To Suffer a Veela

For those interested, here is Hermione’s dress that was ruined. http://www.topshop.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?beginIndex=0&viewAllFlag=&catalogId=19551&storeId=12556&categoryId=162921&parent_category_rn=42344&productId=1362682&langId=-1

Thank you for all your lovely reviews! When this is finished I will give everyone a personal shout out. Some of you have been with me since the beginning of posting my first story on this site and I am so flattered by your continued attention and praise. You guys rock! -G.C.

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Walking his mate through the corridor to the Great Hall, Draco had one arm wrapped covetously about her waist while the other one crossed in front of them to thread into her hair. The veela inside him had been gratified with the show of dominance and now wanted to nuzzle its prize happily as it walked her towards nourishment. For her part, Hermione was not returning his show of affection, but she did remain pliant in his arms. As they stood outside the door, she stopped moving and he did the same, giving her a lingering kiss on the corner of her mouth.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. His endorphins were running high because he was getting to finally fulfill his need to hold her, possess her as they walked through the halls, something he had dreamt about for years. She looked up at him with her liquid gaze, chewing her lip.

“When we go in there, it’s going to cause a big commotion. No one else knows and what they do know of us is that we hate each other.” She looked away from him and he wished she wouldn’t. “Maybe, until we have this figured out, we should hold off on letting other people know.”

Instead of replying, Draco tightened his grip and pushing open the door, walked her into the noisy hall, moving very quickly to the Slytherin table where he stood at the seat on the deserted end.

The noise of over one thousand teens and pre-teens came to a halt and there were even a few post-silence crashes as some shocked diners dropped their utensils on the way to carrying food to their mouths. Everyone watched as the two heads stood at the very edge of Slytherin’s table, closest to the door. Draco looked over to the Gryffindor table and predictably saw Pott-head and the she-weasel stare at his mate in horror. The rest of the house was staring in either shock or anger. The Hufflepuff table had yet to close their collective mouths and the Ravenclaws were peering at them in a clinical manner as if they were in a petry dish. The Slytherins were staring out of the corners of their eyes in disgust, interest and shock. No one from his house attempted to move down the table to talk to them.

Hermione stood with her head up, making eye contact with only The-Boy-Who-Lived-To-Torment-Draco and something passed between them before boy-wonder put his hand on the indignant arm of the weaslette and the two sat back down, causing the rest of the Gryffindor upper classmen to do the same as they had all risen to a crouch at seeing their virgin princess in the clutches of the vile snake prince. Draco felt a wave of something and realized that the two had just communicated through legilimancy. Not liking that one bit, he straddled the bench in front of him and pulled his girl to sit in the V of his legs. One glacial Malfoy stare later and everyone else went back to not looking at them, but the buzz of speech that filled the silence was almost certainly all about them.

As Draco reached for the plate in front of him that already had three fried eggs on it, he watched as his mate took the bowl of granola with dried fruit in it and poured herself milk from the pitcher beside her. He watched as she opened a banana and sliced the fruit into wedges and placed it in her cereal. She then used tongs to put two slices of bacon on the bread plate to her right. He wanted to throttle her and she could feel it.

Looking at her plate, she asked, “Do you want some?” He nodded and so she put about three rashers onto his plate, not touching the eggs. She then picked up one of her own pieces and delicately nibbled it. He had watched her eat a thousand times, but never this close. It fascinated him.

“Could you get me some potatoes as well, please?” She gave him a look, but complied, reaching for the bowl of fried potatoes. “I like the burnt ones.” She had only been going to pass him the bowl, but his tone and his face were very clear in their meaning. She used the serving spoon to put the food on his plate and while she didn’t comply with his request, she didn’t disregard it either. Instead of fishing around for the dark brown bits, she merely used the spoon to take the most convenient ones off the top, putting the bowl back down harder than necessary.

They ate in silence, Draco using his left hand to eat and his right to anchor her to him, and Hermione wisely did not pull away. His good mood had been destroyed when she had asked if they could hide their relationship. He knew she was uncomfortable with having this much attention on her, but he wasn’t going to let her sit away from him. Not when he could smell the want of over half the males in the room.

Draco glared at the males in the room and put his hand at the back of her neck, sweeping her hair over her shoulders, making the two tiny scars that looked like asterisks on her neck visible. Maybe less than a handful of people in the room could see them and those that could were not guaranteed to know what they were, but it made him feel better to be able to show off the fact that she was his now. From now on, his name and hers would be linked in conversation. He had longed for this. He wanted people to think of him when they spoke of her. He wanted to be her known companion. He wanted the words ‘Draco and Hermione’ to flow out of peoples’ mouths naturally.

“Do you think you could manage to not look like a predator when touching me at breakfast? Everyone is staring at us like we’re a mouse and a snake in a terrarium. Whatever you injected into me last night felt like venom, so they may not be far off in their assessment.” His little darling was bristling at display of ownership, so he did what he thought was best.

“I’m playing very fair and very nice, this morning,” he hissed into her ear as he pulled her to him. “You will learn obedience and you will not discuss our affairs in public. What we do behind closed doors is not open for discussion in the Great Hall. The rest of the world might define us as magical ‘creatures’ but you and I know better.”

“So if we aren’t ‘creatures’ then why do you feel it necessary to act like an ape?” They looked into each other’s eyes for a few moments, neither one backing down, until she finally pulled out of his gaze and began smashing at her cereal with her spoon. Theodore Nott passed them on his way out the door and Draco stiffened at his approach.

“Why does every boy I’ve come across today, with the exception of Cassius Whitmore, smell like they’ve been dipped in the Bog of Eternal Stench?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

“Because they aren’t me,” he replied matter of factly, slurping down his eggs. “Bog of Eternal Stench? Where’s that?”

“It’s muggle,” she said. “That doesn’t explain Cassius, though. He didn’t smell off at all and he certainly isn’t you.”

“Well, he’s either not attracted to you in the least or he’s gay. I’m betting on the latter.”

“That’s impossible. No one finds me attractive except Dennis Creevey, Cormac and now you.” His mate was funny when she was wrong.

“No, Dennis is over compensating for his sexuality and Cormac is the only bloke arrogant enough to think he’s good enough for you. Trust me, I’ve had to listen to them talk about you in the Slytherin common room and smell the want on the rest of the males from the other houses. The rest of them were too afraid of you to approach you.”

She looked like she didn’t believe him for a minute, but eventually she mulled it over and accepted it. “It’s the same for me, you know,” he said. “I haven’t been able to be in Trelawney’s class since fourth year because it’s all full of horny teenage girls with an appetite for anything that doesn’t have tits.”

“I don’t believe you! Pansy Parkinson hung all over you and you clearly enjoyed it! This trait is just another design of the species to keep me exclusively yours.” She was beautiful when she was frustrated. It was his favorite past time making her so.

“No, Pansy has been in love with Padma Patil for the past two years and she knew of my… condition. It worked out for the both of us. She wasn’t outed as lesbian and no one had to know that I was a veela. An insanely jealous ‘girlfriend’ was a good reason for not putting out when I was presented with the opportunity.”

“But all those rumours…. Lavender and Parvati and Daphne Greengrass all said they’d slept with you. You had girls following you like puppies. You can’t expect me to believe that last night was your first time…” She trailed off blushing and he pulled her closer so he could talk into her ear.

“No, last night was just us. You’re the only girl I’ve ever kissed, much less slept with. The others just followed the pheromones. Before, you were the only one that was immune to them, now you’re the only one who will respond.”

“Is that how you knew? How often did you try to use them?” She looked curious. He liked curious because it wasn’t defiance.

“I didn’t get them until fourth year. I thought at first that you weren’t attracted to me, because while rare, it is possible. But when I saw you with Krum at the Yule Ball and wanted to rip out his throat, I tried to use them and nothing happened. Padma hadn’t been attracted to me either, but when I tried them on her, she immediately offered to do my homework and give me a blow in the Astronomy tower. That’s when I knew.”

“So when we saw your mother at the World Cup and she had that horrible look on her face, it wasn’t complete snobbery, she just couldn’t stand the smell.” He nodded. “Interesting. So does it ever let up or do we ever get use to it? How did your father function every day in the Ministry with this problem? They are veela as well, right?”

“I’m not talking about this in the Great Hall and giving every eavesdropping, nosey parker in hearing distance not only a lesson on veela, but my genealogy as well. Talk about something else.” He was irritated with her. He’d just informed her that the most intense, blissful experience of their lives to date was a natural occurrence and she wanted to talk about his parents as if they were variables in an experiment.

“Fine. What is an acceptable topic, my lord?” she asked with sarcasm.

“We can talk about where we’ll go after graduation,” he said after mulling things over in his head. “I had planned on us going to Paris. I want to study potions and they have plenty of museums, both muggle and wizard to keep you occupied.”

“You want…..” she trailed off, incensed. “What about what I want? I want to study magical creatures! The best program for that is in Italy!”

“They have programs for that in Paris as well,” he said. His tone and his feeling were final o the matter.

“You are horrid!” she hissed and turned herself away from him.

“But I’m yours,” he said as he bit her ear and felt her shudder.

They went to classes and being heads, they had the same schedule and were sat together. McGonagal had apprised most of the professors of the situation, so Draco’s obvious displays of ownership and affection went unremarked on by their teachers, but their peers were a different story. Everyone stared and he could feel the envy radiating off of Zacharias Smith and Dean Thomas, especially. Cormac had been found by Madame Pince and was still in the infirmary.

Draco knew that she needed more information. She was muggle born and he’d not been able to fully prepare her for what was to come as his father had been able to do with his mother. His mother had written her a letter and also sent her a book that he knew his mate would devour. At the moment however, he couldn’t stand the thought of her attention being diverted from him in any way. When they got home tonight he was going to remind her what they could do together. He needed to be inside of her, it was non-negotiable. He only hoped that he was correct and the array of clothing his mother had chosen, including a replica of the dress he had ruined would soften the blow that he was going to be inside her as much and as long as possible.