Hullooo, lovelies! x Sorry for not updating, I had a SHIT TON OF WORK. It was unfathomable, really. (Also, I had a lack of inspiration. That might be the main reason as to why I haven't posted in so long… Sorry about that)

Anyway, I hope you're all well and of course, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Enjoy your reading! x

…

Her broken-hearted Veela

Chapter VIII: Screams

…

"Death is less bitter punishment than death's delay."

…

After his encounter with Hermione, Draco went to the Slytherin common room, hoping to meet Zabini and a passed out McLaggen. The blonde was anxious to listen to his plan, he was utterly ready to avenge his mate and teach that pathetic excuse of a wizard some mannerisms. That night would have been the last time McLaggen would make her feel as uncomfortable and as embarrassed as she had described. Above all, Malfoy would make sure that he felt sorry.

When the door opened, the blonde was met with Crabbe and Goyle instead. They both were laying in drunken bliss on the couch, drool hanging out from their mouths and snoring as loud as pigs. Draco rolled his eyes, not really having expected anything else. Typical Friday and Saturday night. Getting completely wasted and feeling extremely sorry for themselves the day after.

Ignoring them, he went to his dorm, where he found a piece of parchment on his bed. It was Zabini's handwriting.

'Draco,

I'm at the Forbidden Forest, I've taken McLaggen with me. Meet me there as soon as you read this note. There's an ancient dark artefact hidden in my wardrobe. Bring it, we'll need it.

Blaise.'

After a couple of minutes searching through Zabini's closet, he found what he was looking for. He smirked darkly at the amulet, as he quietly cast an Incendio on the paper, never leaving a trail of his plans.

Malfoy left his room and headed to the forbidden forest. He was going to let everything out he had to endure during Slughorn's dinner party. Everything she had to endure. Draco would avenge his Hermione, no matter what.

Everything that was bound to happen… He was doing it for her.

…

"Malfoy! Hey, Malfoy, over here!" The Italian hissed from the darkness. "Did you bring the amulet?"

"Yes, I've got it right here." Draco patted on his pocket. "A mini-pensieve. Nice. Where did you get that?"

"Esattamente. It's a family heirloom. I…" Zabini cleared his throat, "Slytherin-borrowed it from my father."

"You 'Slytherin-borrowed' it? You mean you stole it."

"Semantics, semantics. Anyway, here's the idiot."

Malfoy and Zabini arrived where the Italian had left McLaggen, tied up against a tree, unconscious.

"I invited him to a fire whiskey and put dreamless potion in his glass."

"How many drops?"

"Just one. Fucker downed it all in one sip and was knocked out within a couple of minutes. I told him to go and get some fresh air, we made it outside and then he passed out. It was enough to drag him here and tie him up."

Draco nodded, as he looked at McLaggen in disgust. His drunken expression was too peaceful for his liking, and he had to make sure that changed. He was going to make sure that changed.

"Once he wakes up, do whatever you want with him. Punch him, hex him, I don't care. But don't kill him, Malfoy, otherwise you'll blow this entire thing."

"Yes, I know." He huffed, annoyed. He really wanted to kill that bastard, "I know."

"Good. Oh, and, by the way, hand me the mini-pensieve before you get down to business, will you? I don't want you to break it."

Draco raised an eyebrow at him. "Break it? I know my way around dark amulets, thank you very much."

Zabini sighed.

"I know, but it's not that. I read that Veela are ridiculously strong and I know for a fact that you're about to go ballistic on McLaggen. If you were to break it, then I'd be royally fucked. And you wouldn't want that, would you? Especially when I'm doing you this little… favour, Veela friend."

Draco rolled his eyes.

"Fuck off, Zabini." The blonde reached to his pocket and gave him the mini-pensieve. "Here."

"Cheers. I'll just cast a false memory spell and make sure we don't appear in his memory once you're done with him. We can't have him running around the castle telling everyone that we tortured him. The wanker's a complete idiot, but he has a couple of advantages over us."

"You mean his connections to the Ministry?"

"That, and the fact that he's a Gryffindor. If he tells Dumbledore or McGonagall, we're going to get wrecked, because even though they'll think he might be exaggerating, they'll believe him to some extent. And that would cause us some trouble, to say the least."

"Good thing we've got the mini-pensieve, then."

Suddenly, the Slytherins heard a grunt from McLaggen. He was finally waking up from his drunken slumber. Draco's eyes briskly went pitch black, and his nails grew long and thick, like knifelike claws. His sharp fangs showed at the corners of his mouth, the dim light of the stars making them look incredibly menacing.

"Hello, McLaggen." His distorted Veela voice darkly greeted him, "It's time to teach you a lesson."

"Malfoy? Zabini? What, where…? Where am I? Where's my wand? And what… What the fuck am I doing tied up against a tree? And what do you mean, it's time to teach me a lesson? Zabini, I was having a drink with you and then… You fucking wanker! You drugged me!" Cormac yelled, struggling against the tight ropes around his body.

"Guilty as charged." Blaise lazily said, "You didn't seem to appreciate my fire whiskey anyway, considering how quickly you downed it. But I digress, this isn't about me. This is about you."

"About me? What have I done?"

"You. Fucked. Up." The Italian whispered into his ear, every word slowly rolling off his tongue, "You managed to piss off a Veela. Congratulations."

"I… What? A Veela? What?!"

"With your pathetic attempt of trying to steal her away from me, you made my mate feel uneasy." Draco grunted, his voice growing louder with each word, "You made her feel embarrassed. You made her feel insecure."

"Malfoy's a Veela?!"

The Veela stalked towards him and landed his claws on his right arm, piercing through his clothes and leaving deep cuts.

Long, agonising screams filled the forest. Draco didn't care how much blood there would be, and how many screams he would hear. He didn't care how much he would beg for him to stop torturing him, he would only stop once he was convinced that McLaggen was sorry for his actions, and not himself.

"I am Hermione Granger's Veela. She is my mate. She is mine." He declared, as he pounced at him, cutting through his left arm, "And you will be sorry for what you've done."

…

As she was going up the stairs, headed for the Gryffindor tower, Hermione's mind was racing with a thousand thoughts per second: Her conversation with Malfoy had been quite pleasant. The Slytherin had listened to her and had even apologised, something that took her entirely by surprise. He had grabbed her chin again, as he'd stared deep into her hazel irises, and, as she stared back into his mercury eyes, she could have sworn he had wanted to kiss her.

This hadn't been the only occasion in which she had thought about the possibility of him wanting to kiss her. Earlier that week, he had grabbed her chin in the same mannerism he just had a couple of minutes ago. Gently, ever so softly, delicately urging her to bore her chocolaty gaze into his obsidian one.

She frowned.

This time, his eyes had been grey. Not black.

'This is very strange.' Hermione thought, 'There's something very peculiar with all of this… But maybe it's best for me to let it go. I'm probably just imagining things. I need to unwind a bit. This week has been odd enough as it is. But…'

The Golden Girl stood before the Fat Lady and muttered the password, still profoundly lost in her thoughts, her feet absentmindedly leading her to the girl's bedroom. Her mind was oblivious to her surroundings: her vision was only focussed on one point in the distance, blurring out everything that was around her. Her ears only registered the muffled echoes of her surroundings and her steps as she was moving.

Hermione didn't realise when she opened the door. But, as she looked up from the doorknob and around the room, reality suddenly kicked in.

Lavender was on top of Ron. Naked.

Ron lay under Lavender. Naked.

For one millisecond, her whole world stopped. Her knees began to tremble, threatening to let her fall, as her hands began to sweat, losing her hold on the door. She clenched her jaw and gritted her teeth, her lips forming a thin, pale line. Her eyes burnt, angry tears building in her lacrimal sacs. She refused to blink, otherwise they would roll down her red, flustered cheeks, leaving a trail of sheer disappointment on her skin.

They were having sex.

Hermione left the room as quickly as possible and ran to the Room of Requirements, her hand covering her mouth, preventing it from scream until she arrived, seeing that there was nothing more she wanted to do in that moment: Hermione needed to scream from the top of her lungs, she needed to shout so loud until her vocal chords couldn't take it anymore. She needed to get Ron out of her head. She needed the brutal pain in her chest to disappear.

"Please." She begged, as she stood in front of the wall, panting, "Please. Please, please, please."

The door appeared in front of her and she rushed in. Hermione screamed, cried, and raged on for minutes on end. She damned her feelings for Ron and she cursed Lavender. She wanted to slap him hard across the face for being so ignorant and hurting her so badly. The only thing she wanted was for her heart to stop aching and breaking so much about it. And if screaming it out was the way to achieve some relief, then so be it.

Screams echoed around the Room of Requirements.

Once her throat began to feel sore and she took a quick break, a pair of arms she knew too well embraced her, pulling her in for a hug.

"Let it all out, 'Mione." Harry whispered, rocking her from side to side as she desperately cried on his shoulder, "Don't hold back."

…

"Please! Please, stop! I'm sorry! I truly am!"

Cormac's screams for mercy seemed to finally have worked, if only for a moment. Within a second, a wave of pain and despair pierced through Draco's heart, bringing him down to his knees.

The Veela had felt a scorching, excruciating ache in his chest. His upper back tormented him with a ripping, tearing sensation, as enormous silver-feathered wings grew out of his shoulder blades, unbearably, painstakingly slow. Once they were fully outside, Draco flew up to the sky, just above the trees, so that he wouldn't be seen, the full moon shining through his winged silhouette. With his wings fully spread, he embodied the ultimate, blinding fury of a Veela.

He looked truly majestic. And mortifyingly deadly. – Even Zabini began to tremble at his sight.

"My mate feels hurt!" He roared, his voice otherworldly, "And it is all your fault!"

Rage, rage, and more rage was flowing through his veins. The Veela felt an agony so tightening in his heart, he had to let it out. – And he did.

Curses and punches and cuts and bites. The Gryffindor was black and blue. His skin swollen up at many sites, decorated with a mixture of dark, dry shade of red, combined with the glistening new droplets of blood that flowed freely from his fresh injuries. Dirt and dust were sprinkled on his face, the freezing sweat covered his forehead, drops falling down from his eyebrows. Drip, drip, drip. He panted loudly and coughed, he spit blood and saliva from time to time. The poor victim didn't find it in him to scream anymore; he was defeated.

Sweet defeat. – A work of art.

"Do you feel sorry yet?"

"I'm…so very… sorry…"

Luckily for McLaggen, due to the loss of blood and the curses his body had to endure, along with the exhaustion he'd felt from the torture, the bliss of unconsciousness kicked in before Malfoy could finish his attack, a clear sign he was about to die. Before the Veela could pounce on Cormac again, Blaise placed his hand on Draco's shoulder and put hard pressure on it, silently telling him to stop. When Malfoy turned around to look at his friend, his pupils still completely dilated, Zabini shook his head.

"He has paid the price, he's suffered enough. Just like I told you he would." The Italian told him with a stern voice. "It's over."

Zabini got a disagreeing grunt as a response.

"Veela, stop."

The Veela roared and showed him his teeth as he spread his wings, "I'm warning you. Don't get in the way, Zabini."

"I'm not getting in the way, Veela. We had a deal. Stick to it, don't you dare fucking blow it!"

"Fuck the deal, he deserves to die!"

Blaise cried out in annoyance and pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew it was hard to convince the normal Draco, knowing how stubborn he could be, and he'd expected it would be much more difficult to convince the unreasonable, bloodthirsty creature in front of him. Fortunately, he had a last resort.

"Listen to me, Veela. If you kill him, Granger will find out."

"No, she won't-"

"-Yes, she will. She's very intelligent, everyone knows that. It won't strike her as a mere coincidence that McLaggen died. She will do her research, very diligently at that, and she will find out. And when she does, she'll either be scared of you or repulsed by you. Or both. Is that what you want?"

Draco froze, and Zabini's tension loosened up significantly, as he let out a relieved breath he didn't even know he was holding. He managed to tame the beast.

"Do you want her to push you away?"

Finally, Malfoy shook his head. A chill ran through his spine as he pictured her rejecting him, his sweet, sweet Hermione. The image in his mind made him retract his wings slowly, displaying the defeat he would feel if that were to happen. Once his wings disappeared behind his back, Draco fell on his knees, his eyes reluctantly going back to its usual mercury shade.

"My Hermione… No, please, not her…"

"Then, don't kill McLaggen, Veela. Let him live."

"Alright."

The obtuse contrast between the violent Veela and the fearful one shook Blaise to his core. He couldn't believe that the same blonde man kneeling in front of him had been able to utterly tear McLaggen apart in the way he had. He remembered that Draco told him about him being his normal self to suddenly going ballistic, and how difficult it was for him to control. He had just been a witness to that statement, and it had been a rather disturbing experience. But apparently, from what he saw, it also worked the other way around.

If he was being honest with himself, the Italian was extremely saddened by the situation. He didn't want to see his best friend in that miserable state, torn between his murderous possession over Granger and his inconceivable, deathly fear of being denied by her. Zabini didn't think it would be this bad when his parents told him about his condition – he thought Malfoy would only flirt until he got the girl and he would only have to watch over him–, but it was much worse than what he could ever have imagined. He had to beg his best friend, who didn't even really seem to recognise him in his transformed self, to spare the life of a Gryffindor lad he didn't even know. And he had had to threaten him with the hypothetical situation that the girl who Magic had chosen for him would break his heart and kill him.

'It's given me a mate and a deadline, none of them of my choosing.' Draco's voice echoed inside his head.

Being a Veela sucked, indeed. He felt incredibly awful for Malfoy.

Blaise offered him his hand to help him up. Draco took it and stood up. Both men looked at each other and nodded.

"Take a couple of deep breaths, Draco. Come back to your senses. I'll fix him up a tad and then we can alter his memory."

…

Harry held Hermione for a couple more minutes. The sobbing subsided, slowly but surely, and the tension on her shoulders loosened up a little. He kept rocking her from side to side, gently, slowly, comforting her. He quietly hummed, the vibrations on his chest further soothing her. She wiped off her tears with the back of her hand, reluctantly pulling from his hug.

She looked at him and gave him a small smile, "Thanks, Harry. I needed that."

"Rough night?"

"You could say that. Rough, tense, confusing… Gone to shit, basically." She giggled and sobbed at the same time, wiping her face once more, "Yours?"

"Pretty much the same, that's why I'm here."

"Ginny and Dean made up?" She took a wild guess.

"I think so… They wanted to talk in private and asked me to leave. I turned around to check up on her and they were kissing. Go figure."

"Ah, that sucks. I'm sorry, Harry…"

"Yeah, well, thanks…" The boy who lived sighed out in frustration, running his fingers through his hair, slightly pulling at the roots, "I listened to her while she cried. She doesn't seem happy with Dean, but she says she doesn't want to be alone."

"Loneliness can be difficult to bear." Hermione spoke from her heart.

"I know, but I guess I thought I could be the one to make her happy. She told me she's been crying so much these past weeks, and that she feels so empty. And I think she's been filling the void inside her with her tears. If she feels so alone in this relationship with Dean… What's the point in dating him at all?"

"Perhaps she would miss the contact if they were to break up. Kissing, touching…" She closed her eyes, a tear rolled down her cheek, "…Sex."

"Sex?"

"Yes. Maybe she doesn't hold any romantic feelings for Dean any longer, but she may come back to him for his body. Because he makes her feel full and makes her forget about her loneliness, if only for some minutes. I suppose it's hard to give up on that. At least…"

"At least…?"

Hermione bit her lip and shed another tear, unsure if she wanted to share her thoughts with Harry. She decided to go for it, considering he had somewhat opened up to her about his feelings for Ginny. It was only fair.

"At least that's what I tell myself whenever I see Ron with Lavender. That he goes back to her for her body… Like he did just a couple of minutes ago."

"Wait, what? You caught them having sex?" At Hermione's silence, Harry's eyes widened in shock. "Holy shit, Hermione, I'm so sorry."

"That's kind of you, but don't be. They're a couple." Oh, she was so very bitter about it, "That's couples do."

"Yes, well, but… Are you alright?"

"I mean, it's not like we're together. I have no right to be upset, whatsoever. But it stings. A lot." She suppressed a sob, "What's worst, our friendship has become pretty awkward, since Lavender is always around snogging Ron."

"I feel you. It's different. It's annoying, actually."

"It is, isn't it?"

"Yeah, no kidding."

They smiled at each other in silence, simply enjoying one another's company for a while, gradually forgetting about their unpleasant evenings.

…

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAM BA DAMDAM! Shit just got INTENSE.

I hope you liked this chappie :) – I don't know when I'll upload next, sadly, but I hope it's soon enough!

But! I'll say THIS: I am so extremely happy with your lovely feedback 3 The kudos, the favs, the follows, the reviews and the looooooooove 3 I'm so very grateful, thank you so much! I appreciate you :)

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Byeee~~~

Skyselisse