A/N: I just want to give a shout out to my faithful reviewers!

Thanks: BrightestWitchOfHerAge16, NatalieLea, Music_Loving_Bookworm, Ceralyn, , zebrababii72, and of course CoyDog22. I'm sure I'm missing someone, but these reviewers have made my day with every note they leave! I love hearing all of your responses and reactions.

Just a reminder: I don't own anything.

After breakfast, Hermione and Draco decided to go to the library to discuss the curse. Hermione thought it would be better because of the book proximity, and Draco just didn't want to be back in his study any time soon after the night before. Hermione pulled the chaise lounge over next to a black armchair by the fire. She eyed it curiously. Draco seemed to have an affinity for black armchairs. She couldn't say it was the worst choice since it went with everything, but honestly the man had one in practically every room of the house!

Once she had moved the furniture, she sat cross legged on the chaise and laid out the curse book, Bill's letter and her notes. Draco took the armchair next to her and watched as she got everything situation. He smiled fondly as a curly lock of hair fell in her face and she pushed it back quickly, only to have it fall again. He reached out and tucked it behind her ear with finality.

Hermione looked up as his tentative fingers touched her ear softly. She blushed at the touch, but held his gaze. They sat there for a moment, the silence between them electrified, until Hermione looked away.

Draco pulled his hand back into his lap and said, "Okay, tell me what you know."

Hermione cleared her throat and said, "Okay, this book was written by your ancestor Aneas Malfoy, however it was lost soon after that."

"How did you find it?" he asked curiously.

"I-" she blushed and continued, "I saw it in a dream." Draco snorted but Hermione went on, "Anyway, it describes some more of your ancestors, Decimus Malfoy and his 5 sons. They came to Florence Italy and had a reputation for torturing muggleborns and half bloods. Well it was almost Halloween, so they rounded up everyone they thought was of impure blood and locked them in the basement of the castle they were staying in. They tortured and killed most of them the first night, but they left some for the next night which was Halloween. Apparently one of the witches they tortured was a descendent of Isis, and she was pregnant at the time. They tortured her, murdered her and… defiled her corpse."

"Defiled?" he asked warily.

"The worst of the brothers had sex with her dead body," Hermione said bluntly. "Now, the witch they killed, named Sephora, didn't know she was related to the goddess Isis, but she was one of the strongest witches of the time. Either by her power or by her connection to Isis, when she died the goddess was summoned. She is the one that put the curse on your family. This is it here," she added, showing him the page with the curse transcription.

She let Draco read over it before continuing. "She cast the curse on the family, and it immediately turned all but the most innocent of them into snakes. Romanus, who was spared from it at first, thought his family was a snake with many heads, so he killed it. He wasn't a very smart boy, but I suppose someone was able to extract his memory to get the original text of the curse."

Draco nodded, so she continued. "The curse keeps Malfoys from bearing females, and the transformation only affects males, so I guess that was Isis' way of making sure every single person would suffer."

"Most of the women that married into the family were killed by their mates when the transformation became permanent," Draco said softly. He looked up at Hermione and insisted, "I don't want to kill anyone."

Hermione smiled, and almost wanted to cry. Here she had been, investigating Draco as a Death Eater not even three weeks ago, and now he was almost in tears because he didn't want to kill anyone. If only the public saw this Draco, she was sure no one could hate him.

"I promise we'll figure it out before anyone gets hurt," Hermione said reassuringly. "That's what I know so far, but let's read the letter. Maybe some of this will help.

H-

So good to hear from you even if it's for business purposes

"Blah blah let's skip this part," Hermione said, eyes skimming down to the good stuff.

First of all, you have to know this curse book is an old Wiccan tradition. In their doctrine, a curse could not only be broken with it s countercurse, but by negating the curse using the same situations. So to break this, you would probably have to be in the dungeons of a large home, preferably a castle. It needs to be at the same time, which your notes said was Halloween. Halloween, or Samhain as the Wiccans called it then, is a very important holiday for witchcraft, which I'm sure you know. It is said to be the day when the veil is thinnest between Earth and the beyond. Wiccans believed they gleaned their powers from the so-called beyond, so they would often do rituals and ceremonies on that night at midnight.

The curse book purports that Sephora was simply protected because she was a descendent of Isis, but I believe that Sephora may have summoned her. She was very strong, but it takes a lot of power to summon a goddess or any celestial being. I would think that Sephora probably made a connection with the family's magic through the binding spell they were holding her with. That would explain how she manage to call Isis, and how Isis was able to connect to them so completely.

As far as I could tell, the family spoke English, so that's why the curse Isis cast was in English. Diving beings tend to use the tongue they find they'll best be understood in. The one thing I'm coming up with that might have gotten lost in translation is the word sacrifice. On the surface the word may mean death, but I can't fathom that a curse based on killing muggleborns would require the killing of one to break it. In ancient Egyptian the word for sacrifice is also the word for gift, which makes sense considering the sacrifices they made to the gods and goddesses they worshipped. I'm just not sure how it fits in this situation.

Some other info I found out about Isis:

She's the goddess of fertility

She is one of the goddesses that created magic among mortals

Her symbol was the red rose. She brought it to Egypt though they had never seen such a flower before. Now the rose can be found in the tombs inside the pyramids.

I'm afraid without knowing more about the family, that's all the info I can give. All I can say is that if the apparent translation of the curse is that a muggleborn should be sacrificed, then you better steer clear. I don't know what you're getting yourself involved in, but be safe.

-B

Hermione had been taking notes the whole time, so when they finished the letter, she recapped, "Okay so on Halloween at midnight we have to… do something that involves a muggleborn gift?" Hermione's sentence went up at the end, like a question. She was thoroughly confused.

Draco seemed to be pondering something. "It says that as long as the Malfoy blood thrives, the curse will be there. So either that means I have to die, or I have to change the family bloodline." He trailed off, as if trying to put some pieces together in an infinite puzzle. Then suddenly, he perked up. "I have to break the pureblood family line."

Hermione stared at him, so he went on. "If my child or children aren't pureblooded, they won't have the curse. Isis must have been playing on the prejudices of my family, knowing they would rather suffer painful deaths than ruin the pure bloodline. I don't know what Halloween has to do with it though."

"I think I get it," Hermione supplied. "You have to impregnate a muggleborn or half blood at midnight on Halloween."

"That's practically impossible," Draco said. "How could you have that kind of timing?"

"I think it's more the act of coitus that matters, more so than the moment of conception," Hermione said, blushing. She had just realized what their revelation meant for her.

Draco seemed to catch her line of thought, so he grabbed her hands. "If you don't want to, you don't have to do it. I would never hold it against you. Not after you spent so much time helping me figure it out."

Hermione just stayed quiet for a moment and then said softly, "I need to be alone." She left the library before Draco could have the forethought to stop her. She knew he couldn't stay away for long, because he would get upset and without contact he might get so upset that he transformed. But still, she wanted some time alone to think. This was all just too much for her to handle right now.

xxx

Draco sat in the library for a few hours, just staring at the fire and running his hands through his hair. He realized he had completely missed lunch, but he frankly couldn't bring himself to care. The pain in his abdomen just made him feel more alive this time. He was thriving on that ache to convince him that he was really there. He wasn't sure how he felt about Hermione, but he knew it was strong. Actually, it was probably the strongest he'd ever felt for a person, aside from his Mother.

It was like she was magnetic to him. He'd felt so drawn to her since that night she'd appeared at the ball. That was the real reason he had approached her. Sure, when he later found out she was an imposter, he had been angry, but he still had an uncanny connection to her.

He guessed that was why he kissed her so quickly. It just felt right, maybe necessary in a way. Maybe it was a side effect of the curse, but he was head over heels for this girl. Why did it have to be this girl? He had been so terrible to her his entire life. Why couldn't it be another girl who didn't know who he was or of what he was capable.

Instead it had to be this girl, this woman who had every reason to hate him. This woman who had changed so drastically since school, and yet somehow was just the same fiery, amazing bookworm. For once he didn't think of her bookishness as a flaw. Hell it may just save his life. On the one hand, he knew he could get any muggleborn to bear his child, but at the same time he couldn't imagine making love with anyone but Hermione. The thought of being with her in such an intimate and complete way made him burn inside.

He realized at that moment that he couldn't stay away from her any longer. He needed to go to her. He might even love her. But that didn't bode well for Draco, because he wasn't just a man. He was a monster, and when he transformed he was a beast. He thought to himself woefully, And who could ever learn to love a beast?