Hermione couldn't wait to tell Draco. It took what felt like ages to extricate herself from Ron and Harry and the endless explanations of what they'd done with Jean. The townhouse had more than enough bedrooms to find one with an en suite for Pansy, but, predictably, it had been a disaster. She'd cooed at Kreacher that she'd never lived in a house with an actual elf before, only Hogwarts, and he'd sniffed his opinion of institutional elves, and she'd said she quite agreed, and he'd toddled off to find sheets of a high enough thread count to be suitable for 'Miss Park', muttering that he could tell she'd been ill and why hadn't Harry taken better care of her?

That, naturally, had left Hermione to roll her eyes and try to get the rest of the room in some kind of order. Pansy had refused to even loll on the bed for fear of bugs, and they'd teamed up to make the two men take the disgusting rug out back to dispose of. "Don't beat it," Pansy had said. "Bin it. I don't care of some ancient Black matriarch carried it out of Persia herself on her very own camel. It's falling apart."

"And I think that mold had eyes," Hermione had said.

"It definitely had eyes," Pansy had agreed. It had taken far too long, even with help, to get the room set right, and now Hermione was tired, dirty, and longing for the excellent water pressure of her own flat. Before she let herself luxuriate under the endless stream of hot water, however, she had to tell Draco that Pansy was fine, they'd found her mate - though she continued to find that word incredibly disagreeable - and that it was Harry. Draco would probably smile that slow blooming smile he had when something delighted him. Then he'd cry out of relief. He'd been locked away as if he could find out how the mate selection worked through sheer force of will and now he could relax.

He wasn't out in the main area of the flat when she got though the door, but she could tell he was there. Just his presence made something along her spine relax and mouth turn up. She hurried down the short corridor, past her own room and the opposite bath, and threw open the door to his room.

Draco looked up. He'd been sitting at a long table set near one window of a room so large it took her breath away. Or perhaps it only seemed big because there was nothing in it. The heavy wooden table where he sat, a narrow bed against one wall, the dried remains of the iris she'd given him so long ago the only thing that passed for decoration. Papers were spread out over the table and before she could read the warning expression on his face she walked over and picked one of them up.

She read it first idly, then in disbelief. Before he could pull them away, she'd grabbed another sheet, and then another.

They were records of every Veela like her who'd ever registered with the Ministry.

"That's funny," she said, though it wasn't. It was the furthest thing from funny. Her gut roiled with something she couldn't identify but she thought it might be rage. If not rage, something worse. "I said several times it would be a great thing if I could just look at the histories of other people like me and you never mentioned that you had them."

She wanted him to say he'd just gotten them, just that day, but one look at his face and she knew he hadn't.

"Pansy will be fine, by the way," she said. "It's Harry."

The words hit him like a slap, and he nodded jerkily. "That's good," he said. He opened his mouth to say something, and she wasn't sure what she expected. An apology, maybe, or an excuse. Not what he said. Not, "I wasn't going to tell him. Even if I figured it out. I was just going to use it to save Pans."

"What?" Hermione was sure she had to be hearing him wrong.

"She's my best friend, or one of," Draco said. "I know she's difficult but… since we were in nappies. Our nurses were friends, so we - "

"Tell whom?" Hermione could feel the rage in her voice. She knew whatever this was it wasn't good. Her palms were hot and sweaty and she tossed the papers down and wiped her hands against her trousers as Draco went utterly white.

"My father," he said in a whisper. "Hermione," he began, and then he stopped.

She needed to move. She needed to do something. She needed to run, or scream. She kept her voice calm, instead, and asked, "Why would your father care about how a rare, unimportant strain of Veela finds its mate?"

"He - "

"He wanted to cure you?" she asked. "Cure me? Rid his family of the horrible taint of a magical creature?" That would have made sense, and the idea of being cured of Draco hurt terribly, but she could see Lucius Malfoy wanting that. Narcissa might be oddly charmed that some kind of old magic had claimed her son, but Lucius had all the pretension of what Pansy had dismissively called an upstart. She would have hated that, but she would have understood it. Expected it, even. She hadn't missed that Draco had kept her away from his father. She might have forgiven him for hiding that, especially since he'd come back from the time he'd met with his father at the Manor and said he didn't care about finding out any longer. She would have been angry at him for keeping secrets, but she would have understood that one.

It was too bad that the look on his face made it clear she had missed the target. For a Slytherin, Draco Malfoy was really very bad at lying, or maybe he was just bad at lying to her. Their hearts wanted to beat with the same rhythm. Their breathing wanted to synchronize. He couldn't lie to her without lying to himself and, whatever his flaws were, Draco had learned to look at himself with honest eyes.

"What did he want?" she asked.

"I wasn't going to tell him," he said. He sounded desperate for her to believe him. "At first it seemed to make sense, and even then I knew I wouldn't hurt you. Even before I… you'd been hurt enough and… and… you know I'd kill anyone who - "

"What. Did. He. Want."

Draco looked away and she knew it had to be bad. He couldn't even meet her eyes as he said, "To control it."

"Why?" she asked, but even as the word came out of her mouth she knew why and she felt ill. "To give us as presents," she asked, "or for commerce, like those little birds in France."

Why were her hands so hot? She rubbed them along her trousers again, and she could feel the heat radiating off of them. It was as if they were on fire, only it didn't hurt, and her rage grew as Draco didn't answer. She supposed it didn't matter whether Lucius wanted money or favors. She turned away and wondered how her eyes could betray her by stinging with tears like this. She'd trusted him. She'd done more than that, and the whole time he'd had this barren room where she wasn't allowed, this Bluebeard's lair where he was researching how to betray her.

"Hermione," he said, and he sounded panicked. "Don't go."

She picked up the dried flower and crushed it in her hand. The heat of her palm made the fragile petal crumbs burst into a flame that quickly burnt itself out. She let the ashes fall, dirty snow in the white room, suddenly too tired to wonder how that had happened. One more horrible Veela trait, she supposed. "I'll be at Harry's," she said, as if he deserved the courtesy of knowing where she'd be. "I'll have Kreacher fetch my things. Or Ron."

"You can't go," he said.

"Try and stop me," she said. She would love to have an excuse to hurt him. She'd curse him and curse him and curse him until he couldn't breath, until flocks of birds pecked his eyes out, until he felt as bereft and lost and hopeless as she did. She'd give him pain, and misery, and the knowledge that he'd been used by someone he'd been enough of a fool to love. She couldn't believe she'd loved him. At least, last sop to pride, she hadn't told him. At least she had that.

"Hermione," he said.

She turned and studied him. He'd managed to put a cocky look on his face that almost hid the fear. "If you go, you'll get sick again."

"I don't think I care," she said. She shrugged because it was true; she'd didn't. She didn't care if she fell down right here and never got up again. "Maybe you can brew yourself up into a potion I can take. Maybe I'll die. I won't do it here, whichever it is."

"You can't," he said, still helpless, still desperate.

She looked at the papers on the table, and accioed them all over to her. Whatever else she'd do, she'd make sure he never did find the answer he was looking for. Maybe she could find it. She could sit in her room at Grimmauld Place and read these over while she felt the ache slowly return to her bones, and the knife's edge slowly return to her nerves, and maybe those agonies would be sharp enough and hard enough and brutal enough to drown out the pain of her heart.

She doubted it. She turned again and walked slowly out of Draco's Malfoy's room. The hall seemed longer on her return trip. The bright front room seemed suddenly busy and overwhelming instead of cheerful.

"I did tell you I was a monster."

He'd come behind her and stood. She didn't turn but she had to admit he was telling her the truth. She just hadn't believed it.

She did now.

. . . . . . . . . .

A/N - See you Monday :)