Author's Note: I should probably mention that this entire story was betaed by the fabulous edelau!

It wasn't until the early morning hours the next day that Nurse Pritchard was able to come out and examine Draco. And by the next day, I don't mean the morning after he first got sick, but the day after that. By the time she came, I was fairly certain he was on the mend. He hadn't gotten out of bed other than to use the loo, but he was no longer vomiting. I thought the diarrhea was gone too, but I wasn't monitoring him in that regard. It was frustrating that the Ministry Nurse couldn't make it out until after Draco was already getting better, but I was still eager to find out what the problem was. After all, it was possible that this was just the first attack and that he'd get worse again.

Nurse Pritchard was in Draco's room now, examining him, while I was pacing in the hallway in front of his closed door, waiting for her to come out. It felt like I was waiting forever, but then the grey haired dour-faced nurse finally came out, closing the door behind her.

"Well, what is it? What's wrong with him?" I asked impatiently. I felt like I was going to explode if I didn't find out right now.

"First of all, I want you and the other guards to know that Mr. Malfoy is not contagious," Nurse Pritchard began.

"Because he's getting better now."

"No, he never was contagious; this is a genetic condition, not an infection."

"What's wrong with him?" I asked in disbelief. He was always so healthy when we were at school together. Yes, I'd been convinced for a while now that he was sick, but I thought it was something contagious or cancer even.

"This isn't my area of expertise, but I've determine that he's a veela."

"A veela? He can't be a veela; his parents are human."

"He admitted that his parents both have veela in their very distance histories. He doesn't seem to have any of the veela allure—you don't need to worry about that—it seems to have been diluted down to nothing by the human blood."

"But if his parents are only a small bit veela and he doesn't have the allure, what else is there? Feathers or something? And how would that make him sick?"

"I don't know the specifics—you'll have to talk to a specialist about this—but I do know that it's possible for two hybrid veela to produce a child with the veela sexual characteristics, which is what Mr. Malfoy has."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes; I confirmed it with my own eyes."

"Right, he's a veela, so how'd that make him sick?"

"He's not sick; not really. He had a miscarriage. That egg he's holding was a baby, but something happened to trigger a miscarriage. I imagine it had something to do with not having his mate around. Veelas need their mate to maintain their health. Without their mate they'll eventually waste away and die, which is why he hasn't been eating properly."

"The egg is his baby? Are you sure it's not still alive? It was warm!" I exclaimed, remembering the feel of the heavy egg in my hands from when I had moved it from the bathroom to the bed.

"It's definitely dead. I'm no expert, but that egg is dead."

"How do you know? Is it something I did wrong? I should've sat on it or something!" Alright, so I was grasping at straws here, but Draco was my ward and he'd had a miscarriage on my watch, without me even realizing it. And why hadn't he said anything? All he'd done was cry and mope around his bed.

"No, there is nothing you could've done. That egg has been dead for some time."

"How do you know?"

"Because that shell is fully formed, yet that egg is entirely too small to contain a newborn human baby. The shell doesn't form until the baby stops growing. The fact that the baby stopped growing so small and then the shell had time to completely mature before it came out means that that egg was dead for a week or more. Don't beat yourself up over this; these things happen, especially when veela are deprived from their mates. He never said anything, so there was nothing that could've been done for him."

"But still, I should've known…" I had known something was wrong, but I'd never have guessed that this was the problem…to think that Draco was pregnant all along…

"You couldn't kn-" she started to say, but I cut her off.

"Wait! Draco's a wizard! How is it that he was pregnant? How can a guy have a miscarriage?"

"Veela sexes are very difficult to differentiate, because they look the same on the outside, except for their wings. The wings don't come in until puberty, so before then parents typically go by the smell of the allure. Male veela smell one way and female another, but Mr. Malfoy doesn't have a smell. I performed a chromosome test on him and that came back male; again, I'm not an expert, so I don't know what that means, because he's definitely a female veela. Given that he laid an egg and that he has wings when only the females have wings, I would say he is absolutely female."

"Then why does he look like a boy? Why was he in the boy's dorm at school?"

"Like I said, wings don't appear until puberty. Up until he got his wings, his parents had no way of determining his sex, besides the chromosome test. That test comes back male. Maybe the veela specialist would be able to tell, but from what Mr. Malfoy said, his parents were trying to keep his condition a secret and never took him to a specialist. Instead they consulted their family doctor, who performed a series of psychological tests. The tests indicated that he was a male, so they raised him as a boy and hid his condition."

"But then why does he look like a guy? I've seen his chest; he's completely flat; no boobs at all and his waist is straight, not at all curvy." At least it was before he put on the weight; I wasn't entirely sure what it looked like now.

"I don't know, other than the fact that chromosomally he appears to be a human male and he isn't a full veela. I don't know the specifics on how veela sex is determined, but it's completely different than with humans. Maybe Mr. Malfoy is a male human and at the same time, a female veela," Nurse Pritchard said.

That was a lot of information to wrap my head around and it seemed the nurse was out of information.

"I'll file my report and see to it that all of the other guards and your boss get copies. I'll request for a specialist to come out and take a look at him, but that might take a month or more. For now just watch him and make him eat more. Also, try to get him to tell you who his mate is; he wouldn't tell me and veelas are extremely sensitive to their mates. They need their mates around and without them, they feel rejected. If a veela is rejected, it'll waste away and die."

I nodded, my head still spinning with all of the information. Nurse Pritchard clapped me on the shoulder, before seeing herself out.

I was lost in thought for some unknown period of time, before I gathered my thoughts, schooled them into line, and decided it was time to check on Draco. He was lying in his bed, still wearing his blue silk pajamas from last night, and crying. His snuffles were quiet and infrequent, but I could see the glistening tracks down his face. He'd been crying a lot lately, but now that I knew the reason why, it seemed understandable. Anyone would cry after losing a baby; it wasn't even my baby and I was nearly in tears from watching his heartbreak.

As an Auror, I was supposed to be guarding Draco, not comforting him, but I was the only one around right now and I decided I could do both. Narcissa and Ron were both upstairs, but it was hours before breakfast time and I had no illusions that Nurse Pritchard had bothered introducing herself to the other prisoner in the house. Thus Narcissa was most likely still fast asleep, leaving me as the only one available to comfort her son. I crawled onto the giant bed and pulled him into my arms.

"I had no idea it was a baby; I'm so sorry," I murmured into his ear, wrapping one arm under his arm and around his chest, while resting the other hand on the egg. I had been so certain that this egg was merely a painted stone, but now that I knew it was a veela egg, it seemed absolutely incredible. To think that something so wonderful and so foreign came out of his body, covered in those intricate silver patterns.

"It wasn't a baby," he replied thickly, leaning into my embrace.

"The nurse told me that you're a veela and that this was a real veela egg."

"It's a real egg, but there was never a baby inside. I never had a chance to fertilize it; that's why it didn't develop."

"Wait, if it wasn't fertilized, then…uh…I don't get it," I said, feeling very confused.

"I was with my mate and my body recognized him. It started preparing for the fertilization by making the egg, but fertilization never came. I've been stuck on house arrest instead."

"Who is your mate, Draco?" I asked, but he didn't answer. "Come on, you need to tell me. If I know who it is, I can talk to Robards about granting visitation. If he's a Death Eater, maybe you'll be better off staying in the holding cells with him."

"He's not a Death Eater."

"Then who is he?" I asked.

He didn't answer that question either. Instead he shook his head and was clearly having increasing difficulty holding back his sobs. Obviously he didn't want to talk about it. Maybe his mate had rejected him; I remembered the nurse saying something about rejection being lethal in veelas, so I decided to try to ease his fears.

"Look, I'm sure that whoever he is he'll love you. Circumstances interfered to keep you two apart, but this will all be over soon. Once we get your name cleared, you'll be free to woo that mate of yours," I said.

He looked up to me with wide, trusting eyes. His eyes were such a clear grey color that I couldn't imagine someone rejecting him; whoever his mate was, surely must love him.

"He wouldn't want me. I don't even have any allure; what kind of veela doesn't have allure?"

"That just makes you normal; more human," I offered.

He scoffed at that. "I couldn't be less normal. Look at me; I'm a girl veela and a boy human. No one is going to want me."

"That's not true. I'd jump at the chance to have a boyfriend who could carry children. The most disappointing thing about realizing I'm gay is that I'll never have a child of my own. I've always wanted a family."

Now that the war was over, I had time to think about the future and for self-discovery. In the days after the final battle, Ginny admitted having a crush on Dennis Creevey. I was gone and she'd tried her best to wait for me, but Dennis and Collin had been there with her at Hogwarts. They were all part of Dumbledore's army together, working to keep the younger students safe from the Carrows. They had bonded and now that Collin was dead, she felt the urge to go to Dennis and comfort him. That comfort turned physical and we broke up almost as soon as we'd gotten back together.

My break up with Ginny was for the best, because it led me to discover my sexuality. Turns out I really am not all that interested in girls. In my despair over loosing Ginny, I accidentally walked into the wrong, or oh so very right, type of muggle club. Half naked men had hit on me, asked me to dance, and there was some very hot snogging too. Of course I'd already been very drunk from a series of shots I'd thrown back at the previous club, the one I'd left because none of the girls hitting on me were my type, due to all the boobs. The alcohol lowered my inhibitions and by the time I'd sobered up in the morning, I had to admit to myself that I was gay.
I found the idea of having a long term boyfriend very desirable, but there was the drawback of not being able to produce children. Draco had the best of both worlds, because he could have the gay relationship and the biological children. Sure laying eggs was weird, but this was the wizarding world and laying eggs was not the weirdest thing I'd encountered so far. Cutting off part of your soul and shoving it inside a giant snake, that was weird; laying eggs was comparatively normal.

"Really? You'd want that?"

"Yeah, of course. And you're a fit bloke, so I'm sure he'll want you."

Well he was fit before; he was a bit pudgy now, but miscarriages did that to veelas. The rest of him was so thin that he'd probably bounce right back and look fit again soon.

He nodded and said, "I didn't know you were gay."

"I didn't figure it out myself until recently. I didn't know you were either."

"I've known all along."

"Did you know that you were…ah?"

"A veela?"

"No, um, er…"

"A girl veela?"

"Yeah."

"No, not until recently. Not until I got really angry at Pansy and Greg and wings shot out of my back and a beak popped out of my face."

"Sounds rough."

He nodded. "Please don't tell anyone. I don't want anyone to know that I'm a veela."

I was torn between instantly agreeing, because I felt sorry for him, and refusing, because I had to tell Hermione. "I have to tell the other Aurors."

"Only the ones guarding me."

"My boss has to know."

"Alright, but no one else."

I was about to refuse, because I really wanted to tell Hermione, but then the rules of proper Auror conduct popped into my head. "Fine; we're not supposed to tell any personal secrets we learn on the job anyway," I conceded.

"Thank you."

Author's Note: There is no telling when it will start snowing again, but when it does, look for another update. Until then, you can expect the next chapter to be up either on Tuesday or Wednesday.

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