The Veela venom was still affecting her was the first coherent thought Hermione had when she stopped gagging over the toilet.

She sank down on the floor, her stomach still roiling as she gripped the cool porcelain. Her stomach twisted again, and she retched. She was dimly aware that Draco had followed her into the bathroom and was holding her hair back for her.

His hands vanished as she sat back on her heels and stood, turning to the sink to hurriedly wash out her mouth.

"We can finish the conversation later," she said, breathing heavily over the sink.

Not that she wanted to go into greater detail about it, but she doubted Draco was prepared to drop the subject. He'd been wanting her to figure it out. He'd probably been proposing constantly the way he had in the hopes that if he could bring her in on his family secrets she'd find a way to break it for him.

She wet her lips. "I think the bite is still doing something to me. I need to get to St Mungo's. We can — discuss the enchantments more after that. Alright?"

There was silence that was broken after a minute by a syncopated tapping sound. Draco's fingers were drumming on the door frame as he watched at Hermione through hooded eyes. She brushed her teeth and tried to rake her hair into a semblance of submission.

"Granger," he said as she was putting her toothbrush away, "there's — there's one other thing I need to tell you, now that I can."

"What is it?" Hermione slipped past him, hurriedly pulling fresh clothes out of her dresser. She pulled a bra on and clasped it, noticing distractedly that she was literally covered in bite marks. She rubbed the healed cut on her shoulder; it didn't feel irritated, but clearly something was still wrong.

Her stomach felt knotted and her nose was so over-sensitive, it was as if one unexpected scent was going to send her lunging for the toilet again.

She was an idiot, so preoccupied with protecting her political career she'd been medically irresponsible. She should have insisted on going straight to St Mungo's. Wings or not.

"Veela magic is unusual when compared to other Magical Beings," she absently heard Draco saying.

"Mmm," she said as she rummaged in her drawer for sensible knickers.

Gracious, she hoped she wasn't going to get asked when she was last sexually active. If she had to admit that after being attacked by a Veela she'd gone home and had sex, she was going to die of mortification.

"When Veela marry Wizarding folk," Draco was wittering on and on in the background, "Veela magic only manifests in female offspring. If they have male children, the sons are carriers of the magic gene, but the Veela magic is predominantly dormant. It won't re-emerge until a female is born."

Would black knickers look conservative or suggestive?

Hermione supposed she could wear white, but she didn't want to seem prudish either, especially if she had to admit to having had sex within the last half hour.

Not that the Healers necessarily would even see her knickers, now that she thought about it. Black would be fine.

She slipped them on and realised that Draco was still talking as she pulled on a pair of trousers.

"...what's interesting is that when carried by males, the Veela magic doesn't dilute, it remains indefinitely in the bloodline, similar to the way a malediction can be carried until the targeted gender is born—"

Hermione was trying to find a shirt high-necked enough that would cover the bites everywhere on her neck and shoulders.

Was there anywhere Draco hadn't nipped her? The Healers were definitely going to see those. Did she have any Murtlap Essence left? No. She'd used it all up on Ron and Ginny when they got sunburned. Bugger.

She'd never known anyone capable of sunburning as comprehensively as the Weasleys. It was a family trait right along with the red hair.

...she froze, blinking down at her shirts for several seconds as her subconscious suddenly finished processing all the information she'd only been half-listening to.

No... 

It couldn't.

He couldn't possibly...

She slowly turned around.

Draco had already redressed and was across the room, adjusting the buttons on his robes as he continued to talk rapidly about matrilineal and patrilineal bloodlines and Veela.

She studied at him, noticing his startling, soul-searingly silver eyes, his pale and flawless skin the colour of milk, his extremely platinum blonde hair, and his very, very narrow features.

"Draco," she said, interrupting him, "do Veela have venom?"

He stopped mid-sentence and looked up at her, his mouth opening and closing several times as they stared at each other.

He went pale. "N-no. They do not."

Hermione closed her eyes, wincing internally as she drew a slow breath. "If — hypothetically speaking — a family who happened to have a male only Bloodline Enchantment were to marry a Veela, what would happen?"

She opened her eyes in time to see Draco swallowing.

"Well — " his voice jumped and he looked down at his hands and shot his cuffs before spending several seconds fidgeting at them anyway. "In that — hypothetical situation that we're — hypothesizing about, the magic would just be carried in the bloodline — indefinitely. All the males would be Veela, and the magic would concentrate over the course of several generations as other traits recede but the Veela genes remained undiluted."

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Any examples of what exactly that might look like?"

Draco's cheeks were staining scarlet while the rest of him managed to turn even more pale. "Oh, well you know.... hypothetically all sorts of things could happen."

Hermione's mouth pursed as she stared sourly at him. "Where do you imagine this concentrated Veela magic could manifest? Hypothetically."

"Well..." Draco rubbed the back of his neck. "You see, because the magic is so potent after say, four or five generations, it begins — I mean, it's not unheard of for it to — I mean in theory it could — " he choked and said something indecipherable.

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Say that again?"

He pressed his hands together, steepling his fingers.

"Since it's female magic," he said slowly, avoiding her eyes, "sometimes... the Veela's mate — wife! I mean the wife might begin manifesting Veela magic during — during, well, during a pregnancy."

Hermione's mouth went dry, and her life's ambitions flashed before her eyes. "What kinds of manifestations?"

Draco was beginning to perspire. "Well, their hair can turn white-blonde, not necessarily all the way, but streaks of it."

Narcissa Malfoy's mysteriously badger-striped hair instantly came to mind and Hermione's hand crept towards her right temple where that mortifying cluster of white hairs were.

"Anything else?"

Draco gulped. "Sometimes... sometimes... they, well, you know it's a defense mechanism for Veela to transform. In moments of stress or danger, it's not uncommon for them to — they can occasionally — I mean, I'm not saying this necessarily would happen, but it's possible that they might—"

"Sprout wings and transform?" Hermione said, her voice flat.

There was a pause, a pregnant pause both literally and figuratively, as Draco stared at her, guilt written across his face.

This simply couldn't be happening today. Not today. Not this month.

Did the universe not know she had legislation coming up? A very meticulously planned career? She was supposed to be Minister of Magic in fifteen to twenty years. She had a fundraising brunch tomorrow.

Maybe she shouldn't have let herself get mildly intoxicated when at public events just because she knew it would result in sneaking off with Draco... but she couldn't be expected to be perfect all the time.

They stood staring at each other in silence until Hermione spoke again.

"How?"

"I'm sixty — " he broke off, staring at the ceiling as though mentally calculating, " — thirty-five percent, well — " he hedged, " — twenty — no — " he inhaled and met her eyes, " — about twelve percent certain we've cast a contraceptive every time. However," he held up one hand as if to ward her off from hexing him, "we were fairly drunk the last few times, and the efficacy of the contraceptive charm is not a hundred percent even with perfect charmwork."

Hermione glared, suddenly finding herself overcome with the urge to throttle him. "You knew. From the moment you saw me with wings, you knew you'd gotten me pregnant. And instead of telling me, you thought we should" — she threw her hands in the air — "have sex?"

He ducked as though he thought she was flinging something at him. "For the record, that is a proven method for helping the wings retract. There are journals attesting to it. My great-grandmother had severe mood swings when pregnant with my grandfather Abraxus, and it was the only sure way of getting rid of them."

Hermione did not want to know why Draco had spent any amount of time learning about his great-grandmother's pregnancy sex life. The man was a menace. He should be jailed for running around sexually transmitting Veela-ism into unsuspecting witches who'd just wanted a nice, quick fuck with their fake boyfriend.

Was that such an unreasonable thing to want?

Was that really where the universe was going to draw the line for her?

She was certain no Malfoy in the history of Malfoys had even thought through a goddamn thing in their life. The sheer idiocy of layering on bloodline enchantments and then bringing in an unknown element like Veela magic was truly mind-boggling.

They should be institutionalized, the lot of them.

The room was beginning to turn red.

"However — " Draco seemed to realise that she was growing murderous and his voice became plaintive. " — I was improvising! We weren't engaged. The Bloodline Enchantment wouldn't let me explain, and I didn't want you to find out at St Mungo's. Even then, as long as we weren't engaged, I wouldn't have been able to tell you why or how."

Hermione stood fuming, magic crackling on her fingertips and bleeding across her shoulders.

Draco scuttled sideways and was attempting to hide behind a bedpost. "Hermione — Hermione, don't take this the wrong way, but please calm down."

Hermione thought she might combust. "I'm being extremely calm for a very busy woman with an extremely important career who just found out that she is pregnant and it's making her sprout harpy wings."

Draco poked his face out enough to show a visibly offended expression. "They're not harpy wings! Veela wings are completely distinct from Harpies. Harpies have talons at the elbow of the wings, the scale patterns are horned—"

"Malfoy, if you don't shut up – " The magic was sizzling between her fingertips, and her shoulders were itching.

Draco blanched and ducked. "Hermione, I mean this as inoffensively as possible, if you get any angrier, you'll transform. And if you transform, you'll probably throw a fireball at me. It will burn down your entire house, and I think you will feel very upset about that afterwards."

He peeked out at her from behind the bed. "If you really want to throw fireballs at me, we can go to the manor. There are rooms there that have been fireproofed specifically for these types of situations, and you can throw as many fireballs at me as you think I deserve."

Hermione stood seething. She did want to throw a fireball at him now that she thought about it. However, he was right in assuming that she would be extremely cross if she burned down her home.

She turned away, giving a small scream of frustration.

Then she squeezed her hands into fists and forced herself to draw several slow breaths before turning back to glare at Draco, who was standing now but still looking ready to dive behind the bed again at a moment's notice.

"Alright then..." she was trying to sound calm and reasonable, "what – what does this even mean? How does all this work with Veela?"

Draco wet his lips, looking suddenly more nervous than he'd been while trying to tell her about the pregnancy. "Well, there's one other thing I should probably mention."

Hermione's stomach immediately knotted itself. How on earth could there possibly be more? Was being pregnant by an idiot Veela not enough of a wrench in Hermione's circumstances?

"Veela — " he was avoiding her eyes and still looking very guilty " — don't just get married. They have a mate. One particular person they find and fall in love with. It's not entirely different from normal human relationships but it's more — invested and, um — committed for Veela once it happens. They stay in love. There's no going back on it once it happens."

He said it like this was terrible news.

Hermione stared blankly at him for several seconds trying to process and integrate the information in with all the other revelations of the day.

Then the implication of what he was saying crept over her.

Draco had a mate.

Someone he was extremely, deeply in love with.

Someone who was obviously not Hermione, since he'd told her that a sexual relationship with her was meaningless, that having feelings weren't even in the realm of possibility, that she was ridiculous to even ask him about a relationship.

"Oh," Hermione finally managed to find her voice. "I see."

He looked up at her, his tongue nervously wetting his lips. "I know all of this is a lot. I'll understand if you're upset."

She blinked and swallowed.

"Upset? Why would I be upset? It's fine," she said, feeling as though something inside her had died. "I'm not upset at all." She inhaled, forcibly trying to keep her mind on track. "How does that kind of relationship work with the influence of the bloodline enchantment?"

Draco brightened and seemed somewhat more at ease at that question. "It wasn't supposed to happen. The second enchantment was created specifically to control that aspect of Veela behavior by forcing the heirs to keep their distance from anyone they might develop feelings for and thereby without opportunity to potentially develop a mate bond. I assumed that unless my father gave in — "

She stopped listening.

He was saying something else about how he'd realised it because when he was alone for too long it made him feel like he was going to die.

Hermione didn't want to hear about it. She just kept staring at him, blinking hard as she tried to think rationally about the situation. She was, after all, a very rational, sensible type of person who wouldn't get emotional about minor things like Draco Malfoy being in love with someone else.

It wasn't as if she'd ever thought they'd be in a real relationship. An accidental pregnancy wouldn't change anything, and she certainly hadn't expected it to.

It was fine. She had a very fulfilling career. A whole list of individually selected ambitions that she was very fond of. She was going to make a difference in the world. She was going to be Minister of Magic. She didn't need a man.

She could buy a vibrator.

And a cat.

A cat would be much better companionship than Draco. It would probably tear less of her clothing too. It would never complain that she worked too much or drag her out of her office midday because there was a restaurant with French Onion soup that was to die for and French Onion soup was simply not as good when eaten by oneself. A cat would never get into an argument with her about how digestives didn't qualify as lunch or redecorate her office without permission.

Her life would be much simpler with a cat.

Hermione should be grateful that Draco had a mate to preoccupy him. He'd probably be even more of a nuisance otherwise. It was difficult to imagine Draco being even more annoying than he was.

Once Hermione helped him with his bloodline enchantment, he'd probably disappear from her life entirely. That would be for the best.

Her nose and eyes burned, and she blinked. She was clearly having an allergy attack because she was allergic to Veela.

She realised that Draco had stopped talking and was staring expectantly at her. It seemed that she was supposed to say something.

She had no idea what to say.

"Alright." She felt as though there was a stone lodged in her throat. "That's fine."

Her voice was mechanical.

She wasn't sure what he was expecting her to say. Was she intended to congratulate him?

She wanted him to leave.

"Are you sure?" Draco's nervous energy seemed to have evaporated, and now he looked anxious again. He edged towards her, extending a hand as though to steady her. "You don't look — "

"I don't need you fussing over me!" Hermione said, jerking away and feeling savage. "I said I'm fine. It's fine. Everything is fine!"

She inhaled raggedly and then squared herself up, putting her hands on her hips. "What? Are you hoping I'll be upset? You were very clear about what kind of relationship we have. I didn't need an excuse. It's not as though I thought you really wanted to marry me or that you suddenly would now because I'm pregnant. Why don't you go bother your mate and stop pestering me? I'm a — " her voice wobbled, "very, very busy person."

She wanted to curl up in bed and never leave her house again.

"Wait. Who do you think my mate is?" Draco suddenly appeared baffled.

"I'm sure I haven't the faintest idea," Hermione snapped, "It's not as though I have the leisure time to keep up with whatever immoral things you're off doing with god knows who whenever you're on your own."

She turned away from him, hoping he would take the hint and go away.

There was a long pause.

"What?" The question seemed to explode from Draco.

Hermione turned sharply with surprise. He looked half-feral, drawn up to his full height, his silver eyes glowing with outrage. His teeth flashed, gnashing, and he looked very much like if he could transform, he would be doing it, wings, beak, fireballs and all.

"I — I don't — " Draco spluttered. "I have never — ! It's you. You absolute moron. You — idiotic genius. You're my mate. How could you possibly think it was anyone else?"