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Hermione had noticed something different about him on the train back to Hogwarts. Malfoy sat by himself in the last compartment, his hair uncharacteristically shaggy and deep in thought, turning over a pearlescent feather in his hands. The only indication that he’d seen her staring was the abrupt closing of the blinds on his compartment door and the sound of the lock clicking into place.
Less than a week back into classes, Hermione owled Harry to request the Marauder's Map. He sent it without question, and that was how she discovered Malfoy spent most of his time in the Astronomy Tower, pacing in endless circles. Sometimes, generally around midnight, she’d see him take off, making figure-eight patterns around the Black Lake and amongst the trees on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
It wasn’t until she saw him in the library, sitting in a dimly lit corner and guarding a book about Veela that ideas began forming. A week or so after that, he began religiously studying a book from the restricted section regarding mating bonds. Every time she decided to approach him, something of hers would fall from a table, or a book would launch itself off a shelf. When she’d turn back to look at him, Malfoy had vanished.
All of this on its own would have been well and fine if she could just get that image of him in the train compartment out of her mind. But, as September bled into November, Hermione found herself checking out the same books she noticed him reading. In each one, she found notes scribbled in the margins and entire sections underlined with ink that disappeared as soon as she read what he’d left.
It wasn’t until she read a passage stating that bonds couldn’t be broken, only rejected, leaving the Veela no choice but to eventually assume their non-human form and live out their mostly-immortal lives near death, more creature than human, that Hermione realized Malfoy had been leaving her clues. Clues that she’d only find if she cared enough to look.
For a few weeks, Hermione waited for the shock and horror of the realization that not only was Malfoy a Veela, but she was his mate, to come crashing down around her. Instead, her mind kept wandering back to that feather in his hands, and the way he seemed to curl in on himself a little more each day. Sitting alone, present in classes but somehow not, vanishing with the sound of the bell before she could say something.
So, she waited for winter break. They were the only Eighth Years left – two survivors of war with no homes to return to. Snow fell in endless sheets of white, somehow dim in comparison to the angelic sheen she knew she’d find in his wings. A few days after Christmas, Hermione pulled out the map to find him already pacing in his usual pattern in the Tower.
Her feet were silent on the wrought iron steps, though she knew he could sense her arrival. Malfoy stood with his back to her and his hands in his pockets, his white-blond hair glowing in the moonlight. Had he always been that beautiful?
“No,” he answered her out loud, not turning to face her. “I haven’t.”
Could he –?
“Yes.” Still, he didn’t move from his position. If she didn’t know any better, Hermione might have assumed him to be a statue made of solid marble. “You can hear me too, if I want you to.”
See?
Malfoy’s voice sounded the same in her mind, accompanied by a tingle of magic that spread down her spine.
“When did you realize–” Hermione stopped, realizing she didn’t know what she wanted to ask. Fortunately, Malfoy understood her well enough.
“I knew it was a possibility my whole life. I’d hoped the gene would skip me. But, the war did an expert job of dashing every hope and dream I’d ever been silly enough to think up.” Malfoy’s muscles tensed and he pulled his hands from his pockets, flexing them. “I didn’t know it was you until…”
For a moment, Hermione worried he wouldn’t continue. Then, she felt him whisper, The last battle. When we were in the Room of Requirement.
She nodded, hoping he understood her silence for what it was. Not shock and horror, like she still expected, but acceptance. He’d answered a question she hadn’t known she had until –
You don’t owe me anything.
“I know I don’t.” Hermione said out loud, taking a step closer. “I… Can I see?”
“See what?” His voice was hoarse, as if speaking out loud caused him pain. So, she tried again.
I want to see you.
Slowly, Malfoy turned to face her. After several months of catching little more than a side profile, looking into his eyes felt like being handed a pair of glasses after years of shuffling through the world blind. Vibrant white light began to spread from the crown of his head down the length of his body, his skin taking on a moonlit glow as his already angular features elongated into something otherworldly. His grey eyes turned silver, sparkling with something Hermione could only describe as devotion.
And his wings. That same pearlescent hue that had kept her up for months, putting the wonderful Scottish snowfall to shame. They spread out from his back, larger than she’d anticipated, and more like an angel’s than a bird’s. The feathers themselves looked soft to the touch, but Hermione kept her hands at her sides. A Veela’s wings –
You can touch them.
Hermione closed the distance between them quickly, months of being kept in the dark overshadowed by the ethereal light that glittered with every movement of his wings in the wintertime breeze. She tried to remember a time she’d ever stood that close to him, and came up short. He smelled like something she hadn’t thought about in a long time – spearmint, parchment, and whiskey.
It was you.
Another ripple of pleasure shot down her spine as she ran a finger along the length of one of his wings, accompanied by a sense of confirmation. She knew the feeling to be his; Veela's wings were incredibly sensitive. Flattening her palm against the feathers, she stroked him again, the ripple becoming a cascade of things she hadn’t expected to feel.
“Why me?” The words left her mouth in a whisper. When a small, soft chuckle escaped his lips, Hermione looked up to see Malfoy looking down at her, smiling.
“I loved you already,” he said, reaching out to take a loose curl between two fingers. “At least the war didn’t take that from me.”
Several moments passed in silence, broken only by the sound of the wind and the musical echo of the feathers on his wings dancing in the breeze. Hermione reached out her hand again, tracing the shape of a feather with her fingertip.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
The question earned her another laugh, this one slightly more incredulous.
“Hermione,” her knees nearly buckled when he said her name. The smile she’d grown accustomed to disappeared from his expression. “I’ve done… enough, to you. Things that even something like me shouldn’t be forgiven for. What kind of creature would it make me if I added more guilt to the burden you already carry?”
I forgave you a long time ago, Draco.
I don’t deserve it.
Deciding she’d rather talk about anything else, Hermione shifted her attention back to his wings. She felt his excitement before she had the chance to ask, “Are they strong?”
“Yes,” he said, dropping the curl to cup her cheek in his hand. “Do you want to see?”
A nod was all that it took for Draco to wrap his arm around her waist and kick off from the ground, propelling them straight into the sky. Hermione had done her fair share of flying – brooms, hippogriffs, thestrals, dragons – but nothing had prepared her for this. As Draco’s wings sliced through the air, music filled the sky around them like a million windchimes made of ice. And, with his arms holding her close to his chest, there was no doubt he would never let her fall.
He flew them in the figure eight patterns she’d memorized over the lake and the forest, adding several spins that made it feel like they were dancing. It felt natural to let laughter bubble up from inside her stomach, excitement and peace making a home where anxiety had been brewing for months. And then, Draco’s laugh joined her own, the two sounds harmonizing over the beat of his wings as if they’d been made for this moment.
We were.
Hermione couldn’t figure out whose thought it had been. In the end, she decided it didn’t matter. They had been made for that moment – for each other.