Draco watched the knife swirl melting butter onto a bright yellow scone. It was Wednesday afternoon, and like every Wednesday afternoon in recent history he spent it at one of the classy cafés in Diagon Alley with Pansy, watching her eat pumpkin scones and listening to her talk about the newest gossip amongst the society people of the wizarding world.
Their table had been set lavishly with scones and millefeuille, and a pot of tea that had been handpicked in Nepal. All of this, of course, was for Pansy. Draco had picked the cheapest thing on the menu - a ham and cheese sandwich that was made to sound like a delicacy.
It wasn't that he didn't enjoy Pansy's company (she was, after all, one of his closest friends) but sometimes he felt that she forgot that while she played the well-to-do role of a high society wife, he worked for a living.
"Have you heard that Astoria Greengrass is engaged?" she enquired as he picked at the 'gourmet' sandwich he could hardly afford. When he shook his head she continued, "Funny, I would have thought they would have invited you to the engagement party. You were quite close at one point."
"We dated for a week before her parents put a stop to it. We were hardly close," Draco said.
Pansy rolled her eyes at him, "You know what I mean. You might be as poor as a church mouse now but you're still a prominent family. It's more than just a slight to not invite you or your mother."
Draco was quite used to slights.
Being a Malfoy after the war was a tough lot in England. After returning to Hogwarts to finish his schooling and serve his probation, Draco found employment opportunities to be sparse. The wizarding economy was in a downturn, and half the businesses that had been running for centuries were crushed under the threat of Voldemort. Unemployment was naturally high as the community tried to regain its feet, but rates were even higher if anyone had even an inkling that you might have had connections to the Dark Lord. Draco spent the better part of two years systematically copying out his grades and references for jobs that never responded back. The Ministry wanted nothing but his inheritance, finance companies didn't want the reputation that followed him like a black shadow. Retail feared that his distinctive features would scare away the customers.
When he applied to Flourish and Blotts on a dying whim and actually received a response, Draco wondered if there really was some kind of higher power watching over him.
Draco counted his luck on the fact that Mrs Villadsen, the new owner of the bookstore, had hailed from Denmark and seemed complacent in the face of widespread social divisions. He'd heard they were pretty open to just about everything in Scandinavia, but he never expected her to not give two knuts about hiring a convicted criminal. When he'd voiced his concerns, she'd looked at him like he the crazy one, and asked if he'd like her to find another fit young man to take the job instead. He'd shut his yap after that, though he was quick to find out just why a 'fit young man' was needed. Working there wasn't easy. He wasn't used to manual labour, and Mrs Villadsen was adamant that careless magic could potentially damage the texts. Draco wondered if the woman had even gone to school, seeing as she'd probably have had a heart attack seeing books flung through the air with magic.
Customers had treated him with an expected level of disdain. He was used to the words spat in his face, the not so gentle shoves when someone brushed past him. Draco hated it when a particularly scathing customer would purposely knock over a pile of newly shipped books, but that was less to do with him having to pick them up again and more with having to explain any damage caused to the stock.
There had been one incident where someone on the upper level had dropped a heavy tome over the bannister and directly over his head. It had knocked him out and left him with a serious concussion, but the act of aggression was labelled as an accident. If there was any good to come of it, at least Mrs Villadsen began to believe him when he retold the incidences.
Three years on and the world began to forget. Draco was no longer just the backroom stacker and now worked behind the counter. When Mrs Villadsen had discovered his knack with numbers, he was also given control over the accounts.
None of this meant much to Pansy though. In her mind they were both still on the same level as they always had been, and that was why they had stayed fast friends when most of their cohort had turned their noses up at him. Though he appreciated it greatly most days, he always felt apprehensive about letting her choose the restaurant because he knew he'd be spending his entire day's pay check on a single meal.
"I think you should turn up anyway. Everyone loves a little bit of scandal," Pansy said.
Draco scoffed at the idea, "I think they're more likely to see it as a family tragedy if I did. Besides, I can't afford new dress robes."
Pansy gave him a look that told him all that he needed to know. While he had been burned in the war, Pansy came out of it with a wealthy foreign husband with more galleons than she could ever spend. New dress robes would be but a small gift.
Draco looked away, his pride getting the better of him. There was a marked pause as Pansy waited for a response, and when none came she went back to her scone with a huff.
The silence lasted seconds before Pansy dropped her knife with a clatter.
"Ugh! What's wrong with your arm?" Pansy squawked, and only then did he realise he'd been scratching at his skin in his distraction. Her hands flew to her chest and she leaned back as though he was covered in contagious germs.
With the amount he'd been itching, he probably was.
"It's nothing Pans, just a rash from book mites," He said.
"Are you sure, looks more like the beginning of dragon pox to me," Pansy said, unconvinced.
The irritated skin of his forearms were covered by a sore looking rash, just visible underneath the cuff of his shirt though he knew it had spread right up to his elbows. The mere sight had Pansy repulsed, a fact that he was glad for. Had she been medically inclined or, Merlin forbid, maternal, she might have been tempted to inspect further, and that would have led to opening up a whole can of worms. The rash, ugly as it was, helped to disguise the fine bumps pimpling beneath the skin, the very beginnings of the undeveloped spines of downy grey feathers. He deprecatingly referred to it as his ugly baby bird stage.
Going through Veela maturity was much like taking puberty for a second spin. Just as puberty could sneak up on a boy anywhere from ten to sixteen, going through the maturity could occur from sixteen or be as late as one's mid-thirties. It happened when it happened, but at least the process crawled up at a noticeable pace and allowed for certain affairs to be set straight before the change. His father had been an early bloomer, his final year at Hogwarts disrupted by the maturity, and it had been expected that Draco would be much the same. As it was, the stress of his sixth year and the ensuing war had left him in poor health from malnutrition and had stunted his progression. Now at 23, his Veela genetics had finally popped up to say hello.
While he didn't have to deal with squeaks in his voice or the awkwardness of managing a body halfway to manhood, his hormones were off the scales. Just last weekend he'd been enjoying morning tea with his mother in the sun room when he'd unexpectedly burst into tears at the beauty of the new season's blooms. His mother had patted his hand consolingly, but it did nothing to stop him from feeling thoroughly emasculated.
On the other end of the spectrum, he had come to accept waking in a feverish state with the dregs of his imaginative but mildly embarrassing erotic dreams still swimming in his head. That wasn't all that different from being fifteen again, except now he was far more accomplished in handling it. He also had to deal with uncalled for bouts of aggression, and finding himself oddly possessive over the most mundane commodities. Other than that, the poor sleep and cold showers made him surlier than usual, but nobody commented on it because Draco Malfoy was Draco Malfoy.
Beyond all that, the worst part was how much his back hurt! Growing new bones was tough, but growing extra limbs was unbearable. It had been aching for weeks now, but the purpling bruises that had sprouted in parallel lines to his spine this morning were new. Just looking at it nearly had him crying again.
Soon enough he'd be keyed into pheromones and Merlin knows what else in an attempt to find his mate. Just the idea sounded incredibly smelly and nauseating, and he really just wanted it to be over already.
All of this, of course, was a well-kept family secret, and not one he was about to divulge to Pansy. Not in a public place, anyway (he knew how loud she could get when excited). So he tucked his arms back under the table to avoid further scrutiny.
"Don't worry about it. If it gets worse then I'll go to a healer, I promise," He said.
Pansy shook her head, "No, I think you should go see a healer right now!"
Draco could already see it. Pansy would not let this go until he was treated. So Draco took his escape.
"Look, I have to get back to work. I'll see you next week."
Draco, with a little bit of the cowardice he was known for, made a bee-line for the exit, ignoring the sound of Pansy calling out to him. He walked right down Diagon Alley to the bookshop without pausing or looking back. It was only when he entered the store and the bell rang to announce his entrance did he realise he never finished his sandwich.
Damn.
Resigned to an empty and growling stomach until he got home after the shop closed tonight, Draco pulled out the ledger from under the desk. Perhaps he could distract himself by cross-checking the stock on hand with sales to make sure nothing had been stolen. It was utterly boring, but rather time consuming.
A niggling in the back of his head told him to look out the window.
Hermione Granger passed by the shop front like a haughty, sentient fur ball. Her hair was literally all over the place, sparking with electricity and magic. Her complexion was no better, flushed and blotchy from her brisk walk through the summer heat. Draco wondered if she looked much the same after sex, and whether her hair would be fun to pull or if his fingers would just get snagged in its magnificent volume-
Wait, what?
Oh. Oooh. That… that actually wasn't as much of a surprise as he might have expected.
Well, shit.
It's been a very long time since I've written fanfiction (or anything at all for that matter). But I hope you can join me in this adventure into the unknown for this lighthearted take on the Veela trope!