Ok, i was supposed to publish this on Wednesday, but I just couldn't write the chapter. Finally I managed to break three thousand words and now I am going to reward myself by watching TV.
I also went to see A good Day to Die Hard at the cinema – I would really recommend seeing it if you are into action films – or not into them, I am crazy about action films (is anyone else super excited for Fast and Furious 6!) and I dragged some of my friends who hate them to watch it and they loved it too! because it was amazing :) I have just realised how much like an advert I sound!
:)
His wings don't retract until some point in the middle of the night. I feel the warmth pulsing over my body disperse and when I look down the razor sharp incisors have receded back into their normal shape.
I cannot sleep. From the moment we lay down to the rise of the sun, I am not able to close off my brain. It seems to be in a constant whirlwind of thoughts that just won't rest.
Veela.
Veela.
Veela.
Mate.
Mate. ME!
Veela.
The two words spin like a tornado through my thoughts, casting aside everything else and needling its way into the forefront of my mind.
By the time the feathers creating a blanket over my body finally disappear, I have started to get used to the idea. They really are beautiful. Like the wings of an angel. A little part of my chest hurts; the part that holds my heart.
I hate myself as I lie in the dark silence of the room. For turning away when he needed me. For accusing him of trying to control my emotions. For being scared. For not being able to tell him how I really feel.
I lift my fist that is intertwined with his and press a kiss to the inside of his wrist. A warm rumble passes through his chest, an animalistic sound that pushes my thoughts back to what he is, and when I finally look down I realise that his eyes are open. They are no longer the silvery grey that I have come to recognise so easily.
They are a mix between grey and black. Hard. Scary. Different . But still so familiar that it makes my heart hurt. "You are awake." Pointing out the obvious seems like a good idea. Stick to things that you know.
"Yes." Obviously he is not going to be much help right now.
"Yes." I repeat, not sure what I should say or do or where I should look. The tense atmosphere from last night has settles like snow over the room once more and a shiver crawls up my spine. Draco seems to feel it and his wings sprout again to cover e in the thick fringe of feathers.
"Thank you." I whisper, my shock and awe that the wings had actually been real leaves me speechless, so I let him cocoon me into the hard contours of his body and the soft, pliable feathers.
Shaking his head before pressing his cheek into my hair, he mutters, "Thank you for staying with me last night. I am so sorry that you had to find out like that."
"Better that I found out sooner rather than later," I say; not sure if I would rather had just not known at all, but still very unwilling to say that out loud.
His teeth begin to elongate again and he leans down to breath into my ear, "My mate is still scared." He observes, "I will protect you."
"I don't need someone to protect me!" I say loudly, trying to pull of the restraining hand on my abdomen and trying to push away the feathers. "And how do you know that I am your mate!"
"I know," he tells me, standing up on the opposite side of the bed to me, and we stand staring daggers at each other.
Hugging my arms around myself, I try and hold myself together to stop the tears. "What if you suddenly find yourself knowing that someone else is your mate?" I sign, "I have read a lot of books, Draco." I remind him, "Do you not think that I would know what it means if someone is a Veela?"
Shaking his head, he stalks his way around the bed with carefully positioned footfalls, "You don't know what it feels like, what it means to know that your other half is standing right in front of you, how my heart jumps so hard when you smile and laugh." He cups his hand over my neck and strokes my skin with his thumb. "It is definitely you."
"When did you realise?"
"The day that I..."
He stops talking and I give him an encouraging nod, "When?"
He scrubs a hand down his face and sighs before saying, "The day that I made you think that I was sleeping with someone." His eyes flash black in time with the quick lash of hurt that strikes through my body and he seems to instinctively reach out to me, but his hands drop to fist the material of his trousers.
"Oh," I pause, dragging air into my lungs through clenched teeth, "That day." I calm my breathing, no point in reopening old wounds just to make them scar deeper. As I flip my hair back over my shoulders, I breathe in deeply and lift my eyes to meet his again.
"You know that nothing happened between us that day."
"I know." I tell him – deciding to omit that fact that it still hurts even though I know that nothing occurred. "I trust you."
"I know." He smiles for the first time since he woke, the darkness in his eyes drifts away and they sparkle grey once more. "I can feel it."
Wincing, I push the barriers up around the parts of my brain that house my emotions and then say, "I forgot about that bit." The ability to sense the emotions of their mate is one of the skills that develop as Vella grow into their heritage.
Chuckling to himself, he looks me over. "That won't work, my darling." He tells me, stroking a slender, pale hand down my arm. "You can't hide yourself from me, you haven't been able to for a long time."
"Why?!" I ask, dazed. "That is a major invasion of privacy!"
"I can't read your thoughts, only your emotions, and it is to help me keep you safe." Running a hand through his hair, he tries to explain.
"I don't need to be kept safe!" I tell him, holding my head high and trying to look poised and dignifies while still looking strong and in control – let me tell you now that I fail miserably! – and my shin is still up in the air as he lunges to me.
I fail to see him coming and my back is already to the bed, and the wind is knocked out of me before I can even blink. "That was not fair. You have special, freaky powers and I was off guard."
"Would you like a written declaration the next time I want to attack you? Because that is so realistic!" He smirks, looking down at me and reaching up to push a few locks of unruly hair off my brow.
I huff, "Fine, but don't expect me to stop trying to overcome you." I tell him, "I don't like losing, Draco, so I would watch your back."
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
Huffing again in annoyance, I remind him to finish his story. Taking hold of my hand, he helps me to sit up before he begins talking again. "I told you afterwards that it made me feel sick, but I lied." He pauses, running a hand through his hair, "I couldn't even breath for a while, my heart felt like it was literally breaking and I couldn't stop shaking." Sighing, he closes his eyes and remembers it in his head; it must have been bad because I can see him blanch quite obviously. "I called my mother and father and they came over."
"Twenty three is very late to go through the changes." He tells me after a short pause, "So my parents thought that I didn't have the gene, but it turns out that I did... I didn't even know that there was the Veela gene in my family." I reach over and take one of his hands in mine and pull it onto my lap, twisting our fingers together and waiting patiently for him to continue.
"I'm not trying to excuse my actions," He assures me, "But I don't think I would have blown up like that if this was going on, I never would have even been insecure enough to consider that you might be two timing me."
"Jerk!" I pinch the top of his hands and watch as the slight red mark disappears instantly.
He laughs, pulling my fingers up to my mouth and pressing a few light kisses over them as he starts talking again, "You can do better that that,"
"Don't tempt me, Draco." I warn, "There is a glass vase over there that would look lovely while cracking your skull."
"Oh how you wound me." He flops back on the bed, the force of the fall dragging my down as well and he quickly rolls his body over mine. "Anyway, I know now that the reason I fell so hard for you was because you are perfect," Blushing, I lower my eyes, but the content feeling is gone quickly, "For me, for everyone else you are horrendously ghastly."
"Rude," I mutter, "You only have one me, I can walk away quite easily, Draco." I tell him, even though I know somewhere inside me that it would never be that easy. "Is this why you wouldn't have sex with me?" I ask, wrapping my legs around his waist and holding his body locked to mine – even though I know that he could evade my grasp in two seconds if he really wanted it.
"I can't have sex with you without the bonding ceremony taking place, and that can't happen until we are married." He tells me, "Virgin or not."
"What?!" My heart races, if that was his half arse attempt of asking me to marry him, I will shoot him!
He laughs, sensing my annoyance and anger as my emotions bounce from me to him, "I am not asking you to marry me now, but you will one day, and on that day, I will officially make you my wife by taking you every possible way, but until then you will stay chaste and pure and innocent."
"And what about you," I ask him annoyance flitting through me at his archaic views on chastity, "Mr. 'I had sex with almost every girl at Hogwarts!' Why do you have one standard and I have to have another."
Laughing again, he shakes his head quickly explaining, "It is not about whether you are virtuous or not!" he tells me, "Though I am very happy that you are, because knowing that I will be your first makes me immensely happy. It is the fact that you are almost guaranteed to get pregnant during the boding ceremony,"
"What if I don't want to get married?"
"What?" He looks at me, his eyes wide with shock.
Shrugging, I reach my hands up to clasp my fingers around his, "Lots of women decide not to get married."
"That is not an option." He shakes his head firmly, "You will marry me, and then you will have my children, and you will be happy!" sitting up, my legs still around his waist, he kneels on the bed. Using my – somewhat surprising – abdominal strength (and I am not going to lie and say it was easy because I find myself almost passing out from the effort as Draco's arms wrap around me to help me stay perched on his legs) I raise myself until I am looking directly into his eyes.
My eyes narrow as I glare, "You may be a Veela, Malfoy, with superior strength, but you will not take away my choices."
"I know," He sighs and I let his forehead fall to mine as his wings explode and cocoon us within them. He doesn't release his grip on my waist so we stay pressed together for several moments. "I just got scared that that was your way of telling me that you didn't want to be with me."
"Believe me that I would say it directly if I didn't want to be with you, Draco." I say, letting him bury his head in my hair and breathe in deeply. "But I see why it is best for us to not have sex until we have made the bigger life choices."
"Agreed."
"I'm glad."
Smiling, he lowers us to the bed and rests his head into the cleft between my shoulder and neck. "You took this a lot better than my father said you would."
"Your father is generally wrong." I remind him.
He sighs, running a hand down his face and leaning closer to me. I smile, an idea formulating in my head that has me pressing my lips to his neck and licking gently over the sensitive patch of his skin. His body grinds into mine, but I push him away and remind him cheekily, "Uh, uh, uh. Chastity until marriage." I push him away, rolling out of the bed and trying my catwalk style walk – quite successfully – to the bathroom. Looking over I wink in a way that I believe is totally saucy and say, "I guess that means any invitation to share the shower is pointless." I pull my t-shirt over my head, turning before he can see my bare chest and walk further into the bathroom. He almost runs to the door, but I slam it shut and lock it before he can step through.
I hear him growling from the other side of the door and have to stop myself from falling into peels of laughter.
By the time I emerge from the shower – in lacy black underwear – he is steaming away in the corner of the room, his hands locked behind his neck and his eyes flashing in the natural lighting of the room. "That was not very nice, Hermione."
"Ordering me around is not very nice either, you should think about that in the future." I bend over, trying to be as subtly slutty as I can as I reach over to look for nothing in the bottom drawer of the dresser – which has now become a mix of both our clothes because for some reason he decided that a better system would be to split each drawer instead of have a set of drawers each; his system is stupid, but I am not about to complain.
I bend there for a while, trying to be sexy – though suspecting that I am failing – until I hear the footsteps and a low growling that makes me shiver in anticipation. "You are evil." He whispers, caressing the soft flesh of my arse with the palms of his hands and then slipping a little further.
Holding back a groan, I straighten up and step away, "You shouldn't touch if you want a virgin wife, Malfoy."
Groaning, he pushes me against the wall, "Fuck having a virgin wife."
I move my body to press against his, "I make my own decisions, don't I, Malfoy?"
"Yes, yes," His hands inch forwards, cupping onto my breast through my bra and squeezing gently.
"Impatient much," I smirk, "Maybe waiting isn't such a bad idea,"
"It's a very bad idea," He lifts me up, cupping his hands around my arse and pulling me closer to his chest. "Very bad."
"Nah, I think patience is a virtue that you need to learn." I tell him, standing up and moving away from him, I grab a dress and pull it over my head as I make my way closer to the front door, "Get dressed, you have to go to work."
A week after the night I found out Malfoy's secret, I find myself following Sirius Black down a cobbled pathway on the outskirts of London. A heavily pregnant woman, with rosy cheeks, long blond hair and bright blue eyes opens the door. "You must be Hermione." She says; her voice is sweet, like honey on toast. She seems homely, as if she has a Mrs. Weasley sense about her, and she opens her arms while embarrassing me in a hug.
Malfoy growls. He insisted on coming, something about not knowing who I was going to meet and not trusting anyone who associated with Sirius. A pretty heated discussion – lasting many hours and involving a good few broken (ancient) vases as we slammed each other into walls ... well I did most of the slamming and Malfoy didn't even have the decency to wince; Bastard! – and lots of reparo spells later, a compromise was reached.
Ok not really a compromise.
More like Malfoy won. He didn't compromise on anything, and I got the opposite of what I wanted. I accept the hug – somewhat reluctantly as I am not really a cuddly person – and introduce myself and Malfoy. "I'm sorry," I mutter to Sirius, "He insisted on coming."
"It's quite alright," Beatrice calls from her place in the kitchen, "I guess I should start meeting more of Sirius' friends."
"Sirius and Malfoy are not really the best of friends," I walk into the kitchen, helping her to place the pot of tea on a tray and then carrying it into the dining room.
She looks at me, her eyebrows raised, "Really?" she asks and when I look up I almost drop my pot of tea, the cups and the saucers.
The both sit on the sofa, a friendly distance apart, watching a football match on the TV. Sirius sits explaining the offside rule – something that I still don't really understand – and they yell and scream together at the large screen. "Well, something has definitely progressed." I mutter, "Maybe they are growing up?"
Both Beatrice and I burst into fits of laughter and Malfoy looks up, raising a blond eyebrow and giving me the look that means I should know I am going to have to pay for something later. "So how long is there now?" I ask, looking at her protruding stomach as we take our seats on the remaining couch.
"Only three weeks left," she tells me, looking at Sirius, "Thank you." She says suddenly. "I owe you a lot."
Shaking my head I hold up a hand and wave her thanks away, "Don't mention it." I smile, "I sort of have the bossy thing down par," I tell her, "I got really good at reprimanding people when I had to constantly tell off Ron and Harry for something or other."
"Well, thank you."
Three weeks later, the Potter's join us at the weekly family dinner, though Sirius and Beatrice are both absent. Two days after I met Beatrice for the first time, Sirius introduced her to the family.
He got a whack with a wooden spoon on the side of his head from Mrs. Weasley for his troubles and Beatrice received a very warm welcome from everyone except Jenifer.
With all these babies popping up, maybe I should warn Ron that he really needs to take protection seriously because if Jenifer gets pregnant and has to stick around, I will probably throw myself off the side of a building and bring her with me for good measure- no need to leave her as a burden on everyone else.
The night of the family dinner, exactly four weeks after the birth of the youngest Potter child, Cain Regulus Black came into the world, a little boy with a shock of black hair.
I also had to warn all the males in the house about Draco, not that that was an easy conversation to get out.
Lying in bed now, with Draco hugging onto my side, I remember the way that Ron started to walk forwards and then stopped in his tracks, "Right, err, please don't hurt her because I would have to defend her honour and I don't want you to go all Veela crazy on my arse." The whole room began laughing and the tension was cut very quickly.
"It went well tonight, Draco." I muse, lying on my back and playing with the blond hair that drapes easily onto my stomach.
"I love you, Hermione." He whispers, holding onto e tighter and letting his wings unfurl to cover me easily. We roll over so he can cocoon us in and I smile into his chest.
It has only taken me four weeks longer than him, but here I am, saying five very important words that I mean with my heart and soul. "I love you too, Draco."
I hope that you all enjoyed this chapter. You may think that I am rushing through things quickly, but I have already had one birth and I didn't want to have another because that would be dull so I just shuffled over it.