A/N: Hello :D I really wanted to have this chapter done a few hours ago...when it was still yesterday...but it kinda just kept going...and going...and going. I really like this chapter though :) It's my favorite so far. Happy reading :)

Harry's POV

Even after the neutralizer had been applied, my face, neck, and arms still burned. I had to clench my fists around my robes so that I wouldn't reach up and touch the burns that covered any exposed skin as Hermione and I walked up to the Hospital Wing.

As Hermione and I rounded the corner at the end of the fifth floor staircase, we almost literally ran into Malfoy and Zabini. The four of us just stared at each other for several moments. I was more than aware of Malfoy's eyes running over the burns on my face and neck.

Hermione sighed and pushed carefully past them into the Hospital wing. I followed but stopped dead in my tracks as soon as I did. Almost the same sound that I had heard yesterday echoed through the empty halls. I turned and looked at Malfoy just before the door closed and blocked him from view.

After Mione and I got out of the Hospital Wing we joined Ron and Ginny in the Great Hall for lunch. I wrapped my arm around my fiancée's waist and kissed her softly on the cheek. The ring on her finger shone under the candles floating over the table. "I missed you." She leaned her head on my shoulder.

"I missed you too." I smiled into her hair and breathed in her scent.

(+)(+)(+)

"You wanted to see me Professor?" I sat down in the chair across the desk from Professor Dumbledore.

The headmaster smiled at me and leaned forward so that his elbows were resting on the desk. "Ah yes, I was hoping to congratulate you on the engagement. In the midst of this war, many people have forgotten what it is like to love. They focus so much on fighting that they think it's the only thing that's important and begin to fight fire with fire instead of with love." The headmaster's blue eyes twinkled as they looked straight into mine. I looked away, uncomfortable with the way it seemed he was looking straight into my mind. "Is there something you'd like to talk to me about?" He asked. "You seem troubled."

I shook my head. "Excuse me Professor, but I'm going to be late for Herbology." The headmaster nodded and leaned back in his chair. I rushed out of the office as quickly as I could, stumbling over my untied shoelace at the end of the staircase and falling through the door to land flat on my face in the middle of the corridor.

"Smooth move Potter." I could hear the sneer in his voice without looking up at him. "It's a wonder how you managed to get yourself a girlfriend, let alone a fiancée."

"Shove off Malfoy." I growled as I stood and smoothed down my robes. He smirked and pushed past me on his way down the corridor. "Git." I mumbled under my breath as I ran towards the Entrance Hall.

Hermione met me as I passed the lake. "Herbology's been cancelled." She told me, frowning. "It seems Professor Sprout has come down with a nasty bout of the Wizard Flu."

Ron was nearly jumping for joy when we ran into him in the Entrance Hall and told him that Herbology was off. Hermione just rolled her eyes as he wrapped his arm around her waist and led her towards Gryffindor Tower and away from the library. "We've got to take advantage of this sudden free period." He told her. "I'm not going to let you waste it in the library."

The library. I very nearly smacked myself on the forehead right then and there. I had been dying to ask Hermione about Veelas ever since I had overheard Malfoy and Zabini but had been afraid of her asking me why I was suddenly so interested in them. Most, if not all, of Hermione's information came from the library so why not just cut out the middle man and go there myself?

"Harry, mate, where're you off to?" Ron asked as I turned on my heel.

"Hogsmeade." I called over my shoulder. "I want to get Ginny a present." My mind flashed to the diamond bracelet that sat in its box at the bottom of my trunk. I had found it while going through my mum's safety deposit vault.

"You know, you could learn a few things from him about romance." I faintly heard Hermione tell her boyfriend as I rounded the corner and stepped onto the staircase just before it began to shift.

(+)(+)(+)

Hundreds of bookshelves greeted me as I entered the library. I almost turned right back around and went back to Gryffindor Tower. It would take me forever to find what I was looking for in this place. I skimmed the titles on the shelves nearest to the doors. No luck. They were all books on Herbology.

Defensive Magic. Potions. Transfiguration. The use of Herbology in Potions. Astrology. Astronomy. Divination. Using magic in the home. Offensive Magic. Finally, in the back corner of the library, I found the books on supernatural creatures.

Vampire Hunters, The Complete History of Vampire Hunting, Vampires: Who Are They?, A Vampire's Diet. Right where Veelas would be were books on Werewolves instead. I groaned in frustration. There were no more shelves left to search.

I slid down into an old armchair that looked like it hadn't been used in a few centuries. A thud came from under it and I leaped to my feet. Once my heart rate was back within a healthy range, I dropped to my stomach and looked under the chair. Whatever had fallen from the bottom of the chair was obscured by shadows and a cloud of dust. I reached under and pulled out a dusty package about the size of a small book with a yellow piece of parchment tied to it with fraying twine.

The parchment opened into a sheet of directions. Go down the staircase leading towards the Entrance Hall. My feet were moving before I even realized it. I folded the parchment carefully and stuffed the package into my pocket.

When I got to the Entrance Hall I read the next instruction. Take the corridor directly to your right. Once three doors pass on your right you will come to a tapestry. I looked up at the tapestry that the parchment was talking about. The border was gold and shimmered in the dull light of the corridor. In the center was a centaur with its bow raised to the sky. Push the tapestry to the side and whisper 'Homopara'. I did and suddenly a door appeared where a solid wall had been seconds before. The door will only open if you turn the doorknob to the left. I felt like an idiot turning the knob to the left but as soon as I did the door swung open as if it had been closed on a compressed spring.

The room in front of me was dark and the air was stale. I pulled my wand out and cast a quick Lumos. A few spiders scurried away from the light. On the other side of the room was a painting. As I stepped closer I could make out the back of a large black armchair. I pointed my wand back to the parchment so that I could see what I was supposed to do next. There should be a silver-haired lady sitting in the armchair in the painting but if she isn't there just go up to the frame and tap your wand against the left side three times.

I looked back up and nearly fell over. While I had been reading the directions, the lady had appeared in the painting. She had long silver hair that fell like a waterfall down past her shoulders. Her eyes were strikingly silver and turned up at the outer corners.

The lady in the painting's name is Viola. She's not going to like you at first. Before you tell her the password (Kindred Spirits) I'd suggest you talk to her.

The lady's eyes pierced me like icicles as I approached the painting. She didn't look very friendly but it was worth a shot. "Hello. My name is Harry Potter." She didn't respond, just kept staring at me with her cold eyes. "And you are?"

"Viola." She sniffed haughtily.

My hands began to shake. "That's a beautiful name. You don't hear many names like it these days."

"I wouldn't know. No one's come to visit me for 178 years."

"You must get awfully lonely." She nodded hesitantly. "I know what that's like. Maybe not quite to your extent, but for the first eleven years of my life I had no friends, only my overly obese cousin and we don't exactly like each other." Viola's eyes seemed to warm slightly.

The large clock in the Entrance Hall began to chime three o'clock. Ron and Hermione would start to worry soon, Ginny probably already was. I folded up the parchment and tucked it into the hidden pocket of my robes. "I'm afraid I have to go now, but I promise I'll come visit you as soon as I can." Viola nodded but turned away from me. I knew that she didn't believe me but there was no way that I could convince her at the moment.

I closed the door gently behind me and walked back to the Great Hall, wondering what was behind Viola's painting.

(+)(+)(+)

"Hey mate, it's about time you got back. You've been gone nearly an hour." Ron said as I stepped through the portrait hole.

Ginny turned around so fast that she nearly knocked the chess board in front of her onto Dean's lap. "Harry!" She nearly knocked me over as she hugged me. "I've been so worried about you. Ron and Hermione wouldn't tell me where you were."

I smiled and pulled gently away. "Just let me put some things in my trunk and I'll tell you." She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me before going to sit next to Hermione on the couch.

The bracelet was just where I remembered it to be, under the pair of socks Dobby had made me for Christmas a few years ago. I opened the box and the diamonds shimmered brightly. Smiling, I went back down to the Common Room, holding the bracelet behind my back.

"What's this for?" Ginny asked when I handed it to her.

"Just because I love you." I kissed her deeply, only stopped when I heard Ron making gagging noises from behind me. "Do you like it?"

"Like it? Harry I love it! It's gorgeous. It must've cost you a fortune." She put it on her wrist and admired it.

I pulled her towards me and kissed her again. "It was my mother's. I was at Hogsmeade for the past hour trying to find something to give you, but I couldn't find anything good enough. Then I remembered this was in my trunk and I knew it was perfect."

Ginny's eyes sparkled as she looked up at me. "You are so perfect. How did I ever get so lucky?"

I kissed her softly. "I'm the lucky one."

Ron had apparently decided that he'd had enough mushy romance in the Common Room because he pulled us apart and stepped between us. "You want to go get some flying practice in?" He asked me.

(+)(+)(+)

The next time I was able to get away from Ginny, Ron, and Hermione was the next Hogsmeade weekend. Hermione and Ron had gone on a date and one of Ginny's friends had asked her to help her with an essay. I told her that I wasn't angry with her and that I'd just sneak her out of the castle and take her on a special date the next day.

When I got to the room behind the tapestry, Viola wasn't in her painting. I took out my wand and tapped the left side of the frame three times. In the blink of an eye, Viola showed up, looking bewildered. "You're actually back." She said when she spotted me.

"I told you I would be." I smiled. She smiled hesitantly back. "Where do you go when you're not in this painting?"

"There is another painting just like this one inside the room. That's where I spend most of my time because, as I'm sure you can imagine, it's much more interesting in there than in here." I looked around the bland room we were in and nodded.

We talked until I heard the clock in the Entrance Hall chime five o'clock. By then I had learned that Viola had been a Veela and had lived in the early 1700s. Her mate had rejected her after seven years of marriage and she had died. Decades later a young Veela had discovered her portrait and brought it with him to Hogwarts. His mate, Thurston, was a teacher here at the time and enjoyed learning about her history. When he had gotten older he created these rooms for any mate who needed refuge. After a while, books about Veelas became scarce. Thurston spent his last years gathering books with information about Veelas and bringing them here. There's only one book about being a Veela's mate that never made it here, his journal.

I thought about that last bit of information as I walked to the Great Hall. Could the package I had found in the library be Thurston's journal?

(+)(+)(+)

"Why have you not asked to go into the room yet?" Viola asked me. "This is the fifth time you have visited me and yet all you have done is sit and talk to me."

I shuffled my feet and looked down at the dusty floor. "I don't think I should go in the room. I'd be intruding, seeing as I'm not a Veela nor am I a Veela's mate."

Viola laughed. "But you are a Veela's mate, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to make the door appear." I froze. I had been denying it for so long, accepting it was simply not an option. "Harry dear, are you alright?"

"I have to go." I said, shoving my hands into my pockets so that she couldn't see that they were trembling. "I don't know when I'll be able to come back." Without waiting for a response, I ran from the room, letting the door slam shut behind me.

A/N: Uh-oh, now Harry has to accept that he's Draco's mate...what's gonna happen?

P.S. Viola is one of the reasons why this is my favorite chapter so far. I really like her...and the name Thurston :D