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                Draco Malfoy had thought that his entire life had been written out before him. The son of a prominent Wizarding family, he would receive high honors at Hogwarts, bringing glory to the House of Slytherin. Whether that glory came in the form of the House Cup, regularly beating the Gryffindors at Quidditch, or scoring exceptionally high on all his NEWTs, he would allow room for a little adjustment as to the details the story would take. But after Hogwarts he would marry a pureblood witch—beautiful, graceful, intelligent—from this there could be no deviation. He would have a child—one remarkable male heir, or possibly even two, even though no Malfoy had produced more than one child in over four hundred years.

                The next chapter would involve increasing the Malfoy fortune by taking his rightful place as the head of the family company. After his father had died in the Wizarding War when Draco was just an infant, that position had been held in trust for him and temporarily exercised by his mother, Narcissa.

                Draco was convinced that he would do his father’s memory proud. He would run the various family companies and their administrators with efficiency. He would take his place as a leader in Wizarding Society. He wouldn’t be a well-liked wizard, because rarely do people like those who are superior to them, but he would be well-respected. An invitation to a party at his home, Malfoy Manor, would be highly coveted among all of his business acquaintances. His name would be whispered in the streets of Diagon Alley as others casually moved out of his way when he walked by. Even the Wizengamot would speak his name in hushed tones as they assembled together, knowing that the House of Malfoy was one to be reckoned with in all things.

                And of course, all of this he would pass on to his son, at the appropriate time, as had happened for centuries before, generation after generation. He even rather thought he’d already picked out his son’s name, according to the traditions of the also highly esteemed House of Black, which was his mother’s family.

                Yes, Draco Malfoy had seen his future stretching out clearly before him.

                He should have known there was something unusual about the way his mother constantly asked him about the girls at school. From the very first owl he’d written home, she had always responded with careful inquiries about every witch that he met. Sometimes she’d asked about one by name, while other times she’d asked for an overview of all of the girls at school.

                At home, she’d make comments about each of the girls, things she’d gleaned from conversation with their mothers or things she’d observed herself. “Isn’t she lovely?” “What wonderful manners she has! But her family has always had impeccable breeding.” “And how is dear Pansy doing?”

                Pansy was a particular favorite of Draco’s mother. The Parkinson family had been very close to the Malfoy family. Both heads of the house were currently widows who had lost their husbands in the Wizarding War, and so Draco and Pansy had grown up closely together. Draco didn’t quite have the heart to reveal to his mother that Pansy was becoming more and more intolerable every year. Her possessive attitude grated his nerves, her lack of attention to her own schoolwork irritated him, and, he was sorry to agree with the prevailing opinion, but her face really did resemble a pug. But whenever his mother asked, he always told her that Pansy was doing well in school, she was well-regarded, and she was growing lovelier every day. It was only the slightest stretch of the truth, and Slytherins had no compunction about sometimes slightly stretching the truth.

                His mother asked about the girls he liked, and the ones he didn’t like. She didn’t particularly seem interested in the girls whose names he couldn’t remember.

                If there was one topic his mother absolutely hated, though, it was the subject of Hermione Granger, the Muggle-born best friend of Harry Potter.

                Draco had thought at first that he and Harry Potter ought to be the best of friends. After all, both of them had lost parents during the defeat of the Dark Lord. Being as how Potter was also distantly related to the House of Black, Draco had considered that they would get on quite famously.

                But instead Potter had taken up with the insufferable Weasley family—pureblood but poor, and completely unacceptable as appropriate companionship. Then to make it worse, he’d befriended the Muggle-born, and Draco had been glad that they were not friends after all.

                She was irritating, Granger was; she thought she knew everything, and her not even coming from a respectable Wizarding family! Seeing her hand shooting up in the air to answer every question, and seeing her bushy hair bouncing as she nodded rapidly along to everything the professor said, only served to irritate him past all his patience.

                Whenever he mentioned to his mother about what she had done, or more to the point, what he and his cronies had done to her and her friends, she always changed the subject rapidly. The first few times he told her about his latest prank, he was surprised that she offered no censure, such as she usually would when he regaled her with stories of how they had brought low some student or other. She was Slytherin enough to appreciate the tactics, but motherly enough to remind her son of appropriate behavior.

                But when Draco did something to Granger, like when he switched her pot of ink with combustible jelly and everything she wrote on her parchment smoked and sparked, his mother simply switched topics.

                Not a single word would she comment about the Muggle-born, as if Draco hadn’t even spoken. And she invariably turned the topic to a different girl. “How are Daphne’s grades?” “I saw Milicent’s mother while shopping last week.” And of course, “How is dear Pansy doing?”

                Draco had simply always thought that his mother was doing what every pureblood mother was doing: vetting the current generation for a future bride for his son.

                The day he found out the truth about his mother’s topics of conversation was the day he felt his future being unwritten.

                It was the summer before his 7th year, his trunk was already packed, and he was preparing to embark on his final year at Hogwarts. His usually very composed mother was looking flustered, nervous even, like she was slightly afraid. In all their years together she’d never displayed those traits and Draco was concerned.

                With a halting voice, and using slow, deliberate sentences, she revealed a secret that had been hidden within the House of Black:

                A Veela had once married into the Black family, her heritage hushed up to protect their status as pureblood. There were some who would consider the magical being to be equally as pure of magical blood, but there were some who would view the marriage as a stain on the family’s reputation. So over the generations since then, there were witches born—particularly strong in magic—who would manifest Veela traits. A Veela mother always knew when she had given birth to a Veela daughter. Narcissa alone of her sisters was Veela, a secret kept and hidden despite the animosity between herself and her sisters.

                In fact, after finding her mate in Lucius Malfoy and living a relatively quiet life, it was entirely possible most of the family had forgotten about this lingering aspect of their bloodline. She hoped so, as no one would ever expect that the Malfoy family, who traditionally only bred one single male, would produce a Veela child. She had certainly never expected it herself. But a Veela mother always knows.

                To say Draco was surprised was an understatement. Distressed, he listened as she explained his hidden heritage and that having reached his majority he would begin to sense stirrings inside himself that were the presence of his mate.

                To say Draco was angry was an overstatement. He’d always assumed that he would choose a wife, or have one pre-chosen for him, based on an inflexible set of criteria. He had known the choices would be slim for the wife of a Malfoy, but he hadn’t known that his life and future happiness would depend on choosing precisely the one witch who was the mate of his Veela…and ensuring that she accepted.

                Narcissa cautioned him that should he find his mate, he must not reveal to her the knowledge of what she was to him. In time, his Veela heritage may become obvious, especially while he was not yet bonded, but it was imperative that the Veela mate not feel pressured or obligated to bond with her Veela. The choice must be freely made, the heart freely given.

                More than a little dazed, he left for Hogwarts the next morning. He spent the entire train ride wondering if each girl he saw was the one, and waiting to hear from his inner Veela who was supposed to be just waking up.

                After a month, with no discernible changes within himself, he’d begun to believe that perhaps his mother was wrong. Perhaps he wasn’t Veela. After all, a male Veela was highly unusual. Or, without discounting his mother’s Veela intuition, perhaps his mate simply wasn’t at Hogwarts and he had at least another year before he had to worry about finding her.

                He settled routinely into his schoolwork. As a Prefect he had authority and a certain amount of freedom, but without the heavy responsibilities of the Head Boy. That title went to Michael Corner, Ravenclaw, and of course his female counterpart was the Muggle-born Who Shall Not Be Named in His Mother’s Presence. He understood now that as Granger was not a viable option for the wife of a Malfoy that his mother had wanted to hear as little about her as possible, instead concentrating on the witches who would be potential candidates for being his Veela mate.

                He captained his Quidditch team, and though he didn’t win as many matches as he’d once originally thought he would, he rather thought he found a measure of glory in the famous rivalry between him and the Gryffindor captain. If he didn’t catch the snitch but ran Potter into the ground a time or two, he considered his playing to be quite successful. Most of the team felt the same. Gryffindor team always took a heavy beating whenever they played Slytherin. Once, incensed at one of his team’s carefully strategized maneuvers to unseat Potter, the Head Girl herself had marched over and threatened to take so many points from the Slytherins that their house cup would have to invent a token for negative points. They’d laughed at her, knowing she’d never have enough grounds to take points from a match where referees had already made rulings. And she’d marched away, curly head bobbing a counterpoint to her angry steps.

                Draco also wrote home, dutifully as always, this time being more detailed about the girls in school—save one of course—and repeatedly telling his mother that there were no signs of his “inner self” showing any preferences.

                Late at night, he’d lie in his bed, thinking over the lines that had already been penned in the book of his life. He’d once had it mapped out as far into the future as his mind’s eye could see. But lately all he’d been able to see was the next week’s quiz that he was sure to ace, or the next day’s game of Quidditch.

                He tried to write a future that encompassed his new, unidentified Veela mate. He tried to fit her into the plans he’d had, but somehow the picture could never come clear. Was she intelligent and kind? Was she quiet or shy? Was she beautiful? He rather thought she’d be beautiful.

                Malfoys often had blonde or white hair, a distinctive family trait. They tended to marry others with light hair, much like Narcissa whose hair had begun to have white streaks even from an early age. He wondered now if that was her Veela adjusting itself to be more acceptable to her mate. Both of her sisters retained black hair as befit the family of Black. But try as he might, he could not envision his mate with light-colored hair.

                When he closed his eyes, trying to will her face and her form into view, he got only an empty space. When he tried to force as little as a hair color, blonde or white—or an eye color, icy blue or sea green—into that empty space, he got a feeling that he could only express as a resounding ‘No.’

                Late at night he played this game, this game of wondering about the future and wondering about his mate.

                One night, as he lay there, brooding over that empty space, he felt a fluttering, skipping movement in his breast. He sat up quickly, a hand over his heart, the sensation jolting him out of his meditative state. Breathing hard, he wondered if he was having medical symptoms, and if so, what they could mean. But after a moment of just listening to his heavy breathing, he concluded that he’d imagined the feeling. Perhaps he’d dreamt it. And he settled back down to sleep.

                As his mind began to wander and his body slowed down to the rhythms of slumber, he felt it again. A soft, rhythmic feeling skittering around inside his chest. This time he held still, trying to find the source of the light pulsing. His heartbeat had sped up. He fought the same initial surprise he’d felt before, and as he concentrated on the foreign sensation, he felt his own heartbeat gradually slowing. Slowing, slowing, slowing…until…it matched the measured beating.

                Amplified by his own heartbeat, it was no longer light and fluttering. It was deep, steady, calming. It produced in him a sense of wonder at the rightness of it. So he lay there, listening  to it, feeling it echoing in his chest as his heart beat alongside the slowness of it, and eventually he was lulled to sleep.

                The next morning he wondered if perhaps he’d dreamt it. He felt inside of himself for that Other rhythm, but he couldn’t find it. Perhaps it was too faint for him to notice in the activity of the day.

                The world felt different. The colors perhaps a little brighter. The freshness of the wind perhaps a bit sharper.

                He chalked it up to the change of the seasons. Autumn had finally given way to the inexorable winter. It would soon be time for the Yule ball, and then all of the students would go home to celebrate the holiday with their families.

                Draco had been dreading returning home and having to explain to his mother that his Veela had not surfaced, that he’d felt nothing to indicate his Veela heritage was manifesting. He knew she was anxious for news, and he didn’t want to disappoint.

                But whatever he had felt in the night, he was certain it was the sign he had been waiting for.

                He went through the day mechanically, absorbed with contemplating this new turn of events, and periodically taking time to attempt, with no success, to recreate the incident of the night before.

                And when he finally went to bed, earlier than normal, he lay awake searching for his Veela. In the quiet, and in the dark, he waited for that beating he still wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined.

                Finally, late into the night, he was rewarded by that flickering sensation suddenly echoing in his breast again. This time his heartbeat slowed to match it immediately.

                He sighed. The feeling was clearer this time. It thump-thumped precisely as his heart did. But it was so slow that it made him sleepy.

                His mind wandered to that empty space where he tried to envision his mate, and into that empty space he heard loudly in his head the ‘thump-thump’ of his heart.

                No. Her heart. He was suddenly very sure that he could feel her heart. That empty space he envisioned as the place his mate would occupy was no longer empty. It was loud and vibrant, echoing with the sounds of her heartbeat, slow and steady. She must be sleeping, this late at night. That explained why it was always so slow. He could only connect with her when everything was very quiet, and he was very still, and both of them were near sleep.

                He had a mate! And she must be at Hogwarts. And…well…the sum total of his knowledge was that she had a very healthy heartbeat. She also did not appear to suffer from insomnia.

                Far from being discouraging, it actually made him feel almost giddy. His life was connected to another’s—a mate that would belong only to him, and he to her! A warmth spread through his body, like the pleasant low humming in the blood that comes after drinking a couple of butterbeers, if butterbeers were made of rainbows.

                He thought he felt the rumbling of his Veela, content and pleased. His mate was safe and she was sleeping.

                He should have gone to sleep, also. Instead, he spent an untold amount of time just breathing, and listening to their hearts beating together, until sleep finally won out over the wonder.

                The next morning he woke up feeling excited and energized. Despite being far below ground in the dungeons, it felt very bright and sunny to him. For the first time, he was certain, absolutely certain, that he was Veela and that he had a mate. And that she was here somewhere in the school!

                In a quiet corner of his soul, he could almost feel his Veela still slumbering. He didn’t know how else to describe the new, but strangely familiar sensation of Veela thoughts and instincts surfacing now that he’d connected with his mate. It was a strange mix of having his body house a wild creature and actually being a wild creature. His mother hadn’t spent very much time explaining that aspect to him. But what he knew of Veela was that they could be very fierce and very wild when provoked, so he rather thought these feelings were just the first glimmer of what it would be like to become a full-grown Veela.

                The idea of such a loss of control would normally have been distasteful to him. Malfoys usually prided themselves on being in control of everything. Perhaps it was his Veela side already beginning to work on him, but he felt only a calming sense of assurance. To take a page out of Longbottom’s book, he felt a bit like his inner Veela was a brand new seedling inside of himself, waking up, unfurling, needing attention and nurturing.  And needing the sunlight and warmth that came with finding and claiming his mate.

                At the thought of her, and the memory of her heartbeat from the night before, he felt his Veela stir. For a moment, Draco could almost see the world around him awash in bright yellows and pale pinks. Almost like the first blush of sunrise. He blinked, and then it was gone, but the alert presence in his mind, remained. His Veela wanted his mate. No, he wanted his mate.

                Could he reach her in the daylight? He’d tried and failed the day before, but he was certain their connection was stronger now.

                His hands only slightly trembled with anxiety and excitement, as he closed his eyes and laid back against his pillows, trying to find that tiny light inside of him that was their shared destiny and follow it back to her. For several moments he couldn’t sense anything and he felt himself growing frustrated. The colors behind his eyelids deepened to oranges, with streaks of disappointing brown.

                He sat up and shook his head trying to clear it. He knew she was there; he only had to find her.

                He closed his eyes again, his hands clenched around his large quilted blanket, and concentrated on the pale yellow and pink sensation he’d had when he’d first awoken. It had felt light and happy like laughter floating on a summer breeze, like that moment before you open up a gift, like your first bite of your favorite ice cream. He concentrated on those feelings and felt those colors returning, getting brighter and deepening to golds with rosy hues.

                And then he found it. That tiny pinpoint of light that connected them. Then suddenly her heartbeat was there, and his own heart was beating hard in his chest. His eyes flew open, looking around him, wondering how everything around him could stay the same when obviously everything had changed.

                He jumped out of bed, anxious suddenly to get dressed and go down to the Great Hall. He was sure he would find her today. How could he see the girl to whom the heartbeat belonged, with her own heart echoing against his, and not immediately recognize her?

                As he pulled on his uniform and his robes and ascended the stairs to breakfast, he could feel her heart changing to beat at slightly different speeds. A sudden thump here, or a bump there, he was fascinated with all the little changes that signified a real person going through a morning routine. It brought him this inexplicable joy to know that she was nearby and safe, and possibly unsuspecting that today she was going to meet the man she would spend the rest of her life with.

                Or meet again, he supposed, since they’d likely already met several times before.

                Oh, he was so curious! And impatient! He had to see her. He climbed the last steps two at a time, and nearly burst into the Great Hall.

                After-breakfast Draco was much more subdued than before-breakfast Draco. Despite his earlier expectation that he would determine the identity of his mate today, he had so far managed to make it all the way through his first class and was no closer to his mate than he had been upon waking. He could have walked right by her several times today and his Veela hadn’t done so much as peep.

                Disappointment was a bunch of browns and greys, he’d learned. And there was a pink-purple, blue-black thread that drifted by sometimes, and if he grabbed it, he felt overcome with an impossible longing to hold his mate in his arms. He’d quickly determined it was far easier to just ignore that color and wallow instead in the sepia-toned mush if he was going to at least pretend to pay attention to the professor.

                He summoned the feeling of his mate’s heartbeat, now secured quietly in a corner of his soul. As his emotions went up and down, he noticed that the connection to his mate grew more tenuous. Every so often he had to clear his mind and concentrate on her presence inside of himself. His Veela enjoyed this exercise, crooning whenever the thump-thumping was firm and strong, and Draco was rewarded with yellows to break through the misty greys, like sunshine through clouds.

                Uselessly, he watched as Pansy Parkinson giggled inanely at something one of her friends had said. The professor hadn’t yet noticed, and Pansy was trying in vain to get her expression under control. By the way their glances kept bouncing off a Ravenclaw in the corner, Draco assumed they were having fun mocking the girl for something he’d been too caught up in his own musings to notice. Judging by the angry set of the Ravenclaw’s mouth, and the way she didn’t so much as look the direction of any of the Slytherins, it was clear the girl was well aware of it, as well.

                He couldn’t help comparing the actions of the girls in front of him to the gentle, even tapping of his mate. She was obviously not engaged in ridiculously juvenile behavior while in class. She was calm and quiet but alert. In the last several hours, he thought he’d become quite adept at interpreting heartbeats.

                Pansy’s, for instance, would probably be gamboling about as she tried to breathe around her giggles. The Ravenclaw’s would probably be slamming hard and angry in her ribcage.

                Draco suddenly sat up straight, the movement so abrupt that several around him turned to look to see what had his attention. He quickly turned his eyes to the book in front of him, although he didn’t register any of the words on the page.

                It wasn’t Pansy. It wasn’t the Ravenclaw.

                Not that he’d had any concerns that it might be Pansy. She was absolutely the last person his Veela could possibly have chosen for him. He almost laughed at the truth of that thought. Even Muggle-born Granger was a more likely choice, although probably not by much.

                As he had that thought, the skipping about in his own chest almost caused him to lose his grip on the feel of the heartbeat in his mind.

                Carefully, he cleared his thoughts again, and called the connection back. He was very excited! He’d just had a bright white revelation.

                He might not know who his mate was, but he could begin to rule out who she wasn’t.

                In his mind, he envisioned himself holding up the beating of his mate’s heart next to Pansy Parkinson. As she giggled and swatted at her partner’s shoulder in her mirth, he was completely, without a doubt, certain that the heartbeat could not belong to her.

                He felt giddy at the confirmation of something he was already sure of. But it wasn’t so much that he was glad he wouldn’t be bound for life to Pansy Parkinson, it was that he was sure that he finally had a way to search for his mate. He would compare a girl’s actions to his mate’s heartbeat. When it was clear that they were in contradiction with each other, he could rule out that girl as a possibility.

                He quickly decided that matching the heartbeat directly was not likely, so he’d just concentrate on narrowing the field.

                Pleased with his clever thinking, he noticed the browns and greys had been replaced with sturdy greens and blues as he planned out the task before him. He wanted to pull out a sheet of parchment and create a list of all of the girls in the school, but not only was that very difficult, it would be very uncomfortable to explain if anyone else chanced to see him writing on it. Or worse, crossing girls off the list.

                It wasn’t like he was all that concerned with who it wasn’t. He would mentally keep track of who he tested, starting with the girls in this class.

                Just as he had that thought, the class ended and everyone started moving. He ruefully thought he’d have to add the Ravenclaw back onto the possible list, because he hadn’t gotten to directly test the heartbeat against her actions.

                There was some good-natured jostling as everyone got up and started crowding the door so they could get to their next class. It wasn’t until Draco was through the doorway that he realized that the heartbeat was still steady and slow. He noticed the contrast when it suddenly beat a little bit faster, much closer to his own, as he was walking.

                He stopped in the corridor, a fourth-year Hufflepuff colliding with his back and squeaking before running off. Draco stood there for a moment, puzzling out what that information meant.

                She must be walking now, much like he was walking. Which meant she had been sitting before. When his entire class had gotten up to leave, she was still sitting. Her class had not been dismissed yet. Ergo, she was not in his first class.

                The grin that appeared so swiftly lit up his face with such unabashed pleasure as to shock the Head Girl as she passed him, nearly causing them to bump into each other.

                He effortlessly side-stepped her and her friends, cheerfully heading towards his next class, not even bothering to offer them a snarky comment when they stared at his unusually pleasant mood and mumbled something to which he paid no attention.

                As he entered the next classroom, looking around for a likely spot from which he could conduct his experiments, he noted that his mate’s heartbeat must have jumped suddenly. It was slowing down again, but in the excitement of his discovery he’d missed the exact moment it had changed.

                He reminded himself to pay more attention next time, as it could have been a clue to her identity.

                Draco spent the next few days obsessed with his idea of using his mate’s heartbeat to discover her identity. Late at night he still stayed up for hours listening to the steady drumming of her heart, and spinning crazy ideas of what it would be like for the two of them as a bonded Veela pair. But during the day he was intent on his goal of narrowing down the possible options.

                He was starting to get the hang of his new color-coded Veela senses. The more he became in tune with his Veela, the more shades of colors he began to see. There were shades for his own feelings, interesting blues and blacks and greens and greys, that helped him to reconcile his human magical heritage with his Veela one. He quickly became used to seeing the world in a wash of new vivid color.

                Then there were the lovely shades of yellows and pinks and purples and orange-golds that were her. Seeing the streaks, and knowing she was near filled him with the most lovely sense of warmth, like standing in front of a warm fire and feeling the light and the heat on your bare skin. He’d see a lilting stream of violet go by, and he’d stop and look around frantically trying to figure out where she was. He looked at girls he’d never looked at before. Sometimes he stared. Sometimes he backtracked his steps to walk past a girl a second time. In his mind, he held out the bumpity-bump of her heart like a compass that was going to lead him to her.

                A few of his friends were beginning to look askance at his unusual behavior. When he held the door open for a 5th year Gryffindor one morning, Theo just about jumped out of his skin in surprise, and that was saying a lot for the usually composed Slytherin. Draco didn’t bother explaining himself as there was no sense telling him that the 5th year had the most beautiful brown eyes. They were warm and dark, and gave him a skittering up his spine and what seemed like the echo of amber in his mind’s eye. Holding the door forced her to look at him and acknowledge him with an awkward thanks. There was something very right about those lovely dark irises, although he knew as soon as she looked up at him that she wasn’t the one.

                He was used to the disappointment. The human part of him kept getting his hopes up and then was a squishy grey of resignation when the day ended with her identity still unknown. The Veela part of him refused to get on that up-and-down emotional broom ride, and was perpetually hopeful. She was there, and he could feel her through their connection. It was only a matter of time.

                His biggest clue came one day as he was walking through the courtyard, lost in thought. The Yule ball was only a couple of days away, and after that he’d be headed back to Malfoy Manor where he hoped to have a long talk with his mother about Veela mating rituals and other details of his Veela heritage that he’d forgotten to ask when she’d sprung the news on him in the autumn. As he was trying to catalogue his progress in finding his mate, the air suddenly rang with orange-streaked pinks, and he stopped abruptly, looking around him.

                There were many students outside enjoying the mild day and the snow that lightly covered the ground. For a moment, his heightened Veela senses had trouble sorting out which sounds were coming from where. He saw a group of Ravenclaws engaged in what looked like an experiment in the freezing rates of various edible foods, but his eyes passed right over them. He saw the Weasel and Potty, with a group gathered around them that predictably included the Head Girl and the She-Weasel and the Loony one. They were all laughing uproariously at what looked like the latest forbidden enchanted toy from the Weasel’s family joke shop. He forced his eye away from their merriment, looking for the source of the sudden explosion of color in his mind.

                Then he saw her, a small girl on her hands and knees. A bag almost as large as she was sat precariously on her back, and sprawled in front of her was quite a collection of books. He quickly crossed over to her, a sense of being drawn to her blooming in his stomach. She didn’t notice him as he bent down to help her gather her fallen books, until he held a particularly heavy tome right under her nose. She automatically reached to grab it, but he pulled it back slightly, forcing her to look up at him.

                She had green eyes. He was disappointed, but he hid it quickly, something he was now quite skilled at doing. But there was still something that was drawing his attention. As she stood, carefully balancing her books in her arms, and reached out to add the ones he’d gathered to them, he was transfixed by the sight of her hair cascading down past her elbows. It was just a plain brown, although in his mind he saw rich shades of chocolate and titian and gold superimposed over it. It was mussed after her fall, giving the soft curls a bit of a riotous and wild look that was surely too much personality for the small girl who still hadn’t said a word.

                Her hand was hanging in the air outstretched, and her expression was confused, as Draco blinked rapidly trying to sort through the strange contradictory feelings of triumph and disappointment that had his Veela both cooing in contentment and sighing it wistfulness.

                “Malfoy!” The voice cut through his reverie, bringing him back to the moment. “Stop scaring the second years!”

                He looked down at the young girl with the long curly hair that had caught his attention, hair that suddenly seemed a very plain brown indeed. Her green eyes had a wary look in them, like she was concerned he was going to go crazy any moment and abscond with her precious book. Then he looked up at the Head Girl as she stood nearby with her hands on her hips, a ridiculously large Father Christmas hat on her head and an exasperated look on her face.

                The others must have walked off to their next class without her while she stayed behind, ever the champion for the smaller and helpless. With a firm, pointed look, she motioned at him to give the books back, and feeling a sluggish and confused maroon, he wordlessly handed them over. The little girl snatched her books, and without taking her eyes off of him, she cautiously backed up until she was standing directly in front of the Head Girl.

                The thought flitted by briefly that they could almost be sisters. Not in their features, no, but in that same swotty expression on their faces as they glared at him.

                Granger patted the girl on the head and said in a maternal voice, “Run along, Calliope.” Then she gave her a smile and added, “Hogwarts: A History is my favorite book, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

                The girl swiveled and tottered off, her rushed gait causing her heavy pack to bounce on her back, no doubt the cause of her being thrown off balance in the first place. He watched her as she ran, or more specifically, he watched her hair as it streamed behind her like a ribbon. He couldn’t shake the feeling like there was still something he was missing. There was still something about this specific moment that was escaping his grasp. It was maddening, like the answer was there, just barely out of reach.

                “Malfoy.” The voice cut through his thoughts, scattering them. He scowled at her.

                She just rolled her eyes, uncaring of why he was irritated. “You’ve been acting strange lately, Malfoy. I’ve been getting weird reports from people saying you’ve been uncharacteristically nice.”

                That was a surprise. Was she really chastising him for being nice? “I’m nice!”

                She didn’t have to roll her eyes again to convey her disbelief, although he heard it in the way she emphasized, “I said ‘uncharacteristically.’ You’ve been picking up books, opening doors, helping people get things off tall shelves, passing the potatoes without complaint.” She almost seemed amused when she told him, “It’s beginning to scare people. Particularly the little ones. So try not to act too weird, okay?”

                She hid a laugh as she walked away, and he stomped off to his next class, feeling ‘uncharacteristically’ cross.

                Later that night, as he lay quietly in his bed, he carefully pulled out from the corner of his mind the cherished picture of his mate. Her heartbeat drummed ever firm and steady. He could almost, almost make out the darkness of her eyes. And shining around it all, he saw a halo of golden brown curls, shifting and shimmering. He watched it as it curled and uncurled through his mind, an ache forming deep inside his heart as his fingers twitched to touch. The Veela inside of him was a lonely grey-blue, longing to reach out to its mate, to be able to hold her and cradle her in his arms. To look into her eyes, to rest his head against her heartbeat, to touch her precious hair. The greys almost felt like they could swallow him alive.

                He was close to discovering her identity, he knew it. He should be feeling more hopeful, not less. But the stormy grey of dread hovered in the back of his mind. As he finally drifted off to sleep, he thought he heard the faintest echo of a rose-colored laugh.

                The Yule ball was a highlight for most of the school, a reason to dress up in fancy robes, and a pre-celebration of the holiday to come. Draco had been particularly excited all day as he knew that at least all of the 5th years and above would be gathered together in one place. He’d be able to test several of the girls, possibly all of them if he was particularly observant and cunning. As he descended the staircase into the ballroom, he was nearly giddy with the thought that he could find her today. He could really find her today. His inner Veela was excited with strangely appropriate swirls of festive scarlets and emeralds.

                As he looked around at the clumps of people gathered together, he saw a flash of brown curl that almost stopped his heart. It was long and cascading from an intricate mass at the top of her head, covering the back of a periwinkle dress. Draco had gotten particularly good at naming shades of color.

                There was something about looking at that hair that made him feel all the air had rushed out of his lungs. It wasn’t a plain brown. It was chestnut and gold and warm and alive and it was her, it had to be her.

                And it was…familiar? He thought he knew that hair. Something tickled in the back of his mind. That empty space that had filled with things about his mate seemed to swell until it tingled in his veins. His heart beat quick and light, but it was so loud in his ears he wondered if it was because it was matched with hers.

                Even before she turned, intuition seized him, and the moment of clarity illuminated all of the clues he had been painstakingly piecing together…and apparently simultaneously ignoring. Because he definitely knew that hair.

                He’d always known that hair. He’d stared at it, he’d jinxed it, one memorable day he’d gotten his wand, his hand, and a good portion of his arm, stuck in it. But for the first time he was overcome with a longing to touch it. To touch her. To reach out to her and pull her towards him.

                And as he had this revelation—the once-empty space suddenly filling in brightly with colors and sounds and thoughts and feelings, creating a picture so bright and vivid he had to blink to make sure he was still seeing what was in front of him—her face turned towards him, showing him the exact match to the image suddenly emblazoned on his soul.

                She laughed at something someone in her circle said, and it was yellows and golds and corals that circled the room, trembling in the air, and arrowing right into his heart, which skipped a couple of beats at her nearness.

                His Veela was awake—squawking, crowing, roaring—whatever explained this overwhelming feeling of needing to laugh and cry and dance and fly all at the same time.

                But he didn’t move a muscle. Because there was still a tiny part of him that was just Draco, and it knew what the Veela would shortly learn.

                As Hermione Granger—yes, the very one—turned further, it was clear to see that she held Ron Weasley’s hand, almost lost in the folds of her exquisite dress. That laugh that had so seared him was because of something Ron had said to Harry. As he watched, trembling with a kaleidoscope of unknown emotions, Weasley leaned down and placed a kiss on her smiling cheek. She blushed a tiny bit, and looked up at him with affection, and they both laughed again.

                Fury! Crimsons and ugly, sharp blacks! How dare he! How dare this interloper lay hands and lips on his mate!

                Hermione Granger had a boyfriend. Hermione Granger was as good as married off to the Weasel in the eyes of the population of Hogwarts. Hermione Granger…had chosen a mate.

                Despair! Soggy greys. Slushy, muddy, suffocating browns. It was inconceivable to his Veela.

                He almost panted with the need to run talons across the smiling freckly face and cry Challenge.

                But the despair was like a tidal wave overwhelming the fury. He could not win. She would never choose him. Even if there was no Ron Weasley, she would never choose him. She was forever lost to him.

                The pain was blinding. He didn’t see where he was going, only that he needed to get out of the Great Hall. He needed to breathe, he needed the air across his face.

                He was down the stairs and into the courtyard, and then past the courtyard and into the darkness, before he realized where he was. He stood on the edge of the path to the forest, breathing hard, his heart pounding erratically, a cruel reminder of the steady, soft beating he could still feel in his chest.

                He needed a broom. He needed to stretch his wings and fly hard and fast into the blackness.

                But he didn’t move, because the part of him that was still just Draco was afraid of what would happen if he let the Veela control him. So he restrained that inner squawking and crying. Blue and green ropes of self-control wrapped the Veela until he was quiet and Draco could finally hear himself think again.

                He was reluctant to step any further into the forest, knowing as he did the dangers it posed to one lone student wandering anguished in the dark. A quick glance around him showed him a large tree with low-hanging branches.

                Waving his wand, he sent a Lumos to light it up from inside the dark canopy of leaves. When he was satisfied there were no other inhabitants, he began to climb. It was easy enough for his athletic body to grasp and pull and swing his way up until he was perched in the crook of two large limbs, legs dangling down.

                His breathing was rapid and shallow, much as it had been when he’d been running from the castle. His Veela wanted nothing more than to run right back into the ball, but Draco the man couldn’t handle it, couldn’t handle the overwhelming disappointment.

                Not in her, no, never in her.

                But he’d thought that simply identifying her would be the hardest part. He was Veela, she was his mate. What could be simpler? But he couldn’t tell her. And without that, she’d never—not ever in a hundred years—so much as look at him like that, the way he needed her to, so long as Ron Weasley was around. And maybe not even if he wasn’t.

                He was filled with this awful, sticky red-streaked charcoal that felt like it was weighing down all of his limbs, as if to drag him out of the tree with despondence. He’d lost. He’d lost and he hadn’t even started.

                When his mother came to retrieve him at King’s Cross Station, she could tell right away that he was unwell. He’d spent the whole trip in a cabin with Pansy and Blaise and Theo and the rest of the Slytherin cabal while they chatted gaily about the ball and who had worn what (mostly Pansy) and who had been seen leaving with whom (mostly Blaise) and, of course, what everyone would be doing over the winter holidays. Draco had done his best to ignore them like so much white noise, and pretend he didn’t feel the streaks of rose and pink that were emanating from several cars down. He concentrated on his breathing, and did his best to ignore the little hiccups of hope whenever her heart hammered a pleasant pitter-patter deep inside his mind. By the end of the hours-long trip, he was exhausted.

                Narcissa took one look at him and hurried him off home. She couldn’t discuss anything with him until they were back in Malfoy Manor and the house elves had all been sent away. Then, when they were sitting quietly on the couch, she gently broached the topic. Draco was surprised to discover that his mother was soothing aquas and teals and creams. The presence of her Veela was unspoken in the air, but he wondered how he’d not ever noticed before the wildly powerful and elegant creature that she kept hidden behind her eyes. Beside her he suddenly felt terribly young and uncouth, like a fledgling who has yet to lose the fluffy, downy feathers he was hatched with.

                “Is it supposed to be like this?” His voice trembled, painfully unsure. He longed irrationally for his mother to tell him there was a quick, easy answer to the painful, jarring, breaking feeling in his chest. It had gotten worse since coming home as now he couldn’t hear her heartbeat at all, she was much too far away. By now she was home again in the Muggle world, or worse, The Burrow. A quick surge of nausea washed over him in a sickly chartreuse.

                “Have you found her, then?” was her quick response, looking at him with suppressed excitement.

                He didn’t respond, couldn’t bring himself to say the words that were so terribly disappointing.

                But she could make out the struggle on his face, and her own lit up with a happiness that just made Draco feel worse. She gathered him into an effusive hug, causing him to squawk a bit, the gesture seeming a little silly since he was now so much bigger than she was. But for that moment, the gentle creams and butter yellows that were his mother’s love made him feel a tiny bit better, so he didn’t pull away. “But that’s wonderful, Draco! Truly, I had hoped you’d find her at school, and wouldn’t have to conduct a long search!”

                “It’s horrible, Mother,” he finally said, around the lump in his throat. “She’ll never have me.” His Veela sniffled in sorrow, melancholy now that his mate was out of touch. Saying the words out loud had an awful finality to them. Never. She’d never have him.

                “Nonsense. We’ll start by inviting her over to the Manor for brunch! Won’t that be lovely?” The faraway look in Narcissa’s eyes told him that she could see it already: a happy little family sitting around the white wrought-iron table in the gardens with a warming charm like a Christmas snow globe.

                He gave her the news quickly, before she had begun to hope too much. “Mother, she’s chosen a mate already.”

                “What?” It was her turn to squawk, and Draco suppressed an almost-smile at the sound of a ruffled Veela coming from his usually very dignified mother. “That can’t be! So soon? It shouldn’t be possible!”

                Her words tickled something in his mind. “So soon? You mean it is possible for her to choose a mate other than her Veela?” Other than me, he meant. He didn’t know why that information was important, it wasn’t as if knowing it could have changed the outcome.

                She answered, distractedly, “Yes. In some instances where it took a very long time for the Veela to find and claim her mate, the mate had already started a family with someone else. It’s very rare, as the mate of a Veela usually instinctively knows that they belong to someone already. I’ve never heard of a young Veela’s mate having already been claimed by another. Are you quite sure? Perhaps you are mistaken.”

                “She has a boyfriend,” he stated, morosely.

                Narcissa blinked at that, before a look of overwhelming relief crossed her face. “Oh! Well if that’s all, you can steal her away with a very minimum of difficulty. Her soul is matched to yours and the heart will follow.” A flick of her hand dismissed as inconsequential the obstacle that was insurmountable in Draco’s mind, namely, the winning of Hermione Granger’s heart.

                “It’s not that easy, Mother,” he groaned, wishing it was exactly that easy. Perhaps if it was any other girl, it would have been exactly that easy. A glance, a flirtation, a concerted effort to woo, and with any other girl, especially his destined mate, it would have only been a matter of time. But try as he might, he couldn’t imagine any circumstance in which he could woo the Head Girl without having her hex him across the face. Or laugh. He wasn’t sure which would be worse, but having both of them happen at the same time was as equally likely as having one or the other. “Even if I told her she was my mate—”

                “Oh no,” Narcissa interrupted, “You mustn’t do that. It will eventually become easily apparent that you are a Veela, but you cannot tell her she’s your mate. It’s extremely important that she come to you entirely of her own free will.”

                “I know,” Draco asserted impatiently, “But I’m saying that even if I told her, even her do-gooder heart wouldn’t feel inclined to be my mate simply to save me from a lifetime of loneliness.” Oh, Merlin, that sounded just awful. His vision suddenly colored with dark grey-green smudges as his Veela felt the echo of an empty future without his mate. He gasped a bit at the pain of it, and surreptitiously rubbed at his chest, at the single, lonely heart that beat there, as he tried to forget the image of his future stretched out before him on page after page of lonely black writing.

                “Is she a Hufflepuff then?” Narcissa asked, zeroing in on the single clue he’d given her.

                Draco came back to the present and carefully shut down everything in the corner of his soul where the image of his mate lay, wondering erroneously if his mother’s Veela could tell what he was doing. He refrained from confirming or denying even his mate’s House in an effort to keep Narcissa from guessing her identity.

                She huffed a little, exasperated. “You’re not going to tell me who she is? I can’t help you if I don’t know her identity. I can make arrangements with her parents, I can help you pick out the right gifts...” she trailed off seeing the stubborn look on Draco’s face. “Just tell me. Is she…a pureblood?”

                The look in her eyes told him what he already knew, which is that breeding is particularly important for the bride of a Malfoy. He felt a tiny twinge of dismay at letting down his family in his choice of a bride.

                The twinge was quickly overcome by fiery reds and purples as his Veela vehemently denied that his beloved could be anything less than perfection. She was his mate, and that was all that mattered. Blood was just blood, but her soul called to his and there could be nothing more important than that.

                He eyed his mother with unease, unwilling to comment on Hermione’s parentage. To confirm what his mother suspected would be to imply that his mate was somehow inferior, and his Veela couldn’t allow that. But to deny the truth would have the same result. He opened his mouth to speak but quickly closed it again, his jaw clenched rebelliously, the look in his eye no doubt telling her more than his words would have.

                Narcissa paled, a stricken look on her face causing the air to shimmer slightly with a metallic hue that put an acrid taste into his mouth.

                “Hundreds of years of pureblood breeding, and it ends here,” she whispered. He’d expected this reaction, having been raised his entire life to understand the importance of making a careful match with another powerful pureblood family. But what he didn’t expect were the layers of color in the air that spoke not just of disappointment, but of shame.

                “Mother?” he questioned, confused.

                “Your grandmother always said I would destroy this family. She urged Lucius not to marry me. He may have been my mate, but he didn’t have to choose me. Or he could have mated me and still married another to bear his heir, someone of truly pure wizarding blood.”

                Draco’s Veela protested. How unthinkable! To share one’s mate seemed like it would be an even worse fate than not knowing or not having.

                “Like my family, they kept the secret of the Veela blood, hoping that they could keep their pureblood status untarnished. But she never let me forget that I was less than pure, less than ideal. Even her portrait used to hiss at me sometimes in the corridors that I had tainted the Malfoy family line. That my Veela blood indicated the beginning of the end of the prestigious Malfoy family lineage. I never wanted to believe that.”

                “Mother, that’s ridiculous! Your pureblood lineage is just as pure as father’s. The Veela blood only makes it more magical.”

                She half-smiled at him, the burden of those decades of shame like a visible weight in the air above her shoulders. “But your mate’s is not.”

                As much as he wanted to for his mother’s sake, he couldn’t deny that truth. If he ever married Hermione Granger, it would undoubtedly be the public end of the Malfoy family’s vaunted pureblood heritage. All the Malfoy traditions and pride would be swept aside when a Muggleborn became mistress of Malfoy Manor. And his children would all be half-bloods, and Veela half-breeds to boot.

                She must have seen the look on his face, because she shook the gloom off of her, and patted his hand. “What’s done is done. It’s certainly not your fault that your mate is not a pureblood. Although I’d tried to…” she trailed off again, thinking, and then shrugged it off. “Not enough, I suppose,” she said, almost as if to herself.

                Draco thought about her words for a moment and then he asked her how a Veela chose a mate. Was it simply fated from birth? Was there a binding that had happened and he’d missed it? Was there even a choice?

                Narcissa looked at him with steady eyes for a few moments before answering. “There is no sure formula, but it is believed that a Veela’s preference is taken into account. It is extremely rare that a Veela is mated to a person they’ve never met or interacted with before. It’s much more common that Veela mate with someone who they’ve expressed strong feelings for.”

                At Draco’s perplexed expression, she quickly clarified, “It’s not as simple as perhaps feeling the blossoming of youthful love. If that were true, every Veela would be mated to her first crush, or her first boyfriend. A Veela mating is a true match of the soul but spending time with someone and growing together is much more likely to yield a compatible mate than someone completely unknown. When I was mated to your father, it seemed to me a bit like there were threads spun between us. There was a web of strings connecting me to everyone. Some for good, some for bad. The Veela responds to passion and excitement, which is sometimes like love and sometimes like hate; the two are not as far apart as people often think. But over the years as we spoke and talked and fought and flirted, more and more threads connected me to my Lucius.” She smiled as she remembered those early days at Hogwarts. “And when my Veela finally awoke, it wasn’t long at all before I realized that he was the one for me. Convincing him took a little bit longer, but I think he’d always known what was growing between us.”

                There was a sheen in her eyes as she spoke of her husband that caused a little catch in Draco’s throat. His Veela crooned softly, a minty green expression of grief for his father and for his mother’s loneliness.

                Later, as he laid awake missing the sound of his mate’s heartbeat, he thought of his mother’s words. He understood now why she’d always pushed him to build relationships with the pureblood girls at school. Beyond the regular designs of a pureblood mother, the Veela mother was trying to direct her son’s choice of a mate. She’d hoped if he spent time with Pansy or Millicent or Tracy, he’d develop a tie to one of them. And she’d hoped if she avoided discussion about any of the young women who were not appropriate choices, that they could avoid his Veela spinning ‘threads’ of closeness to anyone without the proper blood status.

                How strange that the very girl who was at the bottom of his mother’s list was the one that his Veela had chosen! He felt a tiny bit of guilt. His mother had been counting on him to continue the Malfoy traditions, despite the Veela blood that ran through his veins. Somehow he’d chosen the very girl to break them all.

                He searched into the night for her heartbeat, thinking about her suddenly making him miss her something terrible. But no matter how far he stretched his senses, it wasn’t enough for him to find her. There was just blackness, with the occasional pinpricks of light, but nothing like the bright beacon that usually called to him.

                He thought back through all of the years they spent at Hogwarts together. From the very first day when he’d seen her bushy head, he’d felt something. It was something like irritation. Especially when classes began and she was constantly raising her swotty hand and not allowing anyone else even half of a chance to answer the professors’ questions. That buzzing, tickling feeling kept pushing him to do something. He’d yelled at her, hexed her, made fun of her, pranked her mercilessly, and never once stopped to ask himself why.

                He told himself it was because she was friends with Potter and Weasley, whom he truly couldn’t stand. He told himself it was because of her Muggle-born birth status that made her inferior.

                But there had been other girls, now that he thought about it, who had made him feel similarly. He’d sometimes avoided them or sought them out, depending on how he felt. He sometimes teased, and sometimes flirted, and never really wondered why he singled out one girl over another. Perhaps it was his Veela all the time seeking and prodding, looking for the girl who would be the other half of his soul.

                He barely remembered the others, only that there had been some. There was only one that stood out to him, one girl who had relentlessly gotten under his skin, drawing his attention time and again, making him shudder with the feeling of being alive.

                He closed his eyes, miserably lonely the more he thought of his mate, and he tried to force the thoughts away from his mind until he finally fell into a fitful sleep.

                The days of the holiday seemed to pass slowly. Every day Draco felt more and more disoriented, being away from his mate, and feeling less and less hopeful that he would find a way to win her.

                He thought he heard echoes of her voice in the corridors, was certain he was conjuring up the pinks and golds from his memories as he went chasing them from room to room, never finding them, never finding her. And always that lonely thump-thumping of his own heart beating all alone.

                One day he found himself in the Malfoy Manor library. He felt drawn there a lot, maybe because he knew she loved books. If he ever managed to bring her home, he was certain this would be her favorite room in the whole house. She’d stare at the books, flitting from section to section to find the topic that interested her next. He’d make sure that all the books on Dark Magic were locked up as they’d be sure to offend her sensibilities, but even Hermione wouldn’t dare to suggest destroying a book of knowledge.

                As he looked around, he envisioned her sitting there. Among the books, it was easy to picture her quietly curled up on a couch, enjoying the company of an ancient author. And as he approached, she would look up at him and smile.

                His heart twisted with longing. He wanted her. He wanted them. He wanted what his Veela heritage promised, a mate just for him, perfect for him in every way, his to hold and to keep.

                He stared at the empty cushions, the late afternoon sunlight glinting off of the dust motes, futilely wishing for what he knew he couldn’t have, until the hole inside of him seemed so large that he would drown in it.

                He went straight to bed. Skipping dinner, he closed all of his windows, didn’t bother setting a fire, and climbed into the soft welcoming covers of his bed. He forced the tempo of his heart to slow down, ignoring the big emptiness that was usually filled with her heartbeat. She was too far away, his Veela cried. And all he wanted was the oblivion of sleep.

                He finally woke to find the curtains had been pulled all the way back and bright golden sunlight was streaming in. He squawked and was suddenly uncomfortable at hearing the undignified sound coming from his voice.

                Blinking, he tried to remember what was causing the feeling like something was missing. He noticed one of his arms reaching across the expanse of his bedsheets, curled protectively around air, and his mind populated the barren space with an image of a sleeping head of bushy chestnut curls.

                The despair crashed down on him again. His arms were empty. His heart was empty. His life was empty; it wasn’t just unwritten, it was unraveled.

                How much time passed with him in that state, he couldn’t remember. But it was dark again when his mother finally came into his room and shook him out of the bed. When he tried to protest she shushed him and insisted that he eat the warm soup she’d brought him.

                As he took sips just to please her, he tried to find the words to explain. “Everything is just so empty. I miss her so much. I feel like I might die without her.”

                “Nonsense!” she chastised him. “You won’t die.” Her sharp voice had edges to it that sliced into him like talons so unexpectedly that he almost checked his skin for drawn blood. He remembered a moment later that his mother was Veela and lived every day without her mate, and with even less hope than he had of ever being reunited on this side of the veil.

                His instant sorrow was clear to them both, the pain of a more profound loss shaking him out of his self-imposed despondency.

                “How do you live with it?” he asked to his spoon, afraid to look at her face.

                She didn’t answer the question, choosing instead to answer the fear behind it. “You still have hope, Draco. She is out there waiting for you to win her.”

                “She’s not waiting for me, she has someone already,” he choked out, trying to blink back that strange darkness that kept trying to eat him.

                Narcissa tut-tutted. “She has someone. But he’s not the other half of her soul. She’ll realize it soon, and the strings that bind you together will soon be clear to her. You need to be patient and not give up so soon. You are a Malfoy after all, and she cannot do better.”

                Draco cringed. “I think that’s probably a point against me. I have done little to recommend myself to her,” he admitted, the closest he would get to revealing that his mate was the girl he’d tormented throughout their years in school. “And she has no use for the status of the old families.”

                His mother just laughed quietly, pleased when he took a healthy bite of the bread that was placed before him. “That she has feelings for you at all is only to your benefit. It is much easier to woo a girl who has given you attention than it is one who has never noticed you.”

                Draco sighed. “She’s noticed me all right.” He continued eating, realizing he was much hungrier than he’d thought. He didn’t remember the last meal he’d had.

                “It does take a bit longer when you need to win her respect in addition to her love. But you have plenty of time, my son. And you have the advantage of knowing her like no one else ever could.”

                He thought on that as he chewed. It was true that he could sense things about her, from her heartbeat and from his Veela’s color senses, but he didn’t know how knowing those things could help him.

                Narcissa obviously knew where his thoughts were leaning. “Insight into your beloved is a wonderful gift, and a great advantage when courting.” Sensing his doubts, she added, “I will teach you. You must learn not just how to use your Veela senses, but how to control that part of yourself. It is clear you’ve allowed your Veela to overwhelm you, something common among young Veela. But while you are here, we will practice and strengthen your control and your understanding.”

                She nodded as she called a house elf to clear Draco’s now empty plate. “When you’ve learned to accept all the parts of yourself, it will be that much easier for your mate to see and accept you for who you are.”

Chapter Text

                The return back to Hogwarts after the holidays caused Draco conflicting reactions. On the one hand, his Veela was anxious and excited to be back within the vicinity of his mate. On the other hand, the intolerable situation of his mate being romantically involved with another was making him feel sick to his stomach. He didn’t know how he was supposed to get through school and just act normally as if his entire future wasn’t being hijacked by a freckly-faced Weasel.

                His mother refused to give up hope. She was convinced that his mate would come around, although he still hadn’t consented to give her the girl’s identity. He imagined that if she knew his mate was the one and only Hermione Granger, Muggle-born extraordinaire, she would feel very differently. She might even appreciate why Draco spent most of the hols lying abed imagining all the ways he was going to live and die alone and unloved. He didn’t see how it could be any other way.

                Perhaps if he hadn’t spent their school years purposely making life a misery for Hermione and her Gryffindor friends, there might have been a tiny bit of a chance for him. Like maybe if he hadn’t slipped that extra pinch of ground up flobberworm into her cauldron during exams in fifth year, causing it to explode, and causing her to almost fail a Potions class. And maybe if he hadn’t hexed her teeth to grow enormously large in front of the entire school during second year. And maybe if he hadn’t said her name with a sneer every time it had crossed his lips during the last six years. And especially maybe if he hadn’t called her that dirty M-word during third year. Never mind that he never used it again, and that he regretted it almost immediately and not just because she had punched him square in the face. He’d never even told his mother about that episode because he rather thought she’d be ashamed of such uncouth behavior.

                Yes, maybe if it wasn’t for those things, maybe then he’d have something he could work with.

                Instead, he was sitting on the train in the prefects’cabin trying not to think about the hopelessness of his situation.

                And trying to ignore the fact that he knew the exact minute when she appeared in King’s Cross. His own heart was thrumming frazzled and erratic, anxiety over seeing her again causing him to breathe unevenly. Then suddenly her heartbeat was there, a bit faster than normal, as she was clearly excited about returning to school. The echo of it filled his heart, drowning out the feelings of mild distress, and calming him.

                Since recognizing her the night of the Yule ball, it seemed his connection to her had grown stronger. He could almost feel her moving through the cabins. If he closed his eyes, he imagined he’d be able to see her like a blinding light heading straight towards him. His perception of her location was unerring.

                He looked up just a moment before she slid open the door and stepped in.

                Golds, yellows, and light filmy pastels swam before his eyes, coloring everything in front of him for a split second. The Veela inside of him let out a soft croon and he felt his heart dancing erratically again.

                She was dressed properly in her robes already, nothing out of the ordinary, but he could feel himself staring. He hadn’t taken any time to look at her that night at the ball, and had deliberately done his best to avoid her the next day on the way home. But now he couldn’t help but take in all of the tiny details of the woman who the fates had decided would be a match for his soul.

                He’d called her ordinary and plain many times, the memory of his hurtful words dimly ringing in the back of his mind. But she was anything but plain, and could never be ordinary. It wasn’t the riot of curls framing her face, or the dotting of freckles across the bridge of her nose, or the slight twitching of her pink lips as she tried not to smile at some amusing thought. It wasn’t even the way her spine was strong and straight as she stood and addressed the best and brightest of an entire generation of wizards and witches.

                He thought it might be in her eyes, warm and soft like a cup of hot cocoa. They were kind as they looked around the assembled group with affection, despite the fact that many of them made her the butt of jokes on the regular. Those eyes briefly shot his direction as she spoke, and it took him a moment to register that his intense gaze was making her suspicious that he intended to disrupt her speech. He quickly looked away, feeling unnerved by those eyes looking straight into him. He hoped she couldn’t see the twisting of his emotions, but he knew that even if she did, she’d never be able to make out what it meant.

                When they got to Hogwarts, he waited patiently until he could feel for sure that she’d left the train and had moved a distance away, and only then did he get up to grab his trunks and catch a carriage with his classmates.

                And yet, even with the awareness of her presence that allowed him to pinpoint her location, she managed to catch him unawares later that evening after dinner in the Great Hall. He’d known she was close by, but was practicing deliberately ignoring her, a skill he thought he was going to need to perfect very quickly.

                Even when his internal Veela alarms started ringing, and his Veela made a purring sound indicating her closeness, he still hadn’t suspected she was actually coming to speak to him until the finger imperiously tapped his shoulder to get his attention.

                He turned, taken aback momentarily at how lovely she looked in the torchlight. The oranges of the flame brought out the soft golds and reds in her hair. She was irritated at something, if the scrunching of her brow was any indication, and somehow that looked lovely on her, too. It occurred to him, briefly, that seeing that adorable slightly irritated look on her face was one of life’s great pleasures. Perhaps that was why he’d been responsible for putting that look on her face so many times in the past. He desperately fought a pleased grin, knowing it wouldn’t be well received and not wanting to have to explain why he was suddenly so amused.

                “Malfoy,” she gritted out, the hard-pressed tone of her voice sending little sparks up and down his spine. Her voice had always gotten under his skin, an itch he couldn’t seem to scratch. Only now he felt it like a thrumming in his veins, like little fireworks being lit under his skin. From his Veela came warm, affectionate waves, and there was a slight tingling on his shoulder where she’d touched him.

                “What do you want, Granger?” His voice came out low and sultry, almost seductive. It surprised him. He’d been trying to make his voice gruff and acerbic like it usually was. He’d known that it was lacking the bite that tended to accompany their interactions, but the smooth mellow tones that seemed to lick at the air with pinks and purples were completely unexpected.

                She must have thought so, too, because her eyes were suddenly confused and wary. “I saw you on the train,” she began. She opened her mouth as if to continue, and his gaze was drawn down to her lips. They were a rosy pink and looked very soft. The purples around him deepened as he wondered, briefly, what her anger and frustration tasted like. Sweet, tangy, challenging, perhaps. The thought was familiar, almost as if he’d wondered it many times before, and he had to force himself to look up from her mouth to listen to what else she was saying.

                “You have a problem with me, Malfoy? Then bring it out. We’ve spent long enough dancing around each other, and I’m tired of waiting to see what you’re going to do next to undermine me. You have something to say, then just say it.” Her chin jutted out just a tiny bit, stubborn, as she waited for him to explain his unusual behavior.

                He wondered what her reaction would be if he said he had a suddenly overwhelming desire to nibble on that stubborn chin. His Veela crowed in approval, and he quickly clamped down on that line of thinking. It was only the first day back, and already he was losing control of his thoughts around her!

                He thought back to what she’d just said, trying to pick through his options for the best answer. Normally he’d come up with something witty, and perhaps just a bit cutting. Instead, he schooled his features to remain steady and he answered, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Granger.”

                She scoffed, “I know you’re up to something.”

                He shrugged, with a little effort. “If you’re looking for trouble from me, Granger, you’re wasting your time.”

                She laughed incredulously at that. “I have an entire folder marked Trouble, and I file it under ‘M’, for ‘Malfoy’!” He tried not to be pleased he’d made her laugh, knowing that it was at his own expense, but he could see how she’d have difficulty believing him, not knowing as he did that it was going to be near impossible for him to cause her any trouble now. At least not in the way she was thinking.

                He’d be more than happy to cause her all kinds of trouble, if she’d let him. His Veela chirped in amused agreement, and he forcefully shut down those thoughts again as she was still looking up at him suspiciously.

                So he just shrugged again. “Granger, I’m just heading back to my dorm, nothing nefarious about it.” When she looked at him in a disbelieving silence, he couldn’t resist adding, “Unless, of course, you’re planning on accompanying me. Then I suppose I could work something up.”

                Looking back, he supposed he was fortunate to have gotten away without being hexed or screamed at. He just chalked it up to her being surprised and disconcerted. He hadn’t really meant the words to sound as they did, but his Veela apparently managed to turn everything he was saying into innuendo, a trait that was sure to get him into even further trouble with the Head Girl if he didn’t manage to suppress it properly.

                The days that followed had a surprising similarity to them. He tried to lay low and ignore her presence, but often found himself staring or catching her eye unerringly as he pinpointed exactly when she’d enter a room. Clearly flustered, she would scowl at him, occasionally confront him, and was heard to have said out loud to others that Draco Malfoy was ‘being a right pain in the arse.’

                He learned to distinguish a little bit her irritation from her anger. There was a slight difference to the rhythm. When she was annoyed or exasperated, her heart beat a funny little fluctuating staccato. When she was angry, it was a loud, marching, thumping. He was irrationally pleased when he discovered that most of the time she was upset with him, it wasn’t the harsh, blood-boiling drumming, it was the off-kilter skipping.

                The day Ron Weasley almost fell off his broom during a Quidditch game, he learned what her fear felt like. It was a loud thrumming, like the frenzied flapping wings of a trapped bird. His Veela had been upset, squawking in his mind and frantic. His mate was afraid! She was in danger!

                High above the Quidditch pitch in the stands, watching the Gryffindors trouncing the Hufflepuffs, Draco had carefully swallowed the sudden acrid taste of fear and anxiety. If anyone noticed his sudden white-knuckled grip on his robes they never said anything. From where he was sitting he could easily see her, that she was safe, and so it took all his self-control, ropes and ropes of the blues and greens, to restrain himself from leaping to her side. And when his Veela finally settled, he took deep breaths to ward off the cloudy greys with angry red streaks that were like lightning in a storm, trying to ignore the fact that his mate was distressed over another man.

                One night, he was lying in bed trying to will himself to fall asleep when her heart tapped out a completely new rhythm. It was still a bit earlier than his normal bedtime, but he was tired and exhausted from all of his pretending during the day. Pretending he wasn’t watching Hermione Granger. Pretending he was still the same person that he’d been before. Pretending that seeing her with the Weasel every day wasn’t tearing a hole into him.

                But he couldn’t sleep until she had gone to bed. It was her turn to patrol, and she was out doing rounds with Susan Bones. Her heart normally beat the patterns of a brisk walk, punctuated with the occasional irritation.

                But this night his eyes shot open as her heart began pounding hard and fast. It was going so fast he didn’t see how any oxygen could be getting to her brain. His Veela was not unduly distressed, but it was alert and demanding some kind of action, and he was on his feet before he realized it.

                He had enough presence of mind to put a shirt on along with his trousers, and then he was standing outside of the dungeons wondering if he was acting crazy. But her heartbeat hadn’t slowed. It was irregular and all over the place, loud and hammering in his mind.

                He had no idea what he was doing. He knew where she was, up a level, and several corridors to the west. But what was he supposed to do, just come running up to her and asking why her heart was beating so fast? He couldn’t do that, it was ridiculous. He ought to just turn around and march back down to his lonely little dungeon.

                But what if she was in trouble? What if there was something wrong? Even if he had no right to come rushing to her side, he didn’t see how he could possibly stand there so far away while she was in danger.

                His feet were moving before he realized he’d finished convincing himself. He just barely managed to slow down before he approached the dark corner that he knew she was behind.

                The shock of what he saw reverberated all the way down into his toes. His mate was up against a wall, her wand arm limp at her side while a large body held her immobile. His Veela screamed angry and murderous scarlets and crimsons that only he could hear.

                The wand was in his hand, and a hex was on his lips before the small part of him not being completely overrun by the Veela registered the bright ginger hair of the other person. Realizing it was Weasley engaging Granger in a rather passionate snog did nothing to appease his Veela, who only screamed more agitatedly in anger and rage. The need to feel Weasel’s blood running down his fingertips was overwhelming, but he was becoming a master of self-control and it was clear that she was in no danger from her boyfriend. And, as he’d suspected, he had no right to come rushing to her side.

                He lowered his wand, and tried to leave before they saw him, overruling the Veela’s driving desire to take his mate and fly away. But perhaps she’d sensed something, because there was a squeak as the couple suddenly disengaged.  As he moved to turn the corner and flee back to his dungeon, her eyes flashed to his for an instant.

                Later, as he lay in bed, a pillow over his face as if it could block out what he’d seen, he tried to ignore the feeling of her eyes on him, and the way he’d felt her heart jump when she’d seen him, probably scared and embarrassed to have been caught snogging her boyfriend while she was supposed to be on patrol. But he still couldn’t sleep until she’d returned safely back to her dorm and her heart settled into its nightly rhythms. It was only a small consolation that he didn’t feel that rapid, capricious pulsing again.

                The next time it happened, he’d had a little more practice at sussing out her moods. He was beginning to think he could discern a little about how she felt beyond just that beating of her heart with which he was now intimately familiar.

                One day in Potions he’d noticed how she’d forgotten to add one of her ingredients. Carefully chopped up and set aside, it was half-hidden by her cauldron. She’d find it as she was cleaning up, but by the time she did, she’d be too late to add it in before the potion bubbled. As he’d felt the clock ticking down, he finally said, without looking at her, “If you’re not going to use all those bloodroot leaves, Granger, you might as well give ‘em here. It’ll only make mine stronger.”

                Her embarrassment had been amber and olive green as her eyes opened wide and she realized her mistake. Quickly fixing it, her heart set a rapid clipping pace as she waited to see if she was too late. When it was clear the crisis had passed, her confusion had been a bright cornflower blue mottled with peachy pinks, as she observed him out of the corner of her eyes. He pretended not to notice.

                The afternoon he’d seen the 2nd year with the big bag again, he hadn’t realized Hermione was watching till he sensed her amusement drifting by on clouds of lavender and magenta. The girl had tripped and Draco had once again helped her with her books. When she’d looked up at him, her swotty self and long curly hair so like his own mate, he’d taken pity on her and cast a stabilizing charm on her bag so it wouldn’t overbalance her again. And that’s when he’d felt the eyes on him, and saw the streaks of color on the air, and felt the light tripping of her heart and her breathing that told him she was laughing even though he couldn’t hear her.

                And when the prefects got the news that the Head Girl’s pet project—a Career Day hosted for the 5th years and above—had been moved up an entire month, he’d felt her anxiety as snowy greys and strong sea greens. The announcement straight from Dumbledore had caused her heart to stutter and her breathing to grow shallow; he could feel each dragging breath in his lungs. But when he’d looked at her in alarm, she’d just responded with assurance to the headmaster that of course they would be ready.

                During the last-minute evening organizational sessions, he could always tell when she was feeling overwhelmed by the complicated decorations or the changing layout of the Great Hall to accommodate each representative’s unique magical requirements. So he would find a way to insert himself into the conversation, tell Hermione he’d take care of it, review the situation, and then cut out the unnecessary time-consuming preparations in favor of what was really needed. The first couple of times she objected to his heavy-handed maneuvering, but as the project quickly took shape, she began to look over at him when it was clear she had a task that required better supervision. He learned her relief and her gratitude were pale pastels of buttercream and honeydew.

                When the Career Day went off without a hitch, and the excited students walked off chattering about how great the event was, her pride and excitement were sparks of fuchsia, plum, and cherry red.

                So yes, he was beginning to know what all of her moods felt like—the colors, the rhythm of her heart, the pattern of her breathing.

                When all of those things suddenly changed forcefully late one night, he jolted up out of his bed where he’d been lightly dozing waiting for her to return from her patrol so he could settle into sleep. Her heart was a slamming drum, her breathing was ragged with gasps like there were breaks where she wasn’t breathing. He thought she might be screaming, but an unpleasant memory in the back of his mind suggested maybe she wasn’t breathing because her mouth was occupied with Ron Weasley’s again.

                The dungeons were too far away from where she was in her rounds for him to see the tell-tale colors, and he hesitated, deliberating with himself on whether he should run out after her again, after what had happened last time.

                But his Veela was becoming more and more distressed; he could almost feel his mouth hard and sharp like a snapping beak and phantom wings at his back. The agitation was just too much for him and he was up and out of the room before he’d had time for anymore doubts.

                As he ran down the corridors in his bare feet, the feeling of dread only increased the closer he got to where his Veela senses pointed him. He put on a burst of speed, his hand tightening on his wand, and as he neared he felt the floor shake with an ominous thump. At the same time, he heard the sounds of smashing and objects crashing to the ground. A sharp bolt of fear like scarlet and black lightning lanced through him.

                Bursting around the corner he was horrified to see what looked like a giant, small for its kind, but still fearsome in his hugeness, looming over the wreckage in the corridor. And in a corner, behind a fallen portrait frame empty of its subjects, his mate stood looking fragile in her smallishness compared to the giant that stood angrily in front of her blocking her way out. On her face was panic and a sense of determination and his head was swirling with the greys of her own fear and concern. Her empty hands were thrust out in front of her like she intended to hold him off with just her willpower, as it was clear her wandless magic was not sufficient.

                Draco charged at the giant with a yell and the fury of a Veela defending his mate. He shot off a succession of slicing hexes that caught the creature in the arm as he turned to face the new enemy. Never before had Draco used spells like that outside of the occasional dueling club bout and he’d certainly never delivered them with that much strength behind them. But his mate was in danger, and his magic was responding with full force.

                A scream of pain rang in the air from the now bleeding giant, and above the sounds he heard Hermione’s voice.

                “Malfoy, don’t! He’s just a child!”

                “Hermione!” Draco shouted, the concern for his mate squeezing his heart, while his confused Veela was trying to respond to his mate’s request to stand down. “Are you okay? Where’s your wand?”

                Another wail from the giant, which indeed looked like it might be small enough to be a young one, drowned out whatever her answer was. Thrashing in pain, the creature began pounding at the walls, causing debris to come raining down on them, and preventing Draco from reaching Hermione.

                He wanted to use a Petrificus Totalus but was afraid that the large body would fall forward onto Hermione, and the risk was too great that she’d be injured before she could get away.

                “Try a body bind!” she called out to him, and Draco quickly cast the spell, the ropes shooting out of the end of his wand. Too late he realized that the body bind wrapped around the giant’s legs would also cause him to fall, and after teetering for a moment, he came crashing down with a cry.

                Hermione managed to scramble out of the way, but as the floor shook with the heavy crash, she tumbled over the debris on the ground, striking her head hard on a brick.

                “Hermione!” Draco climbed over the body of the giant with an expression of horror on his face. Once he reached her, he gently touched her face, noting the blood behind the back of her head. “Hermione?” His Veela was squawking and crying in distress. He’d failed to protect his mate! The guilt and the shame were suffocating. The fear for her was a pool of ebony black that wanted to drown him.

                Her eyes were unfocused as she looked up at a point over his shoulders and said, with slurred speech, “Are those…wings, Malfoy?”

                Almost immediately, her eyes rolled closed, and Draco felt his heart stop.

                But hers kept beating, weak and wavering, and he knew she was still alive. Gathering her in his arms, he began running to Pomfrey’s office. It was the first time he’d touched her more than a casual brushing of hands, and the feeling of completeness at having her near was something he had no time to enjoy. She was so light in his arms and he was running so fast down the corridors, he almost thought he could lift off the ground. But he was too afraid of her reference to wings to look behind him and he couldn’t afford to waste a moment doing anything other than getting her safely to the medical ward.

                His yells quickly brought the mediwitch out, her uniform still prim and proper like she was always on duty.

                “Mr Malfoy!” she exclaimed, shocked. She stared at him for a moment, and then looked down to the burden he carried in his arms. On recognizing the Head Girl, she quickly moved into action, indicating a bed for him to lay her upon. “What happened?”

                “A giant,” he panted, trying to get his heartbeat to slow down so that he could breathe and speak. He pointed over his shoulder at the general direction he’d left the young giant bound in magical ropes. “She hit—her head,” he gasped out.

                Madam Pomfrey’s wand was already at work, diagnosing and then sealing the head wound so that the bleeding stopped. “A giant in the castle? I must notify the Headmaster at once!” With a flick of her wand, she’d arranged to send a message to Dumbledore. “Where did you say it was?” she asked, and when Draco told her, the message quickly flew off.

                Anxiously, Draco hovered over Hermione’s bed, consoling his Veela that she was no longer in danger and that he had gotten her to the safest place to be treated. But the Veela inside of him was still in a high state of distress, the keening sounds echoing in his head. He found that he’d grabbed one of her hands and was holding onto it tightly, the feel of her skin against his giving him a measure of comfort.

                How long he stood there staring at her he didn’t know, but suddenly he heard a gentle coughing sound behind him, and turned to see Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape standing behind him.

                “Merlin,” he heard the bespectacled witch say under her breath.

                “Mr Malfoy,” Dumbledore began, approaching him slowly as if he were a wild creature. “Are you quite all right, Draco?”

                “I—yes, I’m fine,” Draco asserted. But he turned his attention back to his mate in the bed and said, “It’s Hermione, she was injured.” The words stuck in his throat and he had to force them out.

                “Yes, we heard.” Dumbledore nodded, his tone comforting. “Young Grawp caused quite the mess, but he has been returned safely to his family and will not be causing trouble here at Hogwarts again.” He must have been referring to the giant. “Miss Granger appears to be safe now, though.”

                It was Draco’s turn to nod, his hand still clenched tightly around Hermione’s.

                “Poppy says that Miss Granger will be perfectly fine, and will likely wake soon,” McGonagall offered, and Draco took a deep, relieved breath at the words. He hadn’t noticed when the mediwitch had left the bedside.

                “Draco.” Dumbledore’s voice was now soft and coaxing. “Draco, don’t you think it’s time to put the wings away?”

                “What?” He turned to them, shocked, vaguely remembering Hermione’s words before she had fallen unconscious.

                McGonagall quickly transfigured a large mirror for him, and held it suspended where he could see. He almost didn’t recognize himself as the image before him. His pale hair and his fair skin seemed to be glowing with an ethereal light. He was relieved to see he didn’t have a beak. But over his shoulders, protruding from his back were what looked like wings of fire. The lines of bright orange and red energy were gossamer thin, but they overlapped to sketch out the outline of two large wings, rippling in the air behind him as if disturbed by a breeze.

                He quickly turned to look behind him, mesmerized by the twisting of the flames that looked almost like feathers. He couldn’t feel them at all, didn’t think he could control them. He reached up a hand to see if there was any heat, and his fingers simply passed through the lines as if the wings were just illusions.

                “Draco,” Snape drawled, bringing his attention back. “I assume your mother has revealed some family secrets to you recently.”

                Draco looked at the man who was his godfather and who had probably been aware of the Malfoys’ hidden traits. It was also entirely possible Narcissa had contacted him to ask him to watch out for Draco in this year when he would be coming into his Veela heritage. “She didn’t say anything about wings.” He looked back up at the mirror and the red wings that were spread out behind him. “Am I—Is this…normal? For a male Veela?”

                “Merlin, a male Veela,” was the soft exclamation from Professor McGonagall.

                Snape just pursed his mouth and after a pause said distinctly, “No.” After a moment, he added, “But male Veela are extremely rare, and one of diluted Veela blood that can manifest physical Veela traits is also extremely rare. So there may be little record of others.”

                Confused and a little scared, Draco turned back to his mate, still lying still in the bed. “I think she saw them. Before—before she—” He couldn’t bring himself to say it so he rephrased it, “After she was hit in the head. I think she saw them. Do you suppose she would know what that meant?”

                The three adults all looked at the sleeping figure. “Well, she is very smart,” McGonagall conceded. “She may well figure it out on her own. Perhaps you should tell her yourself.”

                The big flame wings suddenly whipped behind him as he felt the frisson of anxiety run down his spine. “No! I can’t tell her! I can’t take her choice away!”

                Snape and McGonagall exchanged a knowing glance.

                But Dumbledore just kept looking at him, his expression kind and a slight smile on his face. “No, Mr Malfoy, of course not,” he said, kindly. “All in its own time. You can trust us to remain discreet while you finish your courtship of Miss Granger.”

                Draco was relieved to hear that, although he felt dismay at the knowledge that he still hadn’t begun his courtship yet, and the year was already two-thirds finished.

                “But Draco,” Dumbledore cautioned, “if you don’t want her to learn of your true nature, perhaps you should put the wings away now.”

                “I don’t know how,” he admitted. “I don’t know how they came out in the first place.”

                It was Snape who provided the answer. “Veela respond to intense emotional circumstances. You were no doubt worried over your mate’s safety, and the Veela protective instinct manifested. But she is clearly safe now. Perhaps if you concentrate on those feelings of safety and security you can control the Veela’s distress.”

                Draco remembered the lessons with his mother on controlling his Veela emotions, and he knew Snape was speaking correctly.

                He still held Hermione’s hand in his, something he hadn’t had when he’d practiced before. He closed his eyes to concentrate on the feel of her warm skin. The flow of her blood beat gently against his palm, and he drew out the sound of her heartbeat from the corner of his mind to magnify it. It was strong and steady, and the sound of it drew his own heartbeat into a matching rhythm. He called to mind the exact hues of golds and pinks that made him think of her as vibrant and strong and happy, and he could tell he was growing calmer. He reminded himself and his Veela that she was safe and that he’d saved her.

                After several long moments, he opened his eyes again to see her still sleeping peacefully. A glance at the mirror told him not only were the fire wings gone, but the unearthly white glow had also faded.

                 “Very good, Mr Malfoy,” Dumbledore praised him. “And just in time. If I’m not mistaken, Miss Granger’s friends are due here any moment.”

                As if his words conjured them, Draco could hear the raised voices of Potter and Weasley outside the door, and he reluctantly let go of Hermione’s hand. He’d just stepped away when the two Gryffindors came tumbling in, frantic for the safety of their friend.

                The redheaded one went straight to her bedside, taking the hand Draco had just released, apologies spilling out of his mouth. It was all Draco could do to restrain the sudden hissing fury of his Veela at seeing another man touch his mate when she was wounded. The sharp look Snape gave him made it clear that he needed to leave before he did anything to jeopardize his secret.

                “Mr Weasley,” Professor McGonagall was saying, “It’s really best if you give her some space. She’s had quite the ordeal. Perhaps when she wakes up you can see her then.”

                “It’s all my fault,” Weasley moaned, “We’d had a fight and she left to patrol without me. I wasn’t going to make her go alone, but I was mad, and I was late…”

                The Gryffindor’s voice trailed off into words that Draco couldn’t hear over the violent squawking sounds in his head. His vision was obscured by a haze of red that was as dark as dried blood. This interloper had put his mate in danger! Before he realized it, Snape had forcibly grabbed him by the arm, and manhandled him to just outside the door. The force in the Potions professor’s fingers as they clamped hard onto his forearm were belied by the calm, low voice with which he warned, “Control, Draco. Your temper will spark a certain fire if you are not careful.”

                With visible effort, Draco drew his eyes away from the room where his mate lay. He shook with the need to return to her side, but he knew his presence would be unwelcome and difficult to explain to her friends, or even to her if she should wake while he was there.

                “Come, I will walk you back to the dungeons,” Snape ordered. “It seems we have much to discuss.” The vice-like grip on his arm didn’t loosen until they were well on their way.

                Draco did his best to follow Snape’s advice to leave both Hermione and her friends alone. It was actually quite easy to do, considering how just seeing the Weasel’s gingery hair passing through the crowd was enough to get his Veela puffed up with anger. Occasionally it was only the Weaselette, but it still took him a few minutes to soothe his own figurative ruffled feathers.

                In their classes together, they had no reason to be near each other for their current projects, and after the Career Day event, the assignments for the prefects were entirely routine. So he had a little bit of time to try to forget what her body looked like bleeding on the debris-strewn floor.

                But then he felt it again, that hard, angry pounding in his chest that told him she was upset.

                This was different from the last time. It wasn’t fear like the night he’d rescued her from the giant. It wasn’t excitement or anticipation. She was pulsing with sickly greens and thick, sticky maroons. Almost like blood, he thought.

                He tried to ignore it, knowing that she wasn’t in danger, but it was useless. His Veela was demanding he go investigate.

                Still, he had enough control to get completely dressed first. He put his shoes back on, and arranged his robes properly, and he even gave his hair a quick smoothing down so it didn’t look like he’d already been in bed. In the event he got caught by a teacher, or had to explain himself before he could beat a retreat, he intended to make it sound like he was just out for a walk. It was late, almost curfew, but as a prefect and a Slytherin and a Malfoy, he was counting on the fact that no one would think it unusual for him to try to push the boundaries of the restrictions.

                Of course, if it was Snape, McGonagall, or Dumbledore, they would know right away what was going on. He supposed it was serendipitous that his big secret was known by the headmaster and the heads of both Gryffindor and Slytherin House.

                He walked briskly to where his Veela sense told him that she was, intending to slow down before reaching her so that he could assess the situation. There turned out to be no need, because he could hear the angry, hissing voices from two corridors away. He couldn’t make out the words, but he knew without a doubt that one was his mate, and the other was her aggravating boyfriend.

                He contemplated simply leaving, knowing he had plenty of time to avoid them, as they had no clue he was still around the corner. But Hermione had to be pretty worked up to be this loud in a public area. He could still feel the angry thrumming of her heart, and he could hear the strident tones of her voice as they echoed off the corridor walls. Plus, there was the mix of colors streaking across his vision. The Veela within compelled him to move forward and determine what the situation was.

                Weasley was ugly in his anger. His red face clashed with his hair and his freckles. Draco had time to make this impassioned observation as he leaned against a column, curious whether the arguing couple would register his presence. Hermione was so caught up in her righteous indignation, that it was the normally unobservant redhead who said, “Oi! Malfoy! Get out of here. This is a private conversation.”

                Hermione’s face turned to look at him, and when she saw him, he felt her heart make that funny little jump that happened whenever she saw him lately. He hadn’t been able to figure it out. Tonight it seemed to be accompanied by a sense of embarrassment. And possibly a measure of relief. She clammed up and stopped talking, as they both watched Draco casually brush an imaginary speck of lint off of the shoulder of his robes.

                “Trouble in Paradise?” he drawled, ignoring the Weasel’s original demand.

                “None of your business, Malfoy!” was the irate reply. Ron made a shooing motion at him, and Draco took a perverse amount of pleasure in not budging.

                “Oh, don’t mind me at all!” he protested. “But if it’s not everyone’s business, then I might suggest not shouting it out for everyone to hear. Even though I know loud and uncouth is your family’s preferred method of communication.”

                Weasley growled and took a step towards him, and Draco stood up straight to face him. He welcomed the prospect of a fight, of being able to release this tension he felt in his shoulders whenever he thought about how Weasley had been the one to upset his mate enough for her to go out patrolling on her own and run headfirst into danger.

                But Hermone’s voice stopped him from giving the other Gryffindor the pummeling he deserved.

                “Malfoy,” she said, in a quiet voice that he normally wouldn’t have heard while his blood was about to boil in his veins. But the sound of her voice and the tiredness in it cut straight through all of his anger. “Malfoy, I’d appreciate it if you gave us some privacy. And Ron and I will take this discussion somewhere else, so we don’t disturb anyone else.”

                “There’s nothing left to discuss, Hermione!” Ron shot back, redirecting his ire to its original target.

                “Ron,” she protested. But she didn’t say anything else, looking pointedly at Draco until he finally turned around to leave.

                The two men glared at each other, but Draco walked away and made it a point not to look back at the couple in the middle of their argument. Part of him was upset that he couldn’t do anything to alleviate her distress. The other part of him was upset that he couldn’t have just stayed in his dorm and followed Snape’s advice to not get involved.

                His resolution to stop running after her every time he felt the slightest bit of anguish was tested and broken the very next day. The feel of her breathing had turned ragged and shallow and he was certain that she was crying and taking little sobbing breaths. He knew he shouldn’t do it, even as he felt himself changing direction to hone in on her location.

                She was in the library, not usually the place for emotional outbursts. But it was a place that Hermione felt safe, he knew, and so he was unsurprised she would be there instead of the Gryffindor common room if she was feeling the need for a good cry.

                He found her in the back of the library in a quiet little corner. Though she faced away from him and was nearly silent, he could tell by the set of her shoulders and by the hitch of her breathing that she was still crying. From where he stood he could see her parchment was dotted with tears, causing some of the ink to run. He just stood there, telling himself he had no business being there, but being unable to turn away.

                When she spoke, it surprised him. “What do you want, Malfoy?”

                He worried for a moment that she could sense him the way he sensed her, but then he saw her reflection staring at him from the window that framed her table. The cloudy day outside made it easy for her to see the lights of the library reflected and identify anyone who might sneak up on her. Perhaps that’s why she chose that spot.

                He took too long to answer, so she told him, with the stiff politeness she often adopted around him, “I don’t really want company right now.” Her voice was thick with tears, and she said it as if it wasn’t highly unusual for him to keep her company in the first place.

                He couldn’t make his feet move, even though he knew she expected him to go, because he still felt her crying, and he could see her making the visible effort to stop. He was drawn by her sadness, and he had a need to comfort.

                It pained him to say it, but he offered, “I’m sure Weasley will come around, Granger. I’ve seen far worse fights than that.” Her back stayed straight and she didn’t respond, didn’t turn to look at him. He continued, “I honestly expected more objects flying through the air for a fight between two Gryffindors, actually.”

                She cut him off from saying more and said, curtly, “Actually, Malfoy, we broke up. And I don’t want to talk about it.”

                He snorted derisively, and shook his head, thinking out loud, “Weasley is such a fool.”

                Her exasperated sigh was followed by her turning in her chair to look at him. Though her eyes were pathetically red-rimmed, her expression was still fiery. “Not that it’s any of your business, Malfoy, but I broke up with him.”

                He grinned at her, suddenly feeling light-headed from the knowledge that she was finally unshackled from the Weasel. He covered up that little ripple of happiness with a joke. “Well, they all say you’re the brightest witch of the age.” It was somehow both a compliment and an insult—that she had gotten him out of the picture but took so long to do it.

                The smile she gave at the double-edged acknowledgement, so typical of Malfoy humor, was a very small one, but he saw it. She turned back to her paper. “I told you I didn’t want to talk about it, Malfoy.”

                Well, that was fine. It wasn’t like he wanted to talk about Weasley, anyway.

                He sauntered over to her table, and took a chair near her, causing her to look up in confusion. He could see the protest forming on her lips, so he quickly changed the subject.

                “How’s the head?” he asked, knowing she wouldn’t be able to avoid answering.

                She looked at him, exasperated at his obvious efforts to continue conversation when she didn’t want to talk. Then she sniffled and turned back to her paper. He prided himself on the fact that she didn’t ask him to leave again. Instead, she answered, “It’s fine. Except now it tingles whenever there’s a giant nearby.”

                He looked at her in surprise. That was something he’d never heard about before. “Really?”

                She just rolled her eyes and he could see the smile forming on her face. “No, Malfoy. I do not have a spidey-sense for giants.” He had no idea what she was talking about, but he was pleased that he seemed to have distracted her from the thoughts that had been making her cry. “My head is fine. Pomfrey healed it, and I took a couple of potions for the first few days just in case, but she said there was no lasting damage.”

                There was a pause, and she tapped her quill lightly on the parchment in front of her, a habit she had when she was thinking. It was clear she had something to say but was unsure about whether she should continue. He waited, curious, and finally she looked up at him. “I heard you took me to the medical ward after the problem with Grawp. And that you stayed with me until my friends arrived.”

                He didn’t say anything, the curious tension that was in the air made him inexplicably nervous. When she just kept looking at him, he brought up the least important part of her statements.

                “Is Grawp the name of that oaf who was intent on bringing down the castle that night?”

                Taken aback, she answered, “Yes, Grawp is Hagrid’s brother. I had no idea he had a brother, and he wasn’t supposed to bring him to the castle. But Grawp got out and went exploring. I think I scared him when I jumped out with my wand.”

                That was a picture. “You scared him?”

                She giggled a little, thinking about the absurdity of the statement. “He’s really quite nice once you get to know him, if a little…high-spirited.”

                “I’ll pass, thanks.” Draco dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand.

                “I never got to say thank you.”

                He felt a little awkward. “I didn’t bring it up for your thanks, Granger.”

                “No, I know.” Her face was earnest. “But I should have thanked you earlier. For finding me and for helping me with Grawp.”

                His dramatic rescue suddenly seemed much less impressive after hearing it was just Hagrid’s brother.

                “They found my wand under his foot,” she added, conversationally. “That explains why it didn’t come when I called it. He must have stepped on it after it was knocked out of my hand.”

                He remembered her standing there with her hands out, trying to hold back a giant with just her bare magic and her body, and the memory still made him feel cold. Even knowing she likely wasn’t in any real danger from Hagrid’s brother.

                He didn’t like the way the image made him feel, so he tried to make light of it. “Keep your wand on you, Granger. I won’t always be around to rescue you.” He almost managed the tone of voice that he used to tease her with, before he learned she was the other half of his soul and it began to color all of his words. He hoped she didn’t hear the lie, because he was going to be doing everything possible to make sure he was always around when she needed rescuing.

                He sighed to himself. She was a Gryffindor. She was probably going to need a lot more rescuing than a normal person.

                Oblivious to his thoughts, she reacted predictably to his words, just like she used to, with a derisive snort. “It was a one-time thing, Malfoy. I’m sure no one expects you to play hero again.”

                He exaggerated a shudder. “Merlin, forbid!” He knew when she laughed that she took it as the joke he was trying for, but he was serious that he didn’t want to have to ever rescue her like that again.

                As the laughter faded from her face, she looked hesitant again. “Malfoy,” she began. “About that night.”

                Draco thought he knew what she was going to say, and he’d been working on an answer for it.

                “You—your—I thought I saw—” She paused, and he kept his face from revealing anything. “It looked like you had wings, Malfoy.”

                He let a slow grin play across his face. “You thought I looked like an angel, Granger? A heavenly rescuer?”

                The blush that played across her cheeks pleased him. He could tell she was embarrassed, unsure about what she’d seen. The blow to the head was a good excuse for why she might have seen things that weren’t there. Especially things that might have looked like wings made of fire. Snape had assured him that the other professors and Madam Pomfrey would say nothing to reveal his secret.

                “No, Malfoy, I just thought I saw—” The grin on his face made her stop. “Oh, never mind!”

                Her exasperation with him caused her to raise her hand to move some of her disheveled hair off of her face. When she did so, the light from the library reflected off of something light and shiny.

                Draco felt all the blood drain from his face. He reached over with his hand to catch the locks of hair before they fell back down. The movement startled her, but she didn’t protest as he softly pushed the hair to reveal what was underneath.

                “Why do you have this?” he asked, hearing the slightest quiver in his voice, and hoping she wouldn’t notice.

                “Oh, that.” She shrugged. “It’s a souvenir of the accident. Pomfrey said it wasn’t unusual in stressful situations, especially blows to the head, for hair to magically whiten.” He didn’t even remark on the fact that she considered a heated engagement with a giant lost in the castle to be an ‘accident.’

                She twitched her head away from his hand so that the hair fell down, covering it back up, and Draco nodded at her as if Pomfrey had given her a reasonable explanation.

                Hair did occasionally whiten for many reasons. Except the streak he’d seen laying across her temple was not white. It wasn’t the snowy white or even the silvery grey that comes with age and experience. It was the pale moonlight blonde that characterized the Malfoy family.

                Just like how his mother had streaks of that same blonde throughout her black hair. He’d assumed that it was only the Veela that changed to match his mate. But the magic of the Malfoy’s characteristics must be strong to work on his mate in this way.

                He didn’t know if he liked that, seeing her change, knowing she had no idea that it was because of him. Just the thought that she could be subjected to more change against her will caused a crushing, smothering feeling inside of him. He knew now why it was imperative that a Veela not reveal who his mate was until she had chosen him. It was because the idea that she was being propelled by fate against her will was painful.

                Thinking that the Veela charm or the Veela mate bond that was even now spinning stronger between them would eventually force her into his arms made him want to howl with guilt and shame. He didn’t want a mate who was forced or compelled, who couldn’t resist the pull of the Veela. He wanted a mate who would love him for who he was, both man and Veela.

                The feeling of fate crashing down on them both took him by surprise. Her magic was changing to match his, but he didn’t know what to do next. He didn’t know what he could do to win her heart before she found out the truth and despised him for it. And he didn’t like the sudden feeling that everything was out of his control.

                “Draco, are you all right?” he heard her say, the concern evident in her voice.

                But he just made an excuse and made his exit, anxious to leave before he revealed too much.

                He avoided her for the next several days. He did his best to avoid looking like he was avoiding her, but she must have suspected there was something wrong. He would catch her watching him from across the classroom. Even when he refused to look her direction, he could feel her eyes resting on him, a considering look on her face.

                Whenever he passed her in the corridors, he felt a jolt in his heart upon seeing the tell-tale streak in her hair. It marked her as his, even if he was the only one who knew. He preferred when she wore her hair down so that it was hidden among the dark, russet curls that he loved. He didn’t know why that blonde streak upset him so. He knew her friends thought it was amusing, as he heard them gently teasing her about it.

                “They let you into the Old Witches Society early on account of how smart you are?”

                “No, it’s on account of how much she nags!”

                “Well, I wouldn’t have to nag you so much, Harry, if you’d just do your homework properly like you’re supposed to.”

                “Yes, Granny.”

                “Oh! You prat! I’m going to let Ginny be the one to keep you in line from now on.”

                “Don’t put that on me, I barely keep up with my own work!”

                “If you must know, it’s so that Grawp thinks I’m older than he is, and he respects me.”

                “Haha, that’s great! We should go see Grawp!”

                “Yes, let’s!”

                No one talked about how Granger and Weasley had broken up. The two were awkward around each other, but as they shared the same friends he often caught them with the same strained look on their faces, pretending to be normal to everyone else. To the Weasel’s credit, there was no word of any more fights or blowups. Perhaps Weasley accepted his fate more easily than Draco seemed to be doing with his.

                When he saw his own name on the prefects list to patrol with Granger, he quietly asked for Zabini to cover for him, citing a previous meeting with Snape as his advisor. He knew Zabini wouldn’t doubt him, and his godfather would uphold the story if asked. But he didn’t think he could spend the whole evening with the Head Girl and her prying eyes and her insatiable curiosity.

                So when late one night he felt her heart rate jolt and then start pounding rapidly, he once again considered not leaving the comfortable isolation of his dormitory to track her down.

                But there was something confusing about the situation. Her heart rate stayed elevated with sudden hard slams, but her breathing seemed unpredictable and her emotions were all over the place. He felt streaks of what felt like fear and concern, followed by what might have been amusement or nervousness. He took several moments trying to make sense of what could possibly be happening to Granger late at night when she wasn’t even supposed to be patrolling.

                A quick close of his eyes and a search for the thread of light that linked him to her, and he located her in the castle in the same place where they’d had their misbegotten fight against Hagrid’s runty brother.

                The location startled him enough to get up in anticipation of leaving. But then he felt a true jolt of terror streak through her emotions and he thought she might have been screaming.

                He made it out of the dungeons and down the corridors in no time, uncertain of what he would find, still confused by the mixed signals he seemed to be getting. A strange yellow of anticipation seemed to be the foremost emotion on the heels of the fear.

                The sounds of glass breaking reached him before he rounded the corner and found himself face to face with an ugly man-sized Acromantula. Though they came in many sizes, this one was about head-high, and close enough for him to see his reflection in the clustered orbs that were eerily black. He responded automatically with an Arania Exumai and was surprised to see it explode in a burst of blue sparks.

                Granger was standing against the wall, her wand thankfully in her hand, and aimed at where the Acromantula had been. He was beside her in a flash, checking her for injury.

                “What happened? What was that?” His hands came up to cradle her face, examining it carefully for injury. He checked all over for signs of blood. Her eyes watching him were big and confused, but otherwise she was fine.

                A sound behind him of something falling to the ground caused him to whip around, wand out, body placed protectively in front of Hermione. Pieces of what looked like bent wood and metal rattled onto the ground as if dropped. With his wand held carefully in front of him, he approached slowly and saw that it was a toy spider that had been broken apart into several pieces.

                He eyed them, confused, and then turned to look at Hermione.

                She wasn’t looking down at the toy pieces at all, she was staring at him.

                “You came.” She seemed surprised.

                He resisted the urge to check if his wings had popped out again. If there were fiery red wings sticking out of his back, she’d surely have more than that bemused look on her face.

                Another glance around the corridor confirmed that there was no further danger. His heightened Veela senses didn’t feel anything else moving so he put his wand arm down. He schooled his features to a typical Slytherin stillness and turned back to her with a feigned expression that was at odds with his earlier frantic behavior. “I heard sounds and came rushing to see what was happening.” He added, trying to distract her, “Getting yourself into some kind of trouble again? One magic fight in this corner of the castle wasn’t enough?”

                But she ignored his irrelevant questions, and said, astonished, “You walked right through the concealment charms and the Notice-Me-Nots like you knew exactly where you were going.”

                He hadn’t realized there were any charms up.  “What’s going on, Granger?”

                She was studying his face, her brow scrunched up like he was a puzzle she was trying to figure out. “I wondered if you would come. I thought…maybe…if I recreated that night…”       

                “What?” It dawned on him suddenly that she must have faked it. That was why he kept get conflicting emotions. She wasn’t truly scared or in danger, just remembering what she’d felt when she’d faced Grawp. And she’d channeled magic into a construct shaped like an Acromantula for an added level of realism.

                The thoughts flitted across his face as he put the pieces together, and he felt suddenly that he’d walked into a trap. His heart was beating too fast, thinking that she was too close, she was going to figure out his secret, and then how was he going to win her? He felt the hopelessness stretching before him.

                “I don’t know what you’re involved in, Granger. If you’re done playing games, you should go off to bed.”

He shook his head at the toy pieces still lying on the floor, and made to walk away, determined to leave and get away before he inadvertently revealed anything else.

                Her next words stopped him.

                “You feel sad.”

                He couldn’t help himself, he turned back to look at her again. “What?”

                “I can feel it.” She said it quietly, the look in her eyes questioning. “Draco, why is it that I can feel when you’re sad?”

                The thrill of her saying his name went through him like a wave of heat from a fire. He felt it as a tingle in his fingertips. The connection between the two flared so bright for a moment, he almost thought he could see it.

                “I don’t feel sad,” he denied. It was technically half true. His emotions were much more complex than that. But if she could sense even a little bit right now, it was only a matter of time before she could read him as if he were one of her books. He tried to shut down that connection that bound them together, closing it until it was just a pinprick, wondering if there was a way to keep her out.

                “I haven’t been able to figure it out. Sometimes I turn, and you’re there. Or I feel your presence before you arrive. I tried to convince myself that I was being silly. I was making up a connection that wasn’t there because you’d rescued me, and I couldn’t make sense of it. I was sure I was imagining it.” This rambling description was followed by a short, deliberate breath. She cocked her head, her eyes boring into him. “But you came.”

                He didn’t respond.

                “Am I?” she asked, quietly, her tone somehow vulnerable like his answer held a power over her. “Am I just imagining this?”

                He wanted to lie to her. He thought that her understanding of the situation was tenuous enough that if he continued denying it that she might continue questioning herself. But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words that sounded like a rejection. His Veela couldn’t allow it.

                He sighed, and looked at her waiting for his answer. For all of his practice, he couldn’t tell what the colors swirling around her meant. So he gave her the most truth he could manage. “No, Hermione, you’re not imagining it.”

                And then he turned and left, leaving her there staring after him. As he ran away, back to the safety of his dungeon nest and away from the ever-increasing frustration that was dealing with his mate, he was surprised and slightly ashamed to find that he was more cowardly than he’d ever suspected.

Chapter Text

                Draco expected to hear from Hermione again. Surely she wouldn’t just let the conversation end the way that it had. He avoided her, warily, expecting her to jump out from around a corner to accost him and demand the truth. Or worse, set up another trap to catch him unawares.

                But she was surprisingly scarce. He noticed her in class, furiously taking notes like always, her hand shooting up into the air to answer the professors’ questions. But he didn’t see her spending as much time with her friends, or even sitting around the Gryffindor table at dinner.

                Her sudden absence seemed suspicious to him, so one night after she’d once again left dinner early, he followed her trail to the library. When he saw that she seemed to have covered her usual study table with a variety of books and parchments, he almost made to leave, relieved that he’d worried over nothing. Hermione wasn’t Hermione if she wasn’t studying something.

                The books were just lying open on the table with her things, and Hermione was gone, presumably tracking down another book.  She’d never notice if he was there or not. But then he wouldn’t get a glimpse of her, and he was feeling rather sadly like he’d like to see her at least once more before bed. So he strolled over to her table, glancing down at the haphazard piles.

                The first thing he saw was a couple of texts laid out together like she’d been cross-referencing them. The titles showed Rebounding Magic and Its Side Effects, and Unexpected Results from Everyday Spells. Beside the two books was a list in her neat handwriting of rare effects on creatures.

                Something about those titles made his heart skip a beat. This wasn’t study material for any subject she was taking, he knew. He quickly looked around at the other volumes on the table and his eye landed on one particularly large and ancient tome. The leather binding was weathered and worn from years of storage, but he could still make out the letters stamped on the front that read ‘The Art of Mind-Reading’. Next to it was a stack of smaller booklets, all variations on studies of Legilimency.

                He turned to leave immediately, and bumped into her as she approached the desk. They both grabbed for the books that were falling off of the top of the heap she had in her arms. As Draco caught the topmost book, he chanced a glance at it. Bonds of Light, Bonds of Dark.

                “Oh, good! Malfoy, you’re here.”

                She sidestepped around him and delicately placed her burden on the edge of the desk before sliding it across the surface to a more stable position. It was obvious she had a lot of experience landing stacks of heavy books.

                “Working on a project, Granger? An extra-credit assignment? For which class?” He hoped she would answer in the affirmative, but even as he made the suggestions, he knew what her answer was going to be.

                “Of course not, Malfoy.” She waved her hand at the books on the table. “I’m trying to research what happened to us.”

                He should have known. There was no way she was going to just let it go.

                “There are the books on Legilimency,” she pointed at the bundle of booklets he’d already seen. “But I’ve already looked through those, and I really don’t think our experience is similar to how that spell works.”

                “‘Our’ experience? Granger, I have no clue what you’re going on about.” He was absurdly glad she couldn’t see the colors around him that he was sure were proclaiming that he was lying through his teeth.

                She was a bit taken aback at that statement. Her brow crinkled, and she gave him a searching look. Draco kept his face neutral and then raised one eyebrow expectantly.

                “You know, the part where you can find me when I’m in danger,” she said. When he continued to look blank, she added, more forcefully, as if he were a dim child. “The part where I can read your feelings.”

                She seemed to be a bit irritated at his refusal to validate the conversation. “Malfoy, you told me I wasn’t imagining it. We have a connection, you and I. And somehow that leads to me being able to read your mind and what you’re feeling.”

                He laughed dismissively at her assertion. “We generally call that ‘body language,’ Granger. It doesn’t require mind-reading skills to figure out what’s on the mind of a teenage boy.” That was a good angle. Distract her into thinking sensing his emotions was no different than normal intuition.

                She scoffed at him, obviously unsure why he was being so difficult. “Except I know that’s not what you’re thinking about.”

                A slow smile spread across his face. “No?” He leaned forward on the table, allowing his eyes to flick downwards and then travel leisurely back up to her face. With his eyes fixed intently on hers, he allowed some of those pinks and deep purples to bleed through their Veela connection. It was quite easy, as all he had to do was release a tiny bit of the self-control he exerted on his Veela mating instincts.

                He wondered, briefly, if his eyes had changed. He remembered the eerie glow from his face when his Veela had been riled enough for his wings to come out.

                He grinned to himself when he saw that his tactics had worked. A lovely blush had crossed her features, and her wide eyes suddenly looked down, anxiously, leading him to wonder what thoughts she was thinking that had caused the hints of peach and rose in the air.

                As pleasant as it was to let the warmth of his mate’s closeness suffuse his body, he decided to clamp back down on those feelings before he gave her any more clues. He was trying to distract her, not himself.

                “Reading my mind, Granger?” His voice wasn’t quite the same teasing tone he used to use to annoy her. It was a bit darker, a bit more playful. “You must be on to something, then. That’s quite the connection we’ve got. And it looks like your books taught you quite a bit in such a short amount of time.” He reached over to grab the big, ancient book, his arm casually brushing hers in the process, sending tingles up all the way to his shoulder blades where there were no wings. “I ought to check this out, I suppose, see if I can figure out what’s going on in that big brain of yours.”

                He looked at her again, staring deeply into those honey-colored eyes as if he were trying to read her mind and the pinks of her cheeks deepened along with the pinks in the air. She was definitely distracted. He laughed and congratulated himself on redirecting her thoughts. But it was surely time to leave before she started to ask more questions, so he took the book and with a wink back at her he sauntered back to the dungeons.

                Over the next few days, he noticed that she hadn’t stopped her researching. After thinking it through, he decided it would be better if he stopped in occasionally to keep an eye on her. Not because he wanted to see her, of course, but because he had a better chance at directing her away from sensitive subjects and then sending her on wild goose chases, if he was there.

                And also, he wanted to see her.

                It wasn’t enough anymore to watch her from the back of the class, to listen to her as she directed the prefects on their duties. He’d held her in his arms. He’d made her laugh. He knew exactly where she was and the subtleties of her emotions all the time. And he still loved to listen to her heart beating late at night, imagining she was sleeping peacefully right beside him.

                When he stepped back into the library to see her buried in books and parchment lists, he couldn’t help the smile that came to his face. He quickly schooled it into something a little less obvious, and approached the table.

                “You’ve got a smudge just there on your nose, Granger,” he announced himself.

                She looked up at him, and wiped at her nose, slightly embarrassed. “Come to bother me again, Malfoy?”

                Delighted, he said, “I get you bothered, Granger?”

                She gaped at his flippant response and then said, shrewishly, “That’s not what I meant.” She sniffed. “And of course you do not.”

                He ignored the look she shot him, and grasped the book on the topmost pile. “Emotional Bonding and Intuition,” he read aloud. “Still working on that mind-reading thing? I did read that last book. It was fascinating, if a little outdated once the skill of Legilimency had been developed.”

                “Yes,” she agreed, after watching to make sure he carefully set the book back down in the same pile he’d picked it up from. “I thought perhaps I needed to look at older magic and some of the skills and traits that Legilimency had built upon.”

                “And where did that get you?” He was curious, because he hadn’t actually looked into the mechanics of how the Veela matebond worked. And now he couldn’t look it up, because there was the chance she would find out what he was researching. It would have to wait until after they’d mated, and then she could do all the research she wanted.

                His thoughts surprised him. It was the first time he considered that there was the chance Hermione would actually accept the Veela bond.

                At that moment, she flipped her hand up through her hair, and the glaring blonde streak reminded him that the magic of the Veela bond was working very hard on her to ensure that she did. In fact, it looked like the streak had actually gotten wider. He just barely refrained from scowling at her.

                “Well,” she answered his question, her tone suddenly the same one she used to lecture the lower years, “I don’t think they are remotely similar. Mind-reading as an early innate skill eventually developed into the skilled and teachable forms of Legilimency, but they still only focus on thoughts and not emotions. You might say emotions are more from the heart, rather than the mind. So heart-reading might be a better way to describe it.”

                Said heart thumped harder in his chest at her assessment. Heart-reading. There could not be a more accurate way to describe what he’d been doing for the last several months.

                “And have you found anything on this heart-reading?”

                She sighed, blowing a curl out of her face in the process. “Nothing, actually. There’s very little evidence of emotional reading, other than the practice of reading auras, and almost all of the research on that subject is extremely unreliable.” She sniffed disdainfully, and Draco remembered her oft-spouted denunciations of all forms of Divination.

                She eyed him, suspiciously. “Are you suddenly interested in helping me, now?”

                He rolled his eyes, and looked away from her at the piles of books that were due to be returned to the shelves. It was easier to lie when she couldn’t see his eyes. “I still think you’re exaggerating what happened between us. We experienced a few moments where we were in tune, perhaps. I’m sure that could be explained quite easily due to having shared a traumatic magical experience.”

                “That’s just it, Malfoy,” she said, excitedly, “I thought that at first, too, but I haven’t found anything to support that idea. Magically whitening hair, yes. Emotional sensitivities lasting significantly beyond the ‘traumatic magical experience’, no.”

                “I don’t have any emotional sensitivities, Granger.” He lied about their connection again. He almost thought it was getting easier.

                She giggled into her hand, and he realized what he’d just said.

                “You know what I mean,” he scowled. “I have emotions. I just don’t have whatever you’re talking about.”

                Still smiling, she reached for her parchment. “Actually, I don’t know what you mean. Why don’t you describe the events as you remember them, and the days afterward? Then we can compare our symptoms.”

                She looked so excited to make a list, he almost forgot to give her fake symptoms. He described the rescue from Grawp in vague terms, relying heavily on the phrase ‘sensed something was wrong.’ He described the days following and their interaction, relying heavily on the phrase, ‘I could feel you watching me’ just because he liked how it made her squirm. He wondered if she’d even recognized how many times her eyes had landed on him in the days since he’d rescued her. When he was done speaking, it actually sounded quite a bit like she was stalking him.

                The frown on her face as she looked down at her notes told him that she had reached the same conclusion, and he tried not to laugh.

                “Were you watching me, Granger?” he pushed, hoping to get a blush out of her. She didn’t disappoint.

                “I don’t recall the particular moments you are talking about,” she replied, airily, ignoring the spots of color high on her cheeks. This time he did laugh.

                Several times they met that way, not by arrangement, but because she was predictable. He would show up after she’d started, peruse her latest book choices, and stick around to answer a few of her latest questions and test her theories. If she realized that his answers were always decidedly unhelpful, she never complained.

                Sometimes he stayed just a little longer, and they had conversations that weren’t about Hermione’s latest hypothesis.

                She’d asked him once, “What are you going to do after school?”

                He hadn’t answered right away, because his mind flashed with possibilities. He saw her sitting right where he’d imagined her on the couch in his library at home. He heard her laughter as she sat on a picnic blanket enjoying the fragrance of the gardens in springtime. He saw her face lifted up to his as she glowed in a beautiful lace wedding dress. He saw her playfully chase a chubby toddler with fair skin and moonlight blonde hair up the sweeping stairs of the entrance of Malfoy Manor. He saw her face flash a thousand times in front of him with smiles he hadn’t witnessed yet.

                He hoped it was part of the future that hadn’t been written yet.

                When he finally did answer her, his voice was husky as he lied again. “I haven’t given it much thought. I have some things in mind, but there’s still a lot…in flux…that I’m waiting on.”

                She’d just nodded, probably thinking he was talking about the results of his NEWTs.

                Talking to her was the best part of his day. He came to appreciate even more her wit and her intelligence and her caring heart. She managed to maintain the highest grades in the school, despite her extra research project. He also knew that she made it a point to take Grawp special snacks once a week, and he suspected her visits with Hagrid were really to tutor him in the magic that he wasn’t supposed to be practicing but to which everyone turned a blind eye.

                But when he saw the books on magical creatures and the magical properties of blood, he knew she was getting too close. When he saw the first book on Veela in the middle of her stack, he made his excuses and left early.

                It didn’t make any sense, since it wasn’t like his absence was going to stall her progress. But he didn’t think he could handle the anxiety of watching her come closer and closer to the secret he’d been keeping.

                He didn’t join her in the library for several days in a row, and one day after the prefect meeting she asked, “I haven’t seen you lately, Malfoy. Been busy?”

                He shrugged. “I didn’t know I was supposed to answer to you for where I am.”

                He knew they were the wrong words as soon as they came out of his mouth. He’d meant to say that she shouldn’t expect him to meet her, because it wasn’t like they’d made plans or arrangements.

                But the suddenness of the pale oranges and yellows and the sad fluffy greys told him that he’d very quickly hurt her feelings. He thought he heard his inner Veela make a pathetic snuffling sound at the sensation of her twisting emotions and the slow, heavy beating of her heart.

                “I see,” was all she said. And then she was gone, head high in the air, and Draco didn’t dare stop into her library sanctuary again.

                He didn’t have to wonder long about what progress she was making in her research.

                One afternoon, in their shared History of Magic class, he walked in and felt her staring straight at him. Though he was always hyper aware of her presence, there was something particularly intense about her gaze, as if she was deliberately daring him to look at her.

                When he did, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. She sat neatly as she normally did, her parchment and quill out on the table, ready to take notes she didn’t need. There was slightly less room on her desk, as there were a couple of books sitting on the edge of it. The spines were turned outwards so he could see them clearly, even from where he was across the room.

                He glanced at the titles and scowled. Blood Connections Vol 2: Effects of Light & Dark Magic was a thick blue book, whereas Magical Creatures & Their Magical Blood was a slim volume with red lettering.

                He took a breath and looked away, unwilling to let her see that the titles had ruffled him. She was sending him a message that her research would not be stopped, and it would not be delayed by his unwillingness to help.

                For the rest of the class he was careful not to look her way, though he felt her eyes on him.

                Several days later, as he was walking into Arithmancy, he heard Parvati Patil ask, “Were we supposed to bring books today, Hermione?”

                He didn’t look at the two Gryffindors as he walked over to his seat at his desk. But he heard her answer.

                “Oh no, just some extra reading I’m doing at the moment.”

                “A Comparative Analysis of the Anatomy of Giants, Veela, Werewolves and Centaurs. What in Merlin’s name would you need that for?”

                Her tone was light, but Draco felt her words hanging heavily in the air. “Oh, you never know.”

                He pretended he didn’t notice the books, but his heart was hammering in his chest. She was too smart. Too focused. Too relentless. He rather thought he loved that about her, but it scared him. He could hear the ticking of a clock that told him his time was running short. What would the books say about Veela and their mating procedures? What would she think when she discovered evidence that pointed at him being Veela? What would she think when the evidence pointed at her as being his mate?

                The thoughts made him sick. She would be disgusted at worst, disdainful at best. He’d barely managed an almost-friendship with her over the last couple of months, and even that nebulous foundation was shaky. He wasn’t sure if he’d ruined it with his flippant and rude comment.

                He focused on breathing in and out during the class, studiously avoiding looking her direction and whatever books she had laid out on her desk.

                At night, he listened to her heartbeat and told himself that the next day he would make an effort to talk to her, to get her to give him the chance to prove himself as more than just the bully he’d been for most of her time at Hogwarts. There was still time for him to gain a little of her regard.

                But each day he found he didn’t have the courage to face her. What if she’d already figured it out? What if she looked at him like a curious lesson from her Magical Creatures class? What if she looked at him with loathing or revulsion, and told him never to speak to her again? Or worse, what if she looked at him with pity, because she was determined that she would never—could never—bring herself to accept him as her mate?

                The day came, as he’d known it would, when she brought out a couple of books and let them fall heavily, conspicuously, on the edge of her desk, while she stared straight at him.

                He had an idea of what the books contained before the titles confirmed it for him. Veela & Their Mates: Half-Breeds Among Us was the title on the topmost book, an alarming orange and yellow color. But that title wasn’t quite as worrisome as the other one with the glossy black binding: Resisting Veela Charms.

                He knew it. She hated him.

                He couldn’t stop the surge of emotion that swamped him. It was spotty and sludgy, a thick leaden grey that covered him and threatened to drag him downwards. He didn’t remember what else happened in class, though he made a show of taking notes, seemingly unaffected. But if anyone had happened to look at what he’d written, they would just see nonsense words and symbols.

                It was silly for him to be upset. He’d known it was impossible from the very beginning. There was just too much between them for her to look at him as anything other than the spoiled, rich prat who had teased her and mocked her for years. And he was too much of a coward to step out and make her see him differently.

                It occurred to him that he probably should have tried something from a traditional courtship. He could have sent her flowers. Or better, he could have sent her books. Books about Veela, perhaps, that painted them in a better light than whatever she was currently reading. Books that talked about the joys of having a mate that was solely dedicated to your happiness. Books that emphasized the equality in the matebond, and the sacredness of free will.

                Merlin, why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? Now that there was no time left, he suddenly had dozens of ideas of how he could have gotten her attention, and maybe caused her to look favorably upon him. But it was too late, as she’d figured it out, and she was intent on arming herself with the tools to reject him easily.

                His heart trembled in his chest, and his breathing hitched, but class was dismissed and so he shouldered his way out of the classroom so he could find a quiet nook and take a moment to be alone.

                His mother had been wrong. Winning a mate was not so easy, even if she did have the other half of his soul. And because she did, losing a mate was very, very hard.

                When he thought he’d collected himself, he made his way out through the courtyard, thinking to soothe his Veela’s sadness with the colors of the new spring.

                But the first colors he saw when he came out of the castle were the hints of amethyst and citrine rippling in the warm air that he recognized as his mate’s laughter.

                She was all the way across the courtyard, but even from that distance he could see the sunlight glinting off the highlights in her hair as the gentle spring breezes ruffled it out behind her.

                He’d been working very hard at keeping his emotions at bay, carefully keeping them tamped down deep inside his heart. But seeing her so lovely and happy caused a surge of longing and affection to surface and he selfishly allowed himself just the moment to watch her. He knew there would not be that many moments like these left, as once school ended, there would be very little reason for him to see her. And he had no doubt that she’d have every reason to avoid him.

                His Veela, despondent after the bitter news from the class, woke suddenly at the swirls of love and wistful yearning and he had to fight the compulsive desire to walk towards her. He had so wanted to be able to show her what was really in his heart.

                As if in response to that fervent thought, he saw her stop speaking mid-sentence. Unerringly, her eyes found his and he thought the look on her face was one of wonder, though he didn’t recognize the colors that shimmered between them.

                Her friends were calling to her, but she wasn’t paying them any attention. He knew that for the moment she was connected to him, that he’d foolishly unguarded his feelings and they were spilling out towards her. She took a single, hesitant step towards him, and there was something that might have been uncertainty or expectation in her bearing, but he couldn’t bear the tension, the embarrassment.

                He turned and ran. Like the night of the Yule ball, overcome with the revelation that his mate was the one girl he could never have, he ran out onto the grounds, and kept running.

                When he came upon the same tree he’d found that night, he familiarly swung himself up into the branches, feeling the irrational need to hide among the fresh, green foliage.

                He could feel her coming closer, heading straight for him as if she’d zeroed in on his location. From high up in his perch, he saw her walking briskly to the edge of the forest where she stopped almost right underneath him. The shadows played on her hair, and made it look darker than it was, while he held perfectly still.

                Her head swiveled back and forth, her hands on her hips, while she looked around confused. It was obvious she was looking for him. He felt his heart thump suddenly very loudly, knowing that the moment of truth had arrived. The lines of fate had all converged upon this moment, and his heart beat so fast he found it hard to breathe.

                As if she could hear his heart, and perhaps she could, she suddenly looked straight up, her brown eyes boring straight into his. He regarded her steadily, not even bothering to feel silly at being caught up a tree.

                She didn’t say a word as she approached the tree trunk, a look of consideration on her face. After a few moments and a couple waves of her wand, the tree trunk was now covered with evenly spaced knots of wood that led straight up into the canopy where he sat watching her.

                Of course she would come up with a much more elegant way of climbing a tree than simply hauling herself up with brute strength. Sometimes he wondered which one of them had been born into magic. She used magic as naturally as breathing, finding magical solutions as if it were an innate pattern of her mind.

                His eyes never wavered from her as she ascended into the tree and settled herself carefully onto the branch beside him. He didn’t bother objecting. The feeling was heavy around him that time and blood and magic had been leading them both to just this moment, coinciding with the two of them high up in the tree.

                She swung her feet as she looked down at the grass below, and then she finally turned to him.

                “I can find you, you know,” she told him. When he didn’t seem to respond, she continued. “Probably the same way you found me. Those nights when you seemed to stumble upon me at just the right or the wrong moment. You were following me, weren’t you? Following this…this connection that we have.” Her words sounded authoritative, but he could hear the unsureness in the way her voice lilted. And he could read the trembling of the yellows and greys like misty sunlight.

                He didn’t have to answer, because she’d already proved how it worked by tracking him down.

                Her next words shocked him out of his silence.

                “If I die, you’ll be free to choose another.”

                “What!” His Veela roared to life, startled, horrified, snarling and suddenly alert for potential dangers. The adrenaline flooding through his veins felt almost like fire, and he remembered just a moment too late what happened when he got riled up at the idea of his mate in danger.

                Her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open as she looked at what he knew was suddenly sprouting out of his back. “I knew it!” she breathed. “None of the books mentioned wings, but I knew I had seen them.”

                Not wanting to talk at all about the sudden appearance of his fiery Veela accessories, he snarled at her in distress.

                Seeing the look in his eyes, which were no doubt eerily glowing by now, she huffed at him. “Relax. I’m not planning to kill myself. I’m just saying it’s not nearly as hopeless as all that. I might die quite young, considering my habit of sticking my nose into other people’s business. And even if I die at a regular age, it seems Veela live considerably longer than the average witch or wizard. So you see, you have only to wait me out.”

                Still gaping at her, his wings stiff and straight behind him, he could barely choke out the words above the frantic inner squawking of his Veela. “Stop talking about dying.”

                “I just—I know you don’t want me, and you didn’t choose me.” She looked down at her hand wrapped firmly around the twigs sticking out from the branch she was sitting on. He was sure the action was so that he couldn’t see her face. She continued, “I understand. I’m not offended.” Her shoulders rose and fell almost like a shrug. “I know you can’t actively plot my demise, but if you hoped to just wait until I d—”

                His growl cut her off, punctuated by the slightest twitching of his wings. “Stop talking about dying!”

                “I’m trying to tell you that it’s okay!” she shouted at him, exasperated. Her eyes rolled, and she looked upwards into the green canopy of leaves, still not making visual contact with him.

                He was almost amused that she sought him to try and comfort him by telling him she’s probably going to die sooner than he will. Almost, but not at all amused, because it was not remotely comforting to think of her dying. Nor was it comforting to think of living without his mate, like his mother did. Even though he could perhaps choose a wife, or a relationship, he could never choose another mate. There was only one for him, and the idea of living without her for any reason was the very opposite of comfort. “It’s not okay.”

                His quiet words made her feel uncomfortable and she tried to explain herself again. “I just meant—”

                “I don’t want you to die, Granger.”

                She looked at him, then, and her eyes were deep and dark. Despite thinking he knew everything there was to know about her moods and her heartbeat and the colors he saw through his Veela senses, he had to admit that she was still a mystery to him. He still couldn’t quite read her mind. And there was something there in her eyes that made him feel equal parts fear and hope.

                She blinked, and the feeling he had that he was falling, falling, into cozy warm brown and golds abruptly cut off. “Well, no, I don’t want that, either, but you don’t have to be bound to me forever—”

                “I do want to be bound to you forever.”

                The words that came out of his mouth were bright white. White like the pristine snow that had blanketed the ground the night of the Yule ball, erasing all traces of the past except for his footsteps. White like the blinding flash of light when he’d stared at the sun for so long he thought it might burn right through him. White like the brightest, purest ball of goodness that he could dredge up from deep inside of his soul to offer her to wear like a chain around her neck. Or a ring on her finger.

                The words hung in the air, a haze of whites and silvers that she couldn’t see. But her heartbeat sped up a tiny bit, and so he knew that though she couldn’t see the colors, she could feel them. The connection between them was growing and deepening and getting brighter with every moment they sat next to each other high up in the tree.

                “Oh, well,” she said, hesitantly, looking away again. “That’s the Veela part, of course. I remember reading that you can’t really help that.”

                As he’d thought, she’d no doubt checked out every book available in the library on Veela, once she was sure she was on the right track. So he told her, just to see her reaction, “Your books are wrong.”

                He laughed at her expression as she gaped at him. It was the first time he’d felt light enough to laugh in her presence in several days. But her face as he insulted her precious books was just too much. And having her sitting next to him for so many minutes was doing the strangest thing to his disposition. Where before he’d felt like he’d been twisted and wrung like a wash cloth, now he was finally starting to loosen. The pressure on his chest was lifting. He wondered if his wings actually did do something to bear the weight of his body so that he wasn’t bound by gravity.

                He smiled and explained to her, “Well, the books here at Hogwarts are incomplete, anyway. A Veela doesn’t choose, exactly, but neither is he completely at the whim of the fates. He can kind of…sort.”

                Her brow furrowed as she contemplated this idea, and he knew that it hadn’t been mentioned at all in any of her books. Very few studies were done on Veela mate pairs regarding the mate-choosing process. He suspected most pairs were particular about their privacy. And it was also possible that it seemed to happen differently for each one.

                “What do you mean by ‘sort’?” she asked, curious as ever.

                “Sort between possible options, possible mates. They can cultivate a connection or stifle one in favor of another, through exposure and preference. Most Veela do so subconsciously, responding more freely perhaps to one person or one type of person.”

                She contemplated this while her fingers fiddled with the leaves growing near her hands. “And…and you? Did you sort through others as well?” Her question was casual, but he heard the tremor in her voice. He turned to look at her, admire the softness of her hair, the gentle planes of her face. His Veela sighed. She was beautiful. She was kind. She was generous. She made him feel light inside the places that had always felt heavy with shadows, as if he’d somehow been born with a smudge on his soul and she healed it.

                “The others were like the twinkling of far-off stars that you have to squint to see,” he told her, truthfully. “And you were the full moon on a clear night. So bright, so beautiful, taking up all the space in the night sky.” He swallowed as he admitted out loud what he’d been suspecting for some time. “I never even saw the others.”

                She looked down at her dangling feet and the earth far below, and she didn’t answer. But he didn’t need to see the slight smile on her face to feel the warmth blooming in his chest that he knew came from her. Her heart was strong and a bit fast, but he could feel it like bells ringing through his body, a musical rhythm to the tips of his fingers and his toes, and even through his wings of flame hidden high up behind the curtain of leaves.

                Hermione’s face was vulnerable as she turned to look up at him. She hesitated to speak, licking her lips first, and then asked, “Why do you run away from me, then?”

                The whisper of rejection was in the air. A tiny accusation that his Veela reproached him for. Why had he run? Why had he feared this moment? Why had he not claimed his mate the minute she was free of other romantic entanglements? Why did he avoid her in class as she worked to discover the truth when he could have just shown her the affection he held for her?

                He hung his head, knowing he had to be honest with himself if he was going to be honest with his mate. “I’m a coward, I suppose.”

                She didn’t like that harsh answer. A frown spread across her face as she searched for words to protest with.

                He forestalled her. “It’s because I don’t know what comes next.” Malfoys were used to having control over the things around them. Slytherins were used to plans within plans with carefully calculated chances of success and losses.  “It is a bit overwhelming to think I have to figure out how to make the girl who’s hated me my whole life willing to spend the rest of her life with me.”

                “Well,” she pointed out, “I didn’t hate you your whole life. I didn’t even meet you until we were eleven.”

                There was a moment of silence, and then they both laughed. She covered her mouth with one hand and he laughed so hard the branches of their verdant refuge shook with soft rustling sounds. Their laughter was loud and silly, and they both felt quite a bit better afterwards.

                “So you see,” she said, “it’s really eleven years of being nothing at all, to six years of being enemies. That’s really not too terribly bad, when you think about it.”

                He liked that she seemed to be trying to make him feel better. “Seven years,” he corrected her.

                “This year isn’t over yet,” she said, softly, cocking her head to the side. “And I don’t hate you.”

                He looked at her lovely face. With one hand, he reached up to touch her cheek, the curly locks that he was enamored of falling around his wrist. His fingertips brushed against that ever-widening white streak. There were so many things he felt like he needed to say, but there were too many words racing through his head to find the right ones. He finally decided on the simplest ones. “I’m sorry.”

                “For what?” she breathed, leaning slightly into his hand as it cupped her cheek.

                “For the other six years. For the pranks and the unkind words. For the tears I never cared about. I care about each one of them now.”

                She closed her eyes, and he knew she was remembering all the things they’d shared in their history. He kept his fingers on her face, needing the connection as he trembled waiting for the rainbow of colors around her to firm into a shape he could recognize, one he could build upon.

                “I don’t know what’s next, either,” she admitted, her eyes fluttering open as she broke the silence. The look on her face was soft, vulnerable, honest. She added, delicately, bravely even, “We could find out.”

                She was very close. They sat with their legs touching, but with her face turned towards him the distance between them was very small. He could see every gold fleck in her irises, count every tiny freckle on the bridge of her nose, hear her breath whispering softly from her mouth.

                He smiled at her. Giving in to the inevitable felt surprisingly wonderful. He didn’t know why he’d waited so long, or what he’d been afraid of. He was certain she could feel his heart beating hard in his chest, so she couldn’t have been that surprised when he leaned in until he could feel the sigh of her breath across his lips. His glowing silver eyes searched hers as he cleared his mind, and concentrated until he could feel her heart beating in time with his. He lifted the guard on his Veela until he felt the fullness unfurling within him like fiery red wings of flame. The widening of her eyes told him that she could feel when the warmth and the affection and the desire that he, as Veela, felt for his chosen mate bridged the gap between them.

                He was full of light, and still he waited. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, but their heartbeats got louder and louder, echoing in his ears, drowning out the sounds of the springtime birds around them. Then he felt it, the uncurling, as of a newborn leaf, of a shimmer of light inside of her that reached out to touch him, bathing him in warmth and color.

                And then his lips touched hers. And everything he thought he knew, all the fears and insecurities that had controlled him, the shame and the guilt that had weighed him down, were blown away in a blast of golden heat. And the pinks and purples and reds and blues and corals and teals and silvers and bright, bright whites all swirled around them—long, colorful lines as of fine writing on page after page of parchment.

                And his life was rewritten.