Chapter 9

They eventually pulled apart and he transformed back into his normal body. He reluctantly put his shirt back on, even though he adored the way she kept sneaking glances at his bare chest and blushing. But he sensed the moment had passed and his half-dressed state was making her increasingly uncomfortable. He was rewarded when she asked him to stay for dinner and the emotion he felt when she did, well he thought it would be described as giddy. He didn't know, he'd never felt it before, and even in his current besotted state would never admit to something so undignified. Nevertheless, he wasted no time in taking her up on her offer. She wandered into her kitchen and he followed her, curious about her muggle flat.

The first thing he spotted when he entered the room was a large metal bowl sitting next to the sink, but it had holes all over it. That didn't seem very useful. He looked over to Hermione who was rummaging around in a drawer, oblivious to his scrutiny.

"My queen," he crooned.

"Hmmm?" she answered absentmindedly, not turning away from whatever she was doing.

"What is this?"

She turned around slowly and he pointed to the seemingly useless bowl contraption.

"The holes seem like they would defeat the purpose," he clarified.

Her face morphed into an expression of pure amusement.

"It's called a colander, it's for draining- wait," she interrupted herself, "what did you just call me?"

The disbelief in her voice was comical. He resisted the urge to smirk and continued to peer at her innocently.

"My queen?" he questioned, "I could tell you didn't like 'princess' and you're right, of course, you are no mere princess, you shall be my queen."

He bowed grandly and when he turned his eyes back to her she was actually gaping, open mouthed at him.

"Unless of course you prefer 'goddess divine,' I was quite serious about that, I just thought it was a bit of a mouthful. Then again your actual name is four syllables long as well, so maybe there's some symmetry there…" he mused.

"Malfoy!" she interrupted sharply.

He couldn't even be upset about her use of his surname, she was so easily riled, it was fantastic.

"Yes?" he questioned as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

"No pet names, okay? At least not any that make me sound like a member of the royal family or, Godric forbid, a deity," she practically shuddered when she said the last word.

"Why ever not?" he asked cluelessly.

"Because it's absurd! What will people say? I'm not either of those things!"

"Who cares what people say?" he snorted, "as far as I'm concerned nobody outside of this room matters."

"I just don't need you to treat me like that. It's not necessary, I'm just me. This isn't a fairy tale."

He refrained from reminding her that they actually were in some of the fairy tales from his childhood, or they could be, if she would just go with it. And he didn't really care about the pet names, he'd been purposefully baiting her and he'd found her incredulous reaction endlessly amusing. But now he was beginning to feel annoyed at the fact that she refused to recognize how special she was.

"Hermione," he stepped forward and placed his hands on her shoulders, "you hold an Order of Merlin, First Class; I know your N.E.W.T. scores broke records; you are a veela's mate; and if it's the last thing I do I will make you a Malfoy, which means that eventually you will be the Lady of not one, but two Ancient and Noble Houses. You are elite in every way, the only thing keeping you from being royalty is that magical Europe no longer has kingdoms, you are certainly as exceptional as any queen and that's how I intend to treat you. So, quit acting like you're not special, I find I insulting."

She was gaping at him again, it was less attractive this time. She took a step back and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger as she let out an annoyed side.

"You are an unapologetic snob and I can't even be mad because I told you that I wanted you to be you, but it is infuriating."

He shrugged.

"I'm special too, I've always known that. I may have been partially misguided about why that was in my youth, but I wasn't wrong," he responded with confidence, he was a veela for Salazar's sake, that was the definition of extraordinary.

He crossed his arms over his chest defiantly.

"This feeling of wanting to kiss you and kill you at the same time is very annoying," she huffed.

He puffed up a bit, she still wanted to kiss him.

"Well you know which one I would prefer, my dove," he said, feeling very daring as he stepped back into her space.

She growled at him, which was about as intimidating as a kitten's purr, but he opted not to push his luck and try to touch her

"Do you cook?" he changed the subject, deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, she may have been small but he knew very well that she packed a punch.

That's what people without elves did, wasn't it, cooked? He could only assume that's why she'd come in the kitchen in the first place. Oh, she had that thing about elves, didn't she? That could be a problem. He wouldn't, couldn't free Effie, it would break her heart and he would miss her terribly.

"I won't subject you to my culinary experiments," she said, turning shy in an instant, "will that be a problem?" she asked.

He just looked at her stupidly, he had no idea what she was talking about.

"Will what be a problem?"

"That I can't really cook, I mean I can do a few things, I keep myself fed…"

He stared at her as she began to ramble about her lack of skills in the kitchen, (the kitchen of all places!) why would he possibly care about that? It had just been a simple question, he hadn't meant anything by it. All he knew was that this was obviously a sensitive subject.

"Hermione," he eventually interrupted, unable to continue watching her work herself into a tizzy, "I can see that you're upset, but I just don't understand why. I couldn't care less that you don't cook."

She looked away from him, blushing furiously. What in the world was going on?

"Ronald thought it was a rather indispensable skill for a woman to possess, and I know it's probably different because you have elves but…" she trailed off and shrugged helplessly, still not looking at him.

Of course, the stupid Weasel. He couldn't help it, he snorted out loud. He had a feeling his greatest challenge for the rest of his life would be not killing the moron. Unfortunately, that would upset his mate. On the other hand, at least she didn't sound upset about the idea of his having elves. Still, he knew he had to handle this delicately. Ridiculous as it was, her confidence had obviously taken a hit over this issue.

"Hermione, do you think my mother cooks? In fact, I'm fairly sure I don't know any witches who do. And yes, all the witches I know have elves, but even if they didn't I fail to see why that chore should fall to them. Come to think of it, most of the chefs of my acquaintance are wizards," he shrugged nonchalantly, trying to convey how very little he cared about this issue.

"I'm probably being silly."

She was biting her lip and now seemed to be actively avoiding meeting his eyes. He closed the distance between them, put a finger under her chin and turned her face towards him.

"Listen, I don't know what happened between you and Weasley but he had no right to make you feel this… small over anything. But I do think I've witnessed enough over the years to be confident in saying that he seriously struggles with self esteem issues and that he puts you down to make himself feel better. What I've never understood is why you let him. He can't hold a candle to you," he said fervently, "and I'm not saying that because of all the bad blood between our families, this is objective observation. You were this bright shining academic star, Potter was the Chosen One, he came off as a dim side-kick and he knew it, that's what made it so easy to torment him.

"You were paying attention," she observed quietly, "I probably should have realized that after the 'Weasley is Our King' incident, that was the perfect way to get under his skin."

He rolled his eyes to himself, that had been a rather petty move, and it had backfired spectacularly.

"The three of you garnered a lot of it," was all he admitted, " And, yes, for various reasons I watched you closely. I could never get past how callously he could treat somebody he claimed was a friend."

"And that excused your behavior? It was okay to treat me cruelly because we weren't friends," she spat bitterly.

He nearly recoiled from her, shocked by the sudden change of subject and the acidity of her tone. He was at least relieved she'd stopped acting so cowed. And he could admit that he had many, many things to apologize for, he may as well get started.

"You're right," he acknowledged, "I was horrible to you. I was a spoiled bigoted little prat. I can say that at first I truly didn't know better, but later I did and I was still cruel to you. For that I unreservedly apologize. However, now that you're mine I will never take that fact for granted. I will do everything in my power to make you happy and protect you. Both from outside sources and from myself. I am aware that I have a temper, I know it's unrealistic to say that I will never lose it with you, but I will do my best to shield you from it and to keep from hurting you."

"That's what bothers me about this," she blurted suddenly, at a much higher volume than she'd been speaking, "if it hadn't been for this veela thing, would you ever have been attracted to me?"

He snorted, again unable to help himself.

"I was attracted to you long before this 'veela thing,' as you call it, was truly a factor."

She just cocked an eyebrow in disbelief.

"You are a muggleborn so my upbringing told me that I couldn't have you. That didn't mean I didn't have eyes. You were pretty, smart, powerful, and wickedly clever; of course I was attracted to you. I was drawn to you from the beginning and after the Yule Ball I couldn't even pretend that I didn't want you."

She stared at him with wide, surprised eyes.

"But wanting you was dangerous," he continued, "my father finding out was frightening enough, that was nothing compared to what my aunt or the Dark Lord would have done. So I made sure to keep you far, far away to protect myself."

"And after the war?"

"Without the push that being my mate gave me, I'm not sure I ever would have had the courage to approach you romantically. I am not a Gryffindor, my family is still important to me, no matter how far they've fallen. I'm not sure I would have been able to set aside my duty for what I thought was a mere inclination. Now I know it isn't a mere anything, we are worth fighting for and if I must, that's what I'll do. You know that I already admired you enough to approach you on friendly terms. That was a big step for me."

She sighed heavily.

"I'm sorry, this magical connection business is going to take some getting used to, it's really thrown me through a loop. You must be hating that you've been saddled with somebody of my heritage," she groused, "I'm sure this would be so much easier with a pureblood, or just somebody sensible enough to accept how lucky they are to be a veela's mate."

"Don't denigrate your heritage," he snapped, "I can't claim to know much about muggles but I know that two of them produced you, so that's pretty impressive."

In truth he'd learned a hundred times more about muggles in the past weeks than he had during the previous twenty years of his life. And what he'd seen and been told had impressed him greatly (apparently they had the capability to visit the moon, the bloody MOON!) They were nothing like what he'd been led to believe. Clever enough to work around their lack of magic and still thrive, frankly he was intrigued and was anxious to learn more. She just continued to stare at him with those wide, beautiful eyes. Shocked at first, they melted into an expression of such gratefulness that Draco felt his heart clench.

And then she stepped into him, burying her head against his chest and encircling her arms around his waist once again. He took her into his own arms and nuzzled his face in the glorious, riotous curls that he'd once been foolish enough to make fun of. This discussion was far from over, they'd touched on several issues that needed to be flushed out, like what in the world had happened between his mate and Weasley. But he sensed that this was not the time, her emotions were all over the place, she needed a distraction. He hesitated over his next question.

"Would you like for me to call Effie? She's my personal elf. I don't know if she could cook her way in your kitchen but she could certainly bring us something from home, anything you want actually."

"You treat her well, don't you?" she asked.

Her voice, once again, had that small, timid quality, but at least the question sounded more like a confirmation of what she already believed than anything else.

"Effie is very dear to me, I consider her family and would never allow anyone to harm her," he said firmly, and then he remembered with shame Hermione's acquaintance with another Malfoy elf, "or for her to harm herself," he clarified.

Apparently it was exactly the right thing to say, she pulled her head away from his chest and smile beatifically at him.

"I would like to meet her soon. But for tonight I was thinking take away, I was just looking for menus," she gestured vaguely around the kitchen, "Have you ever had it?" she asked him impishly.

He blinked, nonplussed for a moment by her sudden return to her normal, confident demeanor. Yes, he'd been right to put the heavy topics aside for the moment.

"Considering that I've never heard of it, I think I can safely say that I've never had it."

"Well, what kind of food do you like?"

He frowned at her in confusion.

"French, Italian, Chinese, Thai?" she prompted.

Was she seriously suggesting they somehow had access to such diverse cuisine from here in London? She must have seen something in his expression because her's became downright mischievous.

"Oh Draco Malfoy, you and I are going to have fun," she promised with a smile that was nearly lecherous.

He couldn't disagree with that.

"Hey, you never told me what that bowl full of holes was for."

She tilted her head back so that she could look at him and burst out laughing.

Author's note: thank you all for loving this story so much. I just wrote it for fun, never intended to post it, so it feels especially good that so many people seem to enjoy it. Thanks for reading!