Disclaimer: Harry Potter isn't mine.
Ern Estine 13624: This isn't exactly the moment of them falling in love, but it was inspired from that review. As you know, it's in my main fic, but this is kind of a prequel to it, I suppose. James being born will also be towards the end of Is It Too Late to Start Over?
Chapter 4 Are you sure?
If they made it through this, Kat was going to kill Hermione. She was had a feeling that her face looked about as bad as it felt, and sure, Hermione was trying to save her ass, but couldn't she have made her look like Fleur or a famous actress or something? It's not like the Malfoys would recognize Catherine Zeta-Jones. They wouldn't recognize Quasimodo either apparently.
"I-I don't know if it's her." Malfoy sounded sick. Well, at least there was one plus to her current appearance.
"Draco." Lucius sounded breathless, hungry, like he hadn't eaten in days and someone was waving a hot, greasy chicken leg in front of his face. "If we turn her in, the Dark Lord will forgive—"
"I said I don't know!" Malfoy snapped. Kat was too nervous to even move, but if she wasn't mistaken, she could hear some anger hidden beneath his fear. "Put them in the dungeons—"
"It's the Mudblood and Potter's Weasley sidekick," growled Greyback. "You can't deny that. It's her. Look at the bint's scar!"
"It might be…" Malfoy sounded faint while Kat desperately wanting to know what was going on in his head. Lucius was right. They had everything to gain and nothing to lose by turning them in. "I'm feeling a little sick. We'll discuss this after dinner—"
"Draco!" Narcissa hissed. "This could be our one chance—"
"Which is why I need to be one hundred percent certain!" Malfoy roared. Kat heard him stomp off and tried to watch him go through her swollen eyes. Malfoy was too proper to have a tantrum. She looked over her shoulder as Greyback demanded gold and started arguing with Lucius while they were roughly shoving them into the dungeons. What the hell was going on?
"It's her," Draco said as he forced himself to swallow some wine from Father's study. Needless to say, his parents were freaking out at his refusal to identify Potter.
"Why the bloody hell couldn't you say that twenty minutes ago?" Father grumbled as he started pushing up his sleeve. Mother frowned but kept quiet.
"NO!" Draco yelled so loudly that Father jumped. He swore and poured himself some more wine. "I don't mean Potter… I mean… Granger. It's her."
He was met with shocked, horrified silence, of course. On his seventeenth birthday, he came into a Veela inheritance. Pansy wasn't his mate, and they were both heartbroken, but knew better than to keep their relationship going. Veelas were magical creatures, obviously, and their mates were almost always magical. Mates with Muggle blood was so incredibly rare that it was once thought to be a myth.
Father let his arm fall limply to his side. What little color he had drained from his face. "That's not—No. It can't be her."
"Well we can't call the Dark Lord now." Mother closed her eyes as if pained. "What are we going to do?"
Die, Draco thought. The Light was losing, and if the Dark Lord found out about this… Either way he was going to die, because if Granger died, then so did he. "No wonder I've been so sick. Only someone on the run would be getting hurt that much, would be that hungry."
"We can still turn in Potter," Father said weakly. "Then the Dark Lord will be grateful enough to allow Granger to live."
Draco shook his head but didn't say anything. Right now, Granger's fear was so strong that he could feel it, her racing heart, her nausea. Like she would want to live like this for the rest of her life, with her best friend dead.
"We'll let them go," Mother whispered frantically. "And Draco will go with them. We'll tell the Dark Lord that they overpowered us, but Draco managed to follow them."
"He'll kill us for this." Father was stating a fact, but for once, he sounded brave. "You're going to have to be careful, Draco."
"No." He couldn't see any way out of this. The Light was losing. There was no sense in bringing his parents down with him. "We'll turn Potter in in the morning. I'll talk to Granger tonight. I—"
"I'm not letting you die!" Mother shrieked. She strode over to him and cupped his face in her hands. Draco involuntarily leaned away from her crazy eyes. "Andromeda will take care of you. You could be happy, Draco—"
"Have you seen it out there?" Draco couldn't stop himself from yelling. "I made a choice the moment I took the Mark. And it looks like it was the right one."
"We'll figure something out," Mother said, almost to herself. Her eyes glistened with tears while Father became disturbingly quiet. Draco didn't say anything. It was either him or all three of them.
Hours later, he woke up screaming in pain. He couldn't even remember going to bed. The pain was all over, and he couldn't locate it. The first thing he could focus on was the sound of Mother shushing him and putting a cool towel over his head.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "Bella heard us."
But that meant… No. Draco sat up so fast the room spun. "Where is she?"
"She escaped." Aunt Bella walked into the room with a slight pout. "I guess I should have thought of the Gryffindor babies fighting back before I drugged you three. At least I got to kill Dobby after torturing your Mudblood."
Once her words sunk in, Draco saw red. "YOU—"
Aunt Bella had her hands around his throat before he could charge at her. "Your father's mother sacrificed herself so your bloodline wouldn't be ruined. I suggest you do the same."
Draco gulped but like Mother, didn't dare to respond. Aunt Bella wouldn't hesitate to snap his neck. His paternal grandmother discovered that her mate was a halfblood before marrying his grandfather. She married Abraxas anyway, had his father, and died soon afterwards. A Veela could only live about five years, no more than six without his or her mate.
"We could lock the Mudblood up, after we catch her again." Mother paused, silently telling Draco not to react. "So Draco can live. She can be like a pet."
Aunt Bella smiled so widely that he could see all her disgusting, rotting teeth. Finally she let him go. "See, baby sister? Was that so hard?"
Draco tried to calm his breathing as she walked away cackling like a hyena. What was he going to do?
Late September 1998
Thanks to magic, Hogwarts was rebuilt by mid-September. Draco couldn't believe that Potter let them get off with probation. Now all he had to do was talk to Granger… and ruin a thousand years of pureblood. He wasn't looking forward to it and felt like something was wrong with him because of who Magic chose for him to be mated to. Part of him just wanted to ignore it. And then he started getting sick.
He couldn't sleep and hardly held down what food he could force himself to swallow. If he could just explain things to her…
But Potter didn't go straight to the Auror Academy like Weasley and Longbottom. Everywhere Granger went she went. He never saw one without the other, and by her narrowed eyes and wrinkled nose, he could tell that Potter was on to him.
Mother, being Mother, told McGonagall about the situation in the spring, so every time there was a group project, Granger was suddenly his partner. He felt relieved, being so close to his mate, like he could breathe again after being held under water.
But Potter insinuated herself into every group project along with Granger, even when it was only supposed to be a two person project.
"Katherine!" Flitwick squeaked. "You're supposed to be working with Miss Bones!"
"I'm not letting Malfoy try to snake his way into Hermione's pants!" Potter said loudly. Granger turned pink at the brute's words while Draco wanted to shake her and scream in her face that it wasn't like that at all.
"Katherine!" Flitwick tried again, but he was Flitwick, meaning he didn't have an assertive bone in his body. Potter stayed put.
"I hate you, Kat," Granger whispered as they got to work. Unfortunately, she didn't sound serious.
"You mean you love me," Potter said happily. She gestured to him. "Whatever he has must be contagious."
"Just because you could kill the Dark Lord does not mean you can kill diseases, Potter," Draco drawled. The coughing fit that he broke into didn't help matters. "Go work with your partner. We don't need your help."
Potter snorted. "I wasn't planning on doing any of the work anyway." Merlin, she was insufferable. "Hermione's spoken for, Malfoy. We're getting married and adopting ten babies."
"Our marriage wouldn't last six months," Granger joked. Then, she added seriously for his benefit. "I'm dating Ron."
Draco felt like the earth opened up from under him and started to swallow him whole. So Granger wouldn't want them to be together. Neither did Father, because of their blood. He was ruining everything.
"I…" It could wait a few years anyway. He might feel like crap, but he wasn't dying. Not yet. Like a coward, he hastily rose from his seat. "I have to go."
October 2001
He still couldn't believe it was Potter. He was so repulsed by the idea that back when he was seventeen his brain couldn't even process the possibility. He felt the euphoria of finding his mate, but he wasn't close enough to be able to tell if it was Potter or Hermione. Fast-forward almost five years, and he was lying in a hospital bed, making awkward conversation with Potter, his mate.
She had a look on her face like she had just tasted something bad. "I don't like you."
He shrugged even though his bullet wounds made the action unbearably painful. "I don't like you either. Not yet anyway."
She grinned like that was a compliment. "You had me worried there for a second. I thought you would be slobbering all over me like you were Hermione."
"I wasn't—if you had torn yourself away from her, I would have figured out it was you years ago!" It was too hard not to be angry with her. It was her fault he was in the hospital, and he suspected, her fault that he was getting so sick so fast. She drank like a fish, and towards the end of her seventh year, he remembered Hermione confronting her in the halls one night, lifting up her sleeve to reveal needle marks. Potter had been sneaking back to the castle after a wild night of partying her sorrows away.
Potter laughed. As if anything about their situation was funny. "And what? We'd be married, and I'd be popping out little Malfoys? In your dreams ferret face."
"I'm sorry," Draco forced himself to say. She raised her eyebrows like she thought he was making a joke. "I mean it. And yes. I'd like to get married and have children one day."
"To who?" Potter frowned when he stayed silent. She couldn't make anything easy now, could she? "Listen, Malfoy. You're attractive in your own inbred, aristocratic kind of way. I've been told I'm decent at shagging. Can't we just screw around so we don't die and then go about our lives as we normally would? You can have a nice pureblood wife. I can… Well, I don't really have anything good going for me right now but—"
"But can't we just start over?" Draco found himself asking for the thousandth time. Potter was constantly trying to find loopholes, but after years of avoiding this, he was tired. He just wanted to give into his Veela instincts and be happy.
Potter thinned her lips and grabbed her purse. "I'm going to go grab some lunch with Hermione. Don't worry. I'll be back. She says she'll hogtie me if I try to ditch you again."
"Bye," Draco muttered, trying not to sound sad. He tried not to think of his carefree Hogwarts days with Pansy as Potter fled. If only life could be that easy.
Thank you Ern Estine 13624, harryislife, and gr8rockstarrox for reviewing!
harryislife: I will eventually write Draco confronting James, but I think my next post might being Sirius finding out of about the Dursleys.
Ern Estine 13624: I'm still thinking about how I'm going to write about Draco asking Remus and Sirius to marry Kat, but I'll write it as soon as I decide exactly what I want to happen.