Hermione didn't usually wear socks to bed, but she decided to make an exception for this experiment. She didn't relish the idea of drifting off to sleep only to be jolted awake if her foot brushed Malfoy's and she became consumed with how pretty he was, or how much she'd like to lick him.

She still couldn't believe she'd licked him. She hoped no one had seen that. With the way the night had gone, however, Pansy had probably managed a photograph and it would appear as the lead item on the gossip page. War Heroine Catches Rare Veela Virus. Pansy would manage to make the article sound sympathetic rather than vicious so people didn't feel too dirty as they pried into the most private details of her life. They'd tell themselves they were her fans, that they were just concerned. They were just interested in her because she was a public figure. The less charitable would say it was what she deserved for consorting with Veela at all. Lie down with Kneazles, get up with fleas, someone would say.

She wondered if Molly would still by sympathetic after she read Pansy's article. History suggested no.

At least Malfoy hadn't seemed to disgusted by her salivating over him. He'd been remarkable, all things considered. She didn't especially like owing him, and every day this went on she owed him more. She owed him her life, she owed him her pain-free existence, she owed him this lovely flat and the croissants she had for breakfast every morning. It seemed she even owed him for covering her failure to register at the Ministry.

And what did she do in return? She licked him.

He'd tasted good, too, though she was pretty sure that was just the Veela insanity. She pulled her hair back into a bushy plait and stared at herself in the mirror. "Could you not be crazy?" she asked herself. "Please?"

Her reflection had nothing useful to contribute to the conversation, and she decided that was just as well. The last thing she needed now was a magic mirror spelled to offer psychological advice. She didn't think she'd like whatever such a thing had to say. Don't trust him, maybe or, perhaps worse, Why are you so afraid to trust him?

When he peered around her half-open door, she saw that Malfoy had adopted a similar clothing strategy to hers. She didn't know what he usually wore to bed, but she was grateful he'd opted for pajama bottoms that dragged to the floor and a long-sleeved shirt. He'd bared as little skin as possible. As always, he was all in black.

"You look like a crow," she said.

He pulled at the hem of the very black shirt and regarded it as if he'd never considered that before. "Crows are smart birds," he said. "I've been called worse."

She knew. She'd called him worse. But then, he'd called her much worse, so she supposed they were even.

"Shall we do this?" she asked.

He gestured toward the bed and she climbed in. She knew she held herself with uninviting stiffness as he followed, but seduction wasn't her goal. She just wanted to be immune to him, or at least inured. She'd settle for inured.

She could feel his breath on the back of her neck and it made her heart race, but he kept his hands over her clothes and slowly pulled himself against her until she could feel the warmth of him pressed all along her back and legs. They lay in tense silence for what felt like an eternity, but couldn't have been more than a minute, before he asked, "Are you okay?"

She considered the question seriously. Her sense of distrust and caution slowly drained away, and, the longer they lay there, the more content she felt. She didn't, however, have any urge to lick him and she decided this was good. She still had her wits about her, and if she had an almost unreasonable urge to trust Malfoy, well, he hadn't behaved in any way to suggest she shouldn't since this whole ordeal had begun. Maybe she should listen to the imaginary psychology mirror in her head and just have a little faith that he meant if not well than at least well enough. She felt suffused with relaxed pleasure, the way one might on the first morning of summer holiday. She had no cares, nothing important to do, and she stretched rather lazily against him. If this was the whole of his effect on her, she could handle this. She could love this. "I think so," she said.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"Good," she said. "I feel good." She rolled over onto her back and looked at him. "Do I think you're gorgeous because of the Veela thing, or are you really that attractive?"

He propped himself up on one elbow and looked at her. "You're not especially good for my ego, Granger," he said. "I'm really this attractive."

"I didn't think so at school," she said. "You must have aged well."

"I was fairly unpleasant to you," he said. "You'd have had to have been a masochist to pine after me."

She could tell he was still waiting for an explanation of how his presence was affecting her, and she tried to find a way to put it into words. "I'm not quite as mindless as I am when you touch my skin," she said.

"You're managing a conversation, so I'd figured that out," Malfoy said, but he sounded amused and pleased rather than annoyed at her floundering and the traitorous Veela part of her soul squirmed with pleasure at that. "Though you did better than I thought you would earlier."

"It's hard to care through the haze of being lost in how amazing you are - " she began.

"And I am amazing," he agreed, but now he sounded as if he were suppressing laughter.

" - but I can still hear," she said. "I'm a little surprised you read Muggle philosophy, is all."

He pointed at the red smoke photograph. "Art is art, Granger."

She didn't know what to say to that. It launched a thousand questions but she doubted he'd answer any of them. You hated Muggles, she wanted to say. When did that stop, or do you still and just appreciate brilliance no matter where it comes from? Is this some kind of gross exceptionalism, or have you really shed those prejudices like a snake moving on? And do you despise me for being Muggle-born, for being a creature, for being this dependent? All she said was, "You do keep things interesting."

"I try," he said.

She rubbed her foot against his and sighed with pleasure. This could have been Ron, she thought, who never read anything outside of required manuals for work and Quidditch magazines. "This is nice," she said. "It shouldn't be, but it is."

"Care to elaborate?"

"I just feel well," she said. "Really, gloriously well. I could kiss you for making this better."

"Don't." The word was sharp and she jerked back from him as if it were a slap. "I don't like my women drugged," he said. It sounded like an apology for the knee-jerk response to her suggestion of a kiss, even just as an expression. She decided to take it as both apology and reassurance.

"That's good, I guess," she said.

"Go to sleep, Granger," Malfoy said. He sounded worn out by her, by this, by everything. "We can test whether you're quite as dazed in the morning after a full night together."

"I just want to savor this," she said. The words were too soft to count as conversation but she had the sense he was listening avidly. "I was in pain for so long, you know. You stop noticing after a while. People would ask how I felt and I'd say, 'fine' because the pain wasn't bad enough to keep me in bed that day. And then I bumped into you in a shop and for a few seconds all the pain disappeared and I remembered what it felt like to be normal. And then you were gone and it all came crashing back and I could barely stand. I started to cry at the shock of how much I really hurt. Harry had to side-along me home."

"So that's how you found out," he said.

"Dumb luck," she said. "I didn't reason it out or find the answer in a book or deduce it with logic and research. I just ran into you."

"Lucky for you," he said. His voice was oddly tight and she felt a creeping sadness under the languor. Lucky for her, maybe. Unlucky for him. No one in his right mind wanted to be in his position. He was just as trapped as she was, and he didn't even get the high.

"I suppose," she said. She turned back onto her side and he wrapped an arm around her with more care than she'd expected. She sank down into sleep and when she dreamed she was standing in a field of crows, black against white snow. They all cawed at her, but she didn't understand any of them no matter how hard she tried. At last one of them set a hand against her cheek and some part of her brain wondered when crows had grown hands but that was dream logic for you. The crow watched her with his steady, grey eyes as if waiting for a response but instead of giving him one she drifted more deeply into sleep.

When she woke up in the middle of the night the room was still dark but Malfoy was gone. When she set a hand on the side of the bed where he'd slept it was cold and she knew he'd left her hours earlier. She wished that didn't make her feel so alone.

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N - Thank you for everything. You are the best, most enthusiastic readers and I truly appreciate it.