Part 3

Draco expected to hear from Hermione again. Surely she wouldn't just let the conversation end the way that it had. He avoided her, warily, expecting her to jump out from around a corner to accost him and demand the truth. Or worse, set up another trap to catch him unawares.

But she was surprisingly scarce. He noticed her in class, furiously taking notes like always, her hand shooting up into the air to answer the professors' questions. But he didn't see her spending as much time with her friends, or even sitting around the Gryffindor table at dinner.

Her sudden absence seemed suspicious to him, so one night after she'd once again left dinner early, he followed her trail to the library. When he saw that she seemed to have covered her usual study table with a variety of books and parchments, he almost made to leave, relieved that he'd worried over nothing. Hermione wasn't Hermione if she wasn't studying something.

The books were just lying open on the table with her things, and Hermione was gone, presumably tracking down another book. She'd never notice if he was there or not. But then he wouldn't get a glimpse of her, and he was feeling rather sadly like he'd like to see her at least once more before bed. So he strolled over to her table, glancing down at the haphazard piles.

The first thing he saw was a couple of texts laid out together like she'd been cross-referencing them. The titles showed Rebounding Magic and Its Side Effects, and Unexpected Results from Everyday Spells. Beside the two books was a list in her neat handwriting of rare effects on creatures.

Something about those titles made his heart skip a beat. This wasn't study material for any subject she was taking, he knew. He quickly looked around at the other volumes on the table and his eye landed on one particularly large and ancient tome. The leather binding was weathered and worn from years of storage, but he could still make out the letters stamped on the front that read 'The Art of Mind-Reading'. Next to it was a stack of smaller booklets, all variations on studies of Legilimency.

He turned to leave immediately, and bumped into her as she approached the desk. They both grabbed for the books that were falling off of the top of the heap she had in her arms. As Draco caught the topmost book, he chanced a glance at it. Bonds of Light, Bonds of Dark.

"Oh, good! Malfoy, you're here."

She sidestepped around him and delicately placed her burden on the edge of the desk before sliding it across the surface to a more stable position. It was obvious she had a lot of experience landing stacks of heavy books.

"Working on a project, Granger? An extra-credit assignment? For which class?" He hoped she would answer in the affirmative, but even as he made the suggestions, he knew what her answer was going to be.

"Of course not, Malfoy." She waved her hand at the books on the table. "I'm trying to research what happened to us."

He should have known. There was no way she was going to just let it go.

"There are the books on Legilimency," she pointed at the bundle of booklets he'd already seen. "But I've already looked through those, and I really don't think our experience is similar to how that spell works."

"'Our' experience? Granger, I have no clue what you're going on about." He was absurdly glad she couldn't see the colors around him that he was sure were proclaiming that he was lying through his teeth.

She was a bit taken aback at that statement. Her brow crinkled, and she gave him a searching look. Draco kept his face neutral and then raised one eyebrow expectantly.

"You know, the part where you can find me when I'm in danger," she said. When he continued to look blank, she added, more forcefully, as if he were a dim child. "The part where I can read your feelings."

She seemed to be a bit irritated at his refusal to validate the conversation. "Malfoy, you told me I wasn't imagining it. We have a connection, you and I. And somehow that leads to me being able to read your mind and what you're feeling."

He laughed dismissively at her assertion. "We generally call that 'body language,' Granger. It doesn't require mind-reading skills to figure out what's on the mind of a teenage boy." That was a good angle. Distract her into thinking sensing his emotions was no different than normal intuition.

She scoffed at him, obviously unsure why he was being so difficult. "Except I know that's not what you're thinking about."

A slow smile spread across his face. "No?" He leaned forward on the table, allowing his eyes to flick downwards and then travel leisurely back up to her face. With his eyes fixed intently on hers, he allowed some of those pinks and deep purples to bleed through their Veela connection. It was quite easy, as all he had to do was release a tiny bit of the self-control he exerted on his Veela mating instincts.

He wondered, briefly, if his eyes had changed. He remembered the eerie glow from his face when his Veela had been riled enough for his wings to come out.

He grinned to himself when he saw that his tactics had worked. A lovely blush had crossed her features, and her wide eyes suddenly looked down, anxiously, leading him to wonder what thoughts she was thinking that had caused the hints of peach and rose in the air.

As pleasant as it was to let the warmth of his mate's closeness suffuse his body, he decided to clamp back down on those feelings before he gave her any more clues. He was trying to distract her, not himself.

"Reading my mind, Granger?" His voice wasn't quite the same teasing tone he used to use to annoy her. It was a bit darker, a bit more playful. "You must be on to something, then. That's quite the connection we've got. And it looks like your books taught you quite a bit in such a short amount of time." He reached over to grab the big, ancient book, his arm casually brushing hers in the process, sending tingles up all the way to his shoulder blades where there were no wings. "I ought to check this out, I suppose, see if I can figure out what's going on in that big brain of yours."

He looked at her again, staring deeply into those honey-colored eyes as if he were trying to read her mind and the pinks of her cheeks deepened along with the pinks in the air. She was definitely distracted. He laughed and congratulated himself on redirecting her thoughts. But it was surely time to leave before she started to ask more questions, so he took the book and with a wink back at her he sauntered back to the dungeons.

Over the next few days, he noticed that she hadn't stopped her researching. After thinking it through, he decided it would be better if he stopped in occasionally to keep an eye on her. Not because he wanted to see her, of course, but because he had a better chance at directing her away from sensitive subjects and then sending her on wild goose chases, if he was there.

And also, he wanted to see her.

It wasn't enough anymore to watch her from the back of the class, to listen to her as she directed the prefects on their duties. He'd held her in his arms. He'd made her laugh. He knew exactly where she was and the subtleties of her emotions all the time. And he still loved to listen to her heart beating late at night, imagining she was sleeping peacefully right beside him.

When he stepped back into the library to see her buried in books and parchment lists, he couldn't help the smile that came to his face. He quickly schooled it into something a little less obvious, and approached the table.

"You've got a smudge just there on your nose, Granger," he announced himself.

She looked up at him, and wiped at her nose, slightly embarrassed. "Come to bother me again, Malfoy?"

Delighted, he said, "I get you bothered, Granger?"

She gaped at his flippant response and then said, shrewishly, "That's not what I meant." She sniffed. "And of course you do not."

He ignored the look she shot him, and grasped the book on the topmost pile. "Emotional Bonding and Intuition," he read aloud. "Still working on that mind-reading thing? I did read that last book. It was fascinating, if a little outdated once the skill of Legilimency had been developed."

"Yes," she agreed, after watching to make sure he carefully set the book back down in the same pile he'd picked it up from. "I thought perhaps I needed to look at older magic and some of the skills and traits that Legilimency had built upon."

"And where did that get you?" He was curious, because he hadn't actually looked into the mechanics of how the Veela matebond worked. And now he couldn't look it up, because there was the chance she would find out what he was researching. It would have to wait until after they'd mated, and then she could do all the research she wanted.

His thoughts surprised him. It was the first time he considered that there was the chance Hermione would actually accept the Veela bond.

At that moment, she flipped her hand up through her hair, and the glaring blonde streak reminded him that the magic of the Veela bond was working very hard on her to ensure that she did. In fact, it looked like the streak had actually gotten wider. He just barely refrained from scowling at her.

"Well," she answered his question, her tone suddenly the same one she used to lecture the lower years, "I don't think they are remotely similar. Mind-reading as an early innate skill eventually developed into the skilled and teachable forms of Legilimency, but they still only focus on thoughts and not emotions. You might say emotions are more from the heart, rather than the mind. So heart-reading might be a better way to describe it."

Said heart thumped harder in his chest at her assessment. Heart-reading. There could not be a more accurate way to describe what he'd been doing for the last several months.

"And have you found anything on this heart-reading?"

She sighed, blowing a curl out of her face in the process. "Nothing, actually. There's very little evidence of emotional reading, other than the practice of reading auras, and almost all of the research on that subject is extremely unreliable." She sniffed disdainfully, and Draco remembered her oft-spouted denunciations of all forms of Divination.

She eyed him, suspiciously. "Are you suddenly interested in helping me, now?"

He rolled his eyes, and looked away from her at the piles of books that were due to be returned to the shelves. It was easier to lie when she couldn't see his eyes. "I still think you're exaggerating what happened between us. We experienced a few moments where we were in tune, perhaps. I'm sure that could be explained quite easily due to having shared a traumatic magical experience."

"That's just it, Malfoy," she said, excitedly, "I thought that at first, too, but I haven't found anything to support that idea. Magically whitening hair, yes. Emotional sensitivities lasting significantly beyond the 'traumatic magical experience', no."

"I don't have any emotional sensitivities, Granger." He lied about their connection again. He almost thought it was getting easier.

She giggled into her hand, and he realized what he'd just said.

"You know what I mean," he scowled. "I have emotions. I just don't have whatever you're talking about."

Still smiling, she reached for her parchment. "Actually, I don't know what you mean. Why don't you describe the events as you remember them, and the days afterward? Then we can compare our symptoms."

She looked so excited to make a list, he almost forgot to give her fake symptoms. He described the rescue from Grawp in vague terms, relying heavily on the phrase 'sensed something was wrong.' He described the days following and their interaction, relying heavily on the phrase, 'I could feel you watching me' just because he liked how it made her squirm. He wondered if she'd even recognized how many times her eyes had landed on him in the days since he'd rescued her. When he was done speaking, it actually sounded quite a bit like she was stalking him.

The frown on her face as she looked down at her notes told him that she had reached the same conclusion, and he tried not to laugh.

"Were you watching me, Granger?" he pushed, hoping to get a blush out of her. She didn't disappoint.

"I don't recall the particular moments you are talking about," she replied, airily, ignoring the spots of color high on her cheeks. This time he did laugh.

Several times they met that way, not by arrangement, but because she was predictable. He would show up after she'd started, peruse her latest book choices, and stick around to answer a few of her latest questions and test her theories. If she realized that his answers were always decidedly unhelpful, she never complained.

Sometimes he stayed just a little longer, and they had conversations that weren't about Hermione's latest hypothesis.

She'd asked him once, "What are you going to do after school?"

He hadn't answered right away, because his mind flashed with possibilities. He saw her sitting right where he'd imagined her on the couch in his library at home. He heard her laughter as she sat on a picnic blanket enjoying the fragrance of the gardens in springtime. He saw her face lifted up to his as she glowed in a beautiful lace wedding dress. He saw her playfully chase a chubby toddler with fair skin and moonlight blonde hair up the sweeping stairs of the entrance of Malfoy Manor. He saw her face flash a thousand times in front of him with smiles he hadn't witnessed yet.

He hoped it was part of the future that hadn't been written yet.

When he finally did answer her, his voice was husky as he lied again. "I haven't given it much thought. I have some things in mind, but there's still a lot…in flux…that I'm waiting on."

She'd just nodded, probably thinking he was talking about the results of his NEWTs.

Talking to her was the best part of his day. He came to appreciate even more her wit and her intelligence and her caring heart. She managed to maintain the highest grades in the school, despite her extra research project. He also knew that she made it a point to take Grawp special snacks once a week, and he suspected her visits with Hagrid were really to tutor him in the magic that he wasn't supposed to be practicing but to which everyone turned a blind eye.

But when he saw the books on magical creatures and the magical properties of blood, he knew she was getting too close. When he saw the first book on Veela in the middle of her stack, he made his excuses and left early.

It didn't make any sense, since it wasn't like his absence was going to stall her progress. But he didn't think he could handle the anxiety of watching her come closer and closer to the secret he'd been keeping.

He didn't join her in the library for several days in a row, and one day after the prefect meeting she asked, "I haven't seen you lately, Malfoy. Been busy?"

He shrugged. "I didn't know I was supposed to answer to you for where I am."

He knew they were the wrong words as soon as they came out of his mouth. He'd meant to say that she shouldn't expect him to meet her, because it wasn't like they'd made plans or arrangements.

But the suddenness of the pale oranges and yellows and the sad fluffy greys told him that he'd very quickly hurt her feelings. He thought he heard his inner Veela make a pathetic snuffling sound at the sensation of her twisting emotions and the slow, heavy beating of her heart.

"I see," was all she said. And then she was gone, head high in the air, and Draco didn't dare stop into her library sanctuary again.

*M*

He didn't have to wonder long about what progress she was making in her research.

One afternoon, in their shared History of Magic class, he walked in and felt her staring straight at him. Though he was always hyper aware of her presence, there was something particularly intense about her gaze, as if she was deliberately daring him to look at her.

When he did, he didn't see anything out of the ordinary. She sat neatly as she normally did, her parchment and quill out on the table, ready to take notes she didn't need. There was slightly less room on her desk, as there were a couple of books sitting on the edge of it. The spines were turned outwards so he could see them clearly, even from where he was across the room.

He glanced at the titles and scowled. Blood Connections Vol 2: Effects of Light & Dark Magic was a thick blue book, whereas Magical Creatures & Their Magical Blood was a slim volume with red lettering.

He took a breath and looked away, unwilling to let her see that the titles had ruffled him. She was sending him a message that her research would not be stopped, and it would not be delayed by his unwillingness to help.

For the rest of the class he was careful not to look her way, though he felt her eyes on him.

Several days later, as he was walking into Arithmancy, he heard Parvati Patil ask, "Were we supposed to bring books today, Hermione?"

He didn't look at the two Gryffindors as he walked over to his seat at his desk. But he heard her answer.

"Oh no, just some extra reading I'm doing at the moment."

"A Comparative Analysis of the Anatomy of Giants, Veela, Werewolves and Centaurs. What in Merlin's name would you need that for?"

Her tone was light, but Draco felt her words hanging heavily in the air. "Oh, you never know."

He pretended he didn't notice the books, but his heart was hammering in his chest. She was too smart. Too focused. Too relentless. He rather thought he loved that about her, but it scared him. He could hear the ticking of a clock that told him his time was running short. What would the books say about Veela and their mating procedures? What would she think when she discovered evidence that pointed at him being Veela? What would she think when the evidence pointed at her as being his mate?

The thoughts made him sick. She would be disgusted at worst, disdainful at best. He'd barely managed an almost-friendship with her over the last couple of months, and even that nebulous foundation was shaky. He wasn't sure if he'd ruined it with his flippant and rude comment.

He focused on breathing in and out during the class, studiously avoiding looking her direction and whatever books she had laid out on her desk.

At night, he listened to her heartbeat and told himself that the next day he would make an effort to talk to her, to get her to give him the chance to prove himself as more than just the bully he'd been for most of her time at Hogwarts. There was still time for him to gain a little of her regard.

But each day he found he didn't have the courage to face her. What if she'd already figured it out? What if she looked at him like a curious lesson from her Magical Creatures class? What if she looked at him with loathing or revulsion, and told him never to speak to her again? Or worse, what if she looked at him with pity, because she was determined that she would never—could never—bring herself to accept him as her mate?

The day came, as he'd known it would, when she brought out a couple of books and let them fall heavily, conspicuously, on the edge of her desk, while she stared straight at him.

He had an idea of what the books contained before the titles confirmed it for him. Veela & Their Mates: Half-Breeds Among Us was the title on the topmost book, an alarming orange and yellow color. But that title wasn't quite as worrisome as the other one with the glossy black binding: Resisting Veela Charms.

He knew it. She hated him.

He couldn't stop the surge of emotion that swamped him. It was spotty and sludgy, a thick leaden grey that covered him and threatened to drag him downwards. He didn't remember what else happened in class, though he made a show of taking notes, seemingly unaffected. But if anyone had happened to look at what he'd written, they would just see nonsense words and symbols.

It was silly for him to be upset. He'd known it was impossible from the very beginning. There was just too much between them for her to look at him as anything other than the spoiled, rich prat who had teased her and mocked her for years. And he was too much of a coward to step out and make her see him differently.

It occurred to him that he probably should have tried something from a traditional courtship. He could have sent her flowers. Or better, he could have sent her books. Books about Veela, perhaps, that painted them in a better light than whatever she was currently reading. Books that talked about the joys of having a mate that was solely dedicated to your happiness. Books that emphasized the equality in the matebond, and the sacredness of free will.

Merlin, why hadn't he thought of that earlier? Now that there was no time left, he suddenly had dozens of ideas of how he could have gotten her attention, and maybe caused her to look favorably upon him. But it was too late, as she'd figured it out, and she was intent on arming herself with the tools to reject him easily.

His heart trembled in his chest, and his breathing hitched, but class was dismissed and so he shouldered his way out of the classroom so he could find a quiet nook and take a moment to be alone.

His mother had been wrong. Winning a mate was not so easy, even if she did have the other half of his soul. And because she did, losing a mate was very, very hard.

When he thought he'd collected himself, he made his way out through the courtyard, thinking to soothe his Veela's sadness with the colors of the new spring.

But the first colors he saw when he came out of the castle were the hints of amethyst and citrine rippling in the warm air that he recognized as his mate's laughter.

She was all the way across the courtyard, but even from that distance he could see the sunlight glinting off the highlights in her hair as the gentle spring breezes ruffled it out behind her.

He'd been working very hard at keeping his emotions at bay, carefully keeping them tamped down deep inside his heart. But seeing her so lovely and happy caused a surge of longing and affection to surface and he selfishly allowed himself just the moment to watch her. He knew there would not be that many moments like these left, as once school ended, there would be very little reason for him to see her. And he had no doubt that she'd have every reason to avoid him.

His Veela, despondent after the bitter news from the class, woke suddenly at the swirls of love and wistful yearning and he had to fight the compulsive desire to walk towards her. He had so wanted to be able to show her what was really in his heart.

As if in response to that fervent thought, he saw her stop speaking mid-sentence. Unerringly, her eyes found his and he thought the look on her face was one of wonder, though he didn't recognize the colors that shimmered between them.

Her friends were calling to her, but she wasn't paying them any attention. He knew that for the moment she was connected to him, that he'd foolishly unguarded his feelings and they were spilling out towards her. She took a single, hesitant step towards him, and there was something that might have been uncertainty or expectation in her bearing, but he couldn't bear the tension, the embarrassment.

He turned and ran. Like the night of the Yule ball, overcome with the revelation that his mate was the one girl he could never have, he ran out onto the grounds, and kept running.

When he came upon the same tree he'd found that night, he familiarly swung himself up into the branches, feeling the irrational need to hide among the fresh, green foliage.

He could feel her coming closer, heading straight for him as if she'd zeroed in on his location. From high up in his perch, he saw her walking briskly to the edge of the forest where she stopped almost right underneath him. The shadows played on her hair, and made it look darker than it was, while he held perfectly still.

Her head swiveled back and forth, her hands on her hips, while she looked around confused. It was obvious she was looking for him. He felt his heart thump suddenly very loudly, knowing that the moment of truth had arrived. The lines of fate had all converged upon this moment, and his heart beat so fast he found it hard to breathe.

As if she could hear his heart, and perhaps she could, she suddenly looked straight up, her brown eyes boring straight into his. He regarded her steadily, not even bothering to feel silly at being caught up a tree.

She didn't say a word as she approached the tree trunk, a look of consideration on her face. After a few moments and a couple waves of her wand, the tree trunk was now covered with evenly spaced knots of wood that led straight up into the canopy where he sat watching her.

Of course she would come up with a much more elegant way of climbing a tree than simply hauling herself up with brute strength. Sometimes he wondered which one of them had been born into magic. She used magic as naturally as breathing, finding magical solutions as if it were an innate pattern of her mind.

His eyes never wavered from her as she ascended into the tree and settled herself carefully onto the branch beside him. He didn't bother objecting. The feeling was heavy around him that time and blood and magic had been leading them both to just this moment, coinciding with the two of them high up in the tree.

She swung her feet as she looked down at the grass below, and then she finally turned to him.

"I can find you, you know," she told him. When he didn't seem to respond, she continued. "Probably the same way you found me. Those nights when you seemed to stumble upon me at just the right or the wrong moment. You were following me, weren't you? Following this…this connection that we have." Her words sounded authoritative, but he could hear the unsureness in the way her voice lilted. And he could read the trembling of the yellows and greys like misty sunlight.

He didn't have to answer, because she'd already proved how it worked by tracking him down.

Her next words shocked him out of his silence.

"If I die, you'll be free to choose another."

"What!" His Veela roared to life, startled, horrified, snarling and suddenly alert for potential dangers. The adrenaline flooding through his veins felt almost like fire, and he remembered just a moment too late what happened when he got riled up at the idea of his mate in danger.

Her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open as she looked at what he knew was suddenly sprouting out of his back. "I knew it!" she breathed. "None of the books mentioned wings, but I knew I had seen them."

Not wanting to talk at all about the sudden appearance of his fiery Veela accessories, he snarled at her in distress.

Seeing the look in his eyes, which were no doubt eerily glowing by now, she huffed at him. "Relax. I'm not planning to kill myself. I'm just saying it's not nearly as hopeless as all that. I might die quite young, considering my habit of sticking my nose into other people's business. And even if I die at a regular age, it seems Veela live considerably longer than the average witch or wizard. So you see, you have only to wait me out."

Still gaping at her, his wings stiff and straight behind him, he could barely choke out the words above the frantic inner squawking of his Veela. "Stop talking about dying."

"I just—I know you don't want me, and you didn't choose me." She looked down at her hand wrapped firmly around the twigs sticking out from the branch she was sitting on. He was sure the action was so that he couldn't see her face. She continued, "I understand. I'm not offended." Her shoulders rose and fell almost like a shrug. "I know you can't actively plot my demise, but if you hoped to just wait until I d—"

His growl cut her off, punctuated by the slightest twitching of his wings. "Stop talking about dying!"

"I'm trying to tell you that it's okay!" she shouted at him, exasperated. Her eyes rolled, and she looked upwards into the green canopy of leaves, still not making visual contact with him.

He was almost amused that she sought him to try and comfort him by telling him she's probably going to die sooner than he will. Almost, but not at all amused, because it was not remotely comforting to think of her dying. Nor was it comforting to think of living without his mate, like his mother did. Even though he could perhaps choose a wife, or a relationship, he could never choose another mate. There was only one for him, and the idea of living without her for any reason was the very opposite of comfort. "It's not okay."

His quiet words made her feel uncomfortable and she tried to explain herself again. "I just meant—"

"I don't want you to die, Granger."

She looked at him, then, and her eyes were deep and dark. Despite thinking he knew everything there was to know about her moods and her heartbeat and the colors he saw through his Veela senses, he had to admit that she was still a mystery to him. He still couldn't quite read her mind. And there was something there in her eyes that made him feel equal parts fear and hope.

She blinked, and the feeling he had that he was falling, falling, into cozy warm brown and golds abruptly cut off. "Well, no, I don't want that, either, but you don't have to be bound to me forever—"

"I do want to be bound to you forever."

The words that came out of his mouth were bright white. White like the pristine snow that had blanketed the ground the night of the Yule ball, erasing all traces of the past except for his footsteps. White like the blinding flash of light when he'd stared at the sun for so long he thought it might burn right through him. White like the brightest, purest ball of goodness that he could dredge up from deep inside of his soul to offer her to wear like a chain around her neck. Or a ring on her finger.

The words hung in the air, a haze of whites and silvers that she couldn't see. But her heartbeat sped up a tiny bit, and so he knew that though she couldn't see the colors, she could feel them. The connection between them was growing and deepening and getting brighter with every moment they sat next to each other high up in the tree.

"Oh, well," she said, hesitantly, looking away again. "That's the Veela part, of course. I remember reading that you can't really help that."

As he'd thought, she'd no doubt checked out every book available in the library on Veela, once she was sure she was on the right track. So he told her, just to see her reaction, "Your books are wrong."

He laughed at her expression as she gaped at him. It was the first time he'd felt light enough to laugh in her presence in several days. But her face as he insulted her precious books was just too much. And having her sitting next to him for so many minutes was doing the strangest thing to his disposition. Where before he'd felt like he'd been twisted and wrung like a wash cloth, now he was finally starting to loosen. The pressure on his chest was lifting. He wondered if his wings actually did do something to bear the weight of his body so that he wasn't bound by gravity.

He smiled and explained to her, "Well, the books here at Hogwarts are incomplete, anyway. A Veela doesn't choose, exactly, but neither is he completely at the whim of the fates. He can kind of…sort."

Her brow furrowed as she contemplated this idea, and he knew that it hadn't been mentioned at all in any of her books. Very few studies were done on Veela mate pairs regarding the mate-choosing process. He suspected most pairs were particular about their privacy. And it was also possible that it seemed to happen differently for each one.

"What do you mean by 'sort'?" she asked, curious as ever.

"Sort between possible options, possible mates. They can cultivate a connection or stifle one in favor of another, through exposure and preference. Most Veela do so subconsciously, responding more freely perhaps to one person or one type of person."

She contemplated this while her fingers fiddled with the leaves growing near her hands. "And…and you? Did you sort through others as well?" Her question was casual, but he heard the tremor in her voice. He turned to look at her, admire the softness of her hair, the gentle planes of her face. His Veela sighed. She was beautiful. She was kind. She was generous. She made him feel light inside the places that had always felt heavy with shadows, as if he'd somehow been born with a smudge on his soul and she healed it.

"The others were like the twinkling of far-off stars that you have to squint to see," he told her, truthfully. "And you were the full moon on a clear night. So bright, so beautiful, taking up all the space in the night sky." He swallowed as he admitted out loud what he'd been suspecting for some time. "I never even saw the others."

She looked down at her dangling feet and the earth far below, and she didn't answer. But he didn't need to see the slight smile on her face to feel the warmth blooming in his chest that he knew came from her. Her heart was strong and a bit fast, but he could feel it like bells ringing through his body, a musical rhythm to the tips of his fingers and his toes, and even through his wings of flame hidden high up behind the curtain of leaves.

Hermione's face was vulnerable as she turned to look up at him. She hesitated to speak, licking her lips first, and then asked, "Why do you run away from me, then?"

The whisper of rejection was in the air. A tiny accusation that his Veela reproached him for. Why had he run? Why had he feared this moment? Why had he not claimed his mate the minute she was free of other romantic entanglements? Why did he avoid her in class as she worked to discover the truth when he could have just shown her the affection he held for her?

He hung his head, knowing he had to be honest with himself if he was going to be honest with his mate. "I'm a coward, I suppose."

She didn't like that harsh answer. A frown spread across her face as she searched for words to protest with.

He forestalled her. "It's because I don't know what comes next." Malfoys were used to having control over the things around them. Slytherins were used to plans within plans with carefully calculated chances of success and losses. "It is a bit overwhelming to think I have to figure out how to make the girl who's hated me my whole life willing to spend the rest of her life with me."

"Well," she pointed out, "I didn't hate you your whole life. I didn't even meet you until we were eleven."

There was a moment of silence, and then they both laughed. She covered her mouth with one hand and he laughed so hard the branches of their verdant refuge shook with soft rustling sounds. Their laughter was loud and silly, and they both felt quite a bit better afterwards.

"So you see," she said, "it's really eleven years of being nothing at all, to six years of being enemies. That's really not too terribly bad, when you think about it."

He liked that she seemed to be trying to make him feel better. "Seven years," he corrected her.

"This year isn't over yet," she said, softly, cocking her head to the side. "And I don't hate you."

He looked at her lovely face. With one hand, he reached up to touch her cheek, the curly locks that he was enamored of falling around his wrist. His fingertips brushed against that ever-widening white streak. There were so many things he felt like he needed to say, but there were too many words racing through his head to find the right ones. He finally decided on the simplest ones. "I'm sorry."

"For what?" she breathed, leaning slightly into his hand as it cupped her cheek.

"For the other six years. For the pranks and the unkind words. For the tears I never cared about. I care about each one of them now."

She closed her eyes, and he knew she was remembering all the things they'd shared in their history. He kept his fingers on her face, needing the connection as he trembled waiting for the rainbow of colors around her to firm into a shape he could recognize, one he could build upon.

"I don't know what's next, either," she admitted, her eyes fluttering open as she broke the silence. The look on her face was soft, vulnerable, honest. She added, delicately, bravely even, "We could find out."

She was very close. They sat with their legs touching, but with her face turned towards him the distance between them was very small. He could see every gold fleck in her irises, count every tiny freckle on the bridge of her nose, hear her breath whispering softly from her mouth.

He smiled at her. Giving in to the inevitable felt surprisingly wonderful. He didn't know why he'd waited so long, or what he'd been afraid of. He was certain she could feel his heart beating hard in his chest, so she couldn't have been that surprised when he leaned in until he could feel the sigh of her breath across his lips. His glowing silver eyes searched hers as he cleared his mind, and concentrated until he could feel her heart beating in time with his. He lifted the guard on his Veela until he felt the fullness unfurling within him like fiery red wings of flame. The widening of her eyes told him that she could feel when the warmth and the affection and the desire that he, as Veela, felt for his chosen mate bridged the gap between them.

He was full of light, and still he waited. He didn't know what he was waiting for, but their heartbeats got louder and louder, echoing in his ears, drowning out the sounds of the springtime birds around them. Then he felt it, the uncurling, as of a newborn leaf, of a shimmer of light inside of her that reached out to touch him, bathing him in warmth and color.

And then his lips touched hers. And everything he thought he knew, all the fears and insecurities that had controlled him, the shame and the guilt that had weighed him down, were blown away in a blast of golden heat. And the pinks and purples and reds and blues and corals and teals and silvers and bright, bright whites all swirled around them—long, colorful lines as of fine writing on page after page of parchment.

And his life was rewritten.

A/N: Wow, guys, thanks so much for reading! I was so excited at how this story turned out, and I hope you liked it. If you aren't on H&V yet, check it out for great Dramione stories. The other stories from the fest are great, there's also some artwork.

Don't worry, everyone, now that this fest is finished, I will be back to focusing solely on Draco's Bad Day, with no plans to work on any other fics for a while. For updates about my stories, find me on Facebook, under Maloreiy Webster, and you can see the banners for my stories, and aesthetics for my chapters. And if anyone has any fanart they've done for any of my stories, please feel free to contact me, I'd love to feature fanart with every new chapter/story release.

Also, shameless advertising, if you loved the sweetness of this story, you might like Bower Birds which I wrote with a similar emphasis on romance and light loveliness. It's a T-rated Marriage Law one-shot with Luna/Neville, and it's a pretty little thing, if I do say so myself.