that new entity lay secluded behind a solid oak door at the top of a dark staircase. And even as she stood there, barely within the boundaries of the common room, she could feel the strength of the wards emanating from the wood grain. Tinged with darkness, they cooled her bloodstream like despair on an intravenous drip. She suspected many of them skirted the line of legality.

“What’s he done?” she asked—to the room or her companions, she was unsure.

It was Nott who responded with pursed lips and a one-shouldered shrug. “Dunno exactly. We only managed a glimpse at him before he threw all those wards up, and none of us can get through them.”

Hermione frowned. “But you think I can, do you?”

She received triplet looks of pity and exasperation in return.

“How many of his books have you read already?” Parkinson snipped. She continued before Hermione could speak, the answer apparently written on her face. “Then you should know that he can’t deny you much of anything. Not if you ask for it.”

Biting her lip, Hermione glanced back at the stairwell. With the apex obscured in shadow, her path seemed ominous, like her future would commence as a walk into an abyss. The thud of her heart began to crash behind her sternum, pumping blood to her head at far too fast a rate. Oddly, the darkness remained fully in focus whilst everything in her periphery bled into a blur. Her body began to feel unbalanced, top-heavy, her skin overheating, her breaths not quite filling her lungs, no matter how deeply she inhaled.

“Granger,” Nott’s voice sliced through her growing panic, and her eyes cut to him. She forced herself to blink thrice to see him through the haze. “Please.”

A hand was suddenly in hers. Glancing down and back up again, she was stunned to find it belonged to Parkinson, who looked far from enthused at the concept of touching her.

“I recognise what we’re asking.” A muscle twitched in Parkinson’s clenched jaw, seemingly mirrored in her firm grip on Hermione’s hand. “But Slytherins hardly make a habit of putting ourselves in debt, I hope you know.”

Zabini, who until then had uttered nothing other than a string of Silencing Charms on the journey from the Hospital Wing (all of which she had thrown off in quick succession until he’d given up), approached her next, looking conflicted. “Granger, I made him a promise, but I reckon I’m not breaking it by assuming you’ve already learnt the truth. You know what will happen if he carries on like this, don’t you?”

Hermione swallowed thickly, trying to look anywhere that wasn't into Zabini’s cold stare. She failed. His eyes may have reflected her uncertainty, but the innumerable titles that lined the walls spelt out the answer to his question, pulling the pages from her memory and slathering them into her present.

“You do know,” Zabini finished when she did not.

She wished he was wrong. Desperately, she wished she did not know.

The book responsible for that knowledge had seemed so innocuous in its appearance, Hermione was unsure what had possessed her to swipe it from Malfoy’s shelves. Small in its dimensions and bound in cracked, plain leather, it bore no name—gilded, embossed, or otherwise. Perhaps it had once, centuries ago.

Despite its outward innocence, Hermione suspected that its words, handwritten and faded, would steal more sleep from her nights than Bellatrix Lestrange could ever hope to do.

Technically, Malfoy wouldn’t die if she rejected him. He would survive, find another compatible female with whom to sire progeny and contribute his prime years to the capitalist workforce like every other sorry sod in this world.

But he would be a shell. The book warned that whilst a Veela’s mate was not the direct equivalent of a life force, he or she was the centre of the Veela’s purpose. All ambition, each dream, even every feeling was linked to the true mate and disappeared in the absence of one. Ceaselessly apathetic, a lifetime of daily tasks performed like a machine.

Hermione knew she would wish for death, if it were her.

“Draco would murder us if he knew we were talking to you. He’d resign himself to a life of lonely depression before he ever pressured you or made you feel the least bit guilty.” Zabini’s tone was even and hard, emotions held back by the arms folded across his chest. “But I won’t. I don’t care what gets you in that room. He’s our friend, and he's a good person if you'd just let him show you—”

“Blaise,” Nott interrupted him with a brisk shake of his head before turning back to her. His eyes were dark and beady as they stared, unblinking, into hers. And yet, Hermione could see from her distance that the whites were tinged with red. Not the mark of suppressed tears; a stain from countless nights wherein he exchanged sleep for anxious thoughts. She’d seen it regularly in the mirror during the war, flinched when she hardly recognised Harry without it.

“You’ll have to forgive him,” Nott continued as Zabini scoffed through his nose, “we’re not well versed in begging.”

Blinking slowly, Hermione looked away. She tried to escape the niggling thought that had been on repeat in her brain: that all this talk was superfluous. But the more she fought it, the more it inevitably clawed to the surface, bringing clarity alongside it.

They needn’t have bothered trying to burden her with guilt or treat her with pleas.

Hermione Granger did not run. Not from a challenge, not for herself.

She offered the Slytherins no verbal reply as she began her path toward the stairs, each step corresponding to a whirlwind of contemplations occurring within her head.

Her form still wound itself around some firm truths, and she clung to those like a vice. As to the rest of it, she reckoned it was all still rather determinable. Perhaps there would always be a space for Malfoy’s façade, and as such, she would continue to be shaped by its impact on her life, regardless of whether it was a true representation of him. But, if it was ever truly a wound, then it had already begun to heal. It certainly no longer bled.

Acknowledging Malfoy’s deception as a mere trigger rather than the source of her internal crisis of self prompted another yet admission—something had been missing for a long time. It wasn’t that she ached for purpose. In fact, purposes tended to abound for Hermione, but underlying them all had been an element of numbness, trifling questions of why bother? and why do you think you know what’s right?

She’d not known what had been missing, not even realised it wasn’t there, but it left behind an impression just deep enough to leave her feeling…without. Floating, mere centimetres above everyone else, high enough to qualify hers as a separate plane.

Harry Potter, suffering endless bouts of turmoil and constant threats of bodily injury, succeeded in pulling her down for a while. But the war was over now, Voldemort long vanquished, and it became harder to ignore the emptiness with each passing day.

The acumen of hindsight taught Hermione that she had tried to fashion Ron into another sort of tether. But she’d done it too hastily, too sloppily, and he’d become more of a weight than a lifeline. She could accept now that Ron had carried his own demons; it had been foolish to assume that his could counteract her own. Putting them together was like joining two helium balloons and hoping they’d keep each other grounded.

So now, with the war gone, Ron gone, Hermione existed. But now, she understood.

What she had lost was her anchor. A permanent counterbalance to stop her spiralling up through the endless vortex her restless mind so favoured, to drop down the side and have her careening in a new direction, should she need it. Something to slot into her soul, fitting neatly into the gaps of her shape like that elusive lost piece.

She stopped short, her foot poised above the last step to the shared landing.

Complementary magical cores.

“Such an idiot,” she exhaled, slumping against the dark stone wall to her left as she shut her eyes. “Of course it goes both ways.”

How long had it been since she’d been this properly curious about anything? And fuck, if she wasn’t curious. Maddeningly so.

Since the end of the war, when was the last time she’d been so consumed by a single puzzle that nothing else could bear to compete? When any other hint of a topic would be brutishly shoved out of the way of her mind’s barrelling force, too irreparably eager for answers to every new question?

Hermione had all but forgotten what that was like. So much so, in fact, that she had not recognised when it began to rear its head again, wrenching the edges of her motivation back from a dusty corner. A slow, silent resurrection. It blew warmth into her fingers, caused every breath to tickle as she filled her lungs, kept her up at night for all the right reasons.

Straightening, she shook her head and rolled her shoulders once, twice, and crossed to the door to Malfoy’s room.

Hermione supposed it was rather fitting that the superficial barb Malfoy et al. threw at her over the years was the aptest description for the conflagration of wards oozing from the wood. A veritable rat's nest of spells—deep, twisted, protective over the core. Dismantling the inner layer was always the key to the whole network. Malfoy’s was fortified by tier upon tier of additional hexes, ranging in their consequence from the mundane to the incomprehensible. To add to the confusion, they seemed to be multiplying the longer she examined them.

His construction was not so much an exercise in technique as it was in strategy. Beyond complex, Malfoy’s method would thwart most potential disrupters of his solitude through its sheer tedium and aggravating nature. However, despite Hermione’s understanding of Malfoy having turned on its head in the past day, some parts of his old character were as still germane.

The memory she drew forth was of a distant afternoon tea, one that had transpired at a thousand weekends. Her father, the human dichotomy of the stalwart dentist with a persistent sweet tooth, passed her a single sugar cube beneath the table. Her mother noticed; she always noticed. But her father never changed his tactics. He never tried to evade his wife’s reproachful gaze and the subsequent swat to his arm, accepting both with a full-bodied chuckle. Always winked to Hermione and popped his own cube directly into his mouth when her mother looked away again. It was a routine that rolled into a tradition, and she had no idea when either had begun. But it had never once failed her, and she allowed herself a small smile as the luminescent otter danced and twirled around her ankles, brushing its paws over its face.

“Hey, you,” she spoke softly to the ethereal creature, wishing—as she always did—that it existed in its own right and not solely as an extension of her. “Off you pop, now.”

The otter spiralled up her body, around her outstretched forearm that held her wand aloft, and away, still facing her as it propelled supinely through the air. The silvery aura sank easily into the wood.

Hermione smiled again, rueful. One could always trust a Death Eater—the zealous and the reluctant, both—not to ward against a Patronus. Perhaps she did know him, just a little.

And score one to Parkinson, Hermione mused as she crossed the threshold.

Inside Malfoy’s room was utter bedlam.

The four-poster bed that once jutted out from the south wall, the one shared with the bathroom, now appeared the site of a well-contained implosion. Gone was the duvet, separated into a million tiny feathers. Across the room, the window swung limply from a single hinge, and the resulting draft stirred up the great waves of down. Hermione recalled a rug had cushioned the floor; now it was obscured by the rags and ribbons of what were once bedcurtains. Stray shards of the wooden posts and headboard lay scattered across the room. Some mingled with a pile of infinitesimally small granules, the texture of sand, beneath an empty mirror frame. Evidence of a well-placed Reducto. She guessed that some others had mixed with the debris that was once an antique, immaculately organised desk, but it would be hard to tell what was what, now.

The only elements left unmolested were the countless books that lined the walls, save—of course—for the ones she’d removed that morning. They looked as though they hadn’t been touched in years. Even the fine layer of dust that preceded them on the shelves was uninterrupted. Whatever class of storm blew through here had retained some scruples, it seemed.

Oddest of all, the eye of this storm was conspicuously absent.

“Homenum rev—” she cut herself off, realising her error. A fortuitous mistake, however, even if she hardly revelled in making it.

A humourless scoff echoed from outside the window like thunder after a lightning strike. Hoisting herself into the window well, she craned her neck to have a view of the neighbouring roof.

“Won’t work, will it?”

He may have absconded from his shrine of destruction, but Malfoy was a mess in himself.

A study in intransigence and contradiction; he stared out over the grounds with a visage as blank and as flat as stagnant water, yet his body exposed the maelstrom that raged beneath it. Deep hollows carved out space below his eyes. His skin, already eerily pale in the moonlight, looked to be stretched so thinly across his sharp frame that it was practically translucent. Indeed, Hermione could see the smattering of fine vessels that ran just underneath the surface at his temple.

Most striking of all were the wings that still adorned his figure. Hermione imagined they could be quite the source of frustration for Malfoy; he’d hardly be able to ignore the troubles of his genetics when they were literally sprouting from his back.

Plus, they didn’t lend much to his unaffected airs. 

“Malfoy,” she greeted him, recognising his words as being both incendiary and aggressively self-deprecating and opting to ignore them entirely. If she’d learnt one thing from her brief romance with Ronald, it was that rising to such bait only culminated in disaster. “Come down from there, would you? We can’t have a proper discussion like this.”

Malfoy clasped the edge of the roof in each palm. Even as she was stood there, her feet solid against the stone, her stomach still lurched at the sight of him leant forward over the ledge, looking awfully unstable.

“And why would we have a proper discussion?”

She took a moment to count the cracks in the weather-worn sill, containing herself before she answered, “Well, I reckon it’s called for, at this point.” When he remained silent, the pulsing vein in his jaw being the only indication he’d heard her, she pressed on, “We need to talk about us—”

Now, he looked at her, trained the full power and depth of his icy gaze on her. “There is no us, Granger,” he spat the words out like poison. “You’ve made that perfectly clear.”

“Seriously?” Hermione scoffed, eyes narrowing as she gaped at him. “You’ve hardly even let on that you’re not repulsed by my presence, let alone anything more than that. Pardon me if I needed a moment to adjust.”

Malfoy snapped his head down again, the clench in his jaw making a return appearance. Her mother would have chastised him exhaustively for such poor oral posture and the impact it would surely have on his enamel. She might have even sent him home with a list of mouthguards, all recommended by at least four out of five dentists.

“Look,” Hermione started again, breathing deep and slow. “It was a lot to think on, and I wasn’t ready to talk before. But I am now. So just—” she could feel her skin crinkling as her eyes shut tight, “—please, come down?”

Hermione hardly believed she was pleading with Malfoy, of all people, but her chosen words had their desired effect. After a few seconds of fiddling with a loose thread at the knee of his pyjama bottoms, he offered her a brisk nod.

Score two to Parkinson, it seemed.

“Have it your way, then," he said flatly before his wings stretched out behind him. With gravity working for him, he allowed his body to fall down and over the edge of the roof.

Hermione couldn’t prevent the sudden rush of February air that filled her lungs, her brain not connecting the concept of wings with the ability to hold oneself aloft before a gasp of shock escaped from her throat. And an embarrassingly girly one, at that. But as Malfoy hovered just outside the window, doing the aerial version of treading water, she pressed her palm to cover her clavicles. Perhaps the steady pressure would slow her heartbeat, or at least restrain any further unexpected vocal excursions.

“Merlin,” she breathed out in a shudder, “a little warning would have been appreciated.”

Malfoy only shrugged, insouciant. “If you’d step aside?”

“Oh, right.” She shuffled backward, out of the window well and back into the carnage of Malfoy’s room.

Whilst she waited for him to make his descent, she busied herself with sorting an acceptable seating arrangement. Lord knew, any of the available options would result in a thousand splinters lodged in hard-to-reach locations. Far from the ideal precursor to a conversation already primed for awkwardness. With a few flicks and waves of her wand, much of the rubble swept itself into a far corner. She located two less-masticated pillows and Transfigured each into a tufted armchair. Magic could only do so much, however. One of the pair kept releasing a flurry of downy feathers at random, spat out from a gnarled hole in the upholstery.

“Shoddy job. Expected better from the Head Girl,” Malfoy snarked as he hopped, barefoot, down from the window ledge. If his feet caught on any sharp wood or glass, his expressions certainly bore no indication of it.

And whatever cheeky quip she’d have made died on the tip of her tongue. Scratch that, actually. The whole of her tongue shrivelled to dust and anything left on it hardly stood a chance at survival.

Hermione Granger did not fancy herself a witch concerned with superficial matters. In her moments of introspective analysis—the sort that had plagued her all day—she qualified a part of her identity as a woman who valued substance, character, moral fibre. As evidence to the fact, it was highly likely she was the only witch who had seen Viktor Krum for his interest in academics and not for his physique or athletic prowess.

And yet, in keeping with today’s theme, the sets of orthogonal lines that marked out Hermione’s definition blurred into a vague, sinuous conglomeration in the few seconds it took Malfoy to assume his full height and move to the chair opposite her.

Had all of…those…been there that morning? Had boys looked like that all this time, but she’d just been gratuitously, offensively ignorant of it? She certainly had not noticed any such attributes on Ron’s body the last time she’d seen it. But Christ. She could hardly look at Malfoy’s lean form and not imagine how she could literally climb it just using the scattered dips and juts of his musculature for handholds. Truly, if the slopes of Mount Everest bore the topography of Malfoy’s abdomen alone, it would be no great feat to summit the bloody thing.

Quickly, she ducked her head, hoping her mass of curls would do more to conceal the rush of heat to her cheeks than the low lighting. Now was not the time for her hormones to contribute asinine commentary worthy of a Witch Weekly op-ed to her inner monologue.

But, as one final indulgence, score three to Parkinson. The acrobatics made more sense now.

When she eventually looked up again, Malfoy was still standing, examining the features of his chair.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, well. Apologies that it’s not to your taste. I was a bit limited in my resources, and you did a number on that pillow.”

His gaze passed to her briefly, then back again. He scratched the nape of his neck with the hand holding his wand before lowering it again to twirl over the offensive furniture. The back of the chair shortened considerably, the excess transferring to the depth of the seat.

“There,” he mumbled finally before situating himself.

Her cheeks coloured for the second time in as many minutes. She could see now that she’d not accounted for his extra set of limbs. All the times she’d reprimanded him for balancing desk chairs on their back legs suddenly made sense, as well. Conventional carpentry often ignored the length of his femurs, it seemed.

“Oh. Hadn’t thought of that.”

A smirk, the first of the evening, crept slowly across his features. “One for the books, I’m sure.”

Clearing her throat, she straightened in her seat. “Well, talking of books—”

“Right. Our ‘proper’ discussion.”

“Yeah.” She took a breath, hoping she looked calmer than she felt. “First, though, I think it would be best if we both agree to speak frankly for the remainder—”

But Malfoy was already shaking his head. “Can’t promise that.”

Hermione balked. “Malfoy, this is complicated. How d’you expect we’ll get anywhere—”

“Were we going somewhere together?” He sneered, rubbing his palms along the lengths of the plush armrests.

“Must you keep interrupting me?”

“Yes, I must. Because I reckon I know how this ends, don’t I? Forgive me if I’m not keen on drawing it out.”

Crossing her legs, Hermione propped her elbows on her knee and leant toward him. “Oh, you do, do you?” Fuck being calm. This was how they always talked, anyway. “Why don’t you just enlighten me, then?”

He tried to level her with a firm glare but she was resolute. “Fine, I will. This ends with you remembering that you despise me—and for good reason—before you flounce your way back to have a truly scandalous number of ginger offspring with the least worthy mustelid in that family.”

“Wrong.”

His head cocked at an angle. “Excuse me?”

“You’re wrong.” She shrugged, exuding an air of triviality she didn’t truly possess.

In turn, Malfoy threw himself back in his seat, looking for all the world like the posh snob he’d purported himself to be all these years. At least some other parts of his character were consistent.

“Am I?”

“Yes, you are. Ignoring that you think I’m some sort of broodmare in the making—which tells me you know even less about me than I thought—Ron and I aren’t together.” It was hardly the point, and she knew that. But it was a surprise that he hadn’t known; she’d told Parkinson all about it, after all. And the urge to shove it in Malfoy’s face that he wasn’t some omniscient Seer was far too strong.

His eyes snapped up and, for a second, his carefully constructed mask slipped by a hair. The harsh glint in his irises flickered and the barest hint of vulnerability and doubt shone through. He was a skilled actor, she’d award him that much. But he’d already shown her his hand. Plus, underneath the fully grown Veela exterior was still the mind of a boy. Hermione was used to boys hating their feelings. She was accustomed to them shrinking inward rather than risk speaking about emotions, and being so terrified of rejection that they’d push everyone away before someone would have a chance at it. And though she did not relish having learnt this all first-hand, nor being made to endure it again, at least it didn’t hurt quite as much as the first time a boy laid the yoke of his insecurities upon her shoulders.

And perhaps she could also allow Malfoy a small capitulation, given that his fear of rejection was based on higher stakes than that of the average adolescent wizard.

“You’re not?” Malfoy’s voice escaped on a choke, a cousin of the pre-pubescent squawk that would have all boy-men standing up straighter, gaits directed by their pelvises. For Malfoy, it appeared the cue for his indifference to slot back into place. 

“No, I’m not. So let’s get a few things straight: I think for myself, I speak for myself, and I choose for myself. So far—and I don’t care how bloody noble you think you’re being—you’ve tried to deny me all three. But for this—for us to have any sort of chance at all, you’d better cut that out.”

“Who said we have a chance?”

Straightening again, Hermione pressed her palms flat against the cushion and tucked them beneath her legs. Her body taut, she stretched her shoulders by rolling them forward, then back. If nothing else, her position meant she wouldn’t accidentally strangle Malfoy when she wasn’t paying attention. Or, given her horrifying discovery earlier, unconsciously go on a tactile exploration of his nooks and crannies.

What the fuck was wrong with her?

“I do. And I think,” she continued, pinching the undersides of her thighs to keep her mind on track, “we should start from the beginning.”

He gestured lazily for her to go on, but did not speak.

A thousand questions came to mind. Each answer was a possible board in the bridge between them. But with him just sat there, physically exposed in so many ways but his face like a virtual fortress, only one wouldn’t give her peace.

"Starting on a side note," she worried her lip and waved at the feathered extremities behind him, “are those a permanent fixture now?”

Malfoy didn’t glance backward; instead, he kept his stare fixed on her. Blindly, he picked at the already threadbare fabric of one armrest. “Do they bother you?”

“No!” she answered too quickly and with too high a vocal register. Malfoy stifled a smile, but it still reached the corners of his eyes. “No, I just mean…well, I guess I’m just curious.”

“Should have figured.”

Bracing his weight against the chair—and, Hermione hated herself for noticing, exposing the network of raised veins lining his arms as he did so—Malfoy hoisted himself into a more socially acceptable posture. Well, as acceptable as one could be sat whilst wearing nothing but a pair of shredded pyjama bottoms. Behind him, his wings rustled and shook as though they’d fallen asleep from disuse.

“But no,” he answered. “Or, at least I think so. They’ve never stayed out this long before.”

Half of her thoughts began to fixate on the mechanics of collapsible wings—whether they folded in on themselves, shrank down or otherwise to retract into Malfoy’s body. But the rest of her could not stop just…staring at them. At how, in Malfoy’s dark room, barely illuminated by the moonlight behind them, they looked ominous. Designed for protection, agility, strength. They were the streamlined sort of evolutionary perfection that could make her reconsider the concept of a higher power. Because could the world really create something like that all on its own?

Yes, they were dangerous. He was dangerous.

But she could not look at him without also seeing the Malfoy from that morning. Taken off-guard, open and forthright for the first time since she’d met him, he was as far from dangerous as she could imagine. His wings had drooped, appearing as lethargic as she’d felt, and he had resigned. As though the minute she left, the wings would curl around him like a protective barrier or spread out in full and take him far away.

So yes, they were dangerous, but so was anything when it was frightened.

Hermione thought she might be a bit dangerous too.

She cleared her throat. Flexing the ball of her foot against the floor, her legs bounced up and down in a nervous exercise. She saw Malfoy’s eyes flick toward the movement and linger there for longer than was strictly necessary.

“What you said, about your family’s true beliefs…”

“Non-beliefs, more accurately,” Malfoy provided when she faltered.

“Sure, non-beliefs. So they would not be unhappy that…how did you put it?” She knew, of course. But it was still easier having him say it.

He sat up even straighter. “That my Veela chose you?”

“Yes, that.”

“No.”

“Okay.”

His eyes narrowed to slits, transforming his features from avian to serpentine. “Okay?”

Hermione nodded minutely. “Fine.”

“You sound like you’ve just agreed to pick up some toilet roll on the way home.”

She permitted herself a small laugh. “Does that bother you?” she echoed his words from earlier, holding a smile.

"Does it—" Malfoy interrupted himself with a scoff. At least now he knew how it felt. "It should bother you, Granger.”

“I’m not saying it doesn’t. But I’ve thought it through. I’m adapting.”

He leant back, crossing his arms over his chest as he regarded her. Hermione repeated the mantra in her head that it would be an inappropriate time to look down. But when his silence had outlasted a full minute (it felt like a minute, though silent-time seemed to progress on a logarithmic scale), Hermione could no longer wait for him to fill it. 

“Listen, I want to help you—”

“Help me?” His words trailed off the edge of a dark laugh. “Thanks, but I don’t want your help.”

“Malfoy, hold on—”

“No, this is fucked enough as it is. I don’t need your pity to piss all over me as an encore.”

“Christ, the imagery. Now would you just—”

“Forget this ever happened,” Malfoy declared as he launched out of his chair, turning back toward the window. As he did it, an edge of his wing caught across the back of his Transfigured chair and sliced a deep gash in the frame. From the wound, a great fountain of cotton fluff spewed forth and coalesced into a limp heap on the floor.

Hermione ignored it. Following him, she too abandoned her perch and rushed to block his escape.

“Malfoy,” she said sharply, both hands held aloft in front of his chest as her heart threatened to beat its way out through her throat. “I’ll never forget. And it’s not pity.”

His eyes dropped to hers at that, but they were as narrowed as before and marred by a deep crease between his brows.

“If you’d have let me finish, I was going to say that I want to help you, and I want you to help me back.”

Malfoy grunted. “I have been trying to help you out of this. But you’re making it awfully difficult.”

“Would you just shut up?” she screeched, the lid on her temper loosening in the face of his unwavering obstinance. Regardless of whether he was ready to hear it, whether she was ready to give it life through her voice, it would make itself known. “I don’t want out of this! Honestly, I thought I did, because it’s us, and it’s completely mad. But the longer I think about it, the more I know that it’s not only futile to fight this but also that it would be such a waste not to try.

“And it’s not just you”—she punctuated her words by thrusting her forefinger deep into his chest, again and again and again, the memory of the previous night flashing like a strobe in her mind’s eye—“who suffers if we let this go. Knowing about all this, knowing there is this part of me that’s definite…Jesus, I’m so young but I feel like I’ve lived through a decade in just the last six months. I’m tired. All the time. But this…I haven’t felt so awake in ages. I thought I’d lost a part of myself, but I know this. And that’s enough to start. Even if I don’t know everything else yet.

“Whoever the real you is, this person I’m only beginning to know…he’s part of me now. Merlin, I need this. I need you—”

Her stream of consciousness threatened to wash her away. Blessedly, however, Malfoy snatched her up before she could sink too deep. The distance evaporated and his lips were slanting over hers, firm yet softer than she would have ever anticipated, and she let go.

There was no brilliant flash of light as her universe met his, like the joining of two tectonic plates. Her soul did not cry out like it was rent from her body, ready to dance in the night with his. If the connection of their bodies incited any major phenomenon, metaphysical or otherwise, then Hermione would say time slowed.

Time slowed in the way silence could be drawn out. Like watching a great catastrophe, all energy directed to a single focus, the mind warred with the senses over the impossibility of their truth.

Time slowed and her mind slowed with it. Content to settle in quietude, if only for a short while.

Every press of his lips against hers seemed to coarse across her body, eliciting a shiver as they echoed in her abdomen. The brush of his hand as it curved around her cheek grounded her. It would keep her on whichever plane they both could share.

A groan passed from his mouth to hers and it stole every bit of oxygen from her lungs. But then it was all over, and he was gone. Holding her at arm’s length, Malfoy hung his head to face the floor.

“Fuck,” he shuddered, barely more than a breath. “I shouldn’t have—fuck.”

“Hey,” Hermione spoke softly, trailing her hand from where it had remained on his chest to cup his jaw. She tilted his face back up to hers. Never in a thousand years would she have expected this, but she was holding fast. In the recesses of her mind, in each frantic and sporadic pump of blood through her heart, in every muscle stretched tight as a bowstring, it felt right.

She knew his thoughts; hers were a shadow of his, lengthening with the passing of the day. And Hermione never found it easy to argue with herself.

Somewhere, a quiet warning rang out and advised her to wait, because this was still Malfoy in the room with her, holding her. But she hushed it away. “Still Malfoy” meant something wholly different now, did it not?

He looked at her, his eyes open and painfully vulnerable again.

It did. And perhaps two definitions could leave unique impressions on the same space.

“Don’t apologise for that.”

Her mind was made up.

---

“Say that again, mate?” Blaise angled his head to disrupt Draco’s field of view, preventing him from ogling another partaker of breakfast in the Great Hall.

But losing one sense was no longer enough to split Draco’s attention. She was behind every door now. Around every corner, one floor below—he was drowning in her and swimming to the bottom. It had become increasingly difficult to breathe for anyone other than her, but he had told her he would try.

We’ll take this slow.

And so silver tilted to meet a taunting shade of deep hazel, though he could still feel the hint of golden brown through them if he unfocussed his eyes just so.

Under the guise of stirring his tea, he twirled a finger to reassess the stability of the modified Muffliato Charm surrounding them. A true Slytherin accomplishment—in fifth year Theo adapted the spell for use in crowded spaces. The original would distract potential eavesdroppers with a persistent buzzing sound, but anyone familiar enough would recognise the noise for what it was and know sensitive topics were under discussion. Theo, with his propensity for layering spells,  successfully wove a Confundus and a Repelling Charm into the fabric of the incantation. The result was a masterpiece for discretion.

Draco felt along the boundary of the magic, finding it sound. Unsurprising, given he erected it himself the second they'd taken their seats, but this was still a sensitive subject to rehash in a public forum.

“Like I said: we talked for a bit, she…didn’t reject me, and then I just…sort of, kissed her. I guess.” All out of sorts, Draco itched to glance over at his witch, to see if she was stumbling her way through the morning like he was. He cursed Blaise’s rotund head for being in the way.

“How can you ‘sort of’ kiss?” Pansy said from his right, her tone bending into an arc of condescension. Had she not been holding her porcelain teacup in front of her mouth, Draco was sure he would have seen her lips curl in derision as they formed her words. “It better not have been some kind of cloacal exchange, because I taught you better than that.”

Draco grimaced. “Fuck off; it wasn’t like that.”

“Well, what was it like, then?” said Theo, sat to Blaise’s left. It was an impressive display of immaculately bred social cues that not one of Draco’s companions leant inward, despite the near-magnetic force emanating from somewhere near the kettle between them. “Skip the messy bits, if you like.”

But Pansy instantly waved him off with her free hand. “Don’t you dare listen to him, Draco. Leave them in.”

“Again, it wasn’t like that. D’you really think I’d be sat here with you sad lot if it had been?”

“Aye, he’s got a point there,” Blaise chuckled, brushing a thumb over his nose before waggling another finger across the table at Draco. “Doubt he’d have managed the walk down here otherwise.”

Allowing himself a small smirk, Draco silently agreed. Should he and Granger ever reach that point (which still seemed an incredibly distant possibility, if not highly impossible), Draco would plan on not gazing upon another human soul for at least a fortnight. Possibly not for a month. As it was, with as much and as little that transpired between them the night prior, Draco was having a hard enough time resisting the urge to snatch her up and scarper off to the safety of their dorm.

Those four words from Granger the night before had been enough to set his mind on a new course. Whilst the errant how fucking dare you and what right do you think you have still lurked below his fragile new layer of confidence, she had rejuvenated in him something he had not felt for many years: hope.

Far from a rejection, Granger had asked to know him.

“Somehow,” she had said, long after he’d stepped back and they’d righted themselves, “fate or genetics or whatever is at play here decided we’re a match. And, to be frank, the person I thought I knew seems a bit of an odd companion for the person I know I am.”

Draco had agreed readily.

Because Pansy hadn’t been far from the mark when she’d accused him of not knowing Granger. Well, obviously he knew her. Eight years of existing in adjacent spaces and several weeks of paying far too much attention meant he had a superficial understanding of what made Hermione Granger tick.

He knew she used to drink tea—black with one sugar—every morning with breakfast, but had switched to coffee since returning to school.

Black. No sugar.

He knew she favoured well-lit tables for studying, yet avoided those that directly neighboured a window. He knew because they’d been warring over those spots for years.

He knew she had a habit of dusting her quill along the underside of her jaw when she became truly absorbed. Ancient Runes lectures had never been so enthralling, but he'd had to bum notes off Theo for the past month.

He knew her touch warmed him more than the sun could ever hope to do. If he closed his eyes, he could still feel the ghost of that warmth as it fluttered across his jaw like a summer breeze.

He knew her lips were like satin, that kissing her was like getting drunk much too fast. One minute he was lucid and the next, he felt light and heavy all at once. And the was-this-a-bad-idea-no-it-definitely-wasn’t-oh-yes-it-really-fucking-was revolved on an infinite loop in his addled brain.

Draco knew he never wanted to taste anything but her for the rest of his life.

Emerging from his reverie, he found all three of his housemates staring back at him.

A smug Blaise.

A quizzical, hopeful Theo.

An ostensibly indifferent Pansy, but one who bore the slightest upturn of her painted lips as she blew on her already tepid tea.

“Cute.” Theo chewed on his tongue with his molars, a poor disguise for a smirk. And he apparently only knew one word.

Draco aimed a swift kick under the table. Hoping to encounter one or both shins of his bastard friends, he was sorely disappointed to meet a bench support instead. Scowling, he cursed his friends, “Do fuck off, all of you.”

“You kiss Granger with that mouth?” Blaise chided, eyes bursting with mirth.

Theo replied for him, “Apparently, he does.”

Groaning, Draco dropped his forehead to rest on his fingertips, manually contorting his brows. “I’ll murder you both.”

At that, he saw Pansy’s cup lower to the table before her pale fingers—with long nails adorned in deep red varnish—pull his hands from his face.

“How lovely, we’re plotting again,” she said, smiling dangerously across the table at Blaise, who cocked his head and narrowed his eyes in return. “Do say you’ll let me help this time.”

Theo pointed his spoon between her and Draco, waiting to speak until he’d swallowed his bit of porridge. “I’d take her up on the offer, mate.”

At Blaise’s affronted look, Theo shrugged affably and continued, “What? If I’m going to be murdered, then at least have it be done with elegance, panache, a certain je ne sais quoi.   Draco here”—Theo pointed the silver spoon back at him—"would probably just lock me in a room with a knife and hope I’d fall on it.”

Draco glared across the table. “Perhaps I just lacked the proper motivation.”

“Oh, no need for that, darling,” Pansy tutted at him, starting to rearrange his fringe before he batted her hand away. “I’ll sort the scheming, don’t fuss. You just sit there and look pretty.”

He groaned again, longer this time.

This was the problem with hope: it was infectious. A person could never be alone in it. No matter how reluctant, everyone would soon fall prey to its pull and want to join in. 

How he wished that it was suffocating. It would be easier to resist if it were more unpleasant.

But then, Draco tore his stare from his friends, looking through the renewed gap between them. Chin propped on his palm as his fingers gripped his hair at the roots, his view was no longer interrupted.

And fuck, the view.

An open book hovered before her—well out of harm’s reach from stain-inducing breakfast foods—as she grasped a steaming mug with both hands, her fingers overlapping, the base of her lower lip perched on the rim. He watched as she read and the pages turned for her. Such a casual display of multiple wandless and nonverbal spells and he wasn’t sure whether to be jealous of her ability or proud that she would ever give him the time of day.

Perhaps he could be both.

And as if she could sense his gaze on her, Granger tore her eyes from her tome to meet his. Her eyelids fluttered as she blinked in quick succession and, suddenly, her book fell from the air with almighty thwack against the table. Several of her housemates turned their heads at the commotion. Her whole face flushed pink. Draco suspected the same could be said of her delicate ears, had they not been concealed by her raucous curls.

Sheepishly, she skulled the remnants of her coffee as she made to leave. He saw her wince as she forced herself to swallow, and he realised she’d still been waiting for the drink to cool when this whole debacle began. Poor witch. She’d have a mouth like sandpaper for the rest of the day. He’d be tickled to kiss it better, though, if she’d let him.

Down, boy.

With haste, Granger shoved her book into her bag and marched from the Great Hall without a backward glance.

But that did nothing to dampen his mood, nor halt the progression of the smile filling his face. For she’d given herself away from the start. She had looked directly at him, after all. No peek about the room first, no delay before she found him.

She’d been watching him, too.

xx

“Can I join you?”

Looking up from his library desk, Draco was surprised to find Granger standing at the end of the aisle.

He’d heard her coming, of course; cohabitation meant he’d learnt the specific metre of her gait several months ago, long before his hearing attuned to the point that he could isolate it from a corridor of crowded students. But he had expected his mind to drift as she passed to the back of the Restricted Section. He expected to remain half-focussed on his work as her scent lingered in the air. He hadn’t expected her to seek him out.

It was rare to find Draco studying in the library nowadays, what with him having a more private one only a few stacks away. But he’d been trying to allow Granger some space and some time. Something he hadn’t done before.  

Yes, he was encouraged by yesterday’s events. Over the moon, to be exact. Instinct shouted at him to crowd her, shower her in a deluge of affection and pheromones until she agreed to spend a sliver of eternity with him. But he ignored it all. Not only would such behaviour surely drive her off, because he’d seen what happened when didn’t allow her the time to adjust, but it was also a touch too primal for his liking.

Odd, how millennia of adaptive evolution didn't result in the loss of outdated instincts. Rather, it only gave him an improved analytical function. Thanks to that, he simultaneously knew how creepy and fucked up it would be to jump out of his chair, flap his wings about and squawk in a unique mating dance, yet a part of him still really wanted to do it. Perhaps if he used some of her favourite books as props, the avian equivalent of flamenco fans, the performance would be more socially acceptable for his modern audience.

Salazar, he needed to get laid.

Blinking, he realised he’d taken far too long to respond to her simple request. He nodded at her, not trusting his literal bird brain to do any of the talking.

Granger positioned herself diagonal to him across the table and pulled more books out of her bag than should have been able to fit within its natural confines.

Glancing back down at his own text but still watching her from his periphery, he tutted, “Awfully naughty of the Head Girl.”

She had the gall to look bewildered. “I’m sure I’ve got no idea what you’re on about.”

“Oh, of course you haven’t,” he drawled. “And neither does the small fiefdom you’ve got in that bag. I do hope you’ve left the lights on.”

“Minor Extension Charms are perfectly reasonable spells to use,” she defended, even as she kicked the bag beneath her chair.

Draco leant back in his, assessing her. A hint of that adorable flush had returned to disguise the height of her cheekbones, though she seemed more successful at reining in her discomfiture than she’d been that morning. 

Pressing his feet flat, he pushed his chair back from the table, watching her grimace as the legs scraped a nasty screech against the floor. A chorus of shushes emanated from the surround, but he paid them no mind. He peeked beneath the table, then back at her. Granger’s resolute stare was a thing of beauty.

After a brisk wave of his wand, Draco tutted at her again, pulling himself back to the table. “Undetectable. Impressive, but definitely a naughty secret.”

To her credit, Granger only smiled at him in response. A sly, dangerous quirk of her lips. “Shall we compare secrets, Malfoy? I daresay you’ll win that one.”

Draco gave a brisk nod as he pretended to return to his reading. “Touché.”

“You’re damn right, ‘touché’.”

“Yes, yes, I get it,” he muttered, eager to change the subject. “Why’re you here, anyway?”

Granger kept her eyes on her opened book. “I’m studying. You should try it sometime; maybe you’d finally have a shot at beating me.”

He rolled his eyes but ignored the bait, not overlooking the fact that she’d avoided his question. “Why not use the common room? As you can see—” he splayed his hands wide, gesturing to the spread of his schoolwork on the desk, “—it’s otherwise unoccupied.”

“A change of scenery is known to increase productivity,” she reasoned haughtily.

Dropping his head onto his raised fist, Draco snorted in disbelief. “You needed to increase your productivity?” he said flatly. “Granger, I’ve seen you write three feet of a Potions essay and read that Arithmancy book by Karuzos at the same time.”

With a glower, Granger abruptly slammed her book shut, allowing him a glimpse of the title, A Complete History of the Patronus Charm. He frowned, mentally reviewing his classes’ syllabi. Unless he was mistaken, and he was sure he was not, that book wasn’t required reading. And regardless, the implied content seemed much too remedial for the acclaimed “brightest witch of her age”. He’d heard Potter, of all people, had mastered the eponymous charm in their third year; surely Granger couldn’t have been far behind.

“Look,” Granger spoke with a slight lilt of superciliousness, pulling Draco from his musings, “I’m trying, okay? Like we talked about. I dunno if you’re deliberately trying to antagonise me, but it would seem awfully counter to your best interests to do so.”

Well, fuck. That hit him hard in the gut.

She’d proclaimed multiple times the night before that exploring the option of them was not a favour to him, nor was it a sacrifice for her. She had even gone so far as to say her motives were almost selfish, though he’d never believe that. In truth, he’d had difficulty believing any of it.

How could he, with such a poignant reminder of who he was? Who he’d been to her?

He’d just thought it a bit of teasing. His past motivations may have been false ones, but he’d never had to fake his love of riling her up.

But she hadn’t known any of that. She spent eight years thinking him a bigoted arse because that was precisely the face he’d wanted her to see. That damage couldn’t undo itself in a day, declarations of potential undying love notwithstanding. A bit of ribbing couldn’t be harmless with her. Not yet, at least. Not while she looked at him and still saw the face of her tormenter. The relatively civil rapport they had established over the past several months couldn’t outweigh eight years of shared animosity. Eight years wherein he forced her to believe ‘harmless’ would never describe him.

Draco inhaled through his mouth. Whilst he could still taste her scent on his tongue, it was dulled, less paralysing than when he allowed it to flood his nose. He would need all the possible presence of mind for what he was about to do.

“Old habits, I guess.” Apologies never came easily to him, and he winced at the poor start. “But you’re right.”

Blinking slowly, Granger seemed to search his face for signs of duplicity. It was uncomfortable, to say the least, to allow anyone to see him so unguarded. His heart beat an unsteady rhythm in his chest. Resisting the urge to throw up every mental wall and withhold every shred of emotion had his blood thrumming, muscles clenching.

But he remembered what Granger said just two nights before: that she deserved answers. She deserved the truth, and the right to act on it as she desired.

Apparently satisfied with what she saw, the witch pushed her book away from her (a move Draco was certain she took no pleasure in doing). “That’s a start,” she said, pensive as she absently traced the engraved letters of her book’s title. “What about a new habit, then?”

He cleared his throat, inclining his head in a bid for her to continue.

"Well, okay," she started, then hesitated. From the way she was bouncing her leg under the table, sending vibrations through the floor, it seemed she was waiting for her brain to finish working before she pressed on. "We could…study together? Just for an hour or so every day. Or—" she stammered, pulling on the end of an errant curl, "—it doesn't have to be every day…a few times a week would work too if that's what you'd—"

“Every day is acceptable.” The words were out of his mouth before he realised he spoke them. And, by the expanded circumference of her eyes, Granger was just as surprised.

Gathering herself, she elaborated, “Right. Good. Every day then. It can be wherever you like; personally, I’m partial to the common room, but I can work practically anywhere.”

Somewhere along the line, Draco had stopped breathing, and now his mind was blissfully blank. It was like the Veela had decided to take up full residence before promptly falling asleep. Though he managed to hold the conversation, his last coherent thought was that Granger had suggested sharing time with him, as a daily practice, alone.

With him.

Her idea.

Alone.

Were his wings out? He could do with a spot of preening.

“I am comfortable with the common room.” Was he? When had he decided that?

“Brilliant, that’s sorted then,” she paused, considering him. “Another thing…I’d like to have one question per day. You’ll have one, too. Outside of whatever else we might talk about, and nothing mundane like if you prefer beans or marmalade on your toast—”

“Marmalade.” Sweet Circe, since when had he been so chatty?

Granger bit her lip, stifling a grin. “Good to know,” she snickered before growing more solemn. “Something more than that, though. Something personal. And I’m going to trust you won’t use anything I tell you against me.”

“I would never—” Draco winced, his mind clearing enough to remember himself. Remember the person that she knew. “Not anymore, I mean. Not to you.”

Granger glanced up at him through her lashes. Her eyes glinted at him in a way that was so utterly earnest and hopeful he had to fight not to turn away. Perhaps she was naïve to put so much stock in him, the person she hardly knew, the person who was more of an idea to her than anything else. Draco certainly would have thought her misguided if he’d been a fly on the wall of their recent interactions.

But the longer he stared back, the more he felt that the hope in her eyes mirrored the sincerity and the promise in his.

Because no, he didn't know her yet either. But he could. Intrinsically, deep in his bones, he knew what this could be—what they could be—if they tried.

Fuck him, if hope was not a powerful, dangerous beast.

And fuck, if he didn’t want to dance with it just a little.

Draco doubted he would ever deserve the witch currently sat across from him, nor the friable chance at a tabula rasa that she laid at his feet. And so, at that moment, Draco swore an oath. One of the few he'd made in his short life and one of the even fewer that had been for the right reasons.

Granger had insisted her choice was not a sacrifice; well, Draco would hold himself to the task of ensuring it never became one.

He pushed his own book toward the middle of the table to join hers. “Shall we start now?”

The glassy, hypnotic sheen left her eyes. She touched her lower lip with her forefinger, pushing it this way and that—a habit his mother would have criticised but Draco found completely mesmeric—as she asked, “Have you got one, then?”

“Hmm?” His brow furrowed as he contemplated her question, forcing himself to look up. “One what?”

She giggled. Giggled. To his horror, he felt blood beginning to effuse his cheeks. He couldn’t decide whether Granger having a laugh at his embarrassment made him want to throw himself off the Astronomy Tower or yodel from it.

Bloody hell. Witches never used to be this confusing.

She spoke through a laugh, “A question, Malfoy?”

Oh. Right.

Well, no; he hadn’t thought of one. Odd, how he’d fussed and stewed over the little he knew about her, but when the opportunity to remedy that arrived, he failed to pinpoint just one thing to ask. The concept of her was such a tumultuous cloud hovering in his consciousness, a murky abyss of mystery with a thousand entrances…and none, all at the same time. An endless cascade of locks with answers for keys, its hidden reward not guaranteed by one alone.

To top it off, his mind kept diverting to one niggling thought, no matter how much his brain tried to argue it was a waste of a question.

But sod it. He wasn’t coming up with anything better, and he couldn’t keep her waiting for much longer.

“Why’d you start drinking coffee?” As the words escaped his lips, he realised too late how they painted him as a bit of a stalker, creepily staring at her as she consumed her morning beverage.

But, as he was about to backtrack, make up some excuse for how he’d noticed her increased caffeine consumption, he froze when he saw the mirth leave her face. Jaw held tight, breaths coming long and deep through her nose, eyes a touch too wide and unblinking.

He knew that look. Had seen it reflected at him in broken mirrors, in the faces of the tortured souls that never left the Manor during the war.

Panic leaking through the cracks.

Given the choice of fight or flight, sometimes the body chose a third option—an amalgamation. All the chemicals in the brain screamed run, run, run, but the mind demanded to persevere. A civil war between instinct and higher-order reasoning that resulted in limbo. The body rooted itself in place but still flooded with the adrenaline it vowed not to use.

Granger gave a sad, half-smile, about as genuine as a glass diamond. “I thought we said no breakfast proclivities,” she whispered, eyes downcast.

“You don’t have to—” he stammered, an action wholly foreign to him. “Fuck,” he said under his breath, into his palm. “I don’t need to know.”

“No,” Granger responded immediately as she held her hand aloft, her firm tone disturbed only by the slightest catch in the word. “I’ll answer.”

But Draco still shook his head. “Really, I don’t need—”

“Yes, you do,” she interrupted him. “Perhaps not all at once, but eventually.”

She must have read the continued scepticism in his countenance, for the set of her brow became a fraction more angled. “No one’s forcing me. I choose, remember?”

Draco swallowed but nodded minutely. Merlin, to have even a splinter of her courage…

“Tea is—” she stopped almost as soon as she began, and he heard the purposeful measure of her breathing, “was something I shared with my parents. It’s silly, really, because obviously I drank tea with others as well”—she sounded flustered, like her thoughts were exiting her brain faster than it could process them—“but…I dunno. I guess it became something sacred between us.”

She paused, he waited.

“I modified their memories in the summer after sixth year, to protect them during the war. They live in Australia now, as a delightful middle-aged couple who never regretted their decision not to have children.”

Oh, fuck.

He couldn’t have just asked for her favourite colour, could he?

“Merlin, I’m sorry—” Draco began to apologise—for asking, for what she went through, for the role he played, and for a thousand others for which he lacked the proper words. And it did not catch in his throat the way it had countless times before, when he’d constructed contrition to avoid two words that pierced his soul. But she’d held up her hand again, halting him.

“They’re safe, that’s what matters. And I’m not sorry you asked, or that you know.”

Draco rubbed his palms up and down the tops of his thighs, trying to shed the film of anxiety that dampened his skin. “Well,” his voice caught then, and he choked out a cough. “I’m sorry you had to do that. That you had to do any of it. And—” he glanced down then, still not strong enough to look her in the eye, “—and I’m sorry I enabled it, contributed to it. I told myself it was the only way, the only guaranteed option I had to protect my family and our lineage. But I had no right making you pay for that. Making anyone pay for it, for that matter. And I’m sorry I never said that to you before now.”

Granger stared back at him, the shock evident in her face only increasing his guilt and self-loathing. It would be a hard-fought path, he realised yet again, fixing what he broke. Forgiveness required more than a single apology. More than several apologies. And Draco doubted he would ever earn it, especially from her, but he was locked to this path now. The simple combination of I need you and a fleeting taste of her lips had seen to his sense of commitment.

Draco was no longer in control, if he ever truly had been. Only she could tell him to stop.

But she didn’t.

“Thank you, for that,” Granger exhaled, long and slow.

He did the opposite, practically gulping down a breath, as though his lungs were finally unencumbered from a phantom weight that had compressed them for so long. Though he supposed that was a fairly accurate assessment.

Exhaling, the thrumming in his veins prompted him to adjust his position. “Well, turnabout’s fair play.”

“Pardon?” she queried as her brow furrowed. It was his turn to smile at her confusion.

“I asked you a question, you answered, now you go.” He leant back in his chair, crossing his arms, hoping to exude a sense of relaxation he did not feel. “Hit me.”

It worked. A slow grin spread across her features. The tinge of mischief glinting in her eyes had his blood rushing south of its own accord, and Draco fought against the urge to fidget. Salazar, but this witch would be the death of him. If one kiss had him making moon eyes at her all morning, tracking her every move, and a single smile had him itching for a cold shower, he’d hardly last the remainder of the week.

Dead. Gone. Buried under the mental burden of his longing and physical weight of his erection.

Get a hold of yourself, you pathetic sod.

“I believe I’ve already done that once. Actually, a few times, now,” she was saying, and her smile evolved into a full-blown smirk. Simultaneously, Draco was impressed, proud, terrified, and exceptionally horny. The compounded effect was sure to induce premature hypertension, but he’d accept any chronic condition so long as she kept looking at him like that.

Fuck.

Unconsciously, Draco scrubbed a palm over his cheek and across his jaw. “I recall, but thanks ever so for the refresher.”

Her shoulders shook with poorly suppressed laughter as she pulled both lips into her mouth.

And that was how it began.

True to her word, Granger met to study with him every day and a routine developed almost without any conscious planning. If one or both of them had patrols, they studied together beforehand. If their evenings were free after classes finished, one waited and worked in the library until the other arrived.

The days he had Quidditch were his favourites.

Previously, Draco would have a shower in the locker rooms after a match or a practice, changing back into his regular clothes there before making the jaunt back to the castle. But after one match against Hufflepuff, from which he emerged the victor, his friends had hurried him back to the Slytherin Common Room to celebrate before he could even get his kit off. Trudging back to his own dorm much later, he hadn't missed the double-take Granger blessed him with as she examined his attire, nor the furious blush that overtook her face when she realised she'd been caught looking.

He hadn’t used the Quidditch showers since.

He could not often muster the energy nor the discipline to study after rigorous exercise, but he would still sit with Granger at their table or on the couches in their Common Room as she did. He’d pretend to read whilst watching her work from under his lashes. It was silent, tranquil save for their daily exchange of questions.

She surprised him with those; when he’d agreed to answer one per day, he had expected a barrage of overly personal assaults. Investigations into his time as a Death Eater and an unending inquisition into his heritage. All expedient ways to ensure she held compromising knowledge over him, things she could use if she suspected he would betray her confidence. A Slytherin certainly would have done as much.

But either she was thoroughly uninterested in such topics (and he had trouble even entertaining the notion that she was uninterested in anything), or she was deliberately avoiding them.

Her questions were not impersonal, per se, but they were safe.

She asked after pleasant memories from his childhood; where he’d gone for his first holiday, if his family had any Christmas traditions, how it felt the first time he’d flown a broom. After that last, he had seen the follow-up simmering behind her eyes, but she’d held her tongue. She had her reasons for leaving the hippogriff in the room unaddressed. Draco understood; he did not push.

But he was also running out of time. April was fast approaching and with it only two more short months with which to seal the bond. The last thing he wanted was to rush her; he hardly wanted to rush himself, either. The pace they had adopted was slow enough to approach normalcy despite the extreme oddity of their shared circumstance. It held all the comfort of a warm bed on a frosty morning. At some point, however, Draco knew he’d have to get up.

The way it eventually happened was unintentional. Not premeditated in the slightest. Theo, with his love of schemes and strategies, would have thoroughly disapproved.

Head duties were ones they had previously performed jointly, yet separately. If a Hogsmeade visit was imminent, a parchment with Granger’s detailed notes overflowing into the margins would be tucked between his closed bedroom door and the frame. Draco would peruse it, provide necessary edits, and post it for the Prefects the following day. They had honed their art of working apart together.

But then, amidst one of their new, comfortably silent study sessions, he'd switched from academics to planning the agenda for the next Prefect meeting. He could have easily completed the task on his own; he'd done as much since the start of term. But one, two, three flicks of a glance from her work to his had been enough to assure him of her interest, and he'd remembered something Pansy said to him in sixth year. When he hadn't wanted to hear it; when he'd isolated himself in an attempt to limp his way through life.

Being alone is a choice, she’d said, and not one any of us would make for you.

Hesitating only briefly, he’d reminded himself of his promise: that he had already chosen the alternative. Acting on that decision would be a continuous, conscious effort, but he was ready for the work.

So he’d slid his parchment across the table and asked for her thoughts. Or, as much as he could do nonverbally, only offering a pointed look and a downward nod. But that had been the start of working together. Still largely silent, but respectfully so. Not stilted.

On the final Tuesday of March, he and Granger were completing their review of the patrol schedules for the upcoming month. Only the final week remained in need of sorting. But Granger was being difficult.

“I already said it’s fine that I do Wednesday,” she argued, as she had done for nearing twenty minutes.

“No, it isn’t,” Draco insisted back. He hoped the air of finality in his tone would be enough to sway her. Shocker, it wasn’t. “You’re already patrolling on the Monday, and you bullied me into giving you two patrols this week”—he thumbed the penultimate row on their shared calendar as he ignored her scoff—“so you’ve already done far more than your share.”

“But there’s no one else, is there? Well, there’s Cormac. But Eleanor Branstone already complained to me about some skeevy comments he made to her last week, so I'm not particularly keen on partnering him with another fifth-year girl."

McLaggen. Draco doubted he would ever hear the name without feeling the urge to chunder everywhere.

“How is that git still a student, let alone a Prefect?" he sneered.

Granger snorted, sifting through the lists of Prefects and various other schedules. “I reckon it has something to do with daddy’s contribution to the school endowment.”

Draco hummed, unamused but also a bit stymied. He was hardly in the best position to criticise others for their parents’ donating practices and their consequences. Though, if honesty did not demand diffidence, Draco figured that he still would have earnt his achievements (the good ones, at least) with or without his family’s financial crutch. If his combined titles of Head Boy, Quidditch Captain, and second in his class (and no, he wasn’t bitter) were anything to go by, Draco wasn’t at a loss for a work ethic.

But, investment practices aside, the rest of the Gryffindor tosser was hardly off-limits. 

“Only time his name and ‘endowment’ share a sentence with a positive connotation.”

Granger looked up from her notes to offer a chastising grin. “Not your best wordplay, Malfoy.”

He shrugged. “Yes, well. I believe someone once lectured me about how he wasn’t worth the effort.”

Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “Touché,” she said, and he was struck with an immediate sense of déjà vu. Granger returned to her schedules, sighing. “But anyway, there’s no other option. And like I said, I’m fine to do it.”

Gently extricating the parchment from her grasp, he glanced over it himself. In doing so, he took note of the dates, remembering something else. A detail he’d learnt whilst he’d gaped over Granger’s personal timetable, horrified that she had been granted nine N.E.W.T.-level classes.

“Hold on,” he began, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You have Arithmancy on Thursdays.”

“So?” she said, impassive.

“So?” Draco parroted as he balked at her. He was certain she was being deliberately obtuse. “So, that’s the week of the final exam before N.E.W.T.s, Granger. You’ve been nattering on about it since we started studying together.”

Her eyes narrowed and her posture grew stiffer. "Did you not hear me say I'll be fine? Or d'you just think I can't manage it?"

He groaned, carding his fingers through his already-mussed hair. Merlin, this witch be could be intractable when she put her mind to it. “Of course you can manage it. Point is, you don’t have to.” With that said, he inked his quill and crossed her name off the schedule with two perfectly parallel strokes.

“What’re you doing?” she asked indignantly, leaning over the table to have a better look at the parchment.

“Taking the patrol.”

“What?” she screeched and shot out of her chair. He held his ground, unmoving, as she approached his side of the table. “But you’ve already got one for that week.”

"Yeah, and you would've done too if you'd taken it. But this way we're even for the week before."

Shifting her weight between her feet, Draco suspected she was resisting the urge to stomp. She was rather cute whilst throwing a tantrum, even if she did continue grasping at excuses.

“But you’ve got the same exam! I’m not going to shirk my responsibilities and let you do poorly—”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he drawled, rolling his eyes. “But relax. I have Arithmancy on Wednesdays, so I’ll have already had the exam before the patrol.”

Never mind he would have four feet of a Transfiguration essay to turn in the following morning. Plus the heaps of independent research he’d need to cram in before the end of the week. But, perhaps if he forced himself to work after his Quidditch match, he’d be alright. Actually, that was an idea…

“Anyway,” he continued, “there’s a pair of us for a reason. You needn’t be the only one overworked just for the sake of it. It certainly doesn’t make you any less deserving if you delegate once in a while. But—” he paused, tamping down a burgeoning smirk, “—I’m happy to propose a trade, if that would placate you.”

Granger turned her head to the side whilst keeping her eyes on him, suspicious. “Such as? And not that I’m agreeing, mind you,” she added quickly before he could respond.

He shifted in his chair as if adjusting his posture. Proprietary breeding and etiquette ensured the tic was merely for display. A humanising exhibition of his own capacity for imperfection, his mother called it. As if he needed the extra help.

“I’ll double up on the patrols that week if, in exchange,” he drew out the pause for the second time, enjoying the sight of her (very genuine) fidgeting, “you come to the match against Ravenclaw at the weekend.”

She stilled. “The Slytherin-Ravenclaw match?” When he nodded, she lifted her palms in exasperation. “But I’ve no reason to be there, though.”

Draco grunted and clutched his button-down over his heart. “You wound me, truly.”

Rolling her eyes, she tutted, “No, I mean that everyone knows I only show up to Gryffindor matches to support Ginny. I can’t just appear at a random match for no reason.”

“So think of one, then. Those are my terms.”

Granger trailed her hand up her thigh until it rested on her hip. Draco tracked the movement like a hawk. “You know what? I think I’d rather just have the extra patrol.”

Okay. That stung a bit, even if he could understand her reticence.

Recovering himself, he kept his eyes on her as he waved his wand limply over the schedule. Before she could react, he’d graced the ink with a Permanence Charm, folded the parchment into thirds, and Vanished it to the Prefects’ message board.

“Oh dear,” he gasped with sugary contrition, “now it can never be changed. How dreadfully clumsy of me.”

“Clumsy, my arse,” Granger scoffed. Draco bit back a smirk. “You can’t very well claim that was accidental when you did it nonverbally, you sneak.”

Biting the corner of his lip, he waved the tail of his loose tie at her face. “Should’ve known by the green, darling.”

He hadn’t meant to tack on the endearment; it just sort of slipped out. But the resulting flush to her cheeks was the best reinforcement of bad behaviour.

Then, however, the smirk fell off his lips as she started to lean down, levelling her face with his. Perhaps, with his limited but growing experience in the subject, he should have been more accustomed to having her so close. Alas, the gentle puff of her breath on his cheeks, the curious glint of her deep, chocolatey eyes boring into his, the shine of her curls tickling his wrists—they all made his breath catch.

But not as much as what she did next.

His focus had never drifted from her piercing gaze. As such, he’d failed to notice her hands creeping up to his sternum until he heard the tell-tale slither of silk against silk, then spluttered in a wholly indecorous manner at the sudden constriction at his throat.

Granger stood upright, smiling via arched brows and pursed lips as she gathered her books and began the retreat to her room. “Thought snakes fancied a bit of a squeeze?” She winked…winked at him as he coughed.

Fuck.

Lucky for her, he lacked the breath for a snarky quip about how if he was actually a snake, he wouldn’t be a constricting breed. He’d be the sort that was all dangerous, camouflaged and venomy, fanning out his creepy throat skin and flicking his neck so fast everyone would think he was having a series of pantomimical seizures. Would've been a whopper of a comeback. She'd have never recovered. Really, he was doing her a favour by being sat there, mute save for the sound of his vocal cords losing much of their surface area.

“And I’ll come to your ruddy game,” she threw over her shoulder before disappearing up the stairs.

“Lovely,” he wheezed and dug two fingers under the too-tight knot to relieve the pressure.

Rubbing his fingers across the reddened skin of his neck, Draco couldn’t help but shiver, the heavy tingling in his abdomen begging for release.

He smiled.

Not because he’d pulled one over on Granger, mind. But precisely because he hadn’t done.

His bit of showy spellwork with the schedule had been steps of a dance, not a trap. If she would really rather work than watch him play, she could have easily trotted herself over to the Prefects’ meeting room and rewritten the schedule.

And she’d said it herself, after all. I choose.

Well, he’d hold her to that.

And he’d make bloody well sure she would not regret it.