Complications

"Hermione?"

She looked up to see silver eyes, "Huh? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

Draco leaned forward towards the library table that was between them, "Yes, that's right. You haven't been paying attention. You've so carefully overlooked the veela that I am."

"What? I--"

"At least stop lying to yourself. You can deceive your own mind, but not me. What is it, Hermione? You're afraid?"

"Yes! Yes, that's right; I'm afraid," she said resolutely.

"What are you afraid of? Do you actually think that I'm going to hurt you?"

"I...I don't know. It's just...I don't know."

"Then what is scaring you?" he repeated. "I want an answer, Hermione. Think."

She tried to think, but just found herself saying, "I'm afraid of love."

His eyes seemed to soften and intensify at the same time, softly burning her. "My love is for you, Hermione, it is yours. Just as you are mine."

Somehow he had made it over to her side of table and he snagged an arm around her waist, pulling her up to stand. "You're insecurities are causing me pain," he whispered against her ear. "I need you, have needed, will always need you."

"I..."

"I need this," he placed his hand over her heart, "just as much as I need this," his hand went under her skirt and cupped her crotch.

Almost of their own accord, Hermione's hips bucked towards his touch. When she looked up at his face she saw fangs peaking through his lips. Just the sight of them had an odd effect on her. The next thing she knew, their lips were locked.

His hand at her crotch slipped beneath her panties to slide over her folds. He began to caress her bundle of nerves. Her eyes widened and she accidently cut her tongue on his fangs. She started to pull back at the little prick of pain, but his other hand on the back of her neck stopped her. He ran his tongue over the tiny cut and she shivered as she felt it heal.

She pulled back with a gasp as his fingers at her clit made her breath quicken. He took the opportunity to turn his attention leisurely to her neck. He scraped his fangs lightly against her skin and laved attention with his tongue.

Then he suddenly completely pulled away. Hermione couldn't even consider trying to hold it back; she whimpered, loudly.

"And you need this too, don't you Hermione?"

She nodded helplessly, just wanting him to touch her again. She snapped out of it somewhat as his eyes took on that piercing look.

"Then why do you deny me?"

Hermione awoke with a shriek of frustration. She did not need additional sexual frustration on top of everything else. But his hand...his fangs... Damn him. Damn him.

She considered rolling over and trying to get some more sleep, but she'd have to get up in fifteen minutes anyway. So she hauled herself up and wearily changed into her uniform. She was very annoyed with the entire thing. What had she done to deserve this? This stress and anxiety and smirking Slytherins? Not fair.

She stepped into the common room just in time to see Dobby apparate in with his usual call of, "Dobby has sir's hot chocolate!" before setting the mug down and disappearing.

Hermione stared at the steaming mug.

It wasn't a very nice thing to do. After all, what would Draco do without his hot chocolate to help him wake up?

Then again, what would she do if she had to go another minute without any chocolate? Much worse fate for mankind. She pounced on the mug and was soon curled up comfortably on the sofa, happily sipping.

It was then that Draco appeared. His eyes still half-lidded with sleep, he stumbled over to his desk and grabbed at the spot where Dobby always left the hot chocolate. For a moment he stood there awkwardly, trying to figure out what had happened. Then he slowly tilted his head forward to look at his hand. He stared at the empty hand for another few seconds. He seemed to realize that it wasn't there and began slowly scanning the room in search of his missing mug.

When he saw Hermione curled innocently on the sofa with the purloined chocolate, he sagged and bumbled over to the sofa, the picture of a sleep-zombie kicked puppy. "You're not being fair, 'Mione... Need my chocolate..."

"Draco, I want you to tell me something," Hermione said, keeping the mug out of his reach.

The veela sighed woefully and leaned his head against her shoulder, taking a deep breath of her scent, "What is it?"

"Do you control the veela dreams I get?"

"Nope. It's the veela nature persuading you in your sleep, not my doing." He licked her neck, "Smell good..."

Hermione did her best to hold back a shiver, and moved so her neck was out of reach, "Well, tell it to lay off. I do not need it...bothering me while I'm trying to rest. I'm tired, Draco."

"Yep, stay up late thinking about you, don't get enough sleep," he nuzzled against her shoulder with a sigh. "If you don't need it, then the veela probably does. Can I have my hot chocolate back, 'Mione?"

Hermione relinquished the rest of the hot chocolate and went back to her room. The veela nature shouldn't be so insistent at this point, this was abnormal.

She grabbed Something Strange Is Going On... from her bedside table and went directly to her bookmarked page. She scanned through the chart of the average veela courtship timeframe. She was right, it was more than a month ahead of where it should be. Fifty percent of veela couples bonded within a week of where they were, as far as strength of veela instincts went.

Well, damn. At their current rate, pretty soon neither of them would be able to think straight until...

It was so tempting to just say, 'You win, screw me!'

But...no way. No way. She was still Hermione Granger, even if fate had decided to throw her a mutant, monster curve-ball. And he was still Draco Malfoy, her... But she just couldn't think of him as an enemy or rival any more.

He was her...mate.

No! Must not give in to the demonic veela manipulation techniques! No matter how sexy they are...

Draco had finished off the hot chocolate, heavily appreciating the traces she'd left around the rim of the mug. He then sat in the common room waiting for her to come out so he could give her her 'good morning' kiss. Yeah, his original plan was to only kiss her once a day, but it simply wasn't enough.

Perhaps it had something to do with his worry about her being missing the previous night, but it felt like everything was going into overdrive. He needed her now. Right now. If he had been awake enough, he would have found it difficult to just let her go back to her room.

Was he really losing control so much? This wasn't good. He'd have to put a sign on her, 'Under Veela Protection, Do Not Touch'. Wow. When had things gotten so bad?

Things couldn't possibly be that out of control, it was just her state of arousal that morning, surely.

He heard Hermione opening the door into the common room and rose to meet her.

"You awake now, then?"

He snagged an arm around her waist, "Morning, Hermione."

"Dra--"

He claimed her lips softly and sweetly, releasing them soon after and leaning his forehead against hers. "Never go missing like that ever again," he commanded.

"You mean last night?" she started to pull back, the mood brought by the kiss broken. "It's not as if I did it on purpose; I fell asleep! And in any case, I don't have to obey you even if I'll eventually have to bed you, Draco Malfoy."

"Is that what you think?" He hadn't relinquished his hold around her waist, and tightened it as he forcefully lead her to the couch.

"That's precisely what I think. And I'm a testy female so you should just leave me alone about it."

What had brought this on? She was challenging him very deliberately, almost baiting him. A plea for attention? Surely not, she claimed that she was very uncomfortable with amount of attention she already got. What had she dreamed that could cause her to pull something like this? Could it have made her believe what she was saying?

He pinned her against the cushions, to which she simply glared up at him, not giving any sign of being intimidated. "But you're my testy female, the worst thing I could do would be to leave you alone."

He settled himself more securely over her, "'Bed' me? Far too crude terminology for the event where I will claim you as my own forever. Do you understand that, Hermione?" he whispered in her ear, "Fate has made you mine and I will never let you go."

"So that's it then?" she questioned angrily. "I'm your pretty little possession, subservient to your will? If that's what you're expecting, Draco Malfoy, then--"

"That's not what I'm expecting," he interrupted, brows furrowed in puzzlement. "What gave you that idea? If that's what I wanted, then you wouldn't be fated to me. I love all of you, Hermione, I need it all."

'My love is for you, Hermione, it is yours...'

'...Just as you are mine.'

'Then why do you deny me?'

"Hermione?"

There were tears gathering in the girls eyes and she turned her face away to hide them. He got off of her and maneuvered to pull her into his lap. Where he could feel her roiling anger and frustration before, it had all dissolved into muted confusion and...loneliness.

He pulled her closer and buried his nose in her hair, trying to reassure her. It's hard to reassure someone who wasn't assured in the first place.

"What's wrong with us? I'm supposed to be...more like a normal person at this point. I'm a wreck. What's wrong with me, Draco?"

His arms seemed to tighten their grip around her of their own accord. He could feel his fangs begin to lengthen and his eyes begin to glow. He seemed to be going into 'protective' mode.

"There's nothing wrong with you. It's all the veela courtship, do you understand? There is nothing wrong with you."

"You have fangs," she observed, looking up at his face. "Like in my dream. Like in the book. How do you hide them?"

"A spell," he replied dismissively. "Hermione, did I frighten you in your dream?"

"Not...really," she answered hesitantly. "I wasn't afraid that you were going to attack me or anything, if that's what you're thinking of. I'm not sure how my dream made me feel." Besides horny, she added to herself. "Let's not talk about it."

After breakfast Hermione went straight to Professor McGonagall to ask for leave from classes for the day.

"Are you not feeling well, Hermione?" the Gryffindor Head of House asked in concern.

"Something like that," Hermione replied with a dismissive gesture.

The Professor glanced around to make sure no one was listening, "Is it Draco, is he being difficult?"

Hermione's cheeks colored a bit, "Kind of, I guess. I know that, what with everything, I wouldn't be learning much anyway. And there are some things I need to look up in the library that would be best done when everyone else was occupied."

"Oh. I see. Very well, Miss Granger. But you can't make a habit of this, you understand."

"I know. I'm kind of making a muck of being Head Girl. But it's starting to look like the courtship might be over in a matter of days, then I'll be able to get back in order."

And so she spent first period in the library, where she happily found a book titled The Psychology of the Veela Courtship, From 'Screw You!' to 'Screw Me!'. She discovered that Something Strange Is Going On... only covered the basics, there were deeper levels that it barely touched on. Like the range of unusual veela courtships and what they meant.

This explained why she was such a wreck, why the veela instincts had gotten stronger so quickly, why Draco freaked out about her going missing for a few hours, all of it that had been troubling her. However, this hardly set her mind at ease. They had a 'very strong connection' coupled with strong magic on both sides. The fact that she was muggle born actually made the veela magic stronger, since the chemistry between their individual magics was stronger. And, as applied to nearly everything to do with the veela business, it would just keep getting worse before it got better.

Worst of all, probably sometime in the next three days, Draco would completely lose it. The bigger friction between their magics made a veela more frightened of rejection, and thus more insistent of a completed bond.

Hermione, in all reality, was not so adverse to completing the bond. She wanted sanity back, her body wanted him and all that. But she wasn't sure how she could actually give in to him. She'd been rebelling this thing from the start, could she actually just say, 'Fine, yeah, let's do this thing'?

She just...couldn't. And part of her was still terrified of letting him under her defenses, even if she knew intellectually that it would end well.

Well, that was quite enough of thinking about that. Next stop: her room. It was naptime.

She soon collapsed on her bed with a sigh. Definitely time to catch up on rest.

"Hermione...Hermione!"

"Hmm?" She opened her eyes to be confronted by a pair of intense grey ones.

"I thought I told you that you couldn't go disappearing on me!" Draco berated. "You missed lunch, so I got permission to go find you and bring you something to eat."

He placed a plate on her lap and sprawled on the bed beside her. "Eat. Skipping meals isn't healthy."

"Fine," she muttered, obediently digging in.

They spent a few moments in silence, her eating, him staring into space.

"Hermione?"

"Hmm?" she asked around a bite of ham.

"Are you ready? May I bond with you tonight?"

She had just swallowed, with was a good thing because she might have choked. As it was, her breath caught in her throat. She had to stop and breathe for a moment. She could feel her heart pounding.

"I--I'm not ready."

Draco sighed sadly and wrapped an arm around her, "You've gotta hurry, Hermione."

A moment later he added, "You're shaking."

Hermione spent the rest of the day alternately cursing and blessing herself for turning him down.

And that night when she went to bed and tried to sleep, she spent hours tossing and turning from one side of the bed to the other, looking for a warm body that wasn't there.

~*~

That was, officially, the longest chapter ever. Are you proud of me? I'm proud of me ^_^

Someone asked this before and I forgot to answer, no, this story has not been archived anywhere else. At least, not by me and not with my permission.

Things will be wrapping up very soon, possibly next chapter. But there would be a chapter after that to finish everything off.

What do you guys want? Her to simply buckle the next day? Or him to completely lose control of himself, and then she buckles? I'm kinda in favor of her simply buckling, since it would be easier to write. But I like both options pretty well.

And what was everyone's favorite part of this chapter? I've decided that I really love hearing which things people like.

And now, cause I'm really petty, I'm gonna spend the next few hours not sleeping and checking for reviews... Cause I'm just petty that way. I'm ridiculous...

EDIT: I can't believe I almost forgot. I now have over 100 reviews! Gyah! Yay! Love! *dances* I'm so happy, thank you all so much!