Un Conte de Fée

by Katia Dashwood

Hermione sighed. She should have seen it coming, really. While Harry’s life seemed to mirror the great epic tales of yore, she should’ve known that as his best friend, her life would more closely resemble a conte de fée.

Disclaimer: HBP compliant, but non-compliant with DH. This is an AU, Veela fic with under-developed and OOC characters. You've been warned.

***

Hermione sighed. She should have seen it coming, really. While Harry's life seemed to mirror the great epic tales of yore, she should've known that as his best friend, her life would more closely resemble a conte de fée.

She had been shocked when she came home to find a ruffled, screeching Hedwig clutching Harry's Firebolt. Hermione's mind immediately jumped to the worst (and ultimately quasi-correct) conclusion – Harry had been captured by one of the few remaining rogue Death Eaters. So, without further ado, Hermione scribbled a note on some parchment left on the kitchen table in case she didn't make it back, and then she marched outside, bravely grasping the Firebolt.

'Take me to Harry,' she addressed the owl.

And so, Hermione followed Hedwig to a small, dingy, industrial town in the North, her heart sinking as she alighted in an alleyway and read the closest street sign. It was rusted, listing to one side, and looked as if it might give way if one were to give it a good, hard kick. Hermione smirked a little at the thought and half-heartedly booted the metal pole. The cold metal screeched and grated upon the cobblestones as it fell to the ground, clattering as it glanced off the pavement before coming to a rest. Hermione swore. She had drawn attention to her presence and now her toes hurt.

Wand drawn, she crept to the edge of the alley and up the dimly lit street to a house she knew well. They had raided Snape's old house many times since the defeat of Voldemort. She had indefinitely borrowed his book collection, which was the only thing worth taking away from that miserable building. Every so often, the Order had revisited it to make sure Snape had not returned. Going to visit Spinner's End had become a running joke amongst them, as most regarded the continued surveillance to be useless. Hermione had had to tell Harry and Ron the story of "The Purloined Letter." After all, why wouldn't Snape hide where they would be least likely to look for him, especially considering how he generally calculated for foolish Gryffindor mentality… No, Spinner's End must be checked regularly. How else would they catch him to give him his Order of Merlin, First Class?

(Honestly, if you didn't think Hermione would figure out the plan between Snape and Dumbledore…)

And we check it a bit too regularly, she thought bitterly as she approached Snape's house. He must've been keeping watch on our watch. We should've had a random schedule. I should've examined the Arithmantic probability of Snape's own surveillance before setting the schedule at alternating every two and three weeks.

Hermione cautiously tested the wards. There are none. Very suspicious. She carefully re-established a set of wards (Anti-Apparition among others) before opening the door to the decrepit domicile. Hedwig landed on the gutter above, swiveling her head every which way. Hermione relaxed her stance, though not her grip on her wand. It was a mistake to relax at all.

She slowly turned the doorknob and pushed.

'Boo.'

Hermione barely flinched, but her surprise gave Snape enough time to pull her inside the house.

Her wand twitched in her hand, proving that Snape did indeed wish to disarm her.

'Nice try, Snape,' she said, narrowing her eyes. She sent out a non-verbal Expelliarmus of her own. It didn't work.

'Nice try, Granger,' he mimicked, smirking.

'Where's Harry?' she asked, trying to throw him off guard by being blunt.

'In the dungeon.'

'Oh, haha. Very funny, sir. This is a Muggle house. It doesn't have a dungeon.'

'I wouldn't be so sure of that,' another voice drawled from the corner.

Fabulous. Malfoy. What is this, a Hogwarts reunion?

'You know that you were awarded an Order of Merlin for all the help you gave us throughout the war, don't you, Snape?'

'What happened to "sir," Miss Granger?'

'Just answer the question,' she sighed.

'Yes. Of course I know. But do you think I want any of my old "colleagues" to know I'm still alive after the defeat of the Dark Lord?'

'Lucius knows. He's the one who told me.'

Snape moved slightly, and Hermione found herself shoved up against a wall, his fingers curling around her throat.

This didn't last very long, as Snape was thrown across the room into a bookcase. Hermione now had her wand trained on Draco, who had his trained on Snape. She raised her eyebrows but didn't relax her stance.

'What's going on here?'

Snape groaned and stiffly got up from where he had fallen on the carpet.

'I told you,' Draco said, 'I warned you ahead of time.'

Snape nodded and rubbed the back of his head, wincing.

Hermione's eyes darted back and forth between the two wizards.

'I don't know why you're so worried about Lucius. I agree that it's suspicious how amenable he has been the past few months but we're hardly going to let him roam the streets. He's safely locked in a safe-house, bored to death and whining about how short his hair is.'

Snape gave her a cold stare, but Draco guffawed.

'Lucius is not to be under-estimated. You Gryffindors may trust that he has turned over a new leaf, but don't think I'll be so easily persuaded by his oily-"

Hermione, pursing her lips, interrupted him.

'Of course we don't think he's turned over a new leaf. Don't be ridiculous. I know that he wants something, or he'd never be civil to me. I'm not and idiot, Professor. But he's locked up and hasn't once tried to raise a hand against me during his internment, which is more than I could say for you.'

Draco nodded gravely, eyes narrowing at Snape. Hermione chose to ignore this strange behaviour. Or at least, she tried to.

'I don't know why I should trust either of you at all right now, because I know for a fact that this is where Harry is.'

'How?' Snape raised an eyebrow imperiously.

'I simply followed his owl here. Hedwig hadn't anything to deliver, so she must have been going to Harry.'

Snape smirked.

'You could just say that the charm is classified information. That lie was appalling,' he told her.

'She isn't lying,' Draco mused

'Of course not – wait… How…Snape's the master Legilimens in this room. How can you tell I'm telling the truth if he can't?' She started to back out of the room, edging towards the door. 'I'll only ask once more. Where is Harry? What have you two done with him?'

'Hello.'

Hermione whipped about.

'Harry?!' He was standing nonchalantly in the doorframe the hidden staircase.

Polyjuice. Impostors. Run. Apparate. Why haven't they killed me yet? Her mind was reeling. 'I need another wand,' she muttered, trying to get all three wizards in her line of sight at once. Another arm wouldn't hurt either.

'No one is going to hurt you,' Draco said. 'I thought that was cleared up earlier. I didn't let Severus hurt you, after all.'

Eep. What's going on?

'I don't know who you are,' she hissed at the Harry look-alike, 'but you'd better just tell me and stop bothering with impersonation.' She needed to stall while she dismantled the Anti-Apparition ward she had previously set. Just a little longer…

'Hermione, don't you think you're being irrational?' Harry asked.

'Irrational? No. Snape's been on the run for two years now. So has our dear former classmate, Draco. Should I believe that they've shown up out of the blue and you've decided to join them in solitude in this awful house? Certainly not.'

'Hedwig led you here. She can't lie to you. She's an owl.'

'Birds can be trained. Snape's brilliant. He could've invented a Polyjuice potion for animal use for all I know.'

'Hermione,' Harry said, stepping closer to her. 'Calm down.'

'I am calm,' she denied, pointing her wand at Snape and Draco for a moment.

Harry opened his mouth to talk.

'And don't say I'm just being paranoid. We lived through war. I have every right to be paranoid.' She gestured at Snape with her free hand. 'He's worse than I am, anyhow. Didn't you see him a minute ago when he thought I had been taken in by Lucius? Of course you did. Because this was all pre-meditated. You knew what he would say and do beforehand.'

'Hermione, now you're being ridiculous. You're the one who convinced me Snape was on our side, even after killing Dumbledore.'

Snape flinched. Hermione's eyes narrowed. Harry sighed, and changed tack.

'Look, I'll prove I'm myself. For instance, I know my prophecy. "The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord appro-"'

'Snape knows most if not all of that prophecy. He could've told you how it goes,' Hermione said flatly.

'I know you accidentally took the cat hair off of Millicent Bullstrode's robes and spent a month in the hospital wing with fur and a tail.'

'Who do you think Madam Pomfrey consulted while I was in the Hospital Wing? Snape again.'

Draco disguised a laugh with a cough.

Hermione regarded both of them warily.

'I know your Patronus has been an otter since you were sixteen and that you don't pronounce S.P.E.W. "spew." I know that you discovered what was attacking students our second year before anyone else did, and that if you hadn't had a mirror in your pocket that night, you would've died.'

Draco let out a hiss of breath and his hand twitched towards Hermione.

Hermione let a sigh of relief and flung herself at Harry to embrace him, but he rather bizarrely stepped to the side, leaving her to stumble.

'Sorry, Hermione, but it's better that you don't hug me just now.'

'Why not?' She narrowed her eyes. 'Did you go after Amycus and get injured after I told you not to do so?' She scanned his body for possible points of injury.

Harry laughed nervously.

'No, I'm fine, Hermione, really. It's Draco.'

'Draco?'

'I told you I wanted to be the one to tell her, Potter,' Draco drawled.

Hermione trained her wand on him again as he came closer.

'One more step and I hex you.'

Draco flinched, but retreated a little.

'Hermione-'

'Hermione?'

'That is your name, isn't it?' he said, raising an eyebrow.

'Yes, but… You –'

'I'm part Veela.'

'So?'

'So?' Draco was taken aback. 'Can't you connect the dots?'

'And now he's using Muggle phrases,' Hermione muttered. Maybe I'll just go now… Stun him first, worry about the consequences later.

'Sorry,' Draco said, 'But you aren't leaving until you hear me out. And Stunning me won't work.'

Hermione's eyes narrowed even more. She frowned and then blinked, letting her eyes widen normally again. After all, limiting one's vision is not advisable when everyone else in the room seems to be up to something.

'Did you just eavesdrop on my thoughts? How is that possible? Legilimency doesn't allow you to read thoughts.' She stepped closer to him, wand trained on his chest. 'What exactly do you want with me?'

And then her scrambled thought process caught up with what he had said and she answered her own question. Part Veela. Protectiveness over me. Oh sh-

Draco smirked.

'Finally got there, have you?'

Hermione sighed. She really should have seen something like this coming. 'I need to sit down,' she decided.

Draco took her hand and led her over to an armchair, perching on the arm and keeping her hand in his.

'Do you want anything? A glass of wine; shall I get you one?'*

'No alcohol on duty.'

Harry guffawed. 'You're not on duty. Your shift ended last night.'

'When you go missing, Harry James Potter, I'm on duty.'

Harry looked a little sheepish.

'Why don't we go to the kitchen, Potter,' Snape suggested. 'I think these two should talk, and perhaps Granger could stop changing the topic?' He gave Draco a significant glance before sweeping out of the room.

The moment the others had left the room, Draco scooped Hermione into his arms and resettled the two of them in the chair. As testament to how frazzled her wits were, Hermione let him.

'Draco, what do you think you're doing?' she demanded, ignoring how positively cosy it was with his arms curled around her body.

'You're tense, I'm tense, and you undoubtedly have many questions to ask me, so I'd rather get comfortable first.'

'Alright, but if your hands start roaming, they come off at the wrist.'

'Fleur told me a bit about Veelas. She said she knew Bill was her Intended Partner the first time she saw him, which was soon after she came of age. How long have you known that… that I am yours?'

'Since I saw you during Seventh Year when you visited Hogwarts to make use of the library and to destroy that Horcrux Severus told you about.'

Hermione sucked in her breath.

'But you were in hiding. I thought you and Snape were travelling across Continental Europe or something.'

'No. We were camping in the Forbidden Forest most of the time. Severus had a personal exit through the wards he had used to attend the Dark Lord's summons in the past, one that only he and Professor Dumbledore had known about. You have no idea how surprised I was to see you sneaking through a hole under the Whomping Willow. That tunnel was what finally cemented my trust in Severus. I figured that if he hadn't told the Dark Lord about it so he could get Death Eaters onto the grounds, then he wasn't going to hand me over to the Dark Lord either.'

'But – that was almost two years ago. I thought there was a time limit on how long a part-Veela has to bond with their Partner. Bill and Fleur had to get married two years after she Recognised him.'

Draco raised an eyebrow.

'Yes, there is a two year time restraint exactly from time of recognition. We have three months.'

Hermione started shaking her head and scrambled off Draco's lap. She ended up tipping over and falling onto the carpet. Draco got down on the floor beside her.

'Three months?'

'I know you heard me correctly. Yes. Three months.'

She leapt to her feet and glared at him.

'You've known for a year and a half, yet you waited to enlighten me about the situation until now?!'

Draco raised an eyebrow. 'What was I supposed to do? Drag my scrawny arse out of the Forest and prostrate myself at your feet the moment you were clear of the Whomping Willow?'

'When you put it that way,' she grumbled, allowing him to take her hand in his. 'But you've had about seven months since the defeat of Voldemort. Why the trap to lure me in? Why didn't you and Snape – '

' – Severus. You may as well start calling him that now. He's my godfather, and family.'

'Why didn't you and Severus come back to Spinner's End earlier? You and I barely know each other, which isn't much of a basis for a relationship. That is to say, even though you must be well, very fond of me…'

'I am.'

Hermione could feel herself flush. 'I haven't got fancy Veela hormones like you do, and while I don't find you unattractive – oh, stop pouting. Fine. I'll admit that you are rather appealing.'

Draco bent his head and kissed her. 'Thank you.' He sat up and eyed her appreciatively. 'And may I say, you are the most alluring witch I have ever had the fortune to lay eyes upon.'

'If you say so.' Hermione replied, flushing again. She resisted both the urge to reprimand him for kissing her and the urge to ask him to do it again.

'I do say so,' he drawled with a smile.

'As I was saying,' she continued, 'I don't have hormones that magically create feelings for you, as you are aware. I know the law is on your side and that if I refuse to bond with you that your next of kin can have me sent to Azkaban after your inevitable,' she swallowed hard, 'inevitable demise. I'm not going to reject you, but I think don't want to make you think I feel more than I do.'

'Veela hormones don't magically create feelings,' corrected Draco. 'They do rather enhance libido, but they don't create feelings. Having Veela blood – shows potential. When I saw you emerge from the tunnel under the Whomping Willow, I felt the potential of a bond between the two of us. The closest I can put it in average Wizarding terms is like an incredibly intense feeling of attraction. And then there were the dreams.' He paused to give Hermione time to assimilate the new information.

Dreams?

'Do you mean sexual dreams, or prophetic dreams?'

'Dreams that are prophetic of possibilities. But yes, some of them were quite… pleasurably sexual in nature.'

Hermione didn't quite know what to make of that. Her first impulse was to wish she could view a Pensieve memory of one of the dreams, but her sensible side quashed that before she could verbalise it.

'Would you like to?' Draco asked huskily.

Meep. Forgot that he can hear me.

She had the strangest sensation, almost as if Draco were laughing in her mind.

That's because I was.

He scooted closer to her on the carpet. 'I could show them to you if you like. We wouldn't even need a Pensieve.' He ran his palm up her arm, drawing ever nearer. Her breath caught in her throat as he kissed one cheek and then the other. He stopped just short of kissing her lips and looked into her eyes. 'I have seen you at your worst and your best, when we argue and when you grow heavy with our child. And you are always magnificent to me.'

'Just one? Weren't you lonely as an only child?'

He smirked. 'Who said anything about just one?' He sat back slightly. 'That is, if you want more than one? The Veela bond requires that a child be born of the union, but if you don't want to have multiple children, the choice is yours…'

Hermione smiled. She could have kissed him at that moment. 'And if I do want more – if I want a Weasley-sized family?'

Draco's face lit up and he grinned. 'Hermione, we can raise a dozen children if you want.'

'Well now, lets not get carried away,' she laughed, and he kissed her full on the mouth.

They did get carried away that evening, however, and poor Harry and Snape were trapped in the kitchen until the next morning. And so, Hermione and Draco were Bonded a full three months before the deadline. While it did take time for their relationship to mature, they did eventually fell deeply and irrevocably in love and went on to live happily ever after.

*~*~*~*

*The second of the two sentences in this line was of course lifted from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.