A/N- This chapter had to be broken down into two, and because I don't particularly want to spend any longer than necessary on Draco under the influence of the potion than I need to, the next chapter will be the last one during the time he's a Veela. At a later date, I might publish another story, filled with short chapters of the things Draco did for the few days that he was under the potion, since I don't think I'll be able to get all my ideas in.

Enjoy!

Draco watched Hermione do as he had instructed her as if she had done it many times before, even though it was the first she had ever heard of the particular spell. She said the incantation loud enough for Draco to hear from his position on the bed, so that he would know if she was doing it wrong or not, as she waved her wand slowly up and down his door. She had previously done his windows, making sure that there would be no way he'd be able to break it once he had his full Veela powers. He had wanted to proof his whole room himself, of course; but Hermione had forbid him to do anything, even if he was able to hold himself up. From his position in bed, he tried to think about how he was supposed to feed himself the potion without Hermione's help, without his shaking hand spilling the contents on his bed and the floor.

Hermione was glad, obviously, that Draco had decided that his best option was to take the potion. However, she wasn't glad that it had come this far – that he had let it come this far before realising that without taking it he was going to die. Currently, he was sprawled across his bed, still in the same cold sweat as he had been for the past week; he was barely able to focus his eyes or attention on anything now – he could hardly even keep his eyes open – and had developed a terrible, violent cough.

He was worse than her father had ever been, she knew, and that just made it all the scarier. There was a possibility that he was going to die, and it wasn't very far-fetched to think it. She gripped her wand tighter in her hands and tried not to run over to him as she heard what sounded like sorrowful whimpers and sobs as he battled another coughing fit. The sooner she was done putting up the new, stronger Charms to reinforce the old ones, so that there would be no way for Draco to escape, the quicker his journey to recovery could start.

She should've slipped it into some of his food or drinks, she thought wearily; he might've been angry with her for a while, but at least neither of them would've had to suffer through what they were now. She lowered her wand dejectedly after finishing the final combination of Charms for the inside of the door, now moving into the corridor to strengthen the outside too, and thought back to what they had both spoken about after she had woken up from crying herself to sleep once she had told him the story about her father.

"You're awake," Draco said softly, nuzzling his face into the top of her head. "Do you feel better?"

She only groaned in response and brought herself closer to him. "What time is it?" She mumbled into his chest, unfortunately and accidentally, sampling some of the beads of sweat.

"Considering it must've been a few hours since we fell asleep, it's either the middle of the night or early in the morning; whichever it is, it's currently not the right time to do anything but stay here." He shuffled a bit, pressing himself further into the bed.

There was a long pause after that. While Draco closed his eyes again, yawning, seeming to drift to sleep, Hermione rested her head on his chest and listened to his steady heartbeat and let it lull her back into a sleepy daze. However, minutes ticked by and she was still feeling wide-awake. Beside her, Draco made a noise that showed he was awake and stretched, some bones in his back clicking, and propped himself up against the headboard to look down at her.

He tilted his head to the side; his eyebrows were drawn together and there was an unsure smile on his lips as she lifted her head up to look at him questioningly. His hair was still messy from sleep and his eyes still looked weary, even from the amount of sleep that he got every day. In short, to Hermione, he looked like death. "I love you," he said softly.

Her expression now mirrored his; "I know," she said.

"I wouldn't knowingly inflict pain upon you. If there was any other way..." He seemed to struggle for words and just looked at Hermione a little helplessly.

"I know," she said back, her smile falling. "I understand why you won't – I do, really. As much as I can. I just-" She stopped herself and took a deep breath. "I think that it's your best option and I only want to help...But, you know yourself and what you would be capable of if you took it." She reached up tucked a lock of his hair behind his ear, then frowned. "Your parents don't seem to want you to take it either, from the sounds of what they wrote in the letter. You must be conflicted; I'm sorry for pushing you so hard to try to see my way."

Draco smiled lazily now relieved that she wasn't angry with him or still upset. He leaned forward to nudge his head against hers and rested his forehead on hers. "So what's wrong?

"I...I don't know," she whispered truthfully. "I just feel...awake. You go to sleep though, you look exhausted."

"I don't want you worrying by yourself." He nuzzled his head against hers again; he had been doing that a lot recently, she thought. Was it him that was cat-like or was it his Veela side? "Let me share the weight of your burden."

"Honestly, Draco. I'm fine." She curled her body against his, her head on his chest again; he shuffled down so that his own head laid on his pillow as it was before he moved, and kept his eyes trained on the top of her head as she stared out into the darkness.

"Alright," he said. "Let me help you go back to sleep too though. Don't talk, just relax."

Hermione murmured a quiet "okay", which Draco repeated back to her. There was a pause where Draco tried to think of what he wanted to talk about that needed no response, and how he would phrase the words to her from a general point of view. Nothing horribly biased or something that would compel her to respond. Something about him, perhaps...Something that he would only ever consider doing late at night or early in the morning when he was too tired to care about the words that were spilling from his mouth.

"I was told I was a Veela when I was seven-years-old by my parents. I, uh – well, thinking from a seven-year-old's point of view, I suppose I was too invested in the positives of being this magical creature than the negatives, such as the threat of dying before my eighteenth. Of course, had you died on all of your little adventures with Potter – even before coming into my Inheritance – then I would've been gone with you. However, since passing the age of seven, I had forgotten about the Veela part of my life. So the Basilisk threat in Second Year, the escape of Sirius Black in the year after that, the skirmish with the Death Eaters in the Ministry of Magic, and the next two years when the Dark Lord came back and was starting his war, my concern of death didn't come from the thought of my Mate dying, but from murder. I suppose it's Fate I should thank for keeping you – not safe, or out of harm's way, because you didn't emerge from everything unscathed – alive until these moments when I am able to look at you and know that you've always been the one."

He had continued speaking after that, she recalled, either knowing that she was still awake and listening or because he was too lost in his memories to stop speaking. Draco had continued on to talk about his thoughts on being a Veela, and what he remembered that side of him to be like; describing it as a collection of his particularly bad personality traits accumulated into its own being that was almost like a separate soul sharing his body. He had briefly mentioned that he was relieved to finally work out how to shut it away, and discover that some of his unfavourable traits had been lessened by the Veela's removal. Hermione felt that he was being slightly overdramatic with the musings of what the Veela was like, but she supposed that it was living within him – not her – and that she only knew the part that supplied him with acute senses. Still, the way that he had described it made Hermione somewhat unsure about what it was going to be like knowing only that side of him; he was still resolute in the thought that she might hate him afterwards.

Stepping back into the room, she gathered up the potion and a spoon to pour the exact measurement out for him, and moved over to his unmoving form. As she approached, Draco grudgingly accepted the fact that he wasn't as strong as he deluded himself into thinking he was earlier as he watched her and wished he could do the spells himself. There was a slight tremble to his frame as she sat beside him on the bed. Neither of them spoke as she unscrewed the bottle's lid, and she pointedly ignored Draco placing his hand on top of hers as if to signal that that was as far as he was allowing her to help. She wouldn't feed it to him – that, she decided, was the one thing that he desperately wanted to do, and could do, himself without her in the room – but she wanted to at least pour it on the spoon before leaving.

Once his recommended amount had been poured out (just one, large spoonful was apparently enough every three hours for the next four days to bring about his recovery), she placed the handle in his outstretched palm and covered it with her own, holding it still until his tremors had abated. "I suppose this is goodbye," he croaked, staring at the orange liquid before him. He flicked his eyes up to meet Hermione's gaze; she smiled softly.

"It's not goodbye," she chided with a roll of her eyes. "It should be farewell; or, looking at it optimistically, say you'll see me soon - because, you will. Remember, after three hours, the potion will start to wear off and I'll be here every time to help you take the next dose, if you need it. Alright?"

A half-hearted grin flitted across his face, and then vanished. He nodded slowly, eyes back to being transfixed on his medicine. She took that as her queue to leave, placing a lingering kiss on his cheek, then standing up and collecting his wand and room-key as well as double-checking that she still had hers somewhere on her, and walking over to the door. Hermione glanced at him one more time over her shoulder; he had moved the spoon closer to his mouth, but she found him watching her back as she left.

"Farewell, Granger," he said, nodding his head once.

She waggled her fingers at him in a form of a wave. "Until then, Draco Malfoy." She walked out of the room and locked the door behind her using his key, then placed it in her pocket.

Mentally, she went over the list of things that she needed to do and prioritised them. She decided that going down to the kitchens to see the House Elves about delivering food up into his room for the next few days, when everyone else was down in the Great Hall having breakfast, lunch and dinner, was what needed to be done first. Then she would get a quick breakfast for herself, by which time she should be heading to her morning classes. Luckily, she thought, she only had two classes in the morning followed by a free period, with which she could use to check up on Malfoy.

As soon as Hermione left his room, Draco hesitated momentarily, and then quickly stuck the spoon in his mouth before he had any chance of thinking about what he was about to do and find some way to convince himself out of it.

The liquid was warm and thick and it would've reminded him of swallowing honey if it hadn't tasted so vulgar. He didn't know what to describe the flavour as, but it certainly wasn't as sweet as Eva Darlington's Head Calmer -although that was probably one of the reasons why there was a risk of addiction.

He stretched out on the bed and tried to relax. He could feel his Wizard side beginning to slip away and knew there would be no use struggling to keep a hold of it because it wouldn't help with anything, only serve to stress him out. He tried to hold onto the fact that he couldn't do anything too terrible from behind a door, where he had no chance of touching her unless he managed to seduce her into coming into the room in his Veela state, even though he had warned her against exactly that. It was only for three hours every day anyway, he thought, he couldn't do much within the three-hour time limit and Hermione had classes during most of the three hours. I can't do anything too terrible, I can't do anything too terrible, he chanted to himself in a whisper, trying desperately to believe it.

He blinked. Everything in his vision was becoming sharper and more pronounced, scents were slowly becoming stronger and the faint calls of birds outside his window were growing in sound. It felt like he was going back to the period after his birthday where he had stayed within the Manor, gradually becoming accustomed to the new sensitivity of his senses. He supposed that it wasn't so bad during that time, when the Veela was mostly in control, but he was far away from his Mate then and had his father to offer advice to get himself through it. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly through his nose. Hermione isn't even here right now, he reminded himself in an attempt to be calmer.

"You win this time," he whispered aloud to the empty room as the last part of his Wizard slipped away.

He sat up a moment later, brushing the hair that had fallen in his face out of the way.

Well, Draco thought, it wasn't so bad so far. In fact, he felt miles better already - it was as if he had never been ill; his sweat had stopped and, as he stretched his back, some bones popping, he decided that he felt physically stronger too even though his muscles hadn't returned with the transformation. It was so refreshing, he felt so calm and peaceful, that he genuinely forgot about why he was against taking the potion in the first place.

However, when his body stood up and started moving about the room without him telling his body to do anything, he remembered why. It was because, for all intents and purposes, he was unconscious, shoved into the dark, back corner of his mind and locked away unable to make commands or broadcast thoughts to the rest of his mind. He was still able to think for himself, of course, and see and hear what he was doing and feeling, but was prevented from doing anything that would interfere with what the current, dominant mindset was doing. Karma, Draco thought irately.

He wasn't exactly sure what he should call the other side in his thoughts, or if he ever brought it up with Hermione, because Draco didn't feel like it was him. He wanted to call it something else because he didn't want to call it by his name because they weren't the same in his mind; he wondered what it thought about all of this, and if it called itself something else – perhaps he could call it that name. For now, until he discovered more, he supposed he was just going to have to call it Veela.

The Veela walked towards his bathroom and began the task of undressing itself, then stepping into the shower and giving himself a good scrub down, which left Draco feeling even more refreshed than he was previously, after days of sweat and not moving. He tried to stay focused on the fact that this was the bad side of him, that he only needed to pay attention long enough to spot proof of this; but so far the Veela wasn't being...bad. And Draco was beginning to find it all too easy to relax in his new position that had the stress of life taken away from him.

Draco felt his lips stretch in a form of a smirk and belatedly thought about whether the Veela could hear his thoughts, even if he couldn't hear the Veelas. What could I possibly do from within these confines, Draco? You made it practically impossible to do anything. For now, I do believe it's one all. The voice echoed around him in his head, and though it sounded much like his own voice, rich and in a dark drawl, it wasn't anything like his own voice. Draco wasn't going to delude himself into thinking that the voice could belong to anyone else other than the Veela, but he wished that he could be ignorant of the fact that it could indeed hear all of his thoughts and speak to him.

I'm pleased I've succeeded in turning my room into a prison, then, Draco thought back. He felt that the Veela was quite amused by his response, which only served to infuriate him more. However, he thought, pushing his anger back down, the Veela was going to be the only one that he'd be able to talk to for the next few days and Draco would rather rise up to the Veelas challenges than sulk in silence.

And I'm more than pleased that our Mate smells so...luscious. Draco felt their chest vibrate as the Veela made a deep rumbling sound that sounded familiar to a cat's purr. Images that he figured must've been stored away by the Veela in its memory flashed past his mind's eye; however, he immediately realised that not all these images had been part of a memory and that most – if not all – of them had been created. Draco certainly didn't remember most of the events that he was seeing happen and he was most certainly sure that the mental images (that he couldn't help but stare at) should never be mentioned to Hermione. She'd think him perverted if she knew the kind of things that "he" could imagine from just the thought of her scent. And by Merlin, the Veela seemed much more than pleased that Hermione smelt luscious, as he had so eloquently put it – it seemed as if he was gaining the upmost pleasure from scent alone. He was beginning to feel very hot under the collar, what with all the images and the Veelas own feelings. The Veela chuckled. You should've treated her better, Draco; you could've done so much with her by now. We could've been Bonded with her by now. Different images replaced the previous ones, but Draco felt that these ones - the ones where he watched Hermione drink a goblet of his blood that he had pressed to her lips or where they lapped up each other's blood from their necks or wrists – were more suited to the Veela itself. Drinking each other's blood, to him, wasn't...as erotic as the Veela seemed to find it.

You could've been Bonded to Hermione by now. I could be married to her in years to come. We're not the same. Wizards marry, Veelas Bond. Draco thought back, once the images stopped filtering through their connection. The Veela was getting dressed in a new set of clothes now and didn't even hesitate at what he said. Instead, it responded immediately, its tone more threatening that it had been previously when it was merely amused.

The sooner you accept that I am a part of you, the sooner we can begin to work together to save our life and be Bonded. You don't think that she's completely in love with you yet, do you? With hardly any effort, the Veela unsheathed its wings, creating holes in the robes that he was currently wearing as they broke through the fabric. The Veela cocked their head to the side in order to show Draco the current state of the wings. They were whitening, Draco knew that much, and up until he recalled what the Veela had said to him, he would've thought that white feathers up to mid-thigh was quite good – but apparently that was not the case. We only have 156 days left, which is 5 months and 5 days, and the aim of everything is to do it as soon as possible. The longer you leave it, the weaker you'll be – even after you Bond, which consequently won't just affect you but me too. I've taken notice of her all these years and Hermione Granger isn't one to fall in love within three months. You wasted valuable time, so every second counts now and there will be no more pussyfooting about what you truly think about her and Bonding. You're in love with her – we're in love with her – so we're going to let her know and we're going to do this properly. The Veela outlined a large area of black feathers starting with the ones by his thigh up to the ones at his chest. All these need to be white before we are Bonded. 5 months and 5 days.

After that, the Veela blocked Draco from replying to what he had just said and neither of them spoke for the rest of the two hours until Hermione returned from her classes. Draco didn't particularly want to have another conversation with the Veela anyway, he felt as if it was too controlling about what he wanted. Nevertheless, maybe that was only because the Veela was in control and knew what he wanted, and to be granted a chance at achieving the one thing that you'd ever want in life after someone screwed up for years...Draco, grudgingly, could see where the Veela was coming from. Nevertheless, as controlling as the Veela seemed to be towards him, from the past experiences of his other side coming out in the early stages of his Inheritance when in the vicinity of Hermione, Draco felt that all the control he portrayed now would be for moot.

After it had gotten dressed and unleashed its wings (of which he hadn't yet retracted), it combed "our" hair in the same way that I had done in the past, before snatching the pillow that smelt most like Hermione off the bed, sat in front of the door, and wrapped his arms around it. Previously, Draco had wondered why the Veela was ignoring how strong Hermione's scent still lingered in the room but after seeing the Veela inhale the scent off the pillow so deeply, he thought that perhaps it was just biding its time. It curled its wings around himself, cocooning the pillow and him together in darkness, purring softly; and Draco patiently tried to wait out the three hours unable to do anything.

Hermione, although enjoying Advanced Ancient Runes and Arithmancy, was relieved to have her free period to check on Draco. It wasn't as if she thought that he could cause much havoc from behind locked doors, but after he was rather against taking the potion in the first place, she couldn't be too sure how he was feeling right now. And she had promised that she would be there at the start of her free period anyway, and she needed to be there to serve Draco his second spoonful of the potion before she had to leave for her afternoon classes.

When she entered the common room, there were a few people there; Padma, Susan, Neville and Hannah, all of whom looked at her curiously as she stood before them. Furrowing her eyebrows slightly, she made eye contact briefly with each of them, before they either flicked their eyes back to what they were doing before or over to the staircase. "Hello..." She ventured.

Susan was the first to speak. "Morning Hermione," she said happily. The others collectively mumbled their different forms of greeting to her and then looked back to their respective work that Hermione now saw was laid out in front of them. Satisfied that there was nothing majorly wrong (or so it seemed), nodded curtly to no one in particular and made her way towards the staircase.

"Malfoy's been making some pretty strange noises upstairs," Padma commented offhandedly. Hermione stopped in her tracks and turned around slowly to face them. Only Susan and Hannah looked at her discreetly, whereas Neville pretended not to be paying attention to them and Padma was acting ignorant.

"Noises?" She asked, raising an eyebrow, looking at each of them individually.

"I haven't seen him in ages; he's usually always with you, Hermione. Is he alright?" Hannah asked kindly, even though Hermione knew that Draco had to be everyone here's least favourite person. She would've smiled slightly at the kindness if Padma's comment hadn't left her so puzzled.

"He's fine. He should be fine," She said distantly; too busy thinking to give her full attention. Hannah didn't seem to be put off by her answer and politely left it at that. Hermione looked over to Padma, who was still continuing to do her work. "I'm sorry but – Padma, you said that he's been making noises? What exactly do you mean?"

Neville sighed. "She has a cat, Padma," he said matter-of-factly, turning away from his textbook to look at Padma who gave him an unimpressed look and rolled her eyes. Hermione decided to step in before the conversation diverted itself from her original question again.

"Actually, I didn't bring Crooks to Hogwarts this year. He's gotten really old now, and he's quite sick-"

"And besides," Padma interjected, looking haughtily at Neville. "Her cat would need to at least be the size of a lion for it to purr that loud."

Hermione slowly exhaled and decided that she would ignore Padma's interruption. Belatedly, she caught on to what Padma had said about her cat needing to be the size of a lion to purr loud enough for the four of them to hear. "Purr?" She inquired. "That's what he's been doing?" She didn't know much about the characteristics of full Veelas, of course – no one really did since full Veelas were becoming rarer and rarer, making half Veelas or less more common, which meant that, like Draco, they were able to suppress their Veela side somehow.

But purring? Other than cats, Hermione had never heard of another animal being able to purr. And what was a Veelas "purr" used to express? Contentment? Loneliness? Depression?

She looked back to them to see some of their eyes flick to their staircase again and then back to her, faint frowns on their faces. Hermione cocked her head to the side and listened, to what she guessed was Malfoy "purring". To her surprise, the rumbling noise that seemed to fill the entire common room sounded very much like a purr and she couldn't think of a better word to describe it other than that. There wasn't even anything remotely special about his purr, but it served to make Hermione feel tingly and warm inside as if her was right there beside her bestowing great amounts of affection upon her.

"That's the loudest it's been so far," Padma said, eyeing Hermione who was looking towards the staircase with a faint blush on her cheeks and a soft smile. She sat back in the sofa and watched her. "So he really is a Veela then? And you're his..."

"Mate," Hermione supplied, only turning back to her briefly before staring back at the staircase where the sound was still coming from. "Anyway...yes; he is. Well, a part Veela." She cleared her throat and turned back to face them all. "Well, I suppose I should go and see him," she said, politely excusing herself.

A/N- Please, follow, favourite and review!

And thank you to all those who reviewed last chapter, you made me just reach my target!