Hermione buried her face in her hands and sighed. Once she figured out how to get these dratted wings off her back, she was probably going to have to peel Draco up off the floor where he and his delicate sensibilities had collapsed and take him to be checked for a concussion.

The day was getting worse by the minute.

A stress headache was beginning to creep up on her again. She gave another sigh of long-suffering and set to work getting to her feet without the wings acting out again. They kept flopping around and hanging over her shoulders in the most unhelpful ways.

"Did—did you transfigure yourself wings?" Draco's hoarse voice unexpectedly interrupted her.

She looked up in surprise and found him in the doorway once more. His face was pale, and his silver eyes were round with amazement.

Her heart gave a little leap at the sight of him, but she squashed it and rolled her eyes rather than permit herself to smile at him. She refused to encourage him. He was not her boyfriend.

"I most certainly did not. If I had the time for a Transfiguration experiment, sprouting wings and flying would not be anywhere on my list of priorities." She sniffed. "A Veela bit me today and somehow—" she gestured at herself. In the process, her left wing unfurled and nearly clocked Draco in the head.

He ducked instinctively. "W-what?"

Hermione sighed. She could tell by his expression that she wasn't going to make him go away or do anything remotely useful until his curiosity was sated.

She folded her arms tightly and scowled. "I paid a house-call today on behalf of the DRCMC. A wizard came in earlier this week and filed a separation, and no one wanted to go tell his spouse, who was, it turns out, a Veela. When I told her, she got very angry and bit me, and I started hallucinating. I apparated, and when I woke up —" She pointed over her shoulder.

Draco was staring at her, looking baffled. "Veela don't bite —"

Hermione glared. "Just what do you know about Veela?"

His jaw hung loose for an instant before snapping shut. "Nothing," he said quickly.

"I didn't think you did," she said with another sniff.

He was still looking quite peaked as he stood staring at her. "So then... these are your wings?" His voice seemed somewhat steadier.

She rolled her eyes. "I suppose. Technically they're mine." She gnawed at her lip. "St Mungo's probably has an antidote for whatever havoc the venom is wreaking on me."

"Venom?"

The way Draco kept staring at her and repeating things made him seem as though he were confunded. He probably had given himself a concussion in the hallway.

"Yes," Hermione said, shooting her best swotty look at him and speaking in pointed simple language. "I'm assuming that Veela must have venom, given that I was bitten, and now I have sprouted wings."

"...right." He sounded dazed and was still gaping at her as though she'd sprouted a second head. His eyes ran up and down her, checking to see if she'd grown any other bits of anatomy that he hadn't noticed yet.

Hermione flushed and pushed herself carefully to her feet, trying to keep her wings from fluttering and breaking anything else. She cast a quick incendio on her fireplace and opened the Floo before trying to gingerly make her way towards it. "Yes, and now that I've explained everything, would you please make yourself useful and help me get into St Mungos without letting anyone see me."

Draco looked up, meeting her eyes and hesitated before swallowing visibly. "No."

Hermione froze and stared at him. "No?"

He looked her up and down again with a very peculiar expression on his face. "You can't possibly want to risk it. There's no way to hide them. Someone will be sure to take a picture when you're checking in, and it will be all anyone talks about for months."

That — was a valid point.

Draco was beginning to inch across the room towards her. Apparently, now that he'd recovered from his shock, he'd forgotten about self-preservation. "Besides, it wouldn't be safe to travel. You won't fit through the Floo, and you're at risk of splinching if you can't control your wings."

That was also a valid point.

"Well, I'm not going to keep a set of wings," Hermione said in a flat voice. "I have a fundraising brunch tomorrow. I can't miss it."

Draco had managed to sidle himself within arms reach. His expression was growing strangely intent as he kept eyeing her up and down.

"Did you know, Veela wings retract when a Veela relaxes," he said slowly, his tone suspiciously casual.

"I'm not a Veela," Hermione said, glancing up at him and wondering how on earth he'd know that. Then it began to dawn on her that Draco's expression was familiar.

Oh...

Oh goodness gracious. That libidinous prat.

"True." Draco's voice had dropped down into a low, cajoling purr that made her cheeks grow warm. His fingers ghosted along her arm. "But it could still be worth trying. If it works, your problem's solved and you can — " he waved a hand lazily, " — you can write a scientific paper about it."

An excited tingle ran down Hermoine's spine and out across the wings, making her entire body tremble in a way that wasn't entirely due to her elation at the thought of scientific progress.

She steeled herself.

"How exactly do you think I'm going to relax?" she asked, as though she had no idea about the gutter his mind was in.

He leaned towards her, eyes hungry. There was a conniving smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I've always been rather good at helping you relax, wouldn't you say, Granger?"

A quick flush of warmth washed through her lower abdomen.

"You cannot be serious," she forced herself to say in a stern voice. "If you have any weird proclivities, I'm sure there are clubs that cater to that. My state of misfortune does not exist as an opportunity for you to have a novel sexual experience."

She glared forcefully at him while backing away.

Draco was uncowed. He'd forgotten his shock and was stalking towards her, apparently unconcerned with being bludgeoned to death by her wings.

There was a familiarly predatory expression on his angular face as he closed in.

A thrilled shiver slid down Hermione's spine, and she tried to suppress it as she scampered further out of reach.

Her wings got stuck between the wall and her desk. She scowled as she tried to wriggle free, wings flapping uselessly and sending a hurricane of wind across the room. The air filling with memos.

She scowled repressively when he cornered her while she was still scrabbling to free herself. "You're ridiculous. Do you ever think about anything but sex?"

"I admit it's a struggle whenever you're nearby," he said in an airy voice and irrepressible grin as he managed to capture her wrist and tug her free. Her wings quieted immediately.

Draco glanced at them and raised an eyebrow, eyes gleaming. "They like me."

His voice grew softer. "Or maybe you do."

Hermione glared as a means of assuring him that she most certainly did not like him.

His hands came to rest on her hips and then slid slowly around to the small of her back. He lowered his head, brushing his lips against the side of her neck. She shivered. His long fingers caressed their way up her back.

He nipped her ear, and she shuddered, the wings arching and trembling as her body tensed.

"What do you say—Hermione?" His voice was low and cajoling, barely louder than a whisper against her temple. "Care to try an experiment?"

Hermione had to force herself to swallow thickly before she could manage to speak. "It's not my fault at all if my wings concuss you."

He chuckled, sending another shiver down her spine. "Alright."

"Then — fine..." she said breathlessly. "But only because you're so unreasonably insistent —"

He kissed her before she could finish speaking. A hungry, toe-curling kiss, his arms wrapping around her as though he didn't care at all about whether she had wings. He didn't pull away until her lungs were burning. When she was nearly gasping, he began making his way along her jaw and down her throat.

He always started with her neck, his hands not immediately wandering. He'd discovered early on that her neck was a key vulnerability and had exploited that knowledge on many, many occasions.

In the past, when their fake relationship had been largely limited to galas and fundraisers and the occasional wedding, he'd brought jewellry for her to wear. Old sets that were "gathering dust in the vaults" and happened to match the elaborate accents on his formal robes.

Sometimes it felt as though he were some variety of bird of paradise, decked in extravagant plumage while Hermione was the homely partner dressed in something that had seemed elegant until Draco came swanning in, wearing yards of intricately embroidered bespoke robes.

He'd fasten some jewel-encrusted piece around her throat, so slowly and carefully, his fingers and breath trailing across his skin until her heart was pounding, and she'd be nearly incoherent by the time the clasp was closed.

Then he'd look over her shoulder into the mirror, his fingertips trailing down her arm, his silver eyes black with lust as he whispered, "Now we're a matched set."

She'd been forced to ban him from bringing any more jewellry after they'd arrived inappropriately late to four consecutive events and she'd had to field knowing looks from Harry and Ginny, and gagging sounds from Ron, all evening.

It was times like that when she would wonder what it would be like if he meant any of it.

What would Draco do if he was in a real relationship with someone? It seemed impossible to imagine him being any more intense.

She always forced the thought away.

There was no point in indulging herself in that line of thought. She only ended up feeling worse every time she did.

Draco wasn't serious; he'd never pretended to be serious. When their fake relationship had started to involve regular sex, she'd gathered her nerve and asked him if they were really dating now. They were doing practically everything a real relationship entailed, so — was it?

No. It was not.

Draco explained, in no uncertain terms, that, for him, sex was meaningless. He had no interest. He was enjoying himself, their arrangement was fun, but feelings were not even in the realm of possibility. Surely Hermione wasn't the kind of girl who thought that just because they had sex a few times that he —

She'd cut him off there, and the subject had been dropped.

Then he proposed ten months later.

He'd gotten more involved in her life at that point. They were friends. Maybe more than friends. She'd never known exactly how he ought to be classified.

A piece of legislation she'd been working on for years unexpectedly failed to pass in the Wizengamot. Hermione had been devastated and then depressed for weeks afterwards. Draco showed up on her doorstep, claiming she wasn't upholding her end of their fake relationship bargain and proceeded to drag her all over London. He reappeared again the next day and in the evening over dinner, he said, "You should marry me."

She'd sat frozen, staring at him in shock until the serious expression on his face broke into a thin smirk and he said, "That's a joke, Granger."

It had been like being slapped.

Hermione blinked, forced a laugh, and said of course she knew that.

After that, it became an ongoing "joke". It seemed to happen whenever he felt that Hermione was involving him too much, treating him like he was a real boyfriend. Lately he'd taken to asking every time either of them got even remotely intoxicated.

All in all, it highlighted what a bastard he was.

Hermione got in the habit of dumping him in response, but somehow he always managed to slither back into her life.

There wasn't anyone else who was an even remotely appealing partner, real or fake. She tried from time to time, but other men were simply too boring to be endured.

All her friends thought she was ridiculous and said so, frequently and with great prejudice.

Hermione's embittered reverie was interrupted as Draco's fingers rose up and brushed along the base of the wings, sending a tingling frisson straight through her body.

She shivered with a low whimper, but then instantly stiffened and drew back. "Don't—don't touch them. They're not real. It feels too strange."

He tugged her back towards himself, pressing a kiss against her temple.

"Relax. It'll be good." His hands slid up again, fingers tracing gently along the delicate bones she wasn't at all used to having. It sent an electric thrill through her nerves and a warm heat coiling in her pelvis in a way that was somewhat mortifying.

It shouldn't be arousing. It felt inappropriate to be aroused by having someone touch a part of her that was — a very large wing.

"I'll be gentle." His fingers alighted on a spot that caused her entire back to twist. She arched against him as she gasped.

This was so medically inadvisable... she should just swallow her pride and go to St Mungo's rather than let Draco —

He ran a fingertip across the arch of her wing, and her entire train of thought dissolved as a shower of scintillating light burst through her mind.

She gave an abrupt, involuntary chirping sound and nearly collapsed into Draco's arms, her face aflame. This was the most intimate and intensely pleasurable sensation she had ever experienced. More pleasurable than anything involving wings ought to be.

Draco gripped her tighter and half carried out of her office and across the hall to her bedroom, laying her facedown on her bed.

"Just relax," he said, his voice husky.

Hermione bristled at being told what to do. "I'm trying. You try relaxing with enormous wings growing out of your back," she said, grimacing into the throw pillow.

He ran his hands along a wing, and it sent a shiver through her. Her back kept arching reactively until his fingers found a sensitive spot under the base. Hermione's shoulders and wings trembled, and her whole body proceeded to go limp as if she'd been immobilised.

She gave a breathy, trembling sigh.

"That's it," Draco said, his voice low. He was kneeling behind her, one hand now running possessively down her spine, his fingertips tracing between her shoulder blades. He slid one limp wing forward and shifted himself closer.

She felt his breath against the back of her neck. He kissed her gently before nipping her neck. She whimpered.

"You're incredibly sexy."

Hermione rolled her eyes without opening them. She was positive that no one with an iota of sense would say a woman was more sexy with an enormous pair of wings coming out of her shoulder blades.

They weren't even feathered wings. If they were feathered they might be sexy. Instead of feathers they were fragile and membranous with soft scales, as though Hermione were a bat. Or part dragon.

Well... maybe Draco Malfoy would find dragon wings sexy.

They weren't even pretty and silver like Silvaya's had been, they were a sort of dull brown that matched Hermione's hair.

God. She really was homely. Even her wings were homely. Here she was in a fake relationship with a man who swanned around wearing silver robes with cerulean blue dragons embroidered on them for a casual luncheon, and even Veela-ised she was just — more brownish.

Anyone who thought Hermione Granger was somehow sexier with the addition of brown, featherless wings needed to have their head examined, which Draco probably did due to the concussion he had from falling down the stairs...

Her spiralling train of thought was snapped abruptly as Draco's fingers alighted on a sore spot on her right wing. She made a sharp noise, and her back instantly tensed as both wings jerked away, folding themselves tightly and defensively against her back.

Draco stilled. "Are you hurt?"

"It's fine," she said, sitting up and twisting away from his hands. "They're a bit battered from earlier, I banged them up when I was trying to make them stop flapping everywhere. It doesn't matter. Once they go away, it won't matter what condition they're in."

Draco leaned closer, peering over her shoulder at the right-wing which she was still trying to keep from view. It twinged and refused to fold all the way.

He reached towards her. "Let me see —"

Hermione shifted across her bed trying to get out of reach. "They're very sensitive. I'd really rather —"

"I'm not going to hurt it. That could be why they didn't retract. If they're damaged, it'll block the transfiguration process."

Hermione gnawed her lip. She didn't think Draco would ever intentionally try to hurt her, but she was beginning to get a better sense of the wings on her back, how fragile and delicate they were. They were highly sensitive, shifting to detect the air currents in the room. The bones were light and fragile, and she could feel how very breakable they were.

She shouldn't let people near them because one rough movement could probably shatter and mangle half the bones in one wing. If someone were to twist them —

Her back shuddered, and the wings folded more tightly, but the damaged one still hung lopsided.

"Hermione," Draco said steadily, "I'm not going to hurt you."

She kept inching doubtfully away. He flinched, and his eyes widened.

"Granger — " he exhaled, " — I'll never hurt you."

Hermione blinked at him.

Right. He had no idea that lately he seemed to do nothing but hurt her.

Why would he?

Fake proposing was funny. They weren't suited to each other. He'd never claimed to actually like her at all. The idea that Draco Malfoy would ever want to marry her was obviously a hilarious joke. Any sensible person would see that.

Hermione was a very sensible person, so obviously she saw that.

She gave a stiff nod. "Of course not."

His expression relaxed. "I won't hurt you," he said again. His wand had appeared from somewhere, and he was running his fingers carefully along the arch of the right-wing until he reached the place that had caused her to flinch. He stroked it very cautiously. "I think — it's fractured."

Hermione grimaced.

His fingers were careful as he shifted closer. "Episkey."

There was a brief pinch and then the soreness vanished.

"There." Draco's fingers traced along the wing until it extended fully with a shiver. A tingle rushed down her spine, and her brain spun.

"Better I think," he said, but she only half-heard him because his breath brushed against her wings.

She nodded, expecting him to immediately resume where they'd left off, but instead he kept running his fingers carefully across the wings, finding little cuts and bruises from all the places Hermione had crashed into the walls and fallen on them.

It wasn't until he was certain he'd fixed them all that he resumed stroking them again, brushing along the sensitive undersides where there were so many delicate bones and concentrations of nerves which sent heat rushing through Hermione. She made an undignified noise and fell facedown onto the mattress.

In a matter of minutes, his hands were roaming more possessively along her body.

"Fuck. I have wanted you this way for so long. I'm sick of coatrooms and those fucking alcoves." His voice was a low growl, and he nipped the curve of her shoulder sharply. "You have no idea what you do to me."

She bit her lip to suppress a moan. She actually had a fairly sizable idea. It was currently poking her thigh quite insistently.

His breathing was getting harsher, and he buried his face in her hair. She felt his hands grip her clothing before abruptly ripping the back of her shirt open.

"Your wings already wrecked them, " he said before she could scream at him for ruining her favourite shirt. "It was in my way."

He bit down on her shoulder again, and Hermione forgot what she was annoyed with him about.

There were generally very strict rules about not leaving marks in places that might be visible. Draco seemed to regard that rule suspended as he latched onto the base of her neck and sucked hard.

He was definitely and most unapologetically leaving marks everywhere.

He dragged his mouth away and turned her head enough to kiss her, his hand trailing up her left-wing in a way that sent a spasm through her entire body. She gave a low, throaty moan against his lips and pushed herself up, gripping his robes and pulling their bodies together.

It had been ages since they'd had anything but a quick and dirty shag behind a curtain or in an alcove somewhere semi-public. It was natural, given the lack of an actual relationship, but sometimes a witch wanted to have sex in a bed and actually be comfortable.

She shoved Draco back on the mattress and climbed on top of him.