A/N- So this is the second part! It could've gone on for ages (which is why I have the idea of doing small drabbles or one-shots that would fill in missing gaps that happened during this time), but I felt that it would've been too long.

Been listening to Untouchable (funnily enough the chapter title!) by Taylor Swift while writing this. Maybe that could be a thing?

Enjoy! x

The closer she got to his door, the louder the rumbling became. It shook through her very core and warmed her stomach; if her reaction was anything to go by, then, she decided, purring is used to express love – and it certainly made it felt in a Mate's body. However, what she didn't understand was that if a Veelas purr was used to express love, then why were those downstairs hearing it before she had even entered the common room?

Hermione sat on the floor, leaning back against the wall that was opposite his door and set her bags down next to her. She took in a deep breath and slowly exhaled as she looked around herself before fixing her gaze onto the door. She tilted her head to the side and considered the colour of his door, purposely gaining more time to think about what she could possibly say to him.

Black. It was such a dark colour, and though it suited his past perfectly, since he received this room – his room – he had been nowhere near the colour black. Of course, he was still holding onto past prejudices at the beginning of the year, but...there was something lighter about his soul. She would never know whether it was because he was no longer meaning the degrading term that he had spewed at her once or twice, before he gave it up because it caused him too much pain, or whether it was something else. For now, all she could do is form her own ideas about why he was ever given the black door and what it meant, if anything.

Hermione listened to the soothing sounds of his purr for a few moments more before she decided that she had probably waited long enough to initiate conversation. "This is new," she commented lightly, thinking of nothing else to say. From behind the door, she heard a lustful sigh and blushed; there was some shuffling after that on his side, but then it was quiet.

"Hermione?" He asked. The corner of Hermione's lip turned up, not quite a smile but not quite a smirk either; he sounded different, she thought, even though he was completely the same person. He sounded close as well. Had he become strong enough to move himself from his bed closer to the door? "My Hermione?"

He sounded excited; maybe that was what made him sound different from usual, not his actual voice – his cadence - but the way he said things and the things that he said. They were familiar to Draco but different at the same time. She couldn't explain it. "My Hermione?" She repeated, amused at how animated he sounded and happy herself that the potion already had such an effect on him. "I'm not solely yours. I don't belong to anyone."

"Not yet," he said quickly, as if he knew that her response was going to be somewhere along those lines.

"I have to disagree with you on that," she said. There was a small pause after that, where Hermione took a moment to contemplate how unusual it was that he had said her name as if it were a question, as if he wasn't really sure whether she was there. Draco had proved to her countless times that he knew her scent well, and surely the Veela should know it even better than him, so why was he doubtful? The corner of her lip turned down into a frown. "Though, for someone who believes that I am going to belong to them, it's strange that you had to ask if it was actually me."

"I'm sorry," he said in a rush. There was no laughter evident in his voice anymore and he sounded rather guilty. "I've been tricked by your scent before, remember? When Ginny Weasley used to wear your perfume, I spent a while confused, thinking that she was my Mate. Everything was new to me, including the scent, and Ginny Weasley was the first person who smelt like it and the train was the first crowed place that I had been and it was difficult to separate perfume scent to the actual scent of your skin lying underneath. Coupled with Draco's dislike of you that was overpowering my decision, I was...confused."

He said Ginny's name as if he was disgusted that he could ever have thought that she had any possibility of being his Mate. He probably was, Hermione reasoned, but still. She didn't exactly want to hear her friend's name said in a revolted manner on any basis, although she had to at least give him a slight amount of credit for calling her by her name and not anything else – even if it was her full name. Hermione felt quite sympathetic to him however, since he sounded very distressed to tell her about how he used to think that Ginny was his Mate – so distressed and guilty about it in fact, that he felt as if he needed to throw in a rambling explanation about why he thought it, as if she would be upset. Nevertheless, the way he said Draco, as if he was talking about someone else...

Something knocked against his door; Hermione guessed that it was either his head (if he had pressed himself against the door) or he threw something in anger. "I'm becoming better at recognising you, truly. I will be able to protect you properly now, Hermione, I promise; I won't be fooled or tricked so easily, as I had in the past. I just had to check in case it was an imposter again, but not again. I won't do it again – I won't need to do it again. I can tell the difference now, I know I can," he said determinedly.

Hermione smiled. "I'm not angry or upset, Draco. You don't have to worry." She wasn't sure if she expected a relieved sigh from his side or something else, but when he remained silent, she struggled to find something else to say to keep him talking. She couldn't see why Draco had told her that the Veela was a combination of all his bad traits or why he was so afraid that she was going to end up hating him after spending time with him; the Veela side of him was perfectly polite and gentlemanly. "But, out of interest what do I smell like to you now? Now that you know – now that you can differentiate between my skin and my perfume."

There was only a heartbeats pause, as if he didn't need to think about it at all. "Like Ambroise," he said wistfully. "I used to think that you smelt like cinnamon and flowers but that was your perfume. I also used to think that you smelt like sugar, but that was a poor judgement; yes, you smell sweet – but not like sugar. You smell sweet like freshly made honey – delicious, pure and natural. You're sweet like the taste of water on the lips of a man dying of thirst, refreshing him and bringing him back to life. You smell and taste like chocolate, like something desirable and addictive that invokes carnal urges in regular men. And it's not just your skin that smells beautiful, but your blood does too – indescribably wondrous."

As he spoke and described things, his voice became dreamier and huskier as he was becoming lost in his thoughts and memories. He sounded as if he was in a far off place but also, oddly enough, as if he was trying to seduce her even if it wasn't his intention. She could never know how he was feeling - him being behind a closed door and all - but she was in no doubt about how flushed her face must've been looking, because she certainly felt the heat radiating off her skin. However, she knew that he must've been feeling something parallel to love since he had begun making deep, throaty purring noises again in the background of his speech; though quieter this time, as if he was making the sound for only her to hear, the entire pitch was lower. Draco would've never been as open as that – if that could be called being open with thoughts – which made it seem, after all, as if they were indeed two different people. Hermione wasn't sure she would've even asked the question if it was the normal Draco, and if she had, she expected that he would've danced around the subject completely or given the briefest of answers.

How had such simple words made her so flustered? Was it the words that he said or the way that said them that created the effect? She opened her mouth to try to say something, to try to ask what he had meant by "regular men" and why he had used a phrase that didn't generally seem to include him, but nothing made it past her lips. She waited a few moments until she believed that she could speak without sounding particularly breathy, but all she managed to force out (though it was an improvement from earlier) was, "wondrous?"

She imagined that he had his eyes closed, his head tipped back against the door, his eyes facing the ceiling, and a smile playing upon his lips as he whispered back, as if he was saying a prayer, "indescribably."

Another pause in which Hermione tried to regain her mind. She decided that she wasn't even going to bother asking how he knew about how her blood smelled, especially since it was beneath her skin.

She quickly blocked the thought of him learning the smell of her blood and enjoying it in a one-a-month frequency.

"You said...'regular men'. What do you mean? What do you mean that my scent 'invokes...carnal urges in regular men'?"

He chuckled lowly, quietly to himself, but the sound still passed through the door and she heard his mirth. "Hermione. My Hermione." He sounded relatively patronising to Hermione's ears, but she tried to shake off the feeling, lest she became angry at something he may not have intended to do. "I only mean that Veelas aren't obsessed with getting that one thing that most other Wizards or Witches – or even Muggles, I've heard - want when in a relationship. As a matter of fact, until we are Bonded, I won't want it at all. A Veela's 'one thing' is the urge to Bond with their Mate. That's all."

Hermione frowned, even though Draco couldn't see her face, but she wasn't angry – just, confused, she thought, and maybe a bit relieved. Maybe this was the answer that she was looking for; the slight comfort in the words that his motives were honest and there was nothing wrong with her in the slightest. When their kissing became overly heated and they were in the privacy of their room and still he never began to be greedy or show that the passion was affecting him in any way, as she imagined that he was the sort of person to do. Especially, that to Bond didn't mean to have sex with him.

Although if the Bonding ceremony didn't involve them becoming intimate in a sexual way then, what exactly did it entail? It was all very secretive, and now Hermione was curious.

Still Hermione was silent for a long time, thinking about possibilities of the Bonding ceremony and what it was that happened during them. However, though Draco knew that she hadn't left, because he could smell that much, her silence worried him. He was afraid that perhaps saying that to her, telling her that he wasn't interested in having sex with her until they either were Bonded or he died, had upset her or made her angry; with a door separating them, he was completely clueless as to what she was feeling unless she told him. Nevertheless, he knew that she wasn't crying since he couldn't hear any whimpers or smell the salty tears that would be trailing down her face; but he didn't think that this would be something she'd cry over, though he didn't rule out the possibility of her being upset. He quickly said, "But that doesn't mean that you aren't attractive Hermione, of course you are. If I-"

"What is the Bonding ceremony?" She asked, interrupting him. After checking her watch, she discovered that she only had a few minutes left before she needed to go to her afternoon classes, which meant that Draco would be resurfacing from his suppressed state soon – and the only way that she was going to get an answer about the Bonding Ceremony was from the Veela. "I mean, you said that we won't have...sex, but then, what does happen?"

Draco was silent for a moment on his side of the door, as he contemplated the question and reassured himself that she didn't sound even remotely angry. He furrowed his eyebrows as he thought about how he was supposed to tell her that he didn't actually know what happened during it, just that it was instinct – common knowledge, to him at least – that Veelas wouldn't have sex with their Mate until they were Bonded and their Mate had mastered their new abilities. He didn't know how to tell her that the only thing he knew would be involved during the Bonding Ceremony was the blood of both participants – but what happened with that, he did not know; only that a Seer was supposed to be there to confirm that she was his Mate and conduct the rest of the ceremony. It wasn't really a Veela secret more than a Seers secret, since all Veelas had was instinct, while Seers had to learn the Ceremony in order to conduct it and only they were allowed to see it.

He ruffled his wings and realised that their movements were quite delayed; belatedly, he realised that being at the forefront of this soul's mind wasn't everyday life and that his time to be repressed was coming back around. He sighed and looked around the room. Beside his bed there was food that the House Elves had left as requested by Hermione; he moved towards it to try to eat as quickly as he could, to get more strength into his body before he went back to being controlled by a sickly bastard who couldn't seem to stomach anything presently. He wasn't going to risk dying because Draco was sick with some unknown disease that only seemed to affect his Wizard more than himself. He moved over sluggishly and picked up the food, taking a few bites of the buttered toast, before remembering that he was supposed to be answering a question, after Hermione called his name in a cautious manner. He wasn't even sure whether he remembered what her question was, what he was supposed to be answering; the only thing that he knew was that it had something to do with the Bonding Ceremony. He quickly swallowed his food and said, "Blood. Our blood, to be precise. Not a lot is needed, of course, and though I did describe the smell of your blood as something indescribably wondrous and Hermione, I tell you, I crave it – but I do not crave it in a vampiric way, if you can believe that. It would be a one-time thing, if you wish it to be."

His ears prickled at the sound of her shuffling; he wasn't sure which way she was moving, but he thought that she was coming closer. It wasn't by much, it seemed, when she spoke again. Just a bit further forward, but she still wasn't pressed against the door as he was. Her face had blanched a bit after he started speaking about taking the blood from both of them, but maybe it wasn't as bad as it sounded, she thought; though, she didn't know how exactly it could be any better. "What do you mean that our blood would be needed?"

"I'm...I, uh." Draco scanned the room in the darkness, looking desperately for an answer that he did not have or at least for a word that would be able to explain it accurately without scaring her. Would it be easier to say what he wanted to do whenever he saw or smelt her blood or to tell her that he didn't know? If she found out that he had lied about not knowing, then what would she do? "There's a ritual," he began, slowly. "That involves the blood of both participants. All I know is that it's conducted by a Seer, probably my family's Seer for us; but other than the fact that the blood of the other has to be...ingested-"

He heard Hermione's small shriek interrupt his explanation and briefly wondered whether telling her about what happens was a bad idea if she had reacted so shocked to the news. Maybe even a little opposed. After the shriek, she had started furiously whispering to him so as not to be overheard by the others, but her voice was becoming quieter and quieter until he could no longer hear her. It took him a moment to realise that he had slipped back into the place where he had shoved Draco's presence during the time that he was in control of the body. Though he knew that it was going to happen eventually, and that he shouldn't grow too attached to being able to talk to Hermione freely and move as he wanted, he was mildly peeved that his time was over already.

While he was still able to think clearly without Draco's presence constantly blocking him from thought or from coming out into the dominant position, he thought about how Hermione's reaction to the Bonding Ceremony hurt him a little bit. His Mate was supposed to enjoy drinking from his vein, just as he would willingly enjoy drinking from his Mate's vein. He couldn't understand why it would disturb Hermione so much, but maybe it was a thing that Wizards and Witches didn't seem to do, he considered, reflecting back on the times when Draco wasn't nearly as aroused as he was when daydreaming about the exchange of blood.

He felt his eyes beginning to roll into the back of his head and with his last bit of lucidity, he forced out the words, "farewell, Granger."

At his words of goodbye, Hermione stopped talking and all but dragged herself the rest of the way to the door. She knocked on it once, twice, three times and then when there was no response, she pressed her ear to the door and called his name loudly so that if he had gone back to his Wizard side, he would still be able to hear.

She heard nothing for a moment, and began to reach her behind her to pick up her wand to undo the locking Charms on the door, but briefly hesitated, checking to see if there was any more noise in case he was only faking returning back to Draco – the normal Draco. She assumed that if he were faking then she would be able to hear him breathing, to hear him panting, because that's what she thought he would do when even closer to her scent. She knocked on the door and called his name once more before deciding that he wasn't faking and quickly began to undo the lock Charms on the door so that she was able to enter it. Just as she was finishing she heard him quietly moan her name, as if he were in pain. His voice had gone back to its normal sound, and she thought it sounded almost odd since she hadn't heard it sounding so strong in a while. She undid the last of the Charms with a flourish and pushed open the door.

Hermione saw him rolled on his side on the floor in the centre of the room, trying to push himself up, and she quickly moved over to help him sit back up and guided him to perch on his bed. From how he seemed to be sprawled on the floor, he had most likely knocked his head on the stone floor; he was still groaning in pain, flopping onto his back, and Hermione tapped his head with her wand to try to alleviate any pain.

"Thank you, Granger," he whispered, moving so that he was able to curl himself around Hermione's body, which was still sitting upright on the side of his bed, his arms moved around her waist, his grip tight and face pressed into her stomach; she smiled lightly and ran her fingers through his fine hair. He didn't feel as cold as he had been, but he was still too cold to be considered a normal temperature despite him warming up a couple of degrees. In a week's time, he should be practically back to normal, she thought.

"How are you feeling?" She asked softly.

"I feel like shit," he groaned, "more shit than usual."

"Well, you already seem to be getting better, so you won't feel so bad for much longer. Your fever has already gone down a bit," she reassured him.

He didn't reply or make any movement that acknowledged the fact that she had spoken. Hermione sighed and ran her fingers through his hair a few more times, then checked the time. She sighed again even heavier, and regretfully lifted his head from her lap and stood up from the bed. "Let's give you your next dose," she said, walking over to his bedside table where the bottle lay. "My classes are going to start in a few minutes and I need to redo the Locking Charms on your door before I leave."

It had taken some time to persuade him to take it again, since he was making excuses that he hoped would convince her not to make him take it again, such as the horrible taste and the fact that he still didn't like the feeling of not being in control.

Hermione doubted that he ever would.

Hermione didn't see Draco again until after dinner, which was unfortunately over three hours later, meaning that there was quite a difference in time between his second dose and his third. She supposed that the time didn't have to be exactly three hours in between, as long as she at least tried to keep to that guideline. Draco hadn't grown an extra head because of it yet.

However, when she had come back up after that time, she had heard him snivelling inside his room. When she had hurriedly entered, afraid that something had happened to him, she found his cheeks wet with tears and his eyes bloodshot. He had quickly pulled himself up from his bed and tried to run over to her, only making it a few steps before he tripped and fell. Luckily, Hermione had surged forward to try to catch him. She held him up as he sagged against her, his face buried in her hair and fresh tears falling from his eyes that wetted her locks. He had held onto her even tighter that time, whispering nonsensical words into her skin as she rubbed his back soothingly and tried to calm him down. Once he had been quietened enough to be coherent to a certain extent, Hermione had learnt that he had been worried and upset that his Veela may have caused her to be angry with him or never return for some other reason, since she had promised to always be there when his daily amount wore off. She had reassured him that that wasn't the case, confused about how he didn't seem to know that his Veela had been perfectly nice towards her. They were in the same body weren't they? They shared the same mind.

Once she had mostly stopped his emotional pain, she moved on to fixing a headache that he had said that he had again. Hermione was curious that these headaches that he seemed to have each time didn't seem to have come about from him possibly knocking his head on the floor when he passed out, but much rather due to the change of dominant minds; though, she didn't doubt that knocking his head on the stone had made it worse.

A routine had been created between them over the rest of the week. When Hermione didn't have any classes to attend, especially on the weekend, she'd spend as much time as she could outside his door just she had the first day and talk with him. Sometimes she would allow him to talk as much as he liked, since he never seemed to run out of things that he wanted to talk to her about or a wide range of compliments and flattery, which always seemed to send him off daydreaming. Other times though, she would ask him questions about being a Veela, ones that she was curious about and knew that Draco would never answer if she asked him. She knew it was wrong to of her to do that to Draco if he didn't want to tell her, but after the first few doses of potion, when he came back around to his normal, regular self, he was painfully confused as to what happened between her and the Veela. It seemed that during the times when it was just her and the Veela, Draco had no memory of what happened between them, as if the Veela side decided to keep all the memories of their time together to himself, locked away in his own corner of the mind. From all the time that they spent together, not giving Draco access to the memories was so far the only bad thing Hermione had discovered the Veela to do. However, maybe acts that are even more selfish would be done over time if it became too accustomed to the life it was living out. Sometimes there were even moments, when they were both leaning against the door (he always seemed to be leaning against the door) having a conversation, where he would just pause or lower his voice until he was whispering; whispering words of endearment, promises of family and his desperate need to Bond, which made her skin tingle and her heart race. Ashamedly, there were multiple times where he almost convinced her to open the door and join him, but luckily either Draco came back around then or someone walked up the stairs, interrupting them.

Every time they went up there, he never stopped purring, and for the most part, he was happy. There was only one incident where Hermione had come up the stairs to hear the Veela making whining noises that were akin to crying, and though that had seemed to last for a while, it had quickly turned into a jealous rage. Hermione had to leave and allow him to check his own temper for a while before coming back once the potion had worn off. How scared she was when he was repeatedly banging on the door, trying to break through (but luckily, the Charms held), was something that she didn't particularly like to remember.

He also had some interesting quirks that seemed to stem from being too far away from her. Such as when she had to leave him to go down the stairs to the table in the common room to do her homework, or when she had to leave before the three hours was up to go to her classes or get food. He would call her name to her, or even pet names that Draco had been saying to her ever since she had called him sweetheart all those days ago, whenever she left the space outside his door, calling for her to come back to him. This, embarrassingly enough, caused her to receive smirks and raised eyebrows and even a few frowns from others in the tower. Only a few people ever asked her to shut him up because he was distracting them from doing their homework or for any other reason; mostly they tried to ignore him because Hermione would make the excuse that she didn't know how to make him stop, since she had "tried" and he wouldn't listen. And if ignoring him didn't work, even fewer decided to try and get him to shut up themselves, which caused them to get into more trouble with an angry or jealous Veela than he was actually worth. Usually for the inhabitants of the Eighth Year Tower, if ignoring him didn't work, they left and went to work in the library or their old common room.

Hermione remembered that there was one antic that he had done from the confines of his room that had made everyone at least try to suppress a small smile. She was sat in the armchair closest to the stairs reading one of her textbooks for class, when Draco had decided that it was a particularly good idea to start...serenading her. The whole time he was singing (which was, surprisingly in tune, making Hermione wonder if serenading was something that Veelas did often and they had evolved a voice that was to be used to sing), Hermione didn't recognise the song. It was only later on, when she was still looking partial confused but flatter and embarrassed by the song, did Neville come and sit down next to her and said, "You don't know that song that he sung, do you?"

Hermione had shaken her head and asked him if he knew if, even though from the way that he said the question, it was obvious that he did know it. He began to explain to her that the song that Draco had sung was, (un)surprisingly enough, a traditionally Pureblood song. They were only mainly taught down the generations through singing, so it wasn't surprising that not many people in the common room, including Hermione, knew the song, since they had never been written down. Neville had told her that he hadn't heard one of those songs in years, probably since he had been taught them by his grandfather and grandmother, and those were the sort of songs that were sung at weddings or engagements – sometimes even baby showers- and his grandparents hadn't been invited to any during the time he lived with them. His information made Hermione realise then that there was probably a reason that the few Purebloods within the room were giving her strange looks. She had sighed; more possible pregnancy rumours.

It was even more unfortunate that just days after she had all but sorted some of the problems between them out, Ron just had to be one of the Purebloods within the room that was able to experience Draco's singing.

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Next chapter, they'll be leaving for Malfoy Manor in time for the Christmas Ball.